Metal News Archives - Page 232 of 258

SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2011!

Mar 312011

Tonight, the official line-up of this year’s SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR was announced. Well, there’s actually one slot yet to be filled. More about that in a minute. But first, here’s the line-up except for that one slot:

The Black Dahlia Murder
Whitechapel
Darkest Hour
Six Feet Under
Dying Fetus
As Blood Runs Black
Oceano
Fleshgod Apocalypse

Powerglove is also listed for a “special half time show”, whatever that means. I am going. Definitely. I don’t love all these bands equally, but I would pay money to see every one of them — but most especially Darkest Hour, Dying Fetus, and . . . Fleshgod Apocalypse! Kinda blows my mind that the almighty FA is down at the bottom of the bill, so small you can barely see them. Fuck that shit! Anyway, I don’t yet know the dates and places for the tour. That info won’t be released until April 20. Motherfuckers better be comin’ to Seattle, that’s all I have to say.

Back to that one unfilled slot. The tour organizers have left that slot open on purpose. They’ve put together a list of 10 bands and they’re asking fans to vote on which one should fill the last slot as the opening act. The list of candidates and how to vote are after the jump. Continue reading »

DISFIGURING THE GODDESS: THE NEW ALBUM IS STREAMING

Mar 292011

We’ve written about Cam Argon, a/k/a Big Chocolate, before. Many times before, in fact, though not recently. What first attracted our attention to him back in 2008 was his involvement in a brutal death-metal project called Disfiguring the Goddess. You can find a bit of the backstory about DTG in this post we ran more than a year ago. Cribbing from that post, we described the original DTG EP like this: “a raw, distorted vortex of brutal, slamming death metal marked by some truly distinctive vocals.”

Since surfacing as a cult-figure-on-the-rise through DTG, Cam has gone on to do many other things, including dubstep, remixes, a project called Commissioner with Mitch Lucker of Suicide Silence, making music videos, and a stint as the vocalist for Burning the Masses. His musical interests are, shall we say, varied.

But no matter how far and wide Big C’s musical creativity has taken him (or will take him), there have been a solid mass of core fans interested mainly in one question: When will there be new Disfiguring the Goddess music? The question is now answered, because yesterday Cam Argon uploaded an entire new album’s worth of DTG music to Soundcloud.

The album is called Circle of Nine. Based on previous reports, we assume Big C recorded all the songs with ex-Misericordiam blaster Phil Cancilla on drums and Joe Broodle on guitar, in addition to the instrumental and programming work that Big C himself did. [Update: that was a bad assumption — we’ve now heard from Cam, and he did this whole album by himself, all the vocals, guitars, and drum programming.] And, of course, there are those distinctive vocals.

We’ve just started listening to these tracks this morning, and goddamn, it will spin your fucking head around and then tear it off. Fast, brutal, jolting, unpredictable, instrumentally inventive, and anchored by the most gut rumbling, abyssal, brutal-death vocals on the planet. Check it out for yourselves — the whole album stream is after the jump. Continue reading »

A CREEPING FEELING OF DREAD

Metal News 9 Responses »

Mar 282011

For me, In Flames is a special band. They were one of my “gateways” to extreme metal. My NCS co-founders and I have seen them many times live, and we’ve always gotten a charge out of their shows. We’ve also met and talked with the band, and they are kind-hearted people who don’t come across as egotists, despite their global success. And on top of all that, I’m still a big fan of the music.

But to be brutally honest, I’ve become less of a fan as time has passed. I know some of you, maybe many of you, feel the same way. There is a vast distance between Clayman and A Sense of Purpose. Hell, there’s some real distance between Come Clarity and A Sense of Purpose.

Based on a news item from earlier today, I’m getting an uneasy feeling that the distance is going to increase even more when the next In Flames album, Sounds Of A Playground Fading, hits the streets in June. Yes, we now have specific worldwide release dates. We also have the news that In Flames is now signed to Century Media.

And we have comments like this from Anders Fridén in a recent interview: “[One] song begins with a spoken-word part that evolves into a kind of hard DEPECHE MODE-type thing.” Gulp. (more after the jump . . .)
Continue reading »

TROLLS COME OUT TO PLAY!

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Mar 272011

It’s a well-known fact that trolls live under bridges, and in caves, and in your basement if you’re not careful. But we now have actual video evidence that trolls come out to play every now and then.

These are Norwegian trolls and they play metal, too. They call themselves Trollfest. We wrote about them last July (see this post) when they released a single from an album they were then starting to shop around to labels. The song is called “Die Verdammte Hungersnot”. The official NCS translation of the song title is “Hungersnot, Dammit!” However, it actually seems to mean “the damned craving” or “the damned hunger”. Kick-ass song, whatever the title means.

Because we’re lazy, we’ll use the description of the music we concocted for that previous post: “speed metal plus oompa music plus Balkan folk tunes plus middle eastern melodies plus Converge-style hardcore shrieking plus more speed metal plus beer and vodka plus more speed metal.”

That was then, this is now. And in the here and now, Trollfest has found a label (NoiseArt Records), and that album (En Kvest For Den Hellige Gral) will finally be released on April 29. To help promote the release, the band are uploading weekly videos between now and the release date. The first one just went up. It’s a “tour diary” of a German tour that Trollfest did last December with fellow Norwegians Pantheon I and Germany’s Finterforst.

The video is shocking, I tell you, simply shocking: It appears that there is snow in Germany during the winter! And European airlines don’t work any better than U.S. ones. And it appears that Norwegian bands never stop drinking, ever. It also appears that they know how to fucken party, both on and off-stage. Check out the video after the jump, plus music, plus other shit, including a picture of a snot otter . . . Continue reading »

TOMBS: VERMILLION

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Mar 262011

I’m still barely awake after a very late night at Seattle’s El Corazon partaking of Rotting Christ‘s current headlining tour of the U.S. I have a very sore neck, in addition to still being half-asleep. If I ever fully wake up, I will put up some photos of that show.

In the meantime, I did perk up when I saw the news that within the last 24 hours, Tombs began streaming a new track from their next album, Path of Totality, which is scheduled for release by Relapse Records on June 7. This is the follow-up to the Brooklyn trio’s February 2009 album, Winter Hours, which I thought was a fucking killer — a virtually non-stop vortex of grim, hateful, teeth-chattering, blackened doom.

The new song is called “Vermillion”. From the beginning, it crashes over you in a surging wave of tremolo guitar and not-quite-what-you-expect drum progressions — and it doesn’t let up. As on Winter Hours, all the hostility is leavened with ringing guitar melodies, but it’s mainly heavy as fuck, and Mike Hill is in prime, roaring, vocal form. My only complaint? This jam could easily have gone on for twice its actual length without losing one whit of interest. Jump past the jump and listen to “Vermillion”. I feel more awake already. Continue reading »

NEGURĂ BUNGET: NEW MUSIC

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Mar 252011

In the spring of 2009, undisclosed disagreements led to the departure of two of the three members of Romanian black metal band Negură Bunget. But although founding member Hupogrammos and Sol Faur were on their way out the door, they finished working with co-founder Negru on a re-recording of the band’s 2000 album, Măiastru Sfetnic. The new work, called Măiestrit, was released last year, and as we wrote in our review, it’s a remarkably impressive work.

With Hupogrammos and Sol Faur gone, drummer Negru set about recruiting a new line-up, including a guitarist and vocalist called Corb and a guitarist called Spin. In all, the new Negură Bunget is a six-piece band constructed to give even more attention to traditional folk instruments. And the new line-up also released its debut album last year — Vîrstele Pămîntului. We reviewed that one, too (here), and found that it was “a passionate and entrancing combination of extreme metal and traditional folk melodies and instruments.” It also appeared on several of our guest contributors’ Best of 2010 lists.

With that background, we’re very fucking pleased to report that Negură Bunget is set to release an EP (MCD) of new music on April 25 via code666 Records. The name of the EP is Poartă de dincolo (which means “a gate from the above” or “carrying from the other side”). To whet our appetites, the band have just released a wonderful preview track from the EP. You can hear it after the jump . . . Continue reading »

TODAY’S ACRONYMS: END. AND TNOTB

Metal News 16 Responses »

Mar 252011

In this post, we’re really just showing our support for some metal bro’s who we care about, but we’re tossing in some music, too.

ERYN NON DAE. (END.)

Last year, we published no fewer than four posts about this band from Toulouse, France. Those posts included a review of the band’s 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, an interview with the band, and two updates that included videos of live performances. The last post, from June 2010, includes links to all the others. We paid so much attention to them because the music was such a head-scrambling rush. To repeat yet again what we said in the review:

“Alternating between brutal headbanging heaviness and shrieking turbulent intricacy, the music has a very experimental, discordant, anarchic vibe. It’s dense, intense, grim, sharply angled, and often surreal. . . .Hydra Lernaïa is an adventure in the unexpected. It’s obviously the product of considerable thought, extensive work, and a high level of technical proficiency in the playing — nothing less could have succeeded in realizing on such an ambitious game-plan. This is dark math metal with brains as well as brawn, and emotional power as well as rigorous complexity.”

When we think of current bands that are pushing the envelope of metal, this is one that immediately comes to mind. Given our attraction, it was only natural to follow the band’s news, whenever there was news to be had. We haven’t had much for a while, but yesterday we learned that END. is now in the throes of creating music for their next album.

Still untitled at this point, we’ve learned that the subject of the new music will be metamorphosis. Song titles include “Chrysalis”, “The Great Downfall”, “Black Obsidian Pyre”, and “Scarlet Rising”. In August, the band will be ensconcing themselves in Mobo’s Conkrete Studio to record the successor to Hydra Lernaïa. We be excite with anticipation. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

WAR MUSIC?

Metal News 9 Responses »

Mar 222011

There is apparently a video game called Homefront. I know nothing about it, except this:

The creators of Homefront have produced a compilation album that they bill as a soundtrack for the game. It’s available for free download — IF you’re one of the first 25,000 people to hit their site and download it. You have to give an e-mail address with a mailbox you can actually then go check for a download code.

This thing just went up not long ago, so they can’t possibly have hit 25,000 yet, or anywhere close to it. At least they weren’t at the limit when I downloaded my copy before writing this post. What? You think I should have written the post and then downloaded my copy? Hey, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, but a guy’s gotta have his priorities, amirite?

The comp includes war-oriented cover songs by a bunch of mostly good bands, including As I Lay Dying, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Acacia Strain, The Ghost Inside, Misery Signals, and Veil of Maya. After the jump, check out the track list and get the link for the web page where you can do the download. Continue reading »

A TRIO OF SONGS FROM SUIDAKRA

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Mar 222011

We first discovered German’s SuidAkrA (damn, that’s hard to type) with the release of their 2009 album, Crógacht. Their blend of melodeath and Celtic-flavored folk metal proved to be appealing, and we went backward and became even bigger fans of Caledonia (2006) and Command To Charge (2005). Of course, that doesn’t exhaust SuidAkrA’s discography, since six more albums preceded Command To Charge.

The band’s tenth album of original music — Book of Dowth — is on its way, scheduled for release on March 25 via AFM Records. Within the last day, the band have made a total of three songs from the album available for streaming on their Facebook page, but we also have them for you here, in addition to the album’s eye-catching cover art up above. Belgian graphic artist Kris Verwimp created the cover, and is also credited with developing the album’s lyrical concept.

Speaking of that, the band has explained that the concept of Book Of Dowth “chronicles the mythology of a mysterious race of demonic beings known as the ‘Fomor.’ Starting with the discovery of an ancient book at the excavation of Dowth (a Neolithic passage tomb in the Boyne Valley, Ireland), it unveils the yet untold story of the rise and fall of the Fomorian horde throughout history and far, far beyond . . . .”

Man, yet another race of demonic beings we hadn’t heard of! Demonic beings must breed and inter-breed like rabbits, yet they seem to keep to themselves. However well-hidden, this race now has an album to memorialize their perfidity. After the jump, you can check out the new tracks and our take on them, plus a video of one of them, if you haven’t already seen it. Continue reading »

SET THE VOLUME TO “KILL”: ANAAL NATHRAKH STRIKES AGAIN

Metal News 20 Responses »

Mar 212011

Four days ago we featured a new Anaal Nathrakh song called “Volenti Non Fit Iniuria” from their next album, Passion, which will drop on May 23. To use a phrase that only highly trained metal journalists such as those employed by NCS are sophisticated enough to use, it’s a fuckin’ destroyer.

We’re not even finished reeling from that first song, and lo and behold there’s another one out today. This one’s called “Paragon Pariah”. It’s streaming at the DECIBEL magazine web site. It comes with these instructions from vocalist Dave Hunt: “Set volume to ‘kill’ and press ‘blast’.”

Those instructions are just barely simple enough for me to follow, so I did that — and I’m still picking up my teeth off the floor. Fuck . . . . I didn’t even mind the clean singing.

I’m such a selfish asshole that I’d really like to embed the song right here for you, but I can’t do it yet. So I will grudgingly give you this link.

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