RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: A STORM OF STREAMS

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 262014
 

(Austin Weber brings us another round-up of music and metal news, featuring The Conjuration, D’Arkestra, Divine Realm, Winter of Sin, and Posthumous Blasphemer.)

THE CONJURATION

After a long wait, The Conjuration’s new album, Surreal, has finally emerged—and it’s a gloriously twisted avante-garde beast that lashes out in progressive and schizophrenic fits. This is death metal turned upside down. Corey Jason has proved once again that he doesn’t need a band, only himself. He composed all of it, played all the instruments, did the vocals, and handled the production himself, too.

On Surreal, Corey skillfully pushes the limits of what a one-man death metal act is capable of creating. Most acts of this nature that play death metal are lacking compositionally and all too often create music that is too samey in the songwriting, and too often lacking a vital creative spark. By contrast, Surreal really does sound like the work of multiple people whose different ideas and approaches led to a diverse group of songs. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ACHREN, DEAD WORLD, VULTURE INDUSTRIES, ABHORRENT

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Mar 232014
 

To make your Sunday more metal I’ve collected here a handful of recommended songs and videos I discovered yesterday in my tramping through the interhole and a quick skimming of emails we recently received.

ACHREN

I first discovered Achren (from Glasgow, Scotland) in a June 2011 MISCELLANY post and have written about them a couple more times since then. The last time was more than a year ago, when I featured an song from their excellent debut album The Forgotten King in a round-up of metal from Scotland. I’ve now learned that they will soon be releasing a new EP entitled The White Death, and yesterday they began streaming one of its three tracks.

“The Eschatologist” is a memorable song, made all the more compelling by its powerful production quality. It reminded me immediately of the Norwegian black metal band Byfrost, blending a lot of thunder in the low end with a driving, dramatic guitar melody, which at times seems to draw upon the folk traditions of the band’s homeland. It’s a rocking, romping, slashing song that makes me anxious to hear the rest of the EP. Continue reading »

MORGAN BERTHET (THE MARS CHRONICLES): “ABYSS”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 202014
 

I’m not a musician. I’m just a fan. When I watch a play-through video, I’m not capable of critiquing the fine points of a performance, especially a drummer’s performance, because almost all drummers amaze me. Having made that confession, I’m now going to offer a few thoughts about Morgan Berthet’s drum play-through for “Abyss”, a song by his band The Mars Chronicles.

There are times in the play-through when what he’s doing looks simple — and then he’ll twirl a drumstick through his fingers in mid-beat so fast that you wonder if you really saw it. Those drum twirls having nothing to do with the sound on the song, but they’re still really impressive. The actually drumming is impressive, too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GREY SKIES FALLEN — “RITUAL OF THE EXITER”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  6 Responses »
Mar 062014
 

Grey Skies Fallen are a New York band who trace their roots back to 1996. Since then they’ve released three full-length albums and two EPs, all of which are available for free download at the band’s web site (here). Along the way, they’ve made changes in their sound, as well as changes in the line-up, and they’re now set to release a new album entitled The Many Sides of Truth. Today we’re giving you a glimpse into the new work through our premiere of “Ritual of the Exiter”.

When I first heard this long song, I was left bedazzled, and grasping at straws in thinking about how to describe it. Just when I thought I understood what the band were up to, they crossed me up. As the title suggests, there is indeed a ritualistic quality to its progression, with the parts of the rite segmented by unexpected guitar interludes that break the building tension before the intensity begins to build again.

The song is anchored by a really good rhythm section, with both the bass and the drums getting their hooks into you. But the bleak melodic motifs in the music are the key to its success, along with the vocals, which are both clean and agonizing. Genre boundaries are ignored, with elements of doom, prog, black metal, and melodic death metal in the mix. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INSOMNIUM, DOOM’S DAY, VANHELGA, VAMPIRE, TARDIVE DYSKINESIA

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Feb 242014
 

Happy fucking Monday. Blech, it really hurt to write that. Here are some recommended tunes and videos I heard and saw over the last 24 hours, most of them on a day that wasn’t a fucking Monday.

INSOMNIUM

This first item falls into the category of breaking news:  Century Media has just announced details about the new album from Finland’s Insomnium, along with a teaser of the music. The album’s title is Shadows of the Dying Sun, and the cover art is at the top of this post. It will be released on April 29 in North America and April 28 in Europe.

The teaser is brief — 1:23 of new music. It consists of chiming guitars against a backdrop of ghostly ambience. It feels like the lead-in to some monstrous doomy riffs — but that could just be wishful thinking on my part. More wishful thinking: I would like to have this album today instead of two months from now. Undoubtedly advance tracks will be released. Undoubtedly we will have them here as quickly as we see them.

Check out the teaser next. Continue reading »

DOGMA: “UNDER DOGMA”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  2 Responses »
Feb 242014
 

(We welcome this guest review by one our Italian readers whose name is Pietro.)

The thing with Folk has been excellently summarized by Jon Voight, in an episode of Ray Donovan when he puts a gun to Rosanna Arquette’s head and screams: “Am I authentic enough for you, fucking tourist?”. Folk today comes too often in super glossy, ultra-cool, mega-polished coffe-table editions. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Most of the time, it’s just too domesticated. Airport souvenirs. We’re all fucking tourists. But sometimes, as is the case with Armenian progressive metal band Dogma, Folk can be just an incredibly pleasant surprise.

In 2008 I was travelling through Armenia, and while strolling along the green parks of Yerevan, the capital city, a gig poster took my attention. I was late for the gig, but the visual style was intriguing, so much so that I took a photo (above) and, once back home, began some investigating.

I found out that the band had come together only months before, and they had a blog. A few weeks later I was the proud owner (probably the only one in Italy) of Dogma’s sophomore release, Ethnic Methnic, a highly accomplished piece of work, cleverly alternating metal stompers and acoustic ballads. Contemporary music infused with traditional melodies, dominated by the incredible vocal talents of Zara Gevorgyan. Continue reading »

FRIDAY FILMS: ASTROPHOBOS, KYPCK, WILDERUN, FOSSILS, and ALLITERATIVELY RAPPING AT WARPSPEED

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Feb 212014
 

I apologize for the lack of creativity in the title of today’s (somewhat) alliterative round-up, but since everything I’ve selected comes in video form it seemed logical. I thought about “Friday Phlegm”, but not all the vocals in these babies are phlegmy. There are actually a lot of exceptions to our rule in here.

ASTROPHOBOS

The name of this first song and video is “Soul Disruptor”, and that’s truth in advertising. It comes from the debut album Remnants of Forgotten Horrors by the Swedish black metal band Astrophobos. The album was released last month by Triumvirate Records and is now available on Bandcamp.

I’ve not heard the whole album, but I have read Madame X’s review of it at Angry Metal Guy, and her comparisons to Naglfar and Dissection seem spot-on based on “Soul Disruptor” (and by the way, those are stellar bands with which to be compared, in my book). The music is both searing and melodic, both skin-scarring and blood-pumping. And the video is quote good, too — as long as you’re not prone to epileptic seizures or subliminal suggestion. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENTHRONED (“SOVEREIGN”), DIRGE (“HYPERION”), MESHUGGAH (“WALL STREET”)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

I’m working on a couple of posts for today but didn’t finish either of them last night and I’m getting a slow start this morning. But I wanted to get something up here on the site for your entertainment while I continue to dither around on those other posts. So here are three entertaining somethings.

ENTHRONED

The first thing I saw in my e-mail inbox this morning was a press release announcing the news that Agonia Records will be releasing the 10th studio album by Belgium’s Enthroned on April 15. The title is Sovereigns, and the eye-catching artwork can be viewed above. It’s now available for pre-order at this location. Enthroned’s Facebook page can be accessed through this link.

And other than expressing my figurative tumescence over this news, that’s about all I have to say on this subject. I will let this stream of music from Enthroned’s fantastic last album, 2012’s Obsidium, say the rest. Continue reading »

MONDAY MEANDERING: SATURNIAN MIST, BRYMIR, DODSFERD, HERETOIR, SQUAREPUSHER x Z-MACHINES

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 172014
 


Saturnian Mist (photo by K. Lehto)

Happy fucking Monday. Here’s a random assortment of music I discovered over the last 24 hours. The key word here is “random”, but all of this suits me quite well. Mayhap it will suit you, too.

SATURNIAN MIST

Saturnian Mist are from Tampere, Finland. Because they are from Finland, I figured the odds were high they would be worth hearing. Candlelight Records thinks so, because they just signed them and will be releasing the band’s second album, Chaos Magick, later this year. When I saw that news this morning, I went in search of recent music and found a demo version of one of the songs that will appear on the album — “The Heart of Shiva”.

It’s thumping and grinding, bone-scraping and body-moving, ugly but hooky. I’m now thoroughly infected by that jumping repeating riff, my head bouncing like a bobble-head. Digging the unexpected drum fills, too, which sound almost like congas. Listen: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 27

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  10 Responses »
Feb 122014
 

This is Part 27 of our list of 2013′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the three songs I’m announcing today, click here.

We’re getting close to the end of this list, with only two more Parts to go after today. The three songs I’m adding now are an eclectic mix, both as compared to each other and with respect to the individual songs themselves — and that’s the main reason I’m grouping them together.

VULTURE INDUSTRIES

Although I never managed to write a complete review of this Bergen band’s 2013 album The Tower, I did write about every one of the three songs that premiered before the album’s release, so that counts for something I guess. The album is a strange and wondrous creation that sounds like nothing else I heard last year. The first song to premiere remains my favorite — and it’s the one I’m now adding to this list. Continue reading »

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