OVERFLOWING STREAMS: GRUESOME, SHINING, SKINLESS, UNLEASHED, SLUGDGE, VARGNATT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 152015
 

 

Yes, it’s true, we shove about 100 new songs in your face on a daily basis, but we know your face holds a lot of songs, so we need to keep shoving. Be sure to chew them well and don’t try to talk while you’re doing it, ’cause you could choke to death.

GRUESOME

Surely you know about Gruesome by now, because we’ve certainly written about them enough, and we even premiered a song from their debut album Savage Land. They give new meaning to the phrase Total Death Worship.

As of yesterday, the whole album became available for streaming. I don’t know why you wouldn’t go listen to it, unless you’re in a coma, in which case we wish you a speedy recovery and a pain-free removal of the catheter. Don’t forget to share photos of that for our collection. We’re thinking about turning them into a large-format NCS coffee-table book, The Art of Catheter Removal.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, there’s a stream of Savage Land at Decibel. It’s an exclusive, so you and your catheter will need to go here to listen, and you’ll both be glad you did: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SHINING — “FRAMTIDSUTSIKTER”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Mar 272015
 


IX – Everyone, Everything, Everywhere, Ends is the name of the new album by Sweden’s Shining, which is due for release on April 21 by Season of Mist, and today we bring you the North American premiere of the album’s third track, “Framtidsutsikter”.

Shining’s creative mastermind Niklas Kvarforth made the following comment about the song:

“Following similar paths as several other ‘ballads’ of ours, ‘Framtidsutsikter’ (‘Future Prospects’), melds all of them together into an epic journey in a downward spiral. Coincidence and the pure joy of creating something horrible made this song into what it is. Relying on a pulsating vibe of hopelessness and despair, this song is for me personally almost unbearable to listen to. That will make things extremely interesting when performing it live, and it will probably be considered as one of the darker turns in our two decades long career. All hail misery!”

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: TOO DAMNED MANY NAMES TO PUT IN THIS TITLE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  50 Responses »
Jan 212015
 


Brothers of the Sonic Cloth

 

I’ve commented before about the enormous flood of stream premieres, new album announcements, label signings, and other metal news that has been unleashed since the beginning of the year. But yesterday may have reached new heights of ridiculousness in terms of the number of noteworthy things I saw in a single day.

In fact, yesterday brought so damned much cool stuff that I’d either have to write a half-dozen posts or do what I’m doing here instead — just funneling streams, links, artwork, and news blurbs your way with a minimum of commentary. The bands are presented in alphabetical order — all 18 of them. In most cases, you can enlarge the cover art and photos by clicking on the images in this post. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JØRGEN MUNKEBY OF SHINING (NOR)

 Interviews  3 Responses »
May 052014
 

(Our man BadWolf sat down with Jørgen Munkeby of Norway’s Shining during the band’s recent US tour and files this entertaining interview.)

 

Jørgen Munkeby likes to check his watch.

Or at least that was my impression of him after I saw him tear up the Pontiac Ballroom on April 10 with his band, Shining. The man needs to be punctual—his unique blend of industrial, jazz, black metal, and progressive rock requires crackerjack timing. But Munkeby is far from being a heartless calculator-headed shredder. Whether picking on his black Gibson SG or playing his saxophone, Munkeby is an electric frontman with a piercing voice.

On the tour bus, he’s a different man entirely. Slender and contemplative, Munkeby comes across as a scholar, albeit a scholar that penned my favorite album of 2010, Blackjazz, and its pile-driving successor, last year’s One One One. I brought my friend Josh, a fellow Shining enthusiast, to sit with Munkeby and me after his performance and unpack the inner workings of this young master’s mind. Continue reading »

MARTY FRIEDMAN + JØRGEN MUNKEBY = “MEAT HOOK” SWEETNESS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Apr 302014
 

Prosthetic Records will be releasing the new Marty Friedman album Inferno on May 27 in North America (May 26 in the UK/EU and May 23 in G/A/S). Within the last hour, a brand new song from the album named “Meat Hook” started streaming on YouTube. This song includes Jørgen Munkeby of Norway’s Shining playing saxophone and providing vocals. Friedman says this may be his favorite song on the album, and you can understand why — because this song is fucking fantastic.

It includes not only borderline unhinged skronkiness and eye-popping shred from this duo but also a beautiful melodic saxophone part. The sound captures elements of both Shining’s Blackjazz sound and Friedman’s, and it’s amazing how well the combination works. Mind=blown.

After the jump listen to “Meat Hook” and then check out what both Friedman and Munkeby have to say about it in separate video statements. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 17 (EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE)

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  7 Responses »
Feb 012014
 

Welcome to Part 17 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.

I’ve called this the “Exception to the Rule” edition of this list, because both songs today involve clean singing. At least measured by how often I’ve heard them, they are also two of my favorite songs of the year. Some newcomers who aren’t aware that we make exceptions may be disappointed. But it would be hypocritical of me to ignore these songs.

SHINING

One One One is a very different album from this band’s startling last release, Blackjazz — more stripped-down, more hook-focused, more “approachable”. As DGR put it in his review for us:

“Whereas the last disc was what four guys who are incredibly accomplished on their chosen instruments could do with absolutely no one stopping them or telling them to tone it down a bit, One One One sounds like what happens when the group chooses to exercise a bit of self-restraint — to see if they can still produce that same effect with a more minimalistic sound…. A lot of One One One brings to mind the old axiom that just because you have the ability to do something, doesn’t mean that you should. Everything feels strategically placed so that the band get the maximum impact for a more minimalist amount of showmanship, and it works. Really, really well.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SÓLSTAFIR, SHINING, SHITFUCKER — AND WILDERNESSKING

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 082014
 

I noticed a lot of new things yesterday. A few of them are collected in this post — an alliterative line-up of new videos and/or songs from Sólstafir (Iceland), Shining (Norway), and Shitfucker (Detroit), plus some welcome news from Wildernessking (South Africa).

SÓLSTAFIR

Yesterday, I spied not one, but three new things from one of our site’s favorite bands, Iceland’s Sólstafir. The first is a new song that appears on a forthcoming 7″ split with another Icelandic band named Legend.  For this split, each of the bands has covered a song by the other. In Sólstafir’s case, the song is Legend’s “Runaway Train”, the original of which you can find here.

I was hooked from the first compulsive drumbeats and darting guitar notes. From there, Addi Tryggvason adds his gritty vocals to what becomes a dark, urgent, hard-rocking take on the original, enhanced by keyboards and an unexpected chant in the mid-section. Damned catchy. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CRYPTICUS, ZMEY GORYNICH, GRAILIGHT, SCORNED DEITY, SUCHTHAUS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 012013
 

Halloween Day turned out to be quite a day for discovering new songs and video debuts. In our first post of this post-Halloween Friday, I collected five new videos that came out yesterday, and in this post I’ve got some other recommended new songs that I discovered on Halloween (or first thing this morning), presented in the order of discovery.

CRYPTICUS

Crypticus is a collaboration between American vocalist/guitarist/bassist Patrick Bruss and Norwegian drummer Brynjar Helgetun that I came across (and wrote about) through their 2012 EP, Insieme Verso Terrore. That was enough to land them a place on our recent list of the best Swedish-style death metal released in the last five years by newer bands. Their third album, The Barrens, is due for release on December 1 and can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp now.

To celebrate Halloween, Crypticus released a free Horror Grind Mixtape on Bandcamp, which they describe as “an original Death Metal mini-anthology”. It’s one nearly 11-minute adrenaline rush called “The Belasco Bequest”, the kind of expertly executed, blast-force chainsaw death metal (with surprises) that Crypticus do so well. Tasty riffs, tasty drumming, tasty lead guitar melodies, varying rhythms, carnivorous vocals — and it’s free! Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEW IN HAIKUS

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  3 Responses »
Oct 032013
 

(Andy Synn delivers another installment of his irregular series of album reviews in haiku. Two more reviews come after the jump. With music.)

 

YOUR CHANCE TO DIE – THE AMERICAN DREAM

Throwing off the chains

Born from deathcore’s murky past

Rise with righteous wrath

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

SEEN AND HEARD: EMPTINESS, ANCESTORS BLOOD, AND ANAAL NATHRAKH WITH NIKLAS KVARFORTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

This is the second of two posts in which I’ve collected music I found last night in my searches for new things that would help put me in the right frame of mind for the new week. And by “right frame of mind”, I mean “take no prisoners”. Because it’s a goddamned Monday and I knew I would be feeling mean as soon as I saw the light of the new day. I’ve learned through experience that I do better adding fuel to that fire than trying to get in a compliant, accepting, quietly seething mood.

EMPTINESS

I found out about this Belgian band, which includes two members of  the excellent Enthroned, via a recent post on CVLT Nation. Their most recent album is 2012’s Error on the Dark Descent label, though they are now writing new songs. Error is available for streaming on Bandcamp, so I embarked on this phase of my listening session by starting at the beginning of it. Because my mission for the night was to sample a lot of bands I had heard about, I didn’t make my way through the entire album. But I did listen to the first five songs (which is four more than I intended to hear), and man was I floored by them.

The music is difficult to describe, drawing from a multitude of genres but with a healthy helping of death/doom, black metal, and sludge. The sound is deeply corrosive and destructive, a howling, vicious maelstrom of sound and fury. It’s massively heavy and violent, and choked with the black ichor of doom. Yet the songs include hugely compelling riffs and attractive melodies, and all of the instrumental performances are dynamic and technically excellent. Continue reading »

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