NEW TRIPTYKON ALBUM COMING IN 2014

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Oct 252013
 

This morning my comrade Andy Synn passed along a link to this press release from a few days ago. You can of course read it for yourselves, but here’s an executive summary, because we are your humble servants and you are our executives.

Triptykon, for those executives who have been living in caves since 2008, is the band formed by ex-Hellhammer/Celtic Frost singer, guitarist, and main songwriter Tom G Warrior, and its lineup also includes V Santura (Dark Fortress).  To date, they’ve released one album, 2010’s Eparistera Daimones. Today the band announced that a second album, entitled Melana Chasmata, will be released on April 14, 2014, in Europe and April 15 in North America, through a collaboration between the group’s own label, Prowling Death Records Ltd., and Century Media Records.

The album has been recorded “intermittently” since 2011, with engineering handled by V Santura. According to the press release, “The album’s title may be translated, approximately, as ‘black, deep depressions/valleys'”. And here’s a quote about the album from Tom G Warrior: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN, EXIVIOUS, HANGING GARDEN

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Oct 212013
 

From my morning listening to randomly selected cuts from new and forthcoming albums, I’ve collected this very diverse assortment that I think will be well worth your time. If you disagree, please tell me that you love them anyway in order to protect my tender psyche from emotional bruising.

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

The immediate attraction of this new band is its veteran line-up: Dave Ingram, former vocalist for Bolt Thrower, Benediction, and Downlord; guitarist Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Ribspreader, Putrevore, and many more), and bassist Dennis Blomberg (also in Paganizer and Ribspreader), along with session drummer Erik Bevenrud. They’ve recorded a self-titled debut album scheduled for a November 22 release by the German label Cyclone Empire. I’ve been making my way through the album in bits and pieces — which isn’t the ideal way to do it — but I’m very high on what these guys have accomplished. And now one of the songs has been made available for streaming.

“Draconian Rage” is a bulldozing blaze of punk-infused death metal with a curiously infectious little melody that rears its head through the buzzing guitars, punchy percussion, and bestial vocals just long enough to get its hooks in your head. Listen next. Continue reading »

EXTOL’S “BETRAYAL”: A NEW VIDEO, A NEW SHIRT, AND A CHANCE TO HELP HOMELESS KIDS IN KENYA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Oct 172013
 

Most metalheads I know are good-hearted people (maybe because I steer clear of the assholes). Most metalheads I know also live from paycheck to paycheck — if they’ve got a paycheck. So when someone asks metalheads to spend money on a charitable cause, there needs to be an extra incentive; worthy causes are almost endless, but disposable income is in short supply. Offering something tangible that people are going to be tempted to buy anyway — and then donating all the proceeds to a good cause — that’s the kind of idea that should succeed. And that’s what Norway’s Extol and their record label have just done.

I assume you know who Extol are — but if not, they’re a progressive death metal band who’ve made one of this year’s standout albums (self-titled, and glorified in this NCS review). What they and their label Facedown Records have done is to make a special shirt available for sale, with all profits donated to New Life Mission Aid for use in helping homeless children in Kenya. As the band’s Peter Espevoll explains in a video for this project, New Life Mission Aid is a Norwegian charitable organization dedicated to providing food, shelter, and education to homeless kids in Kenya.

The shirt, as you can see, is badass. The design was created by Dave Quiggle. It’s dedicated to the new album’s opening song “Betrayal”, which in itself was inspired by the plight of those homeless children. Continue reading »

HIGH ON FIRE: “SLAVE THE HIVE”

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Oct 152013
 

Scion A/V does it again. Today they’ve made available for free download a new single by High On Fire. Entitled “Slave the Hive”, it’s the first new HoF music since De Vermis Mysteriis (2012). The single will also be distributed as a limited edition 7″ vinyl on the band’s upcoming, Scion A/V-sponsored North American tour, which begins November 10 in Atlanta and finishes in Los Angeles on December 12. Kvelertak will be along for that ride, with Doomriders, Pack of Wolves, and Windhand each opening on segments of the tour. All the tour dates are at the end of this post.

“Slave the Hive” is a thrashy speed demon of a song, trailing smoke and leaving skid marks on the pavement — and it includes a howling guitar solo that will set your hair on fire. Matt Pike’s vocals are high-octane, too. Very fuckin’ good metal. Listen next, and go HERE to download it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE MELVINS, SANNHET, BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS, GIFT OF GODS, GOWL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News  8 Responses »
Oct 152013
 

I’ll be straight with you: I have about 500 new albums I want to review, a few hundred more I’d like to hear, a couple of interviews I said I would do, and instead I’m sitting here surfing the interhole, looking for new things, with so many tabs now open on my computer that it’s too bogged down to stream the music I’m looking for.  Time passes, and I fall farther and farther behind. But I might as well put up a batch things I’ve seen and heard today so I can close some of those tabs. Here you go:

THE MELVINS

I saw an interview, published today, that Buzz Osborne of the Melvins gave to Noisey. He talked about the new Melvins album, Tres Cabrones (three dumbasses), which features the band’s original drummer Mike Dillard returning for the first time since 1983 and the band’s long-time drummer Dale Crover moving over to bass. The interview also included a bunch of other subjects, including these (which made me chuckle):

So you’ve been around for a while, what’s the biggest change in the music industry that’s impacted you as a band?
Nothing’s changed, really. Honestly, I don’t think there’s really any golden era of music. I like about as much new music now as I ever did, which isn’t much.

…

You were talking about new music earlier. At Noisey, we’re constantly dominated by news of Drake and Miley Cyrus. Curious if you had opinions on either.
Well, I don’t know who Drake is, first off. Continue reading »

YIN AND YANG: KUOLEMANLAAKSO AND HEAVY HOEMPA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 152013
 


Musta aurinko nousee — cover art by Markus Räisänen

Yesterday I discovered some new music, quite a lot of it actually. I picked two of those new discoveries as a pair for this post, but not because they are anything alike. In fact, they could hardly be more different — and that’s why I’ve paired them together.

KUOLEMANLAAKSO

This band’s Finnish name means “Death’s Valley” or “Valley of Death”. It began as a one-man project of guitarist Markus Laakso (Chaosweaver). After recording a handful of demo tracks, he recruited a group of talented comrades to flesh out the band:  vocalist Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun, Barren Earth), guitarist Savon Surma (“Kouta”) (Chaosweaver, ex-Verjnuarmu), bassist Tuomo Räisänen (“Usva”) (Elenium, The Nibiruan), and drummer Toni Ronkainen (“Tiera”) (Discard, Cult of Endtime).

Together they recorded an album at Woodshed Studio in Germany with V. Santura of Triptykon and Dark Fortress fame, who also mixed and mastered the music. The album is named Uljas uusi maailma (“Brave New World”) and it was released by Svart Records in November 2012. It was very good.

In August of this year the band recorded a second album with V. Santura, this time convening in a cabin in the Finnish woods near the shores of a lake. This morning I spent time I didn’t have reading Markus Laakso’s day-by-day studio diary, because it was both interesting and entertaining (and mouth-watering — this group ate well while together in the woods). If you have the time, and even if you don’t, I recommend it. Continue reading »

LIVING SACRIFICE: “GHOST THIEF” IS COMING

 Metal News  16 Responses »
Oct 092013
 

I’m pretty sure that Living Sacrifice are one of those bands that all of us here at NCS agree upon, and so we were excited to learn today that LS have a new album scheduled for release by Solid State Records on November 11. Entitled Ghost Thief, it will include 10 songs, one of which will feature a guest appearance by Demon Hunter’s Ryan Clark and another of which will feature Dave Peters of Throwdown.

We loved the band’s 2010 comeback album The Infinite Order and we have high expectations for this new one. “Ghost Thief  is a reference to the personification of Death,” guitarist/vocalist Bruce Fitzhugh explained via a press release. “Depending on the circumstance, death can be greeted as an enemy or a friend. We have a few songs that deal with the suddenness and finality of death. ‘Ghost Thief’ and ‘Sudden’ both are inspired by people who died suddenly and unexpectedly. Friends of ours or family members that we were close to.”

There’s not much else to report at this point — other than to mention (as you knew we would) that the cover art is fantastic. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet identified the artist, but this post will be updated to include it once we find out.

UPDATE:  As some of us on the NCS staff had guessed, we can now confirm that the killer cover art was created by the renowned Travis Smith, who also created the cover for the band’s 2002 album, Conceived In Fire.

DEATH RITUALS: NEW MUSIC FROM ÆVANGELIST, NECROPHOBIC, CARA NEIR, AND VASTUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Oct 082013
 

Ævangelist album art by Andrzej Masianis

“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,” or so wrote William Congreve (not William Shakespeare) in his play The Mourning Bride (1697). This is in fact true of some music, but what charms your humble editor is music that’s savage rather than soothing. I have four recent examples of metal savagery for you, in the order in which I heard them this morning.

ÆVANGELIST

The new album by Ævangelist, Omen Ex Simulacra, will be released on November 29 by Debemur Morti. This is a later date than first reported. Based on the band’s previous output and the first two songs released for this album, it will be worth the wait. In July, we featured the first of those two advance tracks (“Abysscape”), and today Debemur Morti began streaming a second one — “Relinquished Destiny”.

This song takes no prisoners. It shoots the wounded in the head and then rips the corpses into small pieces before consuming them. It delivers an atmosphere of alien horror, and the corrosive distortion can’t disguise the experimental-sounding nature of the riffing and drum progressions, which make the song interesting as well as frightening. As icing on this maggot-ridden cake, death/doom descends at the finale. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ARTILLERY, THE OCEAN, “AUTUMN ANNIHILATION”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 082013
 

Here’s a collection of recent items that seemed worth sharing with our esteemed readers, as well as you.

ARTILLERY

I know we have thrash heads in the audience, and for you we present as a public service a new song from Denmark’s Artillery. For those of you born after 1982, Artillery have been recording music since before you were born. For those of you who don’t look both ways before crossing the street, they may still be recording music after you have left this veil of tears. Their seventh album, Legions, will be released by Metal Blade in the US on November 26, and on somewhat earlier dates elsewhere. It features a new vocalist, Michael Bastholm Dahl, and a new drummer, Josua Madsen, along with original guitarists Morten and Michael Stützer and longtime bassist Peter Thorslund.

Yesterday, an advance track was made available for streaming. The introduction to “Chill My Bones (Burn My Flesh)”, with its hand drums and exotic melody, is a surprise, and an immediate hook into the rest of the song. Thrash lives or dies by the power of the riff, and this song has got some good ones going on. I’m also told by a long-time fan of the band that the new vocalist is reminiscent of former vocalist Flemming Rönsdorf, last heard from on the band’s fourth album in 1999. Continue reading »

ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES: NOW OFFERING INDIVIDUAL SINGLES

 Metal News  1 Response »
Oct 072013
 

It goes without saying that you have good taste in metal, because you are visiting NCS. And because you have good taste in metal, you really need to read this.

Elemental Nightmares is a project dedicated to producing for discriminating consumers a series of 13 splits on 7″ vinyl (with accompanying digital downloads and with an option to buy only a digital download) featuring 26 up-and-coming bands from around the world. If you’ve been visiting us for very long, you will recognize many of the names who have contributed new songs to these splits — and we’ll list them for you at the end of this post.

The important news today is that Elemental Nightmares has decided to break apart 50 of the vinyl sets and offer single vinyl splits for sale beginning now.  In other words, there will be 50 copies of each split offered on an individual basis, without having to subscribe to the entire series. I still think signing up for the entire series is a wise move (I’ve done it myself), given the quality of the bands, but I understand that’s a significant investment, and I think this decision is a good one. Continue reading »

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