VIDEOGRAPHY: APOPHYS, BARREN EARTH, DEATH GRIPS, FEARED, MUTTER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 282015
 

 

I’m back at the NCS compound in the vicinity of Seattle after a month away from home, and it sure as hell was good to sleep in my own bed again last night, with the lice who know me instead of the strange ones inhabiting my hotel room mattress. I’d say they’ll miss me, but I probably brought a few of them home with me as hitchhikers.

Well, enough about me and my parasites. I found some videos that came out yesterday that I thought were cool. Without further ado, here they are, presented in alphabetical order; there’s also an exciting tour announcement in here:

APOPHYS

A couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of premiering a song named “Miscreants” by the Dutch death metal band Apophys (whose ranks include members of God Dethroned, Prostitute Disfigurement, Detonation, and Toxocara, among others). Their debut album Prime Incursion will be discharged by Metal Blade next month. And what I spied yesterday was the premiere on Gear Gods of a play-through video for another new song named “The Antidote”. According to the band,

“The song tells a story of humanity’s ultimate cure for itself, a final solution as people start to transform into beings that are focused on nothing other than consumption. This gives it a twist one could see relevant to our current society. Eventually the urge to consume backfires resulting in humanity consuming itself and thus, providing the answer to the final problem; us.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ABBATH, ABOMINOR, MORNING MODE, NINKHARSAG, TAAKE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 272015
 

 

(Responding to my constricted blog time, our Norwegian friend eiterorm has graciously compiled a round-up of new music and news for your entertainment and edification.)

The winds whispered in my ear that Islander has a lot of news to dig through (and a wife to persuade) before he can resume his passionate blog work. Here’s a guest entry to keep you slightly occupied in the meantime.

ABBATH

Because I decided to do this in alphabetical order, the news about Abbath is first out. Some of you may already know that the members of Immortal have been involved in a legal dispute over the band’s name. Due to musical disagreements, the long-running black metallers and weather forecasters have decided to go separate ways. Apparently, Abbath wanted to continue his career under the old monicker, something the rest of the band wouldn’t allow. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SULPHUR AEON, MARUTA, AND A STUPENDOUS NEW HELLS HEADBANGERS COMPILATION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Mar 272015
 

 

Before I hit the road for the drive back to Seattle today after almost a month away from home, I thought I’d throw a few new songs your way.

SULPHUR AEON

This German band’s last album cover (for Swallowed By the Ocean’s Tide) was one of the best ever. And now they’ve delivered another astonishingly great piece of art — or rather, Ola Larsson has delivered another one for them. Gaze upon its Lovecraftian loveliness above (and click the image to embiggen it).

The band’s new album is entitled Gateway To The Antisphere, and it’s due for release on April 3 by Van Records and Imperium Productions. Yesterday the fine deviants at CVLT Nation premiered the album’s first advance track, a titan named “Titans”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELL WITCH AND CULT OF ENDTIME

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 262015
 

 

I’ve finally reached what should be the last day of the project for my fucking day job that has kept me away from home for the last month and severely interfered with the all-important task of spilling my guts about metal on this site. I really can’t wait to get home.

I have a ton of new music to catch up on, but I probably won’t immediately dive back into blogging for a day or two since I also have about a thousand hours of sleep to catch up on, assuming my wife still recognizes me and will let me in the house.

I had a bit of free time this morning, so I pulled together this small round-up of music that grabbed me by the throat as I made a quick dash through the interhole looking for new songs.

BELL WITCH

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the time when a first advance track would emerge from Four Phantoms, the new album by Seattle’s Bell Witch, and it happened yesterday. The song is “Judgement, In Fire: I — Garden (Of Blooming Ash)”, the second of the album’s four long tracks (and at 10 minutes, it’s the shortest one). Here’s the complete track list: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ZATOKREV, CRIMSON SWAN, HAMFERÐ, DEATHBLOW, KHROMA

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 212015
 

 

I’m about to enter the home stretch of the out-of-town project for my paying job that has been severely constricting my blog time. Four or five more days, and I’ll be done. Those remaining days are going to leave me with even less time to blog than I’ve had since the project started three weeks ago, so this morning I decided to carve out some time for one last round-up of new music before running the final gauntlet.

ZATOKREV

I discovered the Swiss band Zatokrev through their 2012 album The Bat, the Wheel and a Long Road to Nowhere, which turned out to be one of my favorite albums of that year. Their fourth album, Silk Spiders Underwater… is now finished and scheduled for released on April 13 by Candlelight Records. It is reported to be the first of a two-part conception and features artwork by Maks Loriot. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DIONYSUS, DEMIURGON, THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 202015
 

 

I’ve got six more days left before the project for my fucking day-and-night job that’s been screwing with my blog time comes to an end and I can get back home. It has been severely interfering with my ability to round up new music and news, but I did manage to find enough time this morning to write about some things I’ve been meaning to feature at the site for a while, plus one  recent discovery.

DIONYSUS

Earlier this month we premiered a new song by an Indian band named Dormant Inferno that’s scheduled to appear on a split release entitled Beyond Forgotten Shores with a Pakistani band named Dionysus. I intended to follow that with a premiere of a Dionysus song, but in part because of my fucking day-and-night job and in part because I’m an idiot, I didn’t follow through on that plan — and now, the Dionysus tracks on the split (along with all the Dormant Inferno tracks) are up on Bandcamp for listening in advance of the split’s official release. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DISARMONIA MUNDI, BOSSE-DE-NAGE, ODIOUS, MAMMOTH MAMMOTH, HELZGLORIAM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 172015
 

 

I got enough of a break from my day job over the last two days that I was able to listen to some new music, and I’ve collected some of what I heard in this post. I knew the previous work of some of these bands and therefore wasn’t surprised by the quality. Other songs came as complete surprises — and very nice ones.

DISARMONIA MUNDI

I had lost track of this Italian duo. The last time we wrote about them was two and a half years ago. Of course, that was around the last time they released any music, and their last album was 2009’s The Isolation Game. Thanks to Andy Synn, I made the happy discovery yesterday that they have a new album coming out in June on Coroner Records named Cold Inferno. There’s a big head on the cover. Continue reading »

DELIVERED AT THE SPEED OF PRINT: BLACK AND WHITE DISCOVERIES — SIBERIAN HELL SOUNDS, A BAND OF ORCS, AETHER REALM

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 162015
 

 

(DGR hath delivered the following round-up of two new EPs and one new single.)

It’s been a little while since I’ve had time to really trawl around the internet and pen up one of these humongous roundups — mostly because smaller descriptions have been mutating into full album reviews. Often, I’ve used this kind of feature to help folks catch up with stuff they might have missed (or that we missed) and discover things that may have happened weeks ago, but flew under our collective radars. This time we’re having a little fun and attempting to bring a theme with this one — the theme of desaturated artwork, because what is more METAL than black-and-white artwork?

The answer is “nothing”, for it is bereft of all color, like our hardened and blackened souls. So I present unto you the most recent collection of things I have found, which actually share not one, but two things connected to the printed format: They are in black-and-white, and I was really fucking slow in writing about them and getting them out to you. Continue reading »

ESSENTIAL ENTRIES: FEBRUARY 2015

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 162015
 

 

(In this post Dan Barkasi continues his monthly series recommending music from the month just ended.)

Here we go for round two of Essential Entries. You guessed it – we’re covering February this time. Yeah, yeah, suspense isn’t this guy’s strong point.

January gave us genius like Desolate Shrine and Agos, which is just what was needed to start things off right. How does February measure up? To quote one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time, “Great Scott!” If you don’t get that, I bestow upon you great shame. But yeah, February did bring the noise (no Public Enemy included). Here’s the proof, in no particular order.

A Forest of Stars – Beware the Sword You Cannot See

Self-described as a secret society from Victorian-era 1895, A Forest of Stars compose music that’s as intricate and unique as their theming. Black metal with a lot of psychedelic elements is the most basic description, but really, their music is so much more. It’s a continuing story, and their latest chapter is awe-inspiring. Invest the time, as there’s a lot of layers, with the payoff being oh so worth it. Continue reading »

RAPID ROUND-UP: MACABRE OMEN, TENGGER CAVALRY, MOONSORROW, AKHLYS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 152015
 

 

(Our Norwegian friend eiterorm has stepped up to assist with a round-up of recommended new music.)

While Islander is away on duties, I promised to do a quick round-up of some of the news I find. Due to my music-to-words converter running at low capacity at the moment, I’ll leave it to you to find descriptive words for the music. So if you find that adjectives and metaphors are lacking, feel free to add your own in the comment field below. Despite the scarcity of words in this post, however, all the music below is highly recommended. Don’t just take my word for it; stream it all and hear for yourself.

Macabre Omen

Macabre Omen was founded in 1994 on the island of Rhodes in Greece. For the next decade, they recorded a variety of demos and splits until their debut album, entitled The Ancient Returns, was released in 2005. Now, another decade later, the Hellenes have unleashed their sophomore album upon us. The new opus, entitled Gods of War – At War, is an hour-long collection of epic hymns to Hellenic warfare, in the musical vein of Bathory. The entire album can be streamed below for your auditory pleasure. Continue reading »

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