TOURISM: DYING FETUS, DEVOURMENT, EXHUMED AND ABIOTIC TOURING NORTH AMERICA THIS FALL!

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Jun 122013
 

UPDATE: This tour has now been confirmed. After the jump you’ll find the official flyer and all the dates.

I guess you could call this gun-jumping, since I’m posting it in advance of any official announcement. Not long ago I noticed a series of coincidences: Dying Fetus, Devourment, Exhumed, and Abiotic — four ass-kicking bands I follow on Facebook — all posted similar statuses.  For example, Dying Fetus posted: “major tour announcement 4pm EST today”.  And Abiotic posted: “Check back here at 4pm EST for a HUGE announcement! \m/”

Being the impatient sort, I googled those four bands’ names plus the word “tour”. And lo and behold, what I discovered were three widely separated venues in the US and Canada offering tickets for a show involving those four bands. Using the superior deductive skills for which I’m widely known, I deduced: NORTH AMERICAN SKULL-FUCKING TOUR!

Actually, I don’t know for sure that it will be called the SKULL FUCKING TOUR, but that really should be the name. Here are the dates and places I’ve found so far: Continue reading »

BLOODGUARD LIVE — MANCHESTER / BRADFORD / LONDON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 122013
 

(Andy Synn is doing a quick last-minute plug for three shows in England that begin tomorrow night and run through Saturday night, featuring his band Bloodguard. Book your flights without delay!)

So this may be a little last-minute, but honestly, I’ve been so busy booking these shows, getting the other bands sorted, practicing, promoting… I haven’t had much time to write for NCS at all, let alone use it as a platform to advertise the show!

Still, I’m taking the chance now, so open your eyes, and your minds, and check out the various bands we’ve got sharing the stage with us over the next couple of days.

If you’re really feeling generous, you should come on down, and drag your friends along too! The more support we get (and the more t-shirts we can sell) the better things will be!

After the jump, all the dates, and links to all the bands! Continue reading »

TOAD, THE GARDNERZ, AND FESTIVAL OF THE FUCK BANDS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 122013
 

I don’t know if you noticed, but we’ve been pretty light on content the last two days (not meaning to take anything away from Andy’s haiku reviews, but what’s lighter than haiku?). I had to be out of town for 2 days for my fucking day job, one of those deals where I was going from early ’til really late, with almost no time to check out what’s been happening in the world of metal or listen to music or write much. As a result, I find myself way behind, so far behind that trying to catch up seems unrealistic. Basically, I’m just a big behind.

But I’m not completely empty-handed this morning.  I did spot a few items on a quick survey of my e-mail and Facebook that I thought were worth sharing. Here they are. Things should be getting back to ab-normal around here today or tomorrow.

TOAD

TOAD are from Phoenix, Arizona. They aren’t actually named after toads. The name is an acronym for Take Over and Destroy. But I like the fact that they just go fuckin’ ugly with TOAD.

I got interested in the band about 10 days ago when I spotted the killer artwork you see above (by Sean Williams), which appears on their forthcoming EP Endless Night (click it to make it bigger). I waited for the release of some music, and yesterday I got some. I actually got an advance of the EP, which I haven’t heard yet (fucking day job), but the reason I’m including TOAD in this post is that Pitchfork premiered a song from the EP for everyone to hear. Continue reading »

NEVERENDING PLAYLIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 102013
 

Here’s an interesting discovery (via a Facebook post by a record label that I saw this morning). It’s a feature on StumbleUpon.com. I don’t know how long it’s been available because I don’t frequent StumbleUpon, so maybe this is really old news. It’s called “Neverending Playlist”. You type in the name of a band and it creates a playlist of songs by that band.

I typed in the name “Immortal”. I don’t know why, but that’s the first name that popped into my head. I got a playlist of 50 songs. The songs play automatically, from one to another, so you can start it going and then do something else. You can pause and skip songs, too, if you want.

It looks like all the songs are retrieved from YouTube, so StumbleUpon hasn’t compiled its own library of music. But there’s obviously a lot available on YouTube. For example, 50 songs by Immortal. It’s not really “neverending”, though. I was interested to see if StumbleUpon would make new Immortal music once it had exhausted Immortal’s entire existing discography and continue playing from now until the end of forever. Continue reading »

“BE READY FOR AN ASS WHOOPING, FLORIDA STYLE”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

You probably already have important plans for this Saturday night. Maybe you’re going to wash your cat in the kitchen sink using dishwashing soap. Maybe you’re planning to light bags of dogshit on fire in front of the door where your fuckwad of a neighbor lives. Perhaps you’re going to stand on a street corner and yell passages from The Iliad at passers-by on a bullhorn. But if you’re stuck at home with nothing to do but stare at the walls and regret your miserable existence, I’ve got an idea you might consider: Grab a brew, strip down to your underoos, and watch Obituary live in the comfort of your own squalor.

That’s right, Obituary is performing live tonight in Tampa, Florida, and they’re going to stream their entire concert, as it happens, in multi-cam HD quality over the interhole. The performance begins at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time and will feature sets of music from Slowly We Rot, Cause of Death, and The End Complete. It will cost you $4.99 US dollars to watch.

Also, the band has invited you to take a pic of yourself watching the show and they will put it on their web site, with the winner of the best pic to be rewarded with a “classic” Obituary t-shirt. I’m foreseeing a lot of ugly pics in this band’s future.

I’m going to have to miss this concert myself. I have bodies to bury that are starting to fill up my home with stink. But if not for that, I’d definitely be doing this. Because FUCKING DEATH METAL. Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER’S “EVERBLACK”: FULL-ALBUM STREAM (FOR 24 HOURS)

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

Saturday morning in Seattle. I’m up and moving around (slowly). Still need to finish that writing project for NCS I mentioned in the last post, but I thought I’d throw this out there in the meantime: Beginning about an hour ago (9 a.m. Eastern Time), Metal Blade began streaming The Black Dahlia Murder’s forthcoming album Everblack in its entirety. So you don’t have to take our word for it that the album is excellent.

But the album stream will only last for 24 hours, so if you’re curious about Everblack, don’t dawdle. Go HERE.

“POSTPARTUM”

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jun 072013
 

This is about yet another crowd-funding campaign. This one is very interesting on several levels. In a nutshell, the objective of this campaign at indiegogo is to finance a feature-length film named Postpartum. The director is Michael Panduro, who has a long list of noteworthy music videos to his credit, as well as commercials and short films. His music videos include “Ohrwurm” for Cephalic Carnage and “Tarnished Gluttony” for Job For a Cowboy. That “Tarnished Gluttony” video, which I wrote about at length here, is still etched in my mind, one of the best metal videos of 2012.

The fact that Michael Panduro is behind this project is one of three things that made this very interesting. The second, which I’ll come back to in a minute, is the subject matter of the movie. And the third is a perk being offered at indiegogo for contributions toward the making of the film. It’s a music compilation that has drawn support from a bunch of killer bands. The tracklist was just finalized today. It includes 21 songs, six of which have not previously been released, and more than 75 minutes of music. It will be made available as a digital download at the end of the campaign for a contribution of $15.

The bands who have contributed music to the comp include Cephalic Carnage, Job For A Cowboy, The Psyke Project, Retox, Saint Vitus, and ZEUS!. The previously unreleased tracks come from Bless Yr Heart, Fuck the Facts, Kount Rotttula, Medeia, Nasum, and Rwake. Here’s the entire, now-finalized tracklist: Continue reading »

DGR FAMILIARS: THE GRAVESTARTER COMMENCES, RAINBOWDRAGONEYES, MECHINA, AND TYRANT OF DEATH RELEASE DATES

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Jun 062013
 

(Here’s a newsy round-up by DGR.)

You may recognize a lot of these names because I have personally written about each group a ton of times here at NCS. Instead of infecting other news posts with my bullshit, though, I figured I’d do you guys a favor and lock them all up in one news post that I’d reserve for myself. That way if you have musical tastes similar to mine, then you can jump on this post and enjoy its spoils (with the exception of the Conducting Kickstarter, that’s almost charitable), and if anything in this post interests you but you haven’t heard the rest, maybe do yourself a favor and check out the other bands!

Now I know that some of you may be wondering why these groups have been popping up so much lately, and it’s because they’ve been releasing substantial updates at a pretty consistent clip and they’ve all been very busy. I’ve tried to archive a bunch of the news that may have been drip-fed into this big post as well, to really bring people up to speed.

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

You’ll remember that late last week we posted news about the plans of Sacramento, California’s Conducting From The Grave to launch a Kickstarter to help cover the physical/merchandising aspect of their new disc, with a goal set of $15,000 – which has been the common goal for bands that have been doing these as of late. The group had posted a video – the same one they would be using as an intro to the project – in order to get the word out as well as share a new song entitled, ‘Honor Guide Me!’. Consider this an additional update, as the group’s Kickstarter has finally launched and we can now see whether they were on the right track with this idea and what some of the rewards for ponying up “that cheddar” may be. Continue reading »

WOULD YOU BELIEVE A WINTERSUN-FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE-ARSIS-STARKILL TOUR? BELIEVE IT.

 Metal News  13 Responses »
Jun 042013
 

Well, North American Wintersun fans may have to wait until early 2014 for Time II, but we won’t have to wait that long to see the band in the flesh. Following up on a short run of 2012 dates in support of Time I, MetalSucks have just announced their sponsorship of a much more extensive Wintersun tour beginning this August. That alone would be hot news, but look who else will be along for that ride:

Fleshgod Apocalypse
Arsis
Starkill

Damn, this is going to be sweet. And maybe extra-sweet, because Wintersun are already hinting at surprises in their set list. Music from Time II maybe?

Check out the tour schedule next . . . . Continue reading »

GO WORSHIP “THE WORSHIP” BY TORTURE DIVISION

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 042013
 

Fuckin’ Torture Division have just released a new, free, three-song demo — The Worship — and it fuckin’ destroys, as pure Grade A undiluted death metal should.

For those who somehow remain ignorant about Torture Division, here’s a quick primer: The three members of the band – Lord K Philipson (guitar), Tobben Gustafsson (drums), and Jörgen Sandström (bass/vocals) — collectively have over 60 years of combined death metal experience, including membership in bands such as Grave, Entombed, Vicious Art, The Project Hate MCMXCIX, Vomitory, and God Among Insects.  In their words, “we know what we do, we love what we do and that we will keep on doing it until the end of days.”

They also have an unusual approach to recording and distributing their music. Their modus operandi is to release short demos and give them away for free. And today they made available The Worship as the latest installment in the series. It was again mixed and mastered by the masterful Dan Swanö, and is now available for download (along with a booklet) from his Unisound web site.

But first, you really need to read Torture Division’s introduction to The Worship, which is funny as shit. Plus, if you love what Torture Division are doing and how they’re doing it, as I do, then you need to throw them a donation to help finance the continuation of this fine demolition project. And to do both of those things, go HERE. Continue reading »

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