MONDAY MORNING MONTAGE OF MAYHEM

May 172010

Most of the music we write about here at NCS is the kind of thing you’d see in the dictionary as examples under the word “bludgeoning.” But for today, we were all set to write about a couple of new albums over on the more melodic side of extreme metal — with some actual clean singing! Ah, but you know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men (to quote Robert Burns, they “gang aft agley”).

So, one of our readers (“death’s embrace”) had tossed out a few band recommendations over the last few days, and we thought we’d give ’em a quick once-over before starting on those reviews we had planned. We did that — just a wee taste to see what the music was like — and promptly veered right off the rails and down into a big brier patch of nastiness.

We’re still picking thorns out of our butts, so the melodic music will have to wait another day or two. Today, we have a montage of the mayhem we discovered courtesy of that thorny detour from our appointed path. If you’re looking for metal about (and possibly played by) cannibalistic zombies, read on.

FACEBREAKER

We knew what we were getting into with this band. If the name “Facebreaker” hadn’t been enough of a tip-off, we also had the following note from “death’s embrace” as a clue: “IMHO, a great death metal band from Sweden. Plus all the songs on their last album are about zombies.” Well, who could resist that kind of teaser? Not us!

The band’s latest album crawled out of the grave in 2008 with the title Dead, Rotten and Hungry, and the songs are indeed about zombies, with such mouth-watering titles as “Slowly Rotting”, “Night of the Burning Dead”, and Unanimated Flesh”. And the sound is indeed classic Swedish death metal, in the vein of Dismember and Grave. It’s punishing, but with meaty hooks — rusty chainsaws spinning at full speed and flinging gore in every direction, plus suitably demented guttural vocals. We like it! (more after the jump, including music to stream . . .) Continue reading »

DIO

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May 172010

The following message was posted on the official Ronnie James Dio web site (here) yesterday:

Message from Wendy Dio

Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.

– Wendy Dio

You can leave your condolences on Facebook

(Excerpts from the Associated Press story about Dio’s passing follow after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HOWL

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

May 162010

We like five things about the new Relapse Records release from a Rhode Island band called Howl: the album cover, the name of the album, the name of the band, the lyrics. Oh yeah, we like the music, too.

First things first — the album cover.

Now, we can hear some of you saying, who gives a shit about the cover art if the music sucks? Well, you’re entitled to your fucking opinion. But in our fucking opinion, this band could sound like a garbage truck backing up and this album cover would still stand the test of time. Plus, we saw the album cover before we heard the music, so it comes first.

Just gaze upon that sucker at the top of this post. It’s really only half of the full image. To see the full thing in all its hellish glory, you need the CD insert to unfold. Looks like this:

The artwork is by Ryan Begley. He’s done artwork for Pelican, Clouds, Ruiner, Doomriders, and other bands, but we gotta say he’s outdone himself with this one. Skulls, flames, skeletal hand, glowing triangle, and plenty of eyeballs (you can never have too many eyeballs) — all rendered in appropriately hell-hot colors. And it meshes beautifully with one of those other things we like — the album title (Full of Hell). OK, now for the music: It’s devilishly good. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

BANG YO HEAD, AND DROOL BLOOD

Metal News 2 Responses »

May 152010

Last December we gushed (here) about the debut album (An Awakening) by Portland death-metal band Those Who Lie Beneath. They’ve now released an official video for one of the tracks off that album, “Awaken”. It’s one of the featured videos currently running on MySpace Metal. You could go there to watch it. Or you could just watch it here on NCS.

If you don’t know the song, it’s a real scorcher. Some brutalized technical death metal, but headbang-friendly. We’re still try to figure out whether we like the video. The shots of the dudes ripping the shit out of this song are way cool. It’s the little blonde with the strange dietary habit that’s got us scratching our heads. We were starting to get in the mood for some breakfast before we saw this. Now? Not so much.

Eat first, then watch.

MULLAH SPEAKS AGAIN (it just gets worse)

Mosh Pit 2 Responses »

May 152010

Iran is a culturally rich country and heir to one of the most ancient civilizations on earth. Unfortunately, it’s currently being run by lunatics.

A few weeks back we were so gobsmacked by the pronouncement of a senior Iranian cleric (a mullah) that we put up a post about it (here), even though we had to strain to connect it up with metal. The pronouncement in question, by Kazem Sedighi, was that women in Iran who dressed immodestly were causing earthquakes. Turns out that Sedighi was just getting warmed up. Here’s the latest bit of lunacy, as reported in this morning’s Seattle Times:

“A prominent hard-line Iranian cleric elaborated on his claim that promiscuity and immodest dress cause earthquakes, saying Friday that God may be holding off on natural disasters in the West in order to let people sin more and doom themselves to hell.

The cleric, Kazem Sedighi, sparked widespread derision with his pronouncements in a prayer sermon last month that women who don’t dress modesty spread adultery in society, in turn increasing earthquakes.

In Tehran’s main weekly prayer sermon on Friday, he defended the claim but added some further explanation on why some places are hit more than others.

(the article continues after the jump, if you’ve got the stomach for it . . .) Continue reading »

PARENTS

Mosh Pit 11 Responses »

May 152010

I suppose this topic is sappy, and sappy isn’t metal. But maybe it really is. You be the judge. And if you conclude this is just too much emotional tripe, chalk it up to an excess of tequila

What motivated us to write about parents (besides too much tequila) was our recent piece on an awesome KC band called Ares Kingdom and some messages we received in response to it. In addition to praising the music, we praised the album art — the kind of thing that many bands do poorly, and that’s often lost in our download culture when it’s done well.

The album art on the Ares Kingdom release is truly inspired, though you’ll never see what we mean unless you fork over the dough to buy a CD. As we explained in our review, the 16-page booklet that comes with the CD is a montage of historical artwork by many artists (including the cover art, which was created by Joseph Pennell in the last year of World War I), and the lyrics are written over the top of the art in beautiful silver calligraphy.

We read the liner notes too quickly and wrote in our review that the calligraphy was done by this band’s awesome guitarist Chuck Keller. That appears to have been an error, as was pointed out by a comment on our post by Splash. According to the comment, it was done by Chuck’s father. And that (along with the fucking tequila) made us think about parents.

We don’t know Chuck Keller, or his dad. What we do know is this: We don’t deserve our parents. We don’t “earn” them. They are who they are, and we are who we are. If they love and support us (as appears to be true of Chuck Keller’s dad), that’s a gift, for which we should be fucking thankful. If they fail to understand us, or worse, if they undermine and damage us, it’s usually not our fault, though we so powerfully take our cues from them that we think it is. (more of this after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE HOWLING WIND

Album Reviews No Responses »

May 142010

The Howling Wind are brilliant, like shards of splintered ice gleaming in the sun of a wintry sky.

If we had any sense, we’d stop the review of the band’s second album, Into the Cryosphere, right there and call it a day. But we can’t remember the last time anyone accused us of having any sense. So, onward and upward! The who, the what, the why . . .

The Who: The Howling Wind are a two-person band. One of the two is Ryan Lipynsky (formerly known as Killusion). He lives in Brooklyn and has made something of a cult name for himself in bands called Thralldom and Unearthly Trance. He plays the guitars and the bass and provides the vocals.

The other is Tim Call (a/k/a Parasitus Nex). He lives up in our neck of the woods, in Portland, Oregon. He’s involved (or has been involved) with other bands, including Aldebaran and Hail. He also runs a cool on-line music store called Parasitic Records. He plays the drums.

The What: This bi-coastal duo has melted down blocks of classic black-metal, death ‘n roll, psychedelia, doom, and sludge, mixed that slurried slush together, and then re-frozen it into a killer listening experience. (more after the jump, including a track to stream . . .) Continue reading »

NOT-SO-FUNNY SHIT GETS EVEN WORSE

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May 132010

Yesterday, we reported the bad news about what happened to one of our favorite death-metal bands, Hour of Penance, at their show in Alicante, Spain not long ago. In a nutshell, the band’s drummer Mauro Mercurio was unable to play on stage (apparently due to being too fucked up) and had destroyed or damaged property at the venue, resulting in detention by Spanish police. And all of that led Hour of Penance to cancel the remaining dates on their European tour.

Well, the news just gets worse and worse. Today we saw a blog post by Francesco Paoli, the frontman for Hour of Penance. Correction — ex-frontman. And that’s the worse news: Francesco has announced that he has left Hour of Penance as a result of the incident in Alicante. We’re re-printing his blog post with the full explanation after the jump.

This is a truly fucked-up development. Earlier this year, Hour of Penance released their best album yet — Paradogma — one of our favorites of the year so far. They looked like they were really hitting their stride and bound for even greater things. And now, virtually overnight, the band is disintegrating.

We’re not blaming Francesco for his decision. Read his blog post, and you’ll understand it. It’s just sad news for fans of Hour of Penance. The saving grace is that Francesco remains active in his other band, the ungodly good Fleshgod Apocalypse — and that band has completed a new album (Mafia) that will be released in the U.S. on June 8.

Now, continue on after the jump to see Francesco’s depressing blog post.

UPDATE: We’ve added a more recent post with additional details from Francesco that emerged after the statement you’ll see following the jump. Those further details suggest that Hour of Penance may not be dead after all and that Francesco was planning to leave the band even before the incident in Alicante. You can read all about it by following this link.

ARES KINGDOM

Album Reviews 9 Responses »

May 132010

With damned few exceptions, we only write about bands we like. So if you come here often, you’re used to reading compliments about this band or that one. If we only give compliments — even when we really mean every one of them — maybe it starts to get difficult to make an impact with our praise. What do superlatives really mean when everything you say is a superlative?

Some people say that about us, but we really don’t fucking care. We ain’t changing our ways. Plus, we think we know how to make clear when a band really throws us out into an abyss of awesomeness that’s deep and wide — when a collective of musicians truly caves in our skulls in an irreparable way. Today is one of those days, the band is Ares Kingdom, and the album is aptly called Incendiary.

This is one of those instances when we feel especially challenged in our ability to accurately describe in words a sensation produced by powerful sounds. Obviously, we’re gonna try, but all we can hope to achieve is rough justice. You gotta listen for yourself to really understand what these dudes have pulled off.

How to sum this up? What’s striking about this band is their ability to connect deeply to the roots of thrash and death metal and make those sounds come alive with the same power and authenticity that have caused the genres to live as long as they have, but at the same time to create something new and amazing. (continue reading after the jump, and listen to an awesome song from Ares Kingdom . . .) Continue reading »

NOT-SO-FUNNY SHIT (Hour of Penance Update)

Metal News No Responses »

May 122010

I guess this post is a bookend to the first one we put up today. It involves some sucky breaking news from Italian death-metal band Hour of Penance. Shit happens to all sorts of bands every day, and we usually don’t comment. But we really dig Hour of Penance — their new album Paradogma is one of our favorite releases of 2010 to date (see our review here) — and we know a lot of you dig the band, too.

So, here’s the story. Hour of Penance was on the tail end of a European tour, playing at a venue called “Coyote Ugly” in Alicante, Spain. Soon after taking the stage, it became apparent that the drummer Mauro Mercurio wasn’t able to play, and the band announced that it would have to cancel the set. Employees of the venue then began seizing the band’s equipment and other belongings, and the police were called in.

Turns out that before taking the stage, Mercurio had smashed a 50-inch flat-screen TV and done other unspecified damage to the venue. Mercurio was taken off to the police station and detained for 48 hours, at least in part because his ID had been taken by the venue’s employees. Eventually, all the band members were able to make it back home to Italy, but had to cancel the last 3 shows of the tour in Spain.

The band’s official statement on this incident, which we’ll reprint after the jump, refers to this as “what looks like to be our last tour with this line up.” Not good. Mauro Mercurio is one truly amazing drummer, but, reading between the lines, it appears he’s got a problem with intoxicants. We hope the dude is able to sort out his shit and get back on track. And we hope Hour of Penance can rebuild and move forward. The band’s official statement, with more details about this incident, follows after the jump.

UPDATE: The news has gotten worse. We’ve just learned that as a result of the incident in Alicante, Hour of Penance vocalist Francesco Paoli has left the band. You can read about those depressing details at this location.

FURTHER UPDATE: We’ve added an even more recent post with further details from Francesco, including the suggestion that Hour of Penance may not be dead after all. Check it out by following this link.

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