EYE-CATCHERS: MITOCHONDRION

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  26 Responses »
Feb 222012
 

Over the last few days I saw two pieces of art that caught my attention, in part because the art is great and in part because both pieces relate to Mitochondrion, whose music has left wounds all over me that won’t heal.

The artwork above was created by Jeremy Hannigan (who’s also the vocalist of the doom band Funeral Circle). He created it for a new double-LP version of Mitochondrion’s 2008 debut album, Archaeaeon, which will be released by Dark Descent Records. According to the band, this special vinyl release will include the full lyrics in proper order, song descriptions, lyrical meanings, and a brief history of the album.

Archaeaeon was originally self-released by the band, but Dark Descent picked it up last August for re-issue as a CD, following a re-master of the music by Colin Marston (Krallice, Dysrhythmia, Behold… The Arctopus), and now we’ll have the vinyl. Of course, I still don’t own a turntable, but I think just about any news concerning Mitochondrion is worth repeating, perhaps especially when the news concerns Archaeaeon.

I first discovered Mitochondrion through their second album, Parasignosis, which got a Profound Lore release in January of last year. It blew my shit away, to put it mildly. I came to Archaeaeon much later, and found it equally compelling, though different in some respects from Parasignosis.  (more after the jump, including the second piece of art and Mitochondrion music . . .) Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: GRAVEYARD – “THE ALTAR OF SCULPTED SKULLS”

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers  2 Responses »
Feb 162012
 

This is a SHORT BUT SWEET feature, but it could just as easily have been an EYE-CATCHERS feature, because . . . that album cover! Be honest: It caught your eyes, just as it did mine.

It’s in the only acceptable kvlt colors — black and white. It has countless skulls. I know this because I tried to count them and I couldn’t do it before I ran out of fingers and toes to count on. That makes the number of skulls countless. Plus, everything is dripping, even the words. And you don’t need color to know what they’re dripping with, and it’s not honey. Then you have the evil-looking candelabras and the ominous hooded figure standing behind the ALTAR OF SCULPTED SKULLS! 

Kudos to the artist, Matt ‘Putrid’ Carr (Autopsy, Impetigo, Coffins, Hooded Menace, etc), for this dread-inspiring achievement. It’s everything you want as a visual introduction to your spine-extracting, skull-bleaching, morbid death metal — which happens to be the musical content of Altars of Sculpted Skulls.

That’s right, this is most definitely not the Graveyard that produced all that retro-stoner-doom rock on Hisingen Blues last year. That was the Swedish Graveyard. This is the Graveyard from Spain, the band who released a 2009 debut album called One With the Dead plus an early demo, a previous EP, and an assortment of splits — and the band who, in Altars, have created what is rapidly becoming my favorite old-school death metal release of the new year. Every song is a gem — black diamonds in the rough. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: ELYSIAN

 Eye-Catchers  1 Response »
Feb 142012
 

This is another classic EYE-CATCHERS experiment, and by “classic” I mean the original concept of this series — to find good music based solely on the album art. The subject of today’s experiment is a forthcoming debut album called Wires of Creation by a band from Melbourne, Australia, named Elysian.

I saw the album cover big as life in the body of an e-mail that greeted me in my in-box this morning. The brutal truth is that instead of moving on to other e-mails and NCS projects I had planned to mess with this morning, I stopped to check out Elysian’s music solely because I liked that album cover. It’s different. You can almost see the motion, the rising up, the colors changing with the motion against the black backdrop.

Based on the cover art and the style of the band’s logo, I made a guess that the music would be some flavor of prog. As it turns out, that wasn’t a bad guess, but not exactly dead center in the target either. My impressions of the music are based on one song from the album — “Mans Design” — which has recently become available for streaming, so that’s not exactly a great sample size. But I sure do like that song. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: VISCERAL THRONE AND MARCO HASMAN

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Feb 072012
 

This is the second EYE-CATCHERS feature in as many days. In yesterday’s installment, we reported on new cover art for a forthcoming album from a band whose music we know — 16. In this post, we’re returning to the original intent of the EYE-CATCHERS series: using cool album art as a guide to finding music from bands we don’t know.

In this case, the album art was created by the talented Italian artist Marco Hasman. We’ve featured his artwork before at NCS, in posts about albums from Fleshgod Apocalypse, Beyond Creation, and Blasphemer. This time, his work will grace the cover of a debut record by a band from Evansville, Indiana, named Visceral Throne. The album is called Omnipotent Asperity and it will be released by Brutal Bands at some point later this year.

What Visceral Throne produced before that album was a two-song, 2010 demo. Both of those songs appear on the track list for the album; don’t know if they’ve been re-recorded for the album. The demo versions are still available for free download via Bandcamp (HERE), though that option will close once the album is released.

Let me attempt to describe the two songs without using the word brutal: barbarous, bloodthirsty, ferocious, heartless, inhuman, insensitive, merciless, pitiless, remorseless, rough, rude, ruthless, savage, severe, vicious, and impolite. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: 16

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 062012
 

I seem to be on an album-art roll over the past week, featuring the new Gorod cover plus new covers by Valnoir, Dan Seagrave, and Niklas Sundin, but as long as the grown-ups continue stuffing my Halloween bag with eye-candy, my wide-eyed inner kid will continue to light up.

SoCal’s 16 began recording their new album, Deep Cuts From Dark Clouds, last September. On Halloween they completed the final mix. In early November, they sent it off to Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer) for mastering. And then two days ago Relapse Records announced a release date (April 26) and delivered unto us the album art you see above. They’re pre-selling the CD and LP versions here.

I had a feeling it would be sweet, because the cover art for their last album, 2009’s Bridges To Burn, was one of the best metal album covers ever. In fact, not having heard 16 before seeing that cover, I bought the album about two seconds after I did. Plus a shirt, which still draws looks when I wear it (unless people are looking at the space where my head is supposed to be — that’s always a possibility).

Anyway, the cover art to Deep Cuts is by Orion Landau (Red Fang, Rwake). It’s not quite as striking as the cover for Bridges that Florian Bertmer (Napalm Death, Converge, Pig Destroyer) created, but I guess it would be too much to get two home runs in a row. After the jump, I’ve collected the rest of 16’s full-length-album covers, plus a song from the last album. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: NAGLFAR

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  4 Responses »
Feb 042012
 

I was a relatively late-coming fan of Sweden’s Naglfar, discovering them through their 2007 release, Harvest, but I’m now solidly in their camp. Their skillful intertwining of melodic black metal and death metal elements creates music that is both memorable and viciously scathing.

I’m happy to report that as of today, we now have more details about their next album on Century Media, Téras. First, we have the album’s killer cover art by Niklas Sundin (Dark Tranquillity), who has previously designed artwork for bands such as In Flames, Arch Enemy, and At the Gates.

Second, we have specific release dates: March 26th in Europe and March 27th in North America. Third, we have a track list:

1. Téras
2. Pale Horse
3. III: Death Dimension Phantasma
4. The Monolith
5. An Extension Of His Arm And Will
6. Bring Out Your Dead
7. Come Perdition
8. Invoc(H)ate
9. The Dying Flame Of Existence

Since Naglfar and this album cover are on my mind, I decided to collect all of their previous album covers, which are equally eye-catching. That’s after the jump, along with a replay of the first song from Téras. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: DAN SEAGRAVE

 Eye-Catchers  6 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

Dan Seagrave is a god among men, at least when it comes to pens, pencils, and paint. I’ve slobbered over his artwork before — for example, in this review of Wretched’s Beyond the Gate in 2010, which included many examples of his album art at the end. But I got a fresh reminder this morning when Rev. Will sent me a link to that stunner up above.

I had to do some net sleuthing to find out what it was. Turns out it’s the cover art to a 2011 album called Facet of Aberration by a thrash band from the Bay Area called Invection. I hadn’t heard of them before, but I’m throwing in some of their music after the jump.

As for Mr. Seagrave’s artwork, there’s a fan-sponsored page on Facebook, the creator of which has been adding album art — without any band logos or album titles to obscure the sheer brutal goodness of the artwork. As of a few minutes ago, that page included 65 pieces of album art. You can gaze upon all of that via this link. And after the jump, you can see a few more examples I haven’t previously posted at NCS.

Dan Seagrave has a merch store here and a personal Facebook page here. Continue reading »

MORE TOURISM

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  5 Responses »
Feb 012012
 

This post is really about news of new spring tours, but I couldn’t resist adding that just-released cover artwork for the next studio album by Paradise Lost, Tragic Idol, which is scheduled for release on April 23 in Europe via Century Media Records. The album’s artwork was designed by Parisian designer Valnoir (www.metastazis.com), who has also worked with other artists such as Morbid Angel, Ulver, Watain, and more than 150 others.

Now, on to the tours news:

First, Lambgoat reported this news earlier today: “Late this spring there will be a festival type tour in the U.S featuring Origin, Cattle Decapitation, Misery Index, Aborted, Vital Remains, Threat Signal, Rings Of Saturn, and Dawn Of Ashes. The trek is currently being booked, with dates expected to surface in several weeks. We’ll keep you posted.” I mean, holy shit, that’s a helluva tour right there. But there’s more:

Hails and Horns reports that Skeletonwitch and The Black Dahlia Murder will be mounting a U.S. tour this spring. The dates are after the jump.

But that’s not all: MetalSucks will be co-sponsoring a 24-city U.S. tour consisting of Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire, and Today I Caught the Plague. The schedule for that one is after the jump — and there’s one more tour after the jump, too. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: GOROD’S “A PERFECT ABSOLUTION”

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  13 Responses »
Jan 302012
 


Seems like I was just apologizing for the number of posts we’ve published today, but then I saw this album art for the first time and all thought of trying to be judicious with your time just evaporated like a soft shower in the Sahara.

I’m sure my enthusiasm is attributable in part to how eager I am to hear this album. Gorod is a remarkable band. Even as an inter-album EP, their 2011 release, Transcendence, blew me away. The next full-length, A Perfect Absolution, holds so much potential, and yet I have a feeling that it will unfold in multiple, unpredictable directions.

But wholly apart from anticipation for the music, this album art is bursting with visual extravagance and worthy of attention by itself. I don’t know what the bizarre imagery represents, but it’s striking. I also don’t know who created the artwork, though the style does seem familiar. I’m still searching for that info.

As for the music, the teaser video after the jump includes just a part of one song, without vocals, but it’s very sweet. Such a pity that the album won’t be released until March 12. It’s available for pre-order at Listenable Records web shop (here). I’ve put an even larger version of the album cover after the jump, too. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: LIBER NECRIS

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers  6 Responses »
Jan 262012
 

I’m ridiculously far behind in listening to EPs and albums that bands have sent to NCS over the last couple of months. Hell, I’m embarrassingly far behind in even answering the e-mails from bands who sent us music to hear, which is just plain rude. But I’m going to make an effort to catch up, beginning today.

Long ago, in dog years, we started this EYE-CATCHERS series as a way of unscientifically testing the hypothesis that if album art is cool, the music on the album is probably going to be cool, too. Of course, that hypothesis doesn’t make much logical sense, but then again neither does turning water into wine and lots of people seem to buy that, so who knows? Since we started, this series has branched out to include features on metal artwork, in addition to music, but today I’m going back to the original idea.

Liber Necris (“book of the dead”) is a UK band who wrote us in December. The first thing I noticed, even before reading the words, was the cover art you see above for their debut EP/demo, The Immutable Aversion. I thought it was really well done. The artist is Drew Millward, who has created album covers for other bands, in addition to many shirt and poster designs and much else besides (you can see more of his creations via this link), and we’ll have more of his art for Liber Necris at the end of this post. As soon as I saw the art, I resolved to listen to the EP. That was a good decision. Continue reading »

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