SEEN AND HEAR ON A SATURDAY: AETHERIAN, AARA, KOLLAPSE, SOEN, 7.5 TONNES OF BEARD, SHEVILS

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 302021
 

 

I picked a half-dozen songs for today’s round-up, most of which I paid attention to based on friends’ recommendations. It was easy to do that because I was already a fan of every group included here. If you don’t immediately recognize all the names, I’ll forewarn you that there’s a lot of whiplash in this playlist, which is to say that the music diverges sharply from song to song. On the other hand, the variety increases the odds that you’ll find something to like.

AETHERIAN (Greece)

I was so excited to find out that Aetherian would be releasing a new song and video yesterday. For a band that only have one EP and one album to their credit since the release of their first single in 2014 we’ve written about them literally a dozen times, including reviews of that EP and album. They earned all that attention because their brand of melodic death metal is so very good. Their melodies (which tend to lean on the melancholy side of things) are beautifully crafted and moving; when they charge hard, they’ll give your pulse rate a swift kick in the ass; and they always seem to have a few surprises up their sleeves as well. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: SOILWORK, RED MOON ARCHITECT, SUMMONING THE LICH, SOEN, RAGING SPEEDHORN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 232020
 

 

(Another work-week is ending, and Gonzo again helps usher it out with a selection of new songs and videos from forthcoming or just-released records.)

It only dawned on me this morning that we’re a week away from November, and given that most of this year has felt like floating in some nebulous void in an endlessly dystopian universe, that was a weird thought.

Even as snow falls just south of my Colorado home as I type this, wildfires continue to burn just north and west of me. It’s a confounding juxtaposition of fire and ice that’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Just another day in 2020, I suppose. With any luck, the plummeting temperatures and prevailing snowfall will help extinguish the flames that have been turning the sky into an unsettling shade of apocalyptic as of late.

All that being said, here’s a few bangers this Friday to make you forget how fucked up the world is right now. Continue reading »

AN INTERLUDE: SOEN — “THE WORDS” (A NEW VIDEO)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 242014
 

 

I was going to save this new video for a round-up of new things that I hope to write for tomorrow, since time is short at the moment. But then I thought, why wait?

The band is Soen and the song is “The Words”, from their new album Tellurian, released earlier this month by Spinefarm Records. If you’re unfamiliar with Soen, the members are drummer Martin Lopez (ex-OPETH, AMON AMARTH), bassist Stefan Stenberg, vocalist Joel Ekelöf, and guitarist Kim Platbarzdis.

“The Words” is a beautiful, haunting, heartbreaking song, and so is the black and white video that was made for the music. It’s light years away from what we usually feature at this site, a true exception to our “rule”, but very much worth hearing and seeing — which you can do next. Continue reading »

BIG ASS ROUNDUP

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Oct 032014
 

 

(Leperkahn continues to pitch in during my round-up hiatus.  Between what I sent him and what he found himself (of which there was quite an overlap), this is a monstrously large collection of recent, recommended goodies.)

Hey all! So a bloody lot of things got put up between when I sent in my last roundup and now, so this is gonna be a long one, since I’m not in the mood to separate them out. Strap in for a wild ride across the metalsphere.

BLUT AUS NORD

A few hours ago a new song named “Clarissima Mundi Lumina” from the new Blut Aus Nord album Memoria Vetusta III — Saturnian Poetry was made available for listening. This follows our own premiere of “Paien” right here. Islander says his review of the album will be posted on Monday, but he says there’s no point in waiting — just go pre-order the album in a special digipack CD edition here or on vinyl here. You can listen to “Clarissima Mundi Lumina” while you’re doing that:

https://www.facebook.com/blutausnord.official
https://www.facebook.com/debemurmorti Continue reading »

“THAT’S MUSIC!” – BUT IT AIN’T METAL: SOEN – “COGNITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  7 Responses »
Aug 092012
 

(In this post, DGR reviews the 2012 album by Soen.)

Talk about a disc about which it has taken forever to compose my thoughts. It’s been floating around since mid-February as a Spinefarm release in Europe but only saw digital release here in the States much later. Soen are a conflicting-as-hell band to discuss because one of the first things everyone does is drop a comparison to Tool. Given that I am a Tool fan and very familiar with their work, I can confirm that the comparison is definitely warranted, but you know what? Soen deserve to stand as their own band.

Yes, they have some elements of the aforementioned band’s spacey prog-rock tone attached to them, but very few bands do it as well; even those who are influenced by it and try to mimic it to a T usually fail. Soen have somehow managed to get close enough to that band’s sound without becoming them or even adopting the Philosophy-101-styled thinking buried in new age mysticism that I’m perfectly okay with Soen.

Yes, getting David Bottrill involved (famed producer, worked with a ton of groups, including Tool) feels like an incredibly shrewd maneuver, and he does his damnedest to give them the exact same mix, but so what, it sounds great. They’re really not mimics. Believe me, Soen are something of an all-star group who manage to do enough things on their own that they feel like a new thing. Cognitive is a really good bit of prog-rock with quite a lot of individuality buried in between echo-heavy bass lines and singalong-worthy choruses, much of which, surprisingly enough, is provided by the drumming work of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez.

I know it’s impossible to analyze this album in a vacuum, as if I had never heard some of what’s being done here before, but now that I have gotten that rant out of the way, let’s talk about Cognitive. Continue reading »