Apr 222016
 

Terra Tenebrosa-The Reverses

 

Well, this has been another one of those weeks when I was so busy with premieres and assorted personal nuisances that I wasn’t able to compile as many round-ups of new songs as I would have liked. As usual, that means I’m now drowning in things that I think are worth recommending — too many to fit into one post.

So, I’ve done what I usually do in such situations: made the selections on a pretty random basis and tried to restrict my own verbosity and let the music speak for itself. I’ll compile some more discoveries for a post this weekend.

Before getting into the music, I’ll start with one news item that peaked my interest.

TERRA TENEBROSA

Yesterday Debemur Morti Productions announced the projected release of a new album by the unorthodox and fascinating Swedish entity known as Terra Tenebrosa. The new album is named The Reverses and it includes the participation of some impressive guests: Jonas A Holmberg (This Gift Is A Curse), Alex Stjernfeldt (The Moth Gatherer), MkM (Antaeus), and Vindsval (Blut Aus Nord). Continue reading »

Apr 212016
 

Gojira-Magma

 

In late March, when I read Rolling Stone’s interview/listening-session (here) with the Duplantier brothers about Gojira’s new album Magma, I became increasingly uneasy. Reading Kory Grow’s descriptions of some of the songs that he heard while talking with the brothers in their New York City studio made me fear that Gojira had morphed into a French variant of Mastodon, making a big sweeping turn into radio-friendly rock.

He wrote that “the band has taken a different route with the album compared to past riff-fests”, and referred to “almost-industrial rhythm[s]”, “brittle guitar line[s]”, “almost gothier riff[s]”, “Joe singing a monk-like chant”,  “sorrowful, gothy vocals”, flutes and cowbells, and lots of four-minute songs because “people’s attentions are shorter now” (Joe’s words). In the final paragraph, Grow wrote, “they’re eager to show a different side of themselves on the new record and see how their fans react to it”.

Well, now we have some actual music, because within the last two hours, the band debuted a music video for the new album’s first advance track, “Stranded”. Continue reading »

Apr 192016
 

collage

 

(Our contributor from Norway, Gorger, returns with the 11th edition of his series recommending releases that we’ve managed to overlook. To find more of his discoveries, visit Gorger’s Metal.)

Sometimes, my mouth has diarrhea. Other times, I’ve got less crap to share. Oh, wait, I’ve got one thing. One of these scrawlings is longer than the others, and so I find three to be an adequate number of presentations this time. I hope it’s not too long, and that you will at least take the time to listen to the music. And so, without further ado, I present three albums that I for one feel deserve your attention. Continue reading »

Apr 172016
 

Nadra-Form

 

So much music, so little time. In this post I’ve collected some recent black (or blackened) metal releases, and a few songs from forthcoming ones, that I’ve been enjoying, plus one other excerpt of a release that isn’t black metal but is pretty fuckin’ black anyway. Hope you find some things to like in here.

NAÐRA

I’ll begin with two Icelandic bands I’ve written about frequently, because their music is so exceptional. The first is Naðra, whose debut album Allir vegir til glötunar was released in January of this year (reviewed here) and whose line-up includes members of other notable Icelandic bands, including Carpe Noctem, Ophidian I, and Misþyrming.

Early last week the band released a new two-song EP named Form via Bandcamp. The first track includes guest vocals by Eirikur Hauksson, a well-known vocalist in Iceland in both pop music and heavy metal. Continue reading »

Apr 162016
 

Solstafir-Legend live

 

As you may have discerned by now, I enjoy not only recommending new music in these round-ups but also selecting items for them that don’t all come from the same genres of metal. For this Saturday collection of recent discoveries, however, there’s perhaps more variety than usual because I’ve partially gone outside the realms of metal. This is always a risky maneuver because I so rarely listen to anything that isn’t metal. I don’t know how dependable my metal tastes are, but when I veer off those pathways I’m pretty sure my taste isn’t dependable at all. Self-doubt has never held me back, though, so here we go….

SÓLSTAFIR AND LEGEND

More than two years ago I wrote (here) about a split release by two Icelandic bands, Sólstafir and Legend, in which each of them covered a song originally recorded by the other. In Sólstafir‘s case, they put their stamp on a Legend song called “Runaway Train”.

Yesterday the two bands released a video in which members of both groups joined together last fall for a live performance of that same song from the split (which they had earlier recorded together at Studio Neptunus). The performance occurred in an abandoned industrial factory and was filmed by Brynjar Snær Þrastarson and edited by him and Frosti Jon Rúnólfsson. Continue reading »

Apr 152016
 

Systemik Violence-Fuck As Punk

 

Hey there. It’s good to be back on round-up duty. As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I had to spend the last four days in something like the Bataan Death March for my fucking day job, except I was able to eat food and wasn’t scarred for life watching all my friends around me die in misery. I didn’t have to crap myself while walking either. But, I mean, by modern first world standards for a well-paid office worker it felt brutal. Please don’t shed too many tears, ‘cuz it’s over.

Anyway, there ain’t no fuckin’ way I can catch you up on all the good stuff I spotted since last Sunday and couldn’t write about, so I’m not even going to try. And I’m working on not feeling anxious and miserable about it. I don’t understand why people frown on having a few shots at breakfast. It’s very therapeutic. Here are some jewels you probably won’t find at some other metal site.

SYSTEMIK VIØLENCE

Speaking of therapeutic, the debut EP of Portuigal’s Systemik Viølence will do a masterful job of helping you discharge your desire to kick the living shit out of everything and everyone around you, without going to prison. Continue reading »

Apr 112016
 

Shadow Woods Metal Festival 2016

 

As we begin the new week, I have some unfortunate news (at least it’s unfortunate for me). Beginning today and continuing through Thursday morning, I have to bury myself in my fucking day job for one of those day-and-night projects that periodically descends upon me. I’ll make time to post what other writers have sent me, as well as a few premieres I’ve agreed to do, but aside from this round-up and one “Short But Sweet” review I wrote over the weekend, I will be missing in action until sometime Thursday.

Before saying good-bye, I’ve collected a few items that I wanted to share — including, at the end of this post, streams of ten recent videos without commentary (because I’ve run out of time for commentary).

SHADOW WOODS METAL FESTIVAL

I’m late sharing this news, but the news is so exciting that I’m following the “better late than never” mantra. Last year’s Shadow Woods Metal Festival was a marvelous event by all accounts — including this account by our guest Captain Karbon. As I reported in February, organizer Mary Spiro and her team (who are joined by Baltimore’s Grimoire Records as co-producers this year) have been planning the second installment of this open-air camping metal party, which will run for three days in central Maryland: from Thursday, September 15th through Sunday, September 18th at Camp Hidden Valley, in White Hall, Maryland. They’ve been announcing performers since January, and now the complete line-up has been revealed — and it’s an eye-popper: Continue reading »

Apr 082016
 

Rotting-Christ-band

 

I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon sifting through that massive spew known as the NCS e-mail in-box and then wading through the hip-deep effluent of the interhole, searching for things worth hearing and seeing, so that you don’t have to dirty yourselves doing it. It was filthy work, as it always is, but as always happens I found some chunks of gold gleaming amidst the vast rivers of mediocrity. I actually have a pretty long list of discoveries that I think are worth sharing, but here are a few of them. Perhaps I will have time to include more later today, or this weekend.

ROTTING CHRIST

Rotting Christ delivered a new lyric video yesterday for the song “Les Litanies de Satan“, which includes guest vocals from Vorph’s frontman Samael dramatically reciting (in French) excerpts from Charles Baudelaire’s poem of the same name (from the volume of poetry entitled Les Fleurs du Mal), which inspired the song. The track, which appears on the band’s latest album Rituals (reviewed here), is a majestic, surging hymn to the fallen angel, and the video is interesting to watch as well. Continue reading »

Apr 072016
 

Behemoth-Nergal

 

We had such a big line-up of premieres and reviews yesterday that I didn’t have time to pull together a round-up of new things, so I’ll do some of that today. As a consequence of waiting, the first couple of items in this round-up of new videos (and one new song excerpt) will no doubt have been seen by most of you already. I still want to leave them here because they’re so good — though I don’t think I need to say much about them. The second two are somewhat more recent, and are by bands who don’t have quite the name recognition among metal heads as the first two, so I’ll spill a few words about those.

BEHEMOTH

Nergal has a reliably interesting artistic vision for Behemoth’s videos, and a knack for enlisting help from talented people in making them a reality — including Sharon Ehman of Toxic Visions for the costume and prop design in this video, among a long list of others (who are identified in the notes to the video here). Of course, the dramatic natural setting for this video is the real star. Continue reading »

Apr 052016
 

Grimness-A Decade of Disgust

 

In 2004 an Italian band named Grimness released their debut album, bearing the title Increase Humanity Disgust. Another full-length, Trust In Decay, followed the debut in 2008, but the band have been dormant since then. Of the musicians who recorded the debut, guitarist/vocalist Valerio Di Lella spent time with Novembre, and is Eyeconoclast’s current vocalist; drummer Jonah Padella and guitarist Andrea Chiodetti became members of The Foreshadowing; and bassist Willer Donandoni joined Black Land. But Grimness is rumbling to life again, with Giulio Moschini from Hour of Penance joining the band on bass in preparation for live re-appearances — and with a special reissue of the debut album coming in May.

The reissue will be entitled A Decade of Disgust, reflecting not only the band’s longevity but also the fact that the new release will include more than simply the tracks that appeared on the original debut.  It also includes six bonus tracks:  four songs recorded for a 2002 EP named Dogma, a live version of “Proud To Be Damned”, and an unreleased song from the Trust In Decay recording sessions. And as you can see above, the reissue includes striking new cover art created by Roberto Toderico. Continue reading »