SEEN AND HEARD: DEIPHAGO, PHRENELITH, DEFY THE CURSE, ULTHA, LASCAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 212018
 

 

This has been another banner week for new metal, and fortunately I’ve had enough time to compile one more round-up to follow the one from two days ago. Of course, even the combination of the two doesn’t provide a comprehensive display of everything I’ve been enjoying this week. As usual, the choices I’ve made were impulsive, though I also made the usual effort to include variety in today’s post.

I also hope this late-week collection will make up for the fact that I won’t be writing anything for NCS this weekend because I’ll be traveling on a short vacation. However, we should still have a Waxing Lyrical column from Andy tomorrow, and our ally HGD has stepped up to do Sunday’s Shades of Black feature (I’ve seen his selections, and they’re good ones). I’ll be back in the NCS harness on Monday.

DEIPHAGO

Deiphago describe their music as “Experimental Hyper-speed Satanic Bestial Metal” — and every word of that is true, perhaps never more so than on the track I’ve chosen to begin today’s collection. It simply doesn’t sound like anything else you’re likely to find in the realms of black metal or black/death. It challenges convention, it viciously shoves us out of our musical comfort zones, it’s likely to leave you bewildered and bedazzled (or at least severely unbalanced). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: 1914, GLACIAL TOMB, THE INVICT, UNHOLD, TABLEAU MORT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 192018
 

 

Here’s a mid-week collection of new songs that have struck a chord in my listening over the last day or two, and have the added benefit of presenting a range of styles and moods, increasing the odds that you’ll find something to like as well.

1914

1914 are based in Lviv, Ukraine. Their debut album Eschatology of War was released at the end of 2015 by Archaic Sound. As the band’s name suggests, they have devoted themselves to exploring the horrors of World War I in their music. That’s rare subject matter in metal, and for that reason alone I decided to explore that first album, and came away mightily impressed by its blending of samples from period songs and punishing hellfire, and by its agile balancing of musical elements from black, death, doom, and even progressive metal. I wrote at the time: Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, TAMERLAN EMPIRE, SECOND TO SUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 172018
 

 

With a bit of spare time left to me this morning before having to turn to more mundane tasks, I picked the following four new songs from three forthcoming albums to share with you. All of them are dramatic, all have a kind of larger-than-life scale of intensity, and the first two come with lyric videos that are based on history, and slaughter. From a larger group of new tracks I heard this morning, they stuck together in my head, and so I’m sticking them together here. Because I’m hurrying, I’ll keep the words brief.

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

These long-running Dutch favorites of our site have a new album entitled V2 – Vergelding (“Retaliation”) scheduled for release on November 30th. It’s described as the follow-up to the band’s 2017 album Versvs and the second instalment of the V-Trilogy, dealing “with the aftermath of the events that formed the theme of the first part”. It also includes two live performances from Graspop Metal Meeting 2017. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: BLOODBATH, SLAEGT, ENTROPIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Sep 132018
 

 

The flood of new metal continues unabated. Since yesterday’s round-up, I’ve accumulated more than a dozen new tracks (not to mention newly released EPs and albums) that I’m itching to hear, on top of all the others I didn’t have room to include yesterday. In an effort to keep at least my nostrils above water, I’ve picked three new ones (two of which come with videos) to quickly launch at your heads today.

BLOODBATH

Those who live under rocks are unaware that Bloodbath have a new album coming out next month. Everyone else knows. Now there’s a first single to be consumed, the name of which is “Bloodicide“. And guess what? It includes guest vocal appearances by Jeff Walker (Carcass), Karl Willetts (Bolt Thrower/Memoriam), and John Walker (Cancer). Before you enjoy the song, enjoy these quotes from two of the guests: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CIRITH UNGOL, CULTES DES GHOULES, HELRUNAR, WITCHTHROAT SERPENT, GEVURAH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 122018
 

 

Heavy metal’s fascination with the occult has deep roots and shows no signs of weakening. It is manifested in many ways, not all of which can be reconciled into some philosophically consistent gestalt, running the gamut from sorcery and witchcraft to elaborate schools of satanism, from the Dark Lords of Middle Earth to the horrors conceived by Lovecraft.

To this day, the embracing and channeling of evil cuts broad swaths across metal genres (white magic fell before the power of black magic within heavy metal in its infancy), though how we should understand the concept of “evil” and why it’s such a persistent feature of metal are subjects beyond the scope of this post. The subjects are on my mind simply because they had something to do with why I chose the following five new songs for this round-up, all of which appeared (in many instances without warning) over the last 24 hours.

CIRITH UNGOL

The first bolt from the blue took the form of the first studio recording by these Kings of the Dead since the release of Paradise Lost in 1991. It’s a single named “Witch’s Game“, which was recorded for inclusion in the forthcoming animated movie The Planet of Doom (more info about that here). The B-side of the single is a live version of “Doomed Planet” as performed at Germany’s Hammer of Doom festival in 2017. As you can see, it comes with stunning cover art by Michael Whelan. Continue reading »

LOOSEN YOUR MIND: THOREN, POTMOS HETOIMOS, MILLI TAÇMIRAT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 112018
 

 

My original idea for this post has morphed a bit as I’ve discovered more music, but the core of the idea is the same. Although the music here is radically different in the most obvious of ways, all of it seems connected to me, in the sense that all of it effectively severed my usual currents of thought from their moorings and turned them in different, and bewildering, directions. The last of these songs isn’t metal at all, in the way we usually think about heavy music, but it’s just as mentally unmooring as the other tracks.

At times like these, it occurs to me again that music which knocks you off-balance, which shoves you outside your normal comfort zones, can sometimes be the most fascinating.

THOREN

Roughly two years ago our friend and former NCS contributor Austin Weber presented our premiere of an album named Brenneburg by an instrumental trio from Michigan who call themselves Thoren. In attempting to capture the sensations of the music, Austin made frequent references to Dysrhythmia, while observing that Thoren “seem to be coming from an even more alien and discordant place than the off-the-wall realm where Dysrhythmia comfortably reside”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): ANOMALIE, KORONAL, OBLIVION, OUTRE-TOMBE, THUNDERCROW, U-FOES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 072018
 


Anomalie – photo by Sunvemetal

 

We’ve thrown a gigaton of new music at you on this Friday, but the way I think about, why should we be the only ones who feel like we’re drowning in a sonic flood? The answer is, we shouldn’t. You should feel the same way.

And so here we have Part 3 of today’s gigantic round-up. The bands my NCS comrades and I decided to feature in Part 1 and Part 2 are among extreme metal’s better-known names. The ones I’ve included here (again presented in alphabetical order) are lesser-known, but worth more attention.

You might notice that this 3-part round-up is a bit light on black metal, but that’s only because I’ve pushed those selections a bit further down the road… until Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK column.

ANOMALIE

We’ve devoted a fair share of attention to the previous releases by this Austrian band, including Andy Synn‘s devotion of one of his SYNN REPORTs to their discography last year and our premiere of a video for a song off their last album, Visions. Although that album was only released last year, Anomalie are back already with a new four-song EP named Integra. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): BEHEMOTH, CRYPTOPSY, RIVERS OF NIHIL, THE OCEAN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 072018
 

 

Well, this is just getting ridiculous. As you may have seen me observe in Part 1 of today’s round-up, the last few days have brought a proverbial flood of new advance tracks and videos. I had planned to make this a two-parter, with better-known bands in Part 1 and more obscure names in Part 2. But before I could even begin working on the second Part, my NCS comrades brought to my attention all the following new stuff, most of which just appeared this morning.

So, I decided to insert all this late-breaking stuff in Part 2 (again presented alphabetically, but with few words from me) and then turn to what has now become Part 3.

BEHEMOTH

To begin, here’s the official music video for Behemoth’s “Wolves ov Siberia“, which will appear on their new album I Loved You At Your Darkest. The song is a roiling, rapacious, dissonant piece of speed and savagery, with melodic accents that are emblematic of Behemoth‘s penchant for looming, sulphurous majesty. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): ARSIS, EVOKEN, PROFANATICA, PSYCROPTIC, VOIVOD, WOLFHEART

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 072018
 

 

It’s been one of those weeks, one of those weeks when for various reasons I just haven’t had time to compile any round-ups of new music. Unfortunately, it also happens to be one of those weeks when a ton of new songs and videos have premiered (in addition to those we’ve premiered ourselves). I’ve picked a couple handfuls of those, and divided the collection into two parts. This one includes better-known bands, presented in alphabetical order. The next one will include more obscure names.

ARSIS

James Malone sports a shaven head in the Arsis video that appeared overnight, but still screams like a banshee and is obviously still capable of cooking up some tasty riffs, while the people around him help put the spurs to this galloping, groove-some new song and spice it up with a bit of occult aroma, too. Speaking of which… Continue reading »

DGR REVIEW COLLECTION: SECTIONED, BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD, PSYCHOTIC PULSE, CLANDESTINE REVELATION, THE BREATHING PROCESS, DEPTHS OF HATRED

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 052018
 


Sectioned

 

(DGR prepared this large collection of reviews and streams, addressing some older and some newer music, and some things that haven’t yet arrived in full.)

This poor review collection saw more permutations than I’d be willing to admit, with so many different groups being added and removed for fear that I hadn’t spent enough time with a disc and so wouldn’t be able to speak about it properly, that the body count has to be in the double digits by this point. What this thing did move into was something of a themed archive of releases — bookended by earlier albums but with two that are much more recent, and with preview songs from two upcoming releases in the middle to help transition over the two.

What I found I was listening to recently was the real heavy and destructive forces of powerviolence, death metal, and grind, and on the other side of the spectrum, some real caveman level prefix-core styled music as well, just ones with a taste for the symphonic and speed on top of it. It was fortuitous then that on top of that I had a small collection of singles for upcoming (maybe? in one case) releases that I wanted to talk about that felt like suitable bridges between the two, so that our esteemed editor would’ve have to cleave this poor baby in twain; it kind of felt like a perfect thematic walk along the admittedly arbitrary spectrum brought before you.

Much like my much larger review nightmare collections, this one includes four albums but with somewhat shortened reviews, and all come highly recommended. Fingers crossed, maybe you’ll find something to enjoy as well, once you’re able to scrape your face off of the wall behind you. Continue reading »

 Older Entries