December 2015 - Page 4 of 13 - NO CLEAN SINGING

AUSTIN WEBER’S 2015 YEAR-END LIST EXTRAVAGANZA GO NUTS THERAPY TIME! (PART 1)

LISTMANIA 2015 15 Responses »

Dec 232015

(We present the first part of a massive multi-part year-end list by Austin Weber. Today’s selections are organized under the heading “Life Metal“.)

I’m not even going to write a winded introduction and re-cap of the year. If anyone reading this hasn’t seen my prior year-end lists here at NCS, I try to bring you an alternative list of some of the best music of the year. Which means I won’t post a lot of releases that you see on other lists. Not because I didn’t dig a lot of them, but because you already know about them and will be seeing a lot of the same names being repeated elsewhere.

In addition to this massive year end list, I also did one at Metal Injection, but my objective for this one is to focus on lesser-known groups and show you more jams from the year that not enough people heard. Just as important, this list is a reflection of releases that I’m likely to want to put on frequently for years to come. Since we all have different listening tastes, I also wanted to provide a big batch of music and let you decide what you enjoy the most.

Quotes that appear below the following records were pulled from my reviews, multi-band articles, and song premieres, and more than 20 are from my posts over at Metal-Injection for releases that I didn’t cover here at NCS. But you’ll also find some new mini write-ups for releases I didn’t get a chance to cover anywhere this year, but loved as well. Some of these are EPs, since good music is not determined by the quantity but by the quality! Also this is an unordered list as far as “ranking” goes. Hope you find some nu jamz! Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: JOHAN’S LIST OF 2015’S BEST NON-METAL SONGS

Exceptions to the Rule, LISTMANIA 2015 6 Responses »

Dec 232015

(I am actually posting two year-end lists from two long-time Swedish supporters of the site, both of whom are named Johan. Having seen both lists, I can tell you that both are very interesting — and dramatically un-alike. This Johan uses the name “Johan” in his comments, and his list is not metal, but the descriptions are so interesting that even I was seduced into listening… and came away very pleasantly surprised.)

As I’m sure many metalheads do, I too have tastes and urges that I have to roam outside of the realms of metal to satisfy. I have found that with increasing age my attention span (or maybe just the amount of time I can spend listening to music per day) has shrunk, meaning that I often tend to latch on to songs rather than albums, and since metal is my first and foremost love, other genres tend to end up more on the periphery.

That said, the non-metal songs that I do latch on to, I usually hug to death like some demented Swedish octopus. In other words, the songs I am about to recommend below all come with the very highest of praise from me. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: 15 DEMOS FROM 2015 (BY KAPTAIN CARBON)

LISTMANIA 2015 3 Responses »

Dec 232015

(Kaptain Carbon returns to NCS with a year-end list of 2015 demos. Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community. We’ve heard that he is also a fantastic dungeon master and has some wonderful EDH decks.)

Demos were intended to be a demonstration of talent, which could then be passed along to record labels and production companies. The demo would entice interest and would hopefully lead to a larger, more produced effort. This has pretty much been erased since even first efforts from musicians can mimic decent production, and self-produced full lengths are released as first products.

The idea of demos has all but gone away, save for underground metal. It is here where demos are either the first step in a long process of releases or the end point for musicians who never release full-lengths. Demos, in heavy metal, attract a certain allure for their primitive and unadulterated potential despite the reality surrounding them. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MISANTROF ANTIRECORDS, NYLITHIA, XANTHOCHROID, THE CLEARING PATH, FORNDOM

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Dec 222015

I got far enough ahead on readying today’s year-end lists and album premiere for posting that I actually found some time to go surfing through the interhole and the NCS in-box in search of new things. Here are a few of the items I found. I’m saving some others for Christmas Day, because I feel a personal obligation to ruin the holiday as best I can.

MISANTROF ANTI-CHRISTMAS

Speaking of ruining the holiday, Misantrof ANTIRecords, the (intentionally) non-profit label masterminded by Carpathian Forest’s Daniel Vrangsinn) is once again giving us a hellish present. For the 8th year in a row, the label is releasing the Holy Fucking Antichristmas Compilation. And day by day, they’ve been adding fragments to the cover art for the comp. What you see above is the nearly complete picture as it appears today on Misantrof’s Facebook page (here). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST OF FAVORITE ALBUMS FROM BEN SMASHER

LISTMANIA 2015 12 Responses »

Dec 222015

(For the second year in a row, we present a year-end list from our Iowa-based guest Ben Smasher. This list originally appeared on Ben’s own blog, here.)

2015 was by all accounts a great year for me personally. It has been a year starkly contrasting with years prior, all in good ways.

In the early spring I found myself growing tired of my typical metal fodder but was too preoccupied to seek out something new to satiate it. In the past I’ve successfully explored other genres and enjoyed decent results. I spent some time exploring what everynoise.com had to offer, which led me to a stint enjoying Zeuhl and prog bands of the ’70s and early ’80s. Then Beijing opera music of the early 1900s fell into my lap by way of my significant other, and it immediately scratched my itch in a new way.

I began plowing through time periods, genres, and vast geographies of music from all corners of the globe and it yielded highly entertaining and fascinating results. From the ritual Nat Pwe music of Myanmar, tribal music of the western Congo, ’80s khmer pop music from Cambodia, Thailand, rock of the ’60s — I could go on and on. This had so significantly changed my listening habits that I had to take a step back. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: JESUSEGG — “JESUSEGG”

Album Reviews, Premieres 11 Responses »

Dec 222015

If you have any sense of irony at all, you would have a hard time thinking of a better date than Christmas Day for a band named Jesusegg to release an album named Jesusegg via a label named Seeing Red Records, especially when that album has not one fucking thing to do with peace on earth or good will to men (or women). You’ll see (or rather, hear), because if you scroll down in this post you’ll be able to listen to a full stream of the album.

Jesusegg come from Cleveland, a town I think of as one of America’s premier spawning grounds for extreme music that embodies politically charged rage and does so in ways that have lasting power. While hardcore may be the Cleveland genre that comes to my mind first, Jesusegg are split-personality grindcore militants who take their cues from the likes of Human Remains, Discordance Axis, Nasum, Rotten Sound, and Anal Cunt.

This new album collects recordings that span the band’s history from 2003 – 2007, most of which are previously unreleased. It’s intended as a laying of groundwork for new material that’s projected for discharge by the same label before next year ends. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST FROM PATRICK BRUSS (CRYPTICUS)

LISTMANIA 2015 7 Responses »

Dec 222015

(We invited musician and producer Patrick Bruss (Crypticus) to share with us his list of favorite 2015 releases, and — not surprisingly — it’s heavy as hell.)

This was a bit of a slow year, I felt, but the good albums that were good were good. Or something. Let’s get started:

Black Fast – Terms of Surrender

Vektor, but with fewer carbs. These guys shred right in that savage early Voivod zone that bands like Deceased have made a home in. Amazing playing! Epic riffery! A Thrash Holocaust! For fans of: Vektor, Voivod, Deceased Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: PITCHFORK’S LIST OF THE BEST METAL ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

LISTMANIA 2015 13 Responses »

Dec 222015

We’re well into our own putrid site’s lists of the year’s best metal, but yesterday we got the last of the “big platform” metal lists I’ve been waiting on, and so I’m interrupting our own roll-out to bring it your way.

This one is a Top 25 list (with honorable mentions as well) prepared by Brandon Stosuy, the chief metal writer for Pitchfork. Pitchfork is a Chicago-based online music magazine, which proclaims that it is “the most trusted voice in music, celebrating and exploring emerging artists and established pioneers across all genres”. The site also claims an audience of more than 7 million unique visitors per month.

In October of this year, Pitchfork was acquired by Condé Nast, which also owns more than 20 other magazines or online brands, including Bon Apetit, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Golf Digest. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CHURCH OF VOID (MAGUS CORVUS)

Interviews 3 Responses »

Dec 212015

(Comrade Aleks introduces us to the Finnish doom band Church of Void through this interview with the group’s vocalist Magus Corvus.)

Last week our patient readers could find an interview with the British doom metal outfit Iron Void on the virtual pages of NCS, and I suppose that it’s right and logical to continue our exploration of doom depths with the Finnish outfit Church of Void.

This band has only one full-length album, Dead Rising, which was released by Svart Records in 2013. It’s a good start for Church – attractive melodies, good riffs and catchy vocal lines… I like it, and I hope that you’ll like it too… But there have been no bells ringing in Church of Void for some time – a split with Lowburn in 2014, a digital single of a Pentagram cover this year… that’s all. So it’s time to find someone who can tell what’s going on there — and that someone is the band’s vocalist Magus Corvus. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ECFERUS — “CREATION OF A PLANET”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Dec 212015

I vividly remember the first time, as a child, that I saw Disney’s Fantasia. The whole movie was wondrous, but the segment that made the biggest impact on my barely formed mind was the visual pageant of the earth’s beginnings and the growth of life, from the planet’s formation to the end of the dinosaurs, set to the music of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Those memories came back to me when I first heard the song we’re about to premiere (“Creation of A Planet“) from the new album Pangaea by Ecferus, and not solely because of the music.

As you can see, the album is adorned with brilliant cover art, created by Romanian artist Luciana Nedelea. With striking colors and bold strokes, she captures the sense of a violent, primeval time, with the earth in upheaval. The artwork is a match for the imaginative concept underlying the album as a whole, as described in this statement from I, Voidhanger Records, who will be releasing it on February 6, 2016: Continue reading »

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