TOURISM: BÖLZER, RITUAL NECROMANCY, PSEUDOGOD

 Metal News  13 Responses »
May 162015
 

 

We post about metal tours in North America on an exceedingly infrequent and random basis. Usually when we do it, it’s an extensive tour that really is nationwide in scope. If we’re not going to be comprehensive in spreading tour news, it seems like when we do, it ought to be about tours that would be of interest to the largest number of people. But I’m making an exception here, for two selfish reasons.

First, the bands are personal favorites of mine. Second, even though both tours involve a small number of dates, Seattle is on both schedules. This makes me happy, and I know that if I’m happy, that necessarily makes you happy, too.

BÖLZER / RITUAL NECROMANCY

I haven’t seen an official announcement about this tour by the Swiss band Bölzer and Ritual Necromancy from PDX. All I’ve seen (thanks to a tip by Facebook friend JCB) is the flyer up above, which appeared on Facebook yesterday. Continue reading »

A SAMHAIN HARVEST (Part 1): NAPALM DEATH, DARK TRANQUILLITY, ASCENSION, PSEUDOGOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 312014
 

The Font of All Human Knowledge tells us that Samhain “is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the ‘darker half’ of the year” and is celebrated from sunset on October 31 to sunset on 1 November, about halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is a liminal time when spirits more easily enter our world, a time of divination rituals and the revisiting of souls of the dead.

In celebration of blessed Samhain I’ve harvested a collection of news and new music, a bounty large enough to warrant two posts, this being the first.

NAPALM DEATH

Yesterday  brought the announcement that Napalm Death will release their 15th studio album entitled Apex Predator – Easy Meat on January 26th in Europe and January 27th in North America. Frontman Barney Greenway provided this explanation of the album’s title and concept: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (Part 1): BLOODSHOT DAWN, DISENTOMB, PSEUDOGOD, KHTHONIIK CERVIIKS

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 132014
 

I’ve been remiss in posting round-ups of news and new music lately, and I’ve collected quite a large batch of items worth spreading around. As a consequence, I’ve divided the collection into multiple parts that I’m going to dribble out over the course of the day, because what else am I going to do with all this drool? One thing the four items in this Part 1 have in common: Killer cover art. You’ll see.

BLOODSHOT DAWN

This UK band’s self-titled 2012 album was one of my favorite releases of that year, and I included the song “Godless” in my list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Needless to say, I’ve been eager for the band’s follow-up. They funded its production through a Kickstarter campaign in four days, and yesterday the band revealed a lot more info about it, to wit:

Its name is Demons and it will be released in the UK on October 26. It was was mixed and mastered by Danish engineer Jacob Hansen (Aborted, Amaranthe, Volbeat, Destruction, Epica, Pestilence). It features guest appearances by Sven De Caluwé (Aborted, System Divide), Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry), Teemu Mäntysaari (Wintersun), Andy James (ex-Sacred Mother Tongue), and Chris Amott (Armageddon, ex-Arch Enemy). And as you can see, it features a gob-smacking album cover by the talented Pär Olofsson (click that sucker to make it bigger). I’ll be waiting, eagerly and drooling, for the first advance track…

https://www.facebook.com/BloodshotDawn Continue reading »

SUNDAY SAVAGERY: DICHOTOMY, WARCALL, DEMONICAL, CVINGER, AND PSEUDOGOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Sep 152013
 

I took  a rare break from metal for most of yesterday, but not a complete break. I did spend time last night checking out new music and found a handful of savage items that I thought were worth featuring in this post. So here we go:

DICHOTOMY

Dichotomy are a band from Dublin, Ireland, who self-released their debut album Paradigm last month. I haven’t heard it, but I did catch a video they premiered through Terrorizer on Friday for one of the album’s songs. The song’s name is “Of Strife Of Discord”, and according to the band: “The song’s title is a reference to Eris, Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord. The song is about the destruction of the self and allowing chance to rule one’s course; about becoming the embodiment of chaos.”

The song is a dichotomy, too. On the one hand, it’s a jet-fueled blast of melodic death metal with a lot of flying fretwork and some pleasingly serpentine guitar solos. On the other hand, it delivers a boatload of galvanizing grooves that should get heads banging hard. I had fun listening to it. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 5

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  7 Responses »
Jan 012013
 

This is Part 5 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

My tastes have evolved and expanded dramatically since NO CLEAN SINGING was established more than three years ago. They’ve changed significantly even over the course of this past year. You’re about to find out just how much they’ve changed.

There was a time when the only metal songs I found infectious were ones with catchy hooks and memorable melodies. Now I’m finding that even music that’s utterly blistering or obliterating can also stick in my head. No matter how challenging that kind of music may be to some listeners, to omit it from this list would be hypocritical, because I’ve enjoyed so much of it this year. And so today I bring you Nekromantheon and Pseudogod.

NEKROMANTHEON

I first came across (and wrote about) this Norwegian band in December of 2011, when they released an advance track from their then-forthcoming 2012 release Rise, Vulcan Spectre. I subsequently listened to the entire album — it’s one of many 2012 releases I loved but never found time to review. The style of their music is a certain kind of thrash. But it’s not let’s-get-drunk-and-fuck thrash. It’s more like let’s-find-innocent-children-and-sacrifice-them-to-Cthulhu thrash. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 43: PSEUDOGOD, BOMBS OF HADES, SECTIONED, AND DWELLERS OF THE TWILIGHT

 MISCELLANY  12 Responses »
May 012012
 

Jeez, it’s been something like six weeks since the last MISCELLANY post. I’m swarmed by new music from bands or PR agents who have written NCS or left posts on our FB page, and it has become even more difficult for me to check out everything. I’m doing a piss-poor job of even answering all the messages, for which I make this abject public apology. I wish I could say I will do better in the future, but who am I kidding?

Still, I have to start somewhere in an effort to make headway, so I’m starting here, with music by Pseudogod (Russia),  Bombs of Hades (Sweden), Sectioned (Scotland), and Dwellers of the Twilight (France).

As a reminder, these MISCELLANY posts are devoted to bands whose music I’ve never heard before. I pick the bands pretty randomly, I listen to one or two songs (not knowing what they’re going to sound like), and then I record impressions here and provide streams of the same songs for you to check out. I usually try to pick bands who don’t have a high profile in the world of metal, though today’s second band is fairly well-known (though new to me).

PSEUDOGOD

I discovered this band because I received an urgent e-mail from Tr00Nate (ex-TNOTB) commanding me to listen. Nate doesn’t write that often, so I concluded this must be serious. It became even more serious when I discovered that their new album Deathwomb Catechesis (the album cover is above) has been released in the U.S. by Hells Headbangers, who are recommending it to fans of Archgoat, Katharsis, Teitanblood, and early Belial. That was a pretty good indication that the music would cause nightmares, so of course I bit. Continue reading »