August 2015 - Page 6 of 11 - NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: PLANKS — “SHE IS ALONE”

Aug 182015

Hosting this premiere is a bittersweet event for me. On the one hand, the song is by a German trio whose music I’ve greatly enjoyed for many years — and it’s an excellent song. On the other hand, the song appears on what will be the group’s final album. The band is Germany’s Planks, the album is Perished Bodies, and the song is “She Is Alone“.

By some measures the song is not among the heaviest of Plank’s creations. But though it may not be quite as “crushing” as some of their songs (as that adjective is commonly used), it packs an emotional punch that can still stagger you.

The song is distinctive in other respects as well. Vocally, it’s a duet between the band’s Ralph Schmidt and Leonie M. Löllmann, vocalist of the German grind/crust band SVFFER. The song was inspired by another duet, one between Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue on “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, but though you can understand why the one may have inspired the other, “She Is Alone” proves to be more savagely wrenching than spooky. Continue reading »

MYRKUR: “M”

Album Reviews 17 Responses »

Aug 182015

(Andy Synn reviews the debut album by Myrkur.)

Let’s get this out of the way nice and early shall we? Yes, controversy (some groundless, some deserved) has certaintly dogged the name Myrkur since it first appeared on everyone’s radar last year. Barbs were thrown, aspersions were cast… mistakes were made. By both sides.

But honestly, I really don’t care about that. I’m not here to question or criticise anyone’s marketing strategy, nor am I prepared to wade into the sticky mire of “he said/she said” that made up a large amount of the internet’s reaction to the inevitable reveal.

No, all I’m interested in is whether Amalie Bruun, the head and heart and the soul of Myrkur, truly grasps the essence of Black Metal or not, and whether she has the vision and the execution to match her ambition.

Spoiler alert – she does. Continue reading »

MIDNIGHT AND SHITFUCKER — A SPLIT RELEASE

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 4 Responses »

Aug 182015

This is one of those extremely rare occasions when I’m writing about a new release without being able to include a stream of any of the music. This leaves you without the vital safety net of your own ears, wholly dependent on my own gibberish as a guide. While I really hate putting you in that position, I really have to froth about this release now. If and when a music stream surfaces, I’ll try to remember to add it. But since my memory is no more reliable than my verbiage, maybe you should just order this tasty little split for yourselves.

The partners in crime on this two-song release are Cleveland’s Midnight and Detroit’s Shitfucker, and it will be discharged by Hells Headbangers on 7″ vinyl on September 4.

MIDNIGHT

Midnight’s track is “Sadist Sodomystic Seducer”, and it’s their first new music since 2014’s stupendous No Mercy For Mayhem. It’s only 2:13 long, but man it’s good. Continue reading »

BOB MALMSTRÖM: “DU KAN LITA PÅ MIG” (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Aug 172015

Well, it has been a long time since I last wrote about Bob Malmström on our putrid site. The first time I encountered these Swedish-speaking Finns was back in December 2011 (here) after catching their official music video for a song called “Eliten”, which was a kind of searing, headbanging, thrash/hardcore/punk onslaught, as rendered by a bunch of dudes in suits sipping champagne. The second time was in April 2013 (here) when the subject was a lyric video for the title track from their album Punkens framtid, which rocked so hard it nearly knocked me flat, though I somehow kept my feet despite bouncing around in a solo mosh pit of my own making.

But now I have a new excuse to enliven our site with some Bob Malmström insanity, because they’ve just released a video for a cover of a song called “Du kan lita på mig” (“you can trust me”). The song was the title track to a 1993 album by a Swedish singer/songwriter named Tomas Ledin. After hearing the Bob Malmström version, I listened to the original. It’s a bouncy, catchy, pop-py bit of fluff (as heard by my ears, which are scoured to a bloody mess by a daily dose of extreme metal and can now barely tolerate anything bouncy and poppy). I much prefer what Bob Malmström have done with the song — and not just because the video includes a lot of coke, whiskey, boobs, more coke, and hilarious English subtitles. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TODESSTOSS — “VERWEHUNG”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Aug 172015

The new seventh album by Germany’s TODESSTOSS is named Hirngemeer, a word you will not find in the dictionary, a kind of jumbled contraction of the German words “Gehirn” (brain) and “Meer” (sea), as if to express the idea of a mind at sea with all moorings lost and no compass to guide it. That turns out to be a fitting title, as you will learn when you hear our premiere of the album’s first track, “Verwehung”, which means “drift”.

The album will be released on September 25 by I, Voidhanger Records, a label with a proven impeccable taste for the unorthodox and the fascinating (and no real regard for genre boundaries). The album is about 75 minutes long, but consists of only three tracks. At more than 28 minutes, “Verwehung” isn’t the longest. And yes, we’re bringing you that song in its complete form, not the kind of edited version that often appears in place of long tracks for fear of overtaxing short attention spans. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: PAOLO GIRARDI

Eye-Catchers, Interviews 12 Responses »

Aug 172015

Paolo and Manilla Road

(KevinP brings us another installment in his ongoing series of short interviews, talking this time with one of our favorite metal artists, Italy’s Paolo Girardi.)

K: So how did you get your start being one of the “go to” guys for metal album covers?

P: I already had done some local metal demo and CD covers here in my small town and villages around the ’90s and early 2000s. But then my friends Blasphemophagher wanted something for their first album, then second, then third and the most recent one. This gave me more popularity in metal. After that I did Diocletian, Tyrants Blood, In League with Satan, etc.

Three years ago (almost four maybe), I reached the point when I could live by painting alone, working all over the world. No more need to work in country, as frescos restorer, carpenter, or other occasional work. I was so glad ’cause I’ve never quit painting, even when I had to work 11 hours per day. After that, my daily wrestling training, then painting ’til after midnight. I’ve always believed at every cost. Obsession, passion, love, stubbornness, madness. Now, I still work hard to do my best for my respectful clients, bands, and labels. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GRAVE, NOMAD, NON OPUS DEI, SICKRITES, SIVYJ YAR, THROUGH

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Aug 172015

I have many albums I badly want to review, and I had a fair amount of time this weekend to devote to that. So what did I do? I listened to new songs and EPs instead. I just couldn’t stop myself. The more I bounced around the interhole, the more good new stuff I found. I collected some of it yesterday (here), and there’s a lot more in this post — and with any luck, I might manage to write about some of those EPs I found before the day is out. Presented in alphabetical order by band name:

GRAVE

Okay, okay, I realize this first song isn’t exactly hot off the presses, since it debuted on August 5. But gimme a break, it’s by Grave, and anyone who knows anything about my musical tastes knows there’s no way in hell I’m going to miss writing about new Grave music.

The name of the song is “Redeemed Through Hate” and it will appear on the band’s next album, Out of Respect For the Dead, to be released by Century Media in October. It follows the Morbid Ascent EP in 2013, about which Andy Synn wrote a review in haiku: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KINNEFRET — “SALVATION”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Aug 172015

(TheMadIsraeli introduces our premiere of a new song by Kinnefret from Oakland, California.)

Kinnefret were recommended to me by Ted O’Neill of Oblivion a few days ago, and after checking them out, I rushed to see if I could secure SOMETHING with these guys. I’ve only heard two songs, but I’m thus far 100% hooked. The low down: They’re from California, and three-quarters of the band are Iranian immigrants who fled so they could play metal. Artak Ozan, the band’s founder and central pillar has told me that he is actually a political refugee here in the US for having already gotten on the Iranian government’s bad side.

The music is death metal that touches on all eras of the style. There’s some old school stuff, some modern hyper-technical stuff, a good dose of melody, and some grotesque Suffo/Dying Fetus shit thrown in, all with an underpinning of distinct Middle Eastern influence and melodic tendencies. The music is wicked, and the guitar front — the thing I care most about — is playful, complex, and interesting. The dual vocal assault of Ozan and vocalist Chelsea Rocha is also pretty overwhelming, with Rocha having a beastly and powerful voice. Continue reading »

TERRA DEEP: “ET LUX IN TENEBRIS LUCET PART I — WAX PHOTONIC”

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Aug 172015

(Our guest “Bonnie Fjord” reviews the forthcoming third album by Oregon’s Terra Deep and introduces our stream of one of the new songs.)

In 2012, one-man metal auteur Terra Deep self-released his debut album Starlight Lodge. The audience of Then was treated to a staggering and ambitious black metal document, a horn of grim plenty that successfully brought together second-wave Norwegian riffage, a Swedish aptitude for the progressive, and the operatic pomp of folk metal. The audience of Now, whatever the span of its attention during this Great Musical Exchange, should be poised to devour Terra Deep’s newest work.

Recently having signed a two-album deal with Dusktone, platform for dim luminaries Welter In Thy Blood, the man who identifies as either Hursag or Matthew Edwards — depending on context — has completed work on his third opus, Part of This World, Part of Another. Casual net perusal reveals some kind of connection to another Oregonian group, Glossolalia Records, but scant correspondence with Edwards has revealed a solitary musician with a kind of controlled creative mania. The album was, however, engineered and co-produced by The Will of a Million‘s Stephen Parker, part of the Glossolalia compound. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LUCTUS, PUTREFIED REMAINS, BLACK SUN RITUAL, FLESH SS

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 6 Responses »

Aug 162015

I spent a couple of hours yesterday listening to new songs and a few recent short releases. As usual, I found a lot to like, and the music I’ve collected here comes from various widely dispersed corners of the black metal soundscape.

LUCTUS

I discovered this Lithuania-based band only a few weeks ago and wrote enthusiastically about some of the songs from their last release (2013’s Stotis) in a previous edition of Shades of Black (here). As I mentioned in that previous post, Luctus have now finished recording a new concept album entitled Ryšys (which means “connection”), and finally a song from the album has just become available for streaming. Continue reading »

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