FILTER (unfiltered)

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Jun 142010
 

Filter has been playing, off and on, since 1993. They’ve released four studio albums, and their fifth one, The Trouble With Angels, is due in August via Rocket Science Ventures. So why are we writing about them today? Good question, since they’re not exactly an extreme metal band. Two reasons.

First, to be brutally honest (and brutal is the only kind of honest we know how to be here at NCS), there’s an element of nostalgia at work. Filter songs such as “Hey Man, Nice Shot”, “Where Do We Go From Here?” an “Take A Picture” formed the soundtrack to some deliciously fucked-up times in my life. I listen to those songs, and a kaleidoscope of those moments come cascading back.

But reason number one wouldn’t be enough for me to take up your time with this post. Because, to be brutally honest, we think bands that trade on nostalgia should be rectally impaled on spikes.

So that necessarily brings me to reason number two: Filter has released a new single from the forthcoming fifth, called “The Inevitable Relapse”, along with a performance video of the song filmed on May 31 in Hollywood. And it’s that song that grabbed our attention, cuz it’s a heavy-as-fuck return to Filter’s nasty industrial-metal roots. Follow along after the jump and you can see the video and download the song for nothing (well, almost nothing . . .) Continue reading »

VIDEO MINDFUCKERY, DELUXE

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Jun 122010
 

Here at NO CLEAN SINGING, we don’t spend much time looking at metal music videos. Mainly, that’s because we’re in too much of a damned hurry to get our shit done for the day — which includes imagining something to write about, writing about it, feeding the cat (that would be me), reading other metal blogs, working our fucking day jobs, dealing with the rest of the shit in our daily lives, etc., etc.

And there’s also the feeling, grown through experience, that most extreme metal music videos are going to be imminently forgettable — even when we really dig the songs — so really, why bother?

But every now and then, we see something that defies our presumptions. Case in point: the new video of a song called “Sleepwalker” by Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive. One of our NCS collaborators, IntoTheDarkness, brought this thing to our attention a few days ago, insisting that we had to watch it without delay.

Coincidentally, about 5 minutes before getting that urgent message, we’d seen a write-up on the video by Axl Rosenberg over at Metal Sucks. He thought certain aspects of the video were “kinda cool” but thought the song was “FUCKING AWFUL” and invited readers to suggest a better song that would fit the video.

So we watched the video — and it’s completely mind-blowing. Really, it is. (see for yourselves, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FRENCH GORING, INTACT

 Album Reviews, Metal News  3 Responses »
Jun 122010
 

In our dog-eat-dog world, effort alone doesn’t count for much. You can pour yourself into something heart and soul, and that doesn’t mean anyone else will notice. It may be that despite the intensity of your desire, you’re held back by a deficit in your ability to express what you feel.  It may be that you’re only missing the right launching pad for the delivery to a wider audience of what you create.

Or it could be that somewhere in your past you stepped on the wrong ant, which unbeknownst to you was the reincarnation of some godlike being that just doesn’t like to be stepped on and decides to take revenge by fucking up every significant thing you try to do.

But here in our meager domain, we have the ability to give a modicum of recognition to whatever the fuck we want to recognize, and no fucking ant is going to stop us!

We’ve got a reader who recently has made enough time to delve deeply into all sorts of shit we’ve written over the six-plus months this site has been in existence, and he’s left thought-provoking comments on lots of posts we’d forgotten we even wrote.  His nom de plume is “Elvis Shot JFK.” And he deserves some recognition. Not to presume that he really needs recognition from us, and not to presume that we’re terribly objective in doling out recognition. To be honest, we’re pathetically grateful to anyone who bothers to leave comments on our site.

But what this dude did yesterday is way over the top, not just in terms of effort, but in terms of quality. What he did can only be described as a labor of love — for the most extreme forms of extreme metal — and what’s more remarkable is that he did it even though he isn’t even a fan of the sub-genre he wrote about. He paid homage to effort, through his own effort. And we ain’t gonna let that pass by unnoticed. What the fuck are we talking about? Please stay with us after the jump, and all will be explained . . . (plus we have some songs for you to stream) Continue reading »

CRIMINAL

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 102010
 

Criminal was formed in Santiago, Chile, in the early 90s. They play a blend of thrash and melodic death metal. In February 2009, they released their latest album, White Hell, on Germany’s Massacre Records. In January of this year, they supported Metallica in an open-air concert in Santiago that drew over 55,000 fans.

We’d never listened to Criminal until yesterday, when we randomly decided to check out a new video they’ve released for a song from White Hell called “Incubus”. The video was directed and edited by a Chilean visual artist named Carlos Toro, who has previously worked with Kreator, Vader, Lacrimosa, and Mercenary, among others.

The song itself is pretty good — good enough to interest us in checking out the rest of White Hell. But the video? We’re still trying to make up our minds about it, cuz it’s fucking creepy.

The camera work, special effects, and editing are high-quality. The shots cut back and forth between the band hammering out “Incubus”, some kind of spiraling thing swirling into the air among the band members, and some extremely disturbing scenes of a partially dressed (or totally undressed) old man writhing in agony.

And what’s making him writhe in agony? Someone who doesn’t dig this song might say it’s the music. Or it could be a visual metaphor about the way old people in general react to extreme metal. Or it could be what’s going on underneath this old dude’s wrinkly skin. We’ll let you figure it out for yourselves, after the jump . . . . Continue reading »

LEGEND

 Album Reviews, Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 092010
 

If you’re a baseball fan, you’re familiar with the term “stuff.”  And if you’re not? Well, inarticulate baseball players, managers, and fans (like us) use that term to refer both to what pitchers are capable of throwing and how they actually perform in games. It can refer to the speed of the ball, the location of the pitch as it crosses the plate, the guile of the pitcher in varying the pitches from batter to batter — basically, everything that goes into keeping hitters off balance and generating outs.

When a pitcher is on his game, keeping batters off the bases and cruising through a low pitch count, the manager or some teammate will be quoted as saying, “he had good stuff tonight.”  And when a pitcher gets shelled and removed without going at least five innings, you can bet someone will say, “he didn’t have good stuff.” Hey, they don’t pay those dudes for their public speaking skills.

So, you might ask, what the fuck does that have to do with metal? And we would answer: If you’re a metal band and you pick the name “Legend,” you better have the “stuff” to back it up. And in the case of this metalicized hardcore band from Michigan and their recently released debut album Valediction, they abso-fucking-lutely do.

We’ve written before about our disappointment in Bury Your Dead‘s change in musical direction since the departure of vocalist Mat Bruso and his replacement by Myke Terry. We were further chagrined to learn that BYD bassist Aaron “Bubble” Patrick left the band last fall. And we were equally disappointed by the defection of band members from another repeat-play favorite of ours, For the Fallen Dreams.  (more after the jump, including a song and tour dates . . . ) Continue reading »

BLITZKRIEG!

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 082010
 

Hey, are you like us? Do you maintain good personal hygiene by bathing and changing your underwear once a week, whether you need to or not, and religiously clipping your toenails in every month that begins with an F? Do you maintain a daily exercise regimen by walking briskly to the bathroom (even when your bladder isn’t about to explode) and carrying those six-packs in from the car by yourself?

Do you limit your TV-viewing and game play to no more than 8 hours a day? Do you stay current on world events by reading Blabbermouth? If you have pets, do you care enough to feed and water them even before they start howling in misery?

In other words, do you do those little things we do to here at NCS to prove to the world that you weren’t raised in some godforsaken, no-neck trailer park, even if you really were?

Well, brothers and sisters, it’s time to change your fucking priorities, at least temporarily.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NEWZ

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Jun 072010
 

We do our best to keep up with news in the world of extreme metal. We read a few web sites every day that collect news items, we get press releases via e-mail, and we get alerts about MySpace and Facebook posts by bands we’re following. Put it all together, and it’s a daily flood of words — almost all of which are just completely forgettable, or worse. Usually, we find items that are either intentionally or (more often) unintentionally funny. Rarely, we find something we think is worth writing about on this site.

We’re kinda behind on putting together reviews of new music we’ve been cranking, and that may have lowered our newsworthiness threshold today, but whatever. Today, we’re just gonna dump a bunch of news on you that we read over the weekend, including one of those funny items and one new video that put us in a party mood. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to our choices, but there’s not much rhyme or reason to anything we do, so what the fuck?

Our topics? They involve Heaven Shall Burn, Hour of Penance, French Bat-Shit Grindcore, All Shall Perish, and The Ghost Inside.

HEAVEN SHALL BURN

Last Friday, German death metal and hardcore fusionists Heaven Shall Burn announced that their new album Invictus, which has already been released in Europe and will be released in North America tomorrow, landed on the official chart in Germany at position No. 9. According to the announcement, this marks Heaven Shall Burn’s and Century Media Records‘ first-ever Top 10 release in Germany.

The press release included this comment from guitarist Maik Weichert: “Top Ten! This is insane! It is a dream come true and we thank everybody who had something to do with it! Everything will be awesome! However, when the police stopped my car yesterday they were still quite unpleasant to deal with, so I am assuming they hadn’t heard the news yet . . .”  (lots more after the jump — stay with us . . .) Continue reading »

E-FORCE

 Metal News  1 Response »
Jun 052010
 

In their heyday, Voivod put out some strikingly original music and influenced a shit-ton of other bands. Eric Forrest (whose nickname is E-Force) was the bassist and vocalist for the band from about 1994 to 2001, and recorded two albums with them (Negatron and Phobos).

E-Force is also the name of a band that Forrest started a few years after his stint with Voivod ended. Season of Mist released the E-Force debut, Evil Forces, in 2003. Almost five years passed before the second album was released (Modified Poison on France’s Thundering Records).

Earlier this week we saw a news release that Forrest was reviving E-Force with a drummer named Krof and lead guitarist Jerome Point (pictured above), that the band would be playing live shows again for the first time in 5 years, and that they would be entering the studio in August to record a new album.

We’d never listened to E-Force before reading that release, and probably wouldn’t have paid a lot of attention to it — except for what it said about the name of the new album and about the concept behind it. And (drumroll, please) the album will be called Curse of the Cunt.  (more after the jump, including some E-Force music . . .) Continue reading »

STRAYS

 Metal News  1 Response »
Jun 042010
 

I’ve been thinking. If I were in an extreme metal band and I were in charge of picking the name for our new album, would I choose “Curse of the Cunt”? Would you? Well, the subject of tomorrow’s post did (and it wasn’t Fred Estby, the dude pictured above). So, continue to meditate about that question between now and then, won’t you?

The theme of today’s post is not curses or cunts, but strays. We’re not talking about cats and dogs, just stray music that got under our feet and tripped us up as we were trying to go about our daily business. These strays have got our attention now, but we still haven’t made up our minds about whether we’ll feed ’em and let ’em come inside for a longer visit.

If you already know about either of the following bands that contributed this stray music, raise your hand:  Necronaut, Cyphosis.

Ah, fuck. We can’t see your hands. Guess we’ll just have to assume you didn’t raise them, and carry on.

NECRONAUT

It was the pedigree of this stray that caught our attention. We’ll just throw out some associated names and see if you have a similar reaction: Dismember, Carnage, Autopsy, Nifelheim, Disfear, Entombed. So, did that get you interested? (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 5)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 012010
 

We’re now five months into 2010, and it’s time for another monthly update to 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. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re old school like us, just get ’em tattooed someplace you can see without a mirror (because reading stuff backwards is hard).

THE ACACIA STRAIN: “Western Massachusetts’ chuggernauts The Acacia Strain, have completed work on their new album, which will be released July 20th in North American and August 2nd in Europe via Prosthetic Records.”

ATHEIST: “Reactivated seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST will enter LedBelly studios in Atlanta, Georgia on July 5 to begin recording their long-awaited, as-yet-untitled fourth album. Engineering the session will be Matt Washburn. Additionally, the band has secured the services of one of metal’s most significant talents of the past decade, Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER), to handle the mixing of what promises to be a modern classic from the pioneers of technical metal. . . . ATHEIST‘s forthcoming album is tentatively scheduled for a late 2010 release and will be followed by a world tour in 2011.”   (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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