SOTHIS

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Feb 062010
 

Feeling a bit aimless today? Wondering what to do with the next 4 minutes? Sure, the rest of the webworld beckons, or you could get up off your not-so-comfy chair and actually do something in the physical world. But why decide now, when instead you could postpone the decision by watching this just-released video?

It’s pretty fucking cool. The song is “Of Night and Silence,” and the band is SOTHIS from L.A. It’s symphonic black metal from the frigid Southland. Not a fan of black metal? Dubious about the idea of a band from SoCal practicing the black metal arts? Do your close friends here at NCS a favor and watch it anyway.

Why? Well, if you’re not a black metal fanatic, this is pretty “accessible” music. And if you’re a trve black metal fanatic, you’d be doing me a favor because I have some questions for you, and it would help if you watched this video first.

I’m wondering if the “trve” black metal acolytes out there would condemn Sothis precisely because they’re not from Norway or because their music includes infectious riffs and waves of soaring melody, or for some other reason that eludes me.  Hey, I confess that I’m somewhere on the other side of the world from “trve,” so I don’t really care about purity testing. To my unpurified ears, the song sounds killer. (read more after the jump . . . and I got a coupla more questions for you black metal experts out there) Continue reading »

BREAKDOWN CITY! “MOSH LIVES II” HAMMERS SEATTLE

 Concert Reviews, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 052010
 

Ah, the visceral* joys of live Core — as in hardcore, metalcore, and deathcore. Some of the best bands in each of those genres are featured in the current MOSH LIVES II tour, and your three NCS Co-Authors were there when the tour hit Seattle’s El Corazon on the night of February 3. We bring you this report and a batch of our usual amateurish photos.

(*Visceral: from the Latin word viscera, referring to the internal organs of the body, specifically those within the chest or abdomen. Definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

1.  Felt in, or as if in, the viscera
2. Not intellectual
3. Dealing with crude or elemental emotions
4. Of, relating to, or located on or among the viscera)

Man, talk about getting your money’s worth. Emmure, Terror, After the Burial, Miss May I, Thick As Blood, and local bands Helles and Dire Wolf. In a word, this show was epic. (read more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

CRUISE SHIP CLUSTERFUCK (Part 3)

 Mosh Pit  No Responses »
Feb 042010
 

A couple days ago we posted a brilliant idea for saving a troubled business venture that planned to turn The Norwegian Star cruise ship into a floating hotel for the B.C. Winter Olympics:  Drop the nightly room price to the cost of a decent metal show ($20), keep the bars open 24-7, change the entertainment to non-stop live metal, and bill it as “The Immovable Fuck-the-Olympics Metal Cruise.”

Well, those fuckheads promoting the floating hotel idea at “Newwest Special Projects” just wouldn’t listen.  From The New York Times, dateline February 2:

Vancouver’s Floating Hotel Pulls the Plug

Hundreds of visitors to the Olympic games in Vancouver are scrambling to find alternative accommodations following the last minute cancellation of a plan to use a cruise ship as a floating hotel.

Newwest Special Projects, a subsidiary of a travel agency based in Edmonton, Alberta, said in a statement late Tuesday that it has abandoned its much publicized plan, “due to slower than expected sales along with expenses associated with the charter that were higher than anticipated.” . . .

Exactly how many people are affected is not clear. Last year, Newwest said that the ship, the Norwegian Star, has 1,119 staterooms which it hoped to fill with 8,960 guests over the run of the Games. Some Canadian news reports indicated that about 1,000 people had made bookings. . . . The Toronto Star reported on Wednesday that the disappointed include 11 seriously ill children who were booked into the hotel by Make A Wish foundations in the United States, Canada and Australia. . . .

Because of a lack of space at Vancouver’s cruise ship terminal, the plan was to dock the Norwegian Star at a commercial port across the Burrard Inlet in suburban North Vancouver, otherwise best known for holding large, yellow piles of sulfur.

We have no doubt that some really astute business whiz could have found a few flaws in our proposal for converting the floating-hotel-thing into an immovable extreme metal show. But really, how could it have been any worse than this reality? Docking the ship at a port best known for storing big piles of sulfur? Stranding 11 seriously ill children?

All together now, repeat after me.  If we all say it at the same time and say it really loud, maybe the geniuses at Newwest Special Projects will hear us:

FUUUUUUCK YOOOUUUUUUU!!!

LIVING SACRIFICE: THE INFINITE ORDER (Part 2)

 Album Reviews, Mosh Pit  2 Responses »
Feb 042010
 

Yesterday, in the first of a two-part feature, we posted our review of the new album by Living Sacrifice. Today, we’re posting (for want of a better word) a meditation on these questions: When there’s no clean singing in extreme metal, do the lyrics really matter? And if they do, how do they matter?

THE MEDITATION: Think about songs in which you can hear the words. Sometimes the lyrics can be important. Beautifully crafted lyrics can tell a story that sticks with you, or they can express ideas or emotions in a way that resonates like poetry.

That kind of lyricism can combine with the music in a way that produces something more powerful than the sum of the parts — the words enhance the music and vice-versa, and each makes the other more memorable.

Of course, those things are possible only if you can hear the words. In extreme metal songs with no clean singing, you can’t hear all the words or sometimes any of them.  It’s rarely the content of the lyrics that contributes to the emotional appeal of those songs. Instead, what matters is the sound of the singer’s voice, which functions mainly as another instrument.

As a consequence, the songwriter’s ability to create memorable lyrics is often pretty unimportant in this subgenre. On those rare occasions when I look up the lyrics to a metal song I like, I’m not surprised to find that usually the lyrics suck – and I don’t really care that they suck because they don’t matter much to what I hear or how I feel about the music.

I suspect that lyrics rarely play an important part in the creation of extreme music either. Most bands seem to work out the riffs, the rhythms, and the melodies first (if melody happens to be a part of the band’s sound), and the lyrics are added later.  By definition, the words aren’t inspiring the sound; if anything, the reverse is true. Sometimes, the words seem to have nothing at all to do with the feeling that the music conveys. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

LIVING SACRIFICE: THE INFINITE ORDER

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 032010
 

We’ve been fucking around with cruise ship jokes the last few days, but it’s time to get back to what this site is really about – the music we live by. And we’re getting back to it in a serious way.

This is an album review, but it will be followed by a meditation on the lyrical content (or lack thereof) of extreme metal and the connection (or lack thereof) between the lyrical content and the music. And what prompted that meditation is the album we’re reviewing — the new full-length release from Living Sacrifice. So, today, the album, and tomorrow, the meditation.

THE ALBUM: Last week we traveled to distant lands and wrote about some ear-catching performers from Greece (Gux Drax), Costa Rica (Sight of Emptiness), Italy (Vomit the Soul), France (Eryn Non Dae, DOPPLeR, Zubrowska), and Sweden (Valkyrja). But today we’re back in America — really back — discussing the best release yet by a powerfully influential band from Arkansas.

Living Sacrifice originally came into being in 1988, broke up in 2002, and reunited in 2008 with a six-week US tour (“Stronger Than Hell”) headlined by Seattle metalcore band Demon Hunter. That’s when I became a Living Sacrifice convert. I caught the “Stronger Than Hell” tour when it passed through Seattle, and in my opinion, LS stole the show. Not even a close call.

Of course, I had to go get oriented with their whole catalogue, and that only made me a more devoted fan. So I’ve been waiting impatiently for The Infinite Order. And it’s finally here — the band’s seventh release, and the first full-length of all-new music since 2002’s Conceived in Fire.

Years of working can produce staleness or lazy repetition of comfortable formulas. But this album is powerful and vibrantly alive. In the case of Living Sacrifice, the fire within has not gone out and the years of experience reveal themselves in superior song-writing and impeccable musicianship.  (more after the jump, including a track to stream  . . .) Continue reading »

CRUISE SHIP CLUSTERFUCK (Part 2)

 Mosh Pit  No Responses »
Feb 022010
 

Yesterday we imagined the questions we’ll be asking when that disaster-waiting-to-happen, the 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise, returns to port in late January 2011. And then what should greet our bloodshot eyes in this morning’s Seattle Times but this story, excerpted as follows:

Plan to use cruise ship as Olympics hotel hits rough water

Despite sharply cutting prices, a Canadian tour company has been unable to entice customers to a cruise ship it planned to used as a floating hotel during the Winter Olympics, and is scrambling to keep the idea afloat.

Meanwhile, customers who already have booked rooms on the Norwegian Star are uncertain whether they’ll need to look for other hard-to-find lodging in Vancouver. . . . A statement released by Newwest Special Projects said, “Our sales have not been what we had hoped for and our expenses have increased beyond what we ever expected.” . . .

Rates aboard the 1,100-room ship, once planned to top $1,000 U.S. a night, dropped to $500 last fall and, as of Monday, were listed on the company’s Web site as low as $275 a night, including meals and onboard entertainment. . . . One of Newwest’s investors in Alberta, Abe Neufeld, told the CBC that negotiations over the ship’s contracts are “tense” and a “tough struggle,” but he remained hopeful the project would go ahead.

Those fuckheads at “Newwest Special Projects” didn’t ask our advice, but we’re giving it anyway: Drop the nightly room price to the cost of a decent metal show ($20), keep the bars open 24-7, change the entertainment to non-stop live metal, and bill it as “The Immovable Fuck-the-Olympics Metal Cruise.” Why does this make sense? And why is it a big improvement over the 70,000 Tons of Metal Tour? Read on after the jump . . . Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 022010
 

No, we’re not talking about the swine flu, or the avian flu, or the next animal virus that decides humans would be a nice host environment upgrade. We’re talking about new metal that has the potential to be sick.

On the first day of the New Year, we posted a round-up of new extreme metal albums forecast for release 2010, along with our list of the 21 we most wanted to hear.

One month has now passed, and we’ve discovered some forthcoming releases we didn’t know about on January 1. Seems like a good time for an update! So, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about forthcoming albums from 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 fit the profile of music we cover on this site (with a couple of Exceptions to the Rule).

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources over the last 31 days about forthcoming releases we missed in our January 1 list:

AGALLOCH: “So what can we expect from the band’s long-awaited follow-up to Ashes Against the Grain? According to an interview songwriter John Haughm gave to German TV last May, ‘expect the unexpected.’ Haughm says that the next release will be ‘completely different’ from its predecessors — ‘a bit darker,’ closer to black metal, but with the same kind of dynamics that Agalloch is known for.  As for when we can expect the new album, Haughm said that he hoped it would be out by May 2010.”

APOCALYPTICA:  “Finnish rock cello quartet APOCALYPTICA has entered Sonic Pump studios in Helsinki to begin recording its new album for a spring/summer release.” [This is one of those Exceptions to the Rule.]

APOSTASY: “Four new songs from the Swedish black metal act APOSTASY are available for streaming on the band’s MySpace page. The tracks will appear on the group’s forthcoming third full-length album, Nuclear Messiah, which will be released later in the year.”  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

DID THEY MAKE IT BACK?

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Feb 012010
 

Blabbermouth ran the following story on January 12:

TROUBLE, AMON AMARTH and SODOM are among the confirmed bands for the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise, which is set to sail from Miami, Florida to Cozumel, Mexico on January 24, 2011 and return four days later. The festival billing is shaping up as follows:

AMON AMARTH
 SODOM
 SONATA ARCTICA
 STRATOVARIUS
 TROUBLE
 WITCHBURNER

A posting on the festival’s web site reads, “Imagine starting the year in style. In January 2011, when everyone else is stuck with cold weather, snow and rain, 40 heavy metal bands and 2,000 fans will take over a luxury cruise ship in the Caribbean for a five-day and four-night trip of a lifetime. Tons of onboard live shows on several indoor and outdoor stages, open-mic nights, bars that never close, a fun- and sun-filled day on the beautiful island of Cozumel and an opportunity to mingle side-by-side with the artists in this incredibly fan-friendly scenario that has no comparison. It’s like everyone has a backstage pass. You might even need a vacation from this vacation when all is said and done!”

OK. Now imagine it’s about a year from now. The cruise was supposed to leave January 24, and return in four days. So, they should be back to shore by now. So here’s what we’ll be asking on January 28, 2011:

  • Is there anything left of the ship?
  • “70,000 Tons of Metal” — but what was the total tonnage of weed smuggled on board?
  • How many people went over the side, never to be seen again?
  • How many people were hospitalized along the way?
  • How many passengers are still in jail on Cozumel?
  • How many tourists signed up for this, thinking it was just a normal Caribbean cruise?
  • Did Amon Amarth eat any of those tourists?
  • Was the bilge big enough to hold all the projectile vomiting?
  • Did anyone actually go up on deck into the sunlight?
  • Have photos surfaced on the interwebs?

Can’t wait for January 28, 2011. Seriously.

UPDATE:  For our latest update on this cruise, go to this location.

“THAT’S METAL” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (No. 3)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  2 Responses »
Feb 012010
 

In today’s installment of our irregular featured called “That’s Metal” — But It’s Not Music, we’re focusing on two fiery European festivals, both of which we stumbled on at Boston.com.

First up: Up Helly Aa

This festival celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian vikings in the Shetland Islands of Scotland, marking the end of the yule season. The event culminates with up to 1,000 “guizers” (men dressed up as Vikings) throwing flaming torches into a Viking longship. Seems that this theme has been used at the festival since 1870. Of course it has. How can you improve on perfection?

This burning-the-Viking-galley event happens all over Shetland, but it’s only in Lerwick (situs of the photos from the January 26 installment that we’re featuring in this post) where the galley isn’t sent seaward. Everywhere else, the flaming galley goes into the sea, in an echo of actual Viking sea burials.

So, why do we think this is metal?  Well, first off, it’s called Up Helly Aa. That just sounds metal, particularly if you imagine screaming it at the top of your lungs while carrying a torch and jammin’ on some Amon Amarth.

And besides, can’t you just imagine how this thing got started?  “Hey dude! It’s the end of the fucking holidays. We need to have a special blowout!  I know! Let’s drink a few tankards of mead, dress up like fucking Vikings, and go set some shit on fire!”  Now that’s metal, isn’t it?

Now, don’t stop here. There’s more fiery craziness on display after the jump . . . Continue reading »

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