NEW KATATONIA: “DEAD LETTERS” FROM DEAD END KINGS

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jun 202012
 

Following up on 2009’s Night Is the New Day, Sweden’s Katatonia have completed their next studio album, Dead End Kings, which will be released on August 27 (a day later in the U.S.) by the Peaceville label (it’s available for pre-order here). Today, Peaceville and the band released a lyric video for one of the tracks on the new album — “Dead Letters”.

It is an Exception to the Rule here, because . . . clean singing. But ever since my one and only witnessing of Katatonia in a live setting, I’ve had a soft spot for the band’s music (it was quite a show), and so I had to pay attention to this. Glad I did.

The video showcases some of the wonderful artwork by Travis Smith that will appear in the album booklet, and the imagery well-suits both the lyrics and the music. The song is a blending of the heavy and the ethereal, both moody and jolting, dark and meditative. I don’t think fans of Katatonia will be disappointed in what they hear. Check it out following the jump.

In addition, Peaceville has made the song available for free download, in exchange for your email address. To get that, GO HERE. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 23: V.A.S.T.

 Exceptions to the Rule, THE SYNN REPORT  4 Responses »
Jun 122012
 

(In this latest edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of V.A.S.T., with musical accompaniment, of course.)

Recommended for fans of: Nine Inch Nails, Solstafir, Anathema

In a recent conversation with Islander I mentioned some reservations I’ve been having about the format of The Synn Report. Over time they’ve grown a bit lengthy – originally they focussed on key tracks from key albums, but they’ve slowly drifted more toward the track-by-track format I initially reserved just for my album reviews. Now, while each edition of The Synn Report is definitely intended for those of you who have the necessary drive and attention span to sit through something pretty extensive, I feel like they’ve gone a bit too far away from their original intent, which was to simply select the best tracks from each release and use them to promote each album, impartiality be damned.

So today’s edition sees me trying to move back toward the initial intent of The Synn Report, and to do so I’m bringing you the industrial tinged world-music stadium rock Americana of V.A.S.T.

Primarily the brainchild of wunderkind Jon Crosby, V.A.S.T. (Visual Audio Sensory Theatre) have gone through many different physical and musical incarnations over the years. With the key influences being Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, U2, and The Beatles, the group have released a number of records, in a number of styles, over the years, though I’m going to be focussing on the five “core” releases.

So if you’re looking for something with a lot more rock than metal, and don’t mind a host of clean vocal melodies, as well as a shovel-load of musical ambition and progressive intent, this could be the band for you. Continue reading »

THE GHOST INSIDE: “ENGINE 45”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 052012
 

I don’t listen to much hardcore or metalcore these days, which I suppose is obvious because we write about it so infrequently at NCS. But I used to be pretty heavy into that music years ago, and I still follow a handful of bands, The Ghost Inside from L.A. being one of them.

The band have a new album called Get What You Give that’s due for release by Epitaph Records on June 19. This morning, Absolute Punk premiered The Ghost Inside’s official video for a single from the album (which is available on iTunes and Amazon) called “Engine 45”. I fell into the song pretty fast, with a smile on my face, because these guys punch pretty fuckin’ hard . . . and then I got a surprise that I didn’t immediately love: clean vocals.

They definitely weren’t necessary, and The Ghost Inside haven’t needed them in the past. As the first part of the song demonstrates, the emotionally affecting chorus melody could have been carried solely by the lead guitar, without Jonathan Vigil departing from his hardcore vocal style. But I do understand why this was done. The song makes a transition (quite seamlessly) from the physical attack with which it opens to a sweeping melodic finish, with the clean vocals being added to the guitars to underscore the change (a change that’s further underscored in the imagery that’s interleaved with shots of the band performing).

Given the usual profile of this site, I don’t expect many of you are going to fall for this song in the same way I did, but we’ll see. Check out the video after the jump and let me know what you think. I’ve also added a stream of another song from the new album called “Slipping Away”, which came out last week. Continue reading »

FUN WITH DJERV AND AMORAL

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jun 012012
 

Those of you who don’t have a problem with clean singing in metal will be just fine with this post.  And for those of you who are like me and have a low tolerance for it, well, just bear with me.  In the end, I think you’ll have some fun with this, too.  What I have here are two videos that debuted yesterday, both of which are clever and both of which feature some pretty catchy jams . . . but no growlies.

DJERV

Djerv is a Norwegian band fronted by Agnete Kjølsrud, whose name I recognize only because she sang along with Dimmu Borgir on three of the songs on Abrahadabra, including “Gateways”. You may recall that she appeared prominently in Dimmu’s video for that song. Djerv released their self-titled debut album on Indie Recordings last year, and of course I haven’t heard it, because . . . well . . . you can guess why.

Yesterday marked the appearance of an official video for one of the songs from that album — “Headstone”. I decided to give it a shot, and I’m glad I did. It features the kind of film-making technique that converts footage of real people (in this case, the members of Djerv) into animated characters. I saw a comment on Djerv’s FB page that described it as Frank Miller meets Night of the Living Dead, and that captures it pretty well. It’s fun to watch, and funny, too. Continue reading »

THE DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA: PANDORA’S PIÑATA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  15 Responses »
May 142012
 

(In this post groverXIII reviews the new album by The Diablo Swing Orchestra.)

[EXCEPTION TO THE RULE WARNING]

Quite recently, our old pal Islander asked us, “What’s in a name?” I found this pretty amusing, because I had actually planned on addressing this sort of subject in this review, albeit with a more limited scope. Specifically, I was going to address those rare instances where a band’s name is directly evocative of the music that they make. I don’t mean the sort of band names where it’s fairly easy to guess what sort of music they make, like how a band with a pluralized noun is probably a djent band, or a band with a Verb/Gerund The Noun name is probably metalcore/deathcore, or how a band with a name that doesn’t appear to be a real word is probably a black metal band.

No, as you might guess, I’m talking about a name like Diablo Swing Orchestra. I’ve been trying for a while to think of a band whose moniker is more perfectly suited to them, and I really haven’t found one. If for some reason you are unfamiliar with them, Diablo Swing Orchestra mix metal with a smorgasbord of orchestral music styles to create something that is truly unique. They have one of the most interesting back stories I’ve ever read, and while it may or may not be historically accurate, it certainly does a nice job setting the stage for their music. They live up to their name, sounding like the Glenn Miller Orchestra if they were doing a gig as Lucifer’s house band.

I’ve been following the band since I first happened upon their stunning debut, The Butcher’s Ballroom, where the mix of elements blew me away, not only because of the different styles, but also how smoothly they were mixed. DSO’s sophomore release, Sing-Along Songs For The Damned And Delirious, was certainly its predecessor’s equal, maintaining the same level of ferocious weirdness without running it into the ground. And now, we get Pandora’s Piñata, the DSO’s eagerly-awaited third album, and once again, these eclectic Swedes do not disappoint, delivering one of the year’s most creative releases thus far. Continue reading »

THE SAFETY FIRE: “GRIND THE OCEAN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
May 092012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by The Safety Fire.)

So it’s time for my first true Exception to the Rule in quite a while. I decided at some point I would try to avoid breaking our site’s moniker as much as I could, but I feel this album deserves the occasion.

The Safety Fire have been picking up quite a bit of steam lately, introducing an interesting sound that has me slightly baffled, yet plenty fascinated. They mix in the low-tuned brutality and odd time signatures of bands we’ve come to know and love such as Textures, CiLiCe, and yes, Meshuggah, with technical, highly interwoven counterpoint dual-guitar mind-fuckery and add a heavy-handed dose of post-rock to taste.

To say that their sound is jarring would be a bit of an understatement, but also considering that I saw them live at The Masquerade in Atlanta last month and experienced this material full force (which convinced me to buy the album on the spot), I’d say this is a band to watch in the future. However, the future is currently irrelevant. What’s relevant is now, and Grind the Ocean is an impressive, technically adept, and progressive morsel of delightfully unorthodox taste.

The album’s opener “Huge Hammers” is immediately indicative of this. A subdued riff plays in the background, only to crash forth into the song’s gravitas-inducing, disorienting verse riff. It’s full of low-tuned rumble, high-end micro-shredding, and lots AND LOTS of pinch harmonic squeals and badass moments of harmony and interplay on the guitar front. Continue reading »

HOUR OF 13: “WHO’S TO BLAME?”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
May 032012
 

I’m basically going to be missing in action for the rest of the day.  My fucking day job is going to demand undivided attention into the night.  Shith happens.

So, most likely until tomorrow, I leave you with this — a song from Hour of 13 called “Who’s To Blame?” It’s from an album titled 333 that Earache Records plans to release on May 29.

Hour of 13 is a two-man band from North Carolina — Chad Davis plays all the instruments and Phil Swanson sings. I knew nothing about them until this morning, probably because their style of music is relatively foreign to what we cover on this site. It’s a kind of old-school, Black Sabbath-influenced doom metal with almost exclusively clean singing.

But the riffs in this song are titanically convulsive, the melody is undeniably catchy (though bleak), and it changes pace effectively and satisfyingly on the back end, with a very cool finish. Phil Swanson can really sing, too. So we’ll call this an Exception to the Rule and bid you a fond farewell until we meet again. Fill your head with “Who’s To Blame?” after the jump. Continue reading »

WE MADE GOD: “IT’S GETTING COLDER”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
Apr 182012
 

(And here we have an Exception to the Rule: Andy Synn review the 2011 album by Iceland’s We Made God.)

It seems like we’re at one of those unfortunate confluences where all 4 members of the NCS Hive-Mind (myself, Badwolf, TheMadIsraeli, and our host-body Islander) are all somewhat busy and snowed under with other things. However I made an off the cuff promise to have something for today, just to keep all you salivating comment-jockeys satisfied for a bit longer.

Now the album we have here is far from the usual NCS fare. It’s a slab of Icelandic post-rock with overtones of late-90’s emotional hardcore, mixing a majority clean-vocal delivery with some cathartic, gasping screamed sections. The vocalist brings to mind drummer/singer (and latterly screamer) Francis Mark of the now-departed From Autumn To Ashes, while musically the band wax and wane with elements of Explosions In The Sky-esque dynamism, Sigur Ros-ian calm, and the fiery heart of early Thrice.

See, I told you this wasn’t your usual NCS band. Continue reading »

THE FBI FUCKS WITH NCS AND WE FUCK BACK WITH ATOMA

 Exceptions to the Rule, IQ Subtraction, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  55 Responses »
Mar 092012
 

It was just a matter of time. You can’t write about the kind of vicious, seething, anarchic, soul-rending noise that we cover here at NCS — stuff like shamisen rock, Lacuna Coil, The BadPiper, and BabyMetal — without The Man coming down on your ass eventually. I got an e-mail from the fucking FBI yesterday! And they weren’t writing to wish me a happy World Kidney Day either.

But they picked on the wrong fucking people. I gave ’em a piece of my mind, and I’m not talking about the piece that loves kitties and sleeps a lot. That’s our motto here at NCS — you get fucked, you fuck back . . . hard. And I’m fucking back with a new music video by Sweden’s AtomA, the latest band to be joined by Christian Älvestam as the vocalist. I believe this is the 1,623rd such band.

We’re not going to let the FBI try to fuck with us in private either. You have to expose this kind of heavy-handed bullshit for everyone to see, so the masses can rise up in solidarity and strike back like a big fucken rattlesnake that’s been roused from its slumber — give The Man a big dose of lethal venom! So, after the jump . . . the piece-of-shit e-mail I got from the FBI, my courageous response, and the AtomA video. Continue reading »

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