Mar 142024
 

What I’ve assembled for visitors today is an even dozen songs and videos from bands spread across six countries and a variety of genres (and at least one that’s not really metal), including death metal, black metal, sludge, doom, post-metal, progressive metal, deathcore, folk-metal, and some things that are harder to pin down. If you don’t find something to like, it must be because you searched for “no spring cleaning”.

One thing you’ll figure out fairly soon is that a lot of today’s songs rock out, providing some very catchy head-movers. There’s also singing (or close to it) in some of them (gasp!). But of course I’ve sprinkled in some ravagers too, and because I’ve arranged these songs and videos in alphabetical order by band name, one of those comes first.

AL-NAMROOD (Saudi Arabia)

The first song is “Lisan Al Nar” (Tongue of Fire) from AlNamrood‘s new album Al Aqrab, to be released by Shaytan Productions on June 9th. Continue reading »

Apr 202015
 

 

We’re premiering a new Six Feet Under song today. I’m actually not sure that 4/20 is the best date for the premiere of “Gruesome“. I was thinking that something like the birthday of Ted Bundy might make more sense.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t blaze one before listening to “Gruesome”, as long as you understand the risk of warfare in your brain chemistry — between the part of you that wants to sink into a couch and dial out for a pizza and the part, awakened by this song, that wants to skin your obnoxious neighbor with a lemon peeler and then set him on fire before he bleeds out. Continue reading »

Feb 252013
 

Maybe we should just re-name February “Ola Englund” month at NO CLEAN SINGING. Not long ago we launched a full-album stream of the new release by his band Feared (here), and today brought us a brand-new track that it appears he wrote for the band he joined last year, the formidable Six Feet Under.

The new song is “Prophecy” and it will appear on Six Feet Under’s new album Unborn, the “demented fraternal twin” of last year’s Undead, which will be released by Metal Blade on March 19.

The song stomps the holy hell out of the landscape with body-moving, chug-heavy riffs and an infernally catchy melody. It’s prime headbang candy, and of course it’s propelled by the distinctive growls of founder Chris Barnes. Eat this up (or let it eat you up) right after the jump. And after that, you can also check out the previously released lyric video for another new track, “Zombie Blood Curse”. Continue reading »

Feb 182013
 

Today and the next few days are pretty jammed with the work that pays the bills, but I just took a break long enough to spot the following tidbits I’d like to pass around like a family-sized bag of popcorn.

THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN

I saw an announcement that The Dillinger Escape Plan have revealed the title of their next album — One of Us Is the Killer — and a general timeframe for release — May — as well as the album cover (above).

The album will be released by the band’s imprint label Party Smashers Inc. and will be distributed in NorthAm by Sumerian and by BMG everywhere else.

I also saw that DEP has already begun scheduling tour dates in the U.S. and overseas. Many more dates will follow, but you can see the initial list right after the jump. Continue reading »

May 072012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by the reconstructed Six Feet Under. The album is set for North American release on May 22, 2012 through Metal Blade Records.)

I can just envision all of you fuckers rolling your elitist holier than thou eyes at me. I see every single one of you from here on out disregarding my opinions as a music critic with the explanation that “he likes Six Feet Under”. Check your opinion at the door, let me do my thing, and hear me out.

Six Feet Under have sucked. Oh fuck, have they sucked. I don’t think anyone can watch the video for “Amerika The Brutal” and take it or the song itself seriously. After putting out six terrible albums of the most painfully bland and sloppy death’n roll ever to exist, Chris Barnes apparently finally had the revelation that maybe people didn’t want Graveyard Classics Vol. 218843284832483-fucking-2. Something changed once the band’s seventh album Commandment came out. The music was meatier, dark as fuck, and even had a bit of a doom characteristic in some of the song’s pieces, such as the chorus in “Doomsday”.

After being persuaded to give them a shot after hearing good things about their latter output, I subsequently actually enjoyed Commandment as well as Death Rituals — good hefty slabs of some beastly, groovy death metal. Undead is a startlingly strong new album that seems even more of a progression in SFU’s journey to death metal legitimacy, no doubt helped by the band’s recent new addition of Chimaira’s Rob Arnold, who left his longtime outfit to become the band’s new ax man. Not only have SFU completely ditched the bullshit death’n roll elements for good, but they’ve become even groovier, while Rob Arnold has made the riffage quite a bit more sinister sounding. Continue reading »

Feb 042012
 

January ended four days ago, so it’s past time for our usual monthly round-up of news about forthcoming albums. I have to confess that this list is even more spotty and sporadically assembled than usual — which is saying something. Various distractions prevented me from keeping a sharp eye out for news about new releases, so I have no doubt this list is incomplete.

Here’s how this round-up usually works: In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, I collect news blurbs and press releases I’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like at NCS (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, I cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — THIS ISN’T A CUMULATIVE LIST. If we found out about a new forthcoming album earlier than the last 30 days, we probably wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. For example, on this list you won’t see such notable releases as the forthcoming albums from Meshuggah, Enthroned, Unleashed, Psycroptic, Goatwhore, Asphyx, Naglfar, or Autopsy, because we’ve mentioned them elsewhere. Or at least I think we did.

Having said all that, please feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what I missed when I put this list together. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about, even if you don’t see them here! Continue reading »