A SATURDAY SMORGASBORD: PHANTOM, FATES WARNING, DISPARAGED, CARPATHIAN FOREST, CARCASS, IMMOLATION

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 282013
 

Happy Saturday motherfuckers (and of course I mean that in the nicest possible way). You haven’t asked what I’ve been listening to this morning, but I’m going to share that with you anyway, because sometimes people want things that they don’t know they want, and I feel sure this is such a time.

PHANTOM

In listening to the kind of albums I, Voidhanger releases, I’m used to getting my brain pureed in a blender or torn apart by black hurricanes of harrowing noise. But this morning I listened to the first song on a forthcoming I, Voidhanger album that takes a different turn. The album is Incendiary Serum by a Danish band named Phantom, and it’s scheduled for release before the end of this year. The opening track is “Ghostly”, and it is ghostly (and ghastly).

The aura of the music is still very black and bleak, still filled by vocal vomit, but it’s slow, crushing, and melodic. Powerful degraded riffs stomp and moan, twisted tremolo trills flit through the murk, minor-key piano melodies sing the songs of dead, homeless souls. You can headbang, and you can sink into a state of melancholy bereavement. This is an excellent melding of doom, death, and black metal. I, Voidhanger does not disappoint. Here’s “Ghostly”: Continue reading »

PYRRHON SIGNS WITH RELAPSE

 Metal News  1 Response »
Sep 272013
 

It’s not every day that we pause to take note of a band signing with a label, but we’re doing it now for reasons that will become evident. The band is New York’s Pyrrhon (pronounced “peer-on”, as the press release says), and the label is Relapse.

The new multi-album deal follows release of the band’s debut EP (Fever Kingdoms) on The Path Less Traveled record label in 2010, and by the 2011 release of their first album An Excellent Servant But A Terrible Master by Selfmadegod Records. A new album has been completed — tracked and mixed by Ryan Jones (Today is the Day, Mutilation Rites) and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Krallice) — and it obviously got Relapse’s attention. Its name is The Mother of Virtues, and we’ll all get to hear it sometime in 2014.

September has been a good month for Doug Moore. He’s the vocalist and lyricist for Pyrrhon, but this month he also took over the reins as Editor of Invisible Oranges following Fred Pessaro’s departure for a position at Noisey. This elevation follows several years of writing for IO and other music sites. There may have been another serious metal blogger whose band has signed with a label the magnitude of Relapse, but if there is, I’m not aware of it. That’s a pretty good September two-fer. Continue reading »

MEPHISTOPHELES: “SOUNDS OF THE END”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

(NCS guest contributor Austin Weber reviews the forthcoming second album by Tasmanian death metal band Mephistopheles.)

In the past couple of years, the number of creative and talented Australian metal bands has grown and become a force to be reckoned with. Which is not to say their scene hasn’t always slayed; I’ve been jamming plenty of bands from there for years, including the almighty but now defunct Alchemist. Well, we can add another name to the pile of Australia’s best in Tasmania’s own Mephistopheles. A band on the cusp of releasing their second album Sounds Of The End, they have crafted an album that will stand as among the best metal that comes out this year. While few know the name, many will recognize members of their lineup which includes vocalist Matt Chalky (Psycroptic) and sole guitarist Ben Lawless (live for Spawn Of Possession), who also performs vocals.

Sounds Of The End matches its name not only in ferocity but also with an uplifting beauty that sometimes includes some very emotive clean singing. Sonically, Mephistopheles mix and match technical death metal of the Spawn Of Possession school and old-school death metal variety with a rarely straightforward and often reflective black metal side. Their love for songs that revolve around big groovy riffs instead of a shower of leads and solely blazing nature further sets them apart from the preconceived notion of what technical death metal sounds like. Mephistopheles also likes to use that back and forth, wind-sweeping build-up sort of riff that you hear in The Faceless, but done a bit differently, and used to good effect. Continue reading »

HEXER: “HEXER”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

I have a bad habit of yawning by the time I reach the second or third track of most recent thrash releases. Unlike many seasoned metalheads I know, I didn’t grow up on the old gods of thrash, I do not worship at the altar of Slayer or Metallica, and though I’ve explored the field after getting into metal through other pathways, my tolerance for the genre remains limited. I enjoy an ass-burning riff as much as the next person, but the idea of writing songs that sound different from each other seems to be a foreign concept to many current-generation thrash bands, and I’ve always had trouble appreciating the “classic” thrash vocal style.

But what I’ve discovered in recent years is that I didn’t dig deep enough into the darker corners of thrash before convincing myself that it would always fall low on my own list of genre preferences. What I’ve discovered is a strain of thrash that ignites a fever in the blood. What I’m talking about is the infection of black metal within the thrash blood stream. It’s not a recent scourge — the disease sprang to virulent life long ago — but I’ve only discovered its appeal recently. The self-titled debut album of Philadelphia’s Hexer is a very fine recent example of that virus.

This new album is not entirely new. It collects six songs from two 2011 EPs that the band distributed locally on cassette, but they’re now getting a remastered, professionally packaged vinyl/digital release by the reliable Gilead Media label. And the 36 minutes of music the album contains are anything but dull: Hexer is a romping blast of hellfire and brimstone, with the kind of riff mastery that will cause foaming at the mouth.

Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 40: IN ELEMENT

 Free Shit, THE SYNN REPORT  3 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

(In this milestone 40th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of Argentina’s In Element.)

Recommended for fans of: Darkane, Mnemic, After The Burial

 

It seems we’ve reached another big round number in the annals of this column, and as a result I thought I needed to do something a bit special to celebrate. Because that’s just how I roll.

So today’s artist not only hails from Argentina –  receiving its first visit from The Synn Report – but they also offer all of their studio releases (3 albums and one EP) for free download over on their website! That’s right, if you like what you hear you can go straight over to www.in-element.com and download to your heart’s content. Though I’d appreciate it if some of you also bought some physical albums and/or merch, because they definitely deserve your support!

Formed in 2003 and releasing their first album in 2005, these Argentinian antagonists combine state of the art, cybernetically-enhanced melodeath with punishingly technical metalcore flourishes, vicious death metal vocals, and a glorious atmosphere of star-kissed, celestial ambience. Continue reading »

MINDGRINDER, VAURA, YEAR OF NO LIGHT

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

I know it seems like all we’ve done recently is collect new songs for you to hear, but there’s a good reason for this: All we’ve done recently is collect new songs for you to hear. In fact, we’re doing it again in this post, though we’ll be breaking the habit with a review or two later today. I’ve had more time than usual to go exploring, and I continue to find new music that get’s me pumped up. So, here we go again… and the bands, in alphabetical order, are MindGrinder (Norway), Vaura (U.S.), and Year of No Light (France).

MINDGRINDER

Until about two days ago I didn’t know MindGrinder existed, despite the fact that they produced two albums in 2004 and 2005. But in my defense, eight years is a long time between albums, and yes, they did release a new album on September 20 entitled Prop Agenda. I found out about it haphazardly, because the artist who created the cover (Eliran Kantor) is someone who I follow on Facebook and he happened to post the cover on his page.

That peaked my curiosity and I went in search of music and found two cuts from the album. The first one I heard is a cover of Emperor’s “I Am the Black Wizards”, on which the father of Emperor’s Samoth (who is a renowned blues artist in Norway) laid down the bass track. It blew my fuckin’ mind (you can tell I’m enthusiastic because I can’t help but use the F word when I get excited). Continue reading »

AMORAL: “IF NOT HERE, WHERE?”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

Amoral are a Finnish band who I first heard about almost two years ago through my internet pen pal fireangel of the Night Elves. They released their fifth album, Beneath, in 2011, but they recently announced that they’ve completed a new one entitled Fallen Leaves & Dead Sparrows that will be released next year. Today they began streaming the first advance track from the album, a song called “If Not Here, Where?”

I gather from some info that fireangel sent me in the past that Amoral’s sound began to change following the addition of new vocalist Ari Koivunen before the recording of the fourth album — more melodic songs with big choruses, more clean vocals, a drift toward more “classic” metal, with even some glam overtones. You can probably guess why I didn’t dive right into Beneath. I did post a video for one of the songs from that album (“Wrapped In Barbwire”), because it was such a catchy motherfucker, with groovy riffs and a repeatable chorus — but the vocals still weren’t my kind of thing.

The new song, on the other hand, has hooked me — and not just because the clean vocals are balanced by jagged howls. At more than 9 minutes, it’s an ambitious undertaking, one that begins with an extended, primarily acoustic overture and Koivunen’s power-metal-styled tenor in the spotlight. For some reason, I thought I was about to hear a previously unreleased Journey or Yes song. And then the heavy riffing began, and the song grew progressively more interesting as it grew more  . . .progressive. Continue reading »

MORE SEEN AND HEARD: GHOST B.C., IMPENDING DOOM, MAGENTA HARVEST, AND VHOLDGHAST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

I know that I’ve already posted one round-up today, but I found more things I wanted to share. So, here goes:

GHOST B.C.

I have an extremely powerful attraction to Ghost’s music, even though I listen to almost nothing else that comes within ICBM range of it. So, I was drawn like a fly to honey when I saw that a new Ghost video had premiered yesterday at Rolling Stone. It’s a professionally filmed clip of the band performing the infernal carnival of “Secular Haze” at a sold-out Webster Hall in New York. It reminds me of how damned much I’ve enjoyed the multiple live Ghost performances I’ve seen.

So, of course, I’m embedding the video here. Watch it next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MARYLAND DEATHFEST, NECROPHOBIC, UNCOFFINED, AND NEOLITHIC VOID

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

Here’s a round-up of noteworthy things seen and heard over the last 24 hours.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST

The organizers of MDF XII have been slowly announcing the names of bands who will appear at next year’s edition of the best metal festival in the US. The most recent announcement came earlier this week with four new names: Cancer, from the UK, who will be making their first US appearance since 1993; Sacrifice from Canada, who will be making their first appearance since 1992; Nocturnus (who for legal reasons must call themselves Nocturnus A.D.), who will be playing the entirety of their debut album The Key; Crowbar; and Death Toll 80K from Finland.

I have several friends who are especially hot over the return of Nocturnus, including NCS writer BadWolf, who reviewed The Key in retrospective back in July 2012 (here). There seems to be some uncertainty about which of the band’s original members will be appearing, other than drummer/vocalist Mike Browning. However, Nocturnus performed songs from The Key live in Mexico City last April. Photos of that show can be found here, and videos are on YouTube, too. I wouldn’t recognize the performers, but presumably it will be the same line-up at MDF.

Here’s one of those videos: Continue reading »

GIVE ‘TIL IT HURTS: CORMORANT AND THE ABSENCE

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

So many bands are trying to raise money through crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Some of them deserve a helping hand. I’ll tell you about two that I think deserve your help, because I like both bands and really hope your money will enable them to get their new music in a form suitable to send to me so that I can have it. In fact, I can think of few betters uses for your money, unless of course you’d prefer to just send it directly to me. If that sounds good, hit me up.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, two bands I hope you will help finance, for me.

CORMORANT

Contrary to early speculation, the departure of vocalist/bassist Arthur von Nagel did not put an end to Cormorant. In fact, they just finished tracking their third album to analog tape with engineer/producer Justin Weis (Slough Feg, Agalloch, Hammers of Misfortune, Ludicra), having first supplemented their remaining line-up through the addition of Marcus Luscombe, who has become the new bassist and lead vocalist.

Luscombe is an Australian-born San Francisco Bay Area native who has been lead guitarist, songwriter, and backing vocalist for for a band named Vengince and lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist for another band named Cloakwheel. According to Cormorant, “His unique stylings and weird, proggy bass lines have added new elements to the Cormorant sound, and we can’t wait for you to hear how he sounds on the album!” Continue reading »

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