A MILESTONE (And Some Words of Thanks)

 Welcome  12 Responses »
Jun 012010
 

We’re taking a little break from our usual posts today to celebrate a milestone (although below this post, we did put up our monthly update on forthcoming new releases). Tomorrow and the next day: Reviews of some new albums that will make your heads explode.

Not too long ago, we passed a milestone here at NO CLEAN SINGING. On May 21, 2010, we hit the six-month anniversary of this site. Six months ago, we put up our first half-baked post. We had 9 visits for that ugly little baby, including the 3 of us who collaborate in putting this thing together. Shit, most of our friends weren’t even interested.

How things have changed! In the six months since we gave birth to this monster, after a slow ramp-up, we’ve had more than 21,000 unique visitors from 122 different countries. The posts we’ve written have drawn more than 35,000 page views, and the number of unique visitors is now over 500 per day — with the trend continuing to climb. (How do we know all this? For you non-bloggers out there who may not understand, stay with us, and we’ll eventually get to that below).

We’re not quoting all these stats to slap ourselves on the back — even with the growth of our audience, the traffic we get here at NCS is a drop in the bucket compared to some other metal blogs that you probably also read. And the truth is, we’re kinda bewildered by the attention.

At the same time, we’re also pathetically grateful — and we owe some thank-you’s to people who’ve helped us get noticed: to bands, fellow metal bloggers, and NCS readers. So, bear with us while (once again) we wear our hearts on our sleeves.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 5)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 012010
 

We’re now five months into 2010, and it’s time for another monthly update to the list of forthcoming new albums we first posted on January 1. (All the other updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages.)  Below is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or updated info about some of the previously noted releases.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re old school like us, just get ’em tattooed someplace you can see without a mirror (because reading stuff backwards is hard).

THE ACACIA STRAIN: “Western Massachusetts’ chuggernauts The Acacia Strain, have completed work on their new album, which will be released July 20th in North American and August 2nd in Europe via Prosthetic Records.”

ATHEIST: “Reactivated seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST will enter LedBelly studios in Atlanta, Georgia on July 5 to begin recording their long-awaited, as-yet-untitled fourth album. Engineering the session will be Matt Washburn. Additionally, the band has secured the services of one of metal’s most significant talents of the past decade, Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER), to handle the mixing of what promises to be a modern classic from the pioneers of technical metal. . . . ATHEIST‘s forthcoming album is tentatively scheduled for a late 2010 release and will be followed by a world tour in 2011.”   (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SEATTLE FALLS INTO THE VOID

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
May 312010
 

On the night of May 28, Dark Tranquillity‘s 2010 WE ARE THE VOID TOUR made its scheduled stop at Studio Seven in Seattle, and two of your NCS collaborators were present to take in all the awesomeness this show had to offer.

This was a must-see event for us, because Dark Tranquillity was one of the bands that first hooked us on extreme metal. And apart from the significance of that, we catch their live act whenever possible because they dependably deliver outstanding performances. Of course, they weren’t alone — Threat Signal, Mutiny Within, and local band Blood and Thunder were also on the bill.

So, here’s our report on the concert, plus we’ve got an unusually large batch of performance photos to show you after the all the verbiage.  (And if you think these photos are amateurish, you should see the hundreds we took that didn’t make the cut!)

BLOOD AND THUNDER

We’re not gonna say too much about this band’s performance here  — because we devoted a whole post to them yesterday. In a nutshell, they kicked massive amounts of ass: A great stage presence; technically excellent playing; and one catchy, headbangable song after another. This band churns out modern melodic death metal that deserves a wider audience.  (We do have some photos of the band’s performance that we didn’t put in yesterday’s post — so we’re putting those up at the end of this one.)

(stay with us after the jump for the rest of this review, plus all those photos we promised . . .) Continue reading »

BLOOD AND THUNDER

 Concert Reviews, Metal News  9 Responses »
May 302010
 

Two nights ago, one of my NCS collaborators (Alexis) and I hit Studio Seven in Seattle for Dark Tranquillity‘s headlining We Are the Void Tour. Along with Threat Signal and Mutiny Within, the night also featured an opening performance by a Seattle band called Blood and Thunder. We’ll be posting our review of the entire show tomorrow, but we decided it was time to focus on Blood and Thunder in a way that the typical format of our concert reviews doesn’t really allow.

The two main draws for us at this show were, of course, Dark Tranquillity (who were cosmically awesome) — and the band we’re writing about today. We’d seen them for the first time a month ago when they opened for The Finnish Metal Tour on its Seattle stop (reviewed by us here), and we were super-impressed. Now that we’ve had the chance to see and hear them a second time, we’re even more blown away.

The local Seattle metal scene has a growing number of talented bands that we predict you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the near future, but Blood and Thunder may just be the best un-signed extreme metal band in Seattle.

We spent time talking with some of the guys after their set at Studio Seven. In addition to being superb songwriters and musicians, they’re as nice a bunch of metalheads as you could want to meet, and they were patient enough to pose for some photos outside the venue (like the one above and a few more after the jump). But they’re also dead serious and very intelligent in the way they’re going about trying to make a name for themselves in this overcrowded niche of music. It was an eye-opening conversation for us.

(Continue reading after the jump for our report on that conversation, our review of Blood and Thunder’s set, and a big batch of our barely tolerable concert photos of this band in action . . .) Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS (Part 3)

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, Metal News  6 Responses »
May 292010
 

If you’ve been visiting this site regularly, you know that we’re suckers for cool album art. In fact, we’ve been engaged in an experiment, off and on, to test the completely illogical hypothesis that if album art is eye-catching, there’s usually something about the music that’s worthwhile, too. You can see our last test cases here and here.

Today’s example is that mind-bending motherfucker up above. The art is by Kenneth Fairclough, whose MySpace page is at this location. It’s the cover for the first EP of a New York metal band named FXZero.

It seems to be a twist on iconic images of the Madonna and Child, except this conception wasn’t immaculate and Mary don’t look too thrilled about daddy’s visitation, or about the offspring of their not-so-blessed union. Looks like the rest of the world isn’t too happy about the visit either, given the destruction that surrounds this bizarre trio. The beret is a nice touch, too.

This thing is so eye-catchingly strange that it’s worth a closer look. Let’s blow up part of this image. Bigger is better, right?  (after the jump . . . and we’ll get to the music, too) Continue reading »

“I’LL HAVE MY BRAINS SCRAMBLED, WITH HASH BROWNS AND TOAST”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 282010
 

A few days ago, we started a post by saying, “Sometimes when we listen to metal, we just want to get mentally pulverized.” If you never feel that way, well, please go on about your business and come back tomorrow when we’ll probably be writing about something else.

But today, we’re in that mental-pulverization mood. And in case you’re also in the mood to have your brains scrambled, have we found the right short-order cooks for you: Aeon and Exhale. Coincidentally, both bands are from Sweden. They each employ different techniques on the grill, but their new albums both get the job done in masterful fashion.

AEON

With a few of the inevitable line-up changes, Aeon (pictured above) has been playing for more than a decade, and Path of Fire (released on Metal Blade) is their third full-length album and the first since 2007. The album was mixed by Erik Rutan and mastered by the ubiquitous Alan Douches.

The name of the game is technical death metal, and it’s as sweet as it is punishing. With few exceptions, the songs depend on low-end, driving riffs and hammering double-kicks that put us in mind of an inexorably charging train, scattering sparks and belching smoke. The picking is fast and dynamic, yet there’s no flash-for-the-sake-of-flash going on here — each song is built around a defined rhythmic structure designed to burrow heavy grooves into your skull.  (more after the jump, including songs to stream . . .) Continue reading »

NCS ON THE AIR (A Reminder)

 Uncategorized  1 Response »
May 272010
 

This is a reminder that two of the three perpetrators of this site (Alexis and IntoTheDarkness) host an internet-only radio show every Friday morning from 10:00 – 12:00 Pacific Time on KSUB, the radio station of Seattle University.

We usually think about posting a reminder after the show has already started, or sometimes after it’s done — but this week we’re ahead of the game.

There’s not a lot of talk on this show, other than Alexis and IntoTheDarkness telling you what you’ve just heard and are about to hear. It’s basically one track of extreme metal after another for two hours, with no commercials, and the playlists they create are killer.

To hear the show, you’ll need Winamp, iTunes, XMMS or an mp3 player capable of listening to shoutcast streams to tune in. You can listen by clicking this link. And for future reference, here’s the URL:

http://www.seattleu.edu/ksub/default.aspx?id=26824

SEMARGL UPDATE

 Album Reviews, IQ Subtraction  1 Response »
May 272010
 

Well, fuck, we knew we’d feel guilty about having some fun at the expense of Ukrainian metal band Semargl in our post a few days ago about their latest video, and sure enough: The band was nice enough to leave a comment on our MySpace page complimenting our post.

Gotta hand it to ’em for having a sense of humor about themselves (and about us). And the truth is, we’ve had that song “Credo Revolution” stuck in our heads for days — so much so that we started listening to samples from three other tracks off the band’s new album that are streaming on their MySpace page.

It’s a mix of divergent styles — some death metal, some groove-oriented power metal, some hard rock (as on “Credo Flaming Rain” — with guest vocals supplied by Nera (Darzamat), who’s pictured above with the band). This is definitely not the kind of thing we usually listen to here at NCS — but confession is good for the soul, and we confess that we’ve now ordered Ordo Bellictum Satanas.

Not sayin’ you should, just sayin’ we did.  We’ll probably feel guilty about that too.

70,000 TONS OF METAL (Another Update)

 Metal News  5 Responses »
May 272010
 

More than a month has passed since we posted our last update about the 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise, and we figured it was time to check in again.

Since our last update, Exodus, Forbidden, and Testament have signed on. That’s a heavyweight injection of Bay Area thrash into this floating festival (we’ll give you the complete current line-up of 18 bands after the jump). Plus, in related news, the Swedes have gotten in on the act by putting together their own metal cruise (more on that after the jump too).

If you don’t know what this cruise is, we’ll fill you in: The organizers have chartered a cruise ship (Royal Caribbean’s “Majesty of the Seas”) capable of carrying 40 metal bands (which means they’re still targeting 22 more bands to fill out the line-up) and 2,000 fans, departing Miami on January 24, 2011 for a 5-day, 4-night cruise in the Caribbean, including a stop at the Mexican island of Cozumel.

The 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise has got great potential — both good and bad. It could be a truly awesome experience. It could also be a clusterfuck of cosmic proportions. And there’s no way to know which it will be until that cruise ship limps back into port, probably on fire, at the end of the voyage.

We’ve got some thoughts about what could make it orgasmically good, and what could make it suck big-time. But we’d bet the farm that unless Royal Caribbean is run by metalheads (not likely), they have no fucking idea what they’re about to get themselves into, and that increases the risk of suckage.  (more thoughts, and other related stuff, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“THRASH AND BURN” TOUR — LINEUP ANNOUNCED

 Metal News  14 Responses »
May 262010
 

If you live in the U.S. and you’re like us, you’ve been keeping your eye out for news about the 2010 North American installment of the THRASH AND BURN TOUR — because previous versions of that tour have been pretty decent.

Well, we’ve got some breaking news. The identity of the bands on the tour have now been announced — and the co-headlining acts are Born of Osiris and Asking Alexandria.  The full line-up comes after the jump, with a few more tidbits of info . . .

[UPDATE: The dates, cities, and venues for this tour have now been released — and we’ve added those after the jump, too . . .] Continue reading »

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