Sep 302010
 

Musica Diablo is a relatively new band based in São Paulo, Brazil, with a self-titled debut album that’s been on the streets since late May.  We got interested in these dudes shortly before that album dropped and put up a post about them (here). What interested us?

Well, first, the band’s vocalist is Derrick Green, who’s been the frontman for Sepultura since 1997.  Second, the band has described its music as “Jurassic thrash”, or, somewhat more descriptively as “extreme fast thrash metal, with with the characteristic Brazilian style and a strong root into the 80’s veteran veterans.” And third, the album cover by Gustavo Sazes was damned cool (we’re featuring the South American variant cover up above).

So, all that was enough to draw our attention to the band — particularly that bit about “Jurassic thrash”. We wrote this about our initial reactions to the music in May:  “We’ve been listening, and let’s just say it will kick your ass all the way up to your shoulder-blades. The music is blistering in its intensity and speed and features some cool dueling guitar solos — and Derrick Green’s raspy howls and guttural growls are skull-scrapingly vicious.”

Since then, we’ve listened to the entire album, and all our initial impressions were vindicated. The album is joltingly good, and we get the “Jurassic thrash” reference: It’s like a pack of velociraptors on the hunt.

And as of yesterday, we now have some video of the band performing songs from the album. To be precise, Musica Diablo performed a handful of songs from their debut on the September 15, 2010 episode of “Estúdio Showlivre”, a Brazilian Internet TV show. We picked two clips to show you after the jump, and more song performances can be viewed on YouTube. Continue reading »

Sep 282010
 

That got your attention, didn’t it?

Some small number of you might have been visiting this site back in January and some even smaller number might remember that we wrote then about a South African band called Haggis and Bong. Maybe more will remember than we think,  because that’s a name you don’t easily forget.

Back in January, when we first heard about Haggis and Bong, they were a 3-man show:  Angus “Haggis” Nixon on the Great Highland Bagpipes, Thomas “Bong” Hughes on the kit drum, and Dominic “The Dominator” Skelton on the Great Highland Bagpipes.

Yes, you read that correctly.  This was an instrumental metal band that consisted of nothing but bagpipes and drums. But man, could they rip the hell out of a song, combining a furious double-bagpipe attack with lots of blast beats and double-bass.

Now, the line-up has expanded, and Haggis and Bong have added a full-time bass-player, as well as guest musicians, including a trombonist.

Back in January, the band had released one album, brilliantly entitled Fire in the Bowl.  Only problem was that unless you could catch a live show in South Africa, there was no fucking way to get a personal copy of the music.

Ever since January, we’ve waited and watched and searched, and there has just been no fucking way to download the tunes, either legally or illegally. We were completely hostage to the Haggis and Bong MySpace page. Now, finally, that frustrating situation has changed! (more after the jump, including Haggis and Bong music to hear . . .) Continue reading »

Sep 242010
 

Well, fuck it. This is clearly new-video Friday. Seems like about every hour of the day so far a new video has popped up on our radar screen. And there’s really no reason why we should stop with those Animals As Leaders videos we put up earlier today. We’ll just continue putting up videos for as long as we see new ones to put up. How ’bout that?

Just tell your boss or your teachers or whoever is attempting to control your lives today to just fuck right off, get yourself a big ol’ fucking bag of popcorn, and just veg out and watch metal videos all day. Because at this rate, we’ll find a dozen more new ones before we call it quits today.

So, here’s what we’ve got so far: A brand new video for the title track from the new album by The Absence (“Enemy Unbound”); a brand new performance video from August Burns Red off their forthcoming live CD/DVD (the song is “Barn Burner”); and a new video from a California black-metal band called Valdur (the song is called “Vicious Existence”). Get the popcorn and go see ’em after the jump . . . (and don’t get faked out by our screen capture up at the top — clicking on that arrow won’t start the video, which is after the jump). Continue reading »

Sep 242010
 

Not long ago, we posted a video retrospective of the meteoric career of multi-instrumentalist Navene Koperweis. When we did that, we had trouble finding a decent performance video of Animals As Leaders — the band in which Koperweis plays drums with the godlike Tosin Abasi on guitar. Now, METAL INJECTION has remedied that problem.

They were on hand when AAL played the Sonar in Baltimore on the SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2010 tour and filmed some of the band’s performance using multiple cameras. The video quality and the sound quality are both far superior to any other videos currently available of AAL playing live.

The one at the top of this post is the song “Tempting Time”, and after the jump, we’ve got a second METAL INJECTION video of “Wave of Babies”. If this doesn’t make you come, then it’s possible you were neutered in your sleep last night.  Plus, when’s the last time you saw a metal guitarist playing in a polo shirt and white shorts? Continue reading »

Sep 242010
 

For eons, humankind has had a fatal attraction to the sea. The oceans are vast, uncontrollable, and unforgiving. They have snuffed out countless thousands of human lives over the centuries as we would swat pesky flies into oblivion without the slightest thought. And yet, people continue to throw themselves out upon the waters, because the oceans beckon with inexplicable but irresistible power. Perhaps it’s because all life originated in the seas and, at some mitochondrial level, human beings still feel a magnetic pull toward the ancestral home of our single-celled forebearers.

What else can explain why people would shamble forth in single files to board giant floating hotels called cruise ships, to live cheek-by-jowl with complete strangers for some assigned period of time on a watery world that permits no escape?

Granted, the advancement of technology has greatly reduced the risk of ocean-bound catastrophe. People who long for the sea no longer must risk life and limb on board vessels made of little more than oak and tar. Instead, they cross the ocean depths on massive structures of steel guided by precision electronics and powered by engines the size of houses. And yet, and yet, the oceans are still the great leviathans of our planet, and in their realm, we are still as insignificant as insects.

Which brings us, with evil glee, to our latest update about THE 70,000 TONS OF METAL cruise. Since February, we’ve been having fun monitoring the developments of this extravaganza and imagining all that could go wrong. But more than a month has passed since our last update, and with recent announcements from the promoters, it seems like an appropriate time to revisit the subject.

The original goal of the organizers was to set sail in January 2011 on a Caribbean cruise of five days and four nights with a cargo of 40 metal bands and 2,000 metalhead fans. And son of a bitch, they’ve now actually signed 30 of the 40 bands they’re targeting. That’s 8 more bands than the last time we checked. This thing has more than passed the critical mass necessary to make it a reality. There has been nothing like it in the history of metal — and there may be nothing like it ever again.  (more after the jump, including the current line-up of bands . . .) Continue reading »

Sep 222010
 

We’ve displayed our dog-like devotion to Boston’s Revocation many times at this site. They’re an extremely talented group of musicians and song-writers, and they’re in the vanguard of modern extreme metal with a technical blend of death and thrash that’s both head-spinning and massively infectious.

We’ve had shitloads of fun at both of the Seattle shows where we’ve seen them perform, in part because they look like they’re having so much fun when they’re playing and in part because they’re just so fucking good. In fact, we’d crawl across broken glass to see them play live. Fortunately, Seattle’s metal venues don’t yet require crawling as the price of admission and they do a pretty good job keeping the sidewalks clear of broken glass.

Revocation has released two albums to date, 2008’s Empire of the Obscene and last year’s Existence Is Futile. We’d have a hard time picking which one of those is our favorite even at gunpoint. Fortunately, we only know one dude who actually owns a gun, and he wouldn’t threaten us with a gun to find out which of those albums is our favorite. At least we don’t think he would. On the other hand, the fact that he owns a gun means, by definition, that all the wiring in his brain isn’t connected up as it should be. Plus, everyone knows the old saying: “Guns don’t kill people. Metal albums kill people.”

Where were we?  Oh yeah, Revocation. Well, as of a few hours ago, Revocation has released a new performance video of the song “ReaniManiac”, which is being exclusively premiered at the Jackson Guitars web site. In connection with that premiere, Jackson is also sponsoring the giveaway of The Jackson/Revocation JS32 Warrior™ Guitar. So, if you play guitar, or if you just want to stare longingly at one in your room, you can go there and enter your name in the contest.

If all you want to do is watch the video — which you should do — you can do that right here at NCS . . . after the jump. Continue reading »

Sep 202010
 

Sometimes living on the West Coast means you get to find out about things when people in the rest of the country are sleeping. Like just a few minutes ago I checked some of the latest news releases and found an item that blew a hole in the top of my head.  Okay, that’s not exactly true.  It blew a second hole in the top of my head.  At least the hole that’s always been there now has company.

Here’s the news: Scion A/V and The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim have compiled an album of rare or brand new metal releases in a package they’ve called METAL SWIM that’s available for free download beginning right now. And man, just check out this line-up of bands and songs:

Death Angel — Truce
Skeletonwitch — Bringers of Death
Torche — Arrowhead
Ludicra — Path of Ash
Kylesa — Forsaken
Black Tusk — Fatal Kiss
Red Fang — Hank Is Dead
Black Cobra — Frozen Night
Saviours — Dixie Dieway
Witch Mountain — Veil of the Forgotten
Isis — Pliable Foe
Jesu — Dethroned
Pelican — Inch Above Sand
Zoroaster — Witch Hammer

Withered — Extinguished With the Misery
Boris — Luna

Seriously, is that not one motherfucking awesome line-up or what?  It begins with a track from Death Angel‘s brand new album, and take a close look at the next-to-last song on that list. You know what that is? It’s the lead track from Withered’s forthcoming new album, which isn’t due for release until October 26.  (more after the jump, including that track and a link that gets you the whole compilation . . . .) Continue reading »

Sep 182010
 

I’m a bit behind in my reading of Blabbermouth, and therefore missed some orgasmically good news that appeared late yesterday. But thanks to some info last night from my collaborator IntoTheDarkness and then a pathetically sad post today by DemiGodRaven at The Number of the Blog, I now know that Rotting Christ is coming to NorthAm in a headlining tour next spring. And may I say just how fucking happy I am?  I believe I will.  I am just soooooo fucking happy!

This almost makes up for the deep depression I experienced when learning that THE DECIBEL DEFIANCE TOUR, featuring Suffocation, The Faceless, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Decrepit Birth, and Fleshgod Apocalypse would be playing Tulsa but not Seattle — the sort of mortification that DemiGodRaven expressed upon learning that Rotting Christ would be playing Seattle but not Sacramento.

Brother, I feel your pain. Well, not really.  It’s more accurate to say that I would feel your pain except that I’ve managed to get over THE DECIBEL DEFIANCE TOUR’s snubbing of Seattle and I’m now in a painless state of bliss just thinking about the chance to see Rotting Christ in about six short months when they stop here.

There are some other bands on that tour — Melechesh, Hate, Abigail Williams, and Lecherous Nocturne — and that’s a pretty strong set of supporting acts. I’m especially interested in listening to Melechesh play their unique brand of Mesopotamian metal in the flesh. But — and no disrespect is intended to any of those other bands — I would gag my way through a supporting lineup of Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Nelly as long as Rotting Christ was waiting at the end.

I am soooo fucking happy. (The tour dates and places are after the jump.) Continue reading »

Sep 152010
 

Man, time really flies. It was January 25 when we wrote a post about an unsigned band we had just discovered called Sight of Emptiness — a melodic death metal band from Costa Rica, of all places. There were then three songs from a forthcoming album streaming on the band’s MySpace page, and we liked what we heard. We also found a video of one song and put it up on our site.

Sight of Emptiness has had an eventful eight months since then. That album (the band’s second) is now out — it’s called Absolution of Humanity, and it was mastered by Jens Bogren, who has worked with the likes of Opeth, Soilwork, Bloodbath, Katatonia, Symphony X, and Amon Amarth.

Also, on May 9, Sight of Emptiness opened for Megadeth at Autodromo La Guacima in San Jose, Costa Rica, playing before 15,000 people. That must have been a huge kick in the ass for these guys, though they have previously been hand-picked by Dark Tranquillity and Amon Amarth to open for them in previous Costa Rica performances.

And in June, Sight of Emptiness won an award for “Best Metal Album” at the ACAM Awards in San Jose (ACAM is the Costa Rica equivalent of ASCAP in the U.S.).

And today they’ve released a professionally filmed and edited video of the band performing a song called “Burning Silence” at that Megadeth concert in May. It’s a cool song, the video is fun to watch, and this is a band that deserves some recognition.  The video is after the jump.  Take a look . . . Continue reading »

Sep 042010
 

WORLD PREMIERE VIDEO

Fifteen years have passed since Immortal last released a music video. But they’ve just released a new one, for the title track of their most recent album, All Shall Fall.

It’s a great song — we’ve thought so since the first listen last year. But as much as we want to like this video, it just doesn’t match the intensity or grandure of the song — the dramatic setting notwithstanding. It’s the fucking design of their corpsepaint that’s at fault — that, and the unintentionally comical posturing. We’re sorry, but these guys just don’t look ominous or evil. They look more like Kiss with frowny faces.

Further details about the video are available at the Immortal web site.

And in other news, we have a new tour to report. Yesterday, we got all hot and bothered over the release (for free download) of the first song from Enslaved‘s forthcoming album. Now, we’ve seen the news that Enslaved will be touring North American in November and December as support for Dimmu Borgir. The other bands on the tour will be Blood Red Throne and Dawn of Ashes.

Online ticket sales will begin September 15. The dates and places are after the jump . . . Continue reading »