SEEN AND HEARD: MYGRAIN, HEAVEN SHALL BURN, SAILLE, AND ALGHAZANTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 142013
 


Welcome brethren and sistren to this morning’s round-up of new music and videos that caught my attention over the last 24 hours. Metal makes everything better.

MYGRAIN

A day without Finnish metal is like a day without sunshine. And since we will have no actual sunshine here in Seattle today, we must brighten it with this new offering by the Helsinki hellions in MyGrain. Their latest album, Planetary Breathing, was released by Spinefarm in September, and today they’ve showered us with sex, beer, and rock ‘n’ roll via a new video for the song “Waking Up the Damned”.

Okay, to be honest, I didn’t see any actual sex in the video, unless you count some nice tongue action on the beer-drenched keyboard. And everyone else was pretty well drenched in beer as far as I can tell. And there sure as hell is some fine rock ‘n’ roll. Nothing grymm or frostbitten in this here music, just a load of groovy, head-nodding, body-moving, mosh-inducing, virally catchy fun — all captured extremely well in the video you’ll see next. Continue reading »

“GOVERNMENT PLATES”: NEW DEATH GRIPS ALBUM DROPS — WITH A FLOOD OF NEW VIDEOS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Nov 132013
 

Death Grips still takes the prize for not metal, but metal. And without warning they’ve just dropped a new album, for free download of course, entitled Government Plates.

But that’s not all. All at once they’ve also uploaded a flood of new videos, one for  each of the 11 new songs. That’s right — a new album and 11 new videos within the space of an hour. No fucking around.

It’s all so much, so fast, that I haven’t had time to process it yet. I’m just getting the word out there. A review may, or may not, come later.

After the jump you’ll find a full stream of the album and all the videos. Click THIS or THIS to download Government Plates (these are links provided by the band, though I can’t promise they will work at the moment). Continue reading »

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: OCELOT OMELET, ARTEMIS AND TARDIVE DYSKINESIA, BLACK TRIP

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 132013
 

You really can’t accuse this site of being too narrow-minded, despite that thing about no clean singing, which we obviously don’t mean literally these days. We cast a wide net for our metal, catching all manner of shiny fish from a multitude of genres. But today I thought I’d feature new songs and videos I’ve come across in recent days that are outside even our expansive boundaries, or at least on the fringes. Before I mix my metaphors any further, let’s get to it:

OCELOT OMELET

Ocelot Omelet are a Seattle band whose music is difficult to describe. At one point they termed their sound “pseudo-retro tele-gothic psycho-hippie filth-punk”. Based on their first album, 2011’s Elliptical Optusion, that’s really not a bad description, as difficult as it may be to grapple with as an abstract concept. But based on their most recent recording, I think they’ll have to work the word “metal” into it some way.

Earlier this year, Ocelot Omelet recorded a new three-song EP by the name of Present In the Dark, with the legendary Jack Endino handling the engineering work. Two versions were mastered, one for vinyl and one for digital, and the band have now successfully completed a kickstarter campaign to finance pressing of the EP on 180 gram vinyl. I heard some of this new material performed live last summer, and I left with a severe case of headbanger’s neck. Continue reading »

ENNUI AND DOOM METAL FRONT (“ASIA: TUNES OF THE RISING SUN(N)”)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 122013
 

Earlier today I included a feature in a “Seen and Heard” post about a new song by an Italian doom band named Necropoli. After posting that piece I learned that the tremendous vocals on the song were recorded by David Unsaved, one of the two collaborators in a band from Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, named Ennui. I decided to learn more about Ennui and discovered that they have completed work on a new album (their second), entitled The Last Way, which will be released by MFL Records on November 30, 2013.

Ennui’s Facebook page also pointed to a stream of one song from the new album on Bandcamp. That song turns out to be part of a 30-track compilation called Asia: Tunes of the Rising Sun(n) assembled by a German zine called Doom Metal Front. The comp comes as an automatic digital download with the purchase of Issue #11 (which you can buy either as a downloadable PDF or as a print copy that will be sent to you).

The comp includes music by 30 bands from India, Pakistan, Israel, Japan, China, Indonesia, Japan, Georgia, and elsewhere, and features names such as Church of Misery, Coffins, Bevar Sea, Eternal Elysium, and Birushanah. But at the moment, the only song I’m going to write about is that Ennui track that will also appear on their new album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MITOCHONDRION, IMPUREZA, NECROPOLI (AND LUMBAR-NOOTHGRUSH-COFFINS UPDATES)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 122013
 


Here are a few things I saw and heard yesterday that I want to recommend to you.

MITOCHONDRION

Vancouver’s Mitochondrion are working on their third album. There’s a chance it may reverse the space-time continuum, or possibly open portals to a nearby dimension in which human beings are food stock for the nourishment of nightmares. Probably won’t happen, but with this band I never rule out such possibilities.

Yesterday they saw fit to release a demo version of one of the new album’s songs, “Writhen Unto Abraxas”. It’s a mauling frenzy of destructive riffing and horrific vocal effusions, caked with grime, splintered with jagged grooves, and writhing with maggot-ridden guitar leads. Galvanizing and merciless, doomed and infectious, the song is yet another triumph of blackened death metal malignance for this frightening collective. Listen next. Continue reading »

ENTOMBED: “VULTURE AND THE TRAITOR”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Nov 112013
 

Entombed’s tenth album Back To the Front — which sports the painted cover art by Zbigniew Bielak that you see above — was originally scheduled for release by Century Media last month, but in September its release was postponed until early 2014 due to “unpredictable technical problems”. Today, one of the album’s tracks, entitled “Vulture and the Traitor”, appeared on YouTube. It doesn’t appear to be an authorized debut, so it may not last long. But it’s such a good song that it’s worth checking out while you can.

For those who foolishly continue to hope for a throwback to Left Hand Path, this isn’t that. Yet it still has a definite old-school feel in its sludgy riff tone and in its mix of d-beat, punk, and hardcore rhythms. L-G Petrov’s distinctive throaty vocals are in great form, and the song also boasts a hot-as-hell guitar solo.  Whether authorized or not, this is a damned fine teaser for Back To the Front. Listen next: Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: SATYRICON, CONVERGE, LASCAILLE’S SHROUD

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 112013
 

Here are three new recommended videos that premiered in recent days, two of them this morning. Recommended by me, because I like them.

SATYRICON

When Andy Synn reviewed Satyricon’s self-titled 2013 album for us, he wrote this about the song “Phoenix”: “Instantly divisive, seemingly designed to be hated, its clean, almost bluesy vocals (courtesy of Sivert Høyem) and ringing guitars initially like a step beyond all bounds of the group’s history. But look closer. Those drums, those slow-blooming riffs, they retain the essence of the band. Listen to what the song represents. They have rediscovered their spark, their fire, and their roots – but not perhaps in a way that they, or any of us, would have thought. It’s strange. It’s unexpected. It’s provocative… It’s Satyricon through and through.”

On September 8 Satyricon performed “Phoenix” as part of their concert with the Norwegian National Opera Chorus in the Norwegian Opera House in Oslo. That performance has now become the first official music video from the new album, and it again features Sivert Høyem on vocals. I love this song (and yes, I know it’s nothing but clean vocals), and the video is damned cool, too. Watch it next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HEXIA, CYNIC, SUNN O))), ULVER, INGESTED, THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 112013
 

Hope you had a good weekend. And if you didn’t, hope you have a good week. And if you don’t, I apologize for the feebleness of my hopes. At least your life will be enriched by seeing and hearing these things I saw and heard over the weekend (and yes, I had a good weekend, thank you).

HEXIS

When last we wrote about this Danish band it was during 2012 in a review of their three-way split with As We Draw and Euglena. They’ve now recorded a new album entitled Abalam which is projected for release on January 11, 2014. Over the weekend I saw a music video released earlier this month for one of the new songs — “Tenebris” — which was made by London filmmaker Craig Murray. Murray’s video is an homage to a certain unforgettable scene in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, with a bit of a twist in its finale.

As for the music, it’s a storm of razors, thunder, and vocal lightning, a ravaging assault of fused black metal and hardcore. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LIVING SACRIFICE, FEARED, CORPSESSED, LIE IN RUINS, IMPURE WORSHIP

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 072013
 

Yesterday produced a lot of new excellent video and song premieres, and I also caught up with a few things that I missed when they first came out. In an earlier post today I collected three of the new videos, and in this post are five songs worth hearing.

LIVING SACRIFICE

Solid State Records will be releasing the eighth studio album by Living Sacrifice — Ghost Thief — on November 12, and I’ve been really eager to hear it. The first advance track from the album, “Screwtape”, didn’t grab me by the throat as hard as I hoped it would. But yesterday the title track debuted, and my first thought was, “that’s more like it!”

It was a good sign when the tremolo drilling and drum blasting started, and the jolting rhythms plus Bruce Fitzhugh’s bestial vox sealed the deal. This is neck-wrecking, riff-hammering Living Sacrifice in prime form. Listen next (via Rolling Stone). Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: EXMORTUS, BEASTWARS, SMOHALLA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 072013
 

Wouldn’t you know it. I embarked on a trip for my job before the sun came up yesterday, only to find by nightfall that some infernal bastard had dynamited the levy and loosed a flood of good metal while I was otherwise occupied. Too much stuff surged through the hole yesterday for just one post. Too much for two posts, but that’s probably all I can manage today.

In this one I have new videos that I think you might like. In the next one will be new songs. Prepare your anus. (I know that’s not really my style, but I see bands say that on Facebook and I thought I would be more cool if I said it. Honestly, I have no interest in your anus. But you sure got a perty mouth.)

EXMORTUS

California’s Exmortus have an album coming next year on the Prosthetic label, but in advance of that Prosthetic has released a 7″ single called Immortality Made Flesh. The title song is one that will appear on the album and the b-side is a cover of Judas Priest’s “Freewheel Burning”. Yesterday, Metal Injection premiered a video of the band executing the title track in a jam room (with the studio recording as the soundtrack). Hot damn, is it invigorating! Continue reading »

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