Apr 082017
 

 

I started what was supposed to be a two-part SEEN AND HEARD round-up last Wednesday. I couldn’t finish it as fast as I  planned, and as time passed I continued discovering new music and videos worth recommending. What was supposed to be two parts became four. So, here it ends… but only for now, because I’m sure I’ll start all over again early next week.

There are four individuals songs or videos in this collection, each from a forthcoming or recent album, plus one full album stream. As in Part 3, I’ll keep my verbiage brief.

VAMPIRE

The new album by the Swedish band Vampire is With Primeval Force. It will be released by Century Media on April 21st. Yesterday the label debuted a video for a song from the album named “He Who Speaks“, which I believe is the fourth track from the album to be previewed so far. Continue reading »

Feb 182017
 

 

This is the last part of a three-part round-up for this Saturday. Unlike Part 1 and Part 2, this installment is devoted to new music and videos released last week from groups whose names have a pretty high profile, and I would guess that all of the following songs have already made the rounds through much of metaldom without me needing to say much about them.

So, I’m going to just present the songs and videos without commentary, preceded only by some basic info about the releases. But, as always, you should certainly feel free to share your own thoughts in the Comment section.

IMMOLATION (U.S.)

Album: Atonement
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release Date: February 24
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/immolation/ Continue reading »

Feb 102016
 

Tribulation-The Children of the Night

 

For today’s second trio of tracks that I’m adding to our list of 2015’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, I’ve grouped together songs that strike me as similar in spirit if not precisely in sound — and they complement each other when played back-to-back, too.

To check out the songs that preceded these in the rollout of the list, you’ll find them collected behind this link.

TRIBULATION

I confess that I was late diving into The Children of the Night, even after reading Wil Cifer’s NCS review of the album, which included these tantalizing words: Continue reading »

Sep 062015
 

Fluiteraars-Luwte

 

(Leperkahn rejoins us with a round-up of new songs that have struck a chord.)

We cover a lot of stuff here at NCS. Hell, I can barely keep up with it myself. However, even more goes on in the wide world of metal than the busy staff could ever hope to cover (and normally, I’m too lazy to move my arse and actually put fingers to keyboard). Alas, here are a few tracks that I’ve been really hyped up on, though sadly lack of time has prevented us from giving them proper coverage.

FLUISTERAARS

Early last year BadWolf published a review of Dutch black metal band Fluisteraars’s debut album Dromers. That review was my introduction to the band, and my, what an introduction it was – three extended tracks of harrowing, melodic lo-fi black metal (and I’ll be damned if “De Doornen” didn’t stick in my head like one of Frankenstein’s bolt things). “De Doornen” ended up earning a spot in the Most Infectious Songs list for 2014, and also ended up on my year-end list.

Luckily for us, Fluisteraars have returned, with a new album entitled Luwte (apparently Dutch for “Lee”, though I’m not sure what that could signify) due out on Eisenton on September 25th. At the Bandcamp page for the album a track is currently streaming, an eleven-and-a-half song entitled “Stille Wateren” (“Still Waters” – three quarters of college-level German prepared me to figure that one out without the services of Google Translate). The track is anything but still in its first half, however, as Fluisteraars have unleashed another torrent of scathing melodic BM riffs, shifting from one to the other seamlessly, all punctuated by some soul-cleaving rasps on the vocal front and drums that are evidently try to stir up a tsunami. Continue reading »

Aug 052015
 

Dalkhu-Descend Into Nothingness

 

Once upon a time I started an irregular feature called “Eye-Catchers” in which I periodically tested the hypothesis that cool album art correlates with cool music. As much as anything else, it was a vehicle for exploring the music of bands I wasn’t familiar with, based solely on the attractiveness of their album or EP covers. There’s still a category link to all those posts on the right side of this page, even though the project has been moribund for quite a while.

This post, though it shares that “Eye-Catchers” title, really isn’t a continuation of the earlier experiment, because I’m already a fan of all the bands whose news and/or new songs are collected below. But the artwork for these new albums is so good that it seemed to be a fitting title. So, here we go….

DALKHU

I originally discovered this two-man Slovenian band in the middle of last month — and that really was an example of the original “Eye-Catchers” experiment. Their second album, Descend… Into Nothingness, features cover art by our beloved Paolo Girardi, and that’s what induced me to explore the music. Having done that (and written about the first advance track from the album here), I immediately became a fan. And so when I learned that Dalkhu released another new song yesterday, I felt confident it was going to be another good one — and so it is. Continue reading »

Feb 242014
 

Happy fucking Monday. Blech, it really hurt to write that. Here are some recommended tunes and videos I heard and saw over the last 24 hours, most of them on a day that wasn’t a fucking Monday.

INSOMNIUM

This first item falls into the category of breaking news:  Century Media has just announced details about the new album from Finland’s Insomnium, along with a teaser of the music. The album’s title is Shadows of the Dying Sun, and the cover art is at the top of this post. It will be released on April 29 in North America and April 28 in Europe.

The teaser is brief — 1:23 of new music. It consists of chiming guitars against a backdrop of ghostly ambience. It feels like the lead-in to some monstrous doomy riffs — but that could just be wishful thinking on my part. More wishful thinking: I would like to have this album today instead of two months from now. Undoubtedly advance tracks will be released. Undoubtedly we will have them here as quickly as we see them.

Check out the teaser next. Continue reading »

Jan 232014
 

I love it when a plan comes together, particularly when I have no plan until it comes together. Just tripping along through the interhole and the in-box this morning, and I come across one fine new song by a band named Vampire. And then I come across another one by a band named Vulgar Trade. I think to myself, “Self, wouldn’t it be cool if I came across another fine new song by a band with a ‘V’ name?” And then it happened! And here they are…

VAMPIRE

Thanks to a Facebook post by my friend Vonlughlio I learned that there is a newish Swedish band named Vampire. Surely, I thought, that name was taken long ago, and I don’t mean by Bram Stoker. Anyway, after producing a demo in 2012 (available on Bandcamp) this band landed on the Century Media label, which will release their self-titled debut album in March. And through the good graces of said label a song from the album was premiered yesterday by Stereogum on this side of the Atlantic and by Terrorizer on that side.

The new song is named “Howl From the Coffin”. True to the band’s name, it sinks its fangs deep into the jugular with the kind of toothsome, rocking/thrashing riffs that hail from an earlier time and ravenous howls of gruesome glee. Hellishly good soloing, too! Listening is an electrifying experience that will conjure memories of feral death metal from the late 80s and early 90s. Continue reading »