ARCHSPIRE UPDATE

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Apr 152011
 

In December, for one of our MISCELLANY posts, we wrote about a then-unsigned technical death metal band from Vancouver called Archspire that had really impressed the hell out of us. The band featured two guitarists who blazed away on 7- and 8-string guitars, a bassist who worked wonders on a 6-string fretless bass, and a drummer and vocalist who matched them stride-for-stride.

By sheer chance, the following month we interviewed  Virgil Palazzolo, the head of a French record label called Trendkill Recordings, and within days of that learned that Trendkill had just signed Archspire to a recording contract — a coincidence that made us quite happy.

Last week, Archspire’s Trendkill debut, All Shall Align, became available digitally on iTunes and it was released as a limited digipack CD in Europe yesterday; the CD will be released in the U.S. and Canada on April 21. That limited digipack CD and a very limited CD/T-Shirt bundle, which features eye-catching artwork by Toshihiro Egawa (Dying Fetus, Suicide Silence, Devourment, and more) are still available at Trendkill’s webshop (here).

A few days ago we learned that the album is now streaming at a French site called Deezer (here). If you’re a fan of bands like Origin, Decrepit Birth, or Spawn of Possession, we think you’ll fall hard for Archspire, and now’s a good time to listen to the album while that stream lasts. If you happen to live in Canada, you’ll soon have the chance to see Archspire live — because they begin a 3-week tour of the country today. Dates and places follow the jump . . . Can you tell that we think this band fuckin’ rocks? Continue reading »

IHSAHN TO PERFORM IN THE U.S.

 Metal News  21 Responses »
Apr 132011
 

Take a look at that flyer up above for ProgPower XII, the latest installment of the long-running prog- and power-metal festival held in Atlanta. Now let your eyes drift over to the upper left-hand corner and find the logo for a band called Arcturus. Now, mentally cross out that name and put a different name in its place: Ihsahn.

It’s true — Arcturus is out and Ihsahn is in — as in, yes, the former Emperor frontman will be making his first live stage appearance in the U.S. I’m not a huge Ihsahn fan, but I know many of you are, and this definitely qualifies as news that’s worthy of note.

The story about how Ihsahn was added to this festival is also damned funny.  It starts with the bizarre statement by Arcturus (who I’ve never heard of, to be honest) “explaining” the cancelation of their appearance and ends with the promoter’s blunt-but-hilarious comment about Arcturus jumping ship. I think it’s safe to say that in the eyes of most metalheads, he got himself a big upgrade.  Read both statements after the jump. Continue reading »

HOLY. SHIT. CHECK OUT THIS TOUR

 Metal News  16 Responses »
Apr 122011
 

I just saw news about a tour scheduled to make its way through the U.S. and Canada this summer, and fluids burst from every orifice. Well, at least my nose started running.

The headliner: Children of Bodom

The supporting bands:  The Devin Townsend Project, Obscura, and Septic Flesh

The dates and places? They include Seattle on June 27, which is really all I need to know. But because I love every single one of you, especially those of you who will be denied the chance to see this tour because I know you will be hurting inside, the rest of the schedule is after the jump, along with the tour flyer. Excuse me now while I wipe my nose. Continue reading »

CEREBRAL BORE MANIACALLY MISCREATES A NEW VIDEO

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Apr 112011
 

Last November we happily discovered a band from Glasgow, Scotland called Cerebral Bore and their then-self-released debut album Maniacal Miscreation. In our typically eloquent fashion, we described the music as “the kind of metallic extremity that shoves egg-beaters through the skullbone and proceeds to whip the gray matter into a fluffy merengue” — as the kind of “cerebral drill job” that left our brains “satisfyingly disassembled and chopped up into the consistency of dog food”. A bit more from that review:

The music is on the brutal side of death metal. It’s almost unrelentingly fast — which suits us just fine. The guitar riffing is adrenaline-charged, finger-fast, and reliably hammer-stroked with big slams. We particularly liked the start-stop attack of the drums and the quite audible bass rhythms that unerringly root down deep into the part of the brain that acts without thinking and sends irresistible electrical impulses into the buried pleasure centers.

Barreling along in an unconstrained rampage is plenty of fun for the listener, but the icing on the cake are the passages in the songs when Cerebral Bore skid into a completely irresistible beat.

Since last November, it’s fair to say that Cerebral Bore’s global popularity has increased significantly and is now on the verge of erupting. They signed to Earache Records in December, which will be giving Maniacal Miscreation wider distribution (beginning with a European release yesterday and a NorthAm release on June 7), they’re scheduled to tour basically the whole fucking world in 2011, including dates in the U.S., and today they’ve released a new video for the album’s title track “Maniacal Miscreation”, which you can witness after the jump . . . Continue reading »

COMPS ON THE WAY

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Apr 112011
 

Don’t know about you, but I like music compilations, especially when they’re free. They’re a good way to discover new bands and new sounds in a flash. There are two great comps on the horizon — one we’ll talk about now and another one (which we’re actually co-sponsoring) that we’ll feature tomorrow.

Today’s news is about a comp of music by unsigned bands that’s been assembled by our friends at The Number of the Blog. It will include 18 tracks, many of which were previously unreleased, and it will be distributed through Bandcamp, which means the original song files were uploaded in high-quality, lossless format — and that means the shit will sound like crystal.

Today, TNOTB revealed the track listing, and it’s juicy, as in saliva-producing. I’m familiar with the music of 14 bands on the list, and am a fan of all of them. So I’m up for hearing not only the new stuff from those bands but also the tracks from the bands whose names are new.

To be brutally honest (the only kind of honest we know how to be at NCS), I’d be tempted to say nice things about this comp even if the band selections made me yawn, because, y’know, I like the people behind TNOTB. But I don’t have to wrestle with my morals over this comp, because it really does look like a winner, from start to finish.  Check out the track list after the jump. You’ll be able to download the comp on Friday (we’ll put up a reminder then.) Continue reading »

SEPTICFLESH: COVER ART FOR “THE GREAT MASS”

 Metal News  9 Responses »
Apr 052011
 

Seth Siro Anton is the harsh vocalist, bassist, and artistic mastermind behind Greek metal band SepticFlesh. He is also an accomplished artist whose work, both for SepticFlesh and many other bands, we featured in an earlier post. He created the cover art for the next album by SepticFlesh, The Great Mass, which will be released by Season of Mist on April 18 in Europe and one day later in the U.S.

SepticFlesh has been doling out pieces of the cover art over time, and today the entire work was unveiled.  Anton refers to it as a statue of “The Suicidal God”. We’ll leave the interpretations to others. It’s striking to look at — and if you really want to examine it in detail, go to the official SepticFlesh site (here) where you will see a much larger image of the artwork. If we’re understanding the plans correctly, parts of this image will appear as the covers to various editions of the album, plus the dustjacket of an artbook edition.

KRALLICE: “THE CLEARING”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 032011
 

Since this is an unheard-of third post on a Sunday, it will be short. But it will be very sweet.

Krallice is a powerfully good black-metal band from New York consisting of Colin Marston (who is involved in many other projects, including Behold . . . The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, and Gorguts), Mick Barr (Orthrelm), Lev Weinstein, and Nick McMaster. Their third album, Diotima, is scheduled for release by the reliable Profound Lore label on April 26. Wholly apart from the music, the album cover (above) is one of the most eye-catching we’ve seen this year.

Among many cool things about Profound Lore, they make MP3s from their artists available for free download at their site.  Within the last few days, they’ve done that for one of the tracks from Diotima. The song is called “The Clearing”. It’s a long one (12+ minutes), but it’s stunning. It’s unrelenting in its ferocity, and just loaded with riveting hooks and instrumental wizardry — an overwhelming listening experience. Stream (or download) it below, or download it from Profound Lore here. We’ll have a full album review in the near future.

Krallice: The Clearing

SAY HELLO TO 7 HORNS 7 EYES

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 032011
 

Last week you may have seen, either here at NCS or elsewhere, the announcement of the line-up for this year’s SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour and the chance to vote for the band that will fill the last slot on the tour. One of the 10 bands on the voting ballot is a Seattle group with whom you may not be familiar. So, allow us to introduce you to 7 Horns 7 Eyes.

We first saw this band in early 2010 when they opened for Hypno5e, Revocation, and The Binary Code at the Seattle stop of the METAL AS ART tour (reviewed here), and then we saw them again on other occasions, including their supporting slot on a tour featuring The Dillinger Escape Plan, Darkest Hour, and Animals As Leaders (reviewed here), and at the 2010 edition of THE FINNISH METAL TOUR (which we described here). Every time, they wowed us with their music and their live performances. Here’s what we said about their performance with the Finns:

This was the third time we’d seen these dudes this year as local support for a national tour, and they continue to impress in a big way. Every time we hear them, we adjust the description of their music, but we think we’ve just about got it down now: technical, somewhat blackened, melodic mathcore progressive death metal. Got that?

This is music you can get lost in just as much as you can bang your head to it. It’s a creative blend of styles that works really well, and their live playing continues to be sharp as tacks. We’re hungry for the album they’ve got in the works.

Well, that album — Throes of Absolution — is about to get a bang-up release, because last week it was announced that the band have been signed by Century Media, with the European release being handled by Basick Records. One song from the forthcoming debut album is available for streaming, and you can hear it after the jump . . . Continue reading »

YOUR NERVE CELLS WILL LIKE NERVECELL’S NEW SONG (AND ORIGIN’S NEW ALBUM COVER, TOO)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 032011
 

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to Nervecell’s debut album Preaching Venom since I got my hands on it in 2008. In the sophisticated journalist jargon we use here at NCS, it’s fucking awesome. Nervecell’s second album, Psychogenocide, has already hit the streets in the Middle East (Nervecell is from Dubai in the UAE). It will be released via Lifeforce Records on April 29th 2011 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and on May 2nd 2011 in the rest of Europe & the UK.  I don’t yet know the plans for distribution in NorthAm.

As we learned through that most excellent metal blog Metality, the band have posted a new song from Psychogenocide for streaming. I had planned to spend my day listening to other things, but this song has trashed those plans. I suppose I’ll eventually tire of pressing “play” over and over again, but I’m not there yet.

The song is called “All Eyes On Them”. If you’re a fan of bands like Nile, Origin, Behemoth, or Deicide, I can pretty much guarantee this song is going to love you long time, or vice-versa. It churns and blasts in a tasty fusion of death metal and thrash, but it also includes a slower-paced instrumental breakdown with a nice little Eastern-flavored guitar solo. And speaking of Nile, Karl Sanders provides guest vocals on a song called “Shunq”, which will include both English and Arabic lyrics, and it appears that Psycroptic‘s Dave Haley laid down the drum tracks for the album, as he did on the band’s debut. The album cover is rad, too. Check out the artwork and the song after the jump.

Oh, and speaking of Origin, we have the cover of their next album — and a release date — also after the jump. Continue reading »

BANned

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Apr 022011
 

I’m really proud of the title to this post. I thought it up all by myself, without any help from my cat on this one. Did you see what I did? I took the word “banned” and capitalized the first three letters, because they stand for Blut Aus Nord. Really clever, huh?

Yeah, you’re right. It’s as lame as a three-legged dog. I need to get the cat back into the post-title work. I guess I’ll have to start feeding the little fucker again.

Anyway, back to Blut Aus Nord. In my continuing effort to get better educated about black metal, BAN is a band whose music I’ve only recently started exploring, and I’m finding it really interesting. They have a new album — 777 – Sect(s) — scheduled for release on April 19 (one day earlier internationally) via Debemur Morti Productions. And for a limited time only, the whole album is available for streaming.

And when I say “limited time only”, I mean it’s really limited — as in today and tomorrow. After that, the music turns into a pumpkin, leaving only a glass slipper on the steps.

Okay, that Cinderella metaphor was as weak as my fucken post title. Just go listen to the album. I’m doing that right now, and diggin’ it. The tracks are embedded in a player after the jump, though I presume the links will go up in smoke come Monday. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries