LEPROUS: “COAL”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  4 Responses »
Aug 122013
 

(Well, we might as well start off the new week by confusing the shit out of people.  Here’s DGR’s review of the latest album by Norway’s Leprous, released in May 2013.)

Fair Warning: Tons of clean singing ahead, very few screams.

We in the metal community tend to use the phrases “prog” and “avante-garde” somewhat interchangeably to describe those situations in which the caveman side of the brain doesn’t fully grasp what is going on in the music. Either that or we call it “prog” when it’s soft music that we really like but don’t want to own up to it. Norway’s Leprous fall into the former camp, where even though things seem relatively straightforward at first glance, they’re really just a little off.

They have gained quite a bit of the spotlight since receiving Ihsahn’s blessing, as well as performing as his backing band for his discs and a bunch of shows. They’d been going for a good while before, but those developments coupled with the release of Bilateral really launched them onto a lot of radar screens.

Bilateral threw a lot of people for a loop. Nothing was really conventional outside of the instruments present. Every song had a strange, unnerving approach to it. When a song like “Restless” and its curveball of a music video was one of the most normal-sounding songs, who could imagine what oddities lay in the rest of the album? Bilateral was also incredibly difficult to describe and led to some stumbling examples of attempts to so – which proved amusing to watch.

Befitting their avante-garde/prog label, Leprous have returned with another album in the form of Coal filled to the brim with strange song arrangements, odd vocal approaches, and conventional instruments played in weird ways. Like Bilateral before it, Coal is incredibly difficult to describe. As before, the band have again deftly managed to avoid genrefication in any sense and have provided an experience that is all their own. Continue reading »

MELVINS COVER BUTTHOLE SURFERS, IN A CHICAGO PARK, WITH FREE ICE CREAM, AND JEFF PINKUS

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 092013
 

Well, this was just too damn cool not to share.

It’s a new video produced by The Onion’s AV Club of Melvins covering a song by Butthole Surfers in Chicago’s Humboldt Park. Joining in on the song was the Surfers bassist Jeff Pinkus in place of Jared Warren. Behind them is an ice cream truck.

According to the AV Club, the ice cream truck was basically there as a prop. But then Buzz Osborne had the bright idea of yelling “free ice cream!”, and before you know it the band had an enthusiastic audience. The fact that the audience consisted of a bunch of kids didn’t stop the band from playing “Graveyard”, or from causing the song to collapse into a squall of bass-driven feedback while Osborne tossed ice cream into the crowd and Melvins drummers Dale Crover, and Coady Willis beat the shit out of their kits.

“You lie in the graveyard / Well, you’re rotting away / When I talk to you daily / You’ve got nothing to say”. Such wholesome lyrics. Such a heart-warming sight. Watch the video after the jump.

Continue reading »

WITHERSCAPE: “THE INHERITANCE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  12 Responses »
Aug 062013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by Witherscape, the highly anticipated joint effort of Dan Swanö and Ragnar Widerberg, which hits the streets today via Century Media.)

Without a doubt, the Swedish have an innate ear for metal of the melodic sort.  The Gothenburg scene, the forming of formidable death metal titans such as Bloodbath, Hypocrisy, and Grave, who retained a distinctly more melodic bent than many of their contemporaries, the proggy labyrinth-crafters like Opeth and In Mourning — all are testament upon testament to what can truly be called Swedish excellence.  When you tell people in a metal context that the music is Swedish, people tend to know exactly what you mean.  It’s melodic, yet retains a darkness and ferocity in a combination that’s distinctive.

If there were ever a single figure who sits on the throne of the Swedish pantheon, as the prime example of what I’m trying to describe, Dan Swanö is the man.  His musical endeavors, whether it be the groundbreaking Edge Of Sanity, his work in Bloodbath and Nightingale, his Moontower solo album, his influence has been staggeringly overpowering.  He has consistently produced music that is stellar, always at the top of its respective field.

Swanö has been on a hiatus for a while now, the last anyone heard from him being his collection of cover songs as Odyssey.  Now he has returned with a new album, with a new project named Witherscape, the album called The Inheritance.  It’s a concept album and one that will divide the Swanö fan base, to be sure, because this is a risky, unorthodox album for a figure best-known for his brutal yet melodic offerings. Continue reading »

RÄJÄ ‘N’ ROLL WITH RÄJÄYTTÄJÄT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 022013
 

This has been the kind of day when I’ve wanted to go postal on our web host (Bluehost). Our site — and every other site hosted by Bluehost, HostGator, HostMonster, and JustHost — has been down for nearly the entire day. A few times it has come back up for a few minutes, and then disappears again. It’s up again now, but who knows when it will go down again? Fuckers.

Anyway, I’m posting this now mainly to let people know that we’re still here. But I’m also including some music that cheered me up and diverted my murderous mood, to the point when I’m not even thinking about those Bluehost clowns. It’s not metal, but it’s from Finland, so that kind of makes it metal anyway. Fucking Bluehost.

The band has got more umlauts in their name than Bluehost has IQ points: Räjäyttäjät. Apparently, it means “Detonators” in English. Apparently, in Finland they call the band’s music “Räjä ‘n’ roll”. They’re releasing their debut album on August 30 via Ektro Records. You gotta admire this album title, which I like much better than motherfucking Bluehost:

AWOPBOPALOOPOP ALOPBAM RÄJÄ!

The song I heard is an advance track called “Ei Hauskaa”, which apparently means “No Fun”. But I’ll tell you, I had a shitload of fun listening to it, even while hoping that the earth swallows up Bluehost and shits it out. Continue reading »

KAUNIS KUOLEMATON

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Aug 012013
 

Kaunis Kuolematon are a Finnish band with current or former members of Black Sun Aeon, Sinamore, and End of Aeon, who have released three songs so far in their brief career. Two of them appeared on a self-titled EP in November 2012 and the third is a single released in June of this year. Both the EP and the single are available on Bandcamp for a pay-what-you-want price.

The new single — “En Ole Mitään” (I Am Nothing) — is the best of the three songs, and it’s really good. In fact, it’s so good that I’ve added it to the list of candidates for our year-end selection of 2013’s most infectious extreme metal songs.

The musical style is the kind of melancholy, doom-influenced melodic death metal that should appeal to fans of bands such as Swallow the Sun, Before the Dawn, and In Mourning. It slides back and forth between soft, sorrowful passages carried by the strong, clear tenor voice of Mikko Heikkilä (ex-Black Sun Aeon) and heavy sections in which concrete-slabbed riffs rain down and Olli Suvanto (End of Aeon) howls in anguish or roars like some void-faring behemoth.

The guitar-driven melody, which feeds both the soft and the heavy measures and is enhanced ever so slightly by what sounds like an occasional synthesizer backdrop, is sublime — and highly memorable. Continue reading »

PREMIERES: OBLIVION’S NEW VIDEO AND A NEW NOTHNEGAL TRACK

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 292013
 

We’ve already let loose a string of posts about new song and video premieres today, but we have one more. The first is a new video from . . .

OBLIVION

Not long ago we reported that this Bay Area band who we’ve written about frequently (writings collected here) had signed with the Unique Leader label, and that Unique Leader plans to re-issue the band’s self-released debut album, Called To Rise, on October 15 (check our review of it here). Today we got the new official video for the album’s final track, “Omniverse”. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album, a mix of heart-racing death metal performed with technical flare and eerie atmospherics.

That eerie quality that drifts through the song is captured in the visual effects and animation in the cool new video by Brandon Hunt. Check it out next: Continue reading »

ROUND-UP: BURIAL HORDES, DROWNED, REPTILIAN SHAPE SHIFTERS, CALIGULA’S HORSE, FALLUJAH, AND REPTILIAN DEATH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jul 282013
 

Your humble editor has had a busy weekend and this Sunday is going to be busy too, so this will probably be today’s only post. I did find a little time to browse e-mail and wade through the interhole in search of new things yesterday and this morning. As usual, I found many, and have collected a big group of them in this post. As you’ll see (and hear), it’s a diverse mix, including some not-metal. I’ll have to keep the verbiage brief because time is short. I know that will traumatize most of you, and I’m already grieving for your loss.

BURIAL HORDES

I first happened upon this Greek band in January after discovering their split release with Enshadowed, which is excellent (reviewed here). They have a new album on the way, entitled Incendium. I haven’t yet seen a release date, but the band have recently uploaded the opening track — “Unleash Havoc”. It’s a very cool song, raw and ravaging, bestial and atmospheric. Listen:

https://www.facebook.com/BurialHordesOfficial

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CHIMAIRA, SEPTEKH, HARM’S WAY, AND AUTUMNBLAZE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 242013
 

Here are a few things I’ve seen and heard recently that I think are worth recommending. I’m in catch-up mode on these round-ups, so there will be a second one a bit later today.

CHIMAIRA

Chimaira have a new album, Crown of Phantoms, coming on July 30 via eOne Music. Yesterday my comrade Andy Synn alerted me to the fact that Chimaira had released a re-make of “The Dehumanizing Process” from their second album, The Impossibility of Reason (2003). It’s sub-titled the “Slow and Low Mix”, and man, it caught me off guard. It’s like Chimaira-meets-Gojira.

I approve. If you’re going to re-do one of your own songs, you might as well really re-do it, especially if you’ve now got guitarists Emil Werstler and Matt Szlachta to put their spin on the original. This is a heavy-bottomed, heavy-grooved, vicious little monster. I’d like to keep it as a pet.

I don’t see this song on the new album’s track list. According to Chimaira’s mainman Mark Hunter, “No, we’re not remaking the record. This was just for fun to celebrate 10 years of Impossibility.” Well, mission accomplished: this is fun. Listen next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ULCERATE, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, CRAVEN IDOL, EVOKEN, CRYPTOPSY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Jul 122013
 

Here’s a collection of items I saw and heard yesterday while surveilling the interhole. The featured bands are Ulcerate (New Zealand), Twilight of the Gods (multinational), Craven Idol (UK), Cryptopsy (Canada), and Evoken (US), .

ULCERATE

The new album from New Zealand’s Ulcerate has been high on our “most anticipated” list for this year, and yesterday finally brought a lot of fresh news. The title of the album is Vermis, it includes 9 tracks, it’s nearly 55 minutes long — and it will be released by Relapse on September 17 in North America (September 13 in Germany and the Benelux countries and September 16 in the rest of the world). Pre-orders for the album and related merch are being fielded at this location. You can see the newly unveiled album cover above.

Yesterday also brought a video teaser for Vermis. It includes just an itty-bitty, teenie-weensie snippet of music, but it was enough to rattle my teeth. I think, just to be safe, I’ll make a dental appointment for the day after I get my hands on this album. The teaser is next. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: SAKTMÓÐIGUR – “DEMETRA ER DÁIN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit  7 Responses »
Jul 092013
 

Word of mouth is still a good way to find new music, especially when the word comes from Iceland’s Sólstafir. They wrote something in Icelandic on their Facebook wall a few days ago about a band named Saktmóðigur who are scheduled to perform at the Eistnaflug festival this summer, and provided a link to a song. Figuring that it would take less time to listen to the song than to grapple with Google Translate’s mutant efforts to render Icelandic into English, I listened.

The song turned out to be one of three on a free digital EP released by Saktmóðigur last month. The EP’s name is Demetra er dáin, which means “Demetra has died”. I got that from a posting by the band, not Google Translate. I also read that Saktmóðigur are based in Reykjavík and were formed in 1991 (!). Their first release was the tape cassette Legill in 1992, followed by two 10″ vinyl EPs in 1993 and 1996. They’ve also released three full-length CDs, Ég á mér líf (1995), Plata (1998), and most recently Guð hann myndi gráta (2011).

The EP grabbed me by the throat, but I have to tell you that it’s off the beaten path at this site. The music is more punk than metal, and the vocals aren’t the usual bestial growls or acidic shrieks that tend to rip through most of the music I write about. I also really wanted to sing along with these three tracks, if only I had a phonetic guide to the Icelandic lyrics. But none of that means the music is pretty or sweet. Continue reading »

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