SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AL-NAMROOD, AORTES, BLACK SORCERY, COGNITIVE, CRYPT SERMON, DARKNESS EVERYWHERE, GRAND CADAVER, HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY, REZN, VÁSTÍGR, WARDRUNA, BATHORY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 062024
 

Saturdays after Bandcamp Fridays should be named just like hurricanes. I’m left staring hopelessly at the wreckage of the NCS in-box and the high-water marks left by the musical flood, which still hasn’t really receded.

In case you were wondering, an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization maintains and updates the annually rotating list of hurricane names, with one name for each letter of the alphabet, except for Q, U, X, Y, and Z. This year the list begins with Alberto. However, I see no reason not to use the letters omitted by the WMO, so let’s call this Saturday Quorthon.

Let’s listen to these 12 songs, all but the last of which breached the surface of the flood during the last week, while we wait (hopelessly) for the carpet to dry out. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MALIGNANCY, UMBRA VITAE, LIMBONIC ART, SUMAC

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 032024
 


Photo Credit: Paul McGuire

Wallet- and pocketbook-protective dikes continue to fail at an alarming rate, deluging bank accounts with continuing torrents of new music. Yes, cheap-ass streaming services like Spotify might let your money keep its meager head above water for the time being, but at some point your conscience will assert its ascendancy, won’t it?

Way too much new music to cover comprehensively in this mid-week roundup. I just grabbed a few ugly gems as they swept by, with one hand still on the felled tree that’s serving as my temporary life preserver as the flood carries me toward that bridge pylon ahead. Hopefully we won’t hit it as hard as the Dali. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ADVERSARIAL, ARROGANZ, BLACK TOTEM, CULT LEADER, DEAD FLESH, HENRY KANE, LILJEVARS BRANN, OU, SIG:AR:TYR, TÝR, ULTIO, VULGARIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 302024
 

It’s the 30th day of March, and 30 is about the number of new songs and videos I checked out in anticipation of this roundup, all of them having surfaced during the past week. I settled on an even dozen to share with you, and you probably won’t like all of them, even if you’re tenacious enough to go through all 12.

Why? Because your range of heavy metallic interests is probably narrower than mine (most people’s are), and the big herd below ranges pretty far and wide. On the other hand, the breadth of the range means you’ll probably find something to like.

Because there’s so much to get through, I dispensed with uploading and re-sizing all the cover art and tried to limit myself (with varying degrees of success) to more pithy expressions than usual. I also alphabetized the selections by band name.

P.S. There will be more recommendations tomorrow, Easter Sunday notwithstanding. In fact, the Easter observance just makes me more eager to char the day black. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VERBERIS, ALLEGAEON, PARTY CANNON, MORTAL WOUND, VRYKOLAKAS, VERITERAS, OLD IRON, FRAIL BODY, ATARAXIA

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Mar 282024
 

Lately I’ve been organizing these roundups of recommended new songs and videos in alphabetical order by band name, because that means I don’t have to spend any time thinking like a DJ, trying to figure out what makes sense in the flow of the music. Sometimes that has coincidentally led to interesting juxtapositions.

Today, however, I’ve chosen a different organizational scheme, because some of the songs naturally paired up with each other. So this collection includes a block of goofy stuff, a “hulking and hideous  death metal” block, a Seattle block, and some curveballs at the end, although the very end is more like a sequence of eephus pitches that sail in high and slow (look it up).

But to begin, you’ll find something that doesn’t fit anywhere else but left me wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BLAZE OF PERDITION, CAVE, CORPUS OFFAL, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, INSECT ARK, THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, ОБРІЙ (OBRIJ), TEN TON SLUG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 232024
 


Blaze of Perdition – photo by Justyna Kaminska

My day job is in an extended period when it’s leaving me alone. This is a double-edged sword for my unpaid work at NCS. I’m able to notice a lot more new songs and videos, but that also leaves me feeling overwhelmed. The flood of new stuff is insane, and equally insane is how much of it is good.

A lot of listeners are so wedded to specific sub-genres that they’re unimpressed by much of what falls outside their solemn vows. I guess I’m wedded too, but am very much a polygamist and feel the need to give all the brides, even the ugliest ones, their fair share of attention.

OK, that was gross, but the point is that I’m enamored of metal from many sub-genres (the more extreme ones), as today’s large roundup demonstrates (though I still think power metal wears too much makeup and flashy clothes). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DÅÅTH, NOCTURNUS AD, OUBLIETTE, ROPE SECT, UFOMAMMUT, VALE OF PNATH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 202024
 

It has been a very busy week for the release of new songs and videos, and the week is only half-way through. Some of my fellow NCS slaves have tossed a lot of them my way, and I’ve ferreted out others.

Even though I’ve included quite a lot of them in this roundup, more are still running around the prairies waiting to be corralled. I hope I can lasso a few more before the weekend, assuming my lathered-up pony doesn’t hit a gopher hole and pitch me over its head into a hard landing.

DÅÅTH (U.S.)

This site sprang to life in November 2009. Just a couple months later we published our first annual list of “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs“, and Dååth‘s “Wilting on the Vine” was one of the 10 we selected. That’s how long ago we started following this Atlanta-based band, though they had been releasing music for six years before that. But after one more album in 2010, the band fell silent for what turned out to be a very long time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ABORTED, BAT, DARKTHRONE, HÄMND, MY DYING BRIDE, NECROPHOBIC, TERMINAL NATION, ULCERATE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 162024
 


A hell of a party awaits below….

All the “big” names in this Saturday roundup of new songs and videos were suggested by my old friend and fellow NCS slave DGR — “big” in quotation marks because no surface-dwelling listener would remotely consider the music “radio friendly”.

But I still decided to throw in a few more subterranean offerings of my own choosing, all of it presented in alphabetical order by band name. That arrangement turned out to create some big twists and turns in the music.

ABORTED (Belgium)

First up, feast your eyes and ears on the music video for “Condemned To Rot” from Aborted‘s guest-studded new album Vault of Horrors. The guest stud on this one is Francesco Paoli from the NCS house band Fleshgod Apocalypse (does anyone remember when I used to call them that every time I mentioned them?). I’ll crib from my friend Andy‘s review of this album: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AL-NAMROOD, BLACK TUSK, DEAD FLESH, DVNE, GATECREEPER, HALNY, JORDSJUK, KULT IKON, RIITASOINTU, SIX FEET UNDER, SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI, WARM GADGET

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 142024
 

What I’ve assembled for visitors today is an even dozen songs and videos from bands spread across six countries and a variety of genres (and at least one that’s not really metal), including death metal, black metal, sludge, doom, post-metal, progressive metal, deathcore, folk-metal, and some things that are harder to pin down. If you don’t find something to like, it must be because you searched for “no spring cleaning”.

One thing you’ll figure out fairly soon is that a lot of today’s songs rock out, providing some very catchy head-movers. There’s also singing (or close to it) in some of them (gasp!). But of course I’ve sprinkled in some ravagers too, and because I’ve arranged these songs and videos in alphabetical order by band name, one of those comes first.

AL-NAMROOD (Saudi Arabia)

The first song is “Lisan Al Nar” (Tongue of Fire) from AlNamrood‘s new album Al Aqrab, to be released by Shaytan Productions on June 9th. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ACOD, ISCHEMIC, LOCKTENDER, LOKA, NECROT, NEVER THE DEAD, PAIN, POPIOŁY, SHADOHM

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Mar 092024
 

Like yesterday, I had enough time to compile a very big roundup of new music for this Saturday. It includes two full EPs and seven individual songs, most of them from forthcoming releases, presented in alphabetical order by band name.

Like yesterday, there’s so much to hear here that I’ve attempted to cut back on the usual volume of impressionistic words so I can finish this before I turn into a pumpkin. Also like yesterday, I think there’s a lot of variety in the music I picked.

Unlike yesterday, I decided to focus on more obscure names from different corners of the metalverse.(P.S. For newcomers here, there will be yet another roundup tomorrow, focusing on black metal and its kindred.) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ULCERATE, ANAAL NATHRAKH, BEFORE THE DAWN, BENIGHTED, DARK TRANQUILLITY, DISENTOMB, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, ISENORDAL, NIGHTRAGE, SINISTRO, WASTEWALKER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 082024
 

No long-winded introduction today, nor any long-winded impressions of the songs and videos either, because… there are so many of them!

Most of these choices (though not all of them) are from bigger names in the extreme metalverse. Most of them were also suggested by my NCS compatriots, because I didn’t do a great job of keeping up with new releases this week. I do plan to have another roundup on Saturday, as usual, and will dig deeper into obscurities, of my own choosing.

ULCERATE (New Zealand)

This first item is a rarity, just a news item without any music to go along with it. But it’s exciting news, and so I couldn’t resist. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries