SÓLSTAFIR PREMIERE THE VIDEO FOR “LÁGNÆTTI”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 072014
 

 

Sólstafir’s “Fjara” from Svartir Sandar is one of my all-time favorite songs in any genre of music. It has been the subject of numerous videos, most of which have been live recordings. My favorite is still this one (in part because it’s the first Sólstafir video I ever saw), but a close second is the official video (here) made by directors Bowen Staines and Gunnar B. Guðbjörnsson, which follows a young woman in a thin wedding dress dragging a timber coffin across a stretch of Icelandic wilderness and encountering spirits along the way, culminating in a memorable scene at the Skógafoss waterfall.

The team that produced that striking video for “Fjara” has returned with a video that premiered within the last hour for the song “Lágnætti” off the band’s latest album, the remarkable Ótta. It is every bit as striking as the “Fjara” video, and is a beautiful match for the song. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: THE DEATH OF DEARTH, PART II, INSTALLMENT 4

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 072014
 

 

(In this latest installment of a multi-part piece, Austin Weber continues rolling out recommended releases from his latest exploratory  forays through the underground. The first installment is here, the second here, and the third here.)

SHAVASANA

The other day I was talking to a friend about Astomatous, the long-since defunct Chicago death metal band whose ranks included Nicholas McMasters, the bass player for Krallice/Geryon/others, as well as drummer Lev Weinstein, who is also in Krallice and Geryon among his many other groups.

Out of curiosity, I as usual returned to Metal-Archives to see if any of the other players were involved in continuing projects, and saw that former Astomatous guitarist, Aaron Avellone, was part of a new-ish group called Shavasana. He performs the vocals for Shavasana in addition playing guitar for them. According to the almighty Metal-Archives, their name means “corpse throne” or “throne of corpses” in Sanskrit, a fitting name for sure. Continue reading »

DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT: “DEATHRAY”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

We haven’t previously posted about the forthcoming album Z² by the Devin Townsend Project, which is now scheduled for worldwide release on October 27, but not for lack of interest. It is Devin Townsend, after all, and few musicians muster the kind of enthusiasm around here that he does. Now we have a chance to make amends for our neglect, because Gun Shy Assassin has just premiered a lyric video for one of the new album’s new songs: “Deathray”.

Z² is a double album, and this new song comes from the Dark Matters half of the release. It will come as no surprise when I tell you the video is a kick to watch. Of course, it involves an intergalactic invasion of our pathetic planet.

The music is also a kick. It’s a hard-rocking intergalactic shake. I feel the groove! You will too! Run for your fetid lives!  Prepare for the coming of your Zootoonian overlords!  (listen and watch next) Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED, PART 4 (I THINK)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

(Leperkahn once again steps up to the plate during my round-up hiatus with a collection of noteworthy news and new music.)

MARDUK

You can pretty much assume that a new Marduk record will kick ass 100% of the time. Their most recent full-length, Serpent Sermon, is certainly a better testament to that than most of their releases. Luckily for us, January 2015 will give us yet another dose of their feral, maniacal black metal, entitled Front Schwein. I literally don’t know anything else about the record, other than my hypothesis that it’ll be one of the better records January offers. Get psyched.

[Editor’s intrusion: “schwein” is German for pig, and “frontschwein” seems to be an expression for the grunts at the front in wartime.]

https://www.facebook.com/Mardukofficial
http://marduk.nu/ Continue reading »

VOMIT ORCHESTRA AND T.O.M.B.

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 052014
 

 

On Friday I got a reminder that despite how much my tastes in metal have expanded over the years and how much more deeply into the underground I’ve gone exploring, there are still branches of the cave system I’ve still not discovered. As different as the music in this post is from the range of music I usually patronize, I do like what I’ve found — so I’m sharing it. Both discoveries were spawned by a song premiere we did late last week. Both are strange, though in very different ways.

VOMIT ORCHESTRA

Three days ago I had the pleasure of premiering (here) a long symphony of pain named “Scour (Parts I and II)” by the band Venowl from their forthcoming split with Cara Neir. Venowl’s music is itself on the periphery of the metal I know best, but at least in their case I was familiar with most of their previous releases. And then two days ago I was introduced for the first time to the music of the UK project Emit, and specifically to a 2012 demo entitled Spectre Music of An Antiquary that’s being reissued in remastered form by Crucial Blast Records. I wrote a mini-review of that album and premiered one of its tracks — “Beneath Carvings Linger” (here).

This in turn led to a conversation online with ][ of Venowl, who unlike me was quite familiar with Emit. He mentioned that the man behind Emit had guested on older material by a band named Vomit Orchestra — another name I had never heard. When I confessed my ignorance, ][ linked me to a new Vomit Orchestra song that really grabbed me, and that’s the first offering in this post. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: THE DEATH OF DEARTH, PART II, INSTALLMENT 3

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 042014
 


(In this latest installment of a multi-part piece, Austin Weber continues rolling out recommended releases from his latest exploratory  forays through the underground. The first installment is here and the second is here.)

ANTHROPOMORPHIC SOUL

This release came to my attention by way of my good friend Corey Jason, also known as the sole force behind The Conjuration, whom I’ve covered here at No Clean Singing several times. So it’s fitting that what he sent me was also a one-man death metal band.

Anthropomorphic Soul is a Portugal-based projected led by sole member Nuno Lourenço, with a few guest solos and guest sax playing added for good measure. Seed Of Hate is certainly experimental death metal, yet always interesting, wrapped in a mechanical sheath of industrialized buzzing, giving it a very different, demented, horrifying feel. The skronky saxophone embellishments on “Anthropomorphic Soul” and “A New Beginning” add another flavor of mania into the mix, especially since they are not quick sax solos but extended soundscape additions — much like the quirky orchestral/choral overlays that also rise to the surface from time to time.

Seed Of Hate is hard to categorize, as it doesn’t really fit within one kind of death metal, nor is it clearly inspired by a single source. The problem I usually have with one-man death metal is that, minus Necrophagist and a handful of others, the songwriting often falls flat in favor of technical performances that are highly derivative. Fortunately, Anthropomorphic Soul does not succumb to that pitfall. For that reason alone, Seed Of Hate is worthy of your time. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: THE DEATH OF DEARTH, PART II, INSTALLMENT 2

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 032014
 

 

(In this latest installment of a multi-part piece, Austin Weber continues rolling out recommended releases from his latest exploratory  forays through the underground. The first installment is here.)

VEILBURNER

Veilburner are a two-man death/black band from Pennsylvania whose strength lies in oddball mania, conjuring an unearthly interstellar feeling. Veilburner burnish an esoteric atmosphere throughout The Three Lightbearers as they dig in dissonant ditches, arising frequently with technical guitar-led passages, some of which bring Gorguts and Obscura to mind. Veilburner often back up their aggressive core with experimental soundscapes of an industrial and occult feel that is oddly psychedelic in nature.

Simply hellish stuff, and damn fun to listen to death metal infused by a cold clinical black metal embrace. This album is killer from start to finish, and to me, frequently sounds like a black metal companion to the immersive insanity Gigan conjure — rife with psychedelic inclinations and robotic/reverb heavy vocal effects amid a massive mix of horrific undulating riffs and spine-shattering drum work. I recommend listening to the whole album at once, but if you need a starting point, go with “Nil Absolute”. The Three Lightbearers rips wormholes open in your mind, leading to self-collapse from within. Get your mind explosion on! Continue reading »

METAL NOT PREVIOUSLY FEATURED ON NCS — PART 2

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 032014
 

 

(We welcome back our Norwegian guest contributor Gorger, with Part 2 of an entertaining post that we began earlier this week.)

Welcome to Part Two of my little presentation of stuff I don’t think NCS has covered. If I’m mistaken about that, sue me. There’s a few dozens other releases I would like to shout about, but this seems like the best criterion to help me select by means of elimination. Part One can be read here. On we go, then.

NO RAZA – WHEN CHAOS REIGNS

Let’s start of with a trip to Colombia to meet four guys who have managed to put together an unusually solid death metal album. My impression is that this South American country is better known for cranking out brutal extreme metal with limited sophistication. Maybe I’m wrong. It has to happen sometime.

The band was apparently originated as early as 1997, but the first sign of life was the debut album from 2004. This was followed by a live album, video, and an EP before the sequel was released in 2012. I’m new to this band, and my enthusiasm for their death metal is due to several factors. Continue reading »

BIG ASS ROUNDUP

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Oct 032014
 

 

(Leperkahn continues to pitch in during my round-up hiatus.  Between what I sent him and what he found himself (of which there was quite an overlap), this is a monstrously large collection of recent, recommended goodies.)

Hey all! So a bloody lot of things got put up between when I sent in my last roundup and now, so this is gonna be a long one, since I’m not in the mood to separate them out. Strap in for a wild ride across the metalsphere.

BLUT AUS NORD

A few hours ago a new song named “Clarissima Mundi Lumina” from the new Blut Aus Nord album Memoria Vetusta III — Saturnian Poetry was made available for listening. This follows our own premiere of “Paien” right here. Islander says his review of the album will be posted on Monday, but he says there’s no point in waiting — just go pre-order the album in a special digipack CD edition here or on vinyl here. You can listen to “Clarissima Mundi Lumina” while you’re doing that:

https://www.facebook.com/blutausnord.official
https://www.facebook.com/debemurmorti Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: DECAPITATED AND BLOODSHOT DAWN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Oct 022014
 

 

I’m relenting briefly from my self-imposed round-up hiatus to bring you two music videos that appeared today.

The first is from Poland’s Decapitated, for the song “Instinct” from the Blood Mantra album, which is out now from Nuclear Blast.

The second is from the UK’s Bloodshot Dawn. The song is “Smoke and Mirrors” and it will appear on the band’s next album, Demons.

Both videos are after the jump, preceded by a bunch of links. Continue reading »

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