BECOME ENSLAVED

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Sep 032010
 

We may have started the day with Linkin Park, but we’re trying to make up for that.

You may have seen elsewhere that Enslaved has just put up a new song for streaming on their MySpace page. Called “Ethica Odini”, it’s the opening track on the band’s next album, Axiom Ethica Odini, which will be released in North America on September 28.

What you may not know is that the song is also legitimately available for free download. The band has announced a contest, inviting fans to make videos for the song. They’ll pick the best one as the track’s “official video”, with some pretty good consolation prizes for second and third place. To facilitate the contest, Enslaved has made the song available for download at this location. You’ll need to give an e-mail address, and then go to your inbox for that address to get the download link.

The song is 8 minutes of tremolo-picked awesomeness. I didn’t even mind the clean singing in the choruses or in the beautiful two-minute finish, which includes a soaring, pure guitar lead. It inserted itself under my skin like . . . like . . .like . . . uh . . .

Crap, simile fail.

What inserts itself under your skin?  Got it!  A splinter!  The song inserted itself under my skin like a splinter!  Fuck, that’s not right.  You want to get splinters out, but I don’t feel that way about this song. Well, something will come to me. In the meantime, you should go trade an e-mail address for that song.

IT’S BEAUTIFUL — AND IT SUCKS

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Sep 022010
 

Sometimes you can admire the idea of beauty from afar, even when you have no chance of experiencing it for yourself. It’s a melancholy kind of fantasy. It’s sublime, and it’s wistful at the same time. It makes you wish, for a moment and maybe longer, that you were someone else, in some different place.

We had that moment today. We have that moment almost every day, prompted by one thing or another. But it passes, as it must, because life must go on, and no good comes from pining too long over what might have been.

Today’s moment was provoked by finding out, finally, about where the following metal tour would be stopping in North America. It will be called THE DECIBEL DEFIANCE TOUR 2010. It is a thing of immense and terrible beauty. It features these bands:

SUFFOCATION
THE FACELESS
THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DEAD
DECREPIT BIRTH
FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE

The thought of this tour transports us into flights of ecstasy, as if soaring high above the earth with all of creation spread before us for the taking. In other words, for our tastes, it’s the most fucking skull-rattling, ass-kicking, intestinally perforating tour of the fall.

It’s also a very melancholy discovery. For all the flights of mental fancy, it brings us very low. At the end, it’s an excrutiacingly suck-tastic discovery. Can you guess why?  (more whining after the jump, of course . . .) Continue reading »

7TH NEMESIS: UPDATE

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Aug 312010
 

This will be short, but sweet. It concerns 7th Nemesis, a French band we found out about for the first time less than two months ago. We sang the praises of their 2008 album, Archetype of Natural Violence, here.

Not long ago, the band started emitting messages to the effect that a new album was on the way. Then last week, they released a really short video teaser for the album, which will be called Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow. Then yesterday, out popped the cover for the album — which would be that nice piece of visual awesomeness up above.

And then today, two new songs from that album magically appeared on the 7th Nemesis MySpace page (which has been completely revamped): “Seeding Devolution” and “Legacy of Supremacy”.

And may we say they are absolutely two killer examples of unpredictable, progressive death metal? Why, yes we may. And you may need to have your head rung like a bell, in which case jumping over to that page will do the trick. By the way, the band has a new vocalist, and that schizophrenic vocal style evident on Archetype has become somewhat less schizophrenic on the new songs but is just as vein-bursting.

No precise word on when the album will become available, but it’s supposed to be “soon”. The band is searching for a label. Hope they find one.

If you want to see that brief video teaser, continue past the jump. Continue reading »

RELAXED, FUN, AND SATANIC

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Aug 312010
 

UK’s Telegraph reports this morning about an article written by the Rev. Rachel Mann, an Anglican priest at St. Nicholas church in Burnage, England, in a publication called Church Times. It’s about metal, and it’s probably not what you would expect from a priest. Granted, our impression is that the Anglican church is somewhat more tolerant and somewhat less judgmental than many institutional forms of religion, but still, Rev Rachel’s article is a refreshing change of pace.

It’s also humorous, in a guileless, probably unintentional way. It’s also a tad condescending. And it doesn’t go far enough.

Nevertheless, we thought it was worth re-printing the Telegraph piece, along with our own running commentary, and of course some musical accompaniment. We also invite you to comment, because we have a feeling this will inspire some thoughts — so don’t keep ’em to yourselves.

Christians could learn a lot about life from heavy metal, says cleric

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 31 Aug 2010

The Rev Rachel Mann claims that the much-maligned form of music demonstrates the “liberative theology of darkness”, allowing its tattooed and pierced fans to be more “relaxed and fun” by acknowledging the worst in human nature. She says that by contrast, churchgoers can appear too sincere and take themselves too seriously.

This is a defense of metal from an unusual quarter — not that we feel metal needs to be defended, by anyone, especially priests. Sure, sometimes it’s frustrating to hear people who don’t know the first thing about metal condemn it, but usually that frustrated feeling passes quickly, because, basically, we don’t give a fuck what non-metalheads think about our music. On the other hand, we’re not sure we agree with Rev Rachel’s defense.  (more of the Rev’s thoughts, and ours, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 8)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Aug 312010
 

Another month has passed. Summer is waning. It’s still as hot as the ninth circle of Hell in most parts of our country, but here in the Pacific Northwest, the air is already beginning to feel like fall. And because fall in Seattle lasts about one week, winter is already what we’re thinking about, because winter means getting soaked with rain. In the dark.

Where were we? Oh yeah, another month is over. And here at NCS, that means it’s time for another installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, a forge being the old name for a place where a blacksmith heats metal and works it into the shape of something useful. We thought it sounded literary.

Another name for “forge” is “smithy.” As in, “the blacksmith works in a smithy.” But “smithy” doesn’t sound literary, and METAL IN THE SMITHY just sounds fucked up. METAL IN THE FORGE is a little fucked up, too, the more we think about it, but not as fucked up as METAL IN THE SMITHY.

Where were we? Oh yeah, at the end of every month, we update the list of forthcoming new albums we first posted on January 1. (All the other updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or updated info about some of the previously noted releases.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Perhaps needless to say, these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site — the kind that would like to tear your head off.

So, after the jump, in alphabetical order, you’ll find our list of cut-and-pasted items from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and, if you’re really obsessive like we are, put reminders on your calendar. Continue reading »

FREE, LIVE, OPETH

 Metal News  No Responses »
Aug 252010
 

If you’re a fan of Opeth (and really, who isn’t?), then you probably know that the band is on the verge of releasing a DVD of their live performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall on April 5, 2010.

What you may not know is that to promote the forthcoming DVD (scheduled for release on September 21), Roadrunner Records is making available a free mp3 download of Opeth’s live performance of “Dirge for November” at that concert. 

Roadrunner says it’s “the full album version” and clocks in at almost 9 minutes, but the copy we downloaded stops short of 5 minutes and omits the acoustic guitar and clean singing at the beginning of the song.  That’s disappointing, but regardless, the song is great.

The price you pay for the download is providing an e-mail address and a name.  You’ve then got to go to the e-mail account you provide in order to get the download link.  If you’re game, click this link.

THE SECRETS OF GROWLING AND SHRIEKING REVEALED!

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  8 Responses »
Aug 162010
 

You learn something new every day. You may not think you do, but you do.

Like on Friday, I learned that the German word for emptiness is “leere”. On Saturday, I learned that if you live in the Pacific Northwest and forgetfully leave your car window down overnight, spiders will move in and later drop on your arm while you’re driving, causing unexpected vehicular fun ‘n games. And yesterday, I learned the secrets of how extreme metal vocalists can shriek and growl really low without requiring hospitalization.

I’ve always wondered, and finally, after years of listening to non-clean singing, it now all becomes clear to me. It’s like some trade secret that finally leaked. And it turns out to be something that is easily duplicated. It just takes the right preparation and the right record producer (like Chris “Zeuss” Harris).

I’m not making this up. I learned it from a dude who ought to know — Adam Warren, who happens to be the frontman for deathcore heavyweights Oceano. It’s all in that video at the top of this post. It just takes sleeping ’til noon, some microwaved elixir, a little Lion King chord-stretching, and someone who can tell you which buttons to push.

Go ahead, see for yourself. The secrets are out. We won’t even charge you to watch. In the video, you can also see some spirited debate over whether “Contagion” is the kind of album title people will have to look up, as compared to a common street-word like, uh, “harbinger”.

Truly, Adam Warren is an engaging dude, and we can pretty much guarantee this thing will make you smile, even if you’re not an Oceano fan.  And while we’re on the subject of deathcore, word of a Whitechapel–Impending Doom–Miss May I–Oceano–I Declare War tour has leaked out. Details about that breaking news, plus an Oceano video, follow after the jump. Wonder what I’ll learn today? Continue reading »

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE UPDATE

 Metal News  12 Responses »
Aug 132010
 

Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse is one of those bands (and there aren’t many) for which we have this presumption: They can do no wrong. Perhaps someday they will, but until that day, we will willingly listen to whatever music they create.

We reviewed Mafia — their most recent installment of obliteratingly good music — on June 2 (here).

Various things have happened since then. For one thing, we learned the stupendously good news that Fleshgod Apocalypse will be touring the U.S. this fall with this lineup of bands:

SUFFOCATION
THE FACELESS
THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DEAD
DECREPIT BIRTH

Is this the best tour of the year? If it’s not, it’s very fucking close. We don’t have dates or places yet, but you can be damned sure we’ll tell you when we do.

For another thing, FA’s bassist/vocalist Paolo Rossi gave an extended interview with an Italian metal site called Metal Italia, which was published yesterday, that included some interesting tidbits of information.

Do any of us here at NCS speak Italian? Well, fuck no! We can barely speak English! But we do know how to copy Italian text on a web site and paste it into Google Translate.

Did we get nice, smooth, intelligible English results when we did that? Fuck no! We got half-wit, idjit, gibberish English. Fortunately, to use a baseball metaphor, half-wit, idjit, gibberish English is right in our wheelhouse, because that’s mainly what we speak. So we feel pretty confident we can give you the substance of the news revealed in that interview.  (after the jump, of course, along with a widget that will allow you to stream FA songs . . .) Continue reading »

WELL, HOLY FUCK

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 132010
 

The last couple of days my day job has had my head in a fucking vise. I’ve barely had time to create posts for this site, but haven’t had much time to browse other metal sites I usually frequent in order to keep up with what’s happening in the metal cosmos. I did a little catching up last night, and found two stupendous videos that have just been released over the last 48 hours.

Because I’m a little slow to find them, you may have seen the videos already, but I’ve got to put them up anyway because they’re both so cool — in very different ways. Both of them made me exclaim “Holy Fuck!” (hence, the really imaginative title of this post).

The first one is a video of “Alas, Lord Is Upon Me” from Behemoth’s most recent album, Evangelion. I saw a censored version of this video on a couple of other metal sites, but this morning I found an uncensored version that’s now out. The only difference from the censored version is that there are a couple of flashes of nudity (as a priest in his vestments has sex with a naked woman in a church). The images in this slick video (even when they don’t involve nudity) are striking.

The second video is a live pro-shot performance by the reconstituted Polish death-metal band Decapitated. I got excited about this one mainly because Decapitated’s heavy-grooved, technical music is just so damned awesome, and this performance appears to be the first since the awful 2007 van accident that killed the band’s drummer and left its vocalist in a coma.

In fact, the only original member of the band still left is guitarist Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka. But based on the evidence of this video, Decapitated can still kick your ass into the stratosphere.  (both videos are after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

WE MAY HAVE TO STOP MAKING FUN OF 70,000 TONS OF METAL

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Aug 112010
 

When we first heard about The 70,000 TONS OF METAL cruise way back in February, all we could think about was what could go comically wrong. Really, just think about the concept: 40 metal bands and 2,000 metalheads sailing around the Caribbean with non-stop performances, bars that stay open all night, and a stop at the Mexican island of Cozumel, where the tequila flows like water.

So of course, assholes that we are, we immediately started making fun of the idea — imagining in detail all the ass-ripping things that could go wrong. That was the subject of our first post about the cruise (here). That was in February, when only six bands had signed up to play for this floating festival.

We wrote an update post about this thing in late May, still sorta making fun, but also starting to imagine the things about this idea that could — we emphasize could — turn out to be awesome.  By that point, 18 bands had signed on to play.

Well, this morning we got a press release from the organizers announcing the latest edition to the line-up — the 22nd band, to be precise. And the new addition is none other than Sweden’s Marduk. Now, we’re really going to have to start thinking about taking this cruise seriously. Marduk is the first black-metal addition to the line-up. We figured there was no way the organizers could convince a top-flight, no-bullshit, black-metal band to jump on this thing.

A grymm cruise? Fans in corpsepaint and spikes mingling with beardos mingling with thrashers mingling with fans quaffing their brew out of drinking horns, and so on. Boggles the mind. For the current line-up of 22 bands, continue after the jump. Now we’re really getting interested in seeing who the next 18 bands will be. Continue reading »

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