DRUDKH: “WHEN GODS LEAVE THEIR EMERALD HALLS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

In 2003 a Ukrainian black metal band called Drudkh (the Sanskrit word for “wood”) released their debut album, Forgotten Lands. One of the long songs on the album was called “Eternal Turn of the Wheel”. Nine years later, Season of Mist is about to release Drudkh’s ninth album — Eternal Turn of the Wheel.

I’ve not heard much of Drudkh’s music — a song here, a song there, including a great (long) track called “Skies At Our Feet” from the Estrangement album that I featured in an NCS post about a year and a half ago and another great song called “Furrows of Gods ” from the Blood In Our Wells album, which Johan Huldtgren put on his list of the best 10 albums of the last 10 years in this guest post.

Late last week, NPR premiered a song from the new album, one called “When Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls”. Season of Mist described the song this way: “”When the Gods Leave Their Emerald Halls” witnesses Ukrainian Black Metal heroes musically returning to their dark roots. Taken from the album “Eternal Turn of the Wheel”, which represents the ancient pagan cycle of the seasons, this track portrays the blue skies and Ukraine’s golden fields being harvested. The wheel turns to the twilight of autumn and leaves wither from emerald green to fiery red and blazing yellow gold before crumbling to the black and brown of winter…”

Unfortunately, the NPR page no longer includes the audio stream, but the song has surfaced on YouTube. And it’s quite a song. Continue reading »

KEYBOARD WARRIORS: VINCE NEILSTEIN

 Interviews  7 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

(Shortly before The Number of the Blog met its sad demise, TNOTB began publishing an interview series called “Keyboard Warriors” written by a relatively new TNOTB staffer who called himself Rev. Will. Because the archive of TNOTB posts seems to have exploded in a spatter of bits, never to be seen again, we agreed to give these interviews a home here at NCS. We started on Sunday and will be posting one per day this week. Today’s interview was originally published on Nov. 22, 2011.)

In 2006, a music blog burst onto the then-humorless and lightly-populated extreme metal blogosphere, boldly calling itself: MetalSucks. Two to three years after that, its popularity and authority on all things metal and troll-worthy soared exponentially. Before we know it, MetalSucks have even inspired their first batch of younger peers: The Number Of The Blog (R.I.F.P.), No Clean Singing, and Heavy Blog Is Heavy.

Honestly, when I first came across MetalSucks, I was trolled. My first impression was seriously that of a blog that was dedicated to bashing metal music in general… until I noticed how their blog logo copied the font for Pantera’s logo. Yes, laugh at me all you want, but I bet many of you out there probably went through the same trollololol-zy episode too before y’all realized that MetalSucks is really a metal blog by metal-lovin’ people for metal-lovin’ people.

Well, enough prattle already. Time to start feasting your undeserving eyes on what ½ of MetalSucks’ founding duo has to say to my siege of questions. From the elusive MetalSucks headquarters in NYC, the alter-ego of Mötley Crüe’s frontman talks about the two albums released by the blog so far, the inaugural Metal Suckfest from 2011, and other industry-related topics (VN – “Christ, this was a marathon.”). Continue reading »

EVER FORTHRIGHT

 Album Reviews  16 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

(TheMadIsraeli has been trying to sort out his feelings about the self-titled debut album from New York’s Ever Forthright, who we first wrote about back in June 2010 when they were a purely instrumental band. Finally, his feelings are all sorted.)

This fucking band.

This album has been like a torrid love affair with the hottest junkie street whore with a Ph.D. in philosophy.  I’ve been so back and forth on this fucking thing it’s why I never got around to reviewing it.  But after many listens and a shit-ton of soul searching, I’ve finally decided this thing’s a fucking winner, if nothing else for its ambition, scope, and commitment to craft alone.

Ever Forthright is probably going to launch themselves to the top of the tech-djent heap here within this next year by bringing forth EVERYTHING about this style that is great and makes it worthy of fascination, while being COMPLETELY devoid of any Meshuggah copping.  The fact that I went back and forth on my take on this album 20 times in seriously considering it tells you how much of a trip this was for me.

Ever Forthright’s debut is an ambitious one, clocking in at fucking 77 minutes in 12 songs and boasting a very diverse song catalogue. You have the low-end, punchy, open/closed note riffing, the technical widdly widdly’s and meedly meedly’s, and plenty of the Berklee jazz education breaking through to the surface, combined with Chris Baretto’s exceptional saxophone playing and a bit of deathcore brawn.

“All Eyes On The Earth” is a superb stage-setter for an opener, recalling the stylings of Periphery and Sikth, delivering superb melody-to-dissonance counterpoint and providing one of the most brutal breakdowns I’ve ever heard — a full minute and a half of being pummeled over the head with a goat’s jawbone until your skull splinters into your brain and you die from massive hemorrhaging.  The riffs are punctual yet all over the place, grooving yet aflutter; it’s absolutely fucking nuts.  The song is brimming with enough energy to power an entire nation and is a sufficient piece of ass-whoopage to get you attuned to the experience that is Ever Forthright. Continue reading »

MEGAUPLOAD’S SHUT-DOWN: THE FALLOUT BEGINS

 Off Topic  24 Responses »
Jan 232012
 


Last week, U.S. law enforcement authorities convinced a federal judge in Virginia to shut down the Megaupload file-sharing site pending a criminal trial of its owner, “Kim Dotcom”, and other employees on charges of criminal copyright infringement. Working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice, New Zealand police arrested Dotcom at his Auckland mansion, seized millions of dollars worth of expensive cars, and froze bank accounts holding $11 million in cash. The U.S. will now try to extradite Dotcom to the U.S. to stand trial.

A couple days ago, I wrote an article for NCS trying to set out the facts about why the government went after Megaupload so aggressively and what laws the government has charged Doctom with violating — they didn’t need SOPA or PIPA to do it. I also offered some opinions, the main one being that the Megaupload shutdown really doesn’t have anything to do with freedom of speech or censorship and instead has a lot more to do with temporarily impairing our ability to get something for nothing. I also made this prediction:

“If this case is successful, we will likely see a severe short-term restriction on our ability to download albums for free — because other file-hosting companies will be taking more aggressive steps to prevent the uploading and downloading of copyrighted content. In fact, they’re probably taking steps to do that right now.”

Well, sho’ nuff. Today, the FileSonic on-line file storage site has terminated the ability of users to share files among themselves. The site now sports a banner on its home page stating: “All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled.  Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.” Continue reading »

BLOODSHOT DAWN

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

We goat-throwers do like our guitar wizardry. We like other things, too, but bands who bring the shred generally light up our pasty white faces with a beaming glow. If you listen long enough and widely enough, of course, mere speed and dexterity no longer give you quite the same rush as they did in your listening infancy. You look for more — you look for creativity, a certain tone, a certain feel, some heart and soul, even . . . dare I say it . . . intelligence — along with the ability to trigger the headbang reflex, of course.

When a band is able to marry that kind of guitar talent with song-writing ability, performance skill at the other positions, and a knack for fusing diverse musical styles, you get something special. Revocation’s David Davidson and company pulled that off when they made their first serious splash in the scene during 2009 with the release of Existence Is Futile. I think we’re about to get wet from a similar splash on January 26, when Bloodshot Dawn releases their self-titled debut album.

This UK band features two lead guitarists — Josh McMorran (who is also the lead vocalist) and Benjamin Ellis (who also contributes backing vox). When you cut right down to the bone, the songs on the album really serve as platforms for them to strut their stuff. That’s not to say that the rest of each song is composed of filler — far from it. But what makes the album such a stand-out, and each song such a kick in the head to hear, is the space it gives these two to show what they’re made of. And what they’re made of is win. Continue reading »

TOURISM

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

I’ve been catching up on metal news today and came across news of three upcoming U.S. tours that are . . . newsworthy, to say the least.

I’m guessing this first one will be old news to many of you, since it surfaced on Friday, but it has sure produced some tumescence in your humble editor’s loins today. Behemoth, Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude will be hitting the road for The Decibel Magazine Tour, a 26-date trail of wreckage across the U.S. starting in April. It will be the first Behemoth tour for Nergal since being diagnosed with and beating leukemia. That’s a cool tour flyer by Justin Bartlett up there, too.

More details, including tour dates, venues and ticket info, will be announced at www.decibelmagazinetour.com on January 24th.

But that’s just for starters. Mastodon’s Troy Sanders recently confirmed that his band plus Opeth and Ghost will be embarking on a North American tour of their own. During a recent interview at a Belgian radio station, Sanders stated: “We go to Australia to take part in the Soundwave Festival, which is going to be lovely, take a short break. Do a North American tour with Opeth and Ghost. And then take another break and come back over here for the European festival season.”

I have a feeling a few people will buy tickets for that tour. No further details are available at this time. (found this news via Loudwire)

And that’s not all. Would you believe a 30-date tour of the U.S. this summer by Agalloch?!? Continue reading »

MORE GORE: GENERAL SURGERY UPDATE

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

General Surgery is a name that all properly educated death metal and goregrind fiends will know quite well. Originally formed in 1988, this group of Swedish butchers released an influential EP on Relapse Records in 1991 called Necrology. Then they sort of dropped out of sight until returning in 2002 with numerous splits, EPs, and two full-length albums.

Today I read the news that General Surgery has rejoined Relapse. To celebrate the joyous reunion, Relapse is going to release a compilation of 30 General Surgery tracks on March 27 under the name A Collection of Depravation. This thing, which can be pre-ordered here, will include cuts from General Surgery’s previous split releases, and they’re being digitally remastered by none other than Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer fame. It will also include a 24-page booklet with liner notes from the surgeons. (Hey Scott, where my goddamn new PD album?) More details about those 30 tracks are after the jump.

But hey, that’s not all. General Surgery has already recorded a five-track EP of new songs. I love the title of this new EP (and I think Dismember would be proud): Like An Ever Flying Limb. There’s no release date yet for the EP.

Oh, and guess what? The band is also working on their third full-length album for release “in the near future”.

And guess what? It looks like General Surgery just recently established an official facebook page HERE. If you hurry, you can be the 25th person to like them.

And, guess what? Since General Surgery is now on my mind, which is kind of like having leeches in your nose, I’m gonna include some General Surgery tunes after the jump. Fuck yes. Continue reading »

KEYBOARD WARRIORS: ADRIEN BEGRAND

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

 

 

(Shortly before The Number of the Blog met its sad demise, TNOTB began publishing an interview series called “Keyboard Warriors” written by a relatively new TNOTB staffer who called himself Rev. Will. Because the archive of TNOTB posts seems to have exploded in a spatter of bits, never to be seen again, we agreed to give these interviews a home here at NCS, mainly because one of the interviewees was me. So, beginning today we’re republishing the five interviews that appeared before TNOTB went down. We’ll follow those on Friday with an interview that didn’t appear before TNOTB shut down . . . and we understand more will be coming after that.)

TNOTB INTRO: Many of us have read, heard, and watched countless interviews with our favourite musicians/bands involved and gained a better understanding of their art and the difficulties that come packaged with it. How often do we do the same with the people who slog behind the limelight and come up with the very words you are taking in now though? Rev. Will speaks to veteran metal writer, Adrien Begrand, to shed some light on the overly underrated and underappreciated art of metal music journalism.

THE GREAT THING ABOUT INTERVIEWING A FELLOW METAL WRITER (AND A PROFESSIONAL ONE AT THAT) IS that I don’t have to spend a lot of time scrutinising the interview response for spelling and grammatical errors. Heck, I don’t even have to worry about the punctuation. Conversely, I’m pretty sure that if I were to interview infamous troll bands like Anal Cunt or IWRESTLEDABEARONCE via e-mail, I would probably be spending most of my working time on the piece heavily correcting their responses to inject more coherence and sense into whatever they might be trying to bring across to you readers. Or whatever it is they are trying to troll, once again.

Well, since we are on to the subject of trolls, has anyone ever heard any of your metalhead homies diss metal writers as mostly a bunch of nonsense-spewing and “they-just-don’t-get-it” people? The existence of such ungrateful apes has always intrigued me; it really just doesn’t make sense to me that anyone who reads metal-related articles online or offline to help aid in their purchasing or downloading decisions can make such audacious and uncalled for remarks. Sure, metal writers tend to get overly-excited or drunk at times and end up writing the occasional stuff that they will regret ever churning out later on, but alas, they are only human at the end of the day, too. On the other happier hand, metal writers do get some pretty juicy benefits over the everyday metal fan, and that is not including the joy they get out of writing passionately for their beloved Metal. Needless to say, the business of metal music journalism is not a walk in the park. Just like most other jobs out there, it has its fair share of dull and exhilirating moments. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 49)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  31 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

What a long time it’s been since the last post in this series — more than a month. And I’ve collected so many items to choose from — many of them from the NCS faithful. One of them I’ve been sitting on for a really long time, because it involves a massive amount of pus. I’m still not sure I can bring myself to use it, since I’m pretty sure it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I think I’ll just start going with this post and see how I feel when I get to the end.

What this series is about, for newcomers: Some things are metal even though they’re not music — photos, art, videos, reports of human behavior. Some things are metal because they’re fuckin amazing. Some things are metal because they’re brutal. And some things are metal because they’re unbelievably ridiculous — just like your average metalhead (me included). In these posts, I pick out things I see that I think are metal, for one or more of these reasons. Today, I’ve got six items for your entertainment.

ITEM ONE

The first item is right up there at the top of this post, and it came our way from my friend Quigs. I poked around the interhole to see if I could find more about this awesome piece of construction. It appears to have been created by a dude in Bangkok from recycled auto and bicycle parts. More details about it can be found here. And a couple more pics of this thing are right after the jump. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS DEATHMATCH Round 4: “TUONELA”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

(Here’s Round Four of Trollfiend’s head-to-head, no-holes-barred cage fight with Amorphis. In this match, there are charges and counter-charges of Betrayal, and eventually a killing blow. To catch up on what’s going on here, read this post. Also, be sure to check out Trollfiend’s own blog, ALSO, WOLVES.)

The crowd is oddly silent as I step into the arena for this, my fourth battle against the music of Amorphis. I look up from the blood-soaked sand to see that the crowd is not merely silent; the arena is empty. Why was I summoned to do battle with no audience to witness?

Foreboding sets in…something is not right.

I sense….doom.

And then I see her, stepping from the shadows: the serpent assassin herself, Tuonela. So this is how it is to be. My victory has frightened Amorphis, and so they send their silent killers in the darkness.

I have fought the ancient and deadly Order of the Clean-Sung before. I know their dirty tricks. I know how they can fool the mind with raspy hooks and beguile the soul with the lament of sirens. I am prepared…but still this sense of doom pervades. My victory over Elegy still boils in my blood, but it was a victory hard-won, and I am not sure I have the stamina or the wits for this battle.

I have to remind myself why I am here. The Betrayal. Yes, in capitals, because it was an event so profound that it deserved a name. Amorphis won my confidence with their folk-tinged melodic death metal. I pledged my fealty to them, unto death. And they turned on me. Even then I could not believe they would consort with the Order…I was blinded by my pain and rage. But Tuonela stands now before me, as damning a piece of evidence as you could want. Continue reading »

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