VIDEOGRAPHY: BLACK CRUCIFIXION, GATECREEPER, NICHOLAS BARKER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 132014
 

I spied three videos this morning that I commend to your attention.

BLACK CRUCIFIXION

I am a pathetic excuse for a human being. Among other reasons, I failed to review one of the 2013 albums I most enjoyed — Coronation of King Darkness by Finland’s Black Crucifixion. I only managed to write about a single song after it premiered in advance of the album’s release. Pathetic.

This morning I was reminded of my abject failure by the debut of an amazing video for a song from that album named “Heroes End Up On Gallows”. The video was eight months in the making, and it is a striking work of dark and fiery beauty. We are seeing it now because Coronation of King Darkness will soon be released on vinyl by Svart Records, with a gatefold sleeve and new cover art (above). Continue reading »

YOB, OVERKILL, BEASTMILK

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 122014
 

I mainly wanted to put up a couple of cool new album covers before calling it quits for the day, but I just saw a new video that I decided to throw in here, too, because we always need music.

YOB

The first cover is for Clearing The Path to Ascend, the new album by YOB, which is due for release by Neurot Recordings in September. I’m expecting great things from this album. I take PR reports with a grain of salt, but this excerpt from today’s announcement still gets me pumped up:

“Those threads of progressive rock and drone that have always underscored the music of YOB are now fully realized with Clearing The Path To Ascend, as each track forges into the next with a ferocity that’s as completely unhinged as it is utterly focused. Drummer Travis Foster wields his signature rhythmic furore here with bombastic precision while bassist Aaron Rieseberg, coils around the sonic tide with an unforgiving churn – all the while in a deadly synchronicity with Scheidt’s uncanny vocal range and its pendulous movement between the triumphant howls of a medieval madman and the earth splitting growls of a war-battered titan.”

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SÓLSTAFIR, GOD MACABRE, OAK PANTHEON, ELUVEITIE, ALESTORM

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Jun 122014
 

Here are some new things I found over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing around. I’m doing my best to finish a review, so I’m going to atypically attempt to be brief. I know this will cause mass depression among readers, but that’s just the way it has to be.

SÓLSTAFIR

As previously reported, the next album by Iceland’s Sólstafir is named Ótta and will be released by Season of Mist on August 29 in Europe and September 2 in North America. Today the album became available for pre-order in triple-LP format (here) and the cover art was disclosed (above). I don’t know what thinking is behind the use of this photo or how it relates to the music and/or lyrics, but I like it — such a dramatic setting, and such a fascinating face. Bought it.

Also today Stereogum premiered the new album’s title track. You may not be prepared for it. You may not even think it’s metal. But I think it’s goddamned awesome. It’s icy and adrift, bleak and beautiful, melancholy and memorable. But it has a harsh edge as well, it rocks in its own way, and the soaring of the vocals into a howl near the end are very cool. And is that an electrified mandolin I’m hearing, along with the synth and strings? (Answer:  Nope, it’s a banjo!)

Go HERE to listen.

GOD MACABRE

I’ve written before about the Relapse reissue of the one and only album by Sweden’s God Macabre — a band who’ve frequently been on my mind ever since seeing their magnificent set at Maryland Deathfest XII last month. One of my friends who was there with me surprised the hell out of me a few days ago with a gift of the special MDF edition of the LP. And then yesterday I noticed that the digital version of The Winterlong reissue is now available on Bandcamp. If you haven’t heard it, you should. It has lost nothing in the two decades since its original release. Here it is: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: TOMBS, SEPTICFLESH, CEMETERY LUST, DEVANGELIC

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 112014
 

The following are some of the best things I saw and heard in my ramblings through the interhole today.

TOMBS

I have idiotically failed to write anything about Savage Gold, the new album by Brooklyn’s Tombs which is out today. But because it’s out today, the entire album is also now streaming on Bandcamp, where it can also be ordered. It defies simple classification, with a mix of elements drawn from black metal, hardcore, death metal, and post-metal, among others. It’s a powerful album as a whole, and one in which each song also has its own potent identity. There is no joy in the music, but there is a lot to enjoy.

I go back and forth as to which song is my favorite, but today it’s “Edge of Darkness” (yesterday it was “Seance”), so if you’ve only got time to sample the music, you might start there. The whole album is after the jump.

http://tombsbklyn.bandcamp.com/album/savage-gold
https://www.facebook.com/TombsBklyn Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: MASTODON AND DISTRESS OF RUIN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 112014
 

Collected in this post are two brand new videos that debuted this morning, one from Mastodon (who, of course, need no introduction) and one from a Finnish band named Distress of Ruin.

MASTODON

Mastodon’s new album Once More ‘Round the Sun will be released on June 24 by Reprise. In April, the first advance track from the album — “High Road” — hit the internet. In May, Mastodon announced that they would be filming a video for the song in the L.A. area. They said they were looking for “both eccentric character actors and real-life Live Action Role Playing enthusiasts.” They added:”We are looking for elves, orcs, wizards, rangers, mages, knights! Experience with ‘LARP’ combat a huge plus. Preferably 18+. Come in your own LARPer costumes or MASTODON-themed LARPer costumes!”

Today we got the video. Pitchfork, who premiered it not long ago, describes the video as “Karate Kid-meets-Napoleon Dynamite-meets Game of Thrones”. That about covers it, though the last frame leaves the story hanging… Continue reading »

RESURRECTIONS: SOULBURN AND SANCTUARY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 112014
 

Soulburn 2014

This morning brought news of new albums on the way from two bands whose last recorded efforts date back many years. I’m intrigued by both announcements, and thought you might be, too.

SOULBURN

Soulburn are a Dutch band formed in the mid-90’s by original Asphyx drummer Bob Bagchus and his former Asphyx bandmate, guitarist Eric Daniels, with Wannes Gubbels from Pentacle on bass and vocals. Century Media released their well-regarded debut album Feeding on Angels in 1998 (reissued in 2009) — and there has been no recorded music from Soulburn since then. But that’s about to change.

According to an interview with Bob Bagchus published today by Terrorizer, a revived Soulburn will finish recording a new album in July, with the working title of In Suffocating Darkness. Bagchus says it will be released by Century Media and he describes the music as “our darkest one since Asphyx’s Embrace The Death, with lots of old Bathory/Venom/Celtic Frost love in it”. The new vocalist/bassist is Twan van Geel (Bunkur), and Bagchus says, “Instead of the typical deathgrunt he sings in the more aggressive way like Dissection/Watain kind of vocals which fit our music 100% perfectly.” The current band also includes guitarist Remco Kreft (Grand Supreme Blood Court). Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: SYBARITIC, BELLICIST, INFINITUM

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 102014
 

(This is part 2 of a piece written by Austin Weber about recommended releases from up-and-coming bands. Part 1 can be found here.)

SYBARITIC

I knew as soon as I turned in my Remnants of 2013 article that I would probably find more from last year that went unmentioned or praised. Sybaritic certainly fall in that category. The last I heard, they were on hold as a group, having last recorded a 2009 album, Being Human, now quite a long time ago. Like many groups, I found them on Metal-Archives while searching for the projects of individual band members projects — in this case, through Atheist, as Sybaritic used to count Jonathan Thompson (who played on Jupiter mind you) in their ranks until 2007. Somehow, I missed that Sybaritic dropped a killer EP last year called Serenity In Darkness. Continue reading »

SPANISH DEATH METAL: DOMAINS, BOKLUK, MORBID FLESH, APOSENTO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 102014
 

(In this post our guest Kunal Choksi (Transcending Obscurity) puts the spotlight on new releases by four death metal bands from Spain.)

Here are some rather new and interesting, but most importantly effective, Death Metal bands from Spain to check out. The originality is questionable but these guys are doing it better than most out there – Domains is a worthy competitor of Dead Congregation’s latest one released in the same year, Bokluk is playing devastatingly raw but catchy and old school Death Metal, Morbid Flesh is sticking to its tried-and-tested but concrete old school Death Metal, and lastly, you have the comeback album, in a sense, of the old Spanish legend Aposento, who have been around since the early ‘90s and only now unleashed a debut full-length. Let’s delve more into the bands, shall we?

Domains – Sinister Ceremonies (The Sinister Flame)
http://www.thesinisterflame.com/

Sinister Ceremonies is only the debut album but it’s thorough and comprehensive in its sound and aesthetics. Unlike the usual Immolation–Incantation worship or Blasphemy added to the sound, Domains creates its own template of music, borrowing or rather incorporating influences of bands like Krisiun, Behemoth, and even Deathspell Omega to create something that is rooted in dark Death Metal but is also reaching out to different styles and traditions. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: ORGONE, HARDCORE ANAL HYDROGEN, TERRACIDE, SUPER MASSIVE BLACK HOLES

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 092014
 

(Austin Weber returns to NCS with recommendations of new underground releases. There are four bands covered in this post and tomorrow there will be three more.)

Whenever I do get around to writing various articles or reviews, I typically find myself instantly sidetracked and sucked into more new music that inevitably deserves to be written about as well. Which leads to more articles like this, and while it’s not clear to me if anyone cares, I will keep churning them out anyways! The bands that follow below span an eclectic range of styles, so I hope you the reader will find something you enjoy in the mix.

ORGONE

Pittsburgh extreme death metal act Orgone came to fruition at the right time in tech-death’s growth during the mid 2000s. During that period there seemed to be a bit more experimentation, versus the largely codified style and sound of what we expect when we hear that term now. Orgone released a stupefying near-impenetrable debut called The Goliath in 2007 and then disappeared. Now they’ve returned with The Joyless Parson, a further test in pushing the boundaries of death metal.

It’s a uniquely experimental effort that thrives on lengthy, lumbering builds and abruptly vacillating tempo shifts. In fact, The Joyless Parson spends more time at a menacing, pained crawl than it does in roaring, fast-paced tempo territory. Some may have heard of the band through Patron Of The Rotting Gate’s cover of “Caress Of Vines”, before this album came out. But that’s a long story related to the album being released on the internet in 2011 in pre-production form, and not subsequently being mixed and mastered until last year, leading to its current new official release status. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEATH GRIPS DROPS A NEW ALBUM, ZETRO SOUZA RETURNS TO EXODUS, HAMISH GLENCROSS LEAVES MY DYING BRIDE, AND HOUR OF PENANCE FALLS OFF THE CONQUERORS OF THE WORLD TOUR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 092014
 

Here are four startling new events that happened over the weekend.

DEATH GRIPS

Death Grips released the first half of a new album last night. As is their want, there was no advance notice, or at least none that I saw. The name is niggas on the moon. It’s 8 tracks long, it’s streaming in full on Soundcloud and YouTube, and it’s free to download. And all 8 songs feature Björk. Seriously.

The band’s announcement says this 8-song release is the first half of a double album, the name of which is the powers that b. They say it will be released later this year on Harvest/Third Worlds Records.

I haven’t started listening to the music as I write this on a Sunday night, so I’ll save any thoughts about it for a later update. Or maybe someone else around here will provide some thoughts. I’m expecting weirdness.

To download the music, click this link:

http://thirdworlds.net/files/niggas-on-the-moon.zip

Stream it below. Continue reading »

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