METAL AND THE MAINSTREAM

 Mosh Pit  44 Responses »
May 182012
 

(Andy Synn rides to the rescue of a site without much content ready for today with an opinion piece.  Limber up your fingers for some comments, please.)

Just a short, stream-of-consciousness piece here for today, since Islander’s been inundated with responsibilities to his life outside of the site (and honestly, who really needs a life outside of this site I ask you?), putting down some of my thoughts, in brief, on the ever contentious topic of metal and its place (or lack thereof) in the mainstream. This certainly isn’t a new topic, though hopefully I’ll be able to offer some interesting observations from my own point of view.

[Note here that whenever I use the word “we” in this article I am purposefully generalising – maybe certain points don’t apply specifically to everyone, but if you get a large group of people together they always come to be more strongly generalised than they would individually]

To start with, let me say something controversial: A huge proportion of the metal scene craves recognition/acknowledgement from the mainstream. And I’m not talking your Linkin Park’s or your Limp Bizkit’s, no, I’m talking about bands, fans, and journalists who are truly interested in the more legitimate forms of metal, yet are exceedingly sensitive to any instances of mainstream exposure. Even they have an underlying craving for acceptance. We claim not to care about such things, but the second a “real” metal act gains some chart success we’re out there trumpeting to the world in a strange mix of superiority and attention-craving.  It’s why every third-rate deathcore or metalcore act does a generic Katy Perry or Lady Gaga cover. It’s why djent failed to achieve its initial promise, falling prey to the same pitfalls of hype and ill-advised pop covers as nu-metal, albeit with more bedroom technicality. The mainstream is insidious in its influence, and permeates even the most underground of metal genres. Continue reading »

GHOUL PATROL’S “SIX FEET UNDER” VIDEO: WHO KNEW YOU COULD LINE DANCE TO DEATH ‘N’ ROLL?

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
May 182012
 

I have at least one of these moments every day, and usually more than one: when I feel like a moron.  I just had my first one for today.  I watched the first official video from Finland’s Ghoul Patrol and realized how stupid I was for not listening to their debut album, Ghoul Patrol, when it came out last fall (on the Spinefarm label).  Because this song is a goddamned headbanger’s delight.

Seriously, if you can keep still while hearing this song, then your bondage gear is on too tight. It’s some mighty fine death ‘n’ roll that ought to give you an acute case of sore neck syndrome in no time at all.

And the video is hilarious, from the first “moooooooo” to the last one.

I’ve been waxing nostalgic about my youth in Texas recently, but one thing I never got into was country western dancing. That kind of music wasn’t the kind of country I liked, and the kind of bars and dancehalls where people did that kind of thing were full of  . . . not really my kind of people. Now, if they’d been line dancing to music like Ghoul Patrol’s, I’d have had a whole different feeling about it.

Truly an inspired video.  And to think that it took a metal band from Finland (or at least a Finnish video production company) to come up with the idea.  Watch it after the jump, especially if you know what line dancing is. Continue reading »

YOUR MORNING TRIP THROUGH HELL AND BACK: ISRATHOUM, ENABLER, PUTRID PILE, AND JOHNNY WINTER

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
May 182012
 

I spent last evening in Tacoma witnessing a momentous event in the life of a friend and then celebrating it with her and her family. Had a blast, but between that and day-job shit, I didn’t make much headway on reviews I’ve been trying to write. I did have time to latch on to a few new songs that struck a chord, and they’re in this post. Also, on the way out of Tacoma back to Seattle, I saw something that sent me on a nostalgia trip — more on that at the end of this post. But first, I bring you Hell.

ISRATHOUM

I latched onto this band (or they latched on to me) almost entirely as a result of that eye-catching album cover you see above. It’s for their second full-length release, Black Poison and Shared Wounds, which is out now on Daemon Worship Productions (the same label/distro that’s handling the U.S. release of the new album by Iceland’s Svartidauði that I wrote about two days ago.

Israthoum was originally created in Portugal during the early 90’s, but its members relocated to The Netherlands around 1998. The three current members are, shall we say, devoted followers of The Left Hand Path. All three of them also interchangeably play bass and guitars on the album (one of them also plays the drums), and all three share vocal duties.

Daemon Worship have put two songs from the album on SoundCloud — “The Unravelling Traveller” and “The Presence, The Baying”. The music is scathing — definitely not for the faint of heart. But beneath the surface veil of blasting and rending there lurks an almost avant-garde layer of complexity that reminded me in some ways of Deathspell Omega, and I found the melodies crouching in the dark corners of my head long after the music stopped. Continue reading »

HACKTIVIST RIFF TEST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
May 172012
 

So there’s this UK band called Hacktivist.  TheMadIsraeli wrote a post about them in January that garnered 83 comments, and I didn’t even write half of them like I usually do. To my rudimentary way of thinking, that means Hacktivist generated some interest, despite the fact that a big chunk of the comments weren’t very nice and despite the fact that Hacktivist combine two dirty words in most elitist metal circles: rap and djent.

I’m all about pandering to the interests of NCS readers. So, I’m writing this post despite the fact that all I have is a riff test that Hacktivist posted today, a riff test that lasts only 1 minute and 17 seconds — and that’s including a synth intro and outro (yes, apparently even riff tests require intro’s and outro’s). And no rap.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/46698319″ iframe=”true” /]
 
Continue reading »

DELAYED ORGASM: THE DETHKLOK – LAMB OF GOD – GOJIRA SUMMER TOUR

 Uncategorized  16 Responses »
May 172012
 

Dethklok, Lamb of God, and GOJIRA GOJIRA GOJIRA will be touring North America this summer.  Also, GOJIRA will be part of that tour.  Further, the tour will include GOJIRA.

This news, which includes GOJIRA, was officially announced days ago. I must have been in a coma, because I missed it until today. I found out today because I’m on an e-mail list for the venue in Seattle where this tour will be stopped, and I got an announcement of a pre-sale that begins today. After I attempted to get all the sticky stuff out of my pants that appeared there when I realized I would get to see GOJIRA again, I promptly bought tickets.

And yes, the tour, which features GOJIRA, will be stopping in Seattle. In fact, the tour BEGINS in Seattle on August 1. GOJIRA and those other bands will then visit 31 other cities in the U.S. and Canada over the next eight weeks. The whole schedule is after the jump, along with info about how to find tickets — which go on sale tomorrow.

Also, GOJIRA. Continue reading »

AGALLOCH SUMMER TOUR TAKING SHAPE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
May 172012
 

Earlier this year we reported about a note by Agalloch on their Facebook page that they were planning a 30-day tour of the U.S. and Canada this summer.  All the dates have not yet been announced, but this morning I saw a note on Lambgoat reporting the following schedule, which is obviously not yet complete.  I’m liking where they intend to start this thing:

7/12 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
7/13 Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
7/20 Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s Rock Club
7/22 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
7/23 Toronto, ON @ TBA
7/25 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Downstairs
7/26 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
8/1 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
8/3 New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks
8/5 Austin, TX @ Red 7
8/9 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
8/11 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall

It appears that a band called Taurus will be along for the ride. And in other Agalloch news, the band have a new EP, Faustian Echoes, on the way. It consists of a 20-minute long conceptual track and was recorded live onto two-inch tape with Billy Anderson at Jackpot Studio in Portland, Oregon, on March 24-25. A release date has yet to be set, but we will keep you updated about it. The EP is slated to appear on both vinyl and CD.

And because Agalloch is on my mind, I have a quality video after the jump of the band performing “Bloodbirds” and “In the Shadow Of Our Pale Companion” at the Ragnarök Festival in Germany on April 13, 2012 (via Brooklyn Vegan). Continue reading »

A CITADEL CALLED MORGION

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
May 172012
 

(Guest writer Mike Yost returns to NCS with this reflection on his introduction to metal.)

It was a small music store tucked into the side of an outdoor mall just south of Hill Air Force Base, Utah.  I was flipping through a stack of used CDs (remember CDs?) and found this subtle yet intriguing album cover.  It had a hand-drawn picture of a solar eclipse with a diagram of our solar system labeled in Latin.

I sat on a small stool near the cashier, sticking the disk into their CD player.  I pulled the headphones over my head and pushed play.  A sense of gloom coiled itself tightly around my body, and I couldn’t help but smile.

Listening to Morgion’s Solinari is a bit like being dragged slowly out of a bog just before you’re pulled under.  As you lay on the ground gasping for air, your faceless rescuer comforts you with sluggish tempos, mournful whispers and haunting keys.

Then the tempo quickens.  Guitars grow loud and angry.  The whispers mutate into indignant growls.  You watch helplessly as your rescuer picks up a large rock with both hands.  The music surges to its apex, and the rock comes crashing down on your chest over and over until it breaks through your ribcage.

The music then subsides.  Acoustic guitars fill the void, and your rescuer tosses your broken body back into the bog, watching silently as it sinks beneath the surface.

It was the first time I heard doom/death metal.  I found a bastion.  A medium to purge the past. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: FEVER SEA – “THE DELUGE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
May 172012
 

There once was a band from Bristol in the UK called Rosicrucian. The music they played was a marriage of tumultuous black metal blasting and sweeping ambient melody, part of it furiously ripping and part of it ethereal and sublime. They released a five-song EP in November 2011 called Beneath the Waves, which our Andy Synn gave a very positive review here. He called it a “flowing, tide-driven take on post-black metal dynamics”.

Rosicrucian are no more. But the band haven’t exactly broken up. Instead, they have a new name: Fever Sea. They have a new sound, too. So now we need to ask, what is Fever Sea’s take on post-Rosicrucian dynamics?

And we have an answer, because as of yesterday Fever Sea released their first EP — The Deluge — for free download on Bandcamp. There are only three songs on the Fever Sea EP, though they amount to more than 20 minutes of music — and they’re all very good. In fact, though I enjoyed Beneath the Waves, I’m liking The Deluge even more.

As for the style, the band have moved in the direction of a new kind of marriage — kind of a three-way between prog metal, melodic black metal, and at times the sort of dark, doom-weighted sounds I tend to associate with that Finnish triumvirate of Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, and Before the Dawn. Or at least that’s how I interpret it. The band seem to prefer the description “Atmospheric and Triumphant Post-Black Metal”. Whatever labels you might choose to afix, Fever Sea have made an auspicious start on their new life. Continue reading »

THE POWER OF THE RIFF (AND THE SKINS): DUKATALON (again) AND JUCIFER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 162012
 

I wasn’t planning to write any more posts for our site today, but then I had one of those synchronicity/serendipity moments that often make me think cosmic forces are trying to send me a message (and I’m not talking about the alien microwave transmissions, because all the foil I’ve used to cover the walls blocks those).

While taking a break from the work I’m supposed to be doing in order to justify my salary, I saw a a link from a friend on Facebook to a Jucifer video I hadn’t seen before. And then soon after that, I got word that Dukatalon had posted another video in their “Zimmer” sessions series. Both videos and both performances exploded my eggshell skull, wadded up the remains, and tossed them into a dimension where happy riff addicts go to smile away the hours.

But in addition to both of them being happily skull-rending, these two videos share another trait: They demonstrate that a massive amount of metal might can be created by (almost) nothing more than one talented guitarist and one talented drummer (and a fuckload of distortion). The fireball shred is icing on the cake.

JUCIFER

I’ll wager that those of you who ever have seen a live show by Gazelle Amber Valentine and her husband Edgar Livengood have become Jucifer fans for life. It only took me the one time. Oddly, it spoiled me so bad that I don’t listen to their recordings that much, because they fall so far short of capturing the live experience. It was, with no exceptions I can think of at the moment, the LOUDEST metal show I’ve ever attended, and it was also one of the most riveting/crushing/satisfying shows I’ve seen; at the same time as they’re inflicting a gigaton of sonic trauma, they have a magnetic stage presence that rivets your attention. Continue reading »

DEATH WORSHIP FROM ICELAND: SVARTIDAUÐI AND VANSKÖPUN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 162012
 

How things have changed. In April 2010 I wrote a THAT’S METAL! post mainly for the purpose of displaying photos of the magnificent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) volcano, which you may recall wrecked havoc on air transportation as far away as the UK and the European continent. But because this is a metal blog, I thought I ought to find some Icelandic metal as musical accompaniment for the rad pics.

I hunted and hunted across the interhole as it then existed, and I remember I didn’t find much. Of what I found, the best music was by a band called Changer, so I went with that. I’m sure there were many more Icelandic metal bands creating music back then than I was able to find, but it still struck me that the scene had a pretty low profile internationally.

It’s certainly much easier today to find music by a broad array of excellent Icelandic bands, and two of them in particular have become favorites at NCS — Atrum and Sólstafir. Hell, just last weekend I discovered another one — Severed Crotch (discussed in this post). Over the last few days I’ve been exploring two other Icelandic bands whose music is even more extreme than what I’ve heard from Iceland previously. Theirs is the kind of black/death metal that invokes the word “ritual” when performed live, or the term “apocalyptic metal”, or perhaps the phrase “death worship”. For English speakers, their names are also not nearly as easy to pronounce as those other bands’: Svartidauði and Vansköpun.

SVARTIDAUÐI

Svartidauði’s name means “Black Death”. That weird letter near the end is an “eth”, with a “th” sound. Between 2006 and 2010 they produced three demos and they contributed a song to a split in January 2012 with a Chilean band called Perdition (the eye-catching artwork for that split is up above), which was released by a German black metal label called the World Terror Committee.  They are now planning for the release of an album under the name Flesh Cathedral, which will be distributed in Europe by Terratvr Possessions and in the U.S. by Daemon Worship Productions. The artwork for that monstrosity is right after the jump. Continue reading »

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