RECALCITRANT ROUND-UP: THE DEATH OF DEARTH, PART II — THE SEQUEL NO ONE ASKED FOR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 022014
 

 

(Austin Weber provides this first part of a multi-part round-up focusing on recommended new releases.)

It’s been a good while since I got down to it and churned out a round-up article here at NCS. For months now I’ve had a massive list of bands to put in an article, but have been too weighed down by life and loss to finish it. As I attempt to accurately assess the current state of my life, things have again taken a trip to implosion town, and so many of the things I held dear or grew accustomed to bit the dust yet again. Of course, this happens in all our lives, so I try to be realistic in deconstructing the ills inherent in all our realities.

I find some comfort in these times of rebuilding, though, with the hope that at least, in thinking deeply and reflectively, I may yet again find a different way forward that I had never imagined possible. Even in the darkest and dumbest places my mind goes to, music guides me and temporarily frees and harnesses this incorrigible mixture of hyperactivity and depression into a more passive and calm state.

Typically I would abstain from such personal and soul-baring words, yet inasmuch as I know myself, I am not ashamed of exploring and expounding upon what it is to be human, full of frailty and weakness — to realistically accept frailty yet not dwell too deeply in its realms.

Like past installments, the music that follows trends toward death metal, yet lest I box myself in, bands of other stripes are also included. As usual, many hours spent scouring the depths of Metal-Archives and other avenues has delivered in a big way for me. There’s a lot of killer music to explore, so this is going to be broken up into several installments. This is the first. Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED — PART 3?

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 022014
 

 

(Leperkahn continues to soldier on with roundup duties…)

Hello again! My stint emulating Islander continues. This time I put all of the songs and videos in alphabetical order, mostly because that happened on accident.

ABUSIVENESS

I’ve come to learn that the opinions of some MetalSucks scribes are either very good or very bad, so that it can be hard to tell whether something a given writer is recommending is worth my time. I tend to gamble on some of their posts in the hopes that a given band will fall into the former category, and I hit a bit of a jackpot in Poland’s Abusiveness. To put their sound succinctly, they sound somewhat like what newer Marduk would sound like if they subtly included some atmospheric keys and/or strings (or at least I think I hear keys and/or strings). On first gander, pitting those two together could be an odd match, but Abusiveness do it with aplomb on the song “Proces”, crafting an exhilarating six-ish minutes with blistering leads and an absolutely radiant solo maybe three or four minutes in. (There’s an ambient bit for the last minute or so that I don’t quite understand, but at that point you can just skip the end.)

“Proces” is from their new album Bramy Nawii, their new album on Arachnophobia. You can pick up Bramy Nawii with free shipping worldwide here if you dig the song featured below. Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED, PART THREE(ISH): EISTNAFLUG, FUCK THE FACTS, BLUDDED HEAD

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Oct 012014
 

 

(Our man Leperkahn continues forging ahead with some round-up posts while I pretend to be doing other things.)

EISTNAFLUG 2015

We received an exciting announcement today presenting the names of the first 12 confirmed bands for the 2015 edition of the EISTNAFLUG festival in Iceland. (For Gemma Alexander’s lively three-part report on the 2014 edition of the festival for NCS, go here.) The 11th edition of EISTNAFLUG will take place in Neskaupsstadur on the east coast of Iceland from the 9th to the 11th of July 2015. The confirmed bands are:

Brain Police (IS)
Conan (UK)
Dimma (IS)
Godflesh (UK)
In Solitude (SE)
Inquisition (CO)
LLNN (DK)
Lvcifyre (UK)
Rotting Christ (GR)
Skálmöld (IS)
Vampire (SE)
The Vintage Caravan (IS) Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED, PART TWO(ISH)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 012014
 

 

(Our man Leperkahn continues forging ahead with some round-up posts while I pretend to be doing other things.)

I forgot I had this theme for an earlier round-up post, but we’ll return to it now.

FORESEEN

I tend not to associate 20 Buck Spin with crossover thrash. Because of that, I avoided streaming the new track from Helsinki’s Foreseen at first, until I saw it later in an email from Islander. Short response from me would be feck me for not checking this out earlier, ‘cause this track absolutely rips.

What I had neglected to remember was that 20 Buck Spin pretty much always puts out kickass releases, and this one is no different, even if it’s a bit different than their normal fare. Anyway, if you like your thrash searing, sizzling, and ferocious, give the below track, “Death Injection”, a spin, and look for their debut album Helsinki Savagery on November 25. Continue reading »

PRIMORDIAL RELEASES THE TITLE TRACK FROM “WHERE GREATER MEN HAVE FALLEN”: YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

(Leperkahn introduces the just-released title track from the forthcoming album by Ireland’s Primordial.)

This is pretty late for our normal posting schedule, but when it comes to Primordial, scheduling becomes irrelevant. These guys are my favorite band from Ireland and one of the strongest on the planet, and I’ll be damned if Alan “Nemtheanga” Averill isn’t one of the best vocalists to have ever walked the Earth.

On the heels of their positively euphoric and magnificent Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand, Primordial have just released the title track as the first song premiere from their new album Where Greater Men Have Fallen. True to form of their past efforts, “Where Greater Men Have Fallen” encompasses roughly eight minutes of swelling melodies, epic soundscapes, and the darkly poetic bellows and croons of Nemtheanga. Continue reading »

ANOTHER LEPERKAHN ROUND-UP, PART 2: FROZEN DAWN, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT, BESEIGED, TOOTHGRINDER, MASTODON, SOILWORK, ATRIARCH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

 

(Leperkahn’s first two round-up posts today were more in the “metal news” category. In this one, he delivers actual streams of recommended new songs and videos.)

Herein lies the latest of my attempts to fill Islander’s shoes in collecting new music and videos. There was only gonna be a few things, but then I found a bunch more. So there’s a lot in here. Sorry, but I’m also not very sorry, since it’s all good stuff.

FROZEN DAWN

I was entirely unfamiliar with Madrid’s Frozen Dawn before Islander emailed me a link to a new video they released a couple days ago. The video is for “Banished, The Everlasting Confinement”, off their second album Those of the Cursed Light, which is out now via Xtreem Music. Broadly, it’s melodic black metal, but it has dug some serious hooks into my brain. Check it out below, and order the record if you like it via the Bandcamp page below.

https://frozendawn.bandcamp.com/album/those-of-the-cursed-light
https://www.facebook.com/truefrozendawn
http://www.frozendawn.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/truefrozendawn Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: STENCH, FALLS OF RAUROS, PUIG DESTROYER

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Sep 302014
 

 

(Our brother Leperkahn continues to shoulder the burden of rounding up news and new music during my vacation from that task.)

Attempting to do Islander’s job is WAAAAY harder than I ever would’ve thought it to be. Luckily, unlike the last stream dump, this one has a bit of a theme, namely that they’re all full-album streams.

STENCH

The NCS camp in general has expressed widespread approval for Stench’s new album Venture – we even went as far as to premiere a track from it here . It’s now streaming in full at Decibel here. I think at this point we’ve said our part on this one – now it’s your turn to voice your opinion.

The album is slotted to come out October 7th via Agonia Records – look for it at this location.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stench-official/213520935347849 Continue reading »

METAL NOT PREVIOUSLY FEATURED ON NCS — PART 1

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

(We welcome guest contributor Gorger, who explains himself and the objective of this new series as follows… )

Let me start off with a short presentation of myself. For almost a year I’ve been running a Norwegian metal site with a focus on reviews of metal releases. The site is split into two forms of reviews. There are the standard reviews, where I listen a plethora of times before writing a medium-long, moderately indept description with a dice-scaled rating, and then there are what I call “Impressions”, where I listen to an album a few times before writing short and somewhat impulsive description with a classification as Approved (V), Dissapproved (X), or Intermediate (VX).

Like Islander, I know what lack of time is. I have a wish of making a parallel, English-language version of my site, but that ain’t happening any time soon. When Islander told us all he’d be leaning back between two loud-speakers and enjoying some full albums for a change, I decided this was a perfect time to both give something back to this enlightening site and also do a “pilot” of English translations, to see how that would work. I plan to present 16 releases from the past two months over three posts, and the criteria are these:

-Only albums that have not earlier been presented in any way at NCS.
-Only music that fits the NCS profile (i.e., no clean singing)
-Only music that fits the NCS concept (i.e., only recommendable releases)

We are all excited to see which records will be reviewed by our host. In the meantime (yes, time is mean indeed) I hope you’ll find something interesting here. For those with Scandinavian linguistic skills, check out Gorger’s Metal.

I’ll put it all in chronological order. Now, let’s get started, shall we? Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED, PART 1 (TREPALIUM AND USNEA)

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Sep 292014
 

 

(As explained over the weekend, I’m taking a 10-day hiatus from rounding up new song and video premieres in order to focus on reviews, but fortunately we have at least one volunteer stepping up to fill the void. Here’s a post by Leperkahn that focuses on two recent premieres.)

Hey guys! Since Islander is taking a sabbatical from daily round-ups, I figured I’d take a stab at being his fill-in for a few days here, or at least until I realize that my problem sets won’t do themselves and Wealth of Nations won’t read itself. This shall serve as part 1, with future parts coming at likely very irregular intervals. If you feel like I’ve overlooked something that the peoples of the NCS universe should be cramming into their ears, feel free to shoot me an email at brendan@sdmetal.com. Anyway, herein we have two new song premieres, from opposite corners of both the globe and the metal spectrum.

TREPALIUM

A few weeks back France’s Trepalium unleashed upon us “Moonshine Limbo” (featured here), a glorious little ditty that was easily the best swing jazz/metal combo I’ve heard since Diablo Swing Orchestra’s last album back in 2012. It came replete with a bitchin’ horn section and the first time I’ve ever truly heard scat-screaming. I mention this because the group have now released the second song from their forthcoming EP Voodoo Moonshine, “Fire On Skin”.

The song is perhaps a bit less overtly jazzy than the title track – I didn’t hear the aforementioned bitchin’ horn section this time – but the arrangement and progression of the song is still rooted pretty firmly in jazz territory, only remaining death metal because of the instrument choices and Cédric Punda’s eviscerating roars. The jabbing verse riff in particular gave me the sensation that I was in the ring with Muhammad Ali at his prime, jolting left and right with each nasty hook the chugging riff planted into my sides. Continue reading »

ONE FINAL ROUND-UP: BETHLEHEM, ENCOFFINATION, SKÁLMÖLD, ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 272014
 

 

As explained here, I’m taking a 10-day hiatus from searching for and writing about new song and video premieres, in order to make time for reviewing some albums I absolutely need to say something about. Before doing that, however, here’s one last batch of new things I found over the last couple of days that I thought were worth sharing.

BETHLEHEM

Germany’s Bethlehem, whose debut album may or may not be responsible for that amorphous genre label “dark metal”, have a new song up for streaming, the name of which is “Ein Kettenwolf greint 13:11-18”. All I really have to say about this depressive ballad is that I’d listen to more rock music if it sounded like this. Warning: clean singing to come…

The song will appear on the band’s sixth album Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (fear of the number 666), which is their first in about five years. It will be released by Prophecy Productions on Oct 10 (Oct 14 in the U.S.) and is available for order here. Continue reading »

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