HAPPY HANGOVER DAY (Part 2): FEN, TROLL BENDS FIR, AND TRIBULATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 012013
 

This post is the second part of a round-up in which I’ve collected items of interest I observed over the last few days. Part 1 is here.

FEN

Fen are a three-man UK band whose new album Dustwalker is set for release by the Code666 label on January 21, and today they debuted one of the new songs, “Consequence”. I’ll say up-front that apart from coming across an isolated song or two in the past, I’m largely unfamiliar with their previous works. But I’m mighty impressed with “Consequence”.

In this long song you’ll find a combination of sheer vocal ferocity and almost ethereal choral voices; jagged discordance and blasting coupled with majestic melodies and progressive instrumentals; gloom and doom paired with soaring atmospherics; a mix of the abrasive and the sublime. And there’s an awfully sweet bass line running through the song as well. Have a listen to this striking song right after the jump. Continue reading »

HAPPY HANGOVER DAY (Part 1): ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW, AMON AMARTH, KATAKLYSM, AND MUMAKIL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 012013
 

Your humble editor has been so busy over the last four days with year-end lists, Most Infectious Song posts, and non-blogging life events that I haven’t compiled a news/new-music round-up since last week. However, I was watching out for developments, and now I’m finally collecting those which seemed worthy of notice. I have enough items to vomit forth into your laps that I’ve divided them into two posts, this being the first.

ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW

It would be poor form to start the new year at NCS without some Finnish metal. As it happens, this first day of 2013 has delivered something new from Finland, and what it delivered also gives us a chance to start the new year by again confusing people. Sowing confusion makes life worth living.

The news is that Finland’s Eternal Tears of Sorrow have a new album entitled Saivon Lapsi that’s scheduled for release on February 22. It features album art (above) by Travis Smith. In addition to that news, the band also premiered today a music video for one of the new songs, “Swan Saivo”. The video is a beautifully made allegory with a visually arresting finish (and includes some great footage of the band headbanging). And I enjoyed the song, too . . . though its appearance at this site will indeed confuse some people. Continue reading »

YOUTUBE TAKES DOWN BILLIONS OF PHONY MUSIC VIDEO VIEWS

 Metal News  21 Responses »
Dec 282012
 

UPDATE: The following post as originally written was based upon reports from the two sources identified at the end of the post.  It now appears that one of those reports — which claimed that YouTube’s reduction in view counts was due to fraudulent count-inflating practices by record labels — was an exaggeration. While a portion of the view counts were indeed eliminated because they did not represent legitimate views, the vast majority were apparently removed for other reasons, at least according to this article, which was published after my original write-up:

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/what-really-happened-to-sony-and-universal-1008059892.story

********

Here’s an interesting piece of news: Within the last 30 days, YouTube has deleted more than 2 billion fake video views in the music channels of Universal, Sony, and RCA. And it didn’t stop there. At the same time, YouTube deleted preexisting views from more than 500 other prominent YouTube channels.

Google, which owns YouTube, has asserted that all of these companies and YouTube users violated its terms of service by artificially inflating their video views through the use of so-called “black hat” view-building services who use automated methods to create video views that in fact never existed.

Sony/BMG’s YouTube channel was hit the hardest with views dropping from a total of more than 850 million to just 2.3 million. RCA declined by 159 million views to a total of 120 million. Universal lost more than 1 billion views and now stands below 6 billion.

In addition, each of these labels’ YouTube archives have suddenly dried up. Universal’s channel now features only five videos, none of which are actual songs, and Sony’s page is currently empty.

Among individual musician channels, Britney Spears’ channel lost 462,567,893 views and Chris Brown’s lost 187,412,448.  LOL.

I checked YouTube statistics compiled by analysts at SocialBlade, to see if any YouTube channels for any metal artists had been subjected to this purge. Skimming their data, I found this: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: TAAKE, WORMROT AND A GOAT, YELLOWGOAT, and MOTH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Dec 272012
 

And here we go again . . . a round-up of things I saw and heard by sifting through the effluent of the internet and my e-mail in-box in search of shiny nuggets.

TAAKE

I learned this: It turns out that 2013 will mark the 20th anniversary of metal musicianship for Hoest, the main man behind Norwegian black metal veterans Taake. The fact that Hoest is still alive and making music of any kind is worth celebrating all by itself. The fact that Taake continue to deliver superb metal is icing on the birthday cake.

Here’s one of the things that’s being done to celebrate the anniversary: On March 1 in Norway and March 4 everywhere else, Dark Essence Records will be releasing a 20-song, 2-CD collection of Taake music entitled Gravkamre, Kroner og Troner (“Burial Chambers, Crowns and Thrones”). The contents are primarily rare and previously unreleased songs, as well as alternative versions and recordings that have previously been available only on vinyl — but the album will also include exclusive new tracks.

Today I saw that Taake have begun streaming one of the tracks from this anniversary album named “Et Pust av Oeyne”. It’s a riff-heavy mosh-trigger of a song, marked by Hoest’s scathing vocal attack and some old-school, hard-rocking rhythms. It also includes a dose of blasting and thrashing, as well as a lengthy, spiraling melodic breakdown.

I’m really digging the variations in the song and hope you will, too. Continue reading »

NEW PESTILENCE? YES, NEW PESTILENCE — “OBSIDEO” IS COMING

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Dec 272012
 

I can say two things about Pestilence with utter conviction. First, your education as a trve fan of extreme music is incomplete unless you have heard Consuming Impulse (1989) — or really, any one of their first three albums. And second, their most recent album Doctrine (2011) was extremely divisive. Many critics and fans slammed it hard, while others (including yours truly) enjoyed it, notwithstanding (and indeed partly because of) the forays into groove, the renewed adventuring in jazz fusion, and Patrick Mameli’s vocal acrobatics, which were more often elevated into a higher range than on previous releases.

In the wake of Doctrine, bass player extraordinaire Jeroen Paul Thesseling and drummer Yuma van Eekelen left the band to concentrate on other projects, and it was unclear what would happen to Pestilence next. We now have a much better idea. Shortly before Christmas, and without much fanfare, the album art you see above surfaced on Facebook. It’s for a new Pestilence album named Obsideo. It was created by Santiago Jaramillo of Triple Seis Design and it’s damned cool.

In addition, as previously announced by the band, the new album will feature Stephan Fimmer (Necrophagist) on bass and David Haley (Psycroptic) on drums, and the plan is for both of them to play with Pestilence at live shows as well as in the studio.

I don’t have a release date yet — in fact, I don’t think recording has begun, although the writing of the songs has been completed. However, I do have some comments by Patrick Mameli about the new album. Continue reading »

TOURISM: MARDUK, TODAY IS THE DAY, AND CRADLE OF FILTH

 Metal News  1 Response »
Dec 222012
 

Much earlier this month we reported the announcement of the VOICES FROM THE DARK tour of North America, co-headlined by Marduk (Sweden) and Moonspell (Portugal) and including the talents of Inquisition (U.S.), The Foreshadowing (Italy), and Death Wolf (Sweden) (which features members of Marduk). At the time of our earlier report, no dates had yet been announced. Now they have.

I’m gratified to see that it will be stopping in Seattle. I know this will make you happy, because I know you want me to be happy and I am indeed happy about this tour, especially because of the chance it will give me (finally) to see Marduk and Inquisition. Maybe you will be able to see this tour, too. But if not, I will still be happy, and therefore you will still be happy.

FEBRUARY

2/20 Springfield, VA @ Empire
2/21 Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance
2/22 Worcester, MA @ The Palladium
2/23 New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre
2/24 Montreal, QC @ Club Soda
2/25 Toronto, ON @ Wreck Room
2/26 Millvale, PA @ Mr. Small’s Theatre
2/27 Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s
2/28 Saint Paul, MN @ Station 4 Continue reading »

THE WORLD WILL NOT END, BECAUSE . . . DARKTHRONE, DEVOURMENT, AND LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 202012
 

Dozens of metal bands have been releasing new music this week as if the world were going to end tomorrow.

What’s that?  You say the world IS going to end tomorrow?  I think you’ve got your facts wrong.  Darkthrone, Devourment, and Lightning Swords of Death are planning to release new albums AFTER tomorrow, and if the world were going to end, surely they would know, because they’re all capable of bringing the world to a fitting end if they so desired. So I’m not buying it.

In addition to giving you some details about those forthcoming albums, I’ve collected in this post some new musical sounds from the last two of these bands. So, continue reading (and listening) as you breathe sighs of relief.

DARKTHRONE

As we previously reported, this iconic and musically ever-moving Norwegian duo have completed work on their new album The Underground Resistance, and it’s now set for release via Peaceville Records on February 25. This morning I was blessed to receive the eye-catching cover art for the album created by Jim Fitzpatrick, which you can gaze upon above. In addition, the press release I received provided this teaser of a description about the music: Continue reading »

WHAT LIES AHEAD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 162012
 

I thought I’d give you a preview of what’s coming at NCS in the weeks ahead.

LISTMANIA

This week we’re expecting two more year-end lists from what I’ve been calling “big platform” web sites — NPR and Pitchfork. And unless we see something else that’s unexpectedly interesting, those two will finish off our series on 2012 lists from other publications and web sites with big-scale audiences.

Beginning tomorrow, we’ll also start rolling out year-end lists from the NCS staff as well as guest writers. We’ve got 9 guest posts in hand and ready to go right now, and we’re expecting at least one or two more to come in. These lists reflect considerable diversity of tastes and should provide some new discoveries for everyone.

We also want to remind everyone about the Readers’ List resource. This is a post where we encouraged all of our readers to leave the names of their own favorite 2012 albums in the Comment section for others to see. There are a lot of great lists in the Comments to that post already, but we can use more. Go HERE to leave the names of your favorites and to see what other people are talking about. Continue reading »

ROUND-UP: TOURISM NEWS PLUS EVOKEN AND ENSHADOWED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 142012
 

Here are a few items I saw and heard over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing.

TOURISM NEWS

Featured above are flyers for two North American tours. In Flames headlines the one on the left (the “Another Year Another Tour”), with support from Demon Hunter, All Shall Perish, and Battlecross. A partial schedule surfaced previously, but yesterday I saw what appears to be the complete calendar for the tour. It begins on February 2 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and ends on March 7 in Norfolk, Virginia.

The closest it comes to the Pacific Northwest is Vancouver, so I doubt I’ll catch this one. Otherwise, I would go. I’ve seen the top three bands multiple times before, but would enjoy seeing them again, and I’d like to see Battlecross for the first time.

The tour on the right hasn’t been officially announced. I caught wind of it when I was updating the NCS “NW Metal Calendar” page and saw that this line-up is scheduled to perform in Seattle on March 12. And then I poked around and saw that other sites have reported other leaked dates, including the one in Atlanta that’s featured in the flyer above.

This line-up is bizarre. The only thing the bands have in common is they all use guitars, bass, drums, and a human voice. The leaked dates for this one plus the In Flames tour schedule are after the jump. Continue reading »

DIVERSITY: BRAND NEW SONGS FROM PORTAL, STARKILL, AND BLOODY HAMMERS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 132012
 

I’m feeling like a man of leisure today. Which is to say I got hammered last night at a 12-12-12 bash to celebrate my wife’s birthday and am taking the day off from work in order to have my blood processed through a machine that will remove all the toxins in the hope of being able to function at a level better than slime mold by tomorrow.

And, while waiting for my corpuscles to finish cycling through the tubes, I sifted through NCS e-mails and the tangled pathways of the interhole to find what new metal this day hath brought. And holy shit, it hath brought a bonanza. In this post I’m including three new songs that are stylistically quite different from each other, but I thought they were all really good. So here we go:

PORTAL

I’ve experienced mixed feelings of dread, horror, and glee at the thought of a new album from Australia’s Portal. As previously reported here, it’s called Vexovoid, and Profound Lore is threatening to release it on February 19. Today brought the first song premiere from the album. I wouldn’t have guessed that Pitchfork would be the vehicle for the unveiling. Yes, Pitchfork has a big audience, but if I were PL I’d be worried about the liability risk of so many non-metalheads experiencing irreversible psychic trauma.

The new song is named “Curtain”. It’s the third of the album’s seven tracks. It’s a sonic plague of threshing guitars, booming/blasting drums, bass-level hammer blows, and grotesquely distorted abyssal vox. It’s a moving stormfront of boiling black bestiality, heavy as hell and mercilessly destructive. I fuckin’ love it. Go HERE to listen, and then come back and let us know your reactions. Continue reading »

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