WEDNESDAY WARSTRIKES: ANCIENT ASCENDANT, ANIMALS AS LEADERS, ARCHSPIRE, BLOODWAY, COLTSBLOOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Feb 192014
 

I’m still in alliteration mode, though I’m not completely happy with today’s title. Given the bands’ names, I probably should have gone with “The ABCs of Metal”. In alphabetical order, here are six new songs from five forthcoming albums that I discovered over the last 24 hours, all of which come highly recommended.

ANCIENT ASCENDANT

We’ve been closely following the progression of UK-based Ancient Ascendant, with very positive reviews (by Andy Synn) of both their 2011 debut album The Grim Awakening and their 2012 EP Into the Dark. Last month we reported the very nice news that the band had signed with Candlelight Records for the release of a new album (with Dan Swanö again handling the production). Now we’ve got the album title — Echoes and Cinder — and the album art (above), plus a new song that premiered yesterday.

The song’s name is “Riders”, and you can hear it next. It will give you a hell of a blistering, black-thrashing ride, something like being snagged by a giant red-eyed bat horde flying from their cave for a night on the hunt. Damned infectious, too — you’ll want to limber up your neck muscles before listening because heads will bang. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S TOP 10 SONGS OF 2013

 LISTMANIA 2013, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

(Amazingly, my comrade Andy Synn thinks I left off some deserving tunes from my list of last year’s most infectious metal songs, and what follows is his supplement.)

Ok, so that title might be slightly inaccurate – what I’ve actually chosen here are ten of my favourite songs from last year that were cruelly, inexplicably overlooked by the NCS “Most Infectious” list/s, not necessarily the top ten all-time best-ever songs of 2013. Subtle but distinct difference.

In all honesty, you’d probably be better off calling this “Andy Synn’s List of Ten of the Most Distinctive Songs of 2013”. They might not be my absolute top ten favourites (though there’s definitely a significant cross-over), but they’re the ones that just felt right to talk about.

I’ve tried to avoid repetition as much as possible – though there are a few artists here who did make an appearance on the main list. Largely, however, I’ve tried to use this as an opportunity to highlight some songs that deserve more attention and that (for whatever reason) didn’t get it on any of the preceding NCS lists! Continue reading »

MAYHEM — A NEW ALBUM, A NEW SONG, A NEW VIDEO (“PSYWAR”)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

Are you sitting down? You should sit down for this: Seven years after the release of Ordo Ad Chao, Norway’s legendary Mayhem have recorded a new album due near the end of May from Season of Mist. This morning the band premiered the first advance track, named “Psywar”, through a lyric video with very cool artwork by the very talented Costin Chioreanu. It appears that “Psywar” will be released as a 7″ vinyl EP in advance of the album; it’s already available for pre-order here.

The song is very much worth hearing, wholly apart from the fact that it comes from Mayhem (whose ranks now include Attila Csihar, Necrobutcher, Hellhammer, and new member Teloch). It combines black metal venom, death metal might, and a fog of alien atmospherics.

If for some reason you’re unable to access the video below, Mayhem have provided links on their FB page to other locations around the world where it can be streamed: Continue reading »

TUESDAY TERRORIZING: IMPETUOUS RITUAL, DECAYING PURITY, KING PARROT, NAR MATTARU

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

I’m working on my alliteration skills this week. I have my fun where I can find it. Speaking of fun, I have three new songs and one new video to share. If you think there might be no connection between the music and my alliterative word play, think again…

IMPETUOUS RITUAL

Earlier this month I reported about that dark piece of artwork embedded above. It’s the cover for Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence, which is the name of an album by Australia’s Impetuous Ritual that’s due for release by Profound Lore on April 15. The band’s first album, Relentless Execution Of Ceremonial Excrescence, was released back in 2009. Their ranks include members of Portal and Grave Upheaval.

Yesterday an advance track was released for streaming. It’s a good thing “Venality In Worship” is only three and a half minutes long, because otherwise the structural integrity of the planet might be threatened. It’s a thoroughly obliterating blast of blackened death metal, roaring with massive, grinding guitars, militaristic percussion, and bestial vocal vituperation. The piercing guitar solos are utterly demented, too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENTHRONED (“SOVEREIGN”), DIRGE (“HYPERION”), MESHUGGAH (“WALL STREET”)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 182014
 

I’m working on a couple of posts for today but didn’t finish either of them last night and I’m getting a slow start this morning. But I wanted to get something up here on the site for your entertainment while I continue to dither around on those other posts. So here are three entertaining somethings.

ENTHRONED

The first thing I saw in my e-mail inbox this morning was a press release announcing the news that Agonia Records will be releasing the 10th studio album by Belgium’s Enthroned on April 15. The title is Sovereigns, and the eye-catching artwork can be viewed above. It’s now available for pre-order at this location. Enthroned’s Facebook page can be accessed through this link.

And other than expressing my figurative tumescence over this news, that’s about all I have to say on this subject. I will let this stream of music from Enthroned’s fantastic last album, 2012’s Obsidium, say the rest. Continue reading »

MONDAY MEANDERING: SATURNIAN MIST, BRYMIR, DODSFERD, HERETOIR, SQUAREPUSHER x Z-MACHINES

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 172014
 


Saturnian Mist (photo by K. Lehto)

Happy fucking Monday. Here’s a random assortment of music I discovered over the last 24 hours. The key word here is “random”, but all of this suits me quite well. Mayhap it will suit you, too.

SATURNIAN MIST

Saturnian Mist are from Tampere, Finland. Because they are from Finland, I figured the odds were high they would be worth hearing. Candlelight Records thinks so, because they just signed them and will be releasing the band’s second album, Chaos Magick, later this year. When I saw that news this morning, I went in search of recent music and found a demo version of one of the songs that will appear on the album — “The Heart of Shiva”.

It’s thumping and grinding, bone-scraping and body-moving, ugly but hooky. I’m now thoroughly infected by that jumping repeating riff, my head bouncing like a bobble-head. Digging the unexpected drum fills, too, which sound almost like congas. Listen: Continue reading »

SUNDAY SLAUGHTERING: BARBARIAN, AURORA BOREALIS, HELLCANNON, ADRAMELECH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  24 Responses »
Feb 162014
 

For yours truly, it has been a great weekend for the discovery of song debuts from new and forthcoming metal releases. In this post I’ve collected five of them. With luck, I’ll write another post today with more of what I’ve found since Friday. Get ready for some old school slaughtering.

BARBARIAN

I have a tip from our brutish friend SurgicalBrute to thank for this first discovery. The band is Barbarian. They are located in Italy and they released their self-titled debut album in 2011. In late January, Doomentia released the band’s second album, Faith Extinguisher, with a kickass piece of cover art by Shagrat of Acid Witch. It’s available on CD now (at this location), with vinyl coming soon. Looks like it will be available digitally on Amazon mp3 later this month, and perhaps Doomentia will offer it on Bandcamp, too.

Two songs are now streaming on Bandcamp — “Inhale the Dead” and “We Are the Profane” — and they are sooooo damned good. It’s a glorious kickback to the primordial spawning ground of all sorts of extreme metal genres, binding together the undead spirits of bands like Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, and Motörhead. Vomit-spewing vocals, tremendous drumming, and black, thrashing riffs to kill for. Continue reading »

CONFUSION: ANDY WINTER AND WHISPERED

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Feb 152014
 

It’s the middle of a Saturday morning here in the great Pacific Northwest. I woke up much later than usual, in a state of confusion. This was the result of a very late Friday night, not enough sleep, and the after-effects of mixing intoxicants. I do not regret any of that — I saw one hell of a live show in Seattle last night by Abigail Williams (with the new line-up of Ken Sorceron, Jeff Wilson, John Porada, and Charlie Fell) and Erimha. But still, my head hasn’t been firing on all cylinders this morning.

And then I saw and heard the two things you’re about to see and hear. I’m now even more confused — but I’m coming around to the view that it’s a pleasant kind of confusion, sort of like waking up in someone else’s pants and realizing they’re nicer than the ones you were wearing the night before. Not that I did that. Just a figure of speech.

ANDY WINTER

I came across this first video through the following post by my beloved Agalloch on their Facebook page: “A video from our friend Andy Winter. This track features Agalloch members: JWW (bass), Anderson (guest gtr solo). Also features Jan Axel Blomberg/Hellhammer (drums), Mirai Kawashima (vocals) and Winter on guitar.” The video premiered 10 days ago on Stereogum, and there’s a lot more info about Winter at that Stereogum link.

The song is “Uncountably Infinite,” and it appears to be a new single; Winter’s last album was 2013’s Incomprehensible. Almost everything about the video (and the music) is incomprehensible. There is so much whatthefuckedness in them that, unlike oil, we can now safely say that we will never run out of whatthefuckedness. Continue reading »

A VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE: THOU, NECRONOMICON, HULL, VESANIA, DEATH GRIPS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 142014
 

This has been one hell of a week for new songs and videos. I have a list of good new things as long as my… arm… and although I’ve been doing my best to round up the best of what I’ve noticed, I’m still coming up… short. Although I won’t be able to cover everything before the week ends, I do have this one final collection of head-wreckers. Happy Valentine’s Day motherfuckers. If you’re sad about being alone on V-Day, just gaze into the eyes of that cat, and remember… we love you.

THOU

Heathen — the forthcoming album by Thou from Baton Rouge, Louisiana — is on my list of highly anticipated 2014 releases.  It is due to arrive from Gilead Media on March 25 and is now available for pre-order here. I discovered this morning that while I wait for that apocalyptic monstrosity, I will have something else from Thou to while away the hours. Specifically, Thou have made available for free on Bandcamp a compilation entitled Ceremonies of Humiliation. It collects all of the band’s musical output from split releases prior to the release of 2010’s Summit.

Ceremonies of Humiliation will also be released as a triple-LP set, though I haven’t yet seen a projected release for that. After the jump, you can gaze upon the Ceremonies cover and stream the entire collection. There is no love in it. Continue reading »

YOUR FACE, IN SHREDS: LOST SOCIETY, BENEVOLENT, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 132014
 

Here are three songs, two of which I just discovered and one (in the middle) that I’ve been meaning to write about for weeks. What they have in common you will find out soon enough.

LOST SOCIETY

I have our contributor Leperkahn to thank for this new discovery, which premiered today. It’s a song called “Lethal Pleasure”, and man, is that the truth. The band is Lost Society. They are from Finland, and Nuclear Blast plans to release their second album, Terror Hungry, on April 4.

I think it’s appropriate to disclose (again) that I’m probably the least appropriate of our writers to comment about thrash, because I’ve never been an enormous fan of the genre and have an even lower tolerance for the new wave of “re-thrash” bands. On the other hand, maybe my extreme pickiness when it comes to thrash will add weight to the enthusiasm I intend to express for “Lethal Pleasure”: It’s just a blistering, hell-on-wheels blast of speed metal, shot through with super-heated riffs and crazy soloing and some nice melodic hooks. It’s so damned much fun that the gang shouts make sense. Here you go: Continue reading »

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