CLASH OF THE TITANS

 Movie Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 102010
 

Back on Jan 11 (which seems about a decade ago), I posted still photos from the then-forthcoming movie Clash of the Titans and suggested how those images could represent different kinds of extreme metal bands. You can see that here. The movie is now out, and seems to be drawing hoards of viewers. I haven’t seen it yet, though I intend to — despite a review I read by the always wicked Anthony Lane in the April 12 issue of that famous metal zine, The New Yorker. It’s just too funny not to share a few excerpts:

There is an awful lot of clashing in “Clash of the Titans,” but no Titans. A pity, for the real Titans were early-model deities, born of Uranus and Gaea; she, peeved by her husband, took the unusual step of forging what one ancient text describes as “a saw-toothed scimitar,” with which her son Cronos then “harvested his father’s genitals.” All of which would have made the perfect Lars von Trier film.

Instead, we have to be content with late-period gods and monsters, plus efficient head removal and the odd winged horse, but not a single act of castration. How do these people hope to earn our respect?

(more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MELT BANANA

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 102010
 

Name of the band, Melt Banana. Country of origin, seems to be Japan. Latest studio release, Bambi’s Dilemma. Not really new (came out in 2007), but new to me, so that makes it new, right? 18 songs on the album. Average length per song: 01:94. Thoughts while listening:

Not metal. But extreme, for sure. So maybe I could write about it.

Definitely not clean singing. Vocalist sounds like a 12-year old girl, screaming. Or maybe Alvin from the Chipmunks. No, it’s a girl (Yasuko). (That’s her picture over there to the right.) Oh well.  A singing chipmunk woulda been cool.

Pretty damned fast. This is throw-back punk music.  Like Buzzcocks or Sex Pistols.  No, wait. Weird electronic noises. Outer Limits-style keyboards. And a dog barking. Yeah, pretty sure that was a dog.

Wholly shit, but that guitarist can get a lot of different sounds out of his axe. Name is Agata. When he hits those loud punk riffs, it really rocks! Dude can fucking play.

Drummer can hit the shit out of the snares and cymbals. Clattering and crashing — but fast. Man, that guitarist can shred, too! But he’s doing something weird to his guitar. How many dozen pedals is this dude using?

Is that song really called “Cat Brain Land”? Now the vocalist is talking — like a 12-year old girl. I take that back — like a 6-year old girl. Or like Alvin from the Chipmunks. Like when he was a really young chipmunk. Oh good! Here comes that crazy-ass guitar again!   (more after the jump, and just maybe, we might get to a point . . .) Continue reading »

MONUMENT TO THIEVES

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 092010
 

Anger plays an important role in extreme metal music. It’s a motivating force in the creative process of many bands. It works its way through the lyrics of many songs. And even when the lyrics don’t reflect anger, a lot of the music just sounds pissed-off. A while back, we got a comment on one of our posts from a guy who described himself as “an old fart.” He wrote this:

“The whole scary-metal scene is confusing to me. You all seem like very literate and intelligent folks, yet you seem to find pleasure in art that celebrates darkness and pain. Do you do it to be ironic or to make a point about how you feel that you have been treated by the world? I saw the word cathartic used – is this music a way of healing some pain that you feel?”

We wrote our own answer to those questions following his comment here, but we don’t pretend to speak for all extreme metalheads. We will make a few other points now: Some bands are angry and probably don’t know exactly why. Some bands pretend to be angry, on the theory that being über bad-ass is one of the keys to success. Some bands are angry about shit that really doesn’t matter.

And some bands really are fucking pissed about important shit, they use the sound of their music to express those feelings (as only extreme music can do most powerfully), and they write lyrics that articulate what they’re angry about.

And then some bands do all that in an even more nuanced way, joining to their anger feelings of rebellion, remorse, resignation, compassion, and solidarity.  Monument to Thieves is one of those bands, and their new self-titled album is worth hearing.  (read more after the jump, and listen to a song . . .) Continue reading »

BLACK TUSK AND ODEM ARCARUM

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 082010
 

Just so you don’t think we only care about ridiculous album covers, here are two we came across this morning that are cool. And even better, so’s the music.

The one at the top is a glimpse of the cover for Black Tusk‘s new album, Taste the Sin, which is scheduled for a May 25 release on Relapse Records. You’ll probably recognize the art of John Dyer Baizley, the singer and guitarist for Baroness, whose amazing art has graced the album covers not only for his own band but also for the likes of Skeletonwitch, Kylesa, Pig Destroyer, and Darkest Hour.

A song from the new Black Tusk album called “Embrace the Madness” is now streaming on the band’s MySpace page. Go check it out, because it’s a killer — overpoweringly heavy but also overpoweringly infectious.  We’re really looking forward to hearing the whole album.

The second cover is from a just-released new album called Outrageous Reverie Above The Erosion Of Barren Earth by a German black metal band named Odem Arcarum. The artwork is by a Bulgarian artist named Haate Kaate (pictured to the right — MySpace page here). To see more of the artwork she created for a 12-page booklet that accompanies the CD, click past the jump. We think it’s really awesome stuff. (You can see the whole booklet here.)

The band has songs from the new album streaming on their MySpace page, and we really like what we’re hearing.  Another album we’re anxiously waiting for the mail to bring us!

(View more Odem Arcarum album art by Haate Kaate after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

WE’LL SEE YOUR FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE — AND RAISE YOU A DANKO JONES AND A HEAVENLY

 IQ Subtraction  4 Responses »
Apr 082010
 

We don’t know of any poker games that allow you to raise your own bet without an intervening raise by another player, but here at NCS we make up our own fucking rules as we go along.

So this game began when our friends at Reign in Blonde posted a ridiculous album cover by Kivimetsan Druidi (here). Which prompted us to raise with the ridiculous album cover above by the non-metal band Florence and the Machine.

Now, if you keep your eyes open, you’ll see ridiculous new album covers every week. So this game conceivably could go on, well, forever.  Who knows, maybe it will. But we’re at least going to continue the game for one more day by raising our own raise, not once but twice, courtesy of a Canadian rock trio called Danko Jones and a French “power metal” band called Heavenly.

The new Danko Jones album, scheduled for a May release, is called Below the Belt. Danko Jones recently opened for Guns N’ Roses and Sebastian Bach at a tour of hockey arenas across Canada. Which pretty much guarantees their music blows large hairy balls.

Heavenly’s latest album (December 2009) is called Carpe Diem. Their music’s not our style either. But we’re grateful to both bands, because their album covers allow us to keep this ridiculous-album-cover game going for one more day.  (to see these covers, you’ll have to click past the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MOLOTOV SOLUTION (“AWAKENING”)

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 072010
 

We dug the hell out of Molotov Solution‘s 2009 album, The Harbinger, and named the title track to our list of The Ten Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of 2009. Now those Las Vegas deathcore brawlers have just released a video of another track from the album, called “Awakening”.  It’s in HD, the sound quality is excellent, and it was professionally shot, directed, and edited by Roger Sieber.

It’s a well-edited mix of performing, driving, fighting, and fucking around.  The performance shots, in particular, do a good job of capturing the energy and intensity of a Molotov Solution live set (one of which we saw in Portland last year). And the song is a bruiser.

Check it out (particularly if you were put out with us for going off-topic in our earlier post today):

“Awakening”

Molotov Solution “Awakening” Official Music Video HD from Roger Sieber on Vimeo.

COAL SHIP CLUSTERFUCK

 Mosh Pit, Off Topic  No Responses »
Apr 072010
 

We thought it was time for an update on The 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise.  We’ve had so much fun with this thing (e.g., here and here) and are just counting the days until January 2011 when it limps back into port at Miami with chaos in its wake.

But just as we were checking the interwebz for updated info last weekend, we came across a few other stories about coal and China that gobsmacked us. They’ve got nothing to do with metal, and they’re only tangentially related to “70,000 Tons of Metal.” Actually, even “tangential” is stretching it. About the only connection is that the first story involves shipping clusterfuckery, and we suspect “70,000 Tons of Metal” will turn into a clusterfuck, too, though in a fun-loving, binge-and-purge kind of way.

So, before we give you an update on “70,000 Tons of Metal” (which we really will do), allow us to vent a little about those gobsmacking stories we saw.

First Item: According to this report, a large Chinese freighter carrying 72,000 tons of coal (not 70,000 Ton of Metal) ran aground late Saturday on a section of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The Shen Neng 1 crashed into the reef at full speed a few hours after leaving the port of Gladstone, Australia, on its way to China. When that happened, it was nine miles outside its authorized shipping lane, according to Australian authorities. And those same authorities reported that the ship is in danger of breaking apart.

So, what’s the big deal, you may ask? You’re thinking that coal doesn’t leak. True, but a ship this large carries a shitload of fuel — 1,000 tons of it, to be more precise. (read on after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MAMMOTH GRINDER

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 062010
 

In “Leviathan,” the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously wrote that the life of man is “nasty, brutish, and short.” And that pretty much sums up the new LP from Austin’s Mammoth Grinder. Extinction of Humanity is 21 minutes of  distorted, stripped-down, feedback-accented, in-your-face, slash-and-sludge mayhem.

If you knew nothing about the band other than its name and that awesome, smoking, skull-faced, album cover above, you’d prudently prepare yourself for some ass-kicking, and you’d be right. Mammoth Grinder has thrown an unusual grab-bag of ingredients into the blender — garage-punk drum rhythms, a mash-up of grindcore pacing and sludgy trudging, harsh vocals somewhere between a hardcore howl and a death-metal growl, and a smorgasboard of heavy, fuzzed-out guitar stylings.

The resulting concoction is massively intoxicating. If you could really drink this venomous brew, it would lead you on the kind of romping binge that leaves you wondering at daylight what the hell you’d done the night before and where all that blood on your hands came from.

To find an analogue to what Extinction of Humanity delivers, scroll back through your catalogue and listen to Wolverine Blues (1993) from Entombed or (not quite as close a fit) Dismember‘s Like An Ever Flowing Stream (1991). Extinction is not strictly old-school death metal, but more like old-school, Swedish-style death ‘n’ roll — except maybe even more visceral in its appeal.  (read more after the jump, and listen to a song . . .) Continue reading »

HELLS BELLS, IT’S OPENING DAY!

 Off Topic  2 Responses »
Apr 052010
 

In varying degrees of intensity, your three NCS Co-Authors are all baseball fans. And for baseball fans, today is a magical day, just as it is every year, because today is Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. (Yeah, we know the fucking Yankees played the fucking Red Sox last night — and they’re welcome to each other — but that didn’t make yesterday “Opening Day”).

The slate of the preceding season is wiped clean, all things are new, and all things are possible. Of course, none of that is really true, but it’s the fate of diehard baseball fans to get their hopes up as Opening Day approaches, even when the rational part of their brains tells them to wise-the-fuck-up.

And so it goes here in Seattle. Our beloved but hapless Mariners had an unexpectedly improved season in 2009, the team was upgraded (at least on paper) in the off-season, and we’re hoping for bigger and better things this year (while trying to ignore the truly sucky offensive showing in spring training).

Off the top of our heads, we don’t know of any extreme metal songs about baseball to commemorate this occasion. Do you? But one association between baseball and metal does come to mind, so we’ll go with that. (see what we mean, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HOUR OF PENANCE: PARADOGMA

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Apr 042010
 

Rome’s Hour of Penance have just released their fourth album. Entitled Paradogma, it’s a worthy follow-up to this collective’s widely praised third offering, The Vile Conception.

The band’s modus operandi on Paradogma is straight-forward, but no less compelling for its simplicity: Play blackened death metal, play it really fast, and make the music vicious. Which is not to say that the album falls prey to monotony — far from it. The songs most assuredly do not all sound alike. They are creatively structured to feed your need for brutality while striking that primordial chord in your brain stem that makes you want to jump and move.

Paradogma swallows you up in a miasma of dark fury that seethes in its intensity, yet infects you with hooks and melodies that will cause the songs to re-play in your head long after the music stops. It’s simply one of the best modern death-metal albums we’ve heard so far this year.  (read on after the jump, and hear a massively infectious track from the album . . .) Continue reading »

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