THE WORST ALBUM COVERS OF ALL TIME

 IQ Subtraction  17 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

I am deeply, DEEPLY in the debt of Ben C. (Church of the Riff) for sending me the link that inspired this post.

I also wish I had thought of this myself. But I didn’t. Credit goes to a blog called Tastebuds. Whoever runs that blog ferreted out a montage of the worst album covers ever created. One of my favorites is up above. I was tempted to just steal all of them for this NCS post, but that wouldn’t be right. So, instead, I’ve just picked out a handful of other favorites to include here after the jump.

But you really need to see all of them — it’s the cumulative effect of seeing all 30 of them in a row that will bring you to the point of tears. That’s certainly what happened to me. I laughed so fuckin’ hard I started crying. I think I peed myself, too, but with me that’s always difficult to tell.

So, check out  a few more choice covers after the jump, and then go here to see all of them. Be sure to come back and tell us whether you peed yourself. Continue reading »

DEMON HUNTER: “TRUE DEFIANCE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

(DemiGodRaven follows his review of Impending Doom’s new album yesterday with a review of the forthcoming Solid State release by yet another stalwart of Christian metal — Demon Hunter.)

Previously in the Impending Doom review, I mentioned that I was also listening to Demon Hunter’s True Defiance. Demon Hunter are one of the few religi-core bands (I’m still trying out new labels here folks!) that I do happen to enjoy, partly because the references to religion have been relatively subdued (mostly about defiance and perseverance) and partly because the music they put out has been pretty solid. I’ve followed them since Summer Of Darkness, so I’ve had the opportunity to really watch the band change their sound and progress from being a solid metalcore act to something heavier and faster, with an odd contrasting habit of kicking out ballads.

I thought that the group’s last CD, The World Is A Thorn, was a bit of a disappointment (though it continued the tradition of badass album art). It sounded almost exactly like Storm The Gates of Hell again, just a little heavier on the ballad side. There were still some good songs, such as the title track, but it is probably the one Demon Hunter release that I listen to the least.

Two years removed from that disc, and I find myself reunited again with Demon Hunter, this time through True Defiance. It’s an interesting album. The music includes some changes compared to the group’s last release, yet everything remains familiar and easily identifiable as Demon Hunter. From the perspective of someone who has enjoyed quite a lot of Demon Hunter’s music, listening to True Defiance is like being re-united with an old friend after an extended vacation, yet I must also admit that some of what the band have done on the new album isn’t very inspired. Continue reading »

MO VIDEOS: IHASHN AND NERVECELL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

Well, fuck me blind. It’s just going to be one of those days when every time I glance at my internet feeds I’m going to see something I must post about. It’s not even 10 a.m. here in the grey Pacific Northwest and we’re up to five posts. You can imagine the extent of not-working at my day job that’s going on. But priorities must be observed, and the priorities at the moment are Ihsahn and Nervecell.

IHSAHN

Candlelight Records have announced June 19 as the North American release date for Eremita (Latin for hermit), the fourth album from Norway’s Ihsahn, who should need no introduction.

Ihsahn alone would be worth attention, but on the new album there will be many notable guest appearances. The album will include performances by drummer Tobias Ornes Andersen (Leprous), saxophonist Jorgen Munkeby (Shining – Norway), guitarist Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore), and vocalists Devin Townsend, Einar Solberg (Leprous), and Heidi S. Tveitan (Star of Ash). The album artwork was created by Spanish designer Ritxi Ostariz, and you can see the cover after the jump.

Eremita will be available on standard CD and a limited edition deluxe digibook (featuring an exclusive bonus track).

But in addition to all that juicy news, Candlelight has also released today a teaser video with snippets from a few of the songs on Eremita. Among other things, it includes blast beats and harsh vocals, which makes me happy. But frankly, everything I hear on this teaser reel makes me happy. It’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

GOJIRA UPDATE: “L’ENFANT SAUVAGE”

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

From a press release (I don’t really need to articulate the extent of my excitement over this, because I’m sure you can imagine it, and please do feel free to imagine me in a state of throbbing excitement):

“New York, NY: French metal act Gojira, easily one of the most buzzed about and beloved extreme bands of the past five years, have revealed L’Enfant Sauvage as the title of their Roadrunner Records debut. The title translates to “The Wild Child.” The album, which features 11 tracks of mind-bending metal, is scheduled to land at retail on June 26 (USA).

“When you become a musician, you don’t have a boss telling you what to do so you have to be very responsible,” singer/guitarist/songwriter Joe Duplantier said, shedding a little light on the title and its meaning. “With freedom comes responsibility so I’m asking myself, ‘What is freedom? What does it mean to me?’ L’Enfant Sauvage reflects on that. There’s no answer though. There’s just life and questions.”

A special collector’s package of L’Enfant Sauvage will feature two bonus tracks and a double-colored vinyl version of the record, along with an exclusive t-shirt. Pre-orders will launch here shortly.”

The track listing for L’Enfant Sauvage is as follows: Continue reading »

NEWS AND VIDEO ROUND-UP: NE OBLIVISCARIS, ZOMBIE, INC., BLOODSHOT DAWN, AND OVERKILL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

One exciting news item + three brand new videos = this post.

NE OBLIVISCARIS

I know that less than three weeks have passed since our last update about Australia’s Ne Obliviscaris, but I think I already made clear that just about any news concerning this band and their forthcoming album is going to get space at NCS.

The new album is called Portal of I, and I expect to drown blissfully in the one hour and 11 minutes of unique music it will undoubtedly serve up. Now, finally, after years of work and more difficulties than many bands encounter, we have a release date for NeO’s debut album: May 7, 2012. We don’t yet have pre-order information, but we understand that’s coming soon.

In addition to the release date, NeO have also announced that they will be touring Australia in support of the album. Although I have no hope of seeing any of these shows except in my mind’s eye, I’m swallowing my frustration and including the tour dates anyway:

Friday, May 18@ The Corner Hotel, Melbourne 18+
Saturday, May 19@ The Castle, Dandenong, Melbourne *ALL AGES*
Saturday, June 9@ The Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Saturday, June 16@ The Bald Faced Stag (The Wall), Sydney
Brisbane show: TBA

Now, onward to those three new music videos . . . Continue reading »

JOB FOR A COWBOY: “DEMONOCRACY”

 Album Reviews  16 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

(NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the new album by Job For A Cowboy, which is scheduled for North American release on April 10, 2012 through Metal Blade, plus we have the three songs from the album publicly released to date.)

Looking back at their career thus far, it’s definitely been an upwards trajectory for Job For A Cowboy. Some might say that’s due to where they started from; Doom is definitely showing its age these days, although still surprisingly spritely in places. Good but not great (despite what the more entrenched fan-boys might claim), the EP was largely a product of its time, seeing a talented band of youngsters riding the crest of the myspace/social networking wave and combining their burgeoning (though undeveloped) talents with new methods of marketing and self-promotion. Though castigated by many for this, there’s no shame in it, particularly as the group have used every subsequent release in an attempt to prove their worth as one of American death metal’s up and coming contenders, improving their instrumental skills and technical abilities at every turn.

If the massive growth demonstrated between the release of Doom and Genesis was an early sign of the band attempting to justify the hype surrounding themselves, then the even bigger leap between Genesis and Ruination was definitely the product of a band “finding themselves”. Having laid these solid foundations, Gloom served the key purpose of an EP perfectly, showcasing some different shifts in direction around this established core. And there we have it, a consistent upwards trajectory that has demonstrated both growth and drive, often in the face of an intransigent metal community

So how does Demonocracy fit in? Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: PUTREVORE, RIBSPREADER, AND JUANJO CASTELLANO

 Eye-Catchers  13 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

Putrevore is a joint project of Sweden’s Rogga Johansson (Ribspreader, Paganizer, Bone Gnawer, Demiurg, The 11th Hour) and Spain’s Dave Rotten (Avulsed, Christ Denied). I found out about them only yesterday via a message from NCS reader and occasional writer KevinP (he and I share a mutual admiration for Rogga’s work, which I presume is the reason for his alert).

Kevin’s message concerned that album art you see up there. It will grace the cover of Putrevore’s second album, Macabre Kingdom, which is currently being mixed and is projected for a late 2012 release via Xtreem Music. According to a press release, the instrumental parts were recorded during January/February in Sweden with the help of Brynjar Helgetun on drums, who is another Ribspreader alum.

Macabre Kingdom will initially be released on 12-inch vinyl around June — several months before the effort is made available on CD.

The artwork for Macabre Kingdom was created by the Spanish artist Juanjo Castellano. His name was new to me, but after a bit of research I’ve learned that he is responsible for a slew of artwork for other metal bands (a pretty complete list can be found here). After the jump, I’ve collected some of the other art, plus a song from Putrevore’s first album, Morphed From Deadbreath (2008).

But while researching Sr. Castellano’s artwork, I discovered — and fuck me sideways for not knowing this before — that a new Ribspreader album was released earlier this year by Vic Records. Continue reading »

RAINBOWDRAGONEYES DROPPING NEWS BOMBS ON US LIKE WE’RE PROTESTING HIS LEGITIMACY AS A RULER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Apr 032012
 

(I give up. Nintendo metal on NCS, thanks to DemiGodRaven.)

Seems like an upstanding gentleman.

That’s right folks, you’re finally getting the chance to read about a project called Rainbowdragoneyes on NCS. For those who aren’t in the know on this project, it is best described by the artist himself as chiptunes + hate. This basically boils down to heavy metal songs done using 8 bit/16 bit synthesizers so that they sound like the backing music to your favorite Nintendo/Sega games.

I picked up on this project with the album The Primordial Booze, which is so goddamn infectious that it is just impossible to deny a listen. I’ve blared it at work on multiple occasions, usually to the amusing response of, “Who’s the asshole screaming over the Nintendo?”. Each of the songs has a powerful melody that is catchy as all get out.

Well, the artist himself has finally put up some updates as to what he’s been doing since his tour of half the US (one of my greater disappointments was that he was unable to hit the west coast), and surprise, surprise it is making a bunch more music. Continue reading »

SEASON OF MIST ON BANDCAMP!

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Apr 032012
 

Thanks to MaxR of Metal Bandcamp, I just discovered that the wonderful Season of Mist label has recently set up camp on Bandcamp. As Max reports, “The bands have individual pages, each featuring their Season of Mist discography. Among the 44 bands available now, we find symphonic death metal giants Septicflesh from Greece, and their three albums from the Season of Mist catalog: Sumerian Daemons, Communion, and The Great Mass from 2011.”

In addition to Septic Flesh, you will find pages for the most recent releases by such NCS favorites as Solstafir, Thy Catafalque, Drudkh, Rotting Christ, Ghost Brigade, Nader Sadek, Benighted, Elitist, Esoteric, Minushuman, Nothnegal, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Terrorizer, and a whole lot more.

As those who are familiar with Bandcamp will immediately realize, this means not only that the albums can be digitally downloaded, but also that they can be streamed in their entirety. It also means that bloggers like me can embed full-album streams in our posts, which is what I’m about to do.

For the hell of it, I’m going to include an album stream after the post for a record called Legion Helvete by the Norwegian band Tsjuder, who trace their roots back to 1993.  Legion Helvete was released in October 2011. I meant to listen to it then, but failed. I’ve been listening to it this morning, and the music is absolutely killer. Continue reading »

IMPENDING DOOM: “BAPTIZED IN FILTH”

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
Apr 032012
 

(DemiGodRaven (ex-The Number of the Blog) delivers this review of the new album by California’s Impending Doom, which is out now on eOne Music.)

As a band and a music fan, Impending Doom and I have a bit of a stormy history (not that we’ve actually fought, they seem like nice people). I’ve been one of many who have spoken out against the group’s too-on-the-nose gimmick of using ‘goreship’ to describe their brand of Christian deathcore. While I’m sure the band have said it somewhat cheekily in response to being pigeonholed, it has stuck with them.

I also reviewed their last disc, There Will Be Violence, back when TNOTB was alive and found the whole experience to be underwhelming. I felt that the mix on the album was a little flat, and a lot of the songs fell on the bland side. There were a few standouts, including the song “Orphans”, but three or four good songs do not a good CD make. Had those songs taken the form of a There Will Be Violence EP, I may have reacted better, but as an album the whole thing became a slog I never really felt any desire to go back to.

However, I do believe in a clean slate of sorts, and so with that in mind I decided to check out Baptized In Filth, if only because I was already buried in religious metalcore listening to Demon Hunter’s latest (more on that later). Continue reading »

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