OBSCURE BRUTALITY NO. 3: IRON MONKEY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Nov 292013
 

(Our supporter xBenx has compiled a series of guest posts, this being the third installment. Each one focuses on a different band that he fears may have been overlooked by the masses, and today the spotlight is on Iron Monkey.)

These barbaric English lunatics gave the world a severe beating in the late 90s. Had it not been for the unfortunate passing of Jonny Morrow (RIP) in 2002, they may have even returned to take on Eyehategod for the sludge crown. I know that’s fighting talk, but Iron Monkey were a genuinely fierce up-and-coming contender, underpinned by glistening layers of deliciously thick riffs and Morrow’s tortured vocals. They even made the songs memorable, albeit as sadistically as possible.

I think the artwork from their second album Our Problem encapsulates their putrid spirit majestically; obnoxious, provocative, deliberately vulgar, but so enticing that you cannot restrain yourself from gazing a little longer. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL” — BUT IT’S NOT METAL?: DARKJAZZ

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  11 Responses »
Nov 292013
 

(We are delighted to present to you this guest post by Alain Mower, which takes us off the rails of our usual course and onto a very different line.)

Have you ever found yourself sitting in your dimly lit, Victorian Dining Room, listening to your Burzum/Sunn O)))/Dark Space 1st pressing vinyl in the background, sipping only the finest of that last cask of ’73 lambs blood sitting across from your man/woman/android and thought to yourself, “I wish this could be classier, but I don’t want to sacrifice any of my soul-damning resolve to do so.” Well you, classy reader, are in luck, for I present to you ‘Noirjazz – or Darkjazz for you laymen.

No I’m not talking about Shining (Norway)’s brilliant album from this year, I’m talking about atmospheric, soundscape-driven, foreboding and looming, downtempo (old man’s) jazz. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: REDUX (Part 2)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 282013
 

(NCS contributor Austin Weber has delivered unto us a three-part introduction to new and forthcoming releases by 7 bands. In this second part, he focuses on Beaten To Death and Inanimate Existence. Part 1 can be found here.)

The end of the year is usually a slower time for new music releases, a time when much alcohol is consumed and countless amounts of money are wasted on bullshit soon forgotten. But fortunately I’ve got plenty of releases and new songs to catch up on and spread the word about.

BEATEN TO DEATH

I first heard about Beaten To Death in the way I have for many a band, by scanning the always handy Metal-Archives.com. I was re-visiting She Said Destroy’s page and noticed that their vocalist Anders was in this group. Intrigued, I bought their 2011 debut, Xes and Strokes. What I got was a no-frills grind record that was killer from start to finish, even if they weren’t doing anything anyone else wasn’t. They just recently dropped their second album, Dødsfest!, and like their last record, it sonically benefits from the raw intensity gained from being recorded live in their practice space. Continue reading »

SHIT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED IN YOUR METAL TRAVELS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Nov 282013
 

(In this post guest writer DiabolusInMuzaka provides reviews of three recommended albums, with full music streams for each one.)

With the internet providing a platform for even the most obscure Indonesian-black-death-drone-ambient-progressive-neo-folk project (recorded entirely in analog in a cave in mono of course), a lot of music understandably slips by under our metal radars. That, and we’re oversaturated; too many bands to check out, too little time. My aim in this post is to provide a good description of the music offered by the bands here, so that you, as the reader, can judge whether or not this band would be suited to your tastes. Full streams of each album are present in the article, so if anything piques your interest, click play and give it some of your time. You just might find a particularly refreshing drop in the vast, ever-expanding metal ocean. So, without further ado, here is some shit you may have missed in your metal travels.

Gorelust – Reign of Lunacy (PRC Music – reissue; New World Symphony – original pressing)

As the name would imply, Gorelust is death metal. Reign of Lunacy, released originally in 1995, was the Quebec band’s debut and only full-length album. The album is short (clocking in at just under 30 minutes) but absolutely refuses to relent for its entire running time. Being released in 1995, this album presents an interesting form of death metal: it sounds like the missing link between Cryptopsy’s 1996 masterpiece None So Vile and their much more tech-death oriented 1998 beast Whisper Supremacy (it’s worth noting again that this was released in 1995). The production sound is close to Whisper Supremacy as well, which makes sense, as Cryptopsy’s frequent partner-in-crime Pierre Remillard engineered this album. Continue reading »

OBSCURE BRUTALITY NO. 2: MORTAL DECAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 272013
 

(Our supporter xBenx has compiled a series of guest posts, this being the second installment. Each one focuses on a different band that he fears may have been overlooked by the masses, and today the spotlight is on Mortal Decay.)

This one feels appropriate given that New Jersey’s Mortal Decay are about to release a new album (which is pretty good). Whilst they have undoubtedly improved as musicians, especially from a technical perspective, I don’t think they’ll ever top the feel, atmosphere, and sheer brutality of their early material. Assembled in their 1999 compilation, A Gathering of Human Artifacts, those three early symphonies of sickness are utterly putrid in their composition and completely addictive.

Pivotal to their sound was undoubtedly John Paoline, someone so far ahead of his time vocally that his clairvoyance is almost creepy when listening to these older songs now. Why this man isn’t heralded as being one of the catalysts for spawning the gazillions of guttural lunatics currently spewing rancid diatribes is a mystery, but I do know this: He was definitely one of the most distinctive “vocalists” in the realm of brutal death metal. He was also one of the most insane in terms of range and tone. Continue reading »

OBSCURE BRUTALITY NO. 1

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Nov 262013
 

(Our supporter xBenx has compiled a series of guest posts, numbered 1 through 5, though with luck we may receive more. Each one focuses on a different band, beginning with Aftershock.)

I don’t know how or why it happened, but since the age of 16 I have been consumed by the urge to unearth genuinely head-crushing obscure brutal gems that have been overlooked by the masses. Fourteen years later, this impulse still runs through every fibre of my being. Of course, this premise is entirely subjective, but in my best estimation, you may have been unaware, or unwilling, to submerge yourself in a band’s brand of brutality because of their cursed obscurity. These posts will look to put an end to that.

We’ll start with one of my first loves: metallic hardcore, And I mean the fierce chug-fests that underpinned the mid- to late-90s and very early 2000s. Some of those bands have battered my eardrums for nigh on a decade, and will probably do so until I can hear no more. Principal among these is Aftershock, a fire-breathing behemoth from Boston, Massachusetts, who had one Adam Dutkiewicz in their ranks. Whereas Killswitch have become increasingly enamoured with melody and straightforward song structures, Aftershock were the antithesis, the blackened yin, weaving dense labyrinths of riffs and tortured vocals that forged metal’s potent heaviness with hardcore’s grit. Continue reading »

MORBID ANGEL, TENNESSEE MURDER CLUB, TORN THE FUCK APART, MARASMUS: LIVE AT THE GRANADA THEATER (Nov 20, 2013)

 Concert Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Nov 262013
 

(One of our most frequent commenters and the alter ego of Godless Angel, djneibarger, answered our call for guest posts with this show review straight from Lawrence, Kansas, and photos.)

My introduction to Morbid Angel happened in 1993 courtesy of the music video for “Rapture”, the opening track from their seminal album, Covenant. The ominous imagery and savage, hypnotic pulse served as my gateway drug to the death metal scene. And although my interest in the band waned after the departure of David Vincent, that legendary album is still as mesmerizing to me now as it was twenty years ago. When it was announced that Morbid Angel would be performing the album in its entirety and that the tour would be making a stop in my hometown, I knew I had to be there to witness it.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AVICHI, THE KENNEDY VEIL, KOWLOON WALLED CITY, BATILLUS, GIZMACHI

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 252013
 

Are you like me? Do you think packing for a long trip is much more fun if you wait until the last minute and then scurry around like a rat with rabies, thereby increasing the odds that you’ll forget a bunch of things and then feel like a dumbass when you get where you’re going? Yeah, I thought so. Everyone loves to do that. Which is why I’m sitting here banging out this round-up of diverse new items I saw and heard over the last 24 hours instead of packing for my vacation trip, which begins . . . (shit!) . . . in a few hours.

AVICHI

I saw that Profound Lore’s first release of 2014 will be the much-delayed third album by Chicago-based Avichi, Catharsis Absolute, which was recorded by Andrew Ragin (The Atlas Moth) and mixed by Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium, Twilight). The official release date is January 21. This album will be entirely the solo work of Andrew “Aamonael” Markuszewski (also in Lord Mantis). PL has also begun streaming one of the album’s new songs, “Lightweaver”.

“Lightweaver” is a study in winding the coil and then letting it go. Avichi builds the tension, ratcheting it upward with storming, tremolo-picked scales . . . and then lets the storm break in a rocking beat with a bounding bass line . . . and then proceeds to tighten the spring again. And so it goes, back and forth. And through it all, Aamonael howls like a winter wolf while weaving a trilling (and thrilling) guitar melody, chaining together chaos and something approaching beauty. Listen next: Continue reading »

THE SCHOENBERG AUTOMATON RELEASE A LYRIC VIDEO FOR “ULTIMATEWHIRRINGENDMACHINE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 252013
 

(NCS contributor Austin Weber brings us two videos, one that just appeared and one that’s older, from Australia’s The Schoenberg Automaton.)

Lyric videos in metal trend are rarely done well, as the majority of metal bands have terrible/boring/cliched/wordy-but-goofy lyrics. In some cases viewing a lyric video has made me like songs less, as I’m forced to focus upon cringe-worthy words that are otherwise easily ignored when listening to the music. I say all that because The Schoenberg Automaton just dropped the greatest lyric video I’ve ever seen, for the song “ULTIMATEWHIRRINGENDMACHINE” from their Vela album; it’s practically a music video.

I enjoy their lyrics, as they are often atypical of metal and/or they put a great spin on lyrical tropes. Tracks such as “Arecibo” are rife with painful observations such as, “We are losing the connection with our natural world,” and that lyric has parallels to the apocalyptic themes found in “Ultimatewhirringendmachine”. Included below, along with the new lyric video, is a well-shot horror-themed music video for “A Stone Face Of Piety” that’s been out for a while but I forgot to post about it. I particularly love that they draw you in by giving the story a start before the song kicks in, and that not a moment of it consists of performance footage. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUNDUP: REDUX (Part 1)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Nov 252013
 

(NCS contributor Austin Weber has delivered unto us a three-part introduction to new and forthcoming releases by 7 bands. In this first part, he focuses on The Conjuration and Order of Leviathan.)

The end of the year is usually a slower time for new music releases, a time when much alcohol is consumed and countless amounts of money are wasted on bullshit soon forgotten. But fortunately I’ve got plenty of releases and new songs to catch up on and spread the word about.

THE CONJURATION

I wrote about them a few months back regarding their 2012 release The Human Condition, an unhinged album with a schizophrenic avante-garde meets progressive take on death metal unlike anything I’ve heard before. Recently a new album titled Surreal was announced, with a release date coming up soon, sometime in December. They just premiered “Capricorn” through their Facebook. In addition to that track, sole member and composer Corey Jason sent me another track to check out called “Kaleidoscopic Thoughts”.

“Capricorn” starts in a keyboard meets groovy death metal interlocking mass before transitioning to thrashy blasting death metal that is soon layered in the same keyboard flourish that starts the song. As per how The Conjuration usually structure their music, the song suddenly splinters off to somewhere new, which is a tantalizing heavy groove that lasts for only a moment. Continue reading »

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