SEEN AND HEARD: CRAFT, OVATE, NICK VASALLO, JØTNARR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 112018
 

 

I’ve been away from home since last Friday morning, mainly working on the things I do when I’m not throwing music at your heads at NCS, but having some fun here and there. I shudder to think what havoc the loris horde have wrecked at the NCS compound while I’ve been gone. I’ll find out tonight; I’ll be leaving for the Philadelphia airport, bound for Seattle, as soon as I post this hurried collection.

The huge list of new songs I had created before leaving Seattle torments me; I’ve grown more tormented looking at what popped up in my e-mail and web-surfing last night and this morning. Just too damned much intriguing metal being vomited forth every day. This is a tiny fraction of what I found most recently.

CRAFT

White Noise and Black Metal is the name of the new album by the long-running Swedish black metal cult Craft, their first one in seven years. The release date, through Season of Mist, is June 22nd. Continue reading »

PANOPTICON RELEASES “THE SCARS OF MAN ON THE ONCE NAMELESS WILDERNESS (I AND II)”

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Apr 042018
 

 

We almost never just post stand-alone news announcements, but we’re making an exception here — and to cut to the chase, Panopticon has now released its eagerly awaited new album, The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness (I and II).

Austin Lunn shared the album with a few select friends, but requested no reviews before the release of the album. And so you won’t see one in this post, but you will see one tomorrow, simply because the album inspires too many thoughts and reactions that might cause me some kind of internal damage if I don’t get them off my chest and out of my mind.

For now, I just want to share the stream and links to the places where the album can be downloaded and ordered in physical editions (my own vinyl order should be arriving any day). But first, here is a statement from Austin Lunn that appears on the Bandcamp page where it can be downloaded: Continue reading »

THE END IS NIGH

 Metal News  27 Responses »
Apr 012018
 


photo by Max Rossi (Reuters)

 

The Pope says there is no Hell. Or so reported 93-year-old journalist Eugenio Scalfari of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday after a private conversation with Francis, both of whom have become friends with each other. “Souls are not punished,” the Pope was quoted as saying in the Repubblica piece. “Those who repent obtain God’s forgiveness and go among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot be forgiven disappear. There is no hell — there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

The Vatican tried to walk this back, but some words can’t be unspoken, especially from such an authoritative source on Heaven and Hell. And for some of us in the metal community, the denial of eternal hellfire comes as a crushing blow. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE KONSORTIUM, VARATHRON, DEATHWARDS, FISTULA, HOMEWRECKER, THE EVER LIVING, MUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 292018
 

 

Here we are just past hump day for this week, and I have a big mountainous hump of music to choose from for this round-up. Much has been left on the cutting room floor, but this particular collection of recent songs and videos by seven bands felt like a good musical trip, one with changing moods and varied forms of intensity, and of course I quite enjoyed all of it. If you find just one thing that gets you excited, then my time here will have been well spent.

THE KONSORTIUM

“Who Is The Konsortium?” That was the title of a post I wrote back in May of 2011 after coming across a striking track named “Lik Ulven” by a mysterious Norwegian group whose line-up included guitarist Teloch (from Mayhem and Nigingr) but was otherwise masked and shrouded in secrecy. I still didn’t know who was in the band when I reviewed their self-titled debut album the following month, but the music spoke for itself in quite charismatic tones.

Roughly a year later, still masked, The Konsortium played Inferno Fest in Oslo, and yesterday I enjoyed re-reading Andy Synn’s comments about their performance: Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BLUT AUS NORD, ZEAL AND ARDOR, BAPTISTS, CHRCH, LLNN, MORGENGRAU, ABYTHIC, SECTIONED, ATONE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Mar 222018
 

 

On each of the last three days I intended to post a round-up of new music and videos that I thought were worth your time, and each day I failed. I would have run out of time again today if I hadn’t managed to throttle my usual verbosity. In fact, I’ve resorted to sentence fragments rather than complete sentences in order to get this done.

As the days passed, of course, some of the items in this post have become a bit dated, and the volume of selections has swelled with newer discoveries.

BLUT AUS NORD

After more than 20 years of musical activity, Blut Aus Nord finally released their first-ever music video a few days ago. The chosen song is “Metanoïa“, which appears on Deus Salutis Meae, which I reviewed here, accompanying our premiere of the first publicly revealed track from the album. Continue reading »

SHADOW WOODS IV ANNOUNCES FULL LINE-UP FOR 2018 (AND MORE DETAILS)

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Mar 202018
 

 

 

For a time, it looked like last year’s edition of the marvelous Shadow Woods Metal Festival would be the last one. The Maryland property where the event had been held for three years was sold, and the odds of finding another mid-Atlantic location that could preserve the festival’s unique character as an open-air camping, heavy metal gathering seemed daunting. But inspired by the fervor of previous festival goers who did not want to see this end, festival founder Mary Spiro began working behind the scenes, searching for a new venue and raising needed funds through contributions from past attendees. The work paid off.

Late last week Shadow Woods announced that a fourth edition of the festival — now known simply as Shadow Woods IV — will take place from Thursday, September 20th through Saturday, September 22th in Purcellville, Virginia, at Harpers Ferry Adventure Center (HFAC). And that news was accompanied by the disclosure of the entire confirmed line-up of more than 40 bands — which we’ll get to right away, and then provide a few more useful pieces of information.

So, here’s the line-up, day by day, with the bands listed in reverse order of their appearance (with headliners at the top) and brief commentary by the fest: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ZOMBIEFICATION, DEADLY CARNAGE, ŠKAN, EXESA, DOMINIA, WOUND COLLECTOR

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 132018
 

 

I returned to Seattle last night after more than a week in Iceland, which was glorious in all sorts of ways, from the music at Oration Fest to our day trip on Sunday around the Golden Circle (which included stops at the Þingvellir National Park, the geothermal area in Haukadalur, the Kerið volcanic lake, and the stunning Gullfoss waterfall pictured above).

I’m trying to get back into the usual swing of things at NCS, but it hasn’t been an easy transition. I catch myself just staring into space and day-dreaming about the trip. The fact that metal didn’t obligingly stand still while I was gone makes the transition even tougher. I think it’s hardly even worth trying to catch up with all the new music that emerged since I left Seattle roughly 10 days ago. I decided it would be less stressful just to focus on some of the music I discovered this morning.

ZOMBIEFICATION

I’m leading off this collection with the song I heard most recently this morning out of all of these — a new track by the Mexican death metal band Zombiefication, who have been favorites of ours around here for many years. The new track is “Blood Falls“, and it comes from a new album entitled Below the Grief, which will be released later this year by Doomentia. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 3 OF 3): VENOM PRISON, RIVERS OF NIHIL, WILD HUNT, PESTILENT REIGN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 052018
 

 

(This is the third and final part of DGR’s round-up of selected new songs and videos that appeared over the last couple of weeks. You can find Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.)

 

Venom Prison – Devoid (Live)

The last time we checked in with Venom Prison was in late January, to spread the news of the February 23rd Prosthetic Records re-release of their 2016 album, Animus, and the group’s music video for the song “Immanetize Eschaton”. That deluxe edition of Animus is now out with five live songs added to it as a bonus disc, and the group unveiled a live-shot video for one of those songs, “Devoid“, right around that time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 2 OF 3): INFERI, ALKALOID, VALE OF PNATH, IHSAHN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 052018
 

 

(This is the second part of DGR’s round-up of selected new songs and videos that appeared over the last couple of weeks. You can find Part 1 here.)

 

Inferi – Behold The Bearer Of Light

Right now, the hyperspeed tech-death, melodic-death, black-death, everything-kitchen-sink-and-broken-down-freezer-in-the-backyard metal crew of Inferi are out on the road, touring with Aethere, Alterbeast, and Grindmother as part of Alterbeast’s Feast album release tour. It’s been four years since the group’s last incredibly packed album The Path Of Apotheosis, but those moments of silence shall soon wane as the group have an upcoming April 21st release in the form of Revenant. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 1 OF 3): AT THE GATES, DEMONICAL, DE PROFUNDIS, BELPHEGOR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 052018
 


At the Gates

 

(DGR has prepared a collection of new songs and videos that appeared over the last couple of weeks, which we’ve divided into three parts, this one being the first.)

By the time you are all reading this it is highly likely that a small collective of the NCS editor (not me) and NCS cohorts (which also doesn’t include me) will have arrived in Iceland, traveling there to attend some bullshit with an excellent lineup known as Oration Festival and generally to have a good time in a foreign country — which I will not be doing, instead being overjoyed that there has been rain the past few days so my car has been getting a decent wash.

Of course, this has in no way left me saltier than the Dead Sea, nor have I turned into the living embodiment of this article at all. I am, instead wishing my compatriots an excellent time in a country (that I haven’t been to) where the weather changes on a dime and will only be slightly amused if they get caught up in a small rainstorm whilst standing outside; they should be used to that anyway.

Since this is happening, I will more than happily bear the yoke of having to deliver the much needed metal news to the world that we might’ve missed, given my general job title of news pelican here, in between whatever else the rest of us who couldn’t go to Iceland have on the docket – which is looking mighty packed – and the general scribblings of the crew in attendance at the show. Continue reading »

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