HAPPY HANGOVER DAY (Part 1): ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW, AMON AMARTH, KATAKLYSM, AND MUMAKIL

Your humble editor has been so busy over the last four days with year-end lists, Most Infectious Song posts, and non-blogging life events that I haven’t compiled a news/new-music round-up since last week. However, I was watching out for developments, and now I’m finally collecting those which seemed worthy of notice. I have enough items to vomit forth into your laps that I’ve divided them into two posts, this being the first.

ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW

It would be poor form to start the new year at NCS without some Finnish metal. As it happens, this first day of 2013 has delivered something new from Finland, and what it delivered also gives us a chance to start the new year by again confusing people. Sowing confusion makes life worth living.

The news is that Finland’s Eternal Tears of Sorrow have a new album entitled Saivon Lapsi that’s scheduled for release on February 22. It features album art (above) by Travis Smith. In addition to that news, the band also premiered today a music video for one of the new songs, “Swan Saivo”. The video is a beautifully made allegory with a visually arresting finish (and includes some great footage of the band headbanging). And I enjoyed the song, too . . . though its appearance at this site will indeed confuse some people.

You see, about half of the vocals are quite clean (though the other half are pleasingly harsh). But the music is such a good example of galloping, keyboard-enhanced, rifftastic Finnish thunder that I found it irresistible. And the clean vocals are more than tolerable, too. Here you go:

You can connect with Eternal Tears of Sorrow on Facebook via this link. Thanks to DGR for the tip on this video.

AMON AMARTH

I saw the following message from Amon Amarth on their web site and Facebook page yesterday: “We want to thank everyone that has supported and helped us in 2012. 2013 will be another intense year for Amon Amarth, and looks like it will be slightly unpredictable and mischievous… We’ve just finished writing all the songs for the next full-length album, and we’re ready to enter the studio to start recording them in the new year.”

And then this morning I saw a few more details, i.e., that the new album is tentatively due in June 2013 and that the band have chosen Andy Sneap (Megadeth, Exodus, Machine Head, Arch Enemy) to do the recording this time, which represents a change from Jens Bogren, who engineered the last three albums.

There are already many reasons to welcome what 2013 will bring to metalheads. This is one more.

KATAKLYSM

Over the last couple of weeks, TheMadIsraeli has been blogging about his personal reconsideration of the music of Kataklysm, moving album-by-album through the band’s extensive discography. By coincidence, it turns out (as the band revealed a couple days ago) that Kataklysm will be recording a new album in 2013 — and they made this statement about it:

“Expect a different, more complex death metal anthem this time around — high velocity, extreme but melodic while maintaining the band’s signature trademark crushing grooves. We are refreshed from the time off and are working very hard on this album. We don’t follow trends; we are inspired to create our own.”

Of course, it’s hard to know exactly what this means, but for people like TheMadIsraeli who have soured on the band’s output in recent years, it may prove to be intriguing. And yes, it goes on our list of eagerly anticipated 2013 albums, if for no reason other than to scratch the itch of curiosity.

MUMAKIL

I have liked Switzerland’s Mumakil (pronounced “moom-a-keel”) for two reasons. First, they have a talent for creating brutally ass-blasting death/grind. Second, they took their name from The Lord of the Rings, where it was a word from the  Speech of Men of the East for the oliphaunts, those enormous multi-tusked elephant-like monsters that were used as living siege engines in the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Or so it says on Metal Archives; I don’t remember the story so precisely.

Speaking of what 2013 will bring, Mumakil have recorded a new album, their first in more than 3 years, by the name of Flies Will Starve. I don’t have the release date yet, but I do have this new music video for a track from the album named “Death From Below”, which debuted yesterday. It will clear out the cobwebs from your New Year’s Eve indulgences, or it will explode your head in cloud of plasma and bone chips. One or the other.

(Thanks to DGR for this tip, too.)

http://www.facebook.com/Mumakil