SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HIDEOUS DIVINITY, FIRESPAWN, WOLFHEART, FUOCO FATUO, ZEAL AND ARDOR, EXOCRINE, SEPULCHRAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Feb 042017
 

 

It’s been a crazy week for this half-witted editor. Interferences by my fucking day job coupled with interferences by my non-blogging personal life prevented me from posting any news and new-music round-ups all week. That means I’ve accumulated an enormous list of things since last weekend. Unfortunately, I still won’t have time to catch up this weekend.

I’ve got work I need to do today for an annual event I’m attending tonight with my spouse, and based on past experience, I’ll be in no condition to write anything on Sunday morning. I’ve agreed to post one premiere tomorrow, which I’ll get ready today, but there probably won’t be anything else on the site tomorrow. Maybe the coming week will be less crazy and I can do a delayed Shades of Black thing and/or a “That’s Metal!” post after the new week begins.

Okay, enough with the excuses. On to a regrettably small but diverse collection of new things I noticed last week.

HIDEOUS DIVINITY

When I first started using the title “Seen and Heard“, it was because I intended to include both news about, and artwork from, new albums, even when there was nothing yet to hear, as well as streams of new songs. And I have items in both categories to recommend today in this large collection, beginning with the artwork at the top of this post. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEROCS — “AND SO IT BEGINS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 302017
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a new video from Serocs.)

Multi-national technical brutal death metal act Serocs have remained an ongoing favorite of mine ever since I first stumbled upon their 2013 album, The Next, and reviewed it at the time here at NCS. Even then the band was onto something special, but they truly took themselves to a higher level on their 2015 album, And When The Sky Was Opened, from which NCS helped launch a single called “Itami”.

Since that time, the band’s founder, guitarist Antonio Freyre, has been busy starting other projects, including last year’s side-project Punished, for which Islander was nice enough to premiere a song called “The Absent” (since I guested on it briefly and it wouldn’t have been right for me to cover it).

But I digress. Seeing as it’s now 2017 and Serocs is ramping back up again, that provides the impetus for us helping to launch this new video today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NIMPHAION — “THE CONQUEROR WORM”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 292017
 

 

The Russian band Nimphaion are working on their third album, a conceptual creation named Quoth the Raven that’s projected for release in the coming spring. As a sign of what lies ahead, the band are releasing a single from the album, “The Conqueror Worm“, and today we’re sharing with you a stream of the title song in a lyric video.

Those of you familiar with the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe will have already realized where Nimphaion drew inspiration for this music. In fact, they’ve described the music in genre terms as “Poe-tic Black Metal”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MORTA SKULD, LANTERN, DÉMONOS, REBEL SOULS, DESTROYERS OF ALL, ASOFY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jan 282017
 


Morta Skuld

It seems that some lessons can’t be learned no matter how many times they’re taught. A case in point: Once again, I’m now recovering from alcohol poisoning, probably not severe enough to require hospitalization but debilitating enough that even typing hurts and coherent thought is a goal that’s out of reach.

Fortunately, I picked the following songs and videos yesterday, before severely damaging my coherence with an end-of-the-work-week blowout last night. If you find more mistakes than usual in what I’ve written today, you’ll know why.

MORTA SKULD

The first item in this collection blind-sided me without warning yesterday, though I probably just wasn’t paying attention as carefully as I should have. The news is that Milwaukee-based Morta Skuld have returned with a new album. Entitled Wounds Deeper Than Time, it will be released by Peaceville Records on February 17 and it follows the band’s comeback EP Serving Two Masters (2014). Like the EP, it includes cover art by Patrick Kachellek: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (IN THE FORM OF A VERY METAL MUSICAL SANDWICH): MANETHEREN, MISERIST, CRESCENT, QUASARBORN, MAHAKALA, LETHE, VERMIN LORD, WRATH FROM ABOVE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

As I made my way through the enormous list of new songs and videos that I’ve been compiling since last weekend, a certain shape began to suggest itself to me — the shape of a tasty metal sandwich. And with that shape in mind (and a gnawing hunger in my guts), I selected and organized the following 8 songs.

For this playlist of mostly brand new things we begin harsh and heavy, then segue into a block of Exceptions To Our Rule (the one about singing), and then move into the other side of the sandwich where total war on the senses lies in wait again. You’ll also find some very eye-catching videos in here, along with a broad assortment of music that struck my fancy — with only truncated commentary from yours truly.

MANETHEREN

According to a press release, “The End is a concept album about a human being travelling across the lands as the world begins to end…. Each song represents different events during the ending process, and as they unfold the being feels as himself is becoming god, or death itself. By the end of the album this being by all means becomes god and rules over the wasteland left behind.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WARBRINGER, BLASPHEMER, GRAVE PLAGUE, DISCHORDIA, AMTHYST, OLD SCRATCH, AREA, SUPREMATIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 232017
 

 

This will be one of those Mondays when I’m afraid we’ll be doing our best to drown you in music, beginning with this large collection of new discoveries (which includes one item from Austin Weber along with my own picks).

I thought about titling this post “Galloping Madness!” Everything in here flies, but in particular there’s a heavy thrash influence in a lot of the music at the start and the finish, with some brain scramblers sandwiched in the middle. But as you’ll discover, the thrash influence manifests itself in very different ways.

WARBRINGER

The first item is a video for “Silhouettes”, from the new album Woe to the Vanquished by California’s Warbringer. This is their fifth full-length, and it’s slated for a March 31 release through Napalm Records.

“Silhouettes” premiered at DECIBEL last week, where vocalist John Kevill gave this explanation about the song: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3 OF 3): WOE, APOSTATE VIATICUM, CHRCH, NECROWRETCH, CONSUMMATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jan 192017
 

 

This is the third part of a mid-week round-up that I had originally planned to post yesterday, along with Part 1 and Part 2.

When I originally planned this tripartite collection of a dozen songs and videos, I had found a kind of musical theme or connection between the songs I allocated to each Part. But since I didn’t get Part 3 posted as planned, in the meantime I’ve changed one of the tracks I had originally planned to include here, and then also added a fifth one. So the theme of Part 3 has fragmented, and now we’ve got a lucky 13 items in this collection as a whole.

The music in here is still damned good though — and I’m still keeping my verbiage (relatively) short.

WOE

Man, it has been a long and sorrowful wait for new music from Woe (you should thank me for not saying “woeful”) — because I’ve really enjoyed the band’s previous releases, and four years have passed since the last one, an album named Withdrawal. The wait is over. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2 OF 3): POWER TRIP, BAT, BLOOD FEAST, ROOT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 182017
 

 

I find myself at the middle of the week, drowning again in new songs and videos from forthcoming albums. As I made my way through my list of discoveries this morning, it dawned on me that an even dozen of them could be conveniently divided into three segments, with the songs in each segment bearing a relationship to each other — at least to my twisted mind. So that’s what I’ve done.

My original plan was to post all 3 parts today, interspersed among other things — and no sooner had I written that than my fucking day job diverted me for hours. I can’t believe they actually expect me to work for my pay. So, in the face of that outrage I’m only able to post Part 2 today, and Part 3 — along with all the other posts I had planned for the balance of today — will get shoved into Thursday, which will make Thursday overstuffed here at our rotund site. I’ll still keep my commentary brief.

POWER TRIP

The first song in this collection comes from Texas-based Power Trip. It’s called “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)”, and it appears on the band’s new album Nightmare Logic, which will be released by Southern Lord on February 24.

According to the band, this song is the catchiest one they’ve ever written — which is saying something. However, I’m not prepared to argue with them, because it really is ridiculously catchy. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1 OF 3): BENIGHTED, REAPING ASMODEIA, GOREPHILIA, DEIVOS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 182017
 

 

I find myself at the middle of the week, drowning again in new songs and videos from forthcoming albums. As I made my way through my list of discoveries this morning, it dawned on me that an even dozen of them could be conveniently divided into three segments, with the songs in each segment bearing a relationship to each other — at least to my twisted mind. So that’s what I’ve done.

We already have a big slate of posts planned for today, so I’m going to salt these three parts among the others, and keep my own descriptive verbiage to a minimum.

BENIGHTED

The first item is a NSFW video for a song called “Reptilian” from Necrobreed, the new album by the French gore-grind terrorists in Benighted, due for release by Season of Mist on February 24, 2017. I have two pieces of advice for you: First, listen to the song without watching the video, at least for the first listen. Otherwise you’ll have trouble paying attention to the music. Second, don’t watch the video on a full stomach; it will disrupt your digestion. Continue reading »

BROKENHEAD: “A PROMPT AND UTTER DESTRUCTION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 172017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new EP by the Swiss band Brokenhead.)

It’s pretty hard to find thrash metal nowadays that isn’t obsessed with aping Vio-Lence or old Exodus. A lot of it’s boring, so boring that it’s completely inconsequential music. But thrash metal bands have produced some of my favorite metal records of all time, a good chunk of them in fact, and I’m always looking for a modern band to come out of nowhere and sock me in the jaw.

Brokenhead from Geneva, Switzerland, have released a debut EP named A Prompt And Utter Destruction that didn’t just sock me in the jaw, it kicked me in the balls afterward and left me leaning against a wall vomiting, attempting to recover in its aftermath. Continue reading »

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