EYE-CATCHERS: NEW ALBUM ART FROM BORKNAGAR, LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, AND ENSHADOWED

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 202012
 

We hardly ever actually “plan” anything around here.  Impulse is in the driver’s seat most of the time.  But sometimes a pattern develops despite the absence of design, and this week our content has been heavier than usual with videos and album art. Yesterday I saw even more eye-catching artwork for forthcoming albums, so I’m collecting them here (along with some music, of course).

BORKNAGAR

This long-running avant-garde Norwegian band is one I learned about through readers on this site back in the early days of NCS. What with all the clean singing, I didn’t immediately love the music, but I’ve developed an appreciation for what they do, and so I’m interested in the new studio album they recorded with Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Katatonia) in Örebro, Sweden. The album is titled Urd and will be released on March 26 in Europe and March 27 in North America via Century Media Records.

The eye-catching album art was designed by Brazilian artist Marcelo Vasco, who did the cover for this band’s previous Universal album. He has also created album art for many other bands, some of which we’ve featured here, including Belphegor, Einherjer, Dimmu Borgir, The Faceless, Noctem, and Keep of Kalessin.

The cover for Urd captures the look and feel of a Nordic wood carving. More info about the design and the album can be found on a post at Borknagar’s official site, here. As for the clean singing, the new album will feature three pretty talented vocalists working together – Vintersorg, Lars Nedland, and ICS Vortex. One of the heavier tracks from the band’s last album comes right after the jump. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: ENFOLD DARKNESS, VALE OF PNATH, AND KEN SARAFIN

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 192012
 

A couple days ago TheMadIsraeli sent me a link to DECIBEL’s online site, and what should greet my eyes upon landing there but THAT piece of arresting artwork up. I was so struck by the colors and the imagery that I almost forgot there was supposed to be a song on that page, too.

The song is a new single called “Lairs of the Ascending Masters” by a Nashville band signed to Sumerian called Enfold Darkness. It’s an interesting blackened take on tech metal, with spidery riffing, swarmy soloing, spit-fire drumming, and vocals that vault from growly lows to torture-victim shrieks of pain — all of it rushing along well above the speed limit. If that sounds attractive, hop over to DECIBEL and let “Lairs” give your head a good scouring.

Since I’ve heard the song several times, what I want to do is talk more about the artwork. It was created by Ken Sarafin, who happens to be the vocalist for a Denver-based band named Vale of Pnath. Vale of Pnath released a self-titled EP in 2009 and then a debut album last August on Willowtip Records called The Prodigal Empire. I haven’t heard the whole album, though I’ve seen good things written about the band in comments here at NCS as well as elsewhere, and I was certainly intrigued enough by the artwork of Vale’s vocalist to finally dip a toe in the water. As noted, I also took a deeper dive into Ken Sarafin’s art. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: MESHUGGAH (again) and LUMINOKAYA

 Eye-Catchers  15 Responses »
Jan 172012
 

Huh.  It appears I jumped the gun earlier today when I posted what I thought was the album art for Meshuggah’s new album, Koloss. If I had just waited, I would have seen THIS.

According to a press release I received, it’s going to be in 3-D, and its name is “Gateman”.  It was developed by Luminokaya Lab — over a period of nine months. Luminokaya Lab appears to be the alter ego of a Russian graphic artist named Keerych Luminokaya. I found a lot more of his work, some of which you can see after the jump. “Eye-catching” is probably too mild a word for it. “Eye-popping” perhaps. Or “Eye-exploding”.

What I posted today as the Koloss album art turns out to be only a part of a bigger piece of work. I think I like the larger concept even more. But do yourself a favor, and see more of Luminokaya’s work after the jump, and much more can be found via that Luminokaya Lab link up above. This may be the first metal album cover he’s done, but I have a feeling it won’t be the last. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: MESHUGGAH AND ENTHRONED

 Eye-Catchers  8 Responses »
Jan 172012
 

Yesterday, Meshuggah released the name of their new album — Koloss. That’s all the Meshuggah news we had, but we wrote about it anyway, explaining: “It’s really not much news, but frankly this is one of those albums where every tiny morsel will receive and deserve attention.” Today, we have more Meshuggah morsels. First, we have the album art — which is utter coolness. We also now have the track list. I’ve never figured out what good it does to have a track list before the music is released, but here it is:

01. I Am Colossus
02. The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance
03. Do Not Look Down
04. Behind The Sun
05. The Hurt That Finds You First
06. Marrow
07. Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion
08. Swarm
09. Demiurge
10. The Last Vigil

So, chew on that shit until we have the next morselage. And meanwhile, you can feast your eyes on another eye-catching piece of album art for another album we’re highly anticipating around here — the new one from Belgian black metal band Enthroned (after the jump). Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: ERUPTED

 Eye-Catchers  9 Responses »
Jan 032012
 

There’s a band from Sweden called Erupted. I wrote about their last EP in a MISCELLANY post (here). They’re working on a debut full-length, which will be released by Abyss Records. I’m not sure when it will be out. I’m not sure what it will sound like. But it will have this cover, by an artist named Simon Palmer.

Fuck.

EYE-CATCHERS

 Eye-Catchers  13 Responses »
Jan 012012
 

It’s the first day of the New Year, and a Sunday on top of that, and except for the poor motherfuckers who have to work on Jan 1, I’m guessing most people are having a lazy, drag-ass kind of day — or they’re still in bed with eyes closed and drool coming out their moufs. But not us. No sir, we actually have a crapload of posts scheduled for today, starting with groverXIII’s wake-up call with some Cut Your Teeth loudness and the latest round of Trollfiend’s deathmatch with Amorphis.

I’m following that raucous video and the Amorphis bowel-perforation with the eye-catching album cover up there. It’s for the next full-length release (the 8th) by California’s Deeds of Flesh, Portals To Canaan. It reminds me a lot of Par Olofsson’s work, but the artist in this case is Raymond Swanland. It’s the first time I’ve come across his name — he seems to do a lot of his work for games such as Magic the Gathering and World of Warcraft. After the jump, I’ve got more of his striking artwork, plus a “pre-production teaser” for the new Deeds of Flesh album. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: SÓLSTAFIR AND KIM HOLM

 Eye-Catchers  No Responses »
Oct 292011
 

Over the last two weeks we’ve had a couple of posts about an Icelandic band called Sólstafir and their new album on Season of Mist, Svartir Sandar. The most recent post (here) included a great video of the band performing a song from the album called “Fjara” on Icelandic television. Sólstafir has also nearly finished filming an official music video for the same song. I have no doubt we’ll be posting that at NCS as soon as it premieres. But for today, we’re focusing on album art instead of Sólstafir’s music.

Svartir Sandar is a two-CD album. The first disc is called “Andvari” and the second is titled “Gola”, and each of them includes six songs — 12 in total. I don’t yet have a physical copy of the album, but it apparently includes a booklet with artwork for each of the 12 songs. One at a time, Sólstafir has been adding the art for each song to their Facebook albums, and today they uploaded the last one.

I’ve been watching as these pieces of art have gone up on Facebook, and now that they’re all there, I’ve collected them in this post. For reasons I doubt I could articulate, they suit the music. Even standing alone without the amazing music, they’re very cool. All the art is by a Norwegian cartoonist named Kim Holm. Take a look at all 12 creations after the jump (and listen to a Sólstafir song while you’re doing that). Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: METSATÖLL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 272011
 

Metsatöll is a band from Estonia who released their first demo in 1999. Four albums plus assorted splits, EPs, and singles have followed that first effort, and the fifth album — Ulg — is due for release via Spinefarm Records on November 1. Until today, I had never heard their music. I’m not even positive I had heard their name. Just to display my ignorance even further, I wasn’t even sure where Estonia was, other than having a vague recollection of a Central European location (which turns out to be wrong)..

And then today I saw the album cover for Ulg, which is above, in conjunction with a notice that the album is streaming in full on yet another Finnish web site, Imperiumi (that Lantlôs album we discussed earlier today is streaming on Finland-based Inferno). There’s something about that cover that really hooked me, even though it’s not as “metal” as most cover art for the albums we feature around here. So, I decided this would be a fitting test subject for our continuing investigation of the hypothesis that cool album art correlates with cool music.

So, I cranked up that full album stream and started listening. Now, I warn you that because of interference from my fucking day job, I haven’t yet finished listening, which of course hasn’t stopped me from posting about this anyway. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: PLAGUE OF ASHITAKA

 Eye-Catchers  3 Responses »
Oct 202011
 


Yours truly hasn’t been posting much the last couple of days. The old fucking day job has unexpectedly had me traveling again and working nearly around the clock. Today won’t be much different — I’ll be on an airplane for about 6 hours going home.  So, this may be the last post until much, much later today. I’ve got a lot of stuff in mind for future posts, just no time to get them done. Tomorrow should be more back to normal.

So, this will be really fast. TheMadIsraeli sent me a link to a new video by an un-signed band from Brighton, England called Plague of Ashitaka. But I also saw the cover art for their new EP, which they call “Part I” of a new album, and this “part” is called Elder Luminaries. It’s by Richey Beckett, and it’s an eye-catcher for sure.

The song featured in the video is “Onyx Scroll”. It’s satisfyingly fast, vehement, and technically proficient. It’s got some -core elements, too, which either will or won’t appeal to you depending on your tastes. I enjoyed it.

The band’s Facebook page is here. The EP will be for sale here, but doesn’t yet appear to be available. Check out the video following the jump. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: MSTIBOG AND KARTIKEYA – “DURGA PUJA”

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Sep 262011
 

In May of this year, NCS writer TheMadIsraeli introduced us to a Moscow band called Kartikeya, and included links for downloads (here). Apart from the stunningly good (and quite different) death metal to be found on the band’s latest album, Mahayuga, that album also featured remarkable artwork by a Russian artist, “Mstibog” Kirenkov. We included a lot of his album art with TheMadIsraeli’s review.

Yesterday I found out that on October 1, a label called Grailight Productions will be releasing a new limited edition Kartikeya “single” titled Durga Puja, and it will include the amazing artwork of Mstibog once again. Up above is the cover, depicting the ten-handed war goddess Durga.

The new single will include covers of songs by Sepultura and Melechesh, re-recorded and re-arranged versions of songs from Kartikeya’s first album The Battle Begins, a live version of a song called “The Path”, and a brand new song, “Durga Puja”, which was mixed/mastered by the producer Logan Mader (Soulfly, Gojira, Divine Heresy, W.A.S.P., DevilDriver, etc.). After the jump, you can see the track list.

Also after the jump you can hear Kartikeya’s cover of “Triangular Tattvic Fire” by Melechesh. It’s a blowtorch blast of wonderfully vicious, hard-charging, eastern-tinged, blackened death metal and it sounds fantastic.  I’m really looking forward to this single. Continue reading »

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