WHAT’S IN A NAME (REDUX)?

 Band Name Fodder  95 Responses »
May 112012
 

In September 2010, I wrote a post about metal band names called “What’s In A Name?”. The point of the post was to pick out some badass metal names and some not-so-great ones and to ponder the connection (if any) between cool band names and the music. I categorized some of the evidence into groups — the ass-kicking bands with ass-kicking names, the ass-kicking bands that have succeeded despite piss-poor names, and the bands whose names are just . . . perplexing.

Yesterday, Full Metal Attorney (FMA) posted a piece on his blog called “What’s In A Name?”, and that seemed like a good excuse for revisiting the subject of metal band names. He makes the point that band names DO MATTER — they’re part of a band’s identity and part of the whole “marketing package” that would also include logos, album art, and of course the music itself.

He argues that band names have a lot to do with whether new listeners are likely to check out the bands’ music in the first place: As he points out, some band names are just silly (e.g., Weekend Nachos) and may deter listeners from exploring what the bands have to offer, even when the music may be right up the listener’s alley, while other band names (e.g., Autopsy) are both memorable and almost perfectly descriptive of a band’s musical style.

He also describes some persuasive factors that make a band name good, and not so good, and then he comes up with his list of the Ten Best Metal Band Names. Continue reading »

METAL NARROW-MINDEDNESS OVERCOME BY TITANIC RIFFAGE: COMMUNIC’S NEW VIDEO FOR “FACING TOMORROW”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
May 102012
 

My personal listening prejudices are spread in big spiky letters across the top of every NCS page. I’m not here to defend them, because I know it’s a matter of personal taste. It’s simply a fact: I just really and truly prefer not to have much, if any, clean singing in metal.

But at this site we do have Exceptions to the Rule. Some of our other writers invoke Exceptions because sometimes they genuinely enjoy the clean singing found on some albums. I usually invoke it when I like everything else about the music, and the everything else is so strong that it outweighs the vocals. That was my reaction when I saw and heard the new video that Norway’s Communic released today.

The song is “Facing Tomorrow”, and it appears on the band’s 2011 album The Bottom Deep. Andy Synn reviewed the album here, and he made Communic the subject of a SYNN REPORT here. I’ve heard the song once before, back when Andy reviewed the album, but I don’t think I had the volume turned loud enough back then. I really cranked the mother up when watching the video this time.

I would be plenty happy with this song if it consisted of nothing more than the intro and the finish, because the riffage and the drummage are stupendous — pulverizing, physically compelling, and heavier than a truckload of paving stones. Continue reading »

NEW MARDUK VIDEO: “SOULS FOR BELIAL”

 Metal News  8 Responses »
May 102012
 

Marduk’s new album, Serpent Sermon, will be released by Century Media on June 1. I hear through the grapevine that our man Andy Synn will have a review in the near future. Today, the band debuted the official music video for a track called “Souls For Belial”.

There are black metal posers in the world. Marduk are not among them. With the exception of a well-timed, reduced-pace segment past the half-way point, “Souls For Belial” is a bestial, bile-drenched, soul-scraping, take-no-prisoners attack that flies fast and hard. The well-made video by Håkan Sjödin fits the music. The imagery, both of the band and of imagined creatures, exudes occult vitriol.

The next time someone pokes fun at black metal by linking to one of those lol-some Immortal videos, show them this one. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

CATTLE DECAPITATION: “MONOLITH OF INHUMANITY”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 102012
 

(Continuing his string of reviews this week, TheMadIsraeli provides this explosively enthusiastic assessment of the [stupendous] new album by Cattle Decapitation.)

May 8 was an extremely good day.  Why?

Because this album and the new Allegaeon come out on May 8.

Cattle Decapitation and I have had a very torrid love affair, full of many ups and downs.  While the music has been consistently stellar deathgrind (with the exception of their horrific debut Human Jerky), I’ve found that this band usually killed what were great albums in the making with mixes so horrific it made my ears bleed.  If you are a long-time Cattle Decap fan, you might guess that I like To Serve Man and The Harvest Floor best since you can ACTUALLY MAKE OUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

I’m not being a new-age-all-production-must-be-slick-and-pristine nazi at all, but when you have a band like Cattle Decapitation who play music this fast, this furious, and this fuck-nuts-sanity-shattering, anything less than a stellar, tight mix will lose the music in translation.

Luckily, not only is Monolith of Inhumanity their best-sounding record to date, it’s also their musical pinnacle thus far. By making a little trip back to the drawing board after The Harvest Floor (an album I mostly enjoyed, but felt was a little weak at points), Cattle Decap have done themselves quite a bit of good, as Monolith Of Inhumanity may be one of the top five albums in the death metal/grindcore realm all year. Continue reading »

DYING FETUS DELIVER A NEW SONG: “SECOND SKIN”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
May 102012
 

If you bothered to read the pathetic little piece of excuse-making that was my last post, which was made tolerable by the inclusion of a ripping new song from Miseration, then you’ll know I was up waaaaay past my bedtime last night. I’m awake now, bleary-eyed and not thinking at even my usual muddy level of mental clarity. However, one need not be clear-eyed and sharp-minded to appreciate the new song by Dying Fetus that Revolver mag premiered this morning at this location.

The song is called “Second Skin”. It is drawn from the band’s next album, Reign Supreme, which will be released on June 19. The song is primo ass-kicking material. It brings a suffusion of the brutalz. It performs brain surgery with blunt instruments. It has flashy, schizophrenic tech riffing and ugly slams. It includes irresistible chugs and pulverizing breakdowns. I likey very, very much. You will likey, too. Listen after the jump while I get some coffee. Continue reading »

THERE WILL BE A DELAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  26 Responses »
May 102012
 

I feel compelled to explain myself, because I have some kind of obsessive-compulsive disease, albeit in a mild form.  I had to work until 2 a.m. this morning, Pacific Time, and the day started really early on top of that.  And I don’t mean working on this blog.  I mean working on my fucking day job, which periodically fucks up NCS but at the same time makes NCS possible.

So, I haven’t finished any posts for early this morning, even though I have an album review from TheMadIsraeli sitting in my in-box.  I don’t have to do very much to get such reviews posted, but at this point, I  can’t even do the miniscule things I do as an editor, which include reading the posts before posting them.

So I will leave you with this — and then whenever I can wake myself up tomorrow, I will do more. I am leaving you with the new full-track teaser from Miseration, which TheMadIsraeli coincidentally recommended, and which is worth a post all by itself.

Unless I die in my sleep, I will see you soon . . . an  until then, the video is after the jump. Continue reading »

THINGS MOST GAY MEN DON’T LIKE: METAL

 Mosh Pit  25 Responses »
May 092012
 

(We welcome NCS reader Mike Yost with his first guest post for our site, prompted by his experience at the recent Denver stop of the Opeth–Mastodon tour. This post also appears as of today on Mike’s own blog, which you can find here.)

Mastodon finishes shredding the frenzied crowd.  The drummer tosses his sticks into the throng.  The lights go up.

It’s between sets, so I sit with my back against a metal barrier that separates me from the larger crowd below.  I shove in a pair of earbuds, turning up “Black Rose Immortal.”  A twenty-minute Opeth piece of metal magnificence and mayhem that chokes out the white noise of conversations around me.

There’s something about heavy metal that’s primal. Cathartic.  A juxtaposition of raw, exposed animosity eviscerated and dismembered by beauty herself, left on the dusty ground in a pool of blood to die—with a smile.

The lights drop, and I jump to my feet.  I yank out the earbuds.  The crowd stirs.  The only illumination comes from the Fillmore Theater chandeliers hanging from the ceiling—glowing purple.  Movement on the stage.  The crowd starts yelling in anticipation.  I join in.  Blue lights grow bright to illuminate that signature O.  Mikael Akerfeldt walks onto the stage.  Metal ensues. Continue reading »

BE’LAKOR: “OF BREATH AND BONE”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 092012
 

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn reviews the highly anticipated new album by Australia’s Be’lakor.)

Be’lakor have become, it seems to me, immune to criticism in the underground press. I say this to let you know that this isn’t going to be a fawning, sycophantic review of the band’s latest album; I have tried my very best to stay impartial, even though the temptation was to simply love this album merely for its existence. That being said, while I have no major criticisms of the record (and have fallen head over heels in love with some of the tracks), I have come out of the experience with a few concerns preying on my mind.

Let’s get one thing straight first though, you’ve probably already formed your opinions that this is going to be good – hell, I’d wager that most people formed their opinion about the album without even hearing a single note – but the question is, how good?

To get the obvious comparisons out of the way, neither as heart-wrenchingly melancholic as recent Insomnium, nor as shamelessly audacious as latter-day Omnium Gatherum, the main criticism I can level at Of Breath and Bone is that while it is characteristically and distinctively a Be’lakor album (falling ultimately somewhere between The Frail Tide and Stone’s Reach), there is a certain spark missing from a few of the tracks, which impacts the experience of the record as a whole.

More restrained and perhaps a more consciously considered record than its predecessor, this factor is both a blessing and a curse for the band. It allows their multi-layered melodies room to breathe and expand, but softens the impact of some of their more fiery moments. At their most epic and nuanced, this restraint works wonders, allowing the band to express their melodic palette fully, yet at their most aggressive this often serves, paradoxically, to limit their full expression. Fundamentally the album is very much a companion piece to Stone’s Reach, introverted where that album was extroverted, restrained where it was unfettered. Continue reading »

THE SAFETY FIRE: “GRIND THE OCEAN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
May 092012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by The Safety Fire.)

So it’s time for my first true Exception to the Rule in quite a while. I decided at some point I would try to avoid breaking our site’s moniker as much as I could, but I feel this album deserves the occasion.

The Safety Fire have been picking up quite a bit of steam lately, introducing an interesting sound that has me slightly baffled, yet plenty fascinated. They mix in the low-tuned brutality and odd time signatures of bands we’ve come to know and love such as Textures, CiLiCe, and yes, Meshuggah, with technical, highly interwoven counterpoint dual-guitar mind-fuckery and add a heavy-handed dose of post-rock to taste.

To say that their sound is jarring would be a bit of an understatement, but also considering that I saw them live at The Masquerade in Atlanta last month and experienced this material full force (which convinced me to buy the album on the spot), I’d say this is a band to watch in the future. However, the future is currently irrelevant. What’s relevant is now, and Grind the Ocean is an impressive, technically adept, and progressive morsel of delightfully unorthodox taste.

The album’s opener “Huge Hammers” is immediately indicative of this. A subdued riff plays in the background, only to crash forth into the song’s gravitas-inducing, disorienting verse riff. It’s full of low-tuned rumble, high-end micro-shredding, and lots AND LOTS of pinch harmonic squeals and badass moments of harmony and interplay on the guitar front. Continue reading »

REVERENCE: “THE ASTHENIC ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 092012
 

(Here, Andy Synn reviews the new album from those French nihilists in Reverence.)

 

As you may know, I like my metal like I like my women – black, blasphemous, and cold to the touch. Reverence’s newest album brings all these cards to the table, but ups the ante with a distinctively industrial edge.

Staking their claim to the barren lands somewhere between the crippling insanity of The Axis Of Perdition and the warped humanism of Glorior Belli, the band have been successfully fusing the angular chaos of the former with the sinuous darkness of the latter for years now, with this, their most recent release, taking pride of place alongside the arcane experimentation of Blut Aus Nord and the ritualistic self-loathing of Deathspell Omega.

Opening track (and de facto album intro) “Earth” has a slow, menacing build up, its haunting ambience coalescing into a rippling stormfront of cryptic strings, marching, martial drums, and morbid vocals. The more overt, metallic elements creep, rather than leap, into the fray, predatory, chugging guitars and restrained blast-beats chomping at the bit to be unleashed. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries