SECTIONED: “REPEATER”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 272013
 

Your humble editor is going to be taking a blog break for the rest of the day, but before leaving I wanted to throw one more piece of music your way, and in this case it’s sort of like throwing a grenade after pulling the pin.

Sectioned are a band from Edinburgh, Scotland. I first came across them in May 2012 through a MISCELLANY excursion, which turned into a review of their second EP, Monotonne. Earlier this year they then finished work on another EP by the name of Outlier, and I wrote about a song from that EP named “Trismus”, which they debuted on Valentine’s Day.  Both of those EPs are available on Bandcamp as “name your price” downloads.

Sectioned have been working on an album, but in the meantime they’ve discharged a new single just in time for Halloween. Like everything else they’ve done, this is up on Bandcamp for free (though they’ll gladly accept a donation toward their future efforts). The song’s name is “Repeater”, and when I first heard it, it blew some of my brains out through my nose. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SUM OF R, CHAOS MOON, GRUE, AND WITCHRIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 262013
 

I’ve heard a lot of new music in the last couple of days, mostly isolated songs and videos from fairly deep underground. From those I compiled this mix, which I thought deserved that “Shades of Black” preface that I’ve used before. Despite the fact that the first and last offerings aren’t black metal, they’re still black as a moonless night.

SUM OF R

Sum of R is a Swiss band that since 2012 has consisted of Reto Mäder (bass, drums, percussion, synthesizer, piano, effects) and Julia Wolf (guitar, effects). Their most recent work is an album entitled Ride Out the Waves, which was released in late 2012 by Storm As He Walks. It’s also now available on Bandcamp. The last song on the album is “Alarming”, and in 2012 it was released in advance of the album as a music video. The video is a montage of film clips edited and assembled by Francesca Marongiu, an Italian multi-instrumentalist and visual artist, in her alter ego as Agartthacave.

This was my first exposure to Sum of R (thanks to our supporter KevinP’s posting of a link to the video on FB today), and the combined audio and visual synthesis floored me. The music is a glacial floe of funereal doom and drone, shrouded in caustic distortion and punctuated by cataclysmic percussive downbeats and shrill electronic noises. Withering harsh shrieks and the sound of a siren ratchet the tension until everything falls apart beneath the final mallet blows. It’s completely crushing. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: GLORIOR BELLI, SEPULTURA, AND PROFANATICA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 252013
 

The subjects of this post are three full-album streams now available for listening.

The first is Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls by the French band Glorior Belli. It will be released on November 12 by Agonia Records. Our man BadWolf gave it a favorable review here. Three of your five regular NCS writers consider it one of the year’s best albums (and the other two haven’t weighed in). The full stream premiered yesterday at Stereogum, but you can also listen to it here, after the jump.

The second is a full stream of the new album by Sepultura, The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must be the Heart, which will be released in NorthAm by Nuclear Blast on October 29. In the US, the album is streaming exclusively at Metal Sucks, so you’ll need to go here to listen.

In light of certain accusations leveled at Nuclear Blast for not playing nice with web sites who don’t favorably review their releases, I thought it interesting that MS was selected for this stream, since their reviewer didn’t treat the album very well. We haven’t reviewed the album yet, and I haven’t heard it. But it’s Sepultura, and I thought that fact alone made the stream newsworthy. Here, by the way, is the album cover: Continue reading »

BRAIN STEW: TERATISM, NECROSIS, THEOLOGIAN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Oct 252013
 

I keep endless lists of music I mean to check out some day based on things I see or messages I receive. Unfortunately, time being in short supply, I never make it through everything. But last night I ticked off about a dozen items on the list and I picked these three with which to launch this Happy Friday. I picked them because in different ways they tend to mess with your brain, and collectively they create a nice stew bubbling inside the cranium.

TERATISM

This black metal band’s last release was an MLP entitled La Bas, which I reviewed here. All of those songs were recorded years ago though they were only officially released this past summer. But Teratism are working on their next album and they’ve recently made two demo tracks available on Bandcamp for a “pay what you want” price, under the title Prelude to the Second Death. While both songs contain eruptions of destructive blasting, they are for the most part slow and freighted with the weight of doom.

“Four Waters” is draped in sheets of radioactive guitar noise and harrowing feedback, which are pulled back in the song’s mid-section to reveal guitar notes that peal like funeral bells, the steady pulse of a bass, and the muffled thump of the drums. “Micturation Into the Tributary of Death” works with a similar funereal atmosphere, lacing it with eerie harmonic arpeggios that transform the music into a slow waltz of death. Both songs are deeply unsettling, and yet they are both almost beautiful in their utter bleakness. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PYLAR, SKYDANCER, IMPENDING DOOM, AND ANTERO SLEEPS

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 242013
 

Here’s a round-up of music I discovered today in periodic forays through the interhole and a quick glimpse at the flooded NCS e-mail inbox. Stylistically, the music is all over the place, and it’s scattered geographically, too.

PYLAR

I came across this band via a short post at CVLT Nation, which gave no clue what the music is like (apart from calling it “pure magic”) or any information about the band, other than the fact that they’ve recorded an album entitled Rises In My Mighty that’s being released (on Nov 1) by Knockturne Records. (Actually, the album’s name is Poderoso se alza en my; I can’t vouch for the English rendition of the title.) Pylar have a Facebook page, but it’s not very informative either, providing neither the band’s location nor the identity of its members, though it’s apparent they’re from somewhere in Spain.

But I decided to listen to the song that CVLT Nation premiered because of that eye-catching album cover that you see above. According to the band’s FB page, it was created by “the expert in alchemical symbolism and sacred geometry, Gamaheo, member of the Numinoso Círculo Atlante.” Speaking of which, it’s also apparent that Pylar themselves devote their music (and possibly other activities) to certain ancient alchemical and occult arts, the meanings of which are completely obscure to whitebread me. But I do find that song fascinating. Continue reading »

IN SOLITUDE, IN THE CASTLE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Oct 242013
 

Last week I had the chance to see Sweden’s In Solitude perform in Seattle as support on a tour headlined by Watain (who, by the way, were stunningly good). I was already a fan of the band’s 2013 album Sister, but came away even more impressed because of the high quality of their live show — an experience marred only slightly by the over-the-top “I’m a rock god” posing of the band’s bass player in the spotlight at the center of the stage while the true rock god, vocalist Pelle Åman, positioned himself off to the side, head down, hair covering his face, belting out wailing vocals that were damned near pitch-perfect.

This morning I watched a new video of the band in an unusual setting that captures their skill in the flesh, as well as the brilliance of their songwriting. A Swedish TV channel called PSL journeyed to the band’s hometown of Uppsala last spring to interview the band. While there, In Solitude took the crew to the band’s favorite hometown place, the castle ruin of the bloodthirsty King Erik XIV, who descended into madness before ultimately being deposed and most likely poisoned while in prison. As PSL writes at their online blog:

As the clock struck 12 – exactly 446 years after the king orchestrated a bloodbath in the very room where we stood – the band played us the song ”A Burried Sun” from their latest album ”Sister”.

And that’s what’s captured on the shadow-blanketed video — the potent mix of occult rock, doom, and psychedelia that makes up “A Buried Sun” and the spooky power of Pelle Åman’s voice. It’s very cool, and it’s available for viewing right after the jump (and yes, the music is an Exception to the Rule around here). Continue reading »

DARKNESS AND LIGHT: LUMBAR AND THE BINARY CODE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 232013
 

This has been a very full day at the site, but I wanted to add one more post about the last two pieces of music I heard this morning. They pulled me in two very, very different directions, but they each made an emotional connection. And since blogs exist so that extroverted personalities never have to keep anything to themselves, I’m sharing.

LUMBAR

Without ever hearing the music, there have been powerful reasons to believe that Lumbar’s first (and maybe last) album — The First and Last Days of Unwelcome — was going to be very heavy. As you’ll know if you read our interview of the band’s founder and instrumentalist Aaron Edge, the songs were written as he was being afflicted by the pain of what would ultimately be diagnosed as multiple sclerosis, and the lyrics were written after he had spent 40 days bed-ridden with the disease, as he was beginning to come to terms with what had happened to him. I still find his description of the music evocative and gripping:

“Imagine three people, a small band or tribe. A storm is coming and it forces the small party into the ground, into caves. The spaces are small, cramped and dark. As the three huddle together, they hear/feel the approaching roll of nature’s foul breath, as it tears trees up from their roots, pushing huge boulders from their resting spots and dumping rain across the land. The tribe, without light and much hope, shudder. Feet stomp in panic. Teeth chatter. The wind howls, the rain becomes rivers and starts to fill up every hole in the earth. Air is thin. Breathing becomes harder, labored and louder. All these sounds and rhythms, the shared feelings of both paranoia and claustrophobia, the fear smelled in the sweat of these three… that’s what Lumbar sounds like.” Continue reading »

DEVIL YOU KNOW — A NEW “SUPERGROUP” SIGNS WITH NUCLEAR BLAST AND DEBUTS THEIR FIRST SONG

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 232013
 

Devil You Know is a new band that includes some old and respected names: Howard Jones (former frontman for Killswitch Engage and Blood Has Been Shed); Francesco Artusato (solo artist and guitarist with All Shall Perish); and John Sankey (drummer for Devolved and formerly with Divine Heresy). Today brought the announcement that this new “supergroup” has signed with Nuclear Blast for release of their debut album next year.

Within the last hour, the band also began streaming a demo version of a new song from the album, “Shut It Down”. And if you think you know what it’s going to sound like based on Howard Jones’ previous work with Killswitch Engage, you’re likely to be wrong. He does bring out the clean vox, but the extremity in his harsh vocals — especially combined with the gut-busting heaviness of the riffs and John Sankey’s spine-jarring drum assault — will strip paint from the walls. The dude lets it all hang out. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM PESTILENCE: “NECRO MORPH”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 222013
 

We are way past the end of our usual posting day, but I just heard something that made me too anxious to wait until tomorrow morning. It’s a new lyric video for a new song by Pestilence named “Necro Morph”, the first music to be heard from the band’s next album Obsideo. I have a few immediate reactions.

First, it sounds HUGE. Second, it’s absolutely decimating — a high-speed flurry of pneumatic riffs and weaponized percussion, with a punishing, stomping mid-section and writhing, alien lead guitar machinations. Third, Patrick Mameli’s vocals sound filthy (in a good way). And fourth, all those Pestilence fans who were hugely disappointed by Doctrine (and I wasn’t one of them) will breathe sighs of relief. This is brutal.

Listen to it next, and feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments. If you happen to have any Kevlar body armor lying around, you might want to strap it on before listening to “Necro Morph”. Actually, never mind. That won’t be enough to stop what this fires at you. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INQUISITION (FULL-ALBUM STREAM!), BACK DOOR TO ASYLUM, CORMORANT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 222013
 

I’m going to make this little round-up short. I’ve been trying to catch up on reviews today instead of the usual hours spent surfing my in-box and the interhole for new discoveries. But I did notice these items that you might have missed.

INQUISITION

Seems like we’ve been posting about every little thing that has emerged in the run-up to release of Inquisition’s new album, Obscure Verses For the Multiverse, because it is shaping up to be one of 2013’s true highlights. But today’s development is the biggest event yet: The entire album is now streaming on Bandcamp, where’s it’s also available for purchase in various formats (the official release is October 24). And because it’s on Bandcamp, we can put it . . . right . . . HERE: Continue reading »

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