AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEPTEKH — “TREASURES”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 052019
 


Photo by Kamil “Camkam” Janowski

 

You begin your life in a diaper. If you live long enough, you’ll end it in one too. You begin your life playing with toys, and if you live long enough you’ll be playing with toys again, maybe imagining yourself (again) an armored knight vanquishing sword-wielding foes. If you’re lucky, your treasured toys will include a tiny music box in the shape of a sod-roofed house, one in which Septekh are waiting to be wound up and brought to life, to delight your age-melted mind.

If you’re wondering what prompted these thoughts, you’ll find out soon enough. But perhaps you don’t even know who Septekh are? Perhaps you’ve never seen a Septekh video, or even glimpsed the magnificence of Nils GRZNLS Meseke‘s gravity-defying mustache? How tragic for you if such is the case. But soon enough we can fill those gaping holes in your life, too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THOU, PIG DESTROYER, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, SEPTEKH, WAXEN, PARTHOLÓN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 092018
 

 

I mentioned late last week as I was headed off to New Mexico for the weekend that I’d be gone from Seattle all this week, too. And that has come to pass.

I’ve been in Atlanta since Tuesday for my fucking day job, cranking away from early to late, with little time to check out new music and even less time to write about it. To keep from falling abysmally far behind I threw together this round-up, but am too pressed by my job to write much about these new tracks and videos. You’ll like them anyway — at least I hope you will.

THOU

Yesterday Louisiana’s Thou released a video for a song called “The Changeling Prince” off their new album Magus (cover above), which will be released by Sacred Bones Records on August 31st. It was directed by Bryan Funck and Mitch Wells. Continue reading »

A NEW SEPTEKH VIDEO: “SUPERHEATED LIQUID IRON CORE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 022015
 

You can always count on Sweden’s Septekh to bring you the batshit crazy videos. The newest one, just unwrapped and dripping with blood and spit, is for the beautifully named song “Superheated Iron Core” from their last album, 2014’s Plan For World Domination.

It may be impossible for Septekh to ever replace their video for “Burn It To the Ground” in my affections, but this new one comes damned close. Bar fights are always fun to watch (as long as you’re on the sidelines), especially when they involve a bat-wielding waitress, knives and folding chairs, a man beaten with his own severed arm, a chainsaw to settle everything, and a bored kid who makes off with the spoils of war. And, of course, a band who don’t look like any other band. Continue reading »

ONE FINAL ROUND-UP: BETHLEHEM, ENCOFFINATION, SKÁLMÖLD, ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 272014
 

 

As explained here, I’m taking a 10-day hiatus from searching for and writing about new song and video premieres, in order to make time for reviewing some albums I absolutely need to say something about. Before doing that, however, here’s one last batch of new things I found over the last couple of days that I thought were worth sharing.

BETHLEHEM

Germany’s Bethlehem, whose debut album may or may not be responsible for that amorphous genre label “dark metal”, have a new song up for streaming, the name of which is “Ein Kettenwolf greint 13:11-18”. All I really have to say about this depressive ballad is that I’d listen to more rock music if it sounded like this. Warning: clean singing to come…

The song will appear on the band’s sixth album Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (fear of the number 666), which is their first in about five years. It will be released by Prophecy Productions on Oct 10 (Oct 14 in the U.S.) and is available for order here. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 16

 Metal News, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  5 Responses »
Jan 312014
 

We proudly bring you the 16th Part of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. 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 I’m announcing today, click here.

In different ways, both bands we’re featuring today have their tongues in their cheeks — but their music also has the capability to tear yours out and use it for a bookmark.

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

I suppose our adoration for TMDC knows no bounds — or so one might think from the volume of words we’ve spilled about their new album, Tetragrammaton. For example, these words by our reviewer Mr. Synn:

“Their music is dark, oppressive, and brutal – but also relentlessly energetic, knowingly pompous, and impressively self-aware…. Right from the start you can tell that this is the sequel to the superfluously awesome Triumvirate. Yet it’s more than just a mere carbon copy or continuation. Everything that album brought to the table is still there – the ostentatious synths, the audacious symphonic pomposity, the back-breaking death metal brutality, the darkly intelligent lyrical themes and vicious vocal hooks – yet twisted and reworked just so to provide a new experience, a newly refined recipe for disaster….  Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CHIMAIRA, SEPTEKH, HARM’S WAY, AND AUTUMNBLAZE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 242013
 

Here are a few things I’ve seen and heard recently that I think are worth recommending. I’m in catch-up mode on these round-ups, so there will be a second one a bit later today.

CHIMAIRA

Chimaira have a new album, Crown of Phantoms, coming on July 30 via eOne Music. Yesterday my comrade Andy Synn alerted me to the fact that Chimaira had released a re-make of “The Dehumanizing Process” from their second album, The Impossibility of Reason (2003). It’s sub-titled the “Slow and Low Mix”, and man, it caught me off guard. It’s like Chimaira-meets-Gojira.

I approve. If you’re going to re-do one of your own songs, you might as well really re-do it, especially if you’ve now got guitarists Emil Werstler and Matt Szlachta to put their spin on the original. This is a heavy-bottomed, heavy-grooved, vicious little monster. I’d like to keep it as a pet.

I don’t see this song on the new album’s track list. According to Chimaira’s mainman Mark Hunter, “No, we’re not remaking the record. This was just for fun to celebrate 10 years of Impossibility.” Well, mission accomplished: this is fun. Listen next. Continue reading »

SEPTEKH: “APOLLONIAN EYES”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 252013
 

 

I couldn’t help but be intrigued by Sweden’s Septekh before ever hearing a note of their new four-song EP, Apollonian Eyes. They claim as influences not only Motörhead and Slayer but also Fenriz (Darkthrone) and Frost (Satyricon, 1349), not only The Exploited and Death Breath but also DHG and Emperor. They embrace the label “dirty thrashy death metal” but they profess a fondness for vintage Sherry, they sport blazers and vests on stage, and they cultivate a nice assortment of Snidely Whiplash moustaches.

If you have trouble wrapping your mind around all that and what it might portend for Septekh’s music, join the club. Perhaps you now begin to understand why I was intrigued. Of course, curiosity has killed some cats — this could have been a mess — but Apollonian Eyes left this cat purring.

All four songs on the EP are jet-fueled, rip-roaring, fast-paced romps. They’re loaded with jagged, rapidly jabbing riffs and frenzied drumwork, but that’s balanced by hard-chugging, road-eating, Motörhead-style heavy rock rhythms and a nice assortment of guitar solos that alternately spit flames and whirl like a dervish. Continue reading »