June 2016 - Page 3 of 10 - NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: LIQUID GRAVEYARD — “INFLUENCE CORRUPT”

Jun 242016

The word “supergroup” gets tossed around a lot, but in the case of Liquid Graveyard, it’s a fitting label. The band was created by Raquel and John Walker, the frontman and leader of the seminal British death metal group Cancer, and in addition to that formidable duo the line-up includes Napalm Death’s Shane Embury on bass and drummer Nicholas Barker (Lock Up, Brujeria, ex-Dimmu Borgir, ex-Cradle of Filth), with live bass duties now being handled by Spanish musician Daniel Maganto (Eternal Storm).

After two well-received albums released in 2009 and 2011, On Evil Days and The Fifth Time I Died, the band have completed a new full-length entitled By Nature So Perverse, which is projected for release in July on CD and vinyl by the Greek label Sleaszy Rider Records. It’s our pleasure to bring you the premiere of a song from the new album named “Influence Corrupt“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MONOLITHE — “THE BARREN DEPTHS”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Jun 242016

“The Barren Depths” is the third and final song on Zeta Reticuli, the monumental new album by the unusual French progressive doom band Monolithe, which is set for release on July 8 by Debemur Morti Productions. In its full length, the song lasts for 15 magnificent minutes (as do the other two tracks). However, Monolithe have also prepared an edited version of the song that is almost exactly half that length, and it has been made the soundtrack for a stunning video that we’re premiering today.

After a sequence of four records (collectively known as “The Great Clockmaker” saga), each of which consisted of a single album-length track, Monolithe spent most of 2015 on a new project with an expanded line-up, recording two connected new albums respectively titled Epsilon Aurigae and Zeta Reticuli (each named for a binary star system). The first of those was released in December 2015, and Zeta Reticuli will follow six months later. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LORD OF WAR — “EMBRYO”

Premieres 1 Response »

Jun 232016

Next month Unique Leader Records will release the second album by San Diego’s Lord of War. It’s an 11-track, 45-minute affair entitled Suffer, adorned by the cover art of Colin Marks. Today we’ve got the premiere of a playthrough video for the album’s third track, “Embryo“.

The video features the performance skills of the band’s two guitarists, Alex Walshaw and Daniel Richardson. With heads down, they devote themselves to the task of both bludgeoning listeners like buildings marked for destruction in a demolition zone and generating the queasy, pestilential atmosphere that shrouds the song. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROPTIC ENGORGEMENT — “REALMS OF INCESSANT BLOODSHED”

Premieres 1 Response »

Jun 232016

New York’s Necroptic Engorgement are on the verge of releasing a new EP — in fact, tomorrow is the appointed day. Entitled Realms of Incessant Bloodshed and featuring the distinctive cover art of Mark Cooper, it will be delivered by Manifest Records, whose personnel will no doubt be wearing body armor as they attempt to distribute this piece of weaponized mayhem. If you’ve got any body armor lying around, you might want to get strapped in yourself before you press play on our premiere of a full stream below.

As a title for this new release, Realms of Incessant Bloodshed provides truth in advertising, because that’s the landscape you’ll be entering through the portal of these six songs (which include such other titles as “Endless Malevolence”, “Bound Gagged and Gutted”, the tender ballad “Sandpaper Masturbation”, and a song about a brain-eating amoeba named “Nagleria Fowleri”). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: GRACE DISGRACED — “LASTING AFTERDEATH”

Premieres 6 Responses »

Jun 232016

Tomorrow — June 24 — is the official release date for Lasting Afterdeath, the third album by Moscow’s Grace Disgraced. Today we’re helping spread the word about the release by premiering a full stream of the album.

The music is, of course, the paramount factor in deciding whether to add Lasting Afterdeath to your collection, but this is one of those albums that offers a lot of visual enticements, too. The accompanying booklet includes separate eye-catching artwork for each song, as well as gatefold cover art, by Velio Josto. And so before we get to the music, here’s a view of the full cover as well as the art for two of the songs: Continue reading »

NEILL JAMESON REMEMBERS THE FORGOTTEN 1990S

Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Jun 232016

(Neill Jameson (Krieg) returns to our site with some remembrances about under-appreciated albums from a formative period.)

Recently I did a piece for Invisible Oranges about discovering Alice in Chains and Nirvana as a young boy stuck in the shitty Pittsburgh suburbs in the late 1980s, and that got me to thinking about that period of time for music and how there’s some really great records that almost never get mentioned because people’s tastes generally stick to what they hear about, akin to how so much great early ’90s black metal is missed because of a lack of a controversial narrative to them.

So I figured I’d share a few records that never really got their due from that era in my continuing mission to be on your newsfeed as often as possible without it being for exposing myself at a playground. And we’re off! Continue reading »

A WEDNESDAY ROUND-UP: DYSRHYTHMIA, INDRICOTHERE, BLOOD INCANTATION, PESTIFERE

Metal News 14 Responses »

Jun 222016

photo by Johnny DeBlase

We’ve posted so many “Seen and Heard” collections this week that I decided to give that heading a break, though that’s what this post really is: another collection of somewhat randomly observed news and new music that I thought was worth spreading around. And because we’ve posted so many of these collections recently, I decided to cut back the volume of this particular one, too — though I do think the selections I’ve made here make nice complements to each other.

DYSRHYTHMIA

Guitarist Kevin Hufnagel and bassist Colin Marston could be resting on their laurels after their standout work on the new Gorguts EP, Pleiades’ Dust (not to mention Marston’s performances on the new releases by Withered, Krallice, and his own Indricothere project) , but instead they and drummer Jeff Eber are bringing out a new Dysrhythmia album. Entitled The Veil of Control, it’s the band’s seventh studio full-length and their first since 2012’s Test of Submission. According to today’s announcement by Profound Lore, it will be released on September 23. Continue reading »

THE BEST OF 2016 SO FAR: AN INVITATION FOR READERS’ LISTS

LISTMANIA 2016 119 Responses »

Jun 222016

We’re almost at the halfway point of 2016, measured according to the Gregorian calendar. If you want to be precise, we will reach the halfway point at midnight on July 1; because 2016 is a leap year, there are 366 days in the year. and the 183rd day is July 1. It’s a completely arbitrary point for taking stock of what the year has delivered so far, and because I’ve already started seeing other music sites spreading around lists of the best releases for the first half of the year (such as this one at Metal Injection by our collaborator Austin Weber), I decided to just go with today.

So with the halfway point of 2016 fast approaching, let’s talk about the best releases of the year so far. As long-time readers of the site are well aware, I’m terrible at making “best of” lists. I overthink it, I agonize over it, I have great difficulty comparing metal across different genres, and I have great difficulty choosing among albums I like even within a specific genre. When I contemplate making a “best of the year” list, or even a “best of the half-year” list, my brain tends to just lock up like an engine that’s had a hole punched in the oil pan.

Therefore, as usual, I’m not providing a list of my own — and my fellow regular writers Andy Synn and DGR haven’t sent me lists of their own. So I’m afraid it’s up to you. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BRANDON MARCEY (COUGH / SINISTER HAZE)

Interviews No Responses »

Jun 222016

(Comrade Aleks interviews Brandon Marcey, who holds down positions in two very good bands.)

Brandon Marcey is the hairy man from Richmond, Virginia, who successfully combines work in two cool bands at the same time. He has played guitars in misanthropic sludge stoner doom cult Cough since 2010; and the band just released their new long-awaited record Still They Pray on Relapse Records. And besides that, he plays guitars and sings in wicked psychedelic doom outfit Sinister Haze, who finished their first full-length album just a month ago; you can find it on CD due to STB Records’ efforts.

It was difficult, but I believe that we managed to balance Cough and Sinister Haze stories here in one interview. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): NOX FORMULAE, PANZERBASTARD, KARCAVUL, NARTHRAAL, FREITOD

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Jun 212016

This is another day in which we have felt compelled to throw more new music at your head than any normal person has time to hear. Many abnormal people (other than us) won’t have time to listen to all of it either. I tell myself this is why I should continue writing some words about the streams we recommend, as a way of helping listeners choose what to play and what not to play, given their own tastes. Obviously, I’m choosing to ignore the likelihood that no normal person has time to read all the words either.

Between Part 1 and Part 2 of today’s round-up, we’ve furnished new or newly discovered music by 10 bands. Five more are featured below.

NOX FORMULAE

On the distant future day of September 16, 2016, Dark Descent Records will release the debut album of a Greek black metal collective known as Nox Formulae. The album’s title is The Hidden Paths to Black Ecstasy. Yesterday I received a Bandcamp e-mail alert that one song from the album had been set up for streaming, a two-part piece named “Hidden Clan NXN – Pt a. Eleven Rays of Sorat, Pt b. Black Magic Assault”, and that’s the first item in this round-up. Continue reading »

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