SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PANOPTICON, WINDSWEPT, ILLIMITABLE DOLOR, PROJECT OMEGA, MURDERSOME, ROBOT ZOMBIE ARMY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 072017
 

 

I mentioned in yesterday’s Seen and Heard post that I’ve been under the weather and wasn’t sure if I would be posting much this weekend. I still feel like a piece of frozen shit that’s leaking rivulets of mucus, but I suppose it’s a testament to my obsession with metal that I’ve nevertheless compiled the following playlist of new songs for your enjoyment. I really enjoyed all of them as well, despite the best efforts of the cold virus to turn all my joy into slag.

PANOPTICON

A couple of days ago DECIBEL magazine premiered a stream of a new song by Panopticon that’s included as a flexi disc in the new issue of the magazine (the one with Immolation on the cover). The song’s name is “Sheep In Wolves’ Clothing”. It was specially recorded for the flexi series, so I’m not sure whether it will appear on Panopticon’s new album. And yes, if you hadn’t heard, there will be a new Panopticon album in 2017. Continue reading »

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME (A LIST OF ANTICIPATED 2017 METAL RELEASES)

 Metal News  74 Responses »
Jan 012017
 


Phoenix Rising 2 by Spektyr

 

Yes indeed, a new year dawns. And while we’re not yet finished with our LISTMANIA 2016 orgy, we’re also looking ahead to what 2017 will bring. I spent some time this weekend perusing record label pages and e-mails, and picking through the detritus of my own memories, in an effort to compile a list of forthcoming releases that have peaked my interest. Those are assembled in a giant list after the jump.

Two things: First, this post is also an invitation for our readers to share in the Comments the albums you’re looking forward to this coming year — so please do that. It will make this post considerably more interesting.

And second, though the following list is a big one, it’s far from comprehensive. It’s focused mainly on the first quarter of the year, and I also ran out of time before snooping on news from all the labels I usually follow — and I’m 100% certain that I’ve overlooked a lot of exciting releases (both self-releases and label offerings) that I know are coming or have seen rumors about. That’s why you’re here… to help do my work for me. Lord knows, I need the help. Continue reading »

OUR LAST POST OF 2016… AND OUR FIRST OF 2017 (PART 2) — WITH NEW MUSIC FROM DEVIL’S FORCE, AURI, PHRENELITH, GRAVECOVEN, NORSE, CURVED BLADE, HOODED MENACE, ALGOMA, SPECTRAL LORE, TEMPLE OF NIHIL, AND GATH ŠMĀNÊ

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 012017
 


Partied hard, smiling big.

 

Happy New Year to one and all. I hope you survived whatever you did last night, intact and with only a modicum of blood loss and brain-cell death. I would tell you in detail what I did but I’m not sure you could stand the excitement. Even I was so drained after both putting down the robot uprising and preventing the savagery of the loris horde’s celebration from overflowing their compound, armed with nothing but a few blow darts, that I was asleep by 10:30, stone cold sober and vomit-free.

I’m beginning the new year at NCS the way I ended the old one (here), by assembling a giant batch of the new music I heard in recent days that I thought would be worth your time, plus one older release I came across only recently.

As a trained medical professional (ha!), I’ll warn you that if you did suffer more than a modicum of blood loss or neuronal cell death, you might want to wait another day before exploring what awaits you below. It won’t help your recovery, and it’s no sane person’s idea of a hangover cure. Damned good metal, though.

I’ll also mention that because this post takes the place of my usual Sunday Shades of Black feature, the music is mainly in a blackened vein, though not entirely. Continue reading »

AN NCS UPDATE — AND NEW MUSIC FROM DREAMING DEAD, SULPHUROUS, AEGRI SOMNIA, CONTAMINATED, VINTERSEA, SOLITUDE, BLACK KNIFE, PRAY U PREY, AUBE GRISE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 282016
 

christmas-new-year-week

 

Well, here we are at the mid-point of an odd week, a week that falls between two big holiday weekends in a year when both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fall on Saturday nights, enhancing the opportunity for revelry. Lots of people are having to work this week, but it feels like no one really has their heart in it. Others are on vacation. The usual flood of PR e-mails has slowed to a trickle; most of metal blogdoom is snoozing. As the new year rapidly approaches, people are beginning to fantasize about 2017 being better than 2016 and wondering what other well-loved celebrities will be cut down by the Grim Reaper in the few days before it arrives.

Obviously, we’re still forging ahead during this limbo week, and I thought I’d provide a forecast of what lies ahead at our site.

LISTMANIA will continue into the new year. This week we’ll finish rolling out the year-end lists by NCS contributors Grant Skelton and Wil Cifer and we’ll post year-end lists from our old friend SurgicalBrute and from three more invited guests —  Johan Huldtgren (Obitus), Ken Sorceron (Abigail Williams), and Seb Painchaud (Tumbleweed Dealer).

And then LISTMANIA will continue next week with some big brutal lists compiled by our old friend Vonlughlio from the Dominican Republic, as well as lists from a few other invited guests that I’m anxious to see. I trust that I’ll also receive the annual Not-Metal List from ex-NCS slave BadWolf (aka Invisible Orange’s editor Joseph Schafer) along with Andy Synn’s list of favorite 2016 songs. And undoubtedly there will be a few other LISTMANIA surprises before next week ends. Continue reading »

FREE SHIT: A TRANSCENDING OBSCURITY SAMPLER — AND A CHANCE TO WIN A FREE SHIRT

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Dec 262016
 

transcending-obscurity-sampler

 

Those of you who have been hanging around our putrid site for more than a few weeks will recognize the name Transcending Obscurity, since we’ve been regularly highlighting albums on that label for years — and even more frequently over the last year or two as they’ve been dramatically expanding their roster of international bands. Today we have some exciting news about an immense free sampler of music just released by Transcending Obscurity, along with a chance to win a Mark Riddick-designed shirt.

The sampler features 55 tracks from 55 bands, spanning a wide range of metal sub-genres and an equally expansive geographic coverage. All of the bands are signed to Transcending Obscurity and include such names as Officium Triste, Paganizer, Ursinne, Echelon, Henry Kane, Stench Price, Sepulchral Curse, Fetid Zombie, Infinitum Obscure, Altar of Betelgeuze, Veilburner, Jupiterian, and Rudra, among many others whom we’ve written about at NCS. Continue reading »

HOLIDAY CHEER: SVART CROWN, DAEMONIAC, TURIA, TÓXICA, DESTRIERS, UNDRASK

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 242016
 

sol-invictus-daniel-gautier

 

Once upon a time everything seemed to slow down during the holiday season… or at least everything other than the consumerist frenzy of gift-buying. But now in many ways the final weeks of the year seem as busy and eventful as all the other weeks, both at work and almost everywhere else. This year we even got announcements of a new nuclear arms race that no one asked for — what better way to celebrate peace on earth and good will to men!

I did notice a fall-off yesterday in the flood of messages arriving in the NCS e-mail in-box, but there were still a lot of new-music announcements, and I found even more in my Facebook news feed. There’s a risk that much of what I saw and heard will be overlooked, with many metal-oriented sites and blogs taking time off and many fans diverted from their phones and computers by holiday activities. So I decided, for the hell of it, to devote this Christmas Eve round-up exclusively to news and music streams that appeared (or that I discovered) for the first time yesterday.

Mind you, what follows isn’t everything I noticed, or even everything I enjoyed. I’ve made these selections to provide diversity of sound, and I’ve saved a few nasty things for tomorrow because NCS always does its best to reduce Christmas Day to a smoldering ash heap — praise and glory to Sol Invictus! Continue reading »

A ZHRINE TOUR DIARY (aka “THE EVERYTHING IS FINE TOUR DIARY”): EPISODE IV

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Dec 212016
 

zhrine-tour-diary-iv-9

 

On November 2, the Shrines of Paralysis North American Tour launched in Los Angeles, headlined by New Zealand’s Ulcerate and also including the Icelandic band Zhrine, and Phobocosm from Montreal. While the tour was in progress we posted three installments of a tour diary (collected here) beautifully written by Zhrine’s manager Bogi Bjarnason. The tour has now ended, and we have been fortunate to receive one final episode of the diary.

These tour reports, which spanned the bizarre tumult of our presidential election in the U.S., have provided a fascinating and unabashedly opinionated outsider’s perspective on the crossing of our vast continent, and it’s even more timely now that we’re in the throes of year-end listmania in metaldom — which has seen the name of Zhrine’s 2016 album appearing with regularity.

Without further ado, we present the final chapter in the “Everything Is Fine” tour diary by Bogi Bjarnason, once again accompanied by his cellphone photos — along with one final request from this end: Yes, for fuck’s sake, do it again. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IMMOLATION, ENGULFED, TOMB MOLD, EKPYROSIS, SHADES OF DEEP WATER

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 142016
 

immolation-atonement

 

For this mid-week round-up of new discoveries I have news about the next Immolation album, excellent advance tracks from three albums coming out early next year, and a full stream of one fine album released yesterday. This collection of items is heavy on the death metal, and it’s also heavy on eye-catching cover art.

IMMOLATION

In a September interview Immolation’s Ross Dolan explained that the band’s new album was finished except for the mixing, that the artwork was done except for a few inside pieces, and that the album would be released early in 2017. I haven’t seen any official announcements about the album since then, but yesterday Bristol Deathfest (here) and UKEM Records leaked some news and the cover art (above) by Pär Olofsson: The name of Immolation’s new tenth studio album is Atonement, and the release is expected on February 24, 2017. Continue reading »

SEEN AND NOT COMPLETELY HEARD: WOLFHEART, URSINNE, GLOSON, PALE DIVINE, BLACK THERAPY, THRON, HORROR GOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 052016
 

wolfheart-boneyard

 

Happy Monday. Through the miracles of modern technology, I’m writing this at roughly 38,000 feet above the earth, somewhere across the deserts of northern Utah, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and the barren panhandle of Texas. Under duress from my fucking day job, I’m bound for Houston for the next couple of days.

Actually, it’s not exactly a miracle, not something like turning water into wine, more like turning water into weak tea — because although I can get online, the service isn’t good enough to stream music or videos. So some of the items I’m including in this round-up are things I can see but can’t hear.

WOLFHEART

I’m beginning with an item that I could have heard over the weekend if I had known it was out there. Unfortunately, I discovered it only today after boarding this jet I’m on. It’s a video for a new song by Finland’s Wolfheart named “Boneyard“. Continue reading »

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