BEHEXEN: “NIGHTSIDE EMANATIONS” ALBUM STREAM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 162012
 

About three weeks ago, after a four-year wait, the fourth album by Finland’s Behexen — Nightside Emanations — appeared via their new label Debemur Morti. It’s an album I’ve been meaning to check out, because Behexen holds such a revered place among die-hard devotees of black metal. Today, that became a very easy thing to do.

DECIBEL magazine’s on-line site (here) has begun streaming the entire album in a feature that also includes an interview with Wraath, one of the two guitarists who joined Behexen after release of the band’s last album, My Soul For His Glory (2008). The new album reflects the contributions of those two, in addition to the band’s two original members, vocalist Hoath Torog and drummer Horns (both of whom are also in Sargeist).

At this writing, I’ve only made my way through the first half of the new album. I’m not sure how it compares to Behexen’s previous releases, but I’m liking what I hear. With the exception of the cathedral-organ “Intro” and “Circle Me”, which is a mid-paced, doom-laden crusher, the music is intense and furious. The vocals are vile, the guitars are flensing, and the drums are vicious.

DECIBEL was nice enough to run the stream in an embeddable player, so you can check out the album following the jump. Continue reading »

KUOLEMANLAAKSO AND DESTINITY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 162012
 

Let’s start this day at NCS with a contrast — two new songs from forthcoming albums that are on opposite ends of the speed spectrum. The first comes from a new Finnish band — Kuolemanlaakso — whose members include some names I’m pretty sure most of you will recognize. The second is from a new release by a French band — Destinity — whose last album I really liked and whose new one is also sounding excellent.

KUOLEMANLAAKSO

This band’s Finnish name means “Death Valley”. It began as a one-man project of guitarist Markus Laakso (Chaosweaver). After recording a handful of demo tracks, he recruited a group of additional musicians to flesh out the band:  vocalist Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun, Barren Earth), guitarist Savon Surma (“Kouta”) (Chaosweaver, ex-Verjnuarmu), bassist Tuomo Räisänen (“Usva”) (Elenium, The Nibiruan), and drummer Toni Ronkainen (“Tiera”) (Discard, Cult of Endtime).

Together they recorded an album at Woodshed Studio in Germany with V. Santura of Triptykon and Dark Fortress fame, who also mixed and mastered the music. The album is named Uljas uusi maailma (“Brave New World”) and it’s now scheduled for release by Svart Records on November 23. The cover art by Maahy Abdul Muhsin is a real eye-catcher — it’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

CATTLE DECAPITATION’S NEW VIDEO FOR “FORCED GENDER REASSIGNMENT” SETS A NEW STANDARD FOR FOULNESS

 Album Reviews  44 Responses »
Oct 152012
 

“WARNING: The video you are about to watch is incredibly gory, violent, and features strong sexual violence including rape and sexual assault. Bloody-Disgusting does not endorse or condone any of the actions seen in this video. It is to be viewed as entertainment only.”

That’s the warning that appeared in advance of Bloody Disgusting’s premiere not long ago for the new official video by Cattle Decapitation for “Forced Gender Reassignment”, a track off their decimating 2012 album Monolith of Inhumanity. And that warning appeared after the site explained that the video had been rejected by both YouTube and Vimeo.

I took all this with a grain of salt. I mean, let’s face it, we live in a culture totally stuffed with hype, because hyperbole sells. Having now watched the video, I’m here to tell you: The warning is not hype. Mitch Massie has made something utterly foul and disturbing, with explicit scenes of torture and rape and the brutalization of human flesh. It’s so NSFW that you’re probably not even safe watching it in the same city where you work. Continue reading »

WINTERSUN, FRONT AND BACK: LIVE IN HELSINKI ON OCT 13, 2012

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 152012
 

The very long-awaited new album from Finland’s Wintersun — Time I — is only days away from official release. In the run-up to the official unveiling, Wintersun have begun posting video of their entire sold-out performance on October 13 at the Nosturi venue in Helsinki.

Each day they plan to upload two videos for each song in the set. One video will be a drum-cam clip, showcasing the considerable talents of Wintersun’s hitter Kai Hahto, and the second video is shot from the audience’s perspective, facing the stage.

To inaugurate this series of videos, the band today uploaded the dual clips for “Winter Madness”, a song from their 2004 debut album. The song and the performance combine many of the qualities that made the album such a hit with so many people — the hell-for-leather speed and intensity of melodic death metal, melodies that borrow from both power metal and epic folk/viking metal, and the shred explosions of ex-Ensiferum frontman Jari Mäenpää.

Catch both videos for “Winter Madness” after the jump. Continue reading »

THE LEVITATION HEX AND ATRETIC INTESTINE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Oct 152012
 

I decided to start off the new week of NCS posts with two new discoveries from opposite ends of the Earth: The Levitation Hex from Australia and Atretic Intestine from Finland.

THE LEVITATION HEX

I found out about The Levitation Hex thanks to an e-mail from fireangel of the Night Elves blog. Not knowing anything about them, she caught part of their show at the Progpower Europe festival in early October, and they obviously made quite a favorable impression on her, not only because of the music but also because of their stage presence. I’ve watched their recently released music video and one other track that’s streaming via Soundcloud, and they’ve made quite the favorable impression on me, too.

The band was formed in 2010 by Adam Agius, the former frontman and guitarist of a long-running Australian metal group named Alchemist. He recruited Alarum bassist Mark Palfreyman, and they were eventually joined by drummer Ben Hocking of Aeon of Horus and ex-Alarum guitarist Scott Young. This past summer The Levitation Hex released their self-titled debut album, which features the very cool cover art of Glenn Smith.  Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC: STRATOS SUCCESS FOR FELIX BAUMGARTNER

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  13 Responses »
Oct 142012
 

In one of our THAT’S METAL! posts back in early August (here), we included an item about the plans of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner (a/k/a “Fearless Felix”) to make a parachute jump from a height of 120,000 feet and break the sound barrier with his body as he was in free-fall. The project, called Stratos, was being funded by Red Bull. And earlier today, Fearless Felix achieved his goal.

He ascended 24 miles into the sky via a gigantic balloon (55 stories tall) filled with 30 million cubic feet of helium and then jumped — from a height of 128,000 feet above the Earth, reaching a top speed of 833.9 mph. That amounts to Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. No one has ever reached that speed wearing only a high-tech suit.

In one of those coincidences of history, Baumgartner did this 65 years to the day — Oct. 14, 1947 — after pilot Chuck Yaeger (of “The Right Stuff” fame) broke the sound barrier in an aircraft. If it had been me 128,000 feet up, looking down at the planet through an open door, my final words would have been “FUCK THIS!  I’VE CHANGED MY FREAKIN’ MIND!” Instead, Baumgartner’s words before he took the plunge were these:

“Sometimes you have to go really high to see how small you are.” Continue reading »

SUNDAY VIDEOGRAPHY: XERATH AND GRAVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 142012
 

Just yesterday I was raving about the performance of Sweden’s Grave at the Seattle stop of their current tour with Morbid Angel and Dark Funeral, and what should greet my bloodshot eyes this morning than a video of the band killing it on stage. I’m not sure where this performance was filmed (it’s not from the Seattle show), but it’s damned cool.

Grave bassist Mika Lagrén attached one of those tiny cameras to the head stock of his bass and let it roll. You can see and hear frontman Ola Lindgren in the background and you can hear that nasty snare tone from the drum kit that I was talking about in the Seattle review. You might get a crick in your neck from watching this, but for me it brought back some very sweet recent memories of an awesome night of metal.

This morning, thanks to a message from TheMadIsraeli, I also caught up with the latest official music video from UK juggernauts Xerath, which debuted last week. The song is “Machine Insurgency” from the band’s most recent album, II (reviewed here). That was one of our favorite discs from 2011, and the song is a real ass-kicker. Continue reading »

CREEPMIME: “CHIAROSCURO”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit  6 Responses »
Oct 142012
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews a classic of Dutch death metal from a long-defunct band and provides a free download of this out-of-print beauty.)

Ok, this is me finally getting around to a favor that was asked of me all the way back in the summer of 2011.  You might remember my coverage of a now defunct Dutch band I was a huge fan of called Cypher (who were kind enough to provide us with free downloads of their music, including that unreleased EP we helped bring to the light of day).  While I wait for Tobias Borra and gang to resurface with what is essentially Cypher 2.0 (name not yet revealed), Tobias had asked me to check out a band considered to be Dutch death metal legends alongside the likes of Pestilence who were rather overshadowed in their day.  The band has Cypher/I, Chaos/Dew Scented bassist Joost Van Der Graff on bass and vocal duties, so Tobias felt I’d find it extremely relevant to my interests.

The band in question is Creepmime. Information about them is rather obscured and hard to come across (even the Metal Archives page appears to be inaccurate and very incomplete).  Actually, information on them is VERY obscure and nearly fucking impossible to come across.  Wanna know how obscure?  It’s nearly impossible to find line-up-per-album info, including for the album (Chiaroscuro) that’s the subject of this post. This band is so obscure that there aren’t release dates, simply fucking estimates of time.  All I can tell you is that Chiaroscuro came out sometime between late ’93 and ’95. Continue reading »

MORBID ANGEL, DARK FUNERAL, AND GRAVE: LIVE IN SEATTLE — OCT 10, 2012

 Concert Reviews  10 Responses »
Oct 132012
 

On the night of October 10, 2012, I was in metal heaven, and the gods were all on stage: Morbid Angel, Dark Funeral, and Grave.

At times like this, I love living in Seattle even more than usual. The city is just big enough to draw tours like this one, but small enough that they get shoe-horned into venues like El Corazon. I’ve seen reports that El Corazon has a capacity of 750, but that must include the separate room where the main bar is located because there’s no way the room with the stage holds that many. Especially when the bar area in the concert room is blocked off and used for gear storage, as it was for this 21-and-over show, that room doesn’t look like it holds more than about 250 people.

And it wasn’t even packed to capacity for this show. Though the turnout was strong, it was still possible to maneuver pretty close to the stage, as I did, getting within about 10 feet from the front. The only drawback was that I forgot to bring my fucking camera, an oversight for which I will forever beat myself up. My companion took a few pics with her phone, and I’m using a few of the better ones to illustrate this review, but still . . . not the same.

GRAVE

I’ll just be honest and admit up-front that I had trouble maintaining objectivity about each of these bands. Completely separating the feelings of excitement-verging-on-awe that I felt from finally getting to see each of them live from my reactions to what I heard just isn’t possible. Grave, for example, is pretty much a band who can do no wrong in my book. They occupy a central place in metal history as one of the progenitors of Swedish death metal, yet they have not only survived for more than two decades, they continue to put out dependably strong albums, with this year’s Endless Procession of Souls (reviewed here) being no exception. Continue reading »

SOMETHING VERY NASTY: DE MAGIA VETERUM – “THE DEIFICATION”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Oct 132012
 

They left me late in the day after what seemed like hours of feasting with lip-smacking glee on selected internal organs.  My internal organs.  They secreted an enzyme in their salvia that acted like an anesthetic, dulling but not deadening the pain, avoiding the onset of shock that might have killed the host.  Apparently they prefer the pulse of warm blood through their banquet instead of the cold, maggot-ridden dregs of cooling, lifeless flesh.

More than once, after seeing Jaws, I morbidly imagined the horror of being eaten alive by a carnivorous thing for whom I, for all my vaulting egoism, was to be nothing but food, my consciousness surviving long enough to realize that I was being eaten and would be digested and then shat out, my life amounting to nothing but nutrients for another.  But actually experiencing this firsthand instead of imagining it made my waking dreams a pale fairy tale by comparison.

I did not wonder who they were.  I knew.  After all, I had unwittingly invited them into the chamber of my body, opening myself to their hunger and their gnashing jaws. They entered through the ears. Continue reading »

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