CEREBRAL BORE MANIACALLY MISCREATES A NEW VIDEO

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Apr 112011
 

Last November we happily discovered a band from Glasgow, Scotland called Cerebral Bore and their then-self-released debut album Maniacal Miscreation. In our typically eloquent fashion, we described the music as “the kind of metallic extremity that shoves egg-beaters through the skullbone and proceeds to whip the gray matter into a fluffy merengue” — as the kind of “cerebral drill job” that left our brains “satisfyingly disassembled and chopped up into the consistency of dog food”. A bit more from that review:

The music is on the brutal side of death metal. It’s almost unrelentingly fast — which suits us just fine. The guitar riffing is adrenaline-charged, finger-fast, and reliably hammer-stroked with big slams. We particularly liked the start-stop attack of the drums and the quite audible bass rhythms that unerringly root down deep into the part of the brain that acts without thinking and sends irresistible electrical impulses into the buried pleasure centers.

Barreling along in an unconstrained rampage is plenty of fun for the listener, but the icing on the cake are the passages in the songs when Cerebral Bore skid into a completely irresistible beat.

Since last November, it’s fair to say that Cerebral Bore’s global popularity has increased significantly and is now on the verge of erupting. They signed to Earache Records in December, which will be giving Maniacal Miscreation wider distribution (beginning with a European release yesterday and a NorthAm release on June 7), they’re scheduled to tour basically the whole fucking world in 2011, including dates in the U.S., and today they’ve released a new video for the album’s title track “Maniacal Miscreation”, which you can witness after the jump . . . Continue reading »

COMPS ON THE WAY

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Apr 112011
 

Don’t know about you, but I like music compilations, especially when they’re free. They’re a good way to discover new bands and new sounds in a flash. There are two great comps on the horizon — one we’ll talk about now and another one (which we’re actually co-sponsoring) that we’ll feature tomorrow.

Today’s news is about a comp of music by unsigned bands that’s been assembled by our friends at The Number of the Blog. It will include 18 tracks, many of which were previously unreleased, and it will be distributed through Bandcamp, which means the original song files were uploaded in high-quality, lossless format — and that means the shit will sound like crystal.

Today, TNOTB revealed the track listing, and it’s juicy, as in saliva-producing. I’m familiar with the music of 14 bands on the list, and am a fan of all of them. So I’m up for hearing not only the new stuff from those bands but also the tracks from the bands whose names are new.

To be brutally honest (the only kind of honest we know how to be at NCS), I’d be tempted to say nice things about this comp even if the band selections made me yawn, because, y’know, I like the people behind TNOTB. But I don’t have to wrestle with my morals over this comp, because it really does look like a winner, from start to finish.  Check out the track list after the jump. You’ll be able to download the comp on Friday (we’ll put up a reminder then.) Continue reading »

LOUDBLAST REDUX

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 112011
 

Only six short days ago I used the “exclusive” streaming of a new song by a French band called Loudblast as an excuse to go off on a selfish, petulant rant about the use of “exclusives” in metal marketing (here). Kind of embarrassing actually, but “Embarrassing” is one of my middle names, so what do you expect?

The song was/is called “Emptiness Crushes My Soul”, and I liked it, which was one of the reasons I got frustrated at my inability to embed the song right here at NCS. In the post, I mentioned that Loudblast had filmed a video for the song that allegedly featured a former porn star named Nina Roberts, though I saw no evidence of that in a teaser for the video that the band had released. Not that I give a shit whether music videos include former, or current, porn stars. If you want porn, you really don’t need to troll for metal videos to get it.

Well, now the video for “Emptiness Crushes My Soul” has been released, and sure enough, it includes nudity and flashes of sexual activity between Ms. Roberts and something that may or may not be a man, that may or may not have been created by the woman, and that may or may not represent her fantasy about a horse. In other words, I don’t have a very good idea about what’s going on, or what it has to do with the song. But the song is still good. The video is NSFW so be mindful of who’s peering over your shoulder.  After the jump . . . Continue reading »

KRALLICE’S “DIOTIMA”: A CRITIQUE

 Album Reviews  17 Responses »
Apr 112011
 

(Regular NCS contributor BadWolf continues to explore an alternative to traditional album reviews in this, his latest “critique”. The subject is the new offering from New York’s Krallice, scheduled for release by Profound Lore on April 26.)

Krallice’s Diotima record reminds me most of the scene in David Fincher’s Fight Club where the narrator and Tyler Durden are speeding in a car along a bridge and release the steering wheel. Speed increases, their trajectory veers, and tension increases because the logical conclusion is not foregone, but seems pretty inevitable. The anxiety, the dark sound in that scene comes from a desire to see the characters crash and by proxy for the audience to feel the impact of a death, or near-death, experience. Sartre was obsessed with looking off the edges of cliffs because he felt (and believed all people felt) a sublime desire to jump.

Krallice in 2011 feels like that razor’s edge between stillness and leaping when the band fires on all cylinders. There is a constant sense of swerving momentum which is in the most focus. The feeling is not unique to Krallice—Iron Maiden’s Aces High is about harnessing the freefall effect, and at their best Metallica and Gojira can evoke the same reaction. Diotima is the first record I’ve heard to emphasize it to this degree.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: BLOOD FREAK

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  42 Responses »
Apr 102011
 

I may not be able to write much during the next two weeks, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be completely invisible. Every now and then I’ll expose myself, figuratively speaking of course,  just so you don’t forget me. However, the exposures will mostly be fleeting, hit-and-run, guerilla-warfare incursions. In other words, my posts will be even more half-assed and unoriginal than usual. The only plus side for you is that they’ll be short.

This post will set the tone for more to come. First, it’s completely unoriginal — I stole the idea from The Living Doorway, which is a blog you should check out if you haven’t already. Second, it’s very short, because I haven’t even listened to the album in question, just the one song featured on The Living Doorway post. And third, because I wrote it, it will be half-assed by definition.

The band is Blood Freak, from Portland. The album is Mindscraper, now out on Willowtip Records. The song is “Pink on the Inside”. The style is “a splattery hodgepodge of bass-heavy goregrind, campy thrashiness, and grooving horror-fueled death metal.” I’m quoting The Living Doorway post because I can’t improve on that description. My own half-assed opinion? I love this song. You may listen to it after the jump. Continue reading »

PHRO’S FUN LIST OF SUMMER FESTIVAL BAND NAMES

 IQ Subtraction, Phro's Posts  9 Responses »
Apr 102011
 

(At least half of our posts for the next two weeks will be from a variety of guest contributors. For some demented reason, I picked this one to start off. It’s from our loyal reader Phro, an American living and working in Japan. The same day I got this from him, I also saw the new MetalSucks t-shirt, which is not only awesome, but (as you’ll see) it also fits uncannily with Phro’s post. By the way, if you have a weak stomach or any kind of sense of propriety, proceed at your own risk.)

Hi. My name is Phro, and I’m here to give you a list of the summer metal tours I found.

More importantly, I’ll be telling you what each band’s name really means. To give you a fair warning, all of them have something to do with octopus porn/orgies. I have no idea why. There’s clearly something wrong with the metal community. All of you sickos need to stop having sex with octopuses!!!

First up: the Rockstar Mayhem Festival! I’m pretty sure no one here will be terribly interested in this festival, but it was the first one to pop up on Google. And no one can thwart the will of the mighty Google, not even an inky, cum-covered tentacle.

Band names and their meanings (in relation to octoporn):  (after the jump, because the thought of putting this right on the NCS home page made your editor queasy) Continue reading »

METAL FROM SOUTH AFRICA

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  35 Responses »
Apr 092011
 

You say the words “death metal” — and I do mean “death metal”, not “melodic death metal” — to any metalhead who doesn’t like and appreciate the genre, and they’re likely to lump all of it together in one sweeping dismissal. Of course, as fans of the genre well know, “death metal” encompasses a great variety of sounds and styles. Sometimes the differences are subtle, particularly on the more “brutal” end of the spectrum, but the distinctions are what keep DM addicts diving back into the black pool over and over again.

Those thoughts have been rumbling around my head since I started listening to the music of three South African death metal bands, repeatedly, for this post. I’ve been sitting on music from two of those bands way too long without saying something about them. More recently, we were contacted by a third band from South Africa, and that finally pushed me to get this post done.

Before now, I think the only South African band we’ve featured at NCS has been the ingeniously named, bagpipe-driven Haggis and Bong (here, for example). I’m pretty sure I first heard about one of today’s threesome — All Forlorn — through a post by Haggis and Bong on their Facebook page. The other two — A Walk With the Wicked and Bile of Man — came our way via e-mails from the bands.

All three bands are loaded with talent, and two of the three have got music that’s available for free download. Following the jump are some thoughts about, and music from, each band, in the order in which we heard about them. Continue reading »

THIS AND THAT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  37 Responses »
Apr 082011
 

As I forecast, today I’m starting a two-week stretch when I probably won’t be able to write a new post every day. I have some longer posts about new music in the works that I haven’t been able to get done yet, though I hope I can finish some of them soon. But, because I’m running out of time, today’s post will be pretty random. I also hope you’ll find some fun in it.

I should have a few of my own posts to run here and there over the next two weeks, but you can expect lots of guest posts, too — because I’m fucking delighted to say that people have responded enthusiastically to my open appeal for help.  I’ve already received a half-dozen, I know more are coming from people who’ve e-mailed me, and I bet still more will arrive over the next two weeks that I’m not even expecting yet. If you want to do this, there’s still time. Just check out some “rules” here.

Now, for today: I’ve got something that could have fit quite nicely in a THAT’S METAL! post, but I haven’t yet collected enough other items to fill one out — so I’m using it today. But I also wanted to include some new metal, so this turned into just a random mishmash of unconnected stuff — a video about the latest dance/fashion craze from Matehuala, Mexico that you won’t fucking believe, and a brand new song from Scar Symmetry. Check it after the jump . . . Continue reading »

A GROWING APPRECIATION FOR THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  105 Responses »
Apr 072011
 

Liz is 25 years old. Two years ago, Liz had 40 songs on her iPod and “a graveyard of abandoned projects”. She found a book called 1001 Albums You Should Listen To Before You Die. The book starts with a Frank Sinatra album called In The Wee Small Hours from 1955 and goes up to 2007. On a day 516 days ago, Liz decided to start listening to all the albums in that book. She listens to one album each day, from start to finish, and then she writes her impressions in a blog. On May 6, 2012, if she keeps this up, she’ll have listened to someone’s idea of the best 1001 albums in history.

What caught my eye was that this list of 1001 albums includes some metal. I haven’t made my way through very many of Liz’s posts, but on April 2 (Day 513) she listened to The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden and on March 26 (Day 510) she listened to Black Metal by Venom. By her own admission, Liz was in a “tiny music bubble” when she started this project. Whatever music was in the bubble with her, it’s fair to say that it didn’t include anything like Iron Maiden or Venom.

I like imagining how non-metalheads react when they listen to metal. Reading Liz’s take on these albums, seeing them through the eyes of someone who is new to the genre but is clearly doing her best to keep an open mind, is kind of fun. Of course, she hasn’t been converted — yet. It would have been better if she had found a list of the 1001 best extreme metal albums of all time and forced herself to do that for 1001 days, though she might have been hospitalized before finishing. Also, I’m not sure there are 1001 great extreme metal albums.

After the jump, you can see what she wrote about The Number of the Beast and Black Metal. You can also hear a brand new track from the Swedish band called Shining (not the Norwegian one by the same name) from their next album. I’m wondering how Liz would react to this beast of a song (it’s a fucking killer). Continue reading »

WAKE THE FUCK UP!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  26 Responses »
Apr 062011
 

I’m not suggesting you’re asleep. That post title is the message I gave to myself, over and over again, this morning. It’s the middle of the damned week, and somehow I found myself over-doing it with old friends way past my usual bed-time, and I’m moving reeeeeally slowly this morning.

What I needed was a good jolt, a nasty steel-toed kick in the ass, a bucket of cold water over the head, a brisk slap in the face. But I contented myself instead with the music we’ve got for you this morning. It certainly woke me the fuck up.

We’ve got four offerings of jolting, ass-kicking, bracing, face-slapping music, including two new videos and some free download options, from Pain (Sweden), Wormrot (Singapore), Malfeitor (Sweden), and Kataklysm (Canada). Let’s get to it:

PAIN

Peter Tägtgren is best known for his work as a music producer and as the vocalist and guitarist for long-running Swedish luminaries Hypocrisy. But he’s had many other projects as well, and one of them is an outfit called Pain. That band has been around a long time, too, though I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the music. That’s now changed. Their 7th album is scheduled for release on June 3, and there’s now a new song available for free download.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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