NO PEACE: LISTEN TO ALL OF “TETRAGRAMMATON” BY THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

 Metal News  6 Responses »
May 022013
 

There is really no need for you to listen to Tetragrammaton before acquiring it. After all, we have been singing its praises for months, culminating in the full-fledged worship ceremony (also known as a “review“) presided over by the Rev. Andy Synn, and what right-thinking metalheads would require anything more than our word before spending their money? Speaking of which, we will be passing the alms plate at the end of this post, so please donate handsomely. Thank you.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, your not needing anything but our word to pick up Tetragrammaton. Well, in every flock there are wayward sheep who just will not do what they are told by their shepherd and insist on learning for themselves where the green pastures lie. For the wayward among you, therefore, we provide this link to Metal Sucks, where you may hear the entirety of Tetragrammaton in all its bombastic glory.

Here endeth the lesson. Please remember to leave your donation after the jump. Go in . . . NO PEACE!

Continue reading »

A MORNING ROUND-UP: SYNAPSES, BÖLZER, MUMAKIL, AND DEAFHEAVEN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 022013
 

Here are some things I heard yesterday that grabbed me. I’m starting with two bands who were new to me and finishing with two of whom I was already a fan.

SYNAPSES

Yesterday we posted Andy Synn’s engaging and informative interview with Alan Cassidy, The Black Dahlia Murder’s talented new drummer and formerly the hitter for Abigail Williams. If you haven’t read that yet, you should. At the end of the interview, Andy asked him for musical recommendations, and Alan made a pitch for an Italian band named Synapses. The name was new to me so I investigated.

It turns out that Synapses are a relatively new band whose debut album Expiation was released by Deepsend Records in February 2012, and they’re currently at work on a follow-up. Some tracks from the album are on YouTube and I listened to one called “Assault of the Weak”.

I can understand why Alan Cassidy thinks these dudes are awesome. It’s because they are indeed awesome, and a big reason why is drummer Riccardo “Cannibale” Fanara. “Assault of the Weak” is a fairly brutal form of highly percussive, fleet-fingered death metal with rapid-fire guitar and bass riffing and roaring vox. But as balls-out blazing as the hi-tech music is, it incorporates some mighty grooves and some inventive (and acrobatic) drumming. I’m particularly digging the snare hits, which come in unexpected places and punctuate the blasting in creative ways. Continue reading »

SHARPEN YOUR BLADES: A NEW WATAIN ALBUM IS COMING IN AUGUST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 302013
 

The Wild Hunt is coming.

We learned in January that Sweden’s Watain had begun recording a new album, the follow-up to 2010’s Lawless Darkness. Today the band announced that the album is finished and will be released on August 19 in Europe and August 20 in the US via Century Media Records. The title is The Wild Hunt. I don’t have anything else to say, except to note that I’m excited about the news. So, here’s the posting that appeared on Watain’s Facebook page about an hour ago:

After 120 nights of iron will and ardent magic, the fifth fullength album of Watain is now complete. With broken bones and burning hearts we have ploughed our way through deepest winter into a new wilderness, to which we will open the gates at summers end. THE WILD HUNT will be released on August 19th in Europe and August 20th in USA. Beware!

Might as well use this as an excuse to post some Watain music, so have at it following the jump . . . Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEATH ENGINE, REVELATION’S HAMMER, FREYA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 292013
 

Sometimes it happens like this. It’s a goddamn Monday morning and I wake up at an hour fit for nocturnal predators but not for human beings. I brew the coffee and start chugging it like a Bolt Thrower riff. I check the NCS e-mail to see what came in overnight and the first three things I see kick my ass so hard that the coffee becomes superfluous. And I start writing . . .

DEATH ENGINE

Death Engine are from Lorient, France. They’ve recorded a debut EP named Amen, which will be released in a limited run of CDs in May and on 10″ vinyl in mid-June by Throatruiner Records, North Cult Records, and Basement Apes Industries. More info about that can be found via the links below; perhaps one day it will become available digitally as well.

A song from the EP has begun streaming. Its name is “Gun”. It has made me re-think my support for gun control. It punches holes through concrete. It spews acid. It swarms. It rumbles. It rolls. It pulsates. It bends genres, harnessing elements of hardcore, black metal, crust, and noize. It includes a fucking killer drumbeat. I like it.

After the jump I’ve installed the EP’s cover (by Hugues Pzzl), some links, and “Gun”. Continue reading »

CLEAN AND UNCLEAN: THE GREAT OLD ONES, ANTTI RAILIO, AND SHADE EMPIRE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 272013
 

I had already put together one daily round-up of new metal for this Saturday (here), but since doing that I found more items I want to share, because sharing is caring (I spit up in my mouth as I wrote that, so it didn’t turn out as funny as I’d hoped). Part of what’s in here involves clean singing; and no, we aren’t entirely bigoted on the subject despite the site’s name. However, I’m sandwiching the clean in between slices of the unclean, just so no one gets the idea that the exceptions have become the rule around here.

THE GREAT OLD ONES

The Great Old Ones are a French black metal band who released their debut album Al Azif last year via Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of that album, The Great Old Ones decided to record a cover of a Björk song. Probably wouldn’t have been my pick for a celebratory commemorative, but what the fuck, I decided to check it out — and it’s outstanding.

The band have preserved the song’s melancholy melody through a mix of vibrating tremolo chords and intensified its emotional power and dramatic punch with wrenching black metal vocals, heavy bass, and well-timed drum blasting. In retrospect, I can see how the song’s lyrics would lend themselves to a black metal cover: “I’m a fountain of blood . . . I’m a path of cinders burning under your feet . . . You’re the intruder hand / I’m the branch that you break.” Continue reading »

DE-TOURISM: HYPOCRISY AND ABORTED DROP OFF NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

May 14 was a day I was really looking forward to. That was the day that the “End of Disclosure” North American Tour featuring Hypocrisy, Krisiun, Aborted,  and Arsis was supposed to roll into Seattle and flatten it like a pancake. That line-up was so damned fine it was almost too good to be true. Turns out it was too good to be true. I received this press release from Nuclear Blast about half an hour ago:

Swedish death metal legends HYPOCRISY, have been forced to sit out their upcoming North American tour this May due to reasons beyond their control. The band members had received their visa approvals and everything was going as scheduled, until the embassy let them know that the earliest they could pick up their visas, get them stamped and so on, wasn’t until late June at the earliest. A regular procedure that would normally take just a few days to sort, takes much longer at the moment due to that current workload Homeland Security is experiencing.

“As we were getting ready to go get our visas stamped and ready for the tour we were informed that the earliest we could go initially was sometime in July,” explains guitarist/vocalist Peter Tägtgren. “We then immediately continued to call them, got the label to help with some letters, and put our lawyer to work etc. The best that got us was an appointment in late June. This is a HUGE blow to us, to our fans and everyone who has supported HYPOCRISY in North America. Sometimes there are battles you can’t win, and this is one of them. We will be back, I can promise that!”

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SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2013 SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

When last we mentioned this year’s edition of the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour, we had the final line-up of bands but no dates or locations other than L.A. and NYC. Today, the initial schedule was announced, although more dates will be added. As a reminder, here’s the diverse group of bands who will be appearing on the tour:

The Dillinger Escape Plan
Animals As Leaders
Periphery
Norma Jean
Cattle Decapitation
The Ocean
Revocation
Aeon
Rings of Saturn
Thy Art Is Murder

VIP tickets will go on sale April 29 at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) and general admission tix will go on sale May 2 at the same time. For more details, go to this location. Now, here’s the schedule as it current stands: Continue reading »

HAILS ON RAILS!

 Metal News  21 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

Progress marches on! First, there were the land-based, fixed-location metal festivals. Then there were the transient, ocean-going metal festivals. What’s the next logical step in the evolution of metal festivaldom? That’s right! The transient land-based metal festival! The metal festival on wheels! HAILS ON RAILS!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, about two weeks ago HAILS ON RAILS set up a web site and made its appearance on Facebook, billed as “The World’s Biggest Rolling Metal Festival” — “3 Days, 7 Cities, 10 Bands, 400 Fans, 1 FREIGHT OF HATE.” This movable feast of metal goodness is supposed to start rolling across North America in the Spring of 2014, with band announcements to come . . . someday.

There aren’t any other details to share with you at this point, because HAILS ON RAILS hasn’t provided any other details, like where the trip starts and ends and how the hell you get back to where you started. However, this won’t stop us from filling in the information gaps with our own rank speculation. Half the fun of being “slow-rolled” on these marketing “roll outs” is guessing what’s coming, am I right? So, here we go. Continue reading »

MUMAKIL TEASES “FLIES WILL STARVE”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 252013
 

Here’s a bit of welcome news that snuck up on me: Mumakil have a new album coming out on June 25 in North America (and on slightly earlier dates in Europe). The name is Flies Will Starve, and the enticing album art by Remy Cuveillier of Headsplit Design is above.

This is the band’s third album and the first in four years. Relapse Records has set up a “landing page” for pre-orders (here), and it includes a trailer for the album. I also found a Bandcamp page that Relapse set up for Mumakil that includes a digital pre-order option for Flies. It also includes the three songs that Mumakil recorded for their 2012 split with Blockheads. So I thought I’d put the new album trailer in here, plus the Bandcamp player for those three songs for the split, to assist those who are unfamiliar with Mumakil in becoming more familiar with them, and to help relieve sinus blockage.

If you think you might be interested in a howling hurricane of low-tuned, technically proficient, death-infused grind, or you’d simply like to wake yourself the fuck up, then check out the streams after the jump. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS

 Metal News  11 Responses »
Apr 232013
 

Within the last few days (and mostly today), seven albums I’m very high on (and have written about here) have begun streaming in full on various web sites. They shouldn’t be missed — it’s a great chance to check out the music before deciding whether to plunk down money for them.

Each of the sites where these streams are now available includes info on how to order or pre-order the albums, so I’m not going to take time to repeat that info here. I’m also not going to take the time to write about the music (though we do plan to review some of these albums) because . . . you can hear them right now! The relevant links are below, in alphabetical order.

ALTAR OF PLAGUES: TEETHED GLORY AND INJURY

http://pitchfork.com/advance/81-teethed-glory-and-injury/ Continue reading »

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