HANNES GROSSMANN AND CHRISTIAN MUENZNER HAVE LEFT OBSCURA (AND HAVE YOU HEARD OF ALKALOID?)

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Jul 112014
 

Germany’s Obscura announced a few hours ago that guitarist Christian Muenzner and drummer Hannes Grossmann have left the band, each for different reasons. As a result, Obscura have postponed the recording of their fourth album to the end of 2014 while they audition potential replacements for Muenzner and Grossmann.

Muenzner says, “There is no bad blood between me and any of the other members of the band”, but that “my heart is not fully into the music anymore” and that “I just want to devote the biggest part of the time I have to work on my own music and visions”.

At least as important, Muenzner explained that his decision to leave Obscura was also driven by the persisting neurologic condition in his fret hand known as Focal Dystonia, which almost robbed him of his ability to play guitar by late 2011/early 2012: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DECAPITATED, GORMATHON, SINMARA

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jul 092014
 

For your entertainment and edification I bring you a small group of news items and new music that I enjoyed over the last 24 hours. All of them involve especially enticing pieces of album art that you may view as larger images by clicking on them.

DECAPITATED

Thanks to a tip from my friend Vonlughlio, I just saw the news that the sixth album by Poland’s Decapitated will be released by Nuclear Blast and Mystic Production (Poland) on September 26, 2014. It was recorded, as usual, at Hertz Studio in Białystok, Poland, by the Wiesławski brothers. The album cover was created by Polish artist Lukasz Jaszak, who also made the cover of the band’s last album, Carnival Is Forever.

This announcement was accompanied by a statement from Vogg (Waclaw Kieltyka) that the new music is “totally crushing and huge” and that Blood Mantra is “the most heavy and mature album” the band have ever recorded.

Such statements must always be taken with a grain of salt, but even if the album is only “about the same level of crushing and huge” as what Decapitated have delivered in the past, sign me the fuck up.

https://www.facebook.com/decapitated Continue reading »

A NEW NCS RELEASE IS NOW LIVE: “HOLD FAST! GRINDVIOLENCE COMPILATION”

 Metal News, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 082014
 

We warned you yesterday that today we would be cooperating with Kydoimos Records in the Bandcamp release of a free 20-track compilation of music from 20 UK grind violence bands, featuring artwork by Mark Rennie — and it is now a live thing. Go here to listen and to download the music, either a track at a time or as an entire album:

http://nocleansinging.bandcamp.com/album/hold-fast-grindviolence-compilation

The album download also comes with a special 27-page zine created by Alex Layzell (of Grind to Death and Kydoimos) that includes band interviews and a lot of cool artwork.

Big thanks to Alex for doing all of the really hard work to make this a reality, and of course huge thanks to the bands for contributing their music. Eventually, the comp will be released on cassette tape with accompanying hard copies of the zine, and we’ll let you know when that happens. The album stream comes next… Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ABIGOR, NIGHTBRINGER, SLAGMAUR, KULT OF TAURUS, BARBELITH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  10 Responses »
Jul 082014
 

This is a collection of news and new music I discovered last night and this morning. When I use the “Shades of Black” title, it doesn’t always mean that everything in the post will be black metal, but it does today. On the other hand, most of the music in this post isn’t likely to conform to any preconceptions that most casual listeners may have about the sound of black metal. If one were to construct a bell curve of the genre, almost everything in here would be out on the edges.

ABIGOR

Austria’s Abigor have finished recording their tenth studio album, entitled Leitmotif Luzifer — The 7 Temptations of Man. It will be released by Avantgarde Music on July 11. Despite Abigor’s long history, I’ve never listened to any of their previous releases from start to finish, and I’m not even certain I’ve ever listened to any individual songs. So this new album will be my first proper introduction to the band — and from what I’ve heard so far, it will be a very happy meeting.

Abigor have created a Bandcamp page on which they’ve uploaded two different teaser tracks, each of which contains excerpts from songs on the new album. They emphasize on that page that “no synthetic elements have been used” in the recording of the album — “the guitars are completely free of any effects, neither reverb nor any special effects edit were allowed to touch the string instruments on this album”, and “for vocals only reverb and delay has been used, no pitch or chorus or any other effect stained the purity and directness”.

The teaser clips collectively include nearly 18 minutes of music, though no complete songs. To say the least, the music displayed by these teasers is esoteric and eccentric, but it’s also fascinating and rich in its diversity. Continue reading »

A NEW KRODA ALBUM IS COMING: “GINNUNGAGAP-GINNUNGAGALDR-GINNUNGAKAOS”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 082014
 

Three years have passed since the release of Schwarzpfad, the last studio album by Ukraine’s Kroda, which remains one of my all-time favorite pagan/black metal albums. The year 2012 brought us a live album (Live Under Hexenhammer: Heil Ragnarok!) and last year Kroda released a compilation (Varulven) that included several departures in style, including two cover songs, but I’m still feeling a yearning for an album-length work of new songs. It appears my wish will be fulfilled.

I’ve been in contact with Kroda’s Eisenslav, and he has disclosed that a new full-length album is being created, under the title GinnungaGap-GinnungaGaldr-GinnungaKaos. As for the meaning of the title, GinnungaGap is the name in Nordic mythology of the vast primordial abyss from which the cosmos was created and into which it will fall again at the time of Ragnarok — the source of runes and magic, the source of wisdom and titans, and at the same time the source of evil and chaos. An epic name for what we hope will be an epic album.

Eisenslav was also good enough to share with me three promo tracks, which I have permission to share with you. These are untitled at this point and without vocals — and when the album recording begins, the music will be completely re-recorded with live drums, vocals, and traditional instruments. But to these ears they sound really good already. The music is soul-stirring and sweeping, both heavy and atmospheric (especially in an almost meditative passage in the third track), with memorable melodies and surging power. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: A NEW NCS GRIND COMP, BONGRIPPER, RAGE NUCLÉAIRE, IN FLAMES

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jul 072014
 

Collected here are assorted news items and new music that I like to share, beginning with breaking news about… US!

HOLD FAST! GRINDVIOLENCE COMPILATION

A year and a half ago we launched NO CLEAN SINGING’s very own Bandcamp page and released our first compilation of music in cooperation with Grind To Death. The title was The Only Good Tory and it featured 46 tracks  from 46 UK bands on the cutting edge of grind, powerviolence, harsh crust, and fast core. Actually, I don’t know why I’m writing in the past tense because that compilation is STILL available on Bandcamp and it’s still free.

And now, a year and a half later, we’re about to do it again. Once again, the lion’s share of the work has been done by Alex Layzell, the man behind Grind To Death and Kydoimas Records — whose releases can be found here. This new compilation is entitled HOLD FAST! and features artwork by Mark Rennie, which you can gaze upon at the top of this post. It includes 20 tracks by 20 kickass bands.

The compilation will become available for FREE download tomorrow on our Bandcamp page, and it will come with a downloadable zine that in itself is a work of art (more details about that tomorrow). Later, the comp will become available on tape with the zine included in hard-copy form.  Here’s the track list: Continue reading »

TOURISM: MASTODON-GOJIRA-KVELERTAK and PALLBEARER-TOMBS-VATTNET VISKAR

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jul 072014
 

Here are two North American tours announced this morning that are worth mentioning.

MASTODON-GOJIRA-KVELERTAK

In our first post this morning I included a report from Metal Hammer based on an interview with Gojira’s frontman Joe Duplantier that the Gojira would be touring with Mastodon this October. There were no further details then, but there are now.

In addition to the pairing of Mastodon and Gojira, the tour will also include Norway’s Kvelertak and it will include dates in both the U.S. and Canada. A pre-sale for tickets and a limited number of VIP packages will become available this Wednesday, July 9, at 10 a.m. local venue time. General sales will begin on July 11.

Here’s the schedule (sadly for me, they’re skipping Seattle this time): Continue reading »

NEWS FROM FRANCE: GOJIRA, BLUT AUS NORD, FALL OF SUMMER, MONARCH

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Jul 072014
 

I spotted some news items over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing, and the following four happened to all come from France, so I’m bundling them together here. There’s some new music at the end, too.

GOJIRA

According to a brief interview with Joe Duplantier backstage at the Sonisphere festival reported by Metal Hammer yesterday, Gojira will be embarking on a tour with Mastodon in October and will then be going straight into the studio to begin recording their sixth album for release in 2015. To listen to the audio of the brief interview, go here.

UPDATE: The Mastodon-Gojira North American tour has now been confirmed. Norway’s Kvelertak will also be on the tour, and the schedule can be found here.

And then, about an hour ago, Gojira began streaming a video on YouTube called “Summer Fest Part 1” with clips from some of their European festival appearances so far this summer, set to some slow, quasi-psychedelic instrumental music. Watch that next.

https://www.facebook.com/GojiraMusic Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC ON THE WAY FROM FAITH NO MORE AND PINK FLOYD (!!)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jul 062014
 

 

The news in this post is guaranteed to elicit a chorus of FUCK YEAHs from old farts like me, as well as younger farts who know what’s up: it appears that both Faith No More and Pink Floyd are recording new music.

FAITH NO MORE

On Friday, July 4, the reactivated Faith No More performed live at Hyde Park in London, wearing the garb of priests. According to eye-witnesses, they played two new songs, one at the conclusion of their regular set (right after “Ashes To Ashes”) and a second at the end of their two-song encore (the first of which was “We Care A Lot”).

A variety of fan-filmed videos have surfaced, highlighting the new songs. Most of the videos aren’t very good, but I’ve gathered up the ones I’ve seen so far and have embedded them after the jump.

It stands to reason that if Faith No More are playing new songs, they will soon be recording new songs. Am I right? Yes, I am right.

More details can be found here and here. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM NECROS CHRISTOS: “NINE GRAVES”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jul 032014
 

I was caught napping. In an April round-up of new music, I included just a snippet of a song from the then-forthcoming EP Nine Graves by Germany’s Necros Christos — a release I’ve really been looking forward to. And then about 15 minutes ago I noticed that Nine Graves is now out and available for order on CD from Sepulchral Voice Records and Ván Records.

What’s more, I noticed that the album’s cover art (above) had been released (I’m trying to determine who created it) — and after a bit more poking around I found a stream of the album’s title song in its entirety.

Nine Graves includes nine tracks, described as “two new exclusive songs [the title track and “Black Bone Crucifix”], re-recorded yet totally new arranged versions of two old band classics [“Va Koram Do Rex Satan” and “Baptized By The Black Urine Of The Deceased”], plus four interludes [Temples I – IV] and one huge, persian influenced midtro… [the latter named “Gate”]”. Continue reading »

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