SEEN AND HEARD: SANZU, ROTTEN SOUND, TURBID NORTH, CLARET ASH, CHROME WAVES, VOLLOÍOM (AND MORE)

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Dec 162022
 


I’ve been reading my friend Andy‘s writing about metal for more than a decade, and even so, what he’s done this week had been mind-boggling. I marveled at how much music he listened to this year and at his ability to make year-end selections, organize them, and write about them distinctively. I mean hell, I marvel at how much time it must have taken him just to put all the embedded links to the streams in his articles this week!

All of which is to say that his week-long series of lists deserves the spotlight, and deserves all the time it would take you to go through them and make your own discoveries. His series ends today, but LISTMANIA will roll on next week as we begin posting year-end lists from other NCS contributors, including the annual five-part list from DGR.

Last weekend I announced that, by design, we wouldn’t have the normal volume of premieres on the calendar this week in order to keep the focus on Andy‘s series (and a few lists I’ve shared from “big platform” sites). I thought I might take advantage of the lull in premieres by compiling more new-music roundups during the week than I can usually manage. I admit that does seem a bit inconsistent with the goal of keeping the focus on year-end lists, but the lure of spreading the word about new music is a powerful one.

I did manage to get a roundup done on Monday, but failed at the next chance on Wednesday because of interference from paying work. Today, as you can see, I was able to follow through. I’ve also got things lined up for the usual Saturday roundup too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, TITHE, UBUREN, AMONG VULTURES, WINTER FIRES

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Dec 122022
 

As I explained in yesterday’s round-up, we’re now beginning a week when (by design) we don’t have the normal volume of premieres on the calendar. This gives me more time to stare at the wall (I swear there’s a face in that wood plank), pick lint from my navel, twiddle my thumbs, and try to pull together more round-ups of new songs and videos.

The timing is fortuitous, because despite the fact that only a couple of weeks remain in the year, new songs keep pumping out of the heavy metal firehose, and my list of them continues to metastasize. In trying to figure out which ones to recommend here, I decided to leave out some of the bigger names, such as the new songs from Memoriam and Ne Obliviscaris, and to end with a compilation that I’m making no effort to “review”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: ANTECANTAMENTUM, CRAWL, ENDLESS BORE, NOTHINGNESS

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Dec 112022
 


Antecantamenum – Melpomenë

For people who showed up here expecting to find SHADES OF BLACK on this Sunday, you will find some black and “blackened” metal in this round-up, but I decided to expand the musical boundaries. I try to compile music across many metal sub-genres on Saturdays, but couldn’t manage it yesterday because of a Zoom meeting for my fucking day job that began at 8:30 a.m. and lasted until almost 1:00 p.m. It felt like the Bataan Death March except without actual deaths (though when someone dies in a Zoom call it’s not always immediately apparent).

It’s a shame that happened, because even though we’re getting very close to the end of the year, a ton of new metal continues to roll out and I really could have used two weekend columns to highlight some of the new songs and videos instead of just this one. But this one will have to do, at least for now. However, I do believe I can follow it with another one tomorrow. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LAERE, I THE INTRUDER, WITCH RIPPER, THE SECOND FOVEA

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Dec 082022
 

The best of intentions often fall like wheat before the scythe of life. No plan survives contact with the enemy. The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley. And other hoary maxims.

I thought I would get one of these round-ups done before now this week, but events conspired against it. I barely have time to squeeze this one in. It’s shorter than I would like — this week was filled with good new releases, of which these are only a precious few — but it will give you a lot of stylistic twists and turns. I’ll have to try to pick up the list this weekend.

LAERE (Germany)

In hunting for new music I’m often the beneficiary of recommendations from other people, and I’m beginning with Laere‘s stunning new EP because it was the subject of lots of those from internet pen-pals whose opinions I respect. And, well, I also got a Bandcamp alert about it because I bought the band’s debut EP Solve in 2020 (and wrote about it too). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBITUARY, GOD DETHRONED, JUST BEFORE DAWN, BIALYWILK, BAD MANOR, SIGNO ROJO, GORYNOV, REYNOLS

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Dec 032022
 

Unlike Friday from a week ago, which I erroneously proclaimed was a Bandcamp Friday, yesterday really was one, which meant that more of the the money you might spend there would go to the bands and labels. But of course I couldn’t manage to get a round-up of recommendations finished. We had a lot of other time-sensitive things to post, and my day job also interfered.

But it’s not like we hadn’t already provided a lot of recommendations over the month since the last Bandcamp Friday, so many pf them that the wheezing sound I heard might have been your wallets gasping for mercy. But there is no mercy today, just more choices, maybe to be squirreled away for the first Bandcamp Friday of 2023. At the end of this I’ll also pitch you a curveball.

OBITUARY (U.S.)

For three reasons I decided to begin today’s collection with another new track off Obituary‘s next album. One, it’s Obituary. Two, it’s a good song. Three, it gives me an excuse to point you to a very entertaining article. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: METALLICA, NEGATIVE VORTEX, PINCER CONSORTIUM, HYPER PLANET

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 292022
 

Lo and behold, even though we’re two days past the Thanksgiving break my fucking day job is still mostly leaving me alone, so I’ve got time for a quick round-up of new songs and videos this Tuesday. Given the song I picked as the opener, it’s an outlier from my usual proclivities, but don’t worry, it gets a lot more subterranean after that, and then ends with a rebellious song that qualifies as a well-earned exception to our rule about singing.

METALLICA (U.S.)

A good argument could be made that Metallica is the biggest name in metal, and therefore a name very unlikely to appear at this site, where we tend to focus our attention on bands who need (and deserve) more exposure. Even just listening to their new song “Lux Æterna” wasn’t high on my list of things to do. It felt like I’d just be joining a surging crowd of lemmings and wondering just how big a cliff I’d be falling off of.

And then I began to see comments from assorted friends on social media who aren’t given to mindless fawning, even though, unlike me, they spent their formative years listening to Metallica during the band’s best years. One of them thought Metallica were channeling Motörhead. Another wrote that it sounded like a lost Diamond Head cover from Garage Inc. But everyone seemed to be liking it, even if maybe it was pushing slightly different buttons from person to person. So, I gave in and gave the song a shot. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SKARNTYDE, SARKASM, BEAST MODE, Заводь, FOREVER AUTUMN, BENEATH MY FEET, DIE OBERHERREN, YUNCLAS

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Nov 262022
 


Skarntyde

Since yesterday was a Bandcamp Friday [actually, it wasn’t, as Nic pointed out in a comment below] I wish I could have spent more time recommending more music than I did, but at least I got a full handful of choices out there. Now my hands are full again, and when I open them these things will fly like moths to your flame, or I hope they will.

This new collection was the result of lots of surfing the effluent that continually floods the interhole, searching for nuggets that aren’t the kind you’d find in a septic tank. I found them, an octet of them (including three complete EPs), but I must confess that in the course of the sifting I fell into a strange trip. Dark moods descended, and occasionally lifted, but not entirely. I encountered nostalgia too, and found a pair of curveballs to throw at you for the finale, which is always fun, especially for those of you who have no idea about baseball.

But of course, although these trips are mainly about what pleases me, I always hope (fervently) that some or all of it will please you too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP BLACK FRIDAY: HOST, GOATBURNER, ÚZKOST, FORMLESS ARCHITECT, SLEGEST, ONHOU, TCHORNOBOG, ABYSSAL

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 252022
 


Host

When you combine a Black Friday with a Bandcamp Friday the result is a goddamned typhoon of new music and videos, with bands and labels not only launching sales but trying to take further advantage of the situation with new releases, some of them out today and some now up for pre-order.

Correction: As Nic pointed out in a comment on the post following this one, Black Friday was NOT in fact a Bandcamp Friday, and now I’ve forgotten why I thought it was. On the plus side, I get to do something like this again on December 2nd!

I can’t say I’ve waded through all of it to make your shopping experience easier (I’m only one bedraggled human and speed-cloning is a generation or two away), but I did make my way through some of it, and have these recommendations for you.

I also did try to provide some genre scatter in the choices, knowing that not everyone loves everything, and to provide a range of radar elevations among the bands. As vivid proof of that, I’m leading off with… Continue reading »

NORTHWEST TERROR FEST 2023 ANNOUNCES LINE-UP AND EARLY-BIRD TICKET SALE (TODAY!)

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Nov 222022
 

Surely there’s some software plugin floating around out there that would let us put a ticking clock on the site, counting down to 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time today. But hell, who has the time to hunt for that thing? Not us. You’ll have to set your own timer.

Why is 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time today worth paying attention to? Because that’s when Northwest Terror Fest will put a limited number of early-bird tickets on sale for the 2023 edition of the fest, which will take place at the Neumos and Barboza music venues in Seattle next Memorial Day Weekend (May 25 – 27).

And why should that matter? Because look at this line-up, which NWTF announced yesterday: Continue reading »

HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY TO US!

 Birthday Posts, Metal News  56 Responses »
Nov 212022
 


artwork by necrosadist

On November 21, 2009, I made the first post at this blog. On the 21st day of every November since then (except last year, when I forgot to do it until a few days later) I’ve made a post celebrating our birthday. And here I am doing it again, because we’ve survived another year.

In these annual posts I usually explain how I had no ambitions or expectations when I started the blog, nor any training or experience as a music writer, and that the sum total of my motivation was to create an enjoyable diversion for myself from the grind of daily life, and to indulge my burgeoning interest in heavy music. And there, I just did it again, albeit in fewer words than usual.

In these annual observances I also tend to reminisce about how many things about NCS have changed from the early days, and about how surprising it is to me that we’re still here. Some of you remember the early days, because you were here with us then and haven’t left. Others who have begun checking in here more recently might yawn if I indulged in that kind of nostalgia, so let’s just skip that, as I did last year too, and get right into expressions of gratitude and the annual tradition of mind-numbing statistics. Continue reading »

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