BANDS YOU NEED TO HEAR: SHATTERED SKIES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli reminds us about an Irish band he first introduced to us back in June 2011 — a band who have just released a single and video called “15 Minutes” from their forthcoming debut album.)

I decided to use a shirt design by this band since they don’t have official artwork for their upcoming full-length revealed yet.  I thought it quite badass.

Shattered Skies are a band I only gave a brief mention to on the site when I first started writing here.  They had a free to download debut EP out at the time called Reanimations which I included in an EP download bundle I had put together. I’ve followed the band since, because I really liked their sound and found it quite engrossing.  I felt doing a spotlight feature on them was appropriate at this time, especially since they’ve finally announced a full-length to be out this year titled The World We Used to Know.

Shattered Skies are a rather interesting band, stemming from the djent movement but having moved out into a rather odd arena that is all their own.  This band is an exception to the rule around here, a huge one, but one I feel worth bringing to the forefront.

Essentially what we have is a band who combine djent rhythmic conventions with Evergrey-style power metal. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 2): A HILL TO DIE UPON, THORNGOTH, AND OBLIVIONIZED

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

Here’s our second installment, with one more coming, of a Sunday smorgasbord of new metal for your entertainment and edification. Once again, we’re graced with brand new music from three old favorites around these parts. Let’s cut right to the chase:

A HILL TO DIE UPON

This Illinois band is a big favorite of ours; all of our previous ravings about them can be found here. Their last album, 2011’s Omens, garnered these words of praise from Andy Synn: “One of this year’s great discoveries, A Hill To Die Upon ply their trade in the bloodstained arena of blackened death metal, taking their cues from the crushing power of Satanica-era Behemoth and the decaying grooves of Sheol-era Naglfar all wrapped up in a monumental package of fire-brand riffage and pulsing drums that recalls Immortal in their prime.”

Yesterday, A Hill To Die Upon released a new single named “manden med leen”, which can be acquired for the dirt-cheap price of $1 on Bandcamp. The mid-paced song is majestic and magnetic (in part due to the effective addition of keyboards to the band’s repertoire), and includes an unexpected and quite interesting acoustic-sounding interlude. But at its core it still rips and crushes. Killer stuff. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 1): BILL SKINS FIFTH, KAKUNA Vs METAPOD, AND CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

This may be a Sunday, but it’s not a sleepy one here on our metallic island. I have many new musics to spread around — so many that I’m dividing this round-up into 3 parts, this being the first. So as not to get too bogged down in rolling these out, I will attempt to minimize the verbiage, which of course goes against every fiber of my being. Ready, set, GO!

BILL SKINS FIFTH

Let’s start with metal from Finland. I’ve been following this band (whose name will be recognized by sharp-eyed fans of the movie Silence of the Lambs) since 2010, and have reviewed both of their EPs, which I recommend. For background, and a link for free download of their last EP (which we hosted), see all my previous blather here.

Bill Skins Fifth have now completed work on yet another EP, this one with the title For the Threat, and on Friday they premiered a lyric video for one of the new tracks, “Spotlight Junkie”. As I’ve come to expect from this band, “Spotlight Junkie” is a hook-filled slice of galloping/jabbing melodic death metal, with skull-scouring vocals, tasty dual-guitar dueling, a catchy chorus, and high energy. Check it out next (the EP can be pre-ordered here): Continue reading »

MANILLA ROAD’S NEW ALBUM “MYSTERIUM” IS NOW UP ON BANDCAMP

 Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Feb 102013
 

This caught me by surprise.  I was taking one last, fast look around the internet before crawling into bed last night and happened to see a blurb that Manilla Road had released a new album for streaming and download on Bandcamp. Its name is Mysterium. The last I knew, it had been projected for release on February 19, but the debut clearly has been accelerated.

This is Manilla Road’s 16th full-length album in a career that goes back more than 30 years. But as someone who turned to metal relatively late in life, I missed most of that career, and really only started learning about them through my interest in Mark “The Shark” Shelton’s Hellwell project, which released an excellent debut album last year by the name of Beyond the Boundaries of Sin (featured here).

As I write this, I’ve only just begun listening to the album, but I sure am intrigued by what I’m hearing. This is, of course, a departure from the Rule around here — but even though the singing is clean, much of it still sounds evil. And the guitar performances are head-spinning (check out the fire-breathing solo on “Stand Your Ground”, for example). I’m digging the rough guitar tone, too. I’m even digging “The Battle of Bonchester Bridge”, which is pure old-school ballad, with another riveting guitar solo.

I’ll shut up now, schedule this post to appear on Sunday morning, and go back to listening to this album — which you can also do right after the jump. Continue reading »

KATAKLYSM: “PREVAIL” AND “HEAVEN’S VENOM”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Feb 092013
 

(After a bit of a break, TheMadIsraeli completes his reconsideration of the music of Kataklysm. To see what this is all about, check out his introduction to the series here. Previous installments can be found via this link.)

Alright! Now that we’re finally getting back to this, it’s time to wrap it up with the final two albums in Kataklysm’s present discography. Prevail and Heavens Venom are albums that, until this point, I never even listened to, but about which I always heard extremely mixed opinions.

Starting with Prevail, this was pretty much an attempt to recapture what Kataklysm had channeled on In the Arms of Devastation. I don’t blame them, because that album was definitely the best work of their modern era. Prevail is not as impenetrably unstoppable as In the Arms…, however it is still an extremely solid, excellent piece of work. I really love the opening song (title track) especially; it’s full of bulldozing groove and surging power.

The problem is, this album is obviously trying to cash in on the mark its predecessor left. The songwriting is as solid and MOST of the songs are as good, but this album suffers from a couple of draggers that really harm the consistency factor. That’s a flaw this album couldn’t afford, given that In the Arms… was a perfect record, insofar as their current sound is concerned. Songs like “Taking the World by Storm” just feel shamelessly phoned in. Contrasted with trailblazing numbers like “Chains Of Power”, they just feel a bit off as you listen. Continue reading »

MAINTENANCE!!!

 IQ Subtraction  2 Responses »
Feb 092013
 

You may have noticed that over the last couple of months our site has periodically been unavailable. You come here, and you get an error message of one kind or another. Usually the outages haven’t lasted long, maybe 10 or 20 seconds at a time — except for a 2-hour meltdown that happened last weekend. But in that case, our web host (BlueHost) went down across the board, crashing thousands of sites at the same time, allegedly due to some kind of “power surge” that knocked out our host’s servers in Utah.

Even though the downtimes on our site have usually been brief, it has still annoyed the shit out of me. Given the increasing unreliability of the service, I’ve also grown increasingly worried that something really fuckin’ bad will happen, like corruption or loss of data in our database, destroying years of priceless NCS work product. Late this week, I finally decided to bite the bullet and switch web hosts.

This is not a decision to be made lightly, because switching hosting services is a BIG fuckin’ hassle. But hey, guess what! I may not have to make the switcheroo after all! This morning I received this e-mail from BlueHost: Continue reading »

THE SCHOENBERG AUTOMATON: “VELA”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 092013
 

 (Guest contributor Austin Weber reviews the new album by The Schoenberg Automaton, an Australian band we last featured in June 2011.)

The Schoenberg Automaton is a group I’ve followed intensely ever since I first heard rumblings of their bizarre brutality from Australia. The name alone had me hooked, as my love for composer Arnold Schoenberg runs deep. He was a brilliant man who conceived the twelve-tone writing technique still used today, including in metal by people such as Ron Jarzombek. He also made very atonal, dissonant music unlike anything previously heard and was a huge influence on composers from the 19th century to the present.

The band’s 2011 self-titled three-song EP was a powerful notice to the world that something big was coming. Vela delivers in spades and builds upon their unorthodox mix of Ion Dissonance-style mathcore and Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza grooves covered in technical death metal. Vela is overwhelming and full of amazing massively crushing tracks like “Arecibo,” “Pineapple Juice & The Tough Stuffed Olive”, and “All Roads Lead To Rome.”

You have to give them credit for the sly additions and updates when re-recording songs from the EP for the album. This adds some replay to those of us like myself who have already played those songs into infinity. The haunting reprieve of instrumental “Stopping A God Mid-Sentence” emerges from the storm and into the calm. They use sparse meditative bridges to break up the full-throttle intensity that bleeds from the ferocity on tracks like “Ghost Of Mirach,” “The Worm Engine”, and the extraterrestrial overload of  “Ultimatewhirringendmachine.” The Schoenberg Automaton eschew the norm with songwriting full of innovative arrangements. Continue reading »

BATILLUS: “CONCRETE SUSTAIN”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Feb 082013
 

Sometimes musical success is constructed upon the simplest of foundations. Take the new Batillus album, Concrete Sustain, for example. Specifically, take the first two tracks. They start with a simple drum rhythm or bass riff — but not just any rhythm or riff, only Grade-A Prime body-movers.

Then they strap on a standard fuckton of 100% radioactive beef — low-slung, fuzzed-out riffs that provide the demolition counterpart to those foundational rhythms. On top of that they judiciously layer electronic noise and corrosive, fingernails-on-the-chalkboard vocals (though you’ll eventually also come to some horrifically deep vox, too). And voila! Black industrial funk, the dancebeat at the end of the world.

Seriously, try to resist the viral drumbeat that courses through “Concrete” or the compulsive bass line in “Cast”. I dare you.

But don’t be misled into thinking Concrete Sustain is nothing but a vat of sludgy industrial doom. If you do, you’ll get a big skull-crushing surprise when you come to “Beset”. You listen to that one, you’ll feel like you’ve flown too close to a massive goddamn gravity well. After a comparatively subdued intro, it begins a slow, relentless pull into uber-distorted doom oblivion. Simple, but slaughtering, with only an echoing melodic guitar lead to kiss you goodbye. Continue reading »

THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL: “THE FORGOTTEN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 082013
 

(NCS guest contributor Austin Weber returns with a review of the new album by a Belgian band named The Zygoma Disposal.)

The few years after Calculating Infinity were a rich period for bands following in the footsteps of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Even better than the bizarre rhythms was the progressed chaotic nature of the style, which was understood by bands like The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Into The Moat, and Psyopus, who continued this songwriting aesthetic based on non-linear structure. Since the golden era of mathcore, few modern groups have released anything in this style that holds fast to the unpredictable foundation on which it was formed.

The Zygoma Disposal return to the aforementioned aesthetic and of course bring a lot of their own to the table. The music schizophrenically shifts through a variety of sounds and styles,  giving The Forgotten an unhinged attitude that could easily be a transmission from the gates of a subterranean hell.

The lounge jazz on opener “The Lost” is a trip through speakeasies of the 1920’s until a rising samba pulse takes hold, amping up the intensity, with the first metal moment culminating in djenty grooves, and  raucous trumpet playing slithering into the climax. The real insanity begins on track two, “Minus Infinity,” where you’re slammed in the face with tap-a-thon shrillness meets grind drums and lounge jazz feasting on death metal. Continue reading »

BOOK REVIEW: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? A BLACK WOMAN’S LIFE AND LIBERATION IN HEAVY METAL”

 Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 082013
 

 (In this post BadWolf delivers No Clean Singing’s first book review.)

I think Ian Christe’s Bazillion Points Books is one of the most important forces in metal culture, as well as music publishing in general, today.

Then again I’m biased: I used to work there. The vast majority of my time at Bazillion Points was spent working with Ian on Metallion: The Slayer Mag Diaries, but one day Ian passed me a thick stack of paper held together by an overtaxed paperclip. The byline read: Laina Dawes. It was a brisk, easy read about the struggle of black women in the heavy metal scene. Up until that point, I wasn’t aware that there were any black women in metal—ever. Therefore, I was part of the problem. The rest of the details are fuzzy, though I recall a great deal of discussion about Skunk Anansie, a band I had not yet listened to.

That paper, ‘What Are You Doing Here,’ was the first book pitch I ever edited. Four years later, I hold the final product in my hand. I’m not sure if the edits I made ever found their way into Ms. Dawes’ book—probably not; I did a really shitty job!—but whatever changes she made were for the better.

What Are You Doing Here? is one of the most necessary books on heavy music in circulation. It ignores, for the most part, the evolution of heavy music out of rock and roll, and completely shuns the sub-genre debate. And it is stronger for it. Compared to the struggle of non-whites and non-males in our society, debates over the relative quality of one album to another feel moot. Continue reading »

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