BURY YOUR DEAD: SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE!!!

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 242011
 

Well, fuck yes. If we had any doubt that Bury Your Dead had shaken off the detritus of melodic metalcore and gotten back to their fuckin’ hardcore roots, those doubts are dead, gone, cremated, and the ashes scattered to the winds — because as of about 45 minutes ago, the band uploaded their first new song since Mat Bruso rejoined BYD.

Most of our current readers won’t know this, but the really old-timers will: We started this site, and picked the name NO CLEAN SINGING in protest over what happened when Mat left BYD, when Myke Terry stepped up as the new vocalist, and when the band thereafter went right off the rails and into metalcore no-man’s land.

So, you can imagine how stoked we were to find out that Mat was coming back to BYD. Actually, you don’t have to exercise your imaginations, because we laid out our feelings pretty clearly in this post. Since then, we’ve been waiting patiently for new music — for confirmation that BYD was back in the nasty, brutish land of no clean singing. Actually, we really didn’t need proof — for fuck’s sake, Mat now uses “nocleansinging.com” as the web site URL in his Twitter account (“@SoAloneSoAlive”) — which is just too cool for words.

But need it or not, we’ve now got our confirmation. The new song — “Slaughterhouse Five” — is a fuckin’ jaw-breaker, a badass sledgehammer of hardcore and metal, a fine sign of what’s to come on that new album. Go past the jump to have a listen, and get some more news about the album and BYD’s touring plans. Continue reading »

WHO IS THE KONSORTIUM?

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
May 242011
 

I try to skim through Blabbermouth for news at least every other day. And “skim” is exactly what I do. Most of what I see just scrolls past my eyes like freight cars at a railroad crossing, exciting very little interest. There’s often no rhyme or reason to what might make me stop and pay closer attention to a post.

This morning, rhymeless and reasonless, I paused at a post about an outfit called The Konsortium. The facts, as represented in the post I read: The band is from Norway. They recorded a self-titled debut album over a one-year period. It will be released on June 24 via Agonia Records. It includes guest vocals by Erlend Hjelvik (Kvelertak).

Beyond that, there was this description of the music from the band’s press release: “black metal with various thrash, avant-garde and non-metal influences creating [its] own atmosphere and identity.”

As for the band’s members, we know that guitarist Teloch from Mayhem and Nigingr has joined the band. Otherwise, all we have is this statement: “THE KONSORTIUM features various members. Some of them better and some of them [not as well] known to the metal (but not only) community.” I think the right word for that is “cryptic”.

And then, there’s the song that was available for streaming on Blabbermouth — and of course that’s why I’m bothering to write this post: The song is a jackpot payoff for all the Blabbermouth skimming I’ve done this month.  (a bit more info, plus the song, after the jump . . .)

Continue reading »

SLAUGHTER SURVIVORS TOUR SCHEDULE IS OUT

 Metal News  12 Responses »
May 242011
 

If you live in the U.S., you may remember that the promoters of this year’s SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour conceived a creative piece of marketing by allowing fans to vote from among a list of 11 bands for the last act to fill up the touring line-up. Within the Ruins won that vote and will be joining The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Dying Fetus, As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, and the almighty Fleshgod Apocalypse on SUMMER SLAUGHTER.

Earlier this month, the tour promoters put out the word that they were organizing a second tour featuring some of the bands from the voting list that didn’t get selected via the Facebook ballot-stuffing . . . uh, voting — plus Scale the Summit. Here’s the line-up (which unfortunately doesn’t include some of the best vote-losers — Revocation, Neuraxis, Augury, 7 Horns 7 Eyes, Dawn of Ashes).

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE
THE CONTORTIONIST
SCALE THE SUMMIT
RINGS OF SATURN
VOLUMES
STRUCTURES

As of this morning, we now have the tour schedule. I have mixed feelings about this schedule. On the one hand, I’m happy for all the people in Lubbock and Des Moines who’ll get to see it. On the other hand, they couldn’t be bothered with a single date anywhere in the Pacific Northwest? What are we, chopped liver?  The schedule is after the jump . . . Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GOROD

 Interviews  6 Responses »
May 242011
 

(Our intrepid correspondent Andy Synn caught up with French metal wizards Gorod at their May 17 show in Leicester, England, and files this interview with vocalist Julien “Nutz” Deyres, bassist Benoit Claus, and drummer Samuel Santiago. Gorod is currently distributing a brand new EP — Transcendence — to those fortunate souls in attendance at their current tour, and the rest of us poor bastards will have access to it in June. Get stoked.)

At the recent Leicester stop of The Faceless’ UK/Euro headline tour, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to interview members of French Jazz/Tech metallers Gorod.

Read on to see what the band thinks about their current touring situation, their upcoming EP and future album plans, who’s to blame for their big 80’s metal hooks, and even some (potentially) exclusive information regarding the lyrical and conceptual direction for the band’s next full-length album!

Hey guys, nice to meet you. Thanks for agreeing to speak to me. So, first thing’s first, how’s the tour going so far? This is the 4th or 5th date right?

Benoit (bass): 5th date. 5th date so far. No problems so far, everything is really good. It’s sort of a more professional tour with a driver, a good manager, things seem to be working all the time. The atmosphere is good. Nothing special, just good times. (continued after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ARSIS INVITES YOU INTO THE SHADOWS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
May 232011
 

With increasing frequency, we’re seeing bands inviting their fans inside the creative process before their songs are all fully mixed, mastered and packaged into an album’s worth of music. I think that’s smart marketing, in addition to satisfying the impatience of hungry fans like me who hate waiting around for new music from bands we like.

We had one example yesterday when The Monolith Deathcult put up on SoundCloud a preliminary version of a new song called “H.W.A.” (Human Wave Attack). And today we have yet another example: Arsis has posted a brand-new song for streaming via SoundCloud called “Since the Shadows”. Yes, that does indeed mean that Arsis is writing a new album.

Early days yet, but based on this demo version of the new song, it’s not too soon to start panting for that album to come. At least if you’re a panter like me. If you just breathe normally, like a human instead of a beagle, then you may just want to smile when you hear this song. As they say in the field of professional music journalism, it fucken rawks.

ARSIS – Since the Shadows (Demo) by NuclearBlastRecords

SHORT BUT SWEET: SUNLESS RISE AND BLACK MONOLITH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
May 232011
 

We’re in a never-ending chase, trying to catch up with EP’s and demo’s from unsigned bands who’ve contacted us, or who we’ve found out about through recommendations. I suppose it would be easier, now that we’ve grown a bit, simply to pay attention to well-known bands or full-length label debuts. But we’re trying to remain faithful to one of the founding principles of this site — to show some support to talented unsigned bands from around the world, and in doing that, to provide what we hope will be some entertaining discoveries for NCS readers.

Today, we’ve got two discoveries to share with you: SunLess Rise (Russia) and Black Monolith (San Francisco). Both bands are definitely under the radar — so far — but to the extent merit counts for anything, you should be hearing more about them in the future. About the only thing they have in common (apart from being good) is speed. Otherwise, the styles of music are utterly different.

SunLess Rise should appeal mightily to fans of Children of Bodom, Norther, and Ensiferum. I have more trouble picking out better-known references for Black Monolith — it’s a raw amalgam of black metal, punk, crust, grind, and a really pissed off junkyard dog.

Oh wait, these bands do have one more thing in common — their debut EP’s are available for download at no charge. So, let’s get to it . . . Continue reading »

OH FUCK! THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT PUT UP A NEW TRACK!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
May 222011
 

If I’d just waited five more minutes before putting up that last post I’d have seen the news leak that one of our favorite modern metal bands — The Monolith Deathcult — has an in-process song that can be snooped on SoundCloud. The title (or at least the working title) is “HWA”.

There’s a note beneath the SoundCloud player which says this: “not finished, need some serious finetuning and extra lyrics.” Fair enough, but goddamn, this is sounding damned sweet.

The song may not be up there for much longer, so TMDC fans, check out this shit without delay. And for anyone new to TMDC, you can read more in Andy Synn’s SYNN REPORT about the band or our interview of TMDC mastermind Michiel Dekker (here).

HWA by TMDCHQ

SPUR OF THE MINUTE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 222011
 

Sunday’s usually aren’t big days for news about the release of new metal. But this morning brought my bleary eyes a few revelations (and no, I haven’t foreseen Armageddon). One discovery concerns a Norwegian band called Hellish Outcast who we’ve featured here before. The other came via an e-mail recommendation from ElvisShotJFK – a reader who’s been with us since early days at NCS. It’s a slice of instrumental metal from a German band called Nimbatus, whose entire discography happens to be available at no charge.

This music is all really good, despite being on nearly opposite poles of the metal sphere. So, I thought I’d throw this post together on the spur of the minute. For those of you who couldn’t be bothered to wade through that book-length post we put up a bit earlier today, all you’ve got to do with this one is just close your eyes and listen.

HELLISH OUTCAST

The last time we checked in with this band (about a month ago), they’d just released an official music video for a song called “Face Forced Down”, which appears on their debut album, Your God Will Bleed. (Go here to check out that video.) We thought that song was a crushing aural onslaught by some dudes who know what the fuck they’re doing: Thebon (Keep of Kalessin‘s vocalist), Mads Lillevedt (a/k/a Alkolust, the drummer for Byfrost), bassist Max Morbid (BREED), and guitarist Martin Legreid (66Crusher). As of this morning, we’ve got two more new songs from the album to set our heads on fire. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 36): THE PISS CHRIST EDITION

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  19 Responses »
May 222011
 

Today we have a special edition of THAT’S METAL! It seemed like an appropriate day for this, since yesterday has passed, the world has not ended, and so fas as I know, there haven’t been any documented instances of anyone taken up into the clouds by The Rapture. But this edition of THAT’S METAL! isn’t going to be what you probably think it will be.

Having some vicious fun at the expense of one goofball evangelical minister or his delusional goofball followers would be too easy, and it wouldn’t cause anyone to do any actual thinking. And while it’s true that provoking serious thought isn’t part of the official NCS mission statement, on rare occasions we do make a stab at it. Today will be one of those days.

So, if you read the title of this post and were expecting cynical mockery of self-styled prophets of Judgment Day, or Christianity, or even religion generally, you won’t find that here (at least not today). There is a connection between the fallacious May 21 Rapture prediction and the point(s) of this post, but it may not be obvious.

And as for the point(s) of this post, well, I don’t intend to make that explicit either, mainly because I don’t really get off on preaching, or listening to preaching, for that matter. Besides, this post has as much to do with what makes good and bad art (including metal music) as it does with anything else. So, draw your own conclusions — and if you start to get bored, you can just skip to the bottom of the post and listen to some actual metal. Continue reading »

METAL FROM SOUTH AFRICA: PART 2

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  87 Responses »
May 212011
 

About five weeks ago we posted a feature on three South African metal bands whose music we’d recently discovered and liked quite a lot: All Forlorn, A Walk With the Wicked, and Bile of Man. Amazingly, it seems that U.S. metal blogs have been neglecting the scene in that country, because our post generated a lot of hits and a bunch of thank-you’s from SouthAfrican metalheads for, y’know, just paying attention. It also generated an avalanche of recommendations, via e-mail as well as comments on that post, about other South African bands that we ought to check out.

So, we decided to do a follow-up post — and we received so many recommendations that we’ll probably make this into a trilogy as soon as I can get my lazy ass in gear to do the next one. How did we pick the next group of bands for Part 2 of this feature? Well, we pretty much let the enthusiasm of our recommenders make the decision for us, because it’s not like we’re experts on the SA scene. Let’s be real — we live in fucking Seattle, which is approximately 10,200 miles from Cape Town (the country’s legislative capital). There must be cities farther away from SA than Seattle, but there sure aren’t many.

Based on the enthusiasm quotient of our recommendations, we’re focusing today on Theatre Runs Red, Contrast the Water, and Pledge Defiance. We picked those names without having heard the music, which is what we do for our MISCELLANY posts, and just as we do for those posts, I listened to a song or two from each band and then recorded my first impressions, while giving you a chance to listen for yourselves and make up your own minds. So dive in with us after the jump and give yourself a chance to make some new discoveries from the world of SA Metal. As it happens, all three of these bands are working on albums that should see release sometime later this year. Continue reading »

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