MOTHERFUCKER

 Concert Reviews  10 Responses »
Jan 082011
 

One thing I like about writing this blog is I can use the word “motherfucker” whenever I want.  I can’t use that word in the writing I do for my day job, much as I’d like to, but I know none of you will take offense. After all, metalheads get called “motherfuckers” all the time — most often by bands they’re paying good money to see at shows.

Pause and reflect for a moment on that phenomenon: There really aren’t many forms of entertainment where the performers routinely call paying members of the audience “motherfuckers”. Maybe that happens at rap concerts, though I wouldn’t know. I do know it happens routinely at metal shows. If I had $100 for every time a frontman for a metal band has called me a motherfucker, I could fucking retire.

I’ll grant you, motherfucker is a great word. Sometimes, no other word will do, like when some motherfucker unexpectedly swerves his car into my lane in heavy traffic. But still, isn’t it a little bit odd to hear a band’s vocalist call all his adoring fans motherfuckers at the top of his lungs?

Last time I got called a motherfucker was at a show I saw in Seattle on the night of December 30. Neurosis was at the top of the bill, with support from Wolves in the Throne Room and a Seattle band called Black Breath. I’d heard a lot about Black Breath but hadn’t yet checked out their 2010 Southern Lord debut, Heavy Breathing, much less seen them in the flesh. They put on a loud, raucous, energetic set of heavily thrash-influenced death metal, including a sweet cover of Sepultura’s “Desperate Cry”, which you can see right after the jump (along with more impressions of that concert). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2010’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 12

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2010  No Responses »
Jan 082011
 

Today we have two more additions to our list of most infectious songs.  Just in case you’re visiting NCS for the first time today, read this if you want to know our definition of “most infectious” and visit the Category link on the right of this page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS – 2010 to see and hear the other 22 songs we’ve named to the list so far. And to cut the suspense and get to the point, today’s songs are from Enslaved and God Dethroned.

ENSLAVED

Sometimes we don’t review albums because we know they’re going to be swamped with critical attention from all quarters, including net sites and magazines with massively larger audiences than we have here. Those albums don’t need our help, and so usually (though not always) we tend to focus more on bands that might slip under the radar of those other media outlets. And so it was with the 2010 release from Enslaved.

The absence of an NCS review didn’t mean we were meh about Axioma Ethica Odini. Far from it. In our opinion, the album was one of last year’s highlights. We weren’t alone in thinking that.  Several of our guest contributors who provided Best of 2010 lists for us — including Fredrik Huldtgren and Andy Synn — also raved about the album.  (more after the jump, including those tracks we like so much . . .) Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 1: ASTARTE – AN INTRODUCTION AND RETROSPECTIVE

 THE SYNN REPORT  12 Responses »
Jan 072011
 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the debut of a new column which Islander has kindly allowed me to write and display here at NoCleanSinging.

Each week (ok, whenever I get round to it, they may not be weekly – or they may be more frequent, we’ll see) I’m going to be providing an introduction, a retrospective, or simply a re-consideration of  a band which I feel merits the treatment. Certain bands will be more well known than others, and primarily these bands will be part of THE SYNN REPORT simply because I feel that with all the bullshit media hype in the world, the band in question has been perhaps judged unfairly due to the influence of matters non-musical. Certain bands, however, you may not have heard of before at all, as although I do not consider myself a paragon of underground taste, there is only so much time each of us can devote to finding new music and really exploring it. Hopefully this column will help a little!

Each column will deal with a single musical entity, considering their works and progression in turn. Certain columns will be dedicated perhaps simply to eras in a band’s career and progression, considering and evaluating changes in style and direction with the benefit of hindsight and (hopefully) critical objectivity. Although that probably won’t last very long!

Anyway, for my first column I would like to introduce you to the Greek band ASTARTE.  (more after the jump, including sample songs from the band’s discography . . .) Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2010’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 11

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2010  3 Responses »
Jan 072011
 

As of yesterday, we had rolled out, in no particular order, 20 of the metal songs released in 2010 that we thought were the most infectious (and if you’re just joining us, read this to find out what we’re talking about). Here’s the list so far:

Byfrost: “Desire”
Evocation: “Sweet Obsession”
Keep of Kalessin: “Dragon iconography”
Living Sacrifice: “Rules of Engagement”
Kataklysm: “Suicide River”
Kalmah: “Bullets Are Blind”
Finntroll: “Solsagan”
Eluveitie: “Thousandfold”
Coliseum: “Blind In One Eye”
Kvelertak: “Blodtørst”
Demonic Resurrection: “The Unrelenting Surge of Vengeance”
Sargeist: “Empire of Suffering”
Heaven Shall Burn: “Combat”
Kenos: “Revolver Revival”
Soilwork: “Epitome”
As I Lay Dying: “Anodyne Sea”
Cloudkicker: “We’re goin’ in. We’re going down”
King Conquer: “Wasted Potential”
Canopy: “Menhir”
Incarnia: “Yersinia Pestis”

We’re now starting on the home stretch, with 10 songs left to go. Yes, we finally gave up trying to chop the list down below 30; just too painful. Today’s new entries on the list are from Rotting Christ and Arise. They’re quite different from each other, but they’re both guaranteed to get your head banging.  (hear the songs after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ARTILLERIE: ERADEFILED

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Jan 062011
 

[EDITOR’S NOTE: When we recently named a song by India’s Demonic Resurrection to our list of last year’s most infectious tunes, we observed that 2010 was the year in which we here at NCS had discovered the joys of Indian metal. In addition to DR, we heard and wrote about albums by Bhayanak Maut, Infernal Wrath, Heathen Beast, and Skrypt. And we also expressed our interest in continuing to explore Indian metal in the New Year. That led to a correspondence with Siddharth Darbha, a musician and close observer of the Indian metal scene. Today, we’re posting the first of what we hope will be regular contributions from Siddharth about Indian metal. This one is his review of a new album by New Delhi’s Artillerie.]

Artillerie’s 2008 release, New Offensive, was well received and validated the addition of a new flavor to Indian metal from a capital perspective, joined by Undying Inc.’s EP, Evilution Of A Manimal. New Offensive was exceedingly groovy and live-worthy, in-your-face material, and it invited high expectations from fans. Artillerie has been playing for about four years now and took a lot of time out, playing comparatively few gigs and concentrating on writing new material. They released a two-song EP Prelude To Chaos, featuring trailers of their new album, Eradefiled.

Artillerie tied up with Grey and Saurian Records to work on Eradefiled, later choosing to release it independently as a free internet download. (You can download it here.) It consists of 9 songs spanning 40 minutes. Artillerie spent a lot of time adding depth to the theme of this lyrically conceptual album, with their blog detailing the self-fashioned fictional background storyline for their album.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2010’S MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS: PART 10

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2010  4 Responses »
Jan 062011
 

If you’ve been a regular reader of NCS since August, then you’ll know there was no way we would finish this list of “most infectious” songs without including today’s two additions to the list. It seemed like the whole month of August at NCS was devoted to these two bands — and with good reason: The music just grabbed us by the throat, the back of the neck, and other body parts that will go unmentioned, and wouldn’t let go.

Neither band has yet achieved the level of global visibility captured by most of the other bands whose songs are on this list, but that’s simply a sign of how much good metal is being created that, for one reason or another, hasn’t yet made the kind of big cannonball splash that the music deserves. We count ourselves lucky that we found these bands. We hope we’ve done our picayune part to expand their audience. Selfishly, we hope they continue to create the kind of music we’re featuring here today.

If you happen to be tuning into this series for the first time and wonder what we mean by “most infectious”, read this. To see the 18 songs we named to the list before today, click the Category link over on the right called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2010. And to read more about the next two songs — and hear them, if you haven’t already — follow us after the jump for todays’s songs from Canopy and Incarnia. Continue reading »

PARTY HEARTY, BLEED PROFUSELY, AND THEN DROWN IN AGONY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 052011
 

The post title is our way of summing up two new videos we saw yesterday and a new song we just heard. We exercised a bit of literary license in doing that, but we know you’ll forgive us.

The first video is from The Burning — a Danish band whose 2010 album Hail the Horde we’ve had a blast listening to since it was released in November. We’ve previously featured the first video from that album, for the awesomely headbangable song “Bait the Hook” (go here for that). The Burning have now released a second video for the album’s title track. It’s a straight-ahead, no frills party anthem, and the video matches up quite nicely with the music — a montage of performance footage and behind-the-scenes clowning around.

The second video is for a song called “None Shall See” by a Swedish death metal band called My Own Grave. The songs comes off the band’s latest album, Necrology, which was produced by the ubiquitous Dan Swanö at Unisound and released on Pulverised records last July. We haven’t heard the album yet, but this song makes us want to. It’s old-school Swedeath with modern attention to hooks and grooves. And there’s lots of bleeding in the video, like the bleeding that would occur if someone hit you in the mouth with a brick.

And then there’s that new song, now available for free download, by The Project Hate MCMXCIX. It’s an epic-length, 12 1/2-minute offering that we won’t even attempt to sum up in words.  So, get ready to party, bleed, and drown . . . after the jump. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 25)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  8 Responses »
Jan 052011
 

Time for another edition of THAT’S METAL!, where we attempt to entertain you with things that aren’t music but are still metal — as in items that would make you say, “Shit! That’s fucking metal!” — at least if you liked the words “shit” and “fucking” as much as I do.

Usually, we pick wacko news stories for these posts, but today we got on a video kick. In fact, three of our four items are videos. Two of those are visually stunning, and the third one is . . . fucking funny as shit. And the fourth item consist of drink recipes. I just know you’ll want to try them out for yourselves without delay, and then write us with photos and descriptions of the tasting experience. I really encourage you to do that, because there’s no fucking way in hell I’m doing it.

ITEM ONE

This first item is a short film by Carl Erik Rinsch called “Parallel Lines – The Gift”, which I first saw on the consistently awesome TYWKIWDBI blog. It was made for the promotion of the Philips Cinema TV. Philips gave six lines of dialogue to five filmmakers at Ridley Scott Associates, and commissioned each of them to create short films using those lines. All five were released by Philips last April. “The Gift” is one of them, and the one I thought was the best.

It’s a futuristic piece set in Moscow that involves a robot on the run from the police. It’s amazing to watch, and reportedly spawned a bidding war between several big Hollywood movie studios, including Warner Bros and Fox, who want to turn the short film into a feature. Rinsch is currently developing a remake of Creature From The Black Lagoon and is in preproduction on an “epic period samurai film” titled 47 Ronin starring that great thespian Keanu Reeves.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2010’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 9

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2010  2 Responses »
Jan 052011
 

So far, our list of most infectious songs has been heavily weighted with music from European bands. But today we’re adding selections by two bands from the good old U.S. of A (though the word “band” is a misnomer in the case of one of the artists). And if you happen to be tuning into this series for the first time and wonder what we mean by “most infectious”, read this. To see the 16 songs we named to the list before today, click the Category link over on the right called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2010.

CLOUDKICKER

Here at NCS, we were latecomers to the musical phenomenon known as Cloudkicker. But late is better than never, and when we had our eyes opened, they opened wide. NCS co-founder and occasional contributor IntoTheDarkness put Cloudkicker’s 2010 album, Beacons, at No. 3 on his personal list of the year’s Top 25 releases, calling it “the best instrumental album all year.”

Our regular contributor BadWolf had it at No. 6 on his list of the year’s best, calling it “one of the first pieces of genuinely brilliant metal-as-art to be released not only outside of the label system but outside of capitalism period.”

And another of our frequent contributors, The Artist Formerly Known As Dan, assigned it to the No. 8 position on his best-of-2010 list, with these words: “He doesn’t need a label because he can already do everything he needs to by himself.  And he’s beyond talented.”  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE FAMINE: “AD MORTEM”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 042011
 

Seems like it was only yesterday that we had a metaphorical orgasm over a new song from a forthcoming album.

Huh. It actually was only yesterday. No wonder it seemed like only yesterday. Well, yesterday we were raving about a new song from Omnium Gatherum. And it seems like only today that we came across a brand new song from a brand new forthcoming album by yet another band we’re very high on — The Famine.

Actually, it was only today when we came across this song. Because The Famine only posted the song a few hours ago.

If you don’t know The Famine, you should check out this song, or you can check out their 2008 album, The Raven and the Reaping, which is fantastic. The new album will be called The Architect of Guilt, and it’s scheduled for release on February 15 on Solid State Records. The Famine has had more than its fair share of trouble finishing this album. Among other things, their studio burned down last February, destroying all their equipment and all the tracking for the new album as it then existed.

But based on this song, the wait and the travails were worth it. This song is a blistering, hair-raising, full-on, high-speed assault — but with a mighty sweet groove. Continue past the jump, and listen to “Ad Mortem”. Continue reading »

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