AN NCS INTERVIEW: JEFF LOHRBER (ENABLER, TODAY IS THE DAY)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 252014
 

 

(Our man BadWolf interviews Jeff Lohrber of Enabler; he also took the photos in this post at Enabler’s show in Detroit at The Loving Touch on June 10, 2014.)

In the months since Inquisitiongate (can we agree on that as the formal term?), it seems like virtually any extreme metal band could come under fire for suspicion of racism—Dragonforce and Bölzer have both come under fire as of late, and rebuffed those accusation with varying degrees of success.

Let’s scratch one band off the suspicion list: Enabler are not racist. In a brief conversation with Jeff Lohrber, guitarist/vocalist of the three-piece crust outfit, he made that much perfectly clear, alongside talking about his love of classic rock and breaking down my favorite track on what very well might be my favorite record of the year, La Fin Absolue Du Monde.

***

To begin, things I didn’t notice at Maryland Deathfest: not only do you have a Today is the Day tattoo, but you have an Ohio knuckle tattoo.

Yes.

 

What’s up with that?

Well, I’ve been in Today’s the Day three times now. I’m currently the drummer for the band, and I grew up in Ohio.

 

Where?

Around Dayton. I actually live back in Ohio again. We were in Milwaukee. We started in Milwaukee but we’re based out of Ohio now. We have one member who lives in Milwaukee still.

 

Where do you live, Dayton?

No, I live in the middle of nowhere. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AUTUMN’S DAWN — “GONE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  12 Responses »
Aug 252014
 

Autumn’s Dawn is a new two-man band from Australia whose debut album Gone is being released today by Eisenwald. And today we bring you the premiere of a full-album stream — though when you hear the album you may think a site with a name like ours is a peculiar place for a premiere of an album such as this. But read on…

Autumn’s Dawn may be a relatively new project, its only previous release being a self-titled EP, but its two members are not newcomers: Tim Yatras (who uses the name “Sorrow” in this project) has made a name for himself in such bands as Germ, Austere, Woods of Desolation, and Grey Waters, while Matthew Bell (“Anguish”) is a member of Rise of Avernus and Troldhaugen. Following our album stream, we’ll bring you an interview with Tim Yatras about the origins of Autumn’s Dawn and the new album.

With names like Sorrow and Anguish, an album entitled Gone, and song titles such as “The Ashes of A Life”, “Until My Heart Corrodes With Rust”, and “Blank Stare, Dead Eyes”, you might think you’re in for a thoroughly depressive listening experience. There is indeed a sorrowful air to much of the music, but it’s also full of life, highly memorable, and often strikingly beautiful — and it also includes scathing elements of black metal and songs that often rock very hard. Continue reading »

AN NCS THREE-PART PREMIERE: ASCENDED DEAD, ENERGUMEN, KURNUGIA

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 252014
 

The Swedish label Blood Harvest Records plans to release a series of 7″ EPs between now and year-end. Last month I reviewed five of those EPs (here and here), and today I’ve got the pleasure of bringing you the premiere of one track each from three of them. I’m taking the liberty of repeating my previous review comments as an introduction to each new song, presenting the bands in alphabetical order:

http://www.bloodharvest.se
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blood-Harvest-Records/300012152033

ASCENDED DEAD

Ascended Dead come our way from San Diego, and include current or former members of Ghoulgotha, whose Blood Harvest EP will also be added at the end of this post. Ascended Dead’s release is a four-song collection entitled Arcane Malevolence, which follows the band’s four-song demo released in 2012.

The label pitches the band with references to the likes of Possessed, Necrovore, and the early sounds of Morbid Angel and Sarcofago, and that should give you an idea of what you’re in for. This is thick, murky, grinding death metal, the gears of the monstrous machine choked with grime and spewing noxious fumes as it barrels ahead at a murderous pace.

The songs feature absolutely stand-out drumwork, blistering guitar solos, and a big load of galvanizing riffs, in addition to the reverberating howls of a monstrous vocalist. The music moves so quickly and is so utterly decimating in its philosophy that even after only four songs you may feel like you’ve spent a week in a war zone. Highly recommended. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MISÞYRMING, YELLOW EYES, LABYRINTHINE, BHLEG, CEMETERIUM

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 242014
 

Black metal today comes in so many shapes and textures that’s it’s almost as diverse as “death metal”, its original thorned orthodoxy having blossomed into a garden of unearthly delights. In this post I’ve collected the diverse music of five black metal bands who I discovered last week. If there’s one thing they do have in common, it’s a skill in crafting melody (of all things).

MISÞYRMING

Misþyrming (“Mis-thyr-ming”) are an Icelandic band whose name came my way in rapid succession from an e-mail by NCS supporter eiterorm and an Eistnaflug-themed article by Kim Kelly. According to Kim’s article, “The Reykjavik-based project started out as a one-man endeavor and expanded when founder D.G. added drummer H.R.H. (also of Carpe Noctem) on drums.” I’ve written admiringly about Carpe Noctem before, so that kind of made three reasons to go exploring.

Misþyrming’s debut album Söngvar elds og óreiðu will be released in a collaborative effort by Fallen Empire and Terratur Possessions, and two of the songs are on Bandcamp now. The music is incendiary — perhaps the most destructive music of the five bands in this post — but when they back down from the flame-spewing they cast mesmerizing riff spells. And they do a damned fine job of flame throwing (with eerie ambience), too.

Don’t forget this band’s name — I’m confident it’s going to spread. Brilliant stuff. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: SOULLESS CARNAGE, BLOODSTRIKE, SUMERLANDS

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Aug 232014
 

 

Here are three short reviews of three short releases that I think are really good. I’ve been meaning to say something about two of them for the last week or two, and the third I only heard for the first time yesterday — and that’s the one I’ll start with.

SOULLESS CARNAGE

I wish I had time to carefully read every e-mail and Facebook message we get from bands and listen attentively to all their music, but I can’t. Instead, what I’m able to check out is a matter of happenstance — it often comes down to whether I happen to have a few minutes to kill at the moment when I read a message that pricks my curiosity.

For example, yesterday I was skimming through the NCS e-mails with a few minutes to kill and saw a message from a Polish band named Soulless Carnage who described themselves as “a blackened death metal crew, inspired by classics like Morbid Angel, Deicide, Grave“. In fact, they’re partially named after a Grave tune (“Soulless”). Continue reading »

DEAFHEAVEN: “FROM THE KETTLE ONTO THE COIL”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Aug 222014
 

Adult Swim is releasing a new track from SF’s Deafheaven on Monday. It will be available for free download. The song’s name is “From the Kettle To the Coil”. It bears many of the by-now well-known Deafheaven musical characteristics — it includes lush melodies, George Clarke shrieks his guts out, and the guitarists and drummer blaze away when they’re not going for slow and shimmering.

But… Clarke also hits some roaring lows (and some low cleans) this time around, and the riffs get jagged and punchy. But in a nutshell, if you like Deafheaven (as I do), you will like this song (a lot, because it’s one of their best), and if you don’t you probably won’t. Listen next, and if you do like what you hear, this is the place to get it on Monday: Continue reading »

MAAT: “AS WE CREATE THE HOPE FROM ABOVE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Aug 222014
 

(In this post Ty Lowery reviews the debut album by Germany’s Maat.)

Serendipity can be a powerful thing. A few months ago, I was deep in the bowels of YouTube, having started by listening to some random band’s EP (I think). Either way, I wound up listening to a song called “Atum / Conqueror of Chaos”. It was a pretty good song. I listened to it, marked the cool album cover in my head and vowed to look up the band later.

Naturally, I forgot all about them. Even in my search for my favorite album covers (see here), I couldn’t find the pharoah’s stony stare to save my life. Oh well, life goes on.

Fast forward to earlier this week, while I was on a quest to find some black metal that I didn’t hate… Imagine my surprise when I saw the song sitting in a recommendations list on a random forum. I found the album (As We Create Hope From Above), realized it had been released, and opened wide. Continue reading »

LEPERKAHN IS GOING TO A FESTIVAL

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Aug 222014
 

(Sometimes NCS contributor Leperkahn is going to his first metal festival and is looking for companionship. We do expect a full report.)

Leperkahn is going to a festival

First of all, I want to apologize for not writing here since roughly the Middle Ages (specifically, late April). I could come up with excuses (the surprising amount of things that went into high school graduation, a trip to Scandinavia, getting a job as a pizza delivery guy here in San Diego), but really it comes down to me being a lazy piece of shite, as I’ve spent equal amounts of time marathoning Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies.

Anyway, I’m finally back, for the time being – I start college a month or so from the time I’m writing this, which will be a whole new can of worms to open, and, more pressingly, I’m filling some of the time in between (since I’m on a quarter system, I start really late, and thus most of my friends will be gone by the end of this week) with a trip to Paris, through a UChicago program called September in Paris.

Much of this wouldn’t mean much for anyone else in the NCS-sphere if my trip didn’t engulf the weekend upon which the inaugural Fall of Summer Open Air is happening in Torcy, France (just a short train/bus ride outside of Paris, or 30 minutes-ish by car). Continue reading »

NAME YOUR OWN PRICE BANDCAMP THROWDOWN; AN ALBUM, AN EP, AND A SONG: FRACTALLINE, ASYLUM, AND REMAINS OF THE TYRANT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 222014
 

(In this post DGR reviews music from three bands, with complete music streams for each one.)

Fractalline – Polymath Theory

Fractalline are a Los Angeles-based death metal band who have been around for a while now, with two prior releases to their name. However, those came out in 2010, and a lot can happen in four years, as evidenced by this group’s June 2014 release Polymath Theory.

The band currently have the album listed as “name your own price” on Bandcamp. As a whole, it’s a concept disc with a heavy science fiction bent. Part of what makes Polymath Theory interesting is that it pursues the theme without the album art just being a picture of a planet and the words ‘SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE’ underneath it, as so many other bands who’ve tried their hands at this subject matter seem to have done.

In the words of the band themselves:

Polymath Theory is a concept album that is a “commentary on humankind’s evolution from basic beings subject to the whims of their universe, to intergalactic explorers and energistic entities in search of purpose – while touching upon our present state in the final trek – DeEvolution.”

The album is full of infinitely complex mid-tempo grinders that see the band in a markedly different market than the current string of light-speed hyperblasting bands out there. Since the group don’t have the benefits of pyrotechnic speed on their side to help in their appeal, they have instead chosen to build Polymath Theory out of odd shapes and weird, angular structures. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SCAR SYMMETRY, THE STONE, SANCTUARY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 222014
 

 

Here are a trio of new songs that I heard this morning that I enjoyed. Perhaps you will enjoy them, too. Obviously, I couldn’t resist grouping these three S bands together. Cool album covers for all of them, too.

SCAR SYMMETRY

Scar Symmetry’s sixth album is on the way. The title is Singularity (Phase I: Neohumanity). It has a cool album cover, don’t you think? Today the band released a lyric video for a single from the album named “Limits To Infinity”. The announcement came with these quotes from band members:

Per Nilsson: “I thought to myself… am I allowed to fuse death metal with AOR, and go extreme in both directions? I didn’t ask for permission, I just went and did it, and I’m pretty excited to hear what people are gonna think about it.”

Henrik Ohlsson: “‘Limits to Infinity’” unveils the malevolent plan of the elite, the hidden hand, and their discoveries regarding the secrets of the universe. The lyric elaborates on the decision makers’ long-term plan to merge with machines and colonize other planets.”

The music is a high-powered combination of jolting riffs/rhythms and catchy melody, deliciously ugly growls and soaring cleans, tumbling drums and a flickering solo. It hammers and it glides and I don’t think you’ll be able to remain still while it does its thing. Continue reading »

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