Here at NCS, we avoid the daily news like the plague (unless it involves metal), because it offers constant reminders that human beings are fucking nuts, and not in a good way. For every small step of advancement toward civilization, there seem to be about 10 steps in regression as the self-centered and the arrogant persist in reenacting acts of gob-smacking idiocy that have been a feature of the human landscape for millenia and inflicting their prejudices on people who don’t think or act as they do.

But there are just enough, just barely enough, episodes of rationality to keep hope alive that a day will come when most people will act like the higher-order creatures they are supposed to be, instead of just bigger-brained versions of water buffalo and warthogs.

This week we had news about the lifting of legal clouds in two criminal cases that most metalheads have come to know quite well — the murder case against the West Memphis 3 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and the prosecution of Adam Darski (a/k/a Nergal) of Behemoth for giving offense to religion in Poland.

According to this story, a Polish judge found Nergal innocent of offending religious feeling when he ripped up a Bible during a 2007 Behemoth concert, called the Bible “a deceitful book”, and branded the church a “criminal sect.” The judge held that Nergal’s actions were “a form of artistic expression consistent with the style of his band.” Duh. He added that the court had no intention of limiting freedom of expression or the right to criticize religion. That’s an encouraging pronouncement.

Nergal can now go about the business of continuing to recover from leukemia and practicing for Behemoth’s next live performances this fall. No doubt, his detractors in Poland are seething over this turn of events, still stubbornly refusing to understand that trying to jail people who speak ill of churches, no matter how “offensively,” or who tear up “holy books,” won’t silence criticism of churches or religion. If people aren’t secure enough in their own faith to ignore what people like Nergal do in performances for their own fans, then enforcing laws against religious offense won’t save them. (more after the jump . . .)

Like all good Behemoth slaves, I followed frontman Nergal’s battle with leukemia with a shifting feeling of dismay, dread, sorrow, hope, and eventually a sympathetic feeling of victory. Today I saw news of yet another milestone in Nergal and Behemoth’s comeback that I thought was worth sharing: For the first time in over a year, Behemoth is back in their rehearsal space rehearsing both old and new songs, and we’ve got pictures to prove it. Nergal issued this statement:

“Sooo, first rehearsals after the transplant are under our belts! I didn’t want to get overexcited at first, just wanted to see how things would go, but I have to tell you…the second rehearsal we fuckin’ nailed “Ov Fire And The Void”, “Lucifer”, “Conquer All” or “Antichristian Phenomenon” flawlessly! One of us even asked: ‘Did we really take a year off from each other?’ Ha ha… it was good times in great company! But the biggest surprise were the songs we NEVER played live ever and planning to do on the upcoming “Phoenix Rising Tour”. I won’t reveal any names yet, let it be a mystery til we hit the stage, all right?”

“In other news, I started jamming out some NEW shit too…too early to give any further comments but it sounds VERY disturbing and eerie. Can’t fuckin wait to unleash those ideas to my friends…”

I don’t know about you, but this gave my day a boost. In these photos, Nergal looks like he’s been through a fucking meat-grinder, physically, but he’s on two feet with axe in hand. Hails and horns, man. More photos after the jump.

By the time you read this, I’ll be far, far away from the NCS metallic island — but NCS will still be here. Yes, my open invitation for guest blog submissions generated an enthusiastic and heart-warming response. We now have almost enough quality pieces to fill every day of my vacation hiatus — and if a couple more that have been promised come through soon, we’ll be all set.  And if they don’t, I created a couple of goodies before leaving that I can slot in.

What this means is that NCS will not go dark while I’m fucking off in a distant land.We will keep our streak of posts alive — at least one every day since my now-largely-missing-in-action comrades and I started this thing. It makes my eyes moist to think of how valiantly NCS readers stepped up to help out. Our it could be that I’m growing allergic to the lorises.

I think you’ll enjoy what we’ve got scheduled for appearance over the next 11 days. I know I enjoyed reading them. You may enjoy them so much that you’ll petition me to stay on vacation indefinitely. It’s a real mish-mash of topics, from album reviews to Top 10 lists to discoveries of new music to “op-ed” opinion pieces, and more. Of course, the writing styles are different, but I’m pleased to say that many of them use the words “fuck” and “fucking” and one uses the word “poop” — repeatedly. I feel like I’ve been a good role model.

So, without further ado, our first guest post appears right below this one. Thanks to all who contributed. Stay safe until we meet again.

P.S. I’m so fucking glad that Nergal found a bone marrow donor. People stepped up for that dude. You give people a chance, and they’ll step up to just about anything.

P.P.S. If the sketchy internet access where I’m going permits, I do plan to get online once a day while I’m away — at least long enough to read comments and join in the commentary, at least briefly. So add some damned comments to these guest posts, won’t you? Muchas gracias.

The last couple of days my day job has had my head in a fucking vise. I’ve barely had time to create posts for this site, but haven’t had much time to browse other metal sites I usually frequent in order to keep up with what’s happening in the metal cosmos. I did a little catching up last night, and found two stupendous videos that have just been released over the last 48 hours.

Because I’m a little slow to find them, you may have seen the videos already, but I’ve got to put them up anyway because they’re both so cool — in very different ways. Both of them made me exclaim “Holy Fuck!” (hence, the really imaginative title of this post).

The first one is a video of “Alas, Lord Is Upon Me” from Behemoth’s most recent album, Evangelion. I saw a censored version of this video on a couple of other metal sites, but this morning I found an uncensored version that’s now out. The only difference from the censored version is that there are a couple of flashes of nudity (as a priest in his vestments has sex with a naked woman in a church). The images in this slick video (even when they don’t involve nudity) are striking.

The second video is a live pro-shot performance by the reconstituted Polish death-metal band Decapitated. I got excited about this one mainly because Decapitated’s heavy-grooved, technical music is just so damned awesome, and this performance appears to be the first since the awful 2007 van accident that killed the band’s drummer and left its vocalist in a coma.

In fact, the only original member of the band still left is guitarist Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka. But based on the evidence of this video, Decapitated can still kick your ass into the stratosphere.  (both videos are after the jump . . .)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010. This is how the day began over Puget Sound (honest to God — I really saw this and really took this photo):

And this is how it ended at El Corazon in Seattle:

After starting off the New Year of live music last week with an ass-kicking show by DevilDriver, Suffocation, Goatwhore, and Thy Will Be Done (see our review here), your three NCS Authors took in the Evangelia Amerika tour two nights ago in Seattle — and the ass-kicking continued as Behemoth, Septicflesh, Lightning Swords of Death, and Those Who Lie Beneath took the stage at El Corazon.  For our report, and a lot more of our amateurish concert photos like the one above, continue reading after the jump.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this post, we focused on the recent exploits of ex-Gorgoroth vocalist Gaahl. Gaahl has publicly supported the burning of churches in his native Norway. Norwegian churches don’t much care for Gaahl’s rhetoric (shocking, isn’t it?). They are now pressuring Norway’s National Stage to drop Gaahl from the cast of a black metal musical scheduled to be performed there in May. They might succeed.

You may remember that this isn’t the first time or the first place where Gaahl has run into trouble for being offensive to institutional religion. In 2005, he and Gorgoroth narrowly escaped criminal prosecution in Poland for staging a concert that featured impaled sheep’s heads, satanic symbols, and a mock crucifixion by naked models doused in blood. Poland has laws that prohibit behavior offensive to people’s religious beliefs.

Gorgoroth are not the only corpse-painted dudes who’ve had run-ins with those Polish laws. Which brings us to Behemoth (more after the jump).