SOLSTORM: “SOLSTORM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 182013
 

(In April 2011, I wrote briefly about Solstorm, a Norwegian band I’d just discovered.  Today, Andy Synn gives us a review of the same band’s self-titled debut album.)

Let me start this off with a little story…

As some of you know I’m in a couple of bands (Bloodguard, and Twilight’s Embrace). Now both bands have fans who interact with us on a pretty regular basis, liking statuses, commenting, etc. Just generally getting involved. One gentleman who pops up on the Bloodguard page on and off is a fellow named Mads Lilletvedt.

Recognise that name? I didn’t at first, but something about it bugged me enough to check who it was, and lo and behold, Mads Lilletvedt is only the drummer from bleeding Hellish Outcast! But that’s not all. I also found out he’s in a couple of other bands, one of which in particular caught my attention. That band is Solstorm.

Solstorm are the sort of band who put the “post-apocalyptic” into “post-metal”. Clearly coming from the Neurosis school of claustrophobic atmospherics, along with a heavy dose of Cult of Luna-esque bleakness and clarity, this is not the music of Armageddon – the four horsemen have long since passed by now – rather, this is the music of the aftermath. The war drums have fallen silent, the skies are scorched and dead, nothing stirs, nothing lives. Continue reading »

PORTAL: “THE BACK WARDS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 182013
 

NPR’s Lars Gotrich has been a fan of Australia’s Portal for a long time. I’m pretty sure that seeing a Portal video in one of his columns a couple of years ago was when it dawned on me that NPR’s music focus was beginning to spread out into darker places than I knew. Because seriously, music doesn’t get much darker than Portal’s.

Mr. Gotrich has scored another Portal debut. Today he premiered a track named “The Back Wards” at NPR, which comes from the band’s next album, Vexovoid, due for release on Feb 19 via Profound Lore.

It’s four minutes and sixteen seconds of grinding noise, needling guitar leads, calamitous percussion, and Cthulhu vocalizations. The aura is dank and destructive, pummeling and perilous.  Continue reading »

WITNESSED: SYNESIS ABSORPTION, A NEW SOILWORK SONG, AND MY DICK

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 182013
 

Wouldn’t you know it. After whining in the last post about how little blog/metal time my fucking day job has left me this week, I got enough of a break to make a quick sweep through the interhole in search of new things, and to write this little round-up about what I found.

SYNESIS ABSORPTION AND ELIRAN KANTOR

My roving eye came to a fast stop as soon as I saw the artwork featured above. It’s a painting by the great Eliran Kantor for a self-titled debut album by Synesis Absorption, which will be released sometime this year.

I’d never heard of this oddly named band, but man, check out the line-up: Steve Di Giorgio (ex-Death, Sadus) on bass; Mike Smith (Suffocation) on drums; Robbert Kok (Disavowed) providing vocals; and Miloš Batoćanin (Disdained) weaving guitar magic. After seeing the art and this line-up, I went in search of music — and I found some. Continue reading »

EXCUSES, EXCUSES

 Off Topic  15 Responses »
Jan 182013
 

(Wayne Barlowe: “Unholy Communion”)

Here’s how my week is going.

On Sunday I went to the airport in Seattle. I got on an airplane and I flew for about 3 1/2 hours to a place. I got off the airplane and I went to a hotel. I met up with other people and worked Sunday night. I went to sleep. I woke up and worked all day Monday and until late on Monday night. I did the same thing again on Tuesday. Tuesday night I kicked back a little with the people I had been working with. I went to sleep. After getting shit-faced.

Early Wednesday morning I went back to the airport and flew for another 3 1/2 hours to a different place, even farther from Seattle. I got off the airplane and went to a hotel.  I met other people and worked until late Wednesday night. I went to sleep. I got up on Thursday morning and did the same thing, except at the end of the day I got on a train and traveled for 1 1/2 hours to another place.

I met other people there who I work with and had dinner with them, got shit-faced, and then I went to a hotel. It was late by then. I went to sleep.

It’s now Friday morning. I’m about 2,000 miles from home. I think I’ll do some work today. Tonight I’ll be going out to dinner with people I work with. Most likely I will get shit-faced. Most likely I will go to sleep after that. Continue reading »

GRAVEYARD RETURNS

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 172013
 

About a year ago I came across a Spanish death metal band named Graveyard via their just-released EP, The Altar of Sculpted Skulls. One of the initial attractions was the eye-catching, dread-inspiring, black-and-white artwork by Matt ‘Putrid’ Carr (Autopsy, Impetigo, Coffins, Hooded Menace, etc). The EP turned out to be just as spine-cracking, skull-bleaching, and deliciously morbid as the artwork (the review is here).

I am so happy to report that Matt Carr and Graveyard are back. Today the band announced that their new full-length album (their second) will be released on March 8 via War-Anthem Records. Its title is The Sea Grave, and Matt Carr has again created a great cover, with a Lovecraftian theme. Cthulhu! Tentacles!

Graveyard also released an edited version of a brand new track for streaming. The song is “The Visitations of the Great Old Ones”, and I’m really digging it. It alternately romps, stomps, and crawls, and it’s thoroughly saturated with the black ichor of occult horror. Have a listen after the jump. Continue reading »

MUTINY WITHIN: “MUTINY WITHIN 2: SYNCHRONICITY”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  4 Responses »
Jan 172013
 


(DGR reviews the somewhat unexpected new album by Mutiny Within, which was just released a few days ago.)

I should probably just hang up my hat now, considering that even though I write for NoCleanSinging the next couple of reviews that I have in the hopper for this site consist of 80-90% clean singing. Consider yourselves warned, heavier music fans.

Mutiny Within drew something of a raw deal when it came to their debut disc. It didn’t sell all that well (and to hear the band tell it, it was pirated to hell and back), and unfortunately their label wound up letting them go after that one release. I was honestly surprised at the reception they got (some people really hated them) because I thought their debut was something very different: A good combination of the melody and singing from something like power metal and the crushing heaviness of melodic death and groove.

Afterward, it seemed like the group were basically hanging it up, so when word came out that the band had reformed and were releasing a second disc – the lengthily titled Mutiny Within 2: Synchronicity – it came as a bit of a shock. The group were now self-releasing an album after going radio silent and becoming something of a “Wow, they had a lot of potential – too bad that never worked out” story among those of us who enjoyed the first one. Continue reading »

VOTE FOR BLOODGUARD DAMMIT!

 Metal News  15 Responses »
Jan 162013
 

The next edition of the fantabulous Bloodstock Open Air festival will take place on August 8-11, 2013, at Catton Park in Derbyshire, UK. Bloodstock is running a Metal 2 the Masses competition for unsigned bands, with the winner being selected to play the New Blood stage at the festival. The competition is open to bands from all over the world, though to enter you have to upload a film of your band playing an original song live. The winner will be decided by fan votes.

As you should know by now, NCS writer Andy Synn is the frontman for a UK metal band named Bloodguard — and Bloodguard has entered the Metal 2 the Masses competition. And they need your damned votes to win this thing and get the chance to play live at the Bloodstock festival!

To enter the competition, Andy and his comrades have uploaded a live video of themselves performing the original Bloodguard song “Singularity” live at the Vic Inn — and you can watch it at the end of this post, or at the Metal 2 the Masses site. Continue reading »

ANNIVERSARY REVIEWS BY WILLIAM SMITH: THE CLASS OF 2003

 Album Reviews, Listmania  2 Responses »
Jan 162013
 

(William Smith is the vocalist for Buckshot Facelift and a Long Island band named Artificial Brain that I’ve written about twice — here and here. He also writes a very entertaining blog called Vitos Squid Stop and Death Metal Museum. I asked him around this time last year if he would write something for NCS . . . and he gave us a 2-part list of “anniversary” albums — five albums recorded 10 years and 20 years earlier, respeectively. And this year he’s done it again. The first part appeared yesterday, and this post discusses metal gems from 10 years ago.)

…but then it came – the era of Chris Barnes as the Death Metal Elvis was dead – bloated on a toilet after a worldwide glut of gore.  George Fisher  took the flag and waved it through the fog of corpse paint and KORN, but the late nineties and early 2000s was an awkward,  diehard period when keeping it real was all about guttural slam metal, old guys ran out of ideas and started Impetigo worship bands, and all of a sudden cassettes just disappeared .

10 years after the Death Metal renaissance of ’93, the internet had established a stronghold on the underground scene. File sharing sterilized the fun out of tape trading and straight edge hardcore bands began using blast beats and guttural vocals for their own benign purposes. “Fruity Loops- Relapse message board computer grind” all but drowned out “sociopathic loner tape trader grind”, one of North Americas most unsung “KVLT” phenomena of the late nineties (re: Extreme Scene, Anal Birth, Slough, Dismembered Fetus, Vomit Spawn) and old school tech-Death pioneers began sounding more and more like Hatebreed.

To view in the context of history where some of the last holdouts from the 90s stood in this unsure era, I’ve raided my collection for 5 underground releases that have stood the test of time to still be personal Kult favorites a decade later. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FENRIZ OF DARKTHRONE

 Interviews  11 Responses »
Jan 162013
 

(Our man BadWolf interviews Fenriz from Darkthrone.)

Norwegian black metal bands and fans sometimes draw fire from more casual metal fans, as well as the mainstream, for taking themselves too seriously. Such criticisms, however, cannot be leveled at Fenriz of Darkthrone. While his peers in the second wave of black metal bands have grown, by and large, more progressive in recent years (Mayhem, Enslaved), Fenriz has been taking Darkthrone in a more primitive—and fun—direction roughly since The Cult is Alive.

Darkthrone’s last record, Circle the Wagons, sounded like a scuffed-up relic from 1980. Their upcoming album, The Underground Resistance, will follow that path even further, judging by the rust-released single edit of “Leave No Cross Unturned.” It’s an energetic number, sporting Fenriz’s best Manowar impression, and some fast-and-heavy thrash.

I sent some questions to Fenriz via email in late 2012. Judging by the candor of his responses, Fenriz doesn’t take himself that seriously either, but the man has a deep love of heavy music, and a whimsical conversation style penetrating the language and technology barrier. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  14 Responses »
Jan 162013
 

(Andy Synn’s first installment of album reviews in haiku drew a lot of interest, and a bunch of hilarious haikus in the comments, too. So Andy decided to do it again . . . .)

Well the first edition of this was such a success that I’ve been working on several more in the time since publishing that first, relatively off-the-cuff, entry in the series.

I hadn’t originally intended to return to the well so soon, but with Islander’s work commitment cutting down on his ability to write and post to the site, “Reviews In Haikus” has become a good fallback option!

So here’s another 3 albums, irreverently reviewed in English Haiku style. There’s no real hidden puns or subtexts this time round, as no-one got my “clever” little joke/reference in the last one, so all the humour and references are nice and obviously telegraphed. Suck it, nerds.

 

WINTERFYLLETH – THE THRENODY OF TRIUMPH

Instinctive decay

Old souls, young blood, tales of woe

Black metal refined

Continue reading »

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