OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 9): THE CROWN AND CHAPEL OF DISEASE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  12 Responses »
Jan 182019
 

 

Welcome to the 9th installment of this growing list, in which I’m turning back toward death metal with the two songs added today. To check out the previous installments, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.

THE CROWN

The title of The Crown‘s latest album — Cobra Speed Venom — is so damned good. I’m not sure it really means anything, but the combination of those three words, especially in the context of The Crown‘s brand of music, just sounds metal AF. Very cool cover art too. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 8): GAEREA, ALL MY SINS, IN TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  6 Responses »
Jan 172019
 

 

As forecast yesterday, I’ve decided to stay in blackened realms for this next installment of songs for the 2018 list. The following three tracks are very dark in more ways than one, and they all made a big emotional impact when I first heard them. They’ve stayed with me since then, and although you could easily pick other tracks from each album for the list, the vivid memories of those first experiences have inclined me toward these.

GAEREA

In the run-up to the release of this Portuguese band’s debut album, Unsettling Whispers, I wrote about no fewer than five of the tracks as they were made available for public listening, ultimately trying to capture what the band had done on the songs in these words: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 7): FUNERAL MIST AND 1914

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Jan 162019
 

 

For today’s installment of this 2018 list I’m taking a turn toward black metal, of unusually high quality. And I’ll give you a preview that black metal will be the focus of tomorrow’s post as well. As the writer of our site’s Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column, I have a vast number of black metal tracks on my collection of candidates for this list, and while I’m committed to making it representative of addicting music across a range of genres, that particular genre is going to get its fair share of attention in the weeks ahead.

FUNERAL MIST

When I first listened to Funeral Mist’s new album Hekatomb I wasted no time in putting pen to paper (so to speak). Avoiding any attempt to compare it to the enthusiastically received Salvation or the more controversial Maranatha, I considered it on its own and wrote (here): Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY AND AILS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Jan 152019
 

 

For this installment of the list there’s again no particular reason why I paired these two songs together, so I don’t have much to say by way of overarching introduction. On the other hand, it may be that I just haven’t done a very good job interrogating my subconscious to determine the reason. If you can help me, please speak up.

(To check out the previous installments, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.)

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY

This Austrian band is another one in which the Ven diagrams of musical interest by the longest-running writers at our site intersect. Our first post about them was in 2014, where I premiered a track from their second album, Aokigahara. That was a wonderful album, but in retrospect was only the tip of the iceberg that was building beneath the surface. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 5): DÖDSRIT, HINAYANA, HOMSELVAREG

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  5 Responses »
Jan 142019
 

 

After a weekend break I’m resuming the rollout of this 2018 Most Infectious Song list. As you can see, I have three new entries today, and will now begin including more threesomes in addition to twosomes in an effort to gather more songs in this growing collection before I force myself to stop (but don’t worry, we’ll probably be deep into February before that happens).

Unlike some of the preceding installments of this list, there’s no particular organizing principle behind my grouping of these three tracks, other than the usual factor that I’m addicted to all of them. (To check out the previous installments, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.

DÖDSRIT

As you’ll have learned by now, I haven’t limited myself, in selecting songs for this list, to 2018 albums that were widely discovered and widely praised through year-end lists. But Dödsrit’s Spirit Crusher happens to be one that did receive significant year-end accolades, including a place in our own Andy Synn‘s list of the year’s Great albums, as well as his Personal Top 10 for the year (not to mention placements in many other lists we published in our 2018 LISTMANIA series). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): BLOODBATH AND BAEST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  2 Responses »
Jan 112019
 

 

After yesterday’s digression into obscure blackened realms, today I’m returning to death metal with two more additions to our list of Most Infectious Songs. I’m also again indulging in the delights of pairing up songs that seem to belong together, in this instance one from the old guard and one from some relative newcomers who are definitely kindred spirits, sonically speaking.

To check out the previous installments in this evolving list, they’re collected behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here. We’ll have other posts at the site this weekend, but I’m pausing this series until Monday while I try to figure out what to add to the list next week.

BLOODBATH

Surely it will come as no surprise that I’m including “Bloodicide” on this list. If you read my comrade DGR’s review, or the column in which he put The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn at No. 14 on his year-end list, you know that he loves that album but is “absolutely smitten with the sheer gall it took to name a song ‘Bloodicide'” — in addition to considering it one of the better tracks on the record. And I feel much the same way.

It’s a prime example of how much ridiculous fun Bloodbath must have had in writing and recording the album, and it proved to be (by my lights at least) the most infectious song on the track list, in part because of the joy that comes from yelling out “Bloodicide!” along with Nick Holmes (at least inside my head). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 3): ELYSIAN BLAZE AND DEPTHS ABOVE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  5 Responses »
Jan 102019
 

 

For the third installment in this year-end list I’ve decided to take a turn into blacker realms, and to move deeper into the underground, too. To check out the previous installments, they’re collected behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.

ELYSIAN BLAZE

Let me say up-front that long-form songs have been a rarity in these Most Infectious Song lists, because while such compositions can be truly wondrous experiences, they’re rarely what most people would consider “catchy” or addictive to the point of commanding frequent re-plays. But I consider “The Virtue of Suffering” by Australia’s Elysian Blaze to be all of those things. It is a truly memorable song, with numerous components that have gotten stuck in my head, and with such a strong appeal that I’ve been drawn back to it regularly — even though it’s nearly 19 minutes long. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 2): CONAN AND BLACK ROYAL

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  8 Responses »
Jan 092019
 

 

As old-timers among the followers of our site will remember, I have a habit of grouping songs in the rollout of these lists in a way that makes sense to me. Part of the fun is in pairing up tracks that sound made for each other, sometimes because they share genre characteristics and sometimes because the flow of the mood just seems right. I had the feeling that combining the two tracks in this installment would be a good call — but you be the judge of that. I’ll add that both tracks were initially released with videos that I quite enjoyed; the first one in particular was one of the best of last year, in my humble opinion.

I should mention that if you happen to be encountering this series for the first time, you can go here to find out what it’s all about.

CONAN

Many metal bands have come up with unique descriptors for their own music rather than rely on conventional genre terms. Most of them are simply clever (or not very clever) marketing tools rather than labels that have any meaningful connection to the music itself. But Conan’s name for their own brand of sound couldn’t be more perfect: “Caveman Battle Doom”. And I happen to have a crippling weakness for those sounds, perhaps because the music itself is so crippling. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): NECROPHOBIC AND SLUGDGE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  12 Responses »
Jan 082019
 

 

Well, my fine feathered fiends, here we go again: For the 10th straight year we present our list of the preceding year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

I’m going to dispense with repeating the operative definition of what I think makes a song “infectious”; if you’re encountering this series for the first time, go here to see that. But I will remind you what I do to compile the list, and why I currently have no idea how long it will be or precisely when the rollout will end.

The universe of songs I’ve considered includes a list of candidates that I began at the start of 2018 and continued expanding as the year progressed. It also includes recommendations from my colleague DGR (he’s the only staff writer who makes suggestions each year, bless his pointy long-haired head). And it includes every suggestion made by our readers in response to my invitation, in the comments to this post. When you add it all up, that universe of candidates that’s now sitting in front of me includes nearly 600 songs. Continue reading »

THE “MOST INFECTIOUS” EXTREME METAL SONGS of 2018: AN APPEAL TO OUR READERS FOR HELP!

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  50 Responses »
Nov 192018
 

 

You may have noticed that on Friday we announced the beginning of our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza. For those of you new to this orgy, our LISTMANIA blockbuster comes in four parts:

First, we re-print assorted lists of the year’s best albums, leeched from other big web sites and magazines, like the one on Friday from DECIBEL, which always seems to become the starting gun. Second, we will provide a post in which our readers’ can share their lists of the 2018 albums and shorter releases they enjoyed the most (we’ll be asking for those on November 29th, so get ready). Third, we post the year-end lists of our own staff and assorted guest writers. And fourth, I’ll roll out my list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

And that last list is the subject of this request for help.

In case you’ve become an NCS reader since this time last year, here’s what this Most Infectious Song list is all about: Continue reading »

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