TOURISM: NAPALM DEATH AND CONVERGE ANNOUNCE HEADLINING TOURS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

Here are two new tours that metallic denizens of the U.S. and Canada should know about, both of which were announced today. One is co-headlined by Napalm Death and one by Converge. And what a nice coincidence that is, since not long ago we got a Napalm Death / Converge split release, from which we’ll play some music after coughing up the tour details . . . Also, both tours are stopping in Seattle, which makes me all smiley.

NAPALM DEATH / MUNICIPAL WASTE / EXHUMED

This tour is actually billed as a co-headline gig by Municipal Waste along with Napalm Death. I decided to put only Napalm Death in the headline mainly because it fit better with the recent release of that split. Exhumed is also along for the ride as direct support, which makes this tour even more awesome. But that’s not all! Depending on the dates, one of the following four bands will also be performing:

Sci-fi Arizona thrashers Vektor, Canadian punk band Dayglo Abortions, Bay Area crossover band Attitude Adjustment, and Colorado speed thrashers Speedwolf.

But wait, there’s still more!

Again depending on the locations, fans will also get to see guest sets from U.S. grindcore bastards Repulsion, Chicago punks Dwarves, and Seattle’s Martha Splatterhead’s Revenge. Continue reading »

“M” IS FOR MONDAY: MY DYING BRIDE, MORS PRINCIPIUM EST, MALIGNANCY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

Well, this worked out well. Monday’s suck, of course. But Monday is the “M” day of the week, and lo and behold I have news about three M bands.

MY DYING BRIDE

These legendary doomsters have completed a new album, which will be entitled A Map of all our Failures. It’s scheduled for release by Peaceville on October 15 (October 16 in the US, in recognition of our former colonial status). There will be a double vinyl and special edition CD/DVD in addition to the normal CD format, and bundles that include a shirt, too. And guess what? The pre-orders begin today, at this location.

I haven’t heard any music yet, but I have seen a quote from guitarist Andrew Craighan, who describes the album as “a controlled demolition of all your hopes”. I would expect nothing less.

I also learned that the band will be embarking on a European tour in December in support of the album, as well as an appearance at the UK’s Damnation Festival in November. An initial schedule of tour dates can be found here.

MORS PRINCIPIUM EST

In late July, I posted a bunch of news about this excellent Finnish band, which included the fact that they were finally recording a new album after many long years following the release of 2007′s Liberation = Termination. At that point, I had no details. Now I have a title: …And Death Said Live. I also have an approximate time frame for the release — December 2012 (on AFM Records). And, I have this very nice album cover art: Continue reading »

THINGS SEEN AND HEARD TODAY: COBOLT 60, DYSRHYTHMIA, AND INDESINENCE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Aug 172012
 

This is the second part of a round-up of noteworthy news and music I picked up while browsing the web today. The first part is here.

COBOLT 60

I was introduced to Norway’s Cobolt 60 by my NCS co-writer Andy Synn via a post he wrote in February about the band’s debut album Meat Hook Ballet — an album that came out 10 years ago and was then followed by . . . 10 years of inactivity. Cobolt 60 began as a team-up between Daniel Olaisen, a/k/a Død of Blood Red Throne, and BRT’s original vocalist Flemming Arnesen-Gluch, a/k/a Mr Hustler (who handled both drums and vocals on Meat Hook Ballet).

What led Andy to write about the band’s debut album was the whispering of rumors that Cobolt 60 were working on new music. Now we know the rumors were true. On September 14, a new album entitled The Grim Defiance will be released by Demonhood Productions/Neseblod Records, and pre-orders can be placed at this location.

But that’s not all. As of today, two tracks from the album became available for streaming — “Hammer the Creationist” and “Sort”. I have a feeling that Andy will be reviewing the album when the time is right, so I’ll just say that if you want to burn yourself with a dose of superb black thrash hellfire, you should listen to these two songs . . . and you can do that right now: Continue reading »

THINGS SEEN AND HEARD TODAY: WINTERSUN, EVOCATION, AND TOMBS

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Aug 172012
 

Man oh man, I encountered a flood-tide of post-worthy shit in my morning ramblings through the interhole. So, I’m breaking it up into two posts, this one being the first.

WINTERSUN

Uh huh, the massive PR ramp-up to this Finnish band’s loooooooong-awaited duo of new albums is beginning. As previously reported, the first of those albms — Time I — is due for release by Nuclear Blast on October 19. Today brought us the unveiling of the cover art for that album, which you can see above. It was created by Cameron Gray, who also created the cover for the Born of Osiris album The Discovery, among others.

EVOCATION

I saw that Century Media started streaming the first new track from the next album by Sweden’s Evocation, Illusions of Grandeur. About a week ago, I created a feature about the band that was occasioned by the unveiling of the awesome Xaay cover art for the album (here). I didn’t have any new music to share at that time, so I loaded up the post with videos for previous Evocation songs. But now we’ve got the new album’s title track. It makes me very happy. Continue reading »

WHICH WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE?

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Aug 162012
 

Welcome to another edition of “The World of Merch”!  Actually, it’s the first edition of the series, and most likely the last.

I just saw these pics on the web this morning. On the left, Shining (Sweden) bring you logo panties, along with this announcement. “Shining are playing Summer Breeze Open Air this Saturday (Party Stage 19:50) and are bringing along new merch items! These and others will be on sale at www.shininglegions.com later as well, but if you’re heading towards Germany, why not surprise yourself or your girlfriend with a nice festival souvenir.”

I really didn’t see this one coming, not from a band like Shining. The least they could have done would have been to go crotchless or scratch ‘n’ sniff. Though I would definitely surprise myself if I bought one for me. My wife would be surprised if I gave one to her, too. However, I would not be surprised if she then stuffed it down my gullet.

Is metal underwear a big seller? For all I know, it could be. I haven’t exactly made a study of the market for band-logoed thongs. I dunno, maybe bands enjoy the thought that their name is on something that rides up the ass of their fans, male or female, and catches skid marks and stray drops of pee pee.

Shirts, on the other hand, I know that shit sells, especially when they’re as eye-catching as that new Cerberus t-shirt that the awesome Fleshgod Apocalypse are hawking. That shit is strong. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD TODAY: WINTERFYLLETH, GOAT THE HEAD, ONE INCH GIANT, AND MASS HYPNOSIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 152012
 

Here we have yet another random assortment of things I saw and heard today that I thought merited some attention. And the bands are: Winterfylleth (UK), Goat the Head (Norway), One Inch Giant (Sweden), and Mass Hypnosis (Croatia).
 

WINTERFYLLETH

I saw that another new song from Winterfylleth’s next album, The Threnody of Triumph, has started streaming. As previously reported here, the album is due for release on September 25 via Candlelight. The new song is “The Svart Raven”, and it’s streaming at Stereogum. I won’t blather on about the song; I’m saving my blathering for a review. For now, I’ll say only that the song is excellent and that you should hear it without fail if you have any interest in black metal. Go here to do that.

GOAT THE HEAD

I saw the image at the top of this post appear on the Facebook page of our favorite contemporary primal cavemen death metallists, Goat the Head. This looks suspiciously like cover art for some new collection of contemporary primal caveman death metal. My suspicions were further aroused by this accompanying statement by the Goats: “Exposing evident symptoms of imminent deathrash”.

I must say that I find this highly encouraging. It has been FAR too long since we’ve received new original material from this band, who we have written about a multitude of times in the past (collected here). They are, after all, the band who introduced us to the dreaded Cube, the mere mention of which gives me the nervous shakes. Although the Goatsters haven’t released new material in a while, earlier this summer they did record a cover of “Burner” by Motörhead, which I somehow overlooked. It rocks. It’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

INTER ARMA: “DESTROYER”

 Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Aug 152012
 

Yesterday, I saw this press release in my in-box: “Relapse Records is extremely proud to announce the signing of Richmond, VA’s INTER ARMA. The group . . . formed in 2006 and released their debut full-length Sundown via Forcefield Records in 2010.  Combining a punk rock ethos with an esoteric blend of psychedelia, black metal, and doom/sludge, the quintet quickly developed a name for themselves in the underground through relentless touring and mesmerizing live performances.”

I tend to take things like “relentless touring and mesmerizing live performances” with a grain of salt, but I perked up at that description of the band’s sound. I perked up even more when I saw that the band’s 12″ EP (Destroyer), which was released in June by Toxic Assets, was available for streaming on Bandcamp. And then the last bit of perking came when I saw the EP’s very cool cover art (above).

Fully perked, I listened to the EP — and realized why Relapse had glommed onto this band with sticky fingers. In a word, Destroyer is amazing. It’s an unpredictable collection of four very different songs that give the middle finger to genre classification. Inter Arma are like a conflation (or conflagration) of Melvins, Pelican, Neurosis, Satyricon, and Southern blues metal. Like the marriage of Electric Wizard and Darkthrone and . . . oh fuck it, none of these band references are really working very well as a means of capturing the music, so let’s try this . . . Continue reading »

AGALLOCH: “THE MANTLE” – TEN YEARS ON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Aug 142012
 

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the release by Agalloch of their second full-length, The Mantle. Also yesterday, our brother in blog, Full Metal Attorney, devoted another one of his album-anniversary retrospectives to The Mantle, and as I’ve done before, I’m using his piece as what I hope will be a jumping-off point for discussion here at NCS.

This particular anniversary recognition means more to me than others we’ve featured here. The Mantle was my introduction to Agalloch, who have become one of my favorite bands, and the album itself was a revelation to me. FMA contends that it represented “two radical changes in metal”, which slowly gained in prominence after the album’s release. First, he states that it represented a form of “[m]etal that’s barely even metal” – “neo-folk music with some black metal elements, rather than the other way around.”

Second, he argues that it represented a shift “away from individual songs and toward complete albums”, a kind of cinematic music in which mood is paramount: “The songwriting is brilliant not because of monster riffs, but because it creates atmosphere and holds it together with memorable melodies and musical themes. In that sense, it resembles classical music more than any kind of rock music.”

While acknowledging that other bands such as Ulver had previously been creating music with a “neo-folk-infused musical style and cinematic/classical songwriting”, FMA asserts that “no one plying this trade had made such a strong statement as The Mantle” and that “[p]agan metal and post-black metal would be unrecognizable (or non-existent) today were it not for this record.” And to push the point even further, he states, “By extension, the nation of Ireland would have zero presence on the international metal stage.” Continue reading »

TASTES OF THINGS TO COME: KRAMPUS, CYTOTOXIN, AND PROJECT:ABOMINATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 132012
 

This is a fairly random collection of new music I heard over the last two days from forthcoming albums. Of course, it’s wildly divergent, because that’s the nature of metal. The bands are Krampus (Italy), Cytotoxin (Germany), and Project:Abomination (U.S.)

KRAMPUS

Krampus are an Italian horde (eight members!) whose last EP was reviewed for us by Trollfiend (here), and he followed that with a band interview (here). They’ve now completed a full-length album, Survival of the Fittest, which is slated for release on August 24 by Noise Art Records, and yesterday brought us a new song: “Unspoken”. Previously, the band started streaming another track, “Kronos’ Heritage”, which  if I’m not mistaken also appeared on the last EP.

Krampus bill themselves as a folk metal band, but “Unspoken is much more straight-ahead, Scandinavian-styled melodic death metal, with a metalcore flavoring of both bestial and clean vocals. The bestial vox are indeed beastly (and excellent), and although you know what I think of clean vocals, I admit that they do have a fitting place in this song. The music is an infectious gallop — not ground-breaking by any stretch, but a lot of fun to hear.

A stream of the new song is right after the jump, and I’m also including “Kronos’ Heritage”, a song in which folk influences are more pronounced. Like “Unspoken”, it’s very catchy.  Continue reading »

A FIRST TASTE OF CRYPTOPSY’S NEW ALBUM

 Metal News  14 Responses »
Aug 122012
 

I got an e-mail from Crypotopsy this morning. My pulse rate spiked, and so did my curiosity? Why, I wondered, was Cryptopsy writing me? And then I remembered.

I pre-ordered their forthcoming self-titled album — the album that I and every other Cryptopsy fan on the planet hopes will be a resurrection of the band who brought us None So Vile (1996) and other wonderful offerings over the following years — but who took a wrong turn with The Unspoken King (2008). And one of the perks that was to come with a pre-order was the chance to get a download of two tracks from the album in advance of its September 11 release date. And in that e-mail were codes for download of those two songs — which turn out to be the opening track, “Two-Pound Torch”, and the third one, “Red-Skinned Scapegoat”.

Well, of course, I dropped what I was doing and immediately downloaded the two tracks. I strapped on the patented NO CLEAN SINGING headphone-helmet with the built-in rawhide bit (to prevent biting through your tongue), the vacuum-seal goggles (to keep your eyeballs from popping out), and the forehead padding (to prevent skull fractures if you headbang your noggin’ straight into a wall or other inflexible surface). You see, I had my hopes up.

And I played those two songs. And then I played them again.  And then I listened to None So Vile.  And then I played the two new songs again.

And I’m here to report that Crytopsy are FUCKING BACK! Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries