CATTLE DECAPITATION: ALBUM TITLE, COVER ART, TRACK LIST, A NEW SONG, AND MORE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 192012
 

Three years have passed since Cattle Decapitation released The Harvest Floor. Yesterday, a landslide of information about Cattle Decap’s next album — Monolith of Inhumanity — hit the band’s SMN News Official Message Board. Where to start?

Well, how about that album cover by Wes Benscoter. It connects to a concept unveiled in the album’s lyrics, or so we’re told. Presumably, more information about the concept will be coming, but for now there is this snippet of lyrics I saw on a recent Facebook status: “Through the rise of technology / We lost our humanity / Trashheap lobotomy / Self-imposed sodomy”

We also now have the album’s track list:

1. The Carbon Stampede
2. Dead Set on Suicide
3. A Living, Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat
4. Forced Gender
5. Gristle Licker
6. Projectile Ovulation
7. Do Not Resuscitate
8. Lifestalker
9. Your Disposal
10. The Monolith
11. Kingdom of Tyrants

I think my favorite title is “A Living, Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat”. Coincidentally, that’s also the first song from the album to become available for streaming — and of course you can hear it after the jump. But first, a word about guest appearances. Continue reading »

NE OBLIVISCARIS: UPDATE

 Metal News  11 Responses »
Mar 162012
 

Normally, we don’t post a news alert simply because a band has added a new drummer to their line-up or releases a new press photo. But this is Ne Obliviscaris, and their new album has been on my personal “highly anticipated” list since I first found out it had been completed last October.

We originally featured this unsigned Melbourne, Australia band with the mouthful of a name way back in March 2010, focusing on a 2007 demo called The Aurora Veil. The new album is called Portal of I — a 7-track behemoth with a total run-time of more than 1 hour 11 minutes, and it appears from a press release we got this morning that the band is finally on the verge of providing an album release date, plus tour info.

Also, NeO have now found a permanent replacement for their former drummer, Dan Presland, who was involved in recording both the Aurora Veil demo and the forthcoming Portal Of I album. The new hitter is Nelson Barnes, who is also the drummer for Brisbane’s The Schoenberg Automaton — a very interesting band whose music we featured here last June.

Perhaps you still haven’t listened to the music of Ne Obliviscaris, despite the fact that we’ve streamed the first track to be released from Portal of I twice at NCS. Just in case, I’m gonna stream “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope” a third time right after the jump, because pimping this band makes me happy. This song still floors me — it’s so unlike most other metal I hear. I wish I had more tracks to hear without having to wait any longer — but at least that day is finally drawing close.

By the way, the NeO line-up, as pictured above (from left to right) is: Benjamin Baret, Matt Klavins, Tim Charles, Xenoyr, Brendan ‘Cygnus’ Brown, and now Nelson Barnes. Continue reading »

THE SERPENT SERMON TOUR: MARDUK, 1349, WITHERED, WEAPON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Mar 142012
 

I somehow missed this announcement when it first appeared, but by waiting, I have a few more details to add.

The news is that Sweden’s Marduk is headlining a North American tour that begins on June 2 at The Sonar in Baltimore and concludes on June 20 in San Diego. Along for the ride will be Norway’s 1349, Withered from Georgia, and a Canadian band called Weapon. All of these bands are excellent — that is, if you enjoy being sonically assaulted without mercy. And who doesn’t?

Weapon is the least well-known of this foursome, but we included them in a MISCELLANY post back in December 2010. Their frontman Vetis Monarch is from Bangladesh and the band’s blend of melodic black metal and death metal is influenced by his origins. There’s an official video of a live Weapon performance after the jump for those of you who haven’t discovered them. (Their Facebook page is here.)

Withered is another band worth getting to know if you don’t know them yet. I’ve also included one of their tracks after the break. From some quick web snooping, it seems that both Weapon and Withered are at work on new albums.

I’m presuming that Marduk and 1349 need no introduction. This will be 1349’s first visit to the continent since 2010. All the dates and locations are also after the jump. Continue reading »

WRAITHCULT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

Thulcandra is a German band whose 2010 album Fallen Angels Dominion (reviewed here) was an utterly faithful and beautifully rendered homage to Dissection. The band’s 2011 follow-up, Under A Frozen Sun, was also very good and proved that Thulcandra’s talents exceed even what was achieved on the debut, though it was one of many deserving releases I didn’t find time to write about last year.

Thanks to Thulcandra, I recently discovered a new band called Wraithcult. Its members include two Thulcandra participants, the “evil twins”, Sebastian and Tobias Ludwig (guitarist/vocalist and bassist, respectively). Both Sebastian and Tobias were also active for five years in yet a third band, the now-defunct Helfahrt, and two other former Helfahrt members have joined them to complete the line-up in Wraithcult: guitarist Markus Klüpfel and drummer Andreas Mecker.

Wraithcult have recorded a debut album called Gestalt (with Dark Fortress guitarist V. Santura at the helm). When I wrote the original version of this post, two of the album’s songs were available for streaming, and those were the two that convinced me this band is worth following. In doing a quick check for possible updates to this post, I discovered that the entire album is now available for streaming.

I tried listening to the album stream while working my fucking day job (which has become a fucking day-and-night job), because at the moment that’s the only way I have any chance of listening to music, but it didn’t work out very well. Continue reading »

SUMMER SLAUGHTER OPENING BAND CANDIDATES ANNOUNCED

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

Uh, let’s see now, I posted an update about this tour yesterday and concluded with these words: “I may or may not write about this tour again before the final line-up becomes public. Probably will. Sticking to resolutions isn’t my strong suit.” Well, I may not know much, but I do seem to have a good understanding of myself.

As of yesterday, the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour organizers had disclosed the names of three of the 10 bands who will be eligible for fan voting to select the opening act on the tour — though they also suggested they might let fans pick two opening acts. I wondered why they just didn’t go ahead and reveal all 10 names, but I wonder about a lot of things. Anyway, late last night they gave us the whole list, which you can see above.

To vote for who you think should be the opening band, go HERE. On that page, you’ll also see a link which says “Results”. Along with annoying pop-up ads, clicking on that link will give you the latest voting tally. As I’m writing this (at approximately 11 p.m. Pacific time on Monday night), less than 3,000 votes have been cast so far, and Fallujah is in the lead with 19% of the vote, followed by Vildhjarta with 16% and I Declare War with 15%. I’m sure by the time you read this, the vote totals will have changed.

Now, the marketing theory behind this voting thing is pretty transparent, and I have to say that at least in my case, it’s working. I’m actually curious about who will win because I happen to like every single band on the list! (As I wrote that, I could imagine KevinP beginning to type his comment — “What a shock. You like everything. All these bands blow.”) In fact, we have written about and praised every one of the bands at one time or another here at NCS.

If I didn’t give a fuck about any of the bands, I wouldn’t care about the vote outcome. But now I’m curious. Continue reading »

ANOTHER NEW GOROD SONG: “CARVED IN THE WIND”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  20 Responses »
Mar 122012
 

No, that’s not the cover to Gorod’s new album. It’s part of the artwork for a forthcoming 7″ by New Zealand’s Heresiarch. We’ve posted the Gorod cover many times already, and I thought the Heresiarch art was so sick that it should be shared.

Okay, that didn’t make a lot of sense, did it? Gorod and Heresiarch have nothing in common except they’re both metal. But my brain is kinda scrambled at the moment because I just listened to a new Gorod song. It’s called “Carved In the Wind” and it features a jazzy guitar solo by Christian Muenzner (Obscura). I presume the song will eventually begin streaming on YouTube or some other more frequently visited location, but for now it’s in a tiny player that you’ll have to squint to find at Vs-webzine (HERE). Look for the cover art for Violent Absolution and you’ll see the player to the left of it.

I haven’t yet listened to the Gorod album, but I have it on good authority from a respected blogger friend (who has heard the album) that it may be the tech-death album of the year. Those are strong words, given that 2012 has produced Incurso by Spawn of Possession., in addition to a new one from Psycroptic and one to come from Cryptopsy. I may have to shove aside other albums I’m supposed to be spinning and jump right to the Gorod. Actually, there’s no maybe about it.

“Carved In the Wind” is delicious. I love the swirling guitar lead and the pulsing keyboard tones. I love the funky bass line. I love that jazzy guitar solo. I love that Gorod have pulled together in a single song so many different stylistic elements in a way that seems natural and have produced music that’s not only head-twisting but also melodic, memorable, and a headbanger to boot. Go check it out and then come back here and write something that makes no sense in the Comments.

Speaking of making no sense, there’s more Heresiarch artwork after the jump, from their last EP, Hammer of Intransigence, plus a live Heresiarch song clip. Continue reading »

SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2012 – UPDATE

 Metal News  16 Responses »
Mar 122012
 

This year’s edition of the North American SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour is shaping up to be a must-see event. All you really have to do is look at the name of the band at the top of the bill. When the tour organizers began announcing the line-up they decided to build enthusiasm and anticipation by rolling out the names of the starring bands one at a time, beginning with Cannibal Corpse. The idea was to unveil a new band’s name every Sunday until the line-up was complete. After the initial announcement, I decided to wait until the entire line-up had become public before writing about the tour again.

Well, the plan hasn’t unfolded quite as envisioned. After the announcements of Between the Buried and Me, The Faceless, Exhumed, Goatwhore, and Veil of Maya, there have been a few hiccups — like the kind you get that go on for an hour and leave you begging strangers to scare you. There was no announcement a week ago, and despite promises by the promoters that they’d catch up by giving us two new confirmed names yesterday, that didn’t happen. Instead, we got a promise that it would happen later this week. Who knows why?

To make up for the miss that happened a week ago, the organizers said they would also announce yesterday the candidates for fan voting for the opening act on the tour. You may remember that they did this in 2011, too — rolling out a list of 10 band candidates and allowing fans to vote for a winner. Eventually, the promoters took most of the bands who failed to win and packaged them in a separate SLAUGHTER SURVIVORS tour. Welp, the announcement of the 2012 candidates didn’t happen yesterday either. Instead, we got this cryptic explanation:

“As for the voting contest. FALLUJAH, CEREBRAL BORE and AEGAEON will all be contenders for the opening spot. Who else should be included? We are actually considering letting you guys vote for the 1st and 2nd spots on the tour! All the other 8 bands are confirmed.”

Continue reading »

BREAKING NEWS OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN ABOUT THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

 Metal News  23 Responses »
Mar 072012
 

Only four days ago we decided to snoop around and see what we could find out about the nefarious machinations of one of our favorite death metal bands — the mysterious, often brutal, often comedic Dutch maniacs in The Monolith Deathcult. You can read what we learned through our sleuthing in this post, which includes demo tracks that may or may not become part of the band’s new album, TETRAGRAMMATON (like I said . . . mysterious).

Today we learned about developments that will be of riveting interest to TMDC fans. Some of what we have to report is officially confirmed, and some of it is . . . of mysterious origin. The first bit of news seems to be official, since it appeared moments ago on the TMDC Facebook page. It concerns the band’s signing by Dutch-based TMR Productions. I’m pretty sure the wording of the announcement will also give you some chuckles.

The second piece of news . . . not yet officially confirmed, arrived by way of a scrap of paper that drifted through the window of the NCS editorial offices from the opened claws of a member of the NCS carrier pigeon aeronaut squadron, who serve our needs for the timely delivery of important news, as well as pigeon droppings. If this is to be believed, TMDC have been signed to a global deal by Season of Mist for the release of TETRAGRAMMATON.

An image of that scrap of paper, which appears to be a draft announcement of some kind, appears at the top of this post. A larger, more legible version can be viewed after the jump. Continue reading »

BLOODSHOT DAWN UPDATE

 Metal News  17 Responses »
Mar 052012
 

That is still one uber-badass album cover, isn’t it? The album also remains one of the biggest, most pleasant surprises of the year for me. To quote from my January review (because I always turn to myself for quotes whenever possible): “In a nutshell, Bloodshot Dawn’s debut album is a shockingly strong explosion of fused thrash and melodic death metal, driven by a guitar duo who have bright days ahead of them. I’ll be surprised if we see a stronger debut from anyone this year.”

Today is another red-letter day for Bloodshot Dawn and their fans, because today they’re putting the album up on Bandcamp for streaming and for digital download directly from the band — and this is the link for that page.

And to celebrate the digital release, the band have teamed up with the formidable UK-based extreme metal zine Terrorizer to stream the album in full on the Terrorizer web site between today and March 14. To check that out, go here. Terrorizer will also be giving away the album with subscriber copies of Issue #221 beginning March 22. Continue reading »

SOME FREE SHIT FOR YOUR EARHOLES: ESCHATON, GRANTED EARTH, LASCAILLE’S SHROUD, AND STUBB

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Mar 042012
 

(groverXIII drops manna from Hel into your auditory canals.  No charge.  Lots of song streams at the end of this bad boy, too.)

Howdy, folks. I know everyone loves good free music, so I’m just going to jump right into the bands here. Fuck yeah.

ESCHATON – ISOLATED INTELLIGENCE

Eschaton have been mentioned ’round these parts before (here and here), but I first discovered them back when they emailed me about their initial EP release An Instrument Of Darkness a while back when TNOTB was still up and running, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Isolated Intelligence is their first full album (at least, I think it qualifies as a full album… it’s only five tracks, but it is over 45 minutes), and it’s as fascinating a listen as one might expect from these guys.

Stylistically, the album is Eschaton’s usual take on black/death metal, which is to say that it is anything but usual. There is a lot of experimentation going on here, with sprawling post-metal soundscapes rubbing elbows with clean female vocals and discordant guitars, all contained with the basic framework of black metal. Get it on the Bandcamps, honky.
Continue reading »

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