LORD MANTIS! (“DEATH MASK” IS COMING)

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

If Facebook had a problem with one nipple on Benighted’s album cover, I can barely imagine their reaction to this baby (I’m thinking heart attack, stroke, and rectal prolapse all at once). It’s the demented cover art by tattooist/musician Jef Whitehead (Leviathan, Twilight) for Death Mask, the forthcoming album by Chicago’s Lord Mantis. Today, Profound Lore disclosed additional info about the album, which is on my highly anticipated list.

Even before seeing the latest news, the album was already on my mind, based on a brief conversation I had with the band’s bassist/vocalist Charlie Fell following a stellar Abigail Williams set in Seattle last Friday. Fell is the drummer for Abigail Williams on that band’s current tour, and in a turnabout-is-fair-play kind of arrangement, Abigail Williams’ frontman/guitarist Ken Sorceron is the newest member of Lord Mantis. Rounding out the Lord Mantis line-up are guitarist/vocalist Andrew Markuszewski (Avichi) and drummer Bill Bumgardner (Indian).

2012’s Pervertor was horrifying. I shudder to think what this particular foursome have accomplished on the new album.

The additional info disclosed today, in addition to the cover art and album title, is that Death Mask will be released on April 29 and that it consists of 54 minutes of disturbing, nihilistic punishment recorded by Sanford Parker, who seems to record almost everything worth hearing that emanates from Chicago. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENTHRONED (“SOVEREIGN”), DIRGE (“HYPERION”), MESHUGGAH (“WALL STREET”)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

I’m working on a couple of posts for today but didn’t finish either of them last night and I’m getting a slow start this morning. But I wanted to get something up here on the site for your entertainment while I continue to dither around on those other posts. So here are three entertaining somethings.

ENTHRONED

The first thing I saw in my e-mail inbox this morning was a press release announcing the news that Agonia Records will be releasing the 10th studio album by Belgium’s Enthroned on April 15. The title is Sovereigns, and the eye-catching artwork can be viewed above. It’s now available for pre-order at this location. Enthroned’s Facebook page can be accessed through this link.

And other than expressing my figurative tumescence over this news, that’s about all I have to say on this subject. I will let this stream of music from Enthroned’s fantastic last album, 2012’s Obsidium, say the rest. Continue reading »

SUNDAY SLAUGHTERING: BARBARIAN, AURORA BOREALIS, HELLCANNON, ADRAMELECH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  24 Responses »
Feb 162014
 

For yours truly, it has been a great weekend for the discovery of song debuts from new and forthcoming metal releases. In this post I’ve collected five of them. With luck, I’ll write another post today with more of what I’ve found since Friday. Get ready for some old school slaughtering.

BARBARIAN

I have a tip from our brutish friend SurgicalBrute to thank for this first discovery. The band is Barbarian. They are located in Italy and they released their self-titled debut album in 2011. In late January, Doomentia released the band’s second album, Faith Extinguisher, with a kickass piece of cover art by Shagrat of Acid Witch. It’s available on CD now (at this location), with vinyl coming soon. Looks like it will be available digitally on Amazon mp3 later this month, and perhaps Doomentia will offer it on Bandcamp, too.

Two songs are now streaming on Bandcamp — “Inhale the Dead” and “We Are the Profane” — and they are sooooo damned good. It’s a glorious kickback to the primordial spawning ground of all sorts of extreme metal genres, binding together the undead spirits of bands like Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, and Motörhead. Vomit-spewing vocals, tremendous drumming, and black, thrashing riffs to kill for. Continue reading »

NIPPLE RIPPLE: BENIGHTED BANNED FROM FACEBOOK

 Metal News  25 Responses »
Feb 142014
 

This development is just so jaw-droppingly ridiculous that I felt compelled to report it. The following message appeared on Season of Mist’s Facebook page early this morning (Pacific Time):

“French death grind extremists BENIGHTED just had their Facebook account removed for displaying their new album cover. Everywhere else on this planet you can see that it depicts the breast of a woman. Maybe they should have shown an AK 47 instead as that seems to be more natural and acceptable. Let’s talk about blatant and ridiculous censorship, shall we… ?”

As you can see above, Season of Mist has changed its own Facebook banner to censor the image of Benighted’s new album cover (the title is Carnivore Sublime), apparently to preserve SoM’s own presence on Facebook (or at least to further drive home the point of that announcement quoted above).

Facebook hosts pages by porn stars. In fact, there’s a Facebook page called “pornstars” whose banner includes this photo: Continue reading »

SEPTICFLESH: “TITAN” IS COMING

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Feb 122014
 

Just about a week ago we reported that Septic Flesh had become Septicflesh and had completed the recording of a new album — an album made in collaboration with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and a full children’s choir.

Today brought us a few more updates. First, the album’s name will be Titan. Second, the band released Part 1 of a video about the creation of the album. In this one, guitarist and composer Christos Antoniou presents the recording sessions with the Prague Philharmonic. You can see that after the jump.

And third, since the band have unified their two-word name, they need a new logo, don’t they? And after the jump you can see that, too, via a short animation

The album will be released this summer via Season of Mist for Europe and via Prosthetic Records for America. Continue reading »

PAPA EMERITUS II UNMASKED? (AND NEW IN-STUDIO GHOST PERFORMANCES)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Feb 122014
 

Part of the popular attraction of Sweden’s Ghost B.C. is their anonymity — and the masks, make-up, and costumes with which the members conceal their features. Fans and music writers have speculated about who the Nameless Ghouls and the band’s frontman really are, but no names have ever been officially revealed. Last September, the current frontman — Papa Emeritus II — appeared without make-up in a mini-documentary about the band. In the clip, he spoke Italian, and, having revealed his face,  it became clear that he had also appeared in Ghost’s official video for “Year Zero”. But he didn’t sing, and there was still some lingering doubt about whether we were seeing the real deal. Any doubts have now been erased. Or have they?

During their recent Australian tour, Ghost stopped by the studio of Music Feeds and played three songs live: “Ritual”, “Year Zero”, and their cover of Roky Erickson’s “If You Have Ghosts” (from their 2013 covers EP). Videos of the three song performances surfaced on YouTube yesterday, and Papa Emeritus II appears without make-up — and yes, it’s the same dude who is interviewed in that mini-documentary.

I still don’t know who the guy is, and his position in the band appears to have a shelf life — one day, there will be a Papa Emeritus III. But the dude can sing, and for all Ghost fans, the following videos will be fun to hear and see. I’ve collected them after the jump, followed by that documentary clip.  (via Blabbermouth).

But… it appears that even Papa’s face without the skull make-up is still… a mask. See for yourself. Clever Ghost trolling. Continue reading »

THIS SPLIT WILL RULE: FALLS OF RAUROS / PANOPTICON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 112014
 

2014 has barely begun and it has already delivered a slew of mouthwatering new releases. But few have caused your humble editor to salivate in anticipation quite like the forthcoming 12″ split by Maine’s Falls of Rauros and Kentucky’s Panopticon. Finally, it is has been sent to the pressing plant and is now ready for pre-order. I am here (having wiped the slobber from my face) to deliver many enticing details that were just disclosed this morning — including a nearly 17-minute trailer of music.

Detail No. 1:  That fantastic cover art you see above. Click the image to view a larger version.

Detail No. 2:  The Falls of Rauros side consists of two songs: “Unavailing” (11:53) and “The Purity of Isolation” (6:45). The Panopticon side consists of four songs: “Through Mountains I Wander This Evening” (4:33), Can You Loan Me A Raven?” (7:29), “Gods of Flame” (4:26), and “One Cold Night” (7:56). No need to get out your calculator — the split brings a total of more than 43 minutes of music. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the song titles, the music was inspired by the time that both bands spent in Norway.

Detail No. 3:  Bindrune Recordings, which is releasing the split, describes the Panopticon music (in part) as follows: “The mountains, landscapes, and memories of living and studying in Norway have crept into Austin/Panopticon’s ever evolving and vital sound to embody more of a stripped down and dark Norwegian BM influenced atmosphere for this release which harkens back to Panopticon’s more aggressive and raw S/T album…. The 4 songs on this split embrace the pure essence and influence of the 90′s Norwegian black metal movement in all of its driving, chilling and endlessly atmospheric grimness.” Continue reading »

MONDAY MASSACRE: WOCCON, BURIAL HORDES, MORBO, BENIGHTED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Feb 102014
 

Happy putrid Monday to one and all. I have a nice little slaughtering playlist for you. All the songs are new, all of them are from forthcoming albums, all of them are very good.

WOCCON

This first item is such a pleasant surprise. It comes from an Athens, Georgia, melodic death metal band named Woccon, whose 2013 release The Wither Fields I enjoyed immensely. Those of you who have dutifully waded through my ongoing list of 2013’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs” will remember their name, because I included a song from that album (“Our Ashes”) on the list near the end of January (here). Over the weekend I discovered, thanks to a post at DECIBEL’s site, that Woccon will have a debut album named Solace In Decay coming our way this spring.

DECIBEL premiered one of the new songs, a track entitled “Giving Up the Ghost”. It’s something of a departure from the sounds I remember from The Wither Fields — less overtly doom-oriented and more progressively inclined — yet still quite impressive. It begins with a cosmic introduction and ends with a piano melody, and in between you’ll find a contrasting blend of spiraling, reverberant guitar melodies and heavy, blasting thunder. The dark, melodic doom of the band’s previous work is not gone altogether, but the song is a spreading of wings by a group whose talents should take them far. Continue reading »

EMPEROR 2014

 Metal News  20 Responses »
Feb 092014
 

Emperor, who are reuniting to play at Wacken 2014, posted the above photo on their official Facebook page yesterday. I just saw it.

The photo was taken by Bjørn Tore Moen.  It was accompanied by these words:

“Emperor – In the Nightside Eclipse 2014.
Faust – Ihsahn – Samoth”

Let the rampant speculation begin. And if you happen to actually know what it means, please clue us in. And please don’t tell me that it’s just the 20th anniversary of the album and nothing more. That’s no fun.

SHADES OF BLACK: ENTARTUNG, NIGHTFELL, TORTORUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Feb 092014
 

I’ve collected in this post two new songs and one new album, all of which I discovered yesterday. As the post title suggests, two of the bands are solidly in the black metal camp and the third, sandwiched between them in this feature, is “blackened” — although their music is a striking amalgam of styles. All three are doing some very exciting things with their music.

ENTARTUNG

As is true of all three bands in this post, Germany’s Entartung ambushed me yesterday. Before then, I hadn’t heard of them. Their debut album Krypteia appeared in 2012 and their second, entitled Peccata Mortalia, is due for release by the World Terror Committee (W.T.C. Productions) on March 8. Two days ago DECIBEL premiered the album’s first advance track, “Blasphemaverit in Spiritum Sanctum”.

The strength of the song lies principally in the powerful tremolo-picked melodies that heave in the music like ocean swells, and in the shifts between the bleak, frigid atmospheres they create and the black, rocking rhythms and other transitions that segment this long song. It’s easy to become immersed in the wintry tale Entartung are spinning. Continue reading »

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