Not long ago Noisey premiered a brand new official video for Gojira’s song “Born In Winter” from L’Enfant Sauvage. It’s an animated work that includes lots of eye-candy. It’s fun to watch, and the music is by Gojira, so what are you waiting for? Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »
NO CLEAN SINGING is proud to sponsor the forthcoming North American tour by Abigail Williams, Lecherous Nocturne, and Panzerfaust. This promises to be a string of nights that metal fans are going to remember, as soon as they dig out of the rubble left in the wake of this onslaught.
Since we originally the announcement of the tour last week, there have been some changes in the schedule, and so in addition to posting the updated tour flyer you see above, we’ve got the revised calendar and list of locales after the jump (this is now current as of April 25).
And because we always like to have music whenever possible at this site, we’re including music videos of one song from each bands’ latest album. Continue reading »
In this post I’ve paired a new video by an interesting director for “A Mon Âme” by the French band Amenra, and a brand new song named “Dog Eat God” by Russian multi-instrumentalist Arsafes. They’re a study in contrasts.
AMENRA
What happens when a fashion photographer whose work has adorned ad campaigns by the likes of Christian Dior, Jil Sander, and Raf Simons turns his hand to a metal video? You’re about to find out.
Belgian photographer Willy Vanderperre says he was inspired to approach the sludge/doom band Amenra (who are also Belgian) after seeing them play live in Paris. Vanderperre explains: “Growing up in the same area of Belgium as the band members—no one captures the vibe and the spirit of South West Flanders in music as they do. The sound transports me back there instantly…. For the video, I wanted to be almost on their skin, very close in a hypnotic way.” Continue reading »
I put together one round-up of newly discovered music in today’s first post, but I have more discoveries I want to share with you.
THE SLOW DEATH
The Slow Death is an Australian doom band whom I first wrote about last fall. I paid attention to them at that time because I had learned that they would be joining with the awesome Majestic Downfall in a forthcoming split, to be released by Chaos Records (the cover art is above). Yesterday, the band released a complete version of their contribution to the split for streaming, and it’s mighty good.
“Criticality Incident I” begins slowly, drifting like clouds lit from above by the sun, casting deep shadows but edged by a radiant glow. Shimmering, chiming guitar melodies swirl around the power of stark drumbeats and booming bass notes, and effervescent soloing adds more light to the darkness. The singing varies between soaring clean expressions (Mandy Andresen) and ultra-deep guttural growls (Gregg Williamson). As the song progresses, it accelerates into a hammering drive. It’s a beautiful kind of sorrow. Continue reading »
To make your Sunday more metal I’ve collected here a handful of recommended songs and videos I discovered yesterday in my tramping through the interhole and a quick skimming of emails we recently received.
ACHREN
I first discovered Achren (from Glasgow, Scotland) in a June 2011 MISCELLANY post and have written about them a couple more times since then. The last time was more than a year ago, when I featured an song from their excellent debut album The Forgotten King in a round-up of metal from Scotland. I’ve now learned that they will soon be releasing a new EP entitled The White Death, and yesterday they began streaming one of its three tracks.
“The Eschatologist” is a memorable song, made all the more compelling by its powerful production quality. It reminded me immediately of the Norwegian black metal band Byfrost, blending a lot of thunder in the low end with a driving, dramatic guitar melody, which at times seems to draw upon the folk traditions of the band’s homeland. It’s a rocking, romping, slashing song that makes me anxious to hear the rest of the EP. Continue reading »
(In this post DGR takes us on a globe-hopping tour of recent releases that fall within the varied realms of doom.)
It’s hard to believe that it is already March. Of course, I say that every year because February feels like a bullshit month with its short amount of days, but still. Sacramento has decided to park its hot ass right at about eighty degrees for the next week or so, yet I still find myself feeling bleak and down. Maybe it was the promise of grey skies and rain, but I found myself surfing the web seeking out doom in all its various forms and today I’d like to share with you some of the discoveries that I made.
A couple were found by just wading through circles on Facebook and by the random band button on Metal-Archives, which is always an interesting experiment in its own right. You could probably do a whole feature on that some day with the right amount of time and investment. As I wrote this over the past week or so, I kept adding more and more bands that I was coming across and wanted to talk about, so I apologize if this gets a little too verbose, but I figured it might be worth it to concentrate a bunch of smaller reviews into a post than spread out a bunch of giant tomes on a group of really good EPs.
Plus, maybe we’ll expose people to multiple groups in this one post. On top of that, I’m going to add in a little mini-review of an artist we’ve covered before in one of our ‘free music’ updates — as they released a new album earlier this year and it’ll be a good change of pace from all the roiling waters and restless seas you’re about to get dragged through. If anything, the tempo change will probably be appreciated. Continue reading »
All of us here at NO CLEAN SINGING are eager — eager, I tell you — for Shadows of the Dying Sun, which is the name of the new album by Finland’s Insomnium. Today we got the first example of music from the album via Terrorizer’s premiere of a new song named “Revelations”.
But guess what? I can’t listen to it! Because I am writing this from the middle of a meeting for my day job. I can type this without invoking suspicion from the other 7 people in the room with me. But strapping on the headphones and blasting this song would probably be too much. Probably.
So, please listen to it after the jump and let me know this: am I missing something awesome? I bet I am. I will know in about an hour… Continue reading »
Well, yesterday at NCS didn’t go exactly as I had planned. We did have a couple of excellent song premieres and an interesting play-through video, but my old fucking day job prevented me from pulling together a round-up of new developments in the world of metal — of which there have been many in the last 48 hours. So I’m gathering a few in this post even though the reports aren’t as timely as I would have liked. By coincidence, all the items (but one) involve venerable Swedish bands.
OPETH
Few albums in recent years have generated as much controversial commentary at our site than Opeth’s Heritage. It seems that all we had to do was mention that 2011 album, and conflicting opinions would come out of the woodwork like termites. It has been used as an example of both a band who betrayed their fans and one who felt free to let their artistic impulses dictate their direction rather than commerce. Some thought it was a fine album, others thought it was as dull as dishwater.
Yesterday, we got news about the band’s next album. Via an interview of Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt and Fredrik Akesson, Loudwire reported that the 11th studio (not yet titled) has been completed and projected for release in June. Loudwire has heard the album and wrote this: “Opeth’s songwriting is top notch on the album, but once again, the record features no guttural vocals.” Continue reading »
I’m not a musician. I’m just a fan. When I watch a play-through video, I’m not capable of critiquing the fine points of a performance, especially a drummer’s performance, because almost all drummers amaze me. Having made that confession, I’m now going to offer a few thoughts about Morgan Berthet’s drum play-through for “Abyss”, a song by his band The Mars Chronicles.
There are times in the play-through when what he’s doing looks simple — and then he’ll twirl a drumstick through his fingers in mid-beat so fast that you wonder if you really saw it. Those drum twirls having nothing to do with the sound on the song, but they’re still really impressive. The actually drumming is impressive, too. Continue reading »
As explained in an earlier pissing-and-moaning post today, I was way out of touch yesterday and have been spending some time today catching up on what I missed. But of course I found a whole lot of new likable things that appeared today as well. To avoid falling too far behind, I’m gathering a few of today’s goodies in this post and will collect some of those catch-up items in a piece for tomorrow.
TEITANBLOOD
Teitanblood from Madrid, Spain, were one of my first introductions to the kind of apocalyptic music that some people call blackened death metal and others term war metal. I wrote about them here, not long after making the discovery, in a post that also included music from Blasphemophagher and Diocletian. At the time, I was hunting for the right phrase to describe the music — “Atmospheric death metal”? “Apocalyptic prog”? “Post-death metal?” I decided “war metal” was as good as any label.
Teitanblood’s second full-length, entitled Death, is now scheduled for release on May 13 — five years after Seven Chalices. It’s available on CD and double LP from The Ajna Offensive. It features suitably black cover art (and to see a much larger image, click the one above.)
I’m pleased to say that I have an advance copy of the music. I’m displeased to say that I haven’t yet listened to it. BUT, I have heard one song that has became available on YouTube — “Anteinfierno”. Continue reading »