THE ATTICUS METAL TOUR III: BORN OF OSIRIS, DARKEST HOUR, AS BLOOD RUNS BLACK, AND HUMAN ABSTRACT

 Concert Reviews  11 Responses »
Mar 152011
 

Your three NCS co-founders, plus friends, spent last night at Seattle’s Studio Seven having our eardrums shattered and our brains pulped by an amazingly good set of performances by four very talented bands. I’m not writing this in order to gloat about getting to see the show. You know how sometimes you get so enthusiastic about an experience that the first thing you want to do is call up or text a friend and tell them about it? Well, that’s sort of what I’m doing with this post, but I do want to report a couple of surprises (at least for me) that might be of interest.

I went to the show mainly to see Darkest Hour (despite the fact that I’ve seen them three times before), though I was also curious to see The Human Abstract. It turned out to be an eye-opening night — especially in the case of Born of Osiris and the music they played from their forthcoming third album. All four of these bands have new releases (the one from As Blood Runs Black debuts today), all four played songs from the new albums, and it was all . . . just . . . awesome.

Studio Seven has a simple layout: There’s a big concrete floor and there’s a balcony that includes a bar. The balcony hangs over much of the floor, with the leading edge not more than 30 feet from the front of the stage below. IntoTheDarkness and I got to the venue early and waited in line almost one hour in a cold wind in order to get a perch at the front of the balcony bar area, which gave us (literally) a bird’s eye view of the stage and what turned out to be a packed, roiling mass of humanity directly below us.

Of course, I forgot my fucking camera, but I’m not sure it would have done me any good since the stage was shrouded in smoke effects most of the night. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MICHIEL DEKKER (THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT)

 Interviews  11 Responses »
Mar 152011
 

On the last day of February, we included a brand new song from The Monolith Deathcult in one of our MISCELANNY posts. For us, it was a better-late-than-never introduction to the music of this Dutch band — and that new song continues to be obliteratingly good. You can read the post and hear the song at this location.

That post led to the chance for us to conduct an e-mail interview with Michiel Dekker, the band’s mastermind (and its vocalist/lyricist/guitarist). To prepare for the interview, we browsed TMDC’s Facebook page to get better educated about the band’s latest news, and discovered that it’s one of the more entertaining band pages we’ve yet come across, due to Michiel’s literate, sometimes cryptic, usually quite funny musings.

For example, we saw a poll he was conducting about whether the band’s next album should include any lyrics in Volapük (go here if you want to know what that language is). Other poll candidates included Esperanto and West Country English. There was also a comment about learning to play the saz.

TMDC is painstakingly preparing a new album, to be called Tetragrammaton (unless Michiel and his comrades change their minds). To get a few insights into that work and when it will be ready, and see Michiel deftly and amusingly handle my feeble attempts to ask some off-the-wall questions, follow along after the jump. (and we’ve got an eerily topical song for you, too . . .) Continue reading »

GOJIRA UPDATE

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Mar 142011
 

No, we don’t have any new Gojira music, but we do have an update from the band. We don’t usually post about band updates, but this is Gojira — pretty much the consensus NCS pick for best current metal band in the world, so we are running this update right here, right now (from Gojira’s Facebook page):

“Hello Everybody

We are currently working on a live DVD with important bonus section : “The Way Of All Flesh From The Inside”, the Sea Shepherd EP, (a non profit operation with a lot of people involved is a bit complicated to wrap, but we’re getting there and we promise to release these songs soon). We’re also composing a new album! We’ve written pretty much half of it, and we are very excited by this new material. It’s a big step for us. These songs are original and a good reflection of what we are today.

We are so focused on these things, that sometimes we forget to communicate with you guys, but we’ll try to post more updates from now on.

Big thanks to all of you for your patience and support.

Cheers from the practice room!!!

Gojira”

That is all.

CHILDREN OF BODOM: RELENTLESS, RECKLESS FOREVER

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 142011
 

It’s not a good sign when you begin to play a Children of Bodom album with trepidation, if not downright fear — fear that it would be as largely forgettable as Blooddrunk, fear that one of your personal gateways to the realms of extreme metal would begin to tumble further down the barren road toward formulaic pandering, fear that a band which used to have some real teeth to go along with all the flashy fretwork and power-metal keyboard riffing would begin to gum their food. That was me — fearful.

I am happy to say that, at least for now, those fears have subsided. The new COB disc, Relentless, Reckless Forever, is not as relentless or as reckless as I might have wished, but it’s a step up from the last album. The band genuinely bear their fangs and flex some claws more than they have in recent memory, the borderline-cheesy, pop-metal stylings have been dialed back, and on some songs the band take a few welcome steps outside their comfort zone.

Having said that, not all is completely well in the Land of Bodom. For me, the question posed by the first single, “Was It Worth It?”, is “not really” (despite the presence of an infectious chorus riff). The closer, “Northpole Throwdown”, is a song destined to be forgotten — an uninspired thrash-and-keyboard sandwich that just isn’t spicy enough. And then there’s a number called “Pussyfoot Miss Suicide”. It’s not nearly as embarrassing as the song title (how could it be?). In fact, it’s a heavy song musically, but I made the mistake of reading the lyrics. Embarrasing.

On the other hand, the album includes a collection of real standouts, some of which will make my personal “Best of COB” playlist. (more words after the jump, plus a song . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 27

 MISCELLANY  14 Responses »
Mar 132011
 

For new readers (and yes, we do seem to be picking up new readers steadily, astonishing as that may seem), here’s how these MISCELLANY posts work: We maintain an evolving list of music from bands we’ve not heard before that look interesting. At irregular times, I pick a few names off the list and check out a song or two from each band, not knowing in advance what they’ll sound like, and then record the experiences in an installment of this series. Finally, I add the songs themselves so you can decide for yourself if it’s your kind of thing.

Lots of the music on our MISCELLANY list are band submissions to our humble site. If I had more time, I would like to write full reviews of all of them (or at least all the ones I think would be worth your time), but sadly, it’s just not possible. This series remains the best way I have to spread the word about music that may be as new to you as it is to me.

The caveat is that I don’t know in advance if the music will be good — though in the case of band submissions, I figure the process of self-selection improves the odds that I’ll like it: Any bands who know anything about this site aren’t likely to send their music our way unless they think it will suit our taste in extremity. Unless they’re too high to think straight, which is always a possibility.

Today, all the music is from band submissions. Unlike most of these MISCELLANY forays, I didn’t listen to all of them in one sitting, but instead, spread it out over a few days. But I did listen to them in this random order: Destroying Divinity (The Czech Republic), Dire Omen (Canada), and Wake (Canada). After the jump, my impressions about the music . . . and the music itself. Continue reading »

SYSTEM OF AN AMON AMARTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  20 Responses »
Mar 122011
 

Sometimes, the Internet is a very bad thing. It offers temptations, sometimes temptations that I find irresistible. And I’m not talking about porn. I’m talking about . . . what you’ll find in this post.

The backstory: Amon Amarth was one of the bands on that 70,000 TONS OF METAL cruise that we started making fun of more than a year ago. In fact, in the first of several posts about the cruise, as it was being announced and promoted, we said this on February 2, 2010, imagining what we would be asking a year later as the cruise ship limped back to port:

  • 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?

Well, the cruise is now over, and as far as we know, Amon Amarth didn’t eat any wayward tourists. But Johan Hegg did do a karaoke performance of the best song on System Of A Down‘s Toxicity album, “Aerials”. And yes, his performance did surface on YouTube, and it was, and is, a wondrous thing.

So wondrous, in fact, that Amon Amarth is including a cover of the song as an iTunes-exclusive bonus track on the forthcoming Surtur Rising album. Wanna hear it? Stay with us after the jump, then . . . Continue reading »

AND IF ANYTHING IN YOUR SKULL IS STILL UN-JARRED . . .

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Mar 122011
 

In retrospect, I over-promised in today’s first post. Only three of the songs in that post qualify as skull-rattlers. I’m worried that the fourth one may have allowed your skull contents to settle back into their usual place. Have to fix that.

Lo and behold, I just saw two more videos that will finish the job I tried to start in the first post. One is high-quality footage of Deicide playing live in Denver on March 2. Clips of the entire concert have just been uploaded to YouTube. I picked footage of Deicide performing “Conviction” — one of the songs off the new album, To Hell With God. I’m so bummed I missed this tour when it came through Seattle last weekend. Death fucking metal! Fucking death metal! Metal fucking death!

The second video is for a song by an Albuquerque, NM, band called Noisear. The song is called “The Last Spark of Resistance”. It’s from Noisear’s second full-length, Subvert the Dominant Paradigm, which was released last month on Relapse Records. I haven’t yet heard the album, but this song will give your cranium a thorough death-grind drubbing. The video isn’t terribly original – scenes of natural and man-made apocalyptic occurrences – but as Hobbes said of the life of man in a state of war, the song itself is “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Both clips are after the jump . . . Continue reading »

JAR SOMETHING LOOSE IN YOUR SKULL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  18 Responses »
Mar 122011
 

To start your weekend off right — NCS style — I’ve got four songs for you. Two of them are old (and set to riveting videos) and two of them are brand new. They may seem like a random selection, but there are connections:

(1) The two older songs involve bands that have just cross-pollinated; (2) all four songs will jar something loose in your heads (you weren’t really planning on doing anything with your heads this weekend anyway, were you?); and (3) this music is perfect if you want to be part of the metal IN crowd, because the names of all four bands include the letters “IN”.

Okay, I didn’t say all the connections would necessarily be meaningful. Meaningless connections work for me, too. Anyway, the music I’ve collected is from Origin (U.S.), Skinless (U.S.), Insision (Sweden), and Insense (Norway). Rattle your head . . . after the jump. Continue reading »

RUDRA

 Album Reviews  28 Responses »
Mar 112011
 

Let’s get right to the point: The new album from Singapore’s Rudra is brilliant. From beginning to end, it’s one of the most engaging works of metal we’ve heard this year.

In the ancient Indian collection of Sanskrit hymns known as the Rigveda, Rudra is referred to as a god associated with wind, storm, and lightening. Rudra was also known as the archer and is associated with the hunt and with terrible power.

As noted, Rudra is also the name of a metal band from Singapore who released their first demo way back in 1994 and their debut album in 1998. Five more studio releases have followed, with the last two forming the first installments of a trilogy called Brahmavidya: 2005’s Primordial I and 2009’s Transcendental I. The trilogy is now complete with Rudra’s release on March 3 of Immortal I.

We will come to how these three albums tie together conceptually, but we’ll focus first on the music, as we hear it, on Immortal I. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

AMON AMARTH: “FOR VICTORY OR DEATH”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Mar 102011
 

And our Surtur Rising watch continues . . .

Just hours ago, Metal Hammer debuted the third song from Amon Amarth‘s forthcoming album. This song is called “For Victory Or Death”. Amazingly, the song sounds like Amon Amarth, which means it’s another immediately recognizable melodeath gallop. I’m not quite as enamored of this one as I was of the first two (both of which we slapped up on this site as fast as humanly possible after their release), but I do like it, and it certainly does nothing to dim my enthusiasm for this album.

I couldn’t hack the Metal Hammer site in a way that would allow me to embed the song here at NCS — but I then discovered that the song made its way to YouTube about one hour ago.  So . . . click past the jump and you can hear “For Victory Or Death” without leaving the grasping claws of NCS. Continue reading »

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