WATER SPORTS

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Apr 192012
 

When the first edition of 70,000 Tons of Metal was announced back in January 2010, I had loads of fun imagining all the things that could go wrong with the concept of putting 40 metal bands, 2,000 metalhead fans, and 24/7 bars on a boat. Sailing on an actual ocean. With waves and shit. It made great fodder for multiple posts, starting with this one.

I had to eat my words (which I did, with a side of fried chicken) when the damn thing turned out to be a real success by all accounts. And then they did it again, and that seemed to turn out well, too. No one drowned, there weren’t any cases of fatal alcohol poisoning, and only twenty-three children were conceived out of wedlock.

Now there’s another metal ocean excursion on the horizon called Barge To Hell. As in the case of the two 70,000 Tons of Metal cruises, the promoters are doing the slow roll-out of the band line-up — but it’s now gotten so good that I can’t ignore it any longer, especially with the recent addition of Belphegor, Kampfar, Soilwork, and Solstafir. With only half of the 40 bands announced for this excursion, it already seems like a compelling event for those fans with the time and the money to jump on board. Continue reading »

SCION ROCK FEST 2012: CAN SOMEONE LOAN A BROTHER A TELEPORTER BATTERY? (THERE’S ALSO A BLACK BREATH VIDEO IN HERE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Apr 182012
 

There are some places in these continental United States that are farther away from Seattle than Tampa, Florida, but Tampa is pretty fucking far out there. And on June 2, it’s going to be really far out, because that’s the day when Scion is sponsoring this year’s edition of the Scion Rock Fest.

Scion A/V has been doing a lot of very cool things with metal, and I continue to hope they get a few car sales out of it because I believe in people making a buck when they make underground music or help support it. Yesterday, I saw two things that reminded me of the good that Scion is doing for our kinda music. One was a new Scion-funded music video by Black Breath, which we’ll come back to after the jump, and the other was this “rock” fest in Tampa.

Scion has announced that the festival will include 26 bands playing at four different Tampa venues throughout the day. They’ve also released that poster you see up above. Obviously, there aren’t 26 names on there . . . yet. But the ones that are on there make for an excellent line-up: Sleep (holy shit!), Repulsion, Merzbow, Church of Misery, Psychic TV, Oxbow, Decapitated (!!), Terror, Cerebral Ballzy (?), All Pigs Must Die (!!), Idea of Gemini, and Cellgraft.

The other names have been “masked”, but I can see a few letters here and there. The name in the second line on the far right looks a helluva lot like Suffocation. And on the top row, I can almost make out Saint Vitus. Can you make out any other names? I’ll put a bigger image after the jump. Continue reading »

BE’LAKOR: “REMNANTS”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Apr 162012
 

I’m going to say this up-front, so it gets maximum attention: “For fans of Amon Amarth and Insomnium!” Those are names to conjure with, and they are the names that first popped into my head when I listened to a brand new song called “Remnants” by a Melbourne, Australia band named Be’lakor.

The song comes from this band’s third album, Of Breath and Bone, which will be released in June. It was the first song by Be’lakor that I had ever heard, but it was the kind of song that got me as excited as a hypoglycemic kid in a candy store. I hoped that the rest of the album would live up to this first taste.

The introductory instrumental has an almost folk-metal air, with the lead guitar tuned so that it sounds like bagpipes, but then the big Amon Amarth-like riffs come down like thunder and you get your first taste of George Kosmas’ truly cavernous roars — they’re right in the middle of Johan Hegg/Niilo Sevänen territory, and that’s a territory laced with gold.

And onward from there, the song delivers a succession of riveting riffs, goth/doom melodies, and beautifully constructed guitar leads and solo’s. It gallops, it chugs, it vibrates with arcane power, it rumbles like avalanche, it pulses with urgency, and it soars with virulently infectious melodies. It’s a dynamic song, continually shifting in tone and speed, and it has well and truly hooked me. Continue reading »

HELP BLOODBEAST GET TO WACKEN

 Metal News  10 Responses »
Apr 142012
 

There are a lot of deserving bands out in the wide world who would love to play Wacken Open Air.  But Bloodbeast is one I’d like pimp today. They’re from South Africa, the band is composed of dudes who have been active in metal for a long time, and their debut album Bloodlust kicks massive amounts of ass. To find out just how much ass it kicks, you could check out our review here, and stream the music at this location.

Now, it happens that Wacken is running a competition called Metal Masters, and the winner will get a live performance slot at the festival. The way it works is that bands upload videos to Wackentube where fans can rate them — and the band with the best-rated video gets the slot. The voting began on March 5 and ends just before midnight on April 29.

Bloodbeast is in the hunt. They’ve uploaded a live performance video for a song from Bloodlust called “Fuck Or Die”. Your immediate reaction to that title might be, “Hell yes!  Words to live by!” But this is a song with a conscience — it’s about rape, and there are some awful statistics about its prevalence in South Africa superimposed on the video. It’s a helluva song, and the video is worth seeing.

To drum up support for the video, Bloodbeast is offering a free download of their album (in lossless quality) to the first 50 fans who give it a 5-star rating on Wackentube (and prove it by sending the band a screen shot). Details are after the jump. Continue reading »

MUMAKIL GOING SILENT FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 122012
 

(DemiGodRaven reports some unfortunate news . . .)

Considering that they are one of the loudest and most blast-reliant grind bands out there, the announcement that Mumakil are going to be silent for the next few weeks comes as a bit of a shocker. This is due in part to their drummer developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which makes drumming outright impossible. He showed signs of it recently, and after a visit to the doctor the band was forced to silence their new album recording as well as their upcoming tour. I’ve personally suffered through that right-wrist pain in a very light instance and stopped drumming for about two months. Believe me, the sheer act of attempting to hold a stick during that time frame was torture.

This news sucks, as Mumakil are fucking intense and one of my surface-level grind favorites. They’re obnoxious as all hell. I found them via the Misery Index split they did a few years back and enjoyed the hell out of their 2009 release, Behold The Failure. The song “Barbecue In Bhopal” is a solid forty seconds of ass-whooping before it ends. Actually, the first five or so tracks blur into each other before you see your first real break for all of about . . . five seconds . . . before you’re back into a whirlwind of guitars and screaming.

The band’s official statement was posted on their facebook: Continue reading »

IN MOURNING: FULL ALBUM STREAM

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Apr 112012
 

You remember that album cover, don’t you? Sure you do. How could you forget it? It’s the Necrolord cover for The Weight of Oceans, the third album by Sweden’s In Mourning, which will be released by Spinefarm Records on April 18. It’s what we call a “highly anticipated” release here at NCS.

And beginning today, everyone can hear the entire album. It will be streaming between now and that April 18 release date at the Kaaoszine web site, which you can reach via this link.

I’ve only had time to listen to the first three tracks, but they justify our eagerness for the album. The lengthy album opener, in particular, warrants the over-used term “epic”. It’s called “Colossus”, and if you don’t have time for anything else, check that one out — it took me back to memories of Opeth’s Blackwater Park.

Of course, please come back here and let us know what you think.

ALL OVER THE PLACE: REVERENCE, ZATOKREV, AND THE KOREA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 112012
 

We’ve got some show reviews and an interview coming up today that you won’t want to miss, but I thought I’d start off our Wednesday with an assortment of metal that I discovered yesterday while browsing the interhole. The first two items are from bands whose music I’d never heard before: Reverence (France) and Zatokrev (Switzerland). Both have been signed by Candlelight Records, and the songs I heard are new. The Reverence track comes packaged with an official video that’s a real eye-catcher. The third item is a new video from a Russian band we’ve featured here before — The Korea.

Stylistically, the music is all over the place — as diverse as the bands’ locations. As you’ll see, my reasons for picking each of these items are also all over the place. Here we go:

REVERENCE

This French band had their genesis in 1998. After assorted demos and splits (including one with Blut Aus Nord in 2003), they released their first album in 2005. Two more followed that one, and in 2010 the band signed up with Candlelight. Their fourth album and first Candlelight release, The Asthenic Ascension, hit the streets in Europe on April 9 and is being sold as a CD here.

To launch the new album, the band released a music video for “Earth”, the new album’s opening track. Although I’ve seen Reverence described as industrial black metal, “Earth” begins with a slow, lush, orchestral introduction, and when the metal starts, that symphonic air remains. The music swells with keyboard grandeur and heavy riffs and includes a mix of clean and harsh vocals.

“Industrial” this is not; it has more in common with Dimmu Borgir than Blut Aus Nord. Though I enjoyed the song, it’s not enough on its own to make me rush out and get the album. It’s the combination of the music and the video that landed “Earth” in this post. Continue reading »

DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT WILL DRAG THE U.S. INTO THE ABYSS THIS SUMMER!

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Apr 102012
 

Well, hot fucking shit. It was less than a week ago when we reported the latest news about the UK’s Dragged Into Sunlight, and now look at this juicy (and somewhat frightening) piece of news that just popped into my e-mail inbox this afternoon (and then proceeded to dissolve the whole thing in a pool of acid):

Dragged Into Sunlight will be touring the U.S. this summer, beginning with an appearance at The Maryland Deathfest on May 26. On the front half of the tour, they’ll be joined by Cough and on the back half they’ll be touring with Wolvhammer.

By all accounts, this band puts on a cataclysmic live show. Certainly, their recorded music is a soul-sucking morass of depravity and despair, and of course I love it. There’s only one eensie weensie itty bitty tiny little problem: The closest they’re getting to the Pacific Northwest is motherfuckin’ Arkansas!!!

Now THAT is soul-sucking, and not in a good way. Dudes, are you really going back to the UK with nothing but stories about the Ozarks, when you could be describing the majesty of the Cascades and the shitty bathrooms at Studio Seven or El Corazon? Say it ain’t so!

I’m gonna go stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas. The rest of you can see all the tour dates after the jump.    Shit. Continue reading »

THEMADISRAELI UPDATE

 Metal News  16 Responses »
Apr 082012
 

(In an effort to appease the hordes of tabloid reporters and paparazzi who follow him in packs, TheMadIsraeli offers this update for his adoring fans.)

As you may have noticed, I haven’t written anything in quite a bit. My output has decreased considerably because the American educational system is for the fucking birds and now also because I’m being fisted in the ass with sandpaper and icy-hot (the emphasis on this description is important) by a mother of all sinus infections.

I am attempting to get things done, and will try to nail my big reviews, but chances are Islander is going to have to take over for me.  Hard to write when you’re coughing up a phlegm and blood mixture on a consistent basis.  According to Phro, however, this is my opportunity to take advantage of a new market.

Phlegm porn.

Cause who doesn’t want to see a man jack off with his own sinus excrement, am I right?

I only have two goals for the month of April (and even these might be too fucking much):  Review the debut of NCS favorite 7 Horns 7 Eyes and review the new Jeff Loomis album, since I’m the only fucker qualified for the job (i.e., I’m the biggest sucker of Loomis cock on the planet). But Islander may have to pick these up if I fail. But that isn’t all I’m here to talk about today. Continue reading »

WHAT MADNESS ARE SYLOSIS UP TO?

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Apr 062012
 

(I am so fucking slow on the uptake sometimes. DemiGodRaven sent me the post below, and despite the fact that it belonged in the “breaking news” category, I had a brain fart and didn’t pounce on it. So, the news is now less breaking than it was, but still worth writing about.)

Just recently (as in, March 31st — I’m working midnight’s, so I’m falling behind the times rapidly), Sylosis uploaded a video to their Youtube account called “Sylosis – III”. There’s no description as to what it is, but it consists of a bunch of footage of the band in the studio.

They seem to have been spending time there lately. They found enough time to record a new song for the people who donated to their pledge drive to help them out in the US last year, and that one has finally begun making its way around the net.

As for III, does this mean we’re going to see some new Sylosis material already? I know there was a pretty sizable gap between Conclusion of an Age and Edge Of The Earth, but the band put so much goddamn material on Edge Of The Earth that it practically seemed like too much at times. Especially when you add in the newer song, there has been quite a lot of Sylosis in the past year. I personally, cannot get enough of it, as I love this band and think they should definitely be talked about more. Continue reading »

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