IMPERIUM DEKADENZ

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 252010
 

This is turning into Invisible-Oranges-link-week. A couple days ago we wrote here about a post at that site on the “Top 10 Most Overused Words in Metal Journalism.” The list unfortunately included some of our favorite words, including the word “fucking.” So, of course we had to litter our own post with F-bombs, just to make ourselves feel better. And that drew some pretty goddamned funny comments, which also made liberal use of F-words, including an observation from Cosmo Lee that we were all starting to sound like Frank Mullen.

At the same time as I stumbled across that Top 10 post at Invisible Oranges, I also read Cosmo Lee’s review (here) of a new album by a German black-metal band called Imperium Dekadenz. That beautiful review really grabbed me. As we try to do at our site, Cosmo Lee included a track from the album to stream — and the song just floored me. So without delay I bought the album the quickest way I knew how (iTunes) and listened to the whole thing — and I was even more floored.

I thought, there’s a chance some of our readers at NCS might not also follow Invisible Oranges, and this is music I really need to share. So my original plan was just to tell you the album is awesome, point you to Cosmo Lee’s review, make a song available, and quit while I was ahead. That would have been the smart thing to do, because seriously, I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell I could improve on Cosmo’s review.

But I’m not so smart. It occurred to me that although I couldn’t improve on that review, I could translate it into the kind of verbiage we tend to use here at NCS. You know, language written by and for mentally impaired people. And then I thought, what the fuck, I might as well go all-in and channel Frank Mullen while doing that!  So here goes:  (read on after the jump, if you’re mentally impaired . . .) Continue reading »

CORE-METAL UPDATES

 Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 242010
 

We don’t listen to much hardcore music here at NCS. It’s not that we don’t like it. It just doesn’t rattle our cages as much as other kinds of extreme metal. But in recent years certain metal- and death-metal influenced hardcore bands have infiltrated our music players and fought an effective behind-the-lines assault on our brains.

Over the last few days we’ve come across some news items about a few of those bands that we’d like to share with you, along with some of their songs: The Contortionist, Monument to Thieves, Legend, and The Last Felony.  They’ve all got new music on the way that we’re pretty hot to hear. They don’t sound alike, but the one thing they have in common is the ability to write powerful, passionate songs with infectious grooves, and some dynamic variations from the norm to accompany the breakdowns.

(By the way, we’d rather call these bands “core-metal” instead of “metalcore” or “deathcore” because nowadays those latter terms trail along a bunch of baggage that we don’t think fits these bands.)

THE CONTORTIONIST

The breaking news about this Indianapolis-based band is that they’ve signed with Good Fight Music and will be entering the studio this spring with producer Ken Susi (Unearth‘s guitarist) to begin recording a debut album for a mid-to-late-summer release.

Good Fight Music is the label division of Good Fight Entertainment, which was founded by industry veterans Paul Conroy and Carl Severson, who were former partners at Ferret Music, Warner Music, and ChannelZERO. (more to come, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

CRINGING (The Vocabulary of Metal Criticism)

 Listmania  9 Responses »
Mar 232010
 

This weekend I spent a little time catching up with other metal blogs I like. If I weren’t so fucking wordy in my own writing, I’d have more time to read on a daily basis and wouldn’t fall behind. Anyway, there’s one post I wish I hadn’t read. It was Justin Norton‘s feature on the “Top 10 Most Overused Words in Metal Journalism” at Invisible Oranges. It made me cringe. Here’s how it started:

“Writing about metal is a lot like covering sports. Dozens of releases drop week after week like games stack up during a season. Just like sports writers try to find ways to make a touchdown pass sound like a major event, it’s tough to find a novel description for the umpteenth grindcore or black metal album. So the same words and phrases show up again and again.  Trust me, I’ve used them all.”

And then he proceeded to catalogue the 10 worst offenders — the overused, cliched words that metal writers litter in their album reviews like Big Mac wrappers on the sidewalk. You know, our oldest friends — the words we use constantly here at NCS, particularly No. 9. We can’t bear to include the painful descriptions that followed each word in Justin’s post, but here’s the list:

1. Brutal
2. (Enter genre) and add a y (e.g., progg-y, doom-y)
3. Epic
4. Blackened
5. Melodic
6. Majestic
7. Any adjective hinting at bodily harm (e.g., pummeling, bruising, scorching)
8. Full-length
9. Fucking
10. Lots of adverbs (e.g., kick-ass)

(Groan. . .) Kind of hits the mark, doesn’t it? But is there another side to this story? Shit, we hope so. (By the way, “shit” wasn’t on the list, so I feel safe in using that word.) For example, if I had to write a whole review without being allowed to use the word “fucking,” I’m afraid I’d have some kind of seizure. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

BLASTANUS

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 222010
 


Suomalaista Metallia! We seem to be on a Finnish metal roll over the last week. First Kalmah, then The Jasser Arafats, and now Blastanus. Or maybe we’re just on a weird-band-name roll. On the subject of what this band’s name means, here’s a multiple-choice quiz:

(a) Pronounced “BLAST-uh-nus”, the name of the Finnish pagan deity who rules the underworld; lord of the heroic dead who perished by flame and sword;
(b) Severe gastrointestinal condition caused by eating too many wild berries in the Finnish countryside;
(c) What would happen if a cow tried to stifle a severe sneeze;
(d) None of the above.

If you chose (d), congratulations! From the band’s MySpace page: “The concept of Blastanus derived from the sick minds of two friends who at a young age decided to stop trivializing their existence and concentrate on the things that matter the most in life: Blastbeat and, well, you know, assholes!”

You’re probably already beginning to makes guesses about what kind of metal this is. But slow down a minute and hear us out.

Blastanus has one album to its credit. Self-released in July 2009, it’s appropriately called Odd, and consists of 16 tracks ranging in length from 00:07 to 04:12. The basic foundation is grindcore, with all the elements you might expect — pervasive blast beats inflicted at such high speed as to create a fused wall of sound, vocals that alternate between low-end gutturals and piercing shrieks, and distorted guitar riffs that spin like a band-saw shearing through wood.

But grindcore is just the foundation, and on top of that Blastanus has pulled materials from other genres to erect an intriguing residence for themselves. (more after the jump, plus a chance to download the album . . .) Continue reading »

THE JASSER ARAFATS: CONDEMNATION

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 212010
 

Suomalaista Metallia! About a week ago we stumbled headlong over a band from Finland oddly called The Jasser Arafats, and learned they were sharing the stage with the awesome Kalmah last week in Finland. Apart from the strange band name, the album art by V. Nyström from their forthcoming full-length debut was also arresting, and they had a widget that allowed us to listen to four tracks from the album. So we thought, what the hell, let’s listen to what they’re doing. And we liked what we heard and we wrote a short post about it.

That led to contact with the band, and although we couldn’t worm out of them the story behind the band name (more on that later), they did give us an advance listen to the whole album (Condemnation), which is due for an April 14 release on Violent Journey Records.

Listening to all 12 of the album’s tracks confirmed our reaction to the four teasers, and what we wrote a week ago still holds true:  “Press play and it’s like opening the door to a blast furnace of scorching headbangery. There’s a real talent for riffage here, with grooves galore, ridiculously hard rhythms, and top-notch, full-throated, howling vocals.”

The music on Condemnation isn’t what you might expect from a Finnish extreme metal band. It’s a modern, American-style blend of thrash, death metal, and power grooves. Almost all the songs leap out of the box in a thrash-paced assault, with fast, percussive, down-tuned riffing and aggressive drumming. But there are rhythmic variations within each song, and a few (like “Price”) feature pronounced breakdowns.The guitars have got a thick, fuzzed-out quality, and the band has a talent for producing some relentlessly infectious riffs.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ERYN NON DAE: “BLISTERING HATE” LIVE

 Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 202010
 

One of our favorite French metal bands, Eryn Non Dae, has just uploaded a video of their live performance in February at the Bikini in Toulouse. The track is “Blistering Hate” off the band’s awesome 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa. You can check out our review of that album here and our interview of END here. And you can watch the video by just pushing the play button below.

Man, I wish I could have been at that show. The tech geeks of the world need to speed up their work on teleporter technology.

“Blistering Hate” Live:

BANDCAMP

 Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 202010
 

Twice in the last two weeks we wrote about unsigned bands (Flaming Tusk and From Exile) that have chosen to distribute their music through a service called Bandcamp. We hadn’t seen or heard of Bandcamp before then. Granted, we’re pretty fucking ignorant about a lot of things, and maybe this Bandcamp service is known far and wide throughout the metal world. But what the hell, we’re gonna write about it anyway — because it seems pretty damned amazing.

The main service Bandcamp provides is a channel through which artists can distribute their music at no cost to themselves. It gives the artist a dedicated web page and the ability to upload songs for streaming by fans, or for fan download at any price the band sets, or at no price. And that’s just for starters. There are a jillion other rad features — and we’ll hit all the high points after the jump.

And in case you’re wondering — since this whole post is gonna read like one big fucking advertisement — we’ve never contacted Bandcamp and they didn’t give us any consideration for this attention. We’re doing this for only one reason: Because there are too many good metal bands out there that don’t have label support, and maybe this post will give some of them an idea they hadn’t stumbled on yet. (read on after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE BROWN BOOK

 Album Reviews, Interviews  4 Responses »
Mar 192010
 

NO CLEAN SINGING is the name of this site, but no singing at all can work just fine, too. Especially when the music slams us in the head like an intricately carved club. Case in point: The Brown Book.

It’s a daunting task for extreme metal bands to find a reward for their efforts, even when they’ve got talent and drive. The challenge of getting noticed and signed to a label is even more daunting for bands that dwell in the smaller crevices of that already small niche. But as The Brown Book proves, there’s some really interesting shit going on down there where not much light shines on the toilers.

The basic facts: Three dudes, two who live in Quincy, Mass (Jay O’Malley on guitar and Ryan Lavery on drums), and one who lives in Brooklyn (guitarist Mike Kvidera). No vocalist. One self-released album last year called Thirty-Nothing, which was written in a room by that name, pictured on the right — basically a utility hallway in the basement of an old shipping mill in New Bedford, Mass. With any luck, maybe a new album later this year.

So, you get the picture — a poster child for DIY metal. But with a twist: Instead of launching themselves into one of the more recognizable subgenres of extreme music, The Brown Book have been impelled into what some lazy commentators might call “experimental” or “noise” metal.

We know what those labels are meant to signify, and laziness is one of our favorite states of existence — but what The Brown Book are doing isn’t so easily classifiable. The music is heavy, it’s pummeling, it’s hypnotic, it’s discordant, it’s melodic, it’s unpredictable, it’s organized mayhem. It’s all of those things, plus some, and it sure as fuck hits our sweet spot. (more after the jump, including a short interview and a sample track to hear . . .) Continue reading »

SOILWORK ANNOUNCES ASTONISHINGLY ASS-KICKING TOUR

 Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 182010
 

Hot off the presses — and we do mean hot! Soilwork has just announced a headlining North American tour this summer with some truly mind-blowing support from Bay-area thrash legends Death Angel and tech-death destroyers Augury. Also on the tour: Mutiny Within and Swashbuckle.

Not too fucking shabby, huh? Particularly because they’re coming to Seattle. For a list of dates and venues for the other perfectly decent cities where they’re going, read on after the jump. Continue reading »

TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION!

 Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 182010
 

No secret that we’re big fans of grind legends Brutal Truth and we’ve also really been getting into spazzed-out, jazz-infused metal too (see. e.g., our write-ups on Shining and Psychofagist). So, our eyes lit up when we saw a press release today from Brutal Truth drummer extraordinaire Rich Hoak announcing the release of an unusual 3-way split by Reproductive Records.

The split includes one song each from three bands:  27 from Cambridge, MA (the song features Dana Colley of Morphine fame on the electric baritone sax); Gardenbox from Athens, Greece (whose music is described as “intense post-post-rock”); and the band that Hoak started after Brutal Truth originally dissolved — Total Fucking Destruction.

You can get a limited edition white vinyl 7″ here, which comes with an intricately folded cover that features the art of Dan McCarthy (see above). Or you can download the split for the meager sum of $2.97 at iTunes. And Rich says that all the proceeds will be donated to Best Friends Animal Society.

So, why are we shilling for this? Well, mainly because it’s got a new track from Total Fucking Destruction — which just destroys. “Welcome to the Fascist Corporate Wastelands of America, Part 2” is exactly what Rich tells us it is — a “jazz noise grind freakout” — a chaotic instrumental swirl of discordant howling, freaked-out guitar and bass riffs, and out-of-control drumming.

The other two songs aren’t quite as much our style, but we certainly aren’t gonna toss em away. The Gardenbox track is a melodic selection of proggery that starts dreamily and ends with a big rush. “Wood Veins” by 27 is what we think of in our uneducated heads as cool jazz, with cool, jazzy, clean female singing courtesy of Maria Christopher.

Putting all three of these very different sounds together makes for an interesting listening experience. See for yourself, and help out doggies and kitties at the same time.

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