SHORT BUT SWEET: DEPTERA — “GRAVITY”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 122013
 

(TheMadIsraeli provides this short and to-the-point review of a debut EP by Russia’s Deptera.)

Deptera are another sign in the increasing proof that Russia is turning into a musical hotbed of awesome.  The band play a brutal style of piston thrust force old school death metal in a very Polish vein.  Leaning toward the not quite death metal or thrash stylings of Vader, their debut EP Gravity is an adrenaline rush of pure fuck-you-up face rape.

Vocalist Baalothneekh has a vocal array very similar to Daniel Mongraine of Martyr, while the rest of the band attack with a ferocity that reminds one of a combination of Vader, Death, Exodus, and Forbidden.  It also should be noted the drummer is officially identified as “Garigus the Mighty Blastbeaster”.  He turns your brain to mush with an assault that’s the equivalent of a cranial jackhammer.

This is sick shit man.  You can either stream it and buy it off Bandcamp, or download it for free here.  Also, they’ve done a brutal cover of Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff”.  No really. Continue reading »

GRAMMY vs GRAMMY: THE 2012 SPELLEMANN AWARD NOMINATIONS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 122013
 

a photo of Enslaved that I took last night

A nice coincidence:  Last night I saw Enslaved perform at a bar in Seattle. This morning, Enslaved were nominated for Best Metal Album of 2012 in Norway’s version of the Grammy awards, which are called the Spellemann awards.

The other nominees in that category are Nekromantheon for Rise, Vulcan Spectre and El Caco for Hatred, Love and Diagrams. You gotta love a country where fuckin’ Enslaved and fuckin’ Nekromantheon get nominated for Grammy’s. Songs from each of their albums made our list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Hell, last spring I even wrote about a song from El Caco’s album (here) — though the song is more hard rock than metal.

Contrast this with the American Grammy Awards: Although there were 81 award categories for 2012, there is no award for Best Metal Album. As close as we get is an award for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance. And Halestorm won that award two nights ago. Uh huh. Continue reading »

METAL CULTURE – PART 2

 Mosh Pit  26 Responses »
Feb 122013
 

(Here’s Part 2 of a 5-part series about metal culture by guest contributor David Mollica, a trained cultural anthropologist and dedicated metal head. This series is based in part on David’s Master’s dissertation and the interviews he conducted in preparation for writing it.)

Today I want to talk about physical culture and the group/individual dynamic. Anyone who has ever been to a gig or looked inside Gaahl’s closet knows the metal uniform: Jeans, camo shorts, chains, denim vests, black band shirts, guys with long hair, tattoos, piercings, and so on. It makes us stand out a bit, attracting wary looks from ‘normal’ people on their way to work when we are trying to buy a Red Bull at 6:00 am for the after-gig drive home. On a surface level this helps create that group cohesion thing I was talking about yesterday. There is a certain amount of comfort we get from being around people who look and act like ourselves; that’s why immigrant groups often move into neighborhoods together instead of dispersing all over the place.

Personally, I never thought of why I choose to dress the way I do (minus the camo shorts…that’s just too much for me) until I started my fieldwork. That whole being able to see the other guy as a person and not just part of a sea of bodies at gigs is obviously important, and I think that’s partially why mosh pit etiquette is so universal. However, the way we dress goes beyond that simple level of making groups of strangers work together more easily. It’s also how a lot of us make friends, myself included. Think back to when you first met the people you know in the metal scene. The first thing that was said by way of introduction was probably something along the lines of “Nice shirt man!”. That’s how I met half the people I interviewed and some of us are friends to this day even though we don’t live anywhere near each other anymore. Continue reading »

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT BEGINS THE DESTRUCTION OF CIVILIZATION, ONE SMALL BIT AT A TIME

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 112013
 

We continue with our close death watch on the The Monolith Deathcult, monitoring every emission from the backward slope of their dreaded metal spires, holding our breathes against the noxious fumes in wait for that awful day (May 10 in Europe) when their new album Tetragrammaton will be unleashed upon an unsuspecting public and the wailing and gnashing of teeth shall begin in earnest.

Just minutes ago our vigilant surveillance was rewarded by discovery of the first official Tetragrammaton video teaser, its introduction voiced by none other than Orion Pax and its imagery inscribed with excerpts from advance reviews by the likes of Lance Armstrong in the Pro Cycling Musical Niche Review Magazine.

Those with weak knees or delicate digestive tracts may wish to skip this video. Everyone else should watch it, and then double-check to make sure your armageddon bunkers are fully stocked with essentials such as smelling salts, anti-emetics, and spine-stiffeners. Continue reading »

GRINDING FOR A CURE TO ALZHEIMER’S

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 112013
 

“Grinding for a Cure” is a project that started small and eventually exploded. The organizers set up shop and started spreading the word about their mission only in mid-January; I discovered it only a couple of weeks ago. And their mission was (and is) to raise money to fund research into a cure for Alzheimer’s disease — by selling a grindcore compilation.

The compilation was assembled by Dorian Rainwater of Noisear, Christine Coz, and Chris Messina of Swamp Gas, and last night Volume 1 of the comp went live on Bandcamp.

I was pretty proud of the grind/crust/powerviolence comp that Alex Layzell put together with modest help from NCS (which we’re still giving away here). We have 46 tracks on that baby. But Volume 1 of Grinding for a Cure contains . . . 100 tracks! And it looks like the whole thing was pulled together in the space of less than one month. Pretty fuckin’ impressive.

The line-up is pretty fuckin’ impressive, too. Continue reading »

METAL CULTURE – PART 1

 Mosh Pit  26 Responses »
Feb 112013
 

photo by Peter Beste

(We’ve got something different for you, something I hope will provoke thinking and discussion.  This begins a 5-part post by cultural anthropologist [and metalhead] David Mollica on the subject of metal culture, based in part on extensive field research in bars.)

Hey NCS readers, Islander has kindly allowed me to talk at you about the metal community and why we do what we do for a little bit. I’m going to cover the whole media perception, violence, and counter-culture thing first to get it out of the way, then move on to some more interesting stuff in later posts. So first a little background:

I study cultural anthropology and mass media in addition to being a metal head and thought it would be cool to mix a little fun with my serious business. So, a couple years back I somehow managed to convince my adviser that letting me hang out in bars and listen to Iron Maiden was a legitimate form of fieldwork for my Master’s dissertation. The end result was a rambling 33 pages of material, some of which I’ll be talking about here. Since most of my field work took me to places where I had to keep up with the livers of London natives I may have missed a few things, so feel free to voice your thoughts in the comments. I like discussion. If you want a copy of the paper email me at gilderling@gmail.com.

Let’s start with a question you might not think about all the time: Why do you like Heavy Metal and what got you into it in the first place? Not only is this stuff grim, aggressive, angry and over the top, but we also see those things as standard positive qualities of the music. We expect macabre subjects and weird note progressions. So what drives us to listen to this instead of more mainstream or easy going stuff? Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 32: RUINS

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
Feb 112013
 

(In this 32nd installment of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the full-length discography of a band from the depths of Tasmania — Ruins.)

Recommended for fans of: Satyricon, Goatwhore, Shining (Sweden)

I’ve had this band primed and ready to go for a while now, but I’ve been waiting for the right moment to unleash it. With the release of their fourth album Place Of No Pity at the tail-end of last year, now seems the perfect time to introduce you to the cut-throat black metal of Ruins.

The Tasmanian twosome (Alex Pope on vocals and guitars, David Haley on drums – recently upgraded to a full quartet) started weaving their black magic in 2004 with the Atom and Time EP, and have since unloaded four lethal rounds of their brutal, remorseless attack into the world.

The guitar tone is the sound of a man strangling the life out of his instrument, wringing every drop of black blood from the contorted strings, the vocals a blast-furnace bellow of pestilential misanthropy, and the drums… Well, it’s the one-man wrecking machine David Haley behind the kit, delivering an overwhelming barrage of sonic devastation and brooding, slithering groove. Continue reading »

VREID’S NEW VIDEO FOR “THE REAP” IS KILLER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 112013
 

In our review of Vreid’s new album Welcome Farewell, Andy Synn compared the listening experience to sex. He said some other things, too, but that’s the part I remember. I remember the music, too. Welcome Farewell is dynamite, and destined to be on year-end lists of all right-thinking metalheads.

I think my favorite song on the album is “The Reap”. It’s massively infectious, with wonderful guitar melodies wrapped around a swinging rhythm, but still black at its core. It’s pretty much guaranteed to be on a certain year-end list I’ll be making 10 or 11 months from now. I’m so happy that the band chose this song for their first official video from Welcome Farewell.

I’m also really fuckin’ happy with the video, especially because it includes animation by Kim Holm, a Norwegian cartoonist who (among other things) created the separate pieces of artwork for each song on  Sólstafir’s 2011 album Svartir Sandar (I collected all of those creations in this post). I’d also like to applaud the video’s director Einar Loftesnes for making something that visually captures the spirit of the music so well.

Check out the video next; the album is due for release by Indie Recordings on March 5.
Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 70)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  6 Responses »
Feb 112013
 

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It’s time for another edition of THAT’S METAL!, in which I collect photos, videos, and sometimes news items that I think are metal, even though they’re not music.

Today, our collection includes mirrored, floating trees; art that’s meant to disappear with the waves; spiders in the sky; a Kraken on camera; reflections that turn nothing into something; possibly the best condom ad ever created; “My Vag” (well, not mine); and a movie trailer that shines on like a crazy diamond.

ITEM ONE

Tracy Griffin is a professional photographer. For the last four years, off and on, she has been working on a project she calls “mirrors”. I haven’t found a description of exactly how she creates the photos, but in effect she makes mirror-image symmetries of trees, causing them to reflect back on themselves. As you can see in the example above, it appears as if the branches are floating.

The web site where I found the photos describes them as “looking alternately like enormous insects, or family crests, or racks of antlers on unseen stags”. Of course, to me and I suspect most of you, they look like black metal band logos — which is why they’re metal. Here are a few more: Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 3): ROTTING CHRIST, STARKILL, CULT OF LUNA, AND MUSE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

This is the third and final installment in my Sunday round-up of new music. These are all items that emerged last week, but I didn’t make room for them on the days of their release. After the first item, the remainder are all new videos.

ROTTING CHRIST

Allow me to repeat, for the third time, the new Rotting Christ album is brilliant. Its name is ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ (“Do What Thou Wilt”), and it’s scheduled for release by Season of Mist in North America on March 5. We’ve previously posted about the first two songs from the album that have been publicly unveiled — the title track “Kata Ton Demona Eaftou” and “In Yumen – Xibalba”. Last week, one more went up for listening — “P’unchaw Kachun – Tuta Kachun”. Since we’ll have a review soon, I’ll say only this about the new track: Listen.


Continue reading »

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