OBSERVATIONS: PAGANFEST 2013 DATES, DETAILS ABOUT THE NEW AMORPHIS ALBUM, AND A FRESH NEW BLOODSHEDD SONG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 242013
 

I thought I’d provide a quick update of things I noticed while web-surfing and reading e-mails this afternoon. As always, I’m sharing mainly what interests me, while hoping it interests you as well.

PAGANFEST IV

We first reported about this tour on December 2 when its existence became public but before any schedule had been announced. Today, all the dates and places were finally announced. And as a reminder about why this matters, the tour features Finland’s Ensiferum as the headliner, as well as Tyr (Faroe Islands), Heidevolk (The Netherlands), Trollfest (Norway), and Helsott (Los Angeles). Plenty of ass should be kicked by these pagan brethren.

The schedule consists of 21 shows, launching in Denver on March 30 and concluding in New York City on April 21, and it includes Canadian dates, too. Here’s the complete schedule: Continue reading »

WITNESSED: FINNTROLL, NECROWRETCH, AND SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 232013
 

Between last night and this morning, I finally found a little time to resume my usual spelunking through the interhole in search of metal nuggets of interest worth sharing. And here are a few of the items I found.

FINNTROLL

I found that Finland’s Finntroll have been rolling out versions of the cover art for their forthcoming, as-yet-untitled 2013 album. The artist is Samuli “Skrymer” Ponsimaa (whose FB page is here). They began with a pencil sketch of the cover and today they added the fully inked version that you see above. Presumably, we will eventually get the color version (the images are appearing on Finntroll’s FB page). Fuckin’ cool, no? To see a larger version of the art, click the image above.

NECROWRETCH

I first discovered (and wrote about) this French duo  a year ago when I saw they had been based solely on two demos (in 2009 and 2010) and a four-song EP in 2011 — Putrefactive Infestation, which I reviewed in that first post. Later, I also reviewed a two-song 7″ named Now You’re In Hell. I’ve been looking forward to their debut album, Putrid Death Sorcery, scheduled for release in North America on February 5 (order here). I previously featured the eye-catching album art by Montenegran artist Milovan Novakovic (which you can see again next). Continue reading »

TOURISM: CANNIBAL CORPSE, NAPALM DEATH, AND IMMOLATION

 Metal News  15 Responses »
Jan 232013
 

I think this qualifies as a HOLY FUCKING SHIT moment, and if you disagree then your mouth must be much better behaved than mine.

Word leaked last week about this tour, but yesterday it was confirmed, and dates were disclosed. The second annual DECIBEL MAGAZINE TOUR will include Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, and Immolation. In other words, genuine death metal and grind royalty from both sides of the Atlantic.

Other face-ripping bands will join the sonic evisceration party on selected dates: Beyond Creation, Cretin, and Magrudergrind.

I have to say that DECIBEL is not fucking around, any more than they did last year for the Euro-centric inaugural edition of this tour (which featured Behemoth, Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude). It’s refreshing to see a tour packaged without any effort to pander in any way to the tastes of people who don’t want to get their fuckin’ teeth kicked in. Continue reading »

CALL OF THE VOID AND A RELAPSE SAMPLER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 202013
 

I previously mentioned that because I’ve been squeezed in a work-related vice all week, I’ve fallen way behind in reading NCS e-mails. I’m still way behind, but I did stop to explore one from a few days ago because of the strikingly ghastly artwork you see above, which is by Anthony Lucero.

It’s the cover for Dragged Down A Dead End Path, the debut album from a Colorado band named Call of the Void that’s scheduled for release by Relapse Records on March 19 in North America and earlier in Europe. Having been struck by the artwork I wanted to hear music, and a song from the album happens to be included in a free Relapse sampler on Bandcamp.

The sampler seems to have been released in October, but I missed it. Maybe you did, too, so more about that after the jump. But first, here’s why I’m spending NCS space on Call of the Void.

The one song that’s streaming from the new album so far is “Failure”. As soon as it starts, the music feels as if the band have dropped a crushing weight right on top of your head — slow, massive, sludgy chords mix with the shriek of feedback and a battery of battering from the kit. That turns out to be just a prelude to a faster frontal assault. Continue reading »

WITNESSED: SYNESIS ABSORPTION, A NEW SOILWORK SONG, AND MY DICK

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 182013
 

Wouldn’t you know it. After whining in the last post about how little blog/metal time my fucking day job has left me this week, I got enough of a break to make a quick sweep through the interhole in search of new things, and to write this little round-up about what I found.

SYNESIS ABSORPTION AND ELIRAN KANTOR

My roving eye came to a fast stop as soon as I saw the artwork featured above. It’s a painting by the great Eliran Kantor for a self-titled debut album by Synesis Absorption, which will be released sometime this year.

I’d never heard of this oddly named band, but man, check out the line-up: Steve Di Giorgio (ex-Death, Sadus) on bass; Mike Smith (Suffocation) on drums; Robbert Kok (Disavowed) providing vocals; and Miloš Batoćanin (Disdained) weaving guitar magic. After seeing the art and this line-up, I went in search of music — and I found some. Continue reading »

GRAVEYARD RETURNS

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 172013
 

About a year ago I came across a Spanish death metal band named Graveyard via their just-released EP, The Altar of Sculpted Skulls. One of the initial attractions was the eye-catching, dread-inspiring, black-and-white artwork by Matt ‘Putrid’ Carr (Autopsy, Impetigo, Coffins, Hooded Menace, etc). The EP turned out to be just as spine-cracking, skull-bleaching, and deliciously morbid as the artwork (the review is here).

I am so happy to report that Matt Carr and Graveyard are back. Today the band announced that their new full-length album (their second) will be released on March 8 via War-Anthem Records. Its title is The Sea Grave, and Matt Carr has again created a great cover, with a Lovecraftian theme. Cthulhu! Tentacles!

Graveyard also released an edited version of a brand new track for streaming. The song is “The Visitations of the Great Old Ones”, and I’m really digging it. It alternately romps, stomps, and crawls, and it’s thoroughly saturated with the black ichor of occult horror. Have a listen after the jump. Continue reading »

VOTE FOR BLOODGUARD DAMMIT!

 Metal News  15 Responses »
Jan 162013
 

The next edition of the fantabulous Bloodstock Open Air festival will take place on August 8-11, 2013, at Catton Park in Derbyshire, UK. Bloodstock is running a Metal 2 the Masses competition for unsigned bands, with the winner being selected to play the New Blood stage at the festival. The competition is open to bands from all over the world, though to enter you have to upload a film of your band playing an original song live. The winner will be decided by fan votes.

As you should know by now, NCS writer Andy Synn is the frontman for a UK metal band named Bloodguard — and Bloodguard has entered the Metal 2 the Masses competition. And they need your damned votes to win this thing and get the chance to play live at the Bloodstock festival!

To enter the competition, Andy and his comrades have uploaded a live video of themselves performing the original Bloodguard song “Singularity” live at the Vic Inn — and you can watch it at the end of this post, or at the Metal 2 the Masses site. Continue reading »

LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, PORTAL, INTER ARMA, AND BLACK AWAKENING

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 142013
 

As previously disclosed, my head and my free time are being squeezed down to the thinness of a pancake by my fucking day job this week. But to maintain my own sanity, I did take a quick break today to glance around the interhole in search of filth. I found some, and voila!

LECHEROUS NOCTURNE

Man, talk about delayed gratification. It was January 2012 when I reported that this killer South Carolina band had completed their third album, Behold Almighty Doctrine, and that it would be released later in the year by Unique Leader Records. I even brandished the same delicious album cover that you see up above.

I’m not sure what happened, but 2012 came and went, and the new album never appeared. However, I now see that it will finally be released on March 19. And yesterday the band debuted a song called “Those Having Been Hidden Away”. I like it and will play it for you right after the jump. It’s the sound of a furious tech-death demolition project joined in progress, with a cool bounding bass line and a load of slashing riffs and brutalizing percussion. Continue reading »

NEWSNEWSNEWS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 142013
 

(Here’s a newsy post from DGR.)

Normally Islander is like a sponge when it comes to a lot of the news that is happening around the web; however, like a lot of us he has a job outside of the website (some of you may have already met him!) so some stuff may have flown by him that happened throughout the week. Well not anymore, as I present a round up of stuff that caught my eye that unfortunately never got yacked about here on NCS.

We’re running through a glut of all sorts of things this week from music videos, lyric videos, free tuneage (almost typed this as free tuna! – didn’t want to overpromise to you folks, we’re not that rich…yet), to album announcements, to a limited-time charity deal if you like electronica-rock, to the ever-lovely melodrama of a band as members leave and use the loveliness of Facebook to get those last few barbs in. Have your coffees at the ready to slam into your face as we work our way through the stuff we missed that might be of interest to you.

Aborted

Aborted (above) rang in 2012 pretty early with the release of Global Flatline and that disc quickly became a favorite around NCS. It appeared on a couple of our lists and really reminded people why we all thought Aborted were a great band. Late last week the group released a lyric video for the song “Vermincular, Obscene, and Obese” that animates their cover art for Global Flatline in the background so you can actually see what the heck Sven is saying when he growls out the closing lines of each sentence. Continue reading »

TOSHIHIRO EGAWA DOES BABYMETAL

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jan 132013
 

I sure as fuck didn’t see this coming. But thanks to Phro, I see it now, and so do you. And it turns out to be a nice coincidence, as I’ll explain.

In a nutshell, metal album artist Toshihiro Egawa has created t-shirt artwork for the Japanese Kawai Metal band BabyMetal. It is Phro, of course, who has periodically reminded NCS readers about the existence of BabyMetal ever since we first learned about them in October 2011. For those not in the know, BabyMetal are three cute girls (no pedo!) who play a perversely catchy mash-up of J-Pop/Idol music and metal. Over time, they seem to have been getting darker in their imagery and their outfits. But getting Toshihiro Egawa to create a shirt design is like a really giant leap forward into a death metal abyss.

Egawa is a 40-year old artist from Osaka who has become one of the world’s best known creators of album art and shirt designs for the more brutal end of the death metal and slam spectrum. To see just a partial list of bands for whom he has created artwork, go here. In fact (and here’s that coincidence), he created the thoroughly disgusting, gore-drenched cover for the forthcoming album by Devourment that’s the subject matter of a new lyric video which we featured in a post earlier today.

From Devourment to BabyMetal is what I’d call a very sharp turn on a very slick road. Continue reading »

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