AN NCS INTERVIEW: “J” (WEIGHTLESSNESS)

 Interviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 242014
 

(Leperkahn brings words of praise for an EP by a San Diego band named Weightlessness, and an interview with the band’s bass player and vocalist “J”.)

For me, the two most distinctive elements in funeral doom (and its cousin death/doom) are a slow pace and morose, somber atmosphere. The former is rather easy to nail down, and is done pretty effectively by pretty much every band who set their sights on the subgenre. The latter quality, however, is far more difficult to master, and tends to be the standard that measures how good a funeral doom album is, and what separates the men from the boys in the genre.

In the past year or so, I’ve been trying to familiarize myself a lot more with doom and funeral doom, going through some of the legends and the newest masters, such as Ataraxie, Thou (I realize they aren’t purely funeral doom, but it’s a large part of their sound), Evoken (still need to dig into them further), Thergothon, Mournful Congregation, Lycus, and more. What all of these bands have in common is that they’ve mastered both of those main tenants of funeral doom, and tied them together beautifully – utilizing glacial pace as a tool to communicate paralyzing grief and despondence.

Out of nowhere (specifically, sunny San Diego, of all bloody places), Weightlessness have aimed to build upon those achievements within the genre, and on their debut EP Of Lachrymose Grief, they’ve done just that, infusing some of the best, most despondent funeral doom I’ve heard all year with some of the best melodies that Orchid– and Morningrise-era Mikael Akerfeldt never wrote. Continue reading »

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE: ISLANDER AND CENTRO-MATIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  18 Responses »
Apr 232014
 

This morning one of my Facebook friends linked me to a song from a band named Islander. I wonder why he would do that? They’re a four-man outfit from Greenville, South Carolina, and they’ve recorded an album named Violence & Destruction that Victory Records plans to release on July 8, 2014. Which happens to be my birthday. Why would a band named Islander be releasing an album on my birthday?

I assumed that with an album named Violence & Destruction and a name like Islander and a record being released on my birthday, the music would strip paint from the walls, smother kittens by the sackful, and cause the neighbor kids to have explosive diarrhea. Nope, not even close. Not even a mild case of the runs. No kittens were harmed in the making of this music.

I haven’t voluntarily listened to music like this in 7 or 8 years. But I have to say the melody is kinda catchy, and the booming riff is nice. My friend compared them to Deftones. I’m not well-versed in Deftones. But for obvious reasons, I’m putting the song in here. The name is is “The Sadness of Graves”. This is the band’s Facebook link (“weareislander”?  really?): Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MIASMAL, COBALT, BLUT AUS NORD / P.H.O.B.O.S., HIGH SPIRITS, AND SINMARA

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 222014
 

Here are five items I found yesterday that I thought were worth sharing. The first and last items will tear you a new one. In between those you’ll find some tantalizing news and a song that’s an exception to our “rule” but will rock you all night long.

MIASMAL

Miasmal are a Gothenburg death metal band who share members with Agrimonia and Martyrdöd and whose self-titled debut album came out in 2011. Their second album, Cursed Redeemer, is scheduled for a May 13 U.S. release by Century Media (April 28 in the EU). Last month we featured a song from the album named “Until the Last”. Yesterday Noisey/Vice premiered a second track, “Call of the Revenant”. In a word, it’s stupendous (and, as noted, it will tear you a new one).

Seriously, there’s something about this song. On the one hand, it sounds utterly familiar — voracious vocal howling, heavy-drilling down-tuned riff grisliness, death/crust grinding and crawling, punk-inflected Swedeath rhythms. On the other hand, it not only captures this old-school radiance terrifically well, it sounds… vibrant and new. The rapacious, marauding energy is explosive and it begs to be played over and over again. Continue reading »

WHISKY, DOOM, AND ONE VOTE FOR THE MOST METAL VAMPIRE MOVIE YET MADE

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Apr 212014
 

I don’t have any rhyme or reason why I combined the items in this post. The mind works in mysterious ways, especially after it has been pickled in alcohol.

“WHISKY AND DOOM”

A friend of mine who reads the New York Times every day sent me a link to an article by Charly Wilder in yesterday’s Travel section, because he knows I love metal, even though he doesn’t. I’d like to just copy and paste the whole damn thing, but I’d probably get a take-down notice from some lawyers for copyright violation. So I’ll just paraphrase.

The article is about an event (“Taste the Doom”) that has been happening off and on since 2011 in the back rooms of various Berlin bars (Germany, not North Dakota) in which the organizers pair single-malt whisky and doom metal. Until experiencing them together the writer was not a fan of single malt (“a decent drink but hardly worthy of all the macho lore and rhapsodizing on peat content and cask type”) or doom (“with its sludgy guitars and demon voices, it was hard to imagine it being enjoyed unironically by actual adults — or really anyone not planning a murder-suicide”). But when she tried them together beginning two years ago, “it all made perfect sense”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEATHCULT, SERPENTRANCE, FŌR, COGNITIVE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 202014
 

Here are a few new things that have been wrecking my ears over the last 24 hours.

DEATHCULT

Yesterday I posted (here) a new song by the Swiss band Bölzer, and today I begin this round-up with music from another Swiss band. This one is named Deathcult and it happens to include one of the members of Bölzer (guitarist/vocalist KzR, who also now seems to be the vocalist in Witchrist).

Deathcult released a four-song demo in 2012 that I haven’t yet heard, though it’s available on Bandcamp, and earlier this year Me Saco Un Ojo Records released a new vinyl EP entitled Pleading for Death… Choking on Life (copies are still available there and elsewhere). Continue reading »

HEAVY AS HELL: NEW MUSIC FROM BÖLZER, INFERNAL CURSE, YOUNG AND IN THE WAY, BLACK TONGUE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Apr 192014
 

This is a collection of recommended new music and videos, all of it except one discovered by your humble editor over the last 24 hours. What they have in common, apart from the fact that they’re really good: you will be bludgeoned, gutted, and left for worms.

BÖLZER

I had a passion for this Swiss band’s 2013 EP, Aura, that bordered on the unhealthy. I listened to it so much that I became convinced an alien entity had taken up residence in my skull (and lord knows there’s enough space in there for a roommate). I also included “Entranced By the Wolfshook” on my list of 2013’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. I’ve been tremendously eager to hear what Bölzer would do next. Now I know.

Thanks to a tip from KevinP, I discovered this morning that the band had started streaming a new song named “Steppes” on SoundCloud. It is one of two tracks (totaling about 18 minutes) that will appear on a forthcoming EP named Soma. The artwork will again be prepared by Alexander L Brown, and it will be released by Invictus Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FUCK THE FACTS, MASTODON, VADER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 182014
 

Between pulling my hair out two days ago because our site was down and then frantically trying to catch up yesterday with posts we had promised to do on the day the site was down, I haven’t been as on top of new happenings as I’d like. So, to catch up a bit, here are a trio of new-ish things I’d like to share. There will be another round-up later today.

FUCK THE FACTS

My NCS comrade Austin Weber sent me the photo you see above. Hiding behind that absurdly large, absurdly metal mask is Mel Mongeon of Canada’s Fuck the Facts, putting on her metal face for a show in Chicago last night.

If you don’t know, the band have just begin a North American tour. Even without a mask of such epic qualities, Ms. Mongreon,  Topon Das, and their brothers in arms will still shake you to your core. Here’s the tour schedule as it now stands: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AGALLOCH, SEPTICFLESH, 1349, GOATCRAFT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 162014
 

Agalloch – photo by Veleda Thorsson

These are things I noticed over the last 24 hours that I thought you might want to notice as well.

AGALLOCH

When I found out that Agalloch was going to play a special show at Highline in Seattle on May 17 with YOB and Wounded Giant, I didn’t crow about it on our site. I can be pretty boorish when I want to be, and even when I’m not trying to be, but even I recognized it would be a dick move to express my joy about something I could see but the vast majority of our readers couldn’t. But now, finally, Agalloch has announced an official tour — Serpens In Culmination.

No doubt, the news will still be painful to fans who aren’t within reach of one of the stops, especially people who are also fans of Obsidian Tongue, Vex, and Jex Thoth, because those bands are also appearing at select stops on this tour. But on balance I feel okay about posting this news. Here’s the first part of the schedule, as announced late yesterday by Agalloch and Profound Lore: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KAMPFAR, ENTRAPMENT, GOROD, LANDSKAP

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 142014
 

You might think that having posted 23 very recent song and video premieres over the weekend (here and here), I’d be fresh out of new material to toss your way. But you would be wrong.  Here are four more that surfaced over the last 48 hours that I’ve been enjoying, and the music is so varied — including two exceptions to our Rule — that I’m betting you’ll find something to like as well.

KAMPFAR

As I previously reported, on May 27 in NorthAm (and May 23 in Euope) Season of Mist plans to release a special 2-disc compilation entitled One And All, Together, For Home. The project was initiated by Drudkh’s  Roman Sayenko and it will consist of 17 songs by eight excellent bands performing traditional song interpretations from their native countries, cover versions of folk songs, or the use of themes and melodies from their musical heritages in original compositions. All of the songs will appear exclusively on this release.

I’ve already streamed the track by Primodial (here) and today I bring you the song contributed by Norway’s Kampfar.

The song is called “En Hymne Til Urd” (A Hymn for Earth)”. Here’s the band’s explanation about the song: Continue reading »

LISTEN TO A BRUTISH NEW ABORTED SONG: “COFFIN UPON COFFIN”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Apr 142014
 

Belgium’s Aborted will be delivering their new monstrosity Necrotic Manifesto via Century Media on April 28 in Europe and April 29 in North America (available for pre-order here). Last month we featured the album’s title track, and today the band unveiled a lyric video for yet another song — “Coffin Upon Coffin”.

The song delivers flensing riff flurries and brutish hammering, machine-gun percussion and a blistering solo, multisyllabic linguistics and vocal excretions that will leave scars on tender skin. The video also makes Par Olofsson’s  grisly cover art come to life.

In other Aborted news, the band have been uploading the results of a horrific photoshoot to Facebook, and after you listen to the new song after the jump, you can gaze upon their modified visages, which strangely seem like fitting improvements upon the faces that nature gave them. Continue reading »

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