IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER THAN A BIG MUTHA RIFF, OTHER THAN HATRED, OF COURSE?

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 142011
 

I mean other than an orgasm and a juicy rib eye steak cooked to perfection? And hatred? The answer is no. There is not. Unless, if you’re a vegetarian, it would be something like, uh, I dunno . . . squash?

I’m actually not urging the point that hatred is better than a big motherfucking riff, but that seems to be the assertion of a French death metal band called Livarkahil, because they have a song called “Above All Hatred”. I think they undermine their own contention, though, because the song includes a couple of monster headbang-worthy riffs that I think are better than hatred. You’ll see, and you will see (as well as hear) because they’ve recently released an official video for the song.

“Above All Hatred” is from the band’s second album, Signs of Decay, which will be released on September 26 through Listenable Records. It’s a concept album that appears to be an indictment and dissection of religious autocracy, which explains the not-very-subtle imagery in the video.

The song isn’t subtle either, which is just fucking A-OK with me. It’s like Behemoth meets DevilDriver with some gang shouts thrown in for the hell of it. Not breaking any new ground, not pushing the death-metal envelope, but plenty of big grooves, big riffs, and big fun. Check it after the jump, y’know, unless you’d rather be having an orgasm or your steak is about to burn. Or something about squash. Continue reading »

A WHALE OF A VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Sep 142011
 

I saw Scale the Summit play in Seattle in April 2009. They were either the first or second band of the night. I hadn’t even heard the album they had released shortly before that tour started, Carving Desert Canyons. They were relative unknowns then, and they had no vocalist. I was prepared to be uninterested.  It took about five minutes before I changed my mind.

I remember being wide-eyed and gap-jawed in wonder, completely sucked into what they were doing on stage. If I’d heard a studio album that contained the music I was hearing, I would have been completely enthralled. To see them doing it live on stage, with no studio gimmickry or room for error, was astounding.

Now here we are more than two years later. Scale the Summit has another album out, The Collective, which was released in March of this year. They’re definitely better known now. In fact, one of the band’s two phenomenal guitarists, Chris Letchford, made MetalSucks’ list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists in June (and my only complaint about that was why he didn’t appear higher in the list).

Seeing Letchford and his co-guitarist Travis LeVrier doing their thing live remains a thoroughly entertaining experience, and yesterday’s release of the two of them doing a play-through of the song “Whales” from the new album captures some of the wonder I felt for the first time more than two years ago. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

AND IN CASE YOU FORGOT WHY METALCORE WAS/IS STILL WORTH A SHIT…

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 132011
 

. . . we have a new song from God Forbid. It’s really not all that new, because if you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that the Victory Records Labor Day sampler we spot-lighted on Labor Day included a demo track from God Forbid’s next album, which happens to be this same song. I don’t exactly blame you for overlooking this, because the sampler was a very mixed bag, and I’m well aware that many readers of this site run for the hills at the mention of Victory Records.

Now, here’s where I get brutally honest, which of course is the only kind of honest we know how to be here at NCS, at least when we choose to be honest, which is always an elective, not a mandatory, in our course catalogue: I didn’t listen to that God Forbid song when the Victory Records sampler first came out, even though I wrote about the sampler. I didn’t even listen to it when other metal blogs said it was the main reason to load-down the sampler. In fact, I didn’t listen to it until yesterday, when the band plugged that song onto their Facebook page.

But I’ve heard it now, and it reminded me of a few things: It reminded me that metalcore played a big role in reviving and broadening interest in metal in the U.S., and it reminded me why. By combining elements of hardcore, thrash, and Scandinavian style melodeath riffage, metalcore introduced legions of new fans to music that was both heavy and melodic, aggressive and yet catchy and memorable. It reminded me how much I used to like metalcore before it became saturated with jillions of generic copycat acts. And it reminded me that I still get something out of the music when it’s done right.

God Forbid, of course, is no copycat. With a particularly thrash-heavy attack, they helped lay the foundations for the genre. The new song — “Where We Come From” — is nothing ground-breaking, of course. But it’s God Forbid in their own groove, and it sounds just fine to me.  It’s been two years since the band’s last album came out, but they’re promising a new one by 2012. You can listen to the new song after the jump . . . Continue reading »

JUNIUS REPLACES GHOST ON ENSLAVED’S FALL TOUR

 Metal News  1 Response »
Sep 132011
 

We previously reported that because of difficulties obtaining visas, Ghost would be forced to drop off the fall North American tour headlined by Norway’s Enslaved, which begins September 23. We mused that such a cloud might have a silver lining, ie, that another awesome band might be recruited to take the place of the missing phantoms.

Well, a replacement has indeed been found. Their name is Junius. I knew fuck-all about them when I saw the press release announcing their appearance on the tour. I have done some very quick research, and I now know (a) that they are from Boston; (b) that they describe their music as “art rock” and have been described by others as “a perfect hybrid of Neurosis and The Smiths”; (c) that they premiered a new song this morning on Brooklyn Vegan (here), which will appear on a new album to be released by Prosthetic Records called Reports From the Threshold of Death; and (d) the cover art for that new album is cool.

In case you were wondering, I did listen to that new song, “All Shall Float”. It’s not metal, at least not by my definition. It’s what I think of as emotional indie rock, and therefore (given my own tastes) it’s not something I would listen to on my own in a million years. So, it doesn’t enhance my anticipation for this tour, although I don’t really need any enhancement with Enslaved and Alcest already on the bill. Have a look at the cover art after the jump, and if you’re going to this tour and want to see what you’re in for from Junius, you can listen to “All Shall Float” after the jump, too. Continue reading »

ARCHITECTURE OF AGGRESSION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Sep 132011
 

I’ve been writing an irregular series on South African metal, relying largely on recommendations from South African metalheads to pick the bands. So far, I’ve managed three installments covering 9 bands. I’ve made some very nice discoveries, and I do plan to do a fourth installment sometime soon.

Architecture of Aggression were one of the widely recommended bands who were the subject of the third installment (here). Formed by two brothers, Van Zyl and Anton Alberts, they’ve been in existence for 16 years, creating their first demo album (Under Destruction) in 1997. That was followed by another demo album in 1998 (self-titled), a further demo in 2000 (Cruci-fiction), a 2004 EP (Manifest Destiny), and two albums:  Democracy: Consent to Domination (2006) and Acts of God – 4000 Years of Phallusy (2009), the last of which is the album I sampled for the third installment of the SA metal series. To crib from what I wrote about AOA previously:

As for the music, think of a heavily armored tank propelled by a couple of jet engines. It’s massive and bone-grinding, but at the same time it flies. The riffing is technical and varied, the rubbery bass is bounding, the un-triggered drums are crushing, and on top of all that you get a variety of agile guitar solos that sometimes sound downright jazzy.

This is complex, technically demanding, and amazingly inventive death metal. Think of Necrophagist, Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and Hate Eternal, but with avant-garde bursts of instrumental extravagance, and you’ll begin to get a sense of what AOA is all about.

With that background, here’s the reason for today’s post: AOA has uploaded their EP and two full-length albums to the Bandcamp platform, at this location: https://architectureofaggression1.bandcamp.com. (more after the jump, including song streams . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 36: BRINGERS OF DISEASE, REZISTOR, AND ELDERGAAD

 MISCELLANY  5 Responses »
Sep 132011
 

For new readers and older readers who have memory deficits: We maintain a running list of bands whose music we’ve never heard. Most of the bands on the list have written us with requests that we check out their music. We add other bands to the list based on reader recommendations or things we’ve read. Most of the bands on this list have no label affiliation. When time permits, I pick two or three names off the list, listen to one or two songs from each band, and then write about the experience in these MISCELLANY posts. I also include the music I heard, so you can make up your own minds about whether the bands are worth exploring further.

Sometimes I cheat on the rules of this game and listen to more than one or two songs. I then punish myself for cheating by, for example, listening to indie rock or rap. Or something by Kamelot.

Today’s picks, as usual, turned out to be a varied lot: gritty black metal from Bringers of Disease (US-Ohio), groove-heavy thrash from Rezistor (Romania), and prog-minded death metal from Eldergaad (U.S.-Minnesota). You’ll have to set aside a solid chunk of time for this post, because it’s not a short one, but all the music is worth some serious attention. Here we go — after the jump: Continue reading »

NIGHTFALL’S “ASTRON BLACK” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  21 Responses »
Sep 122011
 

Nightfall is a Greek metal band whose most recent album was released by Metal Blade in August 2010. Called Astron Black and The Thirty Tyrants, it’s a worthwhile pantheon of blackened melodic death metal. Shortly before the album’s debut, we featured a unique music video that had been created for the song “Ambassadors of Mass”. Definitely not your usual metal video fare, it depicted scenes from the 5th century war between Greece and Persia using nothing but images of shadow puppets.

That apparently didn’t exhaust the imagination of the band or Achilleas Gatsopoulos, the Berlin-based director who was responsible for the “Ambassadors of Mass” video. Today, Metal Blade premiered a video for another song off that 2010 album, “Astron Black”.  It’s not your typical metal video either. This one integrates live actors into a digital environment to tell a medley of stories from ancient Greek mythology. But the gods and their creations, though set among the planets and stars, look like something out of a Lady Gaga stage show, with gleaming metallic armor and protruding, uh, . . . nipplage.

There’s enough skin showing in this video, not to mention a quick shot of a celestial knob-job, that it probably qualifies as NSFW. But it’s definitely fun to watch, and the song — like all the others on this album — is a nice slice of headbanging fun, too.  Check it out after the jump, along with a detailed description by Achilleas Gatsopoulos of the imagery used in the vid. Continue reading »

CORELIA: “NOSTALGIA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 122011
 

(Another short blast from TheMadIsraeli, and this time the subject is a debut EP from San Diego’s Corelia.)

Corelia, a progressive metalcore band with slight djent nuances, has been working on this EP for quite a while, during which they’ve been hyped for their supposed balance of great songwriting without sacrificing a sliver of technicality.  I’m here to say they accomplished this mission, as their debut EP Nostalgia is some piece of work.

Corelia take the groove and wackiness of Sikth and combine it with the melodic sensibilities and power-metal oriented clean vocal style of prog metallers Protest The Hero and turn it into something truly awe-inspiring and daze-inducing.  Sure, there are some less intense, more focused moments, but otherwise you’re being sucked into a tornado of blazing tech riffing, flawless atonal-to-melodic  transitions, and some of the best brutal-to-clean vocal interplay you’re going to hear in recent months.

This isn’t gonna be a long review as I’m doing that next-level guerilla-music-blogging shit (ie, I’m doing this on campus between classes).  I’ll just have the Bandcamp player for the EP embedded after the jump.  For fans of… Sikth, Protest The Hero, Aliases and… Periphery, I guess?  Sounds about right. Continue reading »

ANOTHER DEATH IN THE FAMILY

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Sep 122011
 

I’m pretty sure I first discovered Sweden’s Lifelover via a comment on this site by Johan Huldtgren (Obitus) and then through his inclusion of the band’s 2007 album Erotik on a “Best of the Decade” list he compiled and allowed us to post as a guest contrbution here. This morning, NCS writer BadWolf e-mailed me about the news that on the night of the 9th September, Jonas Bergqvist a.k.a. ‘B’, the founding member, main composer, and guitarist of Lifelover, died unexpectedly. The cause of his death is still unclear and has yet to be established.

The band’s label, Prophecy, released this statement:  “The message of Jonas’s passing came as a surprise to the Prophecy team. Hence, we lack the appropriate words for this tragic event. To us, Jonas wasn’t just a very creative artist, but also a pleasant and enthusiastic person. It is for certain that we won’t be the only ones missing his character, his passion, and his unique musical language. In the face of this tragic loss, we would very much like to extend our heartfelt condolence towards Jonas’s family, his friends, and the remaining musicians of Lifelover.”

Shit happens, musicians die, and I don’t do a very good job of noting on this site when it happens. But I’ve grown to really appreciate this band’s music, and so I thought this was worth a mention. After the jump, a few Lifelover songs, the legacy that Jonas Bergqvist has left behind. Continue reading »

MEANS END

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Sep 122011
 

(TheMadIsraeli fired off this post about a new, free EP from a band based in Stockholm, Sweden.)

This is a short three-song EP from a band only known as Means End, and I strongly suggest you check it out. This is djent of the highest order, taking a step back from modern conventions and going back more to the established sound of Textures and Meshuggah than anything else. The melodic transitions in these three songs are AMAZING and haunting. Never straight-forward and always alien. There are those nice djent grooves we’re accustomed to, but expect more along the lines of Meshuggah’s Nothing then TesseracT’s One.

Check it out. The EP is free, so you have no good reason not to grab this.  (after the jump, some tracks to hear and the download link . . .) Continue reading »

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