Apr 122010
 

The Twilight of the Thunder God Tour II featuring Amon Amarth, Eluveitie, and Holy Grail, stopped at the Showbox in Seattle last night. All three of your NCS Co-Authors were there, despite the fact that two of us were still a bit bleary-eyed from attending the Dillinger Escape Plan show the night before at El Corazon (you can see our write-up on that show and photos here). On the other hand, it would have taken major bodily injury to keep us away from a chance to see Amon Amarth in person.

We took so many photos of this show that we’re going to split this post into two parts (plus it was another late night and we have day jobs that require our fucking attention very shortly). Today, we’ll say a few words about Holy Grail and Eluveitie, with photos from their sets at the end of the write-up, and then tomorrow — tomorrow will be all about the awesomeness that is Amon Amarth in concert. Don’t miss that!

(continue on after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Apr 112010
 

“Doin’ It Live ‘Til We’re Dead” appears to be the motto of The Dillinger Escape Plan for 2010. They passed through Seattle and stopped for a show at El Corazon on the night of April 10, with support from Darkest Hour, Animals As Leaders, and local favorites 7 Horns 7 Eyes. Two of your three NCS Co-Authors were on hand for the fun, and we file this report. In a word, the show was just amazing from start to finish. And for a change, we got some decent photos. You can see a lot more of them at the end of the write-up.

7HORNS 7 EYES

We last saw this local quintet (featuring two pairs of brothers) on January 26 as support for the Metal As Art tour. We hadn’t seen or heard them before that show, but they made a huge impression. We wrote then: “‘Epic” is an overused word in our community, but it truly suits the music that 7H7E delivers. The music is atmospheric but technical . . . It’s some mesmerizing shit!”

And it was more of the same last night: Complex, mid-tempo rhythms, sweeping melodies, a mix of growly and high-pitched vocals, tight instrumental interludes — and their own light show, with the fog machine pumping out the smoke. This is some mighty tasty progressive/death-metal fusion. And based on some mid-set comments from the stage, it appears we will finally have a debut album in the next couple of months. An awesome way to start the night!

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

Apr 102010
 

We’ve been diehard fans of Heaven Shall Burn for eons. Or at least years. They’ve got a new album called Invictus due for release on June 8 in the U.S. and on staggered dates from May 21 – May 24 throughout Europe. You can see the recently unveiled album cover above.

And the band has just put up a song from the album, called “The Omen,” for streaming on their MySpace page. It starts with a haunting melody by piano and strings, but at about the 1 minute mark, it erupts. Marcus Bischoff has never sounded better, and the song is a classic HSB killer. You can listen here.

Our status: Pretty fucking stoked to hear the whole album.

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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.

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 »