SEEN AND HEARD: ENDLESSHADE, PROCESS BLACK, RELLIK, THEORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Feb 222015
 

 

Happy goddamn Sunday to one and all. I’m working on a THAT’S METAL! post this morning. It’s going to take me about an hour and a half to finish it. So I thought I’d leave a musical interlude for you before I resume toiling away on that other piece (which I may post tomorrow if not today). As the tag says, what follows truly is random fucking music — these are the last seven songs I listened to last night and this morning, presented in alphabetical order by band name. They’re all new, they’re all good.

ENDLESSHADE

KevinP tagged me (and about 100 other people) on a Facebook link to two songs by this Ukrainian doom/death band. Both songs are drawn from the band’s forthcoming debut album, Wolf Will Swallow the Sun, which will be released by Naturmacht Productions on February 22 (and can be ordered here). The first track is “Post Mortem” and the second is “Edge”.

These are long songs, in the eight-to-nine minute range. They create an atmosphere that’s both ethereal and crushing, both mystical and tangibly powerful, hypnotic and harrowing. The forlorn, keyboard-enhanced melodies are sweeping and memorable, while the riffs are titanic. The harsh vocals are gargantuan and vividly impassioned; the clean vocals are sombre and sorrowful — and both are impeccably performed by a woman (Natalia Androsova). Truly compelling music… Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ABYSS, COLD CELL, INFERNAL WAR, KURHAN, SABERTOOTH ZOMBIE, VELUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 202015
 

 

What’s that they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men? I had collected a great volume of new songs since Monday and began displaying the ones I wanted to recommend yesterday, in alphabetical order. I made it through “L” and had intended to finish the back half of the alphabet today. But in the meantime I came across still more worthy new song premieres by bands whose names didn’t conveniently fit in the “M” – “Z” category. So much for that idea.

Anyway, here are a few more things I discovered since yesterday and a few (but not all) of the tracks I originally intended to provide today. I guess that means I have more round-ups to prepare for the weekend…

ABYSS

20 Buck Spin is set to release the debut album by a Toronto band named Abyss — the album’s title is Heretical Anatomy — and yesterday DECIBEL premiered a track named “The Atonement”. It’s a searing blast of thrashing, lashing death metal that punctuates its fury with forceful hammer blows and a breakdown that will provoke sore-neck syndrome. Gruesome, morbid vocal vomit, too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BINARY CREED, CRYPT SERMON, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT, GOST, GRUESOME, HACAVITZ, HOLOTROPIC, INCULTER, LLOTH, LVXCAELIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 192015
 

 

Greetings sistren and brethren. I have a bountiful collection of new songs and album streams to recommend. One of the reasons the collection is so bountiful is that I haven’t had time to pounce upon them with my usual catlike reflexes this week. I am instead moving at the speed of the loris horde in the NCS compound, which is to say, slower than the oozing of maple sap in a Vermont winter. In other words, there’s a backlog — and now the dam bursts.

Don’t be daunted by the volume of music in this collection. Just sip it slowly, a little bit at a time, as you would that jug of 100 proof rot-gut moonshine you keep under the sink next to the dry-aged head of the last person who pissed you off.

I’m presenting the music in alphabetical order by band name — and in this post I’ve only made it up to “L”. I actually have still more new music from bands whose names come later in the alphabet. I hope to package those up for tomorrow. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: A RELAPSE RECORDS SAMPLER, BEYOND CREATION, TENGGER CAVALRY, DEIVOS

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Feb 182015
 

 

A lot of exciting things have happened in the world of metal over the last 48 hours, despite the fact that I haven’t had time to write about them. Yes, amazingly, it’s true: When trees fall in this forest, they make a sound even if you don’t hear them (or read about them) on this putrid blog. I will mention a few of the occurrences in this post, and then collect more for a post tomorrow.

RELAPSE RECORDS: 25 YEARS OF CONTAMINATION

Yesterday Relapse Records released a digital sampler that, at least in my memory, is the most humongous collection of songs yet released in a digital format. And on top of that, it’s a “pay what you want” offering.

It’s part of the label’s celebration of its 25th year in business, and it includes more than 180 tracks, one from almost every band that has released an album or EP on Relapse since 1990. The sampler can be streamed and downloaded via Bandcamp at this location: Continue reading »

BANDS YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO: IN DREAD RESPONSE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 162015
 

(TheMadIsraeli revives a feature designed to put the spotlight on recommended groups, and today the focus is on New Zealand’s In Dread Response.)

In Dread Response have been mentioned a couple times here on the site, but I figured a full feature on them was relevant and due, considering the band’s next album Heavenshore is coming soon.  These “Bands you should be listening to” segments will be exactly as the title says, but I kind of aim to use them as indirect awareness and hype for a band’s upcoming output as well, especially when it’s a band I really believe in and love to death.  In Dread Response are definitely such a band, and this little feature is for those who may not even know who these guys are, as well as for those who do but maybe haven’t followed them lately.

In Dread Response play blazingly fast-as-fuck technical and emotive melodic death metal.  Make no mistake, this is a band who not only perfectly conform to what NCS is all about, they are also completely unrelenting, in a genuinely militant way that melodic death metal doesn’t often display.

A lot of the best melodic death metal nowadays really borrows from the Daylight Dies and In Mourning school of ambience, melancholy, and dragging tempos, but In Dread Response capture the ferocity the style was born with.  If you want band references or comparisons, think of a combination of Dark Tranquility and Darkest Hour.  In Dread Response have the savagery and melodic tendencies of early Dark Tranquility, and the speed and recklessness of Darkest Hour on Hidden Hands Of a Sadist Nation.  They lack the commercialized elements both bands later tried to incorporate, and have instead retained only the best and most intense aspects of those sorts of influences. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LEVIATHAN, LYCHGATE, IMPLODES, SVIN, KEEP OF KALESSIN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 132015
 

Presented below, for your entertainment and edification, is a collection of songs and videos I discovered this morning. All but one are new. All are recommended. No two of them sound alike.

LEVIATHAN

Within the last couple of days Noisey published an interview of Leviathan’s Jef Whitehead by Drew Millard, preceded by Millard’s thoughts about the subject of the interview (“Whitehead’s a scary guy”). If you want to read that, the link is below. But the main point of attraction to me was an accompanying premiere of a new song from Leviathan’s forthcoming album, Scar Sighted (due for release by Profound Lore on March 3). Below, I’ve included the Soundcloud stream for that, too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VOICE OF THE SOUL, IN DREAD RESPONSE, SOUTHERN FRONT, MUSCLE AND MARROW, FALL OF SUMMER 2015

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 112015
 

 

I would actually like to review an entire album. Or even an entire EP. And I harbor hopes of finishing the rollout of our Most Infectious Songs list for 2014. But on a daily basis I continue to find new songs that I feel compelled to say something about, and so here we have another round-up of such discoveries.

VOICE OF THE SOUL

I first came across Voice of the Soul four and a half years ago via a MISCELLANY excursion. The band’s vocalist/guitarist Kareem Chehayeb was then based in Kuwait, with other band members spread around other locations in the Middle East. When I reviewed their 2011 EP, Into Oblivion, I found that it represented a large leap forward, or more like a stretching of wings — by a rapidly maturing raptor with big claws that could do some damage, and an even more impressive ability to take flight on the wings of some very memorable melodies. Since then, Kareem Chehayeb and guitarist Monish Shringi relocated to Dubai in the UAE, and recorded the band’s debut album, Catacombs.

Guest writer Gorger reviewed the album for us last October and gave it high marks. But despite his praise and my own history with the band, I stupidly didn’t dive into it. Too many other distractions, I suppose. And then yesterday I watched and listened to the band’s new lyric video for a song from the album named “Defiled”, and holy shit. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: UNLEASHED, APOPHYS, THEOKTONY, GHOLD, HACAVITZ, SPECTRAL VOICE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 102015
 

 

Yesterday delivered a bonanza of new metal discoveries, so many that I’m resorting to minimizing my own verbiage in order to roll out everything I found in one post without turning it into War and Peace. I realize this will strike many of you as a tragedy of near-mythic proportions, but I do not wish to dim the reputation of Tolstoy, him being dead and all, and unable to restore competitive balance with a sequel.

UNLEASHED

Yesterday Nuclear Blast announced that this spring it will release the 12th studio album of Sweden’s Unleashed. The title is Dawn of the Nine and it features cover art by the talented Pär Olofsson. There’s a story behind the artwork, as recounted by founding member, bassist, and vocalist Johnny Hedlund:

“The artwork represents the continuation of our previous album, which ended with ‘The Great Battle of Odalheim.’ The battle took place at Uppsala Fields in Sweden, and you can clearly see the king’s grave in the cover art work which also represents the future. You can also see the bombed out church in the far distance, the place of blood in the front, and the rune stone with the runic symbol of courage of the new dawn.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELL WITCH AND PAOLO GIRARDI, SARPANITUM, KJELD, LO!

 Listmania, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Feb 092015
 

 

I’m so glad to be back home after three weeks in the bush, by which I mean Delaware. Finally, to sleep in my own bed, in which I woke up once an hour beginning about 2 a.m. and whined, because the time zone change is fuckin’ with me.  In other words, I slept like a baby. But it really is good to be home — although it appears I’m going to have to do this extended travel thing all over again in three weeks, which blows. But I’ll bitch about that more thoroughly when the time comes. For now, let’s discuss happier subjects….

BELL WITCH AND PAOLO GIRARDI

This first item of news really cheered me right up — the marriage between one of my own most fervently anticipated releases of 2015 and one of my favorite artists. As you can see above (and click that image to enlarge it), maestro Paolo Girardi has created the painted cover art for the new album by Seattle’s Bell Witch — Four Phantoms. It is beautiful, and I have no doubt that Four Phantoms will also be beautiful, in the way that the pale, cold skin of a bewitching corpse is beautiful. Continue reading »

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME DOOM WITH YOUR DOOM?

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 082015
 

(About a week ago, while I was being roasted alive in day-job hell, Grant Skelton e-mailed me about some doom discoveries. I’ve decided to just paste his e-mail comments into this post along with the music. I hope it’s okay with him that I’m doing this. I subscribe to the view that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.)

CRYPT SERMON

In keeping with your interest in Crypt Sermon, I found that they are streaming another new song called “Will of The Ancient Call” over at NPR. Listen here.

If you’ve heard “Heavy Riders” or the title track, then you know this is traditional doom. I suppose detractors might call it “re-doom,” but I think it’s phenomenal. I’d love to see these guys tour with Below. Continue reading »

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