Jul 262015
 

VI-album art

 

I’m still surrounded by excellent new metal, like a cork bobbing in the ocean. In a post yesterday I collected four recently released songs and videos, and I have more to recommend today. In this post I’ve included three more new songs and one new album stream, followed by music from two releases that are not quite as new but are new to me. The music here falls within the realms of black metal, although as you’ll find out, the tracks are still quite diverse.

This is a long post with a lot of music in it, and perhaps I should have broken it up into pieces. But though it may appear daunting in its length, I hope you’ll stick with it, because there’s a lot of good metal in here from some tremendously talented bands.

VI

This first new song caught my eye because the band — whose name is VI — has a line-up that includes current or former members of Aosoth and Antaeus. The cover art by the talented Alexander L. Brown is a real eye-catcher, too.

The band’s debut album De Praestgiis Angelorum is scheduled for release on September 25 by Agonia Records, in a 6-panel digipack CD and on vinyl. There’s also a shirt that features that cool cover art. Look at all this tasty stuff: Continue reading »

Jul 252015
 

Ahab-The Boats of the Glen Carrig

 

I didn’t do a very good job this past week posting about new songs that I liked as they were coming out, and as a result I have a big collection of them gazing up at me with sorrowful eyes.  I’ve picked four of them to recommend in this post, with the goal of keeping you off-balance. I’ve collected a few others for a “Shades of Black” post that I’m planning for tomorrow.

AHAB

A couple of days ago Germany’s Ahab premiered a music video for the first complete track off their new album The Boats of Glen Carrig, coming from Napalm Records on August 28. The name of the song is “Like Red Foam (The Great Storm)”, and I’m thoroughly hooked on it. The riffs are enormous, and they drive the song’s bleak, somewhat dissonant melodic refrain into your head like railroad spikes. I’m more a fan of the enraged roars than the clean vocals in the song (what a shock!), but it’s a minor quibble. Continue reading »

Jul 232015
 

Kataklysm-Belphegor tour

 

Just a few quick notes in here about three new North American tours that were announced within the last week. Two of the headlining bands — Kataklysm and The Black Dahlia Murder — also premiered new songs yesterday, so I’ve included a stream of them below as well.

KATAKLYSM / BELPHEGOR

This is an interesting mix of co-headliners — Canada’s Kataklysm (whose new album Of Ghosts and Gods was given an initial assessment by Andy Synn for us here) and Austria’s Belphegor (whose most recent album was 2014’s Conjuring the Dead). The complete schedule is below, but first, a video… Continue reading »

Jul 202015
 

Black Metal Warfare Pt II

 

I’m just going to put that flyer up there and bow out pretty quickly so I can go back to moping about the fact that the just-announced Black Metal Warfare Pt. II tour is skipping the Pacific Northwest region of these United States. I have sympathy for all Canadians, too. And for people in the other 34 states besides Washington and Oregon whom the tour is passing by. Continue reading »

Jul 172015
 

MDF XIV revised flyer

 

No one is going to bitch about not getting their money’s worth at MDF XIV. Today, the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced the names of 45 more confirmed bands for the 2016 edition of the best metal fest in the U.S. (and one of the best in the world). This humongous list of new entrants swells an already impressive (and impressively full) list of previously announced bands. Here are the new names:

The Afternoon Gentlemen (UK)
Buzzov*en
Centinex (Sweden)
Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin (Italy)
Crypt Sermon
Dehumanized
Demonical (Sweden)
Demonic Christ
Deranged (Sweden)
Discharge (UK)
DOOM (UK)
Dopethrone (Canada)
Dragged into Sunlight (UK) Continue reading »

Jul 112015
 

Wolfheart 2015

 

Happy Saturday. A whole bunch of metal bands I like released new songs this past week. I didn’t jump on all of them with my usual alacrity because I was burning the candle at both ends with a combination of day-job crap, personal crap, and late-night drinking with good friends (not crap), followed by hangover crap. I will make it up to you: Our other writers stand ready to mow your loans or hand-wash your underwear. I stand ready to direct those operations from afar.

In addition, in this post I’m going to stream some of those things I missed, plus one new discovery at the end.

WOLFHEART

Tuomas Saukkonen is one of those rare metal artists who just doesn’t seem to make a misstep. After closing down a multitude of other projects (including Before the Dawn and Black Sun Aeon), he turned right around and released a great album in 2013 (Winterborn) under the name Wolfheart. He has completed work on a second Wolfheart album entitled Shadow World that will be released by Spinefarm on August 21. After the jump, check out the music video for a new song named “Aeon of Cold”. Continue reading »

Jul 102015
 

Panopticon-Autumn Eternal

 

About an hour ago, one of our favorite bands made an announcement that we’ve been waiting for: On October 16, 2015, Panopticon’s new album Autumn Eternal will be released on CD by Bindrune Recordings in the U.S. and by Nordvis in Europe, with a gatefold LP version to follow. In addition, the band revealed the cover art (above) and debuted a 13-minute teaser of excerpts from the new album.

We will have a full review of Autumn Eternal to share with you on Monday morning. For now, I’ll say only that Austin Lunn has created another masterpiece. Listen to the teaser next… Continue reading »

Jul 042015
 

 

(We’re happy to provide our guest Grant Skelton with a platform to help spread the word about a new compilation currently being assembled by the fine folks at The Sludgelord blog.)

One of No Clean Singing’s neighboring blogs has an open call for music submissions for a new Bandcamp compilation due in the fall.

The Sludgelord is a metal blog based in the UK. It was created in 2011 by editor Steve Howe. The Sludgelord primarily focuses on doom, stoner, sludge, and post-metal. However, it is not at all uncommon for them to cover black, ambient/experimental, death metal, or grindcore. The Sludgelord is currently accepting submissions from bands (signed and unsigned) for its new compilation.

Previous Sludgelord compilations (see below) have featured Primitive Man, Conan, Bevar Sea, Thorr-Axe (who premiered their album at NCS back in January), and Barabbas (recently interviewed by Comrade Aleks). Continue reading »

Jul 032015
 


photo by Eckardt Kasselman

The remarkable Wildernessking from Cape Town, South Africa, have today announced that their eagerly awaited second album, Mystical Future, will be released in November 2015 by Germany’s Sick Man Getting Sick Records, whose roster of releases has included works by Alda and Sun Worship, among many others.

Three years have passed since Wildernessking burst upon the global metal scene with their critically praised debut album The Writing of Gods In the Sand. The band have not been idle since then, releasing two well-received EPs – …And the Night Swept Us Away (2012) and The Devil Within (2014) – as well as tracks for split releases in 2014 and early 2015. But based on some advance listening we’ve been lucky to experience, Mystical Future represents their most accomplished and powerful music yet.

More cohesive, more dynamic in its scope, and more personal in its lyrical focus, the album represents a significant step ahead for a band who have already made a big impact in a short space of time. Continue reading »

Jul 022015
 

 

I haven’t compiled one of these round-ups in three days, and so of course I’m now awash in news, new music, and new videos that I think are worth your time — too much to stuff into one post. Rather than become paralyzed with indecision about what to foist upon you now and what to save for later, I drew names out of a hat. Here’s what emerged…

SKEPTICISM

Thanks to a tip from Grant Skelton, I saw yesterday’s announcement that Finland’s venerable and venerated Skepticism have a new album named Ordeal set for release by Svart Records on September 18. For me, the band’s performance at this year’s Maryland Deathfest was one of the event’s true high points, so I could hardly be more thrilled about this news — especially since seven long years have passed since the band’s last full-length.

And to add even more intrigue, the band recorded the new album live before an audience on January 24th at Klubi in Turku, Finland, and captured the performance on film. Continue reading »