MISCELLANY NO. 53: DARKENING, MONTE PENUMBRA, AND BOVINE

 Free Shit, MISCELLANY, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 102013
 

Today is Day 14 of me being away from home for my job. Since last night was a Saturday night, I got a break from the usual day-and-night grind. Carousing with my co-workers, I ate too much, had a few drinks, and then lost an hour of sleep because of daylight savings time beginning here in the U.S. But before collapsing into bed I did play the MISCELLANY game for the first time since last December.

For those people who are new to the site or have forgotten, here’s how this works: I randomly pick an assortment of bands whose music I’ve never heard (usually bands with new releases who are relatively unknown). I listen to one or two songs, not knowing what the music will be like, and I write my impressions. And then I stream for you what I’ve heard so you can make up your own mind.

For this session, there really was no rhyme or reason to what I picked. The music is from Darkening (U.S.), Monte Penumbra (Portugal), and Bovine (UK). Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: ROUNDABOUT ROUND-UP (PART 2)

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 092013
 

(This is Part 2 of a two-part post, in which NCS contributor Austin Weber puts the spotlight on six underground bands. In this part the subjects are Terracide, Fields of Elysium, and In Human Form.  Part 1 can be found here.)

The new age of music has been creeping into a higher plane of existence for some time, due to more inexpensive and accessible sound-recording equipment intertwined with the development of  many new exciting avenues for independent distribution. Combined with the ability to raise funds without label support, this has leveled the playing field for the creation of new music. But this is a dual-edged sword because it can mean a lack of promotion for many groups who truly are doing great things. This is an article for those kinds of bands.

Terracide– Primordium

If Iron Maiden taught us anything it’s that melodies and metal rule, and I am a huge fan of anything from power metal to melodic death metal. Terracide are a new group from Washington, DC, playing a high-voltage combo of energetic power metal, thrash, and death metal. This is a step up from both your average melodic death metal, due to the huge power metal influence and flashes of thrash inherent in their music. Continue reading »

MORE FREE SHIT: AN AWESOME CANDLELIGHT WINTER SAMPLER

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 152013
 

Maybe meteorites need to pulverize Russia more often. Earlier this morning, we got a really impressive detonation from space that has injured 1,000 people so far in central Russia — and that proved to be simply the fanfare for a new free digital compilation from Metality.net, which we’re co-sponsoring (details here). And then I discovered that Candlelight Records has just released their own free digital comp that’s also really impressive.

This digital sampler features music from Candlelight USA’s “Cult Series” and includes songs from many bands we’ve praised here at NCS, including Cnoc An Tursa (Scotland), Khors (Ukraine), Wodensthrone (England), Voices (England), Reverence (France), Kontinuum (Iceland), Crown (France), and Zatokrev (Switzerland), as well as Nine Covens (England).

I want to say an extra word about the Cnoc An Tursa tracks. There are two of them on this sampler and they’re from The Giants of Auld, an album that hasn’t been released yet. I am very excited about this album based on the music I’ve heard so far (one of these songs was featured in a post I wrote earlier this month, where you can find more info about the band). All of the other songs on this comp are super-strong, too. Continue reading »

METALITY RELEASES A HOT NEW FREE COMPILATION

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 152013
 

It’s been too long since we last recommended Metality.net , a site that provides broad coverage of global metal but also has a special focus on metal from the Middle East. In the past they’ve released some kickass digital compilations that we’ve been delighted to co-sponsor, and this morning brings us the most impressive one yet — Volume 3: Global Waves of Destruction.

This comp features free music from around the world (with the permission of the labels and acts involved) that includes songs from the likes of Omnium Gatherum, Mors Principium Est, Scarab, Oblivion, Nervecell, Destinity, Nightrage, Universum, and Zonaria — that track from Egypt’s Scarab is brand new and will appear on their upcoming album, Serpents of the Nile

But the comp also includes a big collection of exclusive tracks by less well-known, unsigned bands that are definitely worth hearing — including some (like Voice of the Soul) that we’ve praised here at NCS in the past.

Here’s the track list, and after that you can hear the music and we’ll give you a download link for the comp if you like what you hear. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 2): A HILL TO DIE UPON, THORNGOTH, AND OBLIVIONIZED

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

Here’s our second installment, with one more coming, of a Sunday smorgasbord of new metal for your entertainment and edification. Once again, we’re graced with brand new music from three old favorites around these parts. Let’s cut right to the chase:

A HILL TO DIE UPON

This Illinois band is a big favorite of ours; all of our previous ravings about them can be found here. Their last album, 2011’s Omens, garnered these words of praise from Andy Synn: “One of this year’s great discoveries, A Hill To Die Upon ply their trade in the bloodstained arena of blackened death metal, taking their cues from the crushing power of Satanica-era Behemoth and the decaying grooves of Sheol-era Naglfar all wrapped up in a monumental package of fire-brand riffage and pulsing drums that recalls Immortal in their prime.”

Yesterday, A Hill To Die Upon released a new single named “manden med leen”, which can be acquired for the dirt-cheap price of $1 on Bandcamp. The mid-paced song is majestic and magnetic (in part due to the effective addition of keyboards to the band’s repertoire), and includes an unexpected and quite interesting acoustic-sounding interlude. But at its core it still rips and crushes. Killer stuff. Continue reading »

OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY: GORGUTS, SHINING, MALIGNANT MONSTER, AND TALANAS

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Feb 052013
 

Allow me to share with you a collection of findings that I happened upon over the last 24 hours, most of it breaking news, some of it new music I think is worth spreading around like life-giving manure, and some of it videographic in nature. News first:

GORGUTS

Thanks to a tip from Vonlughlio, I discovered that Gorguts have signed with Season of Mist and will be releasing their extremely long-awaited fifth studio album later this year. Guitarist/vocalist Luc Lemay is quoted in a press release we received as follows:

“Everything from writing these new songs, traveling to NYC for rehearsals, developing a new friendship with John, Kevin and Colin, three of the most talented people I ever jammed with…everything from this project was beyond stimulating artistically.

From this experience was born a new GORGUTS record, a concept record which is going to last over an hour. An hour of epic, ambient, dark music which doesn’t compromise its Death Metal roots. As a composer, by exploring different kind of music, it was always my goal to integrate the same writing tools in Death Metal as if I would be writing a piece of chamber music for instance.

Well, I’m really eager to share this new record with you!” Continue reading »

REMNANTS OF 2012 THAT I HEARD IN 2013: HIVESMASHER, PERHAPS, DISKORD, II II II

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit  7 Responses »
Feb 052013
 

(Welcome back Louisville-based music writer Austin Weber with some thoughts about a diverse array of artists and albums from 2012 that he missed in his year-end list for NCS. Might be some new discoveries in here for you, too.)

Last year there were a few bands who released absolutely stunning albums that even I forgot about….until now.

Hivesmasher– Gutter Choir

Pig Destroyer’s Book Burner was rightly hyped as grind album of the year, and while I loved the hell out of it, Hivesmasher does something very different for me. Theirs is a grimey, nastier kind of grind, similar to the utterly hopeless filth Crowpath used to conjure up.

This is on a whole other level, better written and better played than most who reside within the hyper-focus on speed and punk atittude to cover up weak songwriting and poor instrumental capability. The tropes that now consume the genre have led me to try and find those groups who are trying to elevate grindcore instead of just being a barrage of (albeit awesome) sound.

Hivesmasher knocked me on my ass from the first track, which made abundantly clear how good these guys are. Continue reading »

ABRIOSIS: “VESSEL”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 042013
 

(Below, TheMadIsraeli provides a review of the 2012 EP Vessel by Vancouver’s Abriosis.)

If I told you we had a band on our hands here who brought to the table the genre-bending, fusing duality of Revocation, the noisy, unorthodox, massive dissonance of Gojira, and a take on composition that is very Martyr-esque, I bet you’d shit yourself. In case no one paid attention to them when Islander mentioned them back in his “girl growlers” series (here), Abriosis is that band.

This EP, Vessel, chews up and spits out anything lesser in its path in its short 20-minute run time. Abriosis bring chaos with a contradictory sense of pin-point accuracy and focus that, quite frankly, blows a lot of their current peers out of the water. This is envelope-pushing stuff, even if the territory explored here is nothing terribly new, just an exciting combination of more modern approaches to brutality.

I highly recommend checking this out, and picking it up, whatever you need to do — and it’s easy since the band have just made the EP available for free download via this link. Continue reading »

NEW BANDCAMP DEBUTS: THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR, SCORDATURA, FOUL BODY AUTOPSY, AND TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 022013
 

Work and work-related travel cut short my blog time the last couple of days, but I’m now back in the land of the grey and soggy, also known as home. So, last night and this morning I plunged through the sphincter of the interhole in search of metal things I missed, and here’s some of what I found. These are all new albums or songs that have appeared on Bandcamp over the last day or two — and they all fuckin’ blew me away.

THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR

Our blog brother MaxR (Metal Bandcamp) contributed a line-up of doom favorites in our 2011 Listmania series, and it included a song from an album (“Essence of Nine”) by a Colorado band named The Flight of Sleipnir. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I’d heard of them, and I’m also pretty sure I failed to check out their music even after Max praised them in these words: “Perfectly executed black metal rasps, beautiful clean singing, folk harmonies and a doomy groove. So atmospheric and, yes, mellow.”

Fast forward to last night when NCS supporter Utmu sent me a message about a new album by this band — Saga — that’s due for release on February 15. The album art (above) is awful damned cool, and so is the song from Saga that began streaming on Bandcamp yesterday. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: TRENCHROT — “DRAGGED DOWN TO HELL”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 282013
 

I know almost nothing about TrenchRot. They are from Philadelphia, and through a little web sleuthing I’ve figured out that their members include vocalist/guitarist Steve Jansson, who has split time between a speed metal band named Infiltrator and a sludge band named Grass. And beyond that, they’re a mystery. Except for their music; I do know about that.

Earlier this month TrenchRot posted a three-track demo named Dragged Down To Hell on Bandcamp. You can pay what you want to get it. The music is neither speed metal nor sludge, but death metal. TrenchRot’s beefy death metal stew has a strong old-school flavor but it doesn’t sound like re-packaged, cookie-cutter hero worship. The songs are distinctive, and galvanizing.

For the most part the three demo tracks blaze away at a thrashing pace, propelled by slaughtering riffs, squalling guitar leads, and a mix of percussive rhythms, all hell-bent on sonic demolition.  Where the pacing changes, it’s a drop down on all fours for a moaning, groaning death-doom crawl. Continue reading »

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