SEEN AND HEARD: HIVESMASHER, SUN DRIED INTESTINES, WINTERFYLLETH, BOBÓK, AND MORE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 052012
 

This is a collection of nuggets that I sifted from the ever-flowing stream of the internet yesterday. I’m going to start with some head-smashing new music and end with some head-warping music. With any luck, by the time we’re finished, you’ll have lost your head altogether.

HIVESMASHER

I like this band’s name. Any band with “smasher” in their name is already past second base and headed for third. “Hivesmasher” also reminds me of the time when my brother and I thought it would be a good idea to smash a hive of wasps after we thought they were all dead, because we had burned their nest first. We were young and stupid, and very soon we were also in agony.

Hivesmasher, the band, is also about as pissed off and poisonous as that nest of undead wasps. They’re from Massachusetts and they have a debut album named Gutter Choir that’s due on October 23 on the Black Market Activities label. Yesterday I heard two tracks from the album. Lambgoat premiered one of them — “En Route To Meat Land” — which I think is what those wasps were singing when they delivered some hellfire retribution to my brother and me.

It reminds me of Pig Destroyer. It’s berserk, but really skillfully played. You should definitely go HERE to check it out. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HELLWELL, SHINING, AND VHÖL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 032012
 

Here’s another daily round-up of metal things I saw and heard this morning that I thought were worth sharing. Fair warning: there is clean singing in the first two items, but it’s counter-balanced by harsh vocals and an overlay of darkness.

HELLWELL

I came to metal relatively late in life. I’ve devoted a lot of effort catching up on what I missed in the decades preceding my initiation. One of the bands I missed was Wichita-based Manila Road, though judging from the enthusiasm that greeted our report about the band’s scheduled appearance at MARYLAND DEATHFEST 2013, it seems many of our readers are quite familiar with them.

This item, however, is not about Manila Road. It’s about a side project created by Manila Road’s Mark “The Shark” Shelton. The band is called Hellwell, the album is named Beyond the Boundaries of Sin, and it will be released this month by High Roller Records and Shadow Kingdom Records — though it’s already up on Bandcamp. Shelton describes it as “like Manilla Road’s evil twin”, with a sound that resembles “a cross between Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, early Metallica and Manilla Road.”

The band is named after Ernest “Ernie” Cunningham Hellwell, who Shelton says is a writer of horror-themed fiction and plays keyboards, synthesizers, and bass on Hellwell’s debut album. I am somewhat skeptical about whether Hellwell is a real person as opposed to the alter ego of someone else, because I can find nothing about him in my net sleuthing, either as a writer or as a musician.

In any event, I was attracted to the music by the awesome cover art (above) by Alexander von Wieding, and this morning I listened to about half of the album on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BROOD OF HATRED, PLANKS, A TRIBE CALLED RED, AND ALLEGAEON

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 022012
 

It may be Labor Day Weekend here in the U.S., and although it’s fair to say that I’m fucking off even more than usual with a 3-day weekend to enjoy, I’m also still prowling the interhole in search of new metal experiences worth sharing with our beloved readers, without whom I would just be talking to myself like the average homeless person. And man oh man, did I find some intriguing items yesterday.

I knew only one of these bands before seeing and hearing what I saw — Allegaeon. But we’ve slobbered over them a lot at NCS already, and they’re getting buckets of slobber from fans and critics already, so despite the fact that their new video is indeed awesome, I’m putting them last today. In front of them come three more obscure collectives that deserve the front end of the spotlight.

BROOD OF HATRED

I’m pretty sure that the first and last time I wrote about a metal band from Tunisia was in July 2010, when the subject was a band named Barzakh, in a series on Metal From North Africa. Yesterday I found another Tunisian band named Brood of Hatred, thanks to the wonderful Middle Eastern-based metal blog, Metality. This past March, Brood of Hatred released their debut EP, New Order of Intelligence, which is available for free download on Bandcamp (here). But though I’m now interested in hearing that, what I heard (and saw) yesterday that grabbed my attention was something even more recent.

It’s a brand new video for a new single called “Cacophony In Creation” that will appear on the band’s debut album, Skinless Agony. The song is excellent, both very well written and very well performed.  Continue reading »

ANAAL NATHRAKH: TITLE, RELEASE DATE, AND ALBUM ART FOR “VANITAS” SURFACE

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Sep 012012
 

Well, well, look at what popped up on Anaal Nathrakh’s Facebook page (here) a couple of hours ago. Though there hasn’t yet been any official press about it, I believe this confirms that the name of their next album is Vanitas and that it will be released on October 15 by Candlelight Records. And lookie what else I found — a page where the album appears to be available for pre-order (here) that includes a small image of the album cover:

You may think that “vanitas” means “vanity”, and so it does, but it also means “emptiness” and has connotations about “the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits”. “Vanitas” was also the name given to a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century, usually containing “collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures”.

This album has been finished since March of this year. Here’s what AN’s Dave Hunt said about it in an interview about three days after it was completed: Continue reading »

PSYCHOFAGIST: “9 PSALMS OF AN ANTIMUSIC TO COME”

 Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Sep 012012
 

In February 2010, when NCS was only three months old, I stumbled across a mind-bending Italian band named Psychofagist and enthusiastically reviewed their second album, II secondo tragico, which had been released in November 2009 by an online record label named Subordinate Recordings. To quote myself (always an enjoyable activity):

“This noise howls and shrieks, stops and turns in sharp angles, screams in the piercing wail of a saxophone being tortured within an inch of its life, and then breaks down into a gloomy, meandering trek through a surreal landscape. . . . The drums and the bass careen unpredictably from wall to wall with power – you feel like ducking lest your head come off. The guitars scream furiously or shudder in desperation or mutter like the muted ravings of the insane. No consistent rhythms here. No headbanging riffage to be found. Just a pummeling but erratic sonic assault that keeps you constantly off-balance. . . . Oh, and did I mention the banjo on ‘Defragmentation Rotunda’? And there’s a flute in the mix somewhere too.”

The music was dramatically variable, dynamically unhinged, and like nothing else I had heard before. But despite how amazing I thought the album was, I lost track of Psychofagist until TheMadIsraeli sent me an e-mail today recommending a Psychofagist song called “Apophtegma Non-Sense”. It turns out that song is one of five that Psychofagist contributed to a January 2012 split with that excellent Polish grind unit, Antigama. The split was also released by Subordinate and its title is 9 Psalms of An Antimusic To Come.

Happily, the Psychofagist tracks are available on Bandcamp. Happily, the music is just as amazingly fucked up as ever. Continue reading »

MALAYSIAN DEATH: LAVATORY AND HUMILIATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 012012
 

We’ve never written about a Malaysian metal band in the nearly three years that NCS has been fouling up the interhole. If you had asked me two days ago to name a Malaysian metal band, I couldn’t have done it. I know there’s a scene there, and my guess is that, like a lot of Southeast Asian metal, it’s dominated by brutal/technical death metal and grindcore bands, but as for concrete facts, I had none.

However, within these last two days, by sheer coincidence, I’ve come across two Malaysian bands, both of whom have recently been signed by noteworthy record labels: Lavatory and Humiliation. They’re both devoted to old school death metal (though not the same kind), they’re both working on their label debuts, and they both sound tasty.

LAVATORY

It seems this band (above) is very new, having released their first music in the form of an EP called Transgression just earlier this summer (which I found on cassette at Hells Headbangers). But that EP was enough to snag the attention of Pulverised Records, who signed them for the release of a debut album.

Pulverised can be relied upon to deliver quality, and by “quality” I mean death metal that the average human skull isn’t strong enough to withstand. So the Pulverised signing alone was grounds for high hopes. I also found a song from Transgression that provides further grounds. Its name is “Blinded By Darkness”, and it’s a goddamn good song. The power of the filth is strong with these young ones. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EARLY GRAVES, ZONARIA, DETHKLOK, NUCLEAR DEATH TERROR, RED ELEVEN

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 312012
 

Someone left a comment on one of today’s earlier posts saying “NCS has always been the most long-winded out of all the metal sites.” Really hurt my feelings. Made me feel real low and pouty. Some people just wanna know if the shit is awesome or not. Makes me wanna just clam up and let all this shit that I saw and heard today speak for itself.

EARLY GRAVES

New Early Graves album. Red Horse. Out 10/30 on No Sleep Records. Pre-Order available at http://www.nosleepstore.com/. New song, too. Also called “Red Horse”. Fucken explosive crusty punky grindy mayhem. Pure awesomeness. (thanks Utmu)


Continue reading »

ERYN NON DAE.: “MELIORA” IS COMING

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Aug 312012
 

In the early days of this blog, we developed a fascination for the French metal band Eryn Non Dae.. We’ve posted about them a lot since early 2010, most recently here. The band’s own description of their music is one I would endorse: “Complex and brutal structures, black and apocalyptic moods, an obscure music where dissonant compositions carry an in-your-face, aggressive vocal style… A trip into the depths of the soul.”

Our interest began with the band’s 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa (reviewed here), and I’ve been following their news ever since, while waiting for their next release. Finally, that day is about to dawn.

The new album is named Meliora, and it will come with that wonderful cover art you see above, which was created by the band’s (obviously multi-talented) bassist Mika André. It was recorded by Mobo (Conkrete Studios), who also recorded Hydra Lernaïa as well as albums by a multitude of other French bands, including Gorod’s latest release, A Perfect Absolution. It’s scheduled for release in October, but excerpts of the songs are available for listening at this location.

Because I’m planning a full review closer to the release date, I won’t say much at this point about my reactions, except I’m blown away by what I’m hearing. It’s crushing, searing, complex, intense music.  Continue reading »

BLACK SABBATH VOL. 4 TURNS 40

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Aug 312012
 

It’s time to celebrate another metal anniversary. Tomorrow, September 1, 40 years will have passed since the official release of Black Sabbath’s fourth album. Hard to believe: Forty. Fucking. Years.

As I’ve done in the past, I’m stealing from my fellow metal blogger Full Metal Attorney, who is a lot more on the ball watching the calendar for events like this than yours truly. He discusses the significance of this album on his own site today, proclaiming it the pinnacle of Black Sabbath’s career, surpassing each of the band’s first three albums — Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970), and Master of Reality (1971).

FMA attributes the album’s excellence mainly to Tommy Iommi’s riffs, especially on “Supernaut”, “Wheels of Confusion”, “Cornucopia”, “Snowblind”, and the song he calls “the heaviest Sabbath song of all”, “Under the Sun”. But he also praises the performances of the rest of Sabbath — Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and of course Ozzy.

As FMA himself acknowledges in the article, lots of people would disagree with him putting Vol. 4 above Paranoid and Master of Reality. He chalks that up to the presence of the weird experimental track “FX,” the relatively long acoustic instrumental “Laguna Sunrise,” and the piano/synth ballad “Changes” — but he asserts that these quirky, imperfect songs are precisely what has made the album so memorable after 40 years, in addition to all of the album’s phenomenal successes. Continue reading »

VHÖL

 Metal News  13 Responses »
Aug 302012
 

You know, if I owned a kvlt metal record label (and therefore, by definition, did not care about food or running water), I would do something like this.

The phone would ring one day, and someone would say, “Would you be interested in signing a band composed of these folks?”

Mike Scheidt (YOB)-Vocals

John Cobbett (Hammers of Misfortune, ex-Ludicra)-Guitars

Sigrid Sheie (Hammers of Misfortune)-Bass

Aesop (Fucking) Dekker (Agalloch, Worm Ouroboros, ex-Ludicra)-Drums

I’d think on it for about two seconds, while wiping the drool off my mouth, and while the inner me would be squealing like a little girl, I’d try to play it cool and ask if there was any music to hear. And upon being told Not Yet, I’d just go ahead and give up and ask where to send the contract, and then excuse myself to go change my shorts.

I’m not exactly sure it went down like that in the offices of Profound Lore. All I know for sure is that this band is a real thing, it’s called VHÖL, they’re recording an album, and Profound Lore plans to release it. Continue reading »

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