AN NCS INTERVIEW (Part 2) AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT: MIKE VAN MASTRIGT (AND NEOCAESAR)

 Interviews, Metal News  2 Responses »
Aug 082013
 

(Late last month we brought you Part 1 of KevinP’s interview with Mike van Mastrigt of Houwitser (ex- Sinister), and we promised you that Part 2 would include an announcement you wouldn’t want to miss. KevinP gets to it without delay as we present Part 2 below.)

K:  Okay, now onto the announcement you wanted to make. The floor is yours……

M:   I’m proud to announce that I’m working again with Bart van Wallenberg (Sinister guitarist/bass on Diabolical Summoning —> Creative Killings). We have a new band called NEOCAESAR.  When we started we had an idea of the music we wanted to write,  only this did not work out (it was not the quality we were used to).  So I told Bart just to come up with anything he feels fine with.  We started working with that new material and found ourselves back in our Hate time period.  We initially tried to work with international drummers, but we needed to spend time practicing.  So we decided we needed someone from Holland, which left us with only one option (and there are a lot of good Dutch drummers), Eric de Windt.  I worked with him before (and he was also the vocalist on Sinister’s Aggressive Measures album). When Eric said yes, I called Michel [Alderliefsten] (Houwitser guitarist) with the good news.  Michel will be our bass player.

 

K:  So Bart has been quiet since his departure with Sinister many years ago (and I simply loved his work on Diabolical Summoning & Hate).  How long has this been in the planning?

M:  A few years ago we talked about it, even had a Sinister reunion night. With Bart, Aad, Michel and myself. We came up with the idea to reform Sinister, only Aad could no longer play drums anymore. We talked about getting a different drummer, but at the time Bart had other things to worry about (and it wouldn’t be nice for Aad, as an original member of the band). Little did we know the “rat” would use Sinister for his own benefit.  So this has been in the planning for a while, but finalized just a few months ago. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BROKEN HOPE, EVOCATION, NEW DOMINION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 082013
 

You may have noticed that new music round-ups have been scarce this week. We’ve been going overboard on the reviews instead. However, I have been maintaining a constant vigil and collecting worthwhile new things as I’ve seen them. Only problem is that the list has grown so damned long, even after just a few days of watching and not writing, that the list has become unwieldy. So I’ve done some fairly random paring down and split this catch-up round-up into two parts, this being the first.

BROKEN HOPE

Do you sometimes wish that revered old bands who have fallen apart would just stay down, so you can be left with your fond memories instead of having them tarnished with a mediocre comeback? Unfortunately, it seems that comebacks tend to be mediocre a lot more often than awesome. But judging from the first new song in this round-up, that probably won’t be the case with Chicago’s Broken Hope.

They recorded five albums between 1991 and 1999 and then split up, but they’re coming back with a new album named Omen of Disease that’s due on October 20. The song that premiered yesterday is “Flesh Mechanic”. It’s a grisly riff monster, fresh guts dripping from its teeth, and trench-level roars bellowing from its throat. The solo in the song is white hot, and the whole thing is brimming with feral energy. If only all comebacks sounded this putrid. Continue reading »

SATYRICON: DETAILS REVEALED ABOUT THE BAND’S NEW SELF-TITLED ALBUM

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Aug 072013
 

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, much of the metal community seems to believe that if a band who’ve been around for a while decide to use their own name, and nothing more, as the title of an album, it better be a superior achievement, a defining moment for the band’s sound, a blockbuster. Norway’s Satyricon have now walked straight into the teeth of such expectations. Their new album will be named Satyricon, and it is now scheduled for release on September 17 via Nuclear Blast.

This will be the band’s eighth studio album, and given their influential history, expectations would be high even if it weren’t self-titled. But the band aren’t backing away from those expectations by one inch — they’re embracing them. Here’s what frontman Satyr is quoted as saying in a press release:

“We are back. Sorry it took so long, but we needed the time to be able pull off a record like this. Comparing this one to previous records is time wasted, it is SATYRICON; constantly on the move. Naming this record Satyricon was the most obvious thing in the world. We have never done a record which captures the spirit of this band in such a way. Ever. It will demand a lot from you as a listener, but I know you will love it. It will grow on you and that is why it will stay with you forever. We won’t tour as much in the future as we used to, and that will just make every tour more special. This album is for you and ourselves. It is our moment!” Continue reading »

STRANGE DAYS

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Aug 072013
 

Metal has a weird streak a mile wide. If you’re honest with yourself, that’ s a big reason you like it so much. But yesterday I saw a new level of oddity. It was a premiere of a new song by Dream Theater. That’s a band I’ve never gotten into, so the news about the premiere of a new Dream Theater song wouldn’t have made me pause — except for where it premiered. If you didn’t already see the news, I could give you 100 guesses, and I’d bet a stack of money the height of your colon, if unraveled and nailed to a telephone pole, that you couldn’t pick the right answer.

Don’t waste your time. I’m telling you, you’d lose, even if you guessed the Kazakhstan Death Metal Observer and Livestock Market Journal. “The Enemy Inside” premiered at USA Today.

That’s right, that full-color organ of shallow American journalism made for people who don’t like to read much, found in printed form in motel rooms and airplane seat-backs across the length and breadth of Our Great Land. This is the same underground publication whose last story about metal was a report about a Black Sabbath concert in Bristow, Virginia, that began with this lively prose:

“The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees (Class of 2006) took the stage here to flashing red lights and the sound of sirens, thundering drums and a devilish laugh — “Ha, ha, ha!” — emitted unmistakably by frontman Ozzy Osbourne.”

Ha, ha, ha! Yes, the kind of sound that only Ozzy Osborne could make unmistakably, that’s the sound I made when I thought about what this means. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLOOD AND THUNDER, TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE, ARCHSPIRE, BEYOND CREATION

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Aug 052013
 

Here’s my almost daily collection of news and new music that I’d like to recommend for your edification and enjoyment.

BLOOD AND THUNDER

The first item involves Blood and Thunder, a Seattle-area band who I’ve written about repeatedly, going all the way back to the first time I saw them perform live back in April 2010. They’re about to embark on their first Northwest regional tour. The sharp-eyed among you will see our name on the tour flyer at the top of this post, and yes indeed, we’re proud to help sponsor this adventure.

That’s not something we do very often, but I wanted to help spread the word in this instance not only because I like B&T’s music a lot, but also because I’ve gotten to know some of the guys in the band, and I’ve seen firsthand how hard (and how persistently) they’ve worked to get to this point. It has been a totally DIY effort, and it hasn’t been easy. But they now have quite a long and impressive list of national and international bands for whom they’ve opened in Seattle, in addition to their own headlining appearances, and it’s time for them to take their show on the road.  Continue reading »

GRAVE MIASMA, ALTARS, FACEBREAKER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 032013
 

To start the weekend, I’ve collected new death metal in this post that I strongly recommend, from three very good bands.

GRAVE MIASMA

This UK band made quite an impact with the two EPs they’ve released to date — 2009’s Exalted Emanation and 2010’s Realm of Evoked Doom — and now they’ve completed a debut album entitled Odori Sepulcrorum that’s due for release on September 13 (September 17 in NorthAm) by Profound Lore and the German label Sepulchral Voice. It was reportedly recorded on analog format using vintage equipment, and it features wonderful cover art (above), painted with acrylics on glass by Denis Forkas.

So far I’ve only heard one of the new tracks, “Ovation To A Thousand Lost Reveries”. It made me think of the song we streamed earlier this week from Ulcerate’s new album. It’s a roaring storm of ancient blackened death metal, the riffs moaning and grinding and oozing with putrescence. The drum tone is titanic, and the barbaric vocals echo like roars of the awakened dead across the vault of dank crypts.

Like Ulcerate, Grave Miasma prove that there is still fertile ground for creative growth in the graveyard of wholly dominating death metal. The song is wonderfully inventive while remaining rotten to the core. Stupendous stuff. Continue reading »

EMPEROR RE-UNITES FOR WACKEN 2014

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Aug 022013
 

Well, holy shit, this is some news.  This morning an Ihsahn meet-and-great at Wacken Open Air turned into an Emperor meet-and-greet. Wacken’s organizers converted the session into a press conference at which they announced that Emperor will be re-uniting to headline the 25th anniversary Wacken Open Air, which will be held from July 31-August 2, 2014 (at Wacken, Germany, of course.

According to this report, Ihsahn and Samoth were both present at the press conference and answered questions about the band’s reunion dates in 2014 as well as the possibilities of a new album (!!!).  I’m still hunting for details about what was said on those subjects, and I’ll update this when I learn more.

Emperor played played Wacken in 2006 and last performed together in 2007 at festivals in France and Finland. Their last album was Prometheus – The Discipline Of Fire And Demise, released in 2001. Continue reading »

DEATH METAL: WAR MASTER AND MORTHRA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Aug 022013
 

Yesterday was kind of a strange day here at the NCS metallic island. We put up a big stream of posts, but most of them were short-and-fast alerts about new tours or new songs, because your humble editor was preoccupied with the demands of his fucking day job and didn’t followed through on more time-consuming ideas that were originally slated for the day. Better luck today.

I’d like to begin whatever emerges at NCS on this Friday by flattening you with some metal of fucking death. I have two songs. I heard both of them yesterday when I came up for a gasp of air from the miasma of my paid work. If you like fucking death metal, I believe you will smile when you hear them (after you finish picking up your teeth).

WAR MASTER

War Master are a new discovery for me. They’re from my one-time hometown of Houston, Texas, and their last release was a 2011 debut album named Pyramid of the Necropolis. They’ve now recorded a new EP entitled Blood Dawn, which will be released on August 7.

Last month they began streaming an advance track on Bandcamp called “Bastard Horde”, which can be obtained right now for $1. It’s goddamn titanic — a blasting, grinding, heavy-as-hell battle-tank on a merciless old-school rampage in the vein of Bolt Thrower. The monstrous riffs and irresistible grooves in this baby will smash you into smithereens. I’m in love. Or at least in lust. Continue reading »

AND STILL MORE TOURISM: CARCASS TO PLAY SIX DATES IN NORTH AMERICA

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Aug 012013
 

This seems to be a day for tour announcements.  In addition to those we’ve already posted about, Carcass have now announced that they will be playing a select group of “intimate” shows in North America this September in support of their forthcoming album Surgical Steel. I like the tour’s name — Colonial Irrigation — though I wonder if maybe it should have been “Colonic Irrigation”. I also enjoyed bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker’s statement about the tour:

“Well we thought we’d play a few small key shows, kinda like the vibe we had in London earlier this year.  Maybe we’re being a bit optimistic thinking we can fill these venues? Well to make sure we do we’re bringing along some old friends & bands who will probably blow us away. We’re too much of a bunch of tight wads to throw a record release party so this is the closest you’ll get – come on down, and bring your receipt with the new album purchase and demand a refund!”

Those old friends he referred to? Macabre, Immolation, and Exhumed. Not too shabby.

There’s only one problem: Unless you live in the vicinity of Calgary, Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles, you’ll miss out on this deliciousness (that’s right, there is a Calgary date even though it’s not on the tour flyer above — it’s at the Noctis Festival, which has a stunning line-up). Maybe there will be a more widespread tour later on. Here are the tour’s confirmed dates: Continue reading »

MORE TOURISM: WATAIN, IN SOLITUDE, TRIBULATION TO TOUR NORTH AMERICA

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Aug 012013
 

I suppose this is mainly a rumor, since there hasn’t yet been an official announcement, but that flyer up there sure looks official.

[UPDATE: it’s official now. The full schedule can be found at the bottom of this post.]

Two venues have so far reported dates for THE WILD HUNT NORTH AMERICAN TOUR, headlined by Sweden’s Watain and named after their forthcoming album, and featuring two more excellent Swedish bands, In Solitude and Tribulation.

As you can see, one of those two venues is in Detroit, and the second date that has surfaced is in Denver on October 18 at The Marquis Theater.

This has awesome written all over it. When we get the full schedule, we’ll post about this again. Seattle better be on there or I’ll throw a temper tantrum.

[Read on to see the full schedule.] Continue reading »

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