We first made the acquaintance of Mickael André in the early days of this blog when we developed a fascination for the French metal band of which he is the bassist — Eryn Non Dae.. I counted, and we’ve posted about them seven times since 2010, most recently here. The band’s own description of their music is one I would endorse: “Complex and brutal structures, black and apocalyptic moods, an obscure music where dissonant compositions carry an in-your-face, aggressive vocal style… A trip into the depths of the soul.”

I asked Mika if he would share with us a list of the metal he enjoyed most during 2011, and he responded with a list, which I’ll come to eventually. But this post also gives me an excuse to feature music from the many projects in which Mika is involved. Eryn Non Dae. is only one of those projects, though it’s Mika’s main one. The latest news from END. is very sweet news indeed — they are now beginning to record their second album. Their 2009 Metal Blade release, Hydra Lernaïa, was a remarkable debut, and I’m really curious to hear what the band will come up with next.

But END. is not Mika André’s only musical project. He’s also the guitarist for an instrumental band called Nojia (that’s their photo at the top of this post), who recently released a fascinating debut album called Solarchitect. (available here).

The album starts with a 6-minute overture and then proceeds through four long songs, ranging from 11 to 18 minutes in duration. It was recorded live, with all the musicians performing together in the studio — and when you hear the range and complexity of the music, you’ll appreciate even more what that means. I’ve embedded a music player later in this post that will stream the entire album — listening is an intense, mesmerizing experience.

Here’s the second part of a post I started earlier today featuring a divergent assortment of new music and videos I heard and saw over the weekend. In Part 2, I’ve got a new song (and video) from Eryn Non Dae. (France), a recent live video from Iskald (Norway), and a new song from Dischordia (U.S.-Oklahoma).

ERYN NON DAE.

In 2010, we published no fewer than four posts about this band from Toulouse, France. Those posts included a review of the band’s 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, an interview with the band, and two updates that included videos of live performances. The last post, from June 2010, includes links to all the others. And then we’ve posted about them twice this year (here) and (here). Do you think we’re overdoing it? Obviously, I don’t think so. I think they’re worth all the attention, and then some. They’re one of the growing number of bands from France who have put that country on the worldwide map of great current metal.

The cause for today’s attention is a new song (yippee!) from a new album (ki-yay-motherfucker!) that’s in the works and planned for release next year. The song is called “Scarlet Rising”, and the band was caught on film performing it at the Impetus festival in Montbéliard, France this past April. (more after the jump . . .)

Sorry to be so rude in my choice of words. I blame the music I’m about to play for you. Let me try that again:

It’s time for you to shake off the somnalent after-effects of your Saturday-night slumbers and become fully alert. Is that better?

So, maybe you really aren’t ready to wake up and would prefer to remain dozy and slothlike for a while longer. If so, do not watch the videos I have collected to begin this sleepy Sunday. The music will not allow you to remain soporific. Or somnalent. Or slothlike. Or other words beginning with S.

For our five-alarm music today, we have an offering of new and old music videos. First up is a new performance video from a French band of which we are big fans here at NCS — Eryn Non Dae. After that, an evil song from Black Hole Generator (Norway), with an official video that’s almost as disturbing as the music. Then, two more new videos — one from Egyptian-born Nader Sadek and the other from The Generals (Sweden). And finally, I’ve got a new song from a UK band called The Soulless (formerly Ignominious Incarceration). The styles of metal are diverse, but all this music will whomp you in the noggin.

If you’re not awake and banging your fucken head after hearing all these songs, then, as a trained medical professional, I believe I can clinically classify you as comatose.

In this post, we’re really just showing our support for some metal bro’s who we care about, but we’re tossing in some music, too.

ERYN NON DAE. (END.)

Last year, we published no fewer than four posts about this band from Toulouse, France. Those posts included a review of the band’s 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, an interview with the band, and two updates that included videos of live performances. The last post, from June 2010, includes links to all the others. We paid so much attention to them because the music was such a head-scrambling rush. To repeat yet again what we said in the review:

“Alternating between brutal headbanging heaviness and shrieking turbulent intricacy, the music has a very experimental, discordant, anarchic vibe. It’s dense, intense, grim, sharply angled, and often surreal. . . .Hydra Lernaïa is an adventure in the unexpected. It’s obviously the product of considerable thought, extensive work, and a high level of technical proficiency in the playing — nothing less could have succeeded in realizing on such an ambitious game-plan. This is dark math metal with brains as well as brawn, and emotional power as well as rigorous complexity.”

When we think of current bands that are pushing the envelope of metal, this is one that immediately comes to mind. Given our attraction, it was only natural to follow the band’s news, whenever there was news to be had. We haven’t had much for a while, but yesterday we learned that END. is now in the throes of creating music for their next album.

Still untitled at this point, we’ve learned that the subject of the new music will be metamorphosis. Song titles include “Chrysalis”, “The Great Downfall”, “Black Obsidian Pyre”, and “Scarlet Rising”. In August, the band will be ensconcing themselves in Mobo’s Conkrete Studio to record the successor  to Hydra Lernaïa. We be excite with anticipation. (more after the jump . . .)

Eryn Non Dae is one of our favorite French metal bands. Hell, they’re one of our favorite metal bands, period. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve put up no fewer than three posts about them and their awesome 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa. You can check out our review of that album here and our interview of END here. In our review, we wrote:

“Alternating between brutal headbanging heaviness and shrieking turbulent intricacy, the music has a very experimental, discordant, anarchic vibe. It’s dense, intense, grim, sharply angled, and often surreal. . . . Hydra Lernaïa is an adventure in the unexpected. It’s obviously the product of considerable thought, extensive work, and a high level of technical proficiency in the playing — nothing less could have succeeded in realizing on such an ambitious game-plan. This is dark math metal with brains as well as brawn, and emotional power as well as rigorous complexity.”

When we were conducting our interview of END back in January, the band was getting ready for a big live show in Toulouse at a venue called The Bikini. We couldn’t go (our teleporter was on the fritz) but over time, videos of the performance have dribbled out. We featured a video of the song “Blistering Hate” in the third of our previous posts. And yesterday we discovered that END has just released a pro-shot video of “Existence Asleep” performed live at the same show.

The song is a killer, and so is the video — excellent picture quality and a really cool light show. END has also recently set up a ReverbNation page, which allowed us to create a widget with tracks for you to stream from Hydra Lernaïa. So, after the jump, we’ve got the video, the streaming music — and some welcome news we got from END’s guitarist and backing vocalist Franck Quintin.

In our dog-eat-dog world, effort alone doesn’t count for much. You can pour yourself into something heart and soul, and that doesn’t mean anyone else will notice. It may be that despite the intensity of your desire, you’re held back by a deficit in your ability to express what you feel.  It may be that you’re only missing the right launching pad for the delivery to a wider audience of what you create.

Or it could be that somewhere in your past you stepped on the wrong ant, which unbeknownst to you was the reincarnation of some godlike being that just doesn’t like to be stepped on and decides to take revenge by fucking up every significant thing you try to do.

But here in our meager domain, we have the ability to give a modicum of recognition to whatever the fuck we want to recognize, and no fucking ant is going to stop us!

We’ve got a reader who recently has made enough time to delve deeply into all sorts of shit we’ve written over the six-plus months this site has been in existence, and he’s left thought-provoking comments on lots of posts we’d forgotten we even wrote.  His nom de plume is “Elvis Shot JFK.” And he deserves some recognition. Not to presume that he really needs recognition from us, and not to presume that we’re terribly objective in doling out recognition. To be honest, we’re pathetically grateful to anyone who bothers to leave comments on our site.

But what this dude did yesterday is way over the top, not just in terms of effort, but in terms of quality. What he did can only be described as a labor of love — for the most extreme forms of extreme metal — and what’s more remarkable is that he did it even though he isn’t even a fan of the sub-genre he wrote about. He paid homage to effort, through his own effort. And we ain’t gonna let that pass by unnoticed. What the fuck are we talking about? Please stay with us after the jump, and all will be explained . . . (plus we have some songs for you to stream)

Back in January, we interviewed Mika André, the bass player for one of our favorite French metal bands, Eryn Non Dae. We asked him to recommend some other French bands we might not have heard about, and one of the names he gave us was Zubrowska. At that time we were able to hear a handful of songs Zubrowska had recorded for a forthcoming album.  We really liked what we heard, and wrote about it here.

Yesterday, we got a message from Zubrowska’s talented guitarist Jon Rauzy with some news we want to pass along: The band has now made the entire new album (Zubrowska Are Dead) available for streaming at this location. The album is still not officially released — that will happen in September — but at that same location you can pre-order it now. It will be distributed in the U.S. by Debello Records and in Europe by the band’s own label, Bollocks Records (nice name, huh?).

Those songs we heard in January were sweet — and so are the rest of the songs you can now stream. Some quick impressions follow after the jump, plus one of the songs for you to hear without leaving NCS . . .

One of our favorite French metal bands, Eryn Non Dae, has just uploaded a video of their live performance in February at the Bikini in Toulouse. The track is “Blistering Hate” off the band’s awesome 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa. You can check out our review of that album here and our interview of END here. And you can watch the video by just pushing the play button below.

Man, I wish I could have been at that show. The tech geeks of the world need to speed up their work on teleporter technology.

“Blistering Hate” Live:

Last week we ran a look-back at Eryn Non Dae‘s striking 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, and then followed that with an interview of the band’s terrific bass player Mika André. In the interview, we asked Mika if he would recommend some other French metal bands that we might not know about here in the U.S. of A. He obliged, and of course we had to go check them out. Two of his choices hit us in the sweet spot. You might dig ‘em too, so here goes:

DOPPLeR

DOPPLeR (pictured above) is a three-man band that hails from Lyon and appears to have been playing since 1998 — and their years of experience show in the music. The line up is Yann Coste on drums, Xavier Amado on bass, and Yoann Brière on guitar/vocals. Their latest album, Songs to defy, was released in the fall of 2008 by SKrecords. So much for the hard data. What do they sound like?

Here’s a string of genre labels, all of which roughly suit some of what’s going on in Songs to defy: progressive, experimental, noise rock, hardcore, punk, tribal. But while you can slap a genre label on some bands and that tells you about all you need to know, it doesn’t work here because, as the album title suggests, these songs defy labels.  (more after the jump . . .)

As part of our periodic look-backs at 2009 and the albums that really grabbed us by the throat, we wrote yesterday about Eryn Non Dae and their mind-bending 2009 release, Hydra Lernaïa. The band also graciously agreed to answer some of our off-the-wall interview questions by e-mail.

They also generously agreed to my request for a plane ticket to Toulouse so I could see them play live on February 18. And all I have to do is buy them tickets to fly back with me to the U.S. so they can play here. Such a deal!

Bass-player Mika André was the designated hitter for our curve-ball questions, and he responded to them just as you would expect based on END’s music: No rushed, off-the-top-of-the-head answers, but responses that reflected some serious thought, effort, and intelligence. Not your typical metalhead interview — just as END is far from a typical band.  (read the full interview after the jump . . .)