A LIST OF BAND NAMES

 IQ Subtraction, Phro's Posts  15 Responses »
Sep 172011
 

(Our guest contributor Phro draws inspiration from the most unexpected places, like the names of metal bands — and my last post about fall tours . . . and btw, the photo above has nothing to do with Phro’s post, except sometimes his writing makes me think of Genitorturers. Is that so wrong?)

So, apparently, MetalSucks is trying to out do NoCleanSinging by hosting their very own music festival.  (Copycats.)  It’s cute of them to try, but, I mean, who would you rather see?  Municipal Waste or Massive Wall of Penis?  My point exactly.  Anyway, I took a look at their line up, and I noticed a very…odd…pattern to the definitions behind the band names.  Apparently, every band in all these tours are massive necrozoophilics.  Yeah, that means liking to fuck dead animals.  Just like my uncle Billy Bob.

Seriously, metal community, this shit probably needs to stop.

Municipal Waste – Where you sick fuckers go when the DOT (Department of Transportation) is clean out of dead deer.
God Forbid – What you said when your mom suggested having Fido cremated after he “accidentally” got hit by a car.
Today is the Day – What you promise yourself every morning when you wake up wondering if you’ll finally get the guts to skullfuck that mounted doe head in your father-in-law’s house.  ‘Cause you know it’s been giving you “the eye”.
Howl – What your little dead “date” will never do.
Black Tusk – When you accidentally blow diarrhea all over the elephant tusks you use as butt plugs.
Magrudergrind – The machine you use to puree dead puppies when you beat the DOT to the mess. (more after the jump . . . a lot more . . .) Continue reading »

NEW FALL TOURS

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Sep 172011
 

As a public service, I thought I’d let you know about two North American tours I just noticed yesterday, plus two others announced earlier but not previously mentioned at NCS. The first of the newer ones is advertised by the poster above. What caught my eye, in addition to the name Korpiklaani, was the fact that Russia’s Arkona is on this tour. Arkona is a recent discovery for us here at NCS, thanks to our friend Trollfiend, who provided a guest review of the band’s new album Slovo. Also included on the tour are Polkadot Cadaver and Forged in Flame. I don’t yet know anything about those two bands, but I’m very tempted to see this show simply because of Arkona (though I like Korpiklaani, too), especially because the Seattle stop will be at a relatively small club.

The second tour is the 2011 edition of Thrash and Burn. This has been a summer tour since its inception, but it was a no-show in the summer just past and now appears to have emerged as a re-branding of Winds of Plague’s fall headlining tour. Following in the footsteps of Summer Slaughter, Winds of Plague and the promoters of this tour nominated a group of bands to fill the last tour slot and let fans vote for a winner. A couple days ago, the winner was announced, and it’s Volumes. Interestingly, Volumes was also one of the nominated bands on the Summer Slaughter ballot, but didn’t make the cut that time and instead were included on the Slaughter Survivors Tour. Volumes has a new album called Via that’s getting some buzz, though I haven’t heard it yet.

The rest of the bands on this version of Thrash and Burn are Chelsea Grin, As Blood Runs Black, For the Fallen Dreams, Upon A Burning Body, In the Midst of Lions, and Like Moths to Flames. In other words, the tour should be renamed Deathcore and Burn. No tour schedule has yet been announced.

I must admit that among the fall tours we haven’t yet mentioned at this site, I’m personally more interested in the Mastodon/Dillinger Escape Plan/Red Fang tour and the Mayhem/Keep Of Kalessin/Hate/Abigail Williams tour (which will be joined by Woe on 13 dates not yet specified). The schedules for the Korpiklaani tour and those others I just mentioned are after the jump. Continue reading »

BRUTAL TRUTH: “END TIME”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Sep 172011
 

(This is a grindcore kind of review (very short, borderline demented) by TheMadIsraeli of a grindcore album by one of the ancestral kings of grindcore, Brutal Truth.)

ALBUM FUCK SHIT UP! ALBUM GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

But no, seriously. Brutal fucking Truth? You bet your ass this album rules. A review of this thing is entirely pointless because I’m pretty sure that in order to dislike Brutal Truth you have to be lacking the metal gene and possess instead the I-listen-to-Design-The-Skyline-and-masturbate-to-tranny-porn gene.

What can I say? Well, it’s a throw-back to the quirky style of grindcore they pioneered on their sophomore release Need To Control. As in, it’s a throw-back to an album FILLED THE FUCK WITH FUCKING AWESOME. I mean, these guys are playing so savagely the music sounds like it’s going to fall apart and turn into total shit any minute, performed with such wild abandon, it’s like being shot at with a mini-gun that shoots nothing but sewing needles straight at you at 1000 rounds per second. Like being bombarded with trebuchets hurling bags of sledgehammers at you. LIKE DESTROYING THE FUCKING PLANET WITH YOUR MOST PRIMAL OF SCREECHES! Oh yeah, Kevin Sharp still has it by the way. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

PHRO LISTENS TO BURIED INSIDE’S “CHRONOCLAST”

 Album Reviews, Phro's Posts  9 Responses »
Sep 162011
 

(Yes, that’s what our guest contributor Phro did. He listened to Buried Inside’s Chronoclast album, and not for the first time. And as he did, what apparently went through his fevered mind was this . . .)

Tiny pieces of glass and broken gears scatter across my face like an accidental orgasm in the middle of a porno shoot.  Reaching up, I dejectedly swipe at the pieces, and the annoying flow stops.  And then I hear it…the heavy, trundling march of an unstoppablity.  Fighting the cobwebs still hanging in my head from a night wrapped in the silky arms of an armadillo, I feel my eyes focus on…terror.

It was the bastard Time.  I saw him in all his elephantine glory.  A face not even a blind, drunk whore of a mother could love.  His long, gangly arms hung like limp, worthless mule cocks, and his fat rubbery legs quivered like a hippopotamus gang bang.  His ugly, distorted mouth formed words, but all I hear is the war cry of an ugly dominatrix.  Fuck you, Time.  You ain’t getting my balls today.

So, I stand.  I run.  My lungs burn and sweat stings my eyes.  My thighs are red from rubbing against my jeans, and my balls swell from bouncing against my legs.

Then, Time’s evil whore the Clock rises up from the shadows and punches me right in the dick and I fall to the ground. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

INSOMNIUM: “THROUGH THE SHADOWS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 162011
 

At the end of August, Insomnium released the first song from their next album, One For Sorrow, which is scheduled to hit the streets on October 12 in Finland, October 17 in the rest of Europe, and October 18 in the U.S. The song was “Unsung”, and of course we had to put it up on NCS pronto (here). If you haven’t heard it yet, it’s a great song.

Earlier this week, the band and Century Media released the first official video from the album for another song, “Through the Shadows”. That video is now on YouTube and can be embedded, so that’s what we’re doing after the jump.

This is not the Insomnium I know and love. Where “Unsung” included clean vocals, they were brief and I thought they worked well in the song. This new one is at least half clean vocals. Is Insomnium drifting toward the Amorphis end of the Finnish melodeath spectrum?

Yes, you can call me a narrow-minded bigot about clean singing in extreme metal. I plead guilty. I don’t hate this song, but it’s not doing much for me either. I’ll just leave it at that and play the video after the jump, because after all, it’s still Insomnium. Continue reading »

DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT: THE “BURIED WITH LEECHES” VIDEO SURFACES AGAIN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  25 Responses »
Sep 162011
 

In January 2011, Prosthetic Records re-released the debut album (Hatred For Mankind) by the UK’s Dragged Into Sunlight, which had previously seen only limited distribution through Mordgrimm Records. I reviewed it not long after, calling it “a cataclysmic, corrosive, chaotic, cathartic, crushing cavalcade of cacophony” and “one of the most disturbingly brilliant albums” I’d ever heard:

“Whether droning and discordant or voracious and seething, the songs are inventively designed to create an atmosphere of soul-rending despair and to generate the kind of adrenaline surge brought on by the threat of imminent destruction. Listening is like being caught in the roaring squall of a hurricane, realizing too late that you can’t ride it out like you stupidly thought you could: It’s the end of your world, in a maelstrom of overwhelming sound.”

When I wrote the review, I had planned to include along with it an embed of the band’s official video for the song “Buried With Leeches”, which was then streaming on YouTube. I thought the video complemented the cold, inhuman music, perhaps even completed it. On the other hand, the imagery was horrific, gruesome, and utterly hopeless (not unlike the music). But before I could post the review, YouTube removed the video because it violated the company’s policy on “nudity or sexual content” — which was absurd. Yes, there were momentary images of a penis in the video, but there was nothing erotic or pornographic about it. Instead, the images displayed the humiliating horror of a man being degraded and tortured in agony, stripped of his dignity as well as his clothing.

I thought for sure the video would surface again someplace, but it hasn’t, at least not that I’ve found. Every web site that had been streaming the thing was just using an embed of the YouTube clip, and so when YouTube removed it, it disappeared from everyplace else on the web and hasn’t been replaced. I was listening to Hatred For Mankind recently, and although I’ve never hosted a video here at NCS before, I decided to ask Dragged Into Sunlight if I could do that — to give the video a new home — if I could figure out how to do it. They agreed. I did figure it out. And now you and everyone else in the world can stream it again, after the jump. Continue reading »

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC: SEPTIC FLESH AND THE HORDE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 152011
 

The 2011 album from Septic Flesh, The Great Mass, has been one of the year’s high points for several of us here at NCS. Andy Synn opened his detailed review of the album this way: “Equally comfortable playing the roles of death metal behemoths, gothic troubadours and classical composers, Septic Flesh have crafted another deep and rewarding piece of majestic, symphonic metal that carefully navigates the pitfalls and clichés which plague many of their peers. . . . I for one could not imagine these songs without the complex classical arrangements, nor see them existing without the frantic energy provided by the furious drums and guitars.”

Unlike many “symphonic” metal bands who are forced to rely on synthesizers for the addition of orchestral elements, Septic Flesh recorded The Great Mass with the Prague Filmharmonic Orchestra, and the difference in sound is dramatically evident. While it may be difficult to imagine the songs without the fury of the drums and guitars (or the power of Seth Siro Anton’s vocals), we don’t have to exert our imaginations, because Septic Flesh have now made the orchestral version of one song — “Mad Architect” — available for streaming. I had fun this morning listening to the album track first and then the orchestra-only version of this magnificently bombastic song. So I thought I’d give you the chance to do the same, after the jump.

Also after the jump is a song that has been exploding my head from an album called Thy Blackened Reign by an Illinois band called The Horde. The album was released last month by Stormspell Records. I’m so far behind on reviews that I’m worried I may not get around to writing a proper one of this ass-kicking slab of metal — but I’m at least going to include a short one here, while spotlighting that one song as a taste for you of what the record has to offer. More about The Horde and that song after the Septic Flesh tracks. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE OCEAN’S ROBIN STAPS

 Interviews  10 Responses »
Sep 152011
 

(NCS interviewer deluxe BadWolf turned in this revealing interview of Robin Staps from that mind-bending multinational collective The Ocean.)

The struggles that met The Ocean on their 2011 Spring tour supporting Between the Buried and Me and Job for a Cowboy have been well-discussed, but perhaps not well-documented. This interview I conducted on the Toledo date of that tour on May 28 supplies a missing piece of the puzzle.

Now that The Ocean are returning to the U.S. next month with Devin Townsend, it’s the perfect time to bring the mind of The Ocean’s mastermind, writer/guitarist Robin Staps, to light.

Do yourselves a favor and SEE THAT TOUR. The Ocean are a heady, proggy band, but they put on a visceral stage show with stage diving and, apparently, an intense light show which wasn’t present at Headliner’s in Toledo. Staps and his friends deserve your support!

INTERVIEW

BadWolf – This is the first time you’ve played this part of the country [Toledo].

Robin Staps – We played Chicago last time, I think.  We were here three years ago with Kylesa, Lair of the Minotaur and Withered.

d00shc00gr [Badwolf’s compatriot] – Man we should have seen that one!  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

BANDS YOU NEED TO HEAR: CHAPTERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Sep 152011
 

(TheMadIsraeli wrote this post about a UK band called Chapters.)

If your first thought about this video was, “Fuck, those are some savage vocals,” you wouldn’t be alone. The man you see in this video is vocalist/bassist of Chapters Joseph Nally ripping his own vocal chords a new asshole. So what are Chapters exactly? Death metal? Yeah. Melodic? Yeah. Progressive? You bet your ass. Disjointed song writing the likes of which hasn’t been heard since Death? Right here in spades.
Chapters is based in Reading, England, a place that has become an absolute hot bed for metal as of late, most notably for melothrashers Sylosis. Chapters has actually been a consistent touring mate for Sylosis, and has been hard at work for a long time on their debut album The Imperial Skies. Unsigned and approaching the project with an ambitious DIY ethic, it seems these guys may be ready to take the world by storm once this album drops. Which should be soon, although no date is presently set.

I can tell you just by the two songs this band has released that this is some of the most punishing yet compelling metal you’ll hear all year. Joseph Nally’s distinctive blood-curdling shrieks and roars offset the melodic (or non melodic) prog-textured riffing of guitarists Angus Neyra and Máté Bodor in a way I wish I would hear more of. Combine this with drummer Michael Williams’ technical yet to-the-point drum assaults, and I think we may be looking at a new MVP entering the metal world. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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