OVERFLOWING STREAMS: GRUESOME, SHINING, SKINLESS, UNLEASHED, SLUGDGE, VARGNATT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 152015
 

 

Yes, it’s true, we shove about 100 new songs in your face on a daily basis, but we know your face holds a lot of songs, so we need to keep shoving. Be sure to chew them well and don’t try to talk while you’re doing it, ’cause you could choke to death.

GRUESOME

Surely you know about Gruesome by now, because we’ve certainly written about them enough, and we even premiered a song from their debut album Savage Land. They give new meaning to the phrase Total Death Worship.

As of yesterday, the whole album became available for streaming. I don’t know why you wouldn’t go listen to it, unless you’re in a coma, in which case we wish you a speedy recovery and a pain-free removal of the catheter. Don’t forget to share photos of that for our collection. We’re thinking about turning them into a large-format NCS coffee-table book, The Art of Catheter Removal.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, there’s a stream of Savage Land at Decibel. It’s an exclusive, so you and your catheter will need to go here to listen, and you’ll both be glad you did: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEATHHAMMER, VIRVUM, OUTRE, DEHUMAN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 142015
 

 

As usual, I’m drowning in excellent new metal. There seems to be no ebb and flow this year — it’s a flood tide all the time. And so, perhaps even more so than usual, what I’m collecting in these round-ups is the result of impulsive choices. “Random Fucking Music” indeed.

DEATHHAMMER

The Norwegian duo known as Deathhammer have a new album named Evil Power set for international release by Hells Headbangers on June 30. Having been a big fan of Onward To the Pits (their last album, from 2012), that date can’t come soon enough for me.

This morning I heard the first advance track from the album, a tornado named “Warriors of Evil”. It’s the first song on a Soundcloud compilation of 2015 music created by Fenriz (of Darkthrone fame). There happens to be a ton of other good music on this playlist, and I’ll include the song list below, since the stream isn’t divided into separate tracks. But as for “Warriors of Evil”, it’s thoroughly electrifying black thrashing speed metal with thoroughly rancid vocals and the kind of riff mastery that causes furious headbanging followed by a desire to prostrate yourself in humble worship and pathetic pleading for MORE OF THIS! RIGHT FUCKING NOW! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KATECHON, FUCK THE FACTS, FISTFUCK, WIEGEDOOD, SOLSTICE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 132015
 

 

With a little help from my friends, I present to you a Monday collection of recommended new songs that I discovered in recent days, arranged in the order in which I heard them.

KATECHON

I have our friend from the Dominican Republic, Vonlughlio, to thank for this first discovery — which evolved in stages. First, Vonlughlio linked me to a new song named “Desolation” by the Norwegian band Katechon. The band’s 2013 debut album Man, God, Giant was outstanding, and this new single engendered high hopes for the next one. Entitled Coronation, it’s now projected for release by Nuclear War Now! on June 6.

“Desolation” actually had its premiere on CVLT Nation in February, but I missed it then. Katechon uploaded it to YouTube last week, and that caught Vonlughlio’s attention, and then mine. And then further exploring led to the discovery that the band had previously revealed two more songs from Coronation in addition to “Desolation”, and that all three are available for listening on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FALSE, PALE CHALICE, BOTANIST, DEMONICAL

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  9 Responses »
Apr 102015
 

 

Yesterday brought a wealth of new music, and I’ve collected a few of the riches in this post. The first three songs are black metal, and the fourth isn’t — but it’s still obsidian and it still rips.

FALSE

With only an untitled EP in 2011 and a split with Barghest in 2012 — collectively totaling three songs — the Minneapolis black metal band False have established the kind of underground credibility that makes their debut album one of the year’s most highly anticipated releases. For me, “highly anticipated” became an understatement after I saw them perform at last summer’s Gilead Fest in Wisconsin. In a word, the performance was stunning (reviewed here).

Yesterday, Gilead Media announced pre-orders for the album — which is also untitled — and put up the first advance track for streaming on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, NIGHTRAGE, SEPTICFLESH, PALLBEARER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 082015
 

Behemoth video still

Wheeeeee!  I’m in an airplane at about 40,000 feet, traversing the continent from Seattle to Washington, DC, where I will sit in a windowless room for the next two days doing top secret work related to my fucking day job. I know I’ve just peaked your curiosity, but to be brutally honest (which is the only kind of honest we know how to be at NCS), a more fulsome description would bore you to tears.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I’m on an airplane. I have wi-fi, but it’s not good enough to stream anything, so I haven’t even watched the new videos collected in this post. Fortunately, my comrade DGR has, and he pounded out a few words for each one (except the last one) when he sent me the links. Take it away DGR… Continue reading »

MONDAY IN THE MEATGRINDER: NOCTERNITY, OSHIEGO, CORPSE LIGHT, NAPALM RAID, ASS, WOLCOTT FALLS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 062015
 

Nocternity album cover

Happy fucking Monday. This is a collection of five new songs and one older one that I came across at scattered times over the last week. All of them take fully formed human bodies (aka “listeners”) and reduce them to their unpleasant component parts. In some cases, the remains are chunky and suitable for stewing. In others, you get finely minced hamburger-grade mounds that are perfect for sausage-making. Enjoy.

NOCTERNITY

The Greek black metal band Nocternity are preparing for the release of their third album and their 12th recording overall. The new full-length is entitled Harps of the Ancient Temples and it follows the last one by 12 years. It is my first exposure to the music of Nocternity, and from what I’ve read, it differs in significant ways from the last album, Onyx.

In January I briefly wrote about the album’s title track, as it appeared on a two-song 7″ release from 2007, which Hells Headbangers had just then posted to Soundcloud. Last week CVLT Nation premiered the album version of the song, which is somewhat different from the previous stream and so damned good that I’m seizing the opportunity to write about it again. Continue reading »

WEEKEND BLOG BREAK

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Apr 042015
 

I’ll be counting the days ’til I see you again. (Photo by Tim Flack.)

Today (Friday) my wife and I are leaving home to spend the weekend with some friends in a cabin on the Eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. I doubt there will be any internet. Even if there is, I think I would be fed to the bears and cougars as punishment for antisocial behavior if I tried to blog.

So this will be a rare weekend — in fact, only the second of its kind in the 5 1/2 years NCS has been running — when there won’t be posts on both Saturday and Sunday (and this will be the only post today — though it does include music). Continue reading »

TEASERS AND REMINDERS FROM UKRAINE: KRODA, KHORS, AND AUTUMNIA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 032015
 

 

I’m woefully far behind in compiling round-ups of new music. This week at our site has been loaded with premieres, and unlike some places that just say, “Here’s something. Listen to it”, I feel compelled to write about the music, even if few people care what I think other than (perhaps) the bands themselves.

Anyway, as welcome as they are, the premieres take time and tend to cut into other activities. But although I have a very long list of things I’d like to throw your way, I’m going to include only three items in this post. Two of them are teasers of new albums from bands I’ve been avidly following for a long time. The third is a new discovery and concerns the reissue of previously released albums. All three of the bands are based in Ukraine.

KRODA

More than three years have passed since the release of Schwarzpfad, the last studio album by Ukraine’s Kroda, which remains one of my all-time favorite pagan/black metal albums. The year 2012 brought us a live album (Live Under Hexenhammer: Heil Ragnarok!) and in 2013 Kroda released a compilation (Varulven) that included several departures in style, including two cover songs. And now, finally, Kroda is preparing for the release of a new full-length under the title GinnungaGap-GinnungaGaldr-GinnungaKaos. Continue reading »

MONDAY MASSACRES: ENTRAILS, FOEHAMMER, GENOCIDE SHRINES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 302015
 

 

With a weekend of listening behind me, I’ve got a stack of new songs I want to recommend that rivals the height of a mighty redwood. Unfortunately, my brain is only the size of a mighty walnut, and I didn’t get enough of a head-start to pull them all together for a round-up today. So, here are three, and more will come tomorrow.

ENTRAILS

As regular readers know, I have a debilitating weakness for old-school Swedish death metal. If I don’t get my fix on a regular basis, I start to get the shakes and have even more trouble formulating complete sentences. Fortunately, one of the best of the current purveyors of obliterating Swe-death has a new album coming our way via Metal Blade, and this past weekend I caught up with the first single. The band is Entrails, the album is Obliteration (of course it is), and the song is “Beyond the Flesh”.

The roots of Entrails in this style of music go deep, the band having achieved their first incarnation in 1990. And despite moldering in the grave for a full decade, they’ve turned in one winner after another following their reanimation with 2010’s Tales From the Morgue. If “Beyond the Flesh” is a good indicator, the new album will be another one. Continue reading »

COLISEUM, BITTER END, HARM’S WAY, CONSUMMATION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 292015
 

 

So here’s how this post came about. I woke up this morning, caffeinated and nicotined myself, and started browsing Facebook to see if any world leaders were trying to get in touch. Within the first 20 seconds I spied a link to a new Coliseum video for a new Coliseum song. Of course, I had to see what that was about, because there’s on such thing as a bad Coliseum video. This new one gave me a surprise, but not an unpleasant one.

It turned out that Coliseum’s label (Deathwish Inc.) had queued up a playlist on YouTube without my realizing it, and so as soon as the Coliseum video finished, a song from a band named Bitter End started playing. And it hit the right chord in my addled brain. No sooner had it ended than a full-album stream launched, for a new release by Harm’s Way. The first couple of tracks beat me senseless, and so I just sat there, hunched over and black and blue, and let them finish what they’d started.

With blood running from my nose and ears, I thought I’d better stop before that Deathwish playlist served up something else because, y’know, I’d like to make it to lunchtime without rupturing my spleen. So I went back to Facebook and pretty quickly got a recommendation from KevinP about a metal band named Consummation. And since the first collection of music I’d heard wasn’t pure metal, I thought I’d give that a shot — and so here we are. Continue reading »

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