SEPTICFLESH: COVER ART FOR “THE GREAT MASS”

 Metal News  9 Responses »
Apr 052011
 

Seth Siro Anton is the harsh vocalist, bassist, and artistic mastermind behind Greek metal band SepticFlesh. He is also an accomplished artist whose work, both for SepticFlesh and many other bands, we featured in an earlier post. He created the cover art for the next album by SepticFlesh, The Great Mass, which will be released by Season of Mist on April 18 in Europe and one day later in the U.S.

SepticFlesh has been doling out pieces of the cover art over time, and today the entire work was unveiled.  Anton refers to it as a statue of “The Suicidal God”. We’ll leave the interpretations to others. It’s striking to look at — and if you really want to examine it in detail, go to the official SepticFlesh site (here) where you will see a much larger image of the artwork. If we’re understanding the plans correctly, parts of this image will appear as the covers to various editions of the album, plus the dustjacket of an artbook edition.

LOUDBLAST! (A MINDLESS MEDITATION ON THE MARKETING OF METAL)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  27 Responses »
Apr 052011
 

Can we talk? I hope so. I had an experience yesterday that made me think about the marketing of metal bands, the do’s and the don’ts. And I’d like to vent a bit. You can talk back to me if you like, either under your breath or in the comments.

I saw a blurb on Blabbermouth about a French band called Loudblast. I got interested immediately because of the band’s name. I thought, this band’s name sums up my interest in metal, in one word: I like music that’s loud and blasts. Maybe my taste is s a little more nuanced than that, but if I’m brutally honest with myself, those are two key ingredients. In fact, those are often the only ingredients I need. Plus, the band is from France, and these days French metal bands are coming damned close to the Finns — they almost do no wrong.

So, I continued reading that Blabbermouth blurb. I learned that this band called Loudblast has a new album called Frozen Moments Between Life And Death due for release on April 18 via XIII Bis Records. Plus, the album has a cool piece of cover art. Plus, the album was mixed by Peter Tägtgren. And all that piqued my interest even more.

The blurb said the CD will be released in Germany, Austria, “Benelux”, Switzerland, Spain, the U.K., and Ireland. Uh, what? No mention of the U.S. and Canada? Well, that sometimes happens with some European bands and their labels. It’s like they’re trying to send the message to metalnuts in NorthAm, “You’re ugly and you smell like my rectum, and fuck you with a rusty crowbar.”

But I’m not offended. I get insulted or ignored all the fucking time. So I continued reading and learned that there’s a song from this album called “Emptiness Crushes My Soul” that’s streaming “exclusively” at a web site called RadioMetal.com. And that’s where the shit really started to piss me off.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HELP A BROTHER OUT (AGAIN)

 Uncategorized  19 Responses »
Apr 042011
 

I’m about to hit a stretch of time when my ability to post new shit on this site every day will be imperiled. No need to bore you with details, but the bottom line is that between April 8 and April 21, the odds are that I won’t have time to write for NCS every day. We do have some pieces in the works from our regular contributors, but there’s still a risk of missing a day.

I’d hate like hell to have that happen. We haven’t missed a single day since starting this thing in November ’09. So, I’m once again making an open appeal for guest posts. Last time I did this, in November 2010, it worked out great, and I’m hoping for another great response now.

As before, guest submissions can be long or short — whatever you have time to create. They can be notes about a concert, an album review, a piece designed to bring a relatively unknown band to a broader audience, thoughts about the scene or recent news blurbs, something in the vein of our “THAT’S METAL!” posts or one of our other regular features — or anything else that’s related to metal that strikes your fancy. It can even be something you’ve already written for another blog or for your own that you might like to expose to a different audience.

Sending me your submissions before April 8 would be ideal, but not an absolute requirement. If this interests you, a few other things you need to know are after the jump. Continue reading »

OBSCURA’S “OMNIVIUM”: A CRITIQUE

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Apr 042011
 

(Regular NCS contributor BadWolf provides this critique of the new album by Germany’s Obscura.)

Simon Reynolds did an absolutely fantastic history of Drum N’ Bass/Dubstep (and all their subgenres) in The Wire magazine (thanks again, Michelle!). It is some of the best music journalism I know. An integral piece of his argument is that illicit drugs have an intimate relationship with the modern evolution of music. Stoner Metal’s existence is evidence that this phenomenon is present in metal as well.

If this is true, Obscura’s Omnivium is a strong case that death metal is fundamentally a house divided by preferences in substance abuse. To me, Bolt Thrower, Cannibal Corpse and Entombed are fundamentally barbiturate music (“We drink n’ drink n’ drink n’ drink n’ fight…”), while the bands that are Obscura’s obvious progenitors are, to me, death metal of hallucination.

Obscura have dropped the cold amphetamine speed of their previous disc Cosmogenesis, (which I enjoy more retroactively now that I have listened to Omnivium) and embraced psychedelia. Omnivium does not view time and space as limitations, but things to confuse the listener with. And how like a hallucinogen, prolonged exposure to Omnivium is first and foremost disorienting.

As their peers in Krallice are doing (according to an article in the new Decibel), Obscura have focused on the dissonant melodic elements present in old school DM, and rather than used them as breath-catching reprieves, have made them the complete focus of their sound. I would place these two bands, along with perhaps Decrepit Birth, at the forefront of a modern technical psychedelic metal movement as distinct from more minimalist bands too obvious to mention. (more after the jump . . . ) Continue reading »

KRALLICE: “THE CLEARING”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 032011
 

Since this is an unheard-of third post on a Sunday, it will be short. But it will be very sweet.

Krallice is a powerfully good black-metal band from New York consisting of Colin Marston (who is involved in many other projects, including Behold . . . The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, and Gorguts), Mick Barr (Orthrelm), Lev Weinstein, and Nick McMaster. Their third album, Diotima, is scheduled for release by the reliable Profound Lore label on April 26. Wholly apart from the music, the album cover (above) is one of the most eye-catching we’ve seen this year.

Among many cool things about Profound Lore, they make MP3s from their artists available for free download at their site.  Within the last few days, they’ve done that for one of the tracks from Diotima. The song is called “The Clearing”. It’s a long one (12+ minutes), but it’s stunning. It’s unrelenting in its ferocity, and just loaded with riveting hooks and instrumental wizardry — an overwhelming listening experience. Stream (or download) it below, or download it from Profound Lore here. We’ll have a full album review in the near future.

Krallice: The Clearing

SAY HELLO TO 7 HORNS 7 EYES

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 032011
 

Last week you may have seen, either here at NCS or elsewhere, the announcement of the line-up for this year’s SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour and the chance to vote for the band that will fill the last slot on the tour. One of the 10 bands on the voting ballot is a Seattle group with whom you may not be familiar. So, allow us to introduce you to 7 Horns 7 Eyes.

We first saw this band in early 2010 when they opened for Hypno5e, Revocation, and The Binary Code at the Seattle stop of the METAL AS ART tour (reviewed here), and then we saw them again on other occasions, including their supporting slot on a tour featuring The Dillinger Escape Plan, Darkest Hour, and Animals As Leaders (reviewed here), and at the 2010 edition of THE FINNISH METAL TOUR (which we described here). Every time, they wowed us with their music and their live performances. Here’s what we said about their performance with the Finns:

This was the third time we’d seen these dudes this year as local support for a national tour, and they continue to impress in a big way. Every time we hear them, we adjust the description of their music, but we think we’ve just about got it down now: technical, somewhat blackened, melodic mathcore progressive death metal. Got that?

This is music you can get lost in just as much as you can bang your head to it. It’s a creative blend of styles that works really well, and their live playing continues to be sharp as tacks. We’re hungry for the album they’ve got in the works.

Well, that album — Throes of Absolution — is about to get a bang-up release, because last week it was announced that the band have been signed by Century Media, with the European release being handled by Basick Records. One song from the forthcoming debut album is available for streaming, and you can hear it after the jump . . . Continue reading »

YOUR NERVE CELLS WILL LIKE NERVECELL’S NEW SONG (AND ORIGIN’S NEW ALBUM COVER, TOO)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 032011
 

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to Nervecell’s debut album Preaching Venom since I got my hands on it in 2008. In the sophisticated journalist jargon we use here at NCS, it’s fucking awesome. Nervecell’s second album, Psychogenocide, has already hit the streets in the Middle East (Nervecell is from Dubai in the UAE). It will be released via Lifeforce Records on April 29th 2011 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and on May 2nd 2011 in the rest of Europe & the UK.  I don’t yet know the plans for distribution in NorthAm.

As we learned through that most excellent metal blog Metality, the band have posted a new song from Psychogenocide for streaming. I had planned to spend my day listening to other things, but this song has trashed those plans. I suppose I’ll eventually tire of pressing “play” over and over again, but I’m not there yet.

The song is called “All Eyes On Them”. If you’re a fan of bands like Nile, Origin, Behemoth, or Deicide, I can pretty much guarantee this song is going to love you long time, or vice-versa. It churns and blasts in a tasty fusion of death metal and thrash, but it also includes a slower-paced instrumental breakdown with a nice little Eastern-flavored guitar solo. And speaking of Nile, Karl Sanders provides guest vocals on a song called “Shunq”, which will include both English and Arabic lyrics, and it appears that Psycroptic‘s Dave Haley laid down the drum tracks for the album, as he did on the band’s debut. The album cover is rad, too. Check out the artwork and the song after the jump.

Oh, and speaking of Origin, we have the cover of their next album — and a release date — also after the jump. Continue reading »

BANned

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Apr 022011
 

I’m really proud of the title to this post. I thought it up all by myself, without any help from my cat on this one. Did you see what I did? I took the word “banned” and capitalized the first three letters, because they stand for Blut Aus Nord. Really clever, huh?

Yeah, you’re right. It’s as lame as a three-legged dog. I need to get the cat back into the post-title work. I guess I’ll have to start feeding the little fucker again.

Anyway, back to Blut Aus Nord. In my continuing effort to get better educated about black metal, BAN is a band whose music I’ve only recently started exploring, and I’m finding it really interesting. They have a new album — 777 – Sect(s) — scheduled for release on April 19 (one day earlier internationally) via Debemur Morti Productions. And for a limited time only, the whole album is available for streaming.

And when I say “limited time only”, I mean it’s really limited — as in today and tomorrow. After that, the music turns into a pumpkin, leaving only a glass slipper on the steps.

Okay, that Cinderella metaphor was as weak as my fucken post title. Just go listen to the album. I’m doing that right now, and diggin’ it. The tracks are embedded in a player after the jump, though I presume the links will go up in smoke come Monday. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 4)

 Forthcoming Albums  15 Responses »
Apr 022011
 


Technically, we should have posted this yesterday, but yesterday was April Fool’s Day, and people might have thought we were making up some of this shit. But it’s all true, and nothing happens on April 2 to plant doubt about truth. Except for what causes doubt to be planted about truth on any other day of the year.

Here we are at the beginning of the second quarter of 2011 — the time when for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is supposed to spring.  Where I live, spring has apparently been victimized by a brutal street mugging and is hospitalized at the moment.  A few plants have been deluded into thinking it’s spring, but for the rest of our local world, it’s still fucking winter.

Fortunately, the change of the seasons have fuck all to do with the release of metal. What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days (or in this case, the last 31 days) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming New Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. There’s some awesome shit on the way. Dive in after the jump. Continue reading »

RICHES FROM GHANA AWAIT!

 IQ Subtraction, Off Topic  8 Responses »
Apr 012011
 

Even for people as gullible as me, the trials of harsh experience can produce a thimbleful of wisdom.

As I’ve recounted in these pages, people from all over the world (okay, mainly from Africa) have written me with offers of pre-funded ATM cards, wire-transfers of vast sums of money, bags of gold dust, boxes of cash, and more. Those messages have come from British bureaucrats, orphans on the run from murderous uncles, ovarian cancer survivors, bank officers, you name it. Sometimes, they’ve discovered I’m the sole survivor of dead relatives I never knew I had.

I took them at their word. I promptly wrote back to every one of these people, trying to do my part to make possible the delivery of wealth into my hands, so that I might fulfill grand projects that would turn NCS from a half-assed metal blog into a global empire of awesomeness. And every one of the slimy motherfuckers has failed to deliver. And yes, I’ve learned something from these hope-crushing experiences: Don’t trust anyone offering you money if they don’t know what Fleshgod Apocalypse is.

But, I confess, hope springs eternal. And an e-mail I received just this week from a dude in Ghana has revived my hopes. It’s just so eloquently written that I know something good will come of it. Plus, I think this is the biggest offer of cash I’ve yet received. After the jump, the message I got and my heart-felt reply to it. Continue reading »

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