MORE SEEN AND HEARD: GHOST B.C., IMPENDING DOOM, MAGENTA HARVEST, AND VHOLDGHAST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

I know that I’ve already posted one round-up today, but I found more things I wanted to share. So, here goes:

GHOST B.C.

I have an extremely powerful attraction to Ghost’s music, even though I listen to almost nothing else that comes within ICBM range of it. So, I was drawn like a fly to honey when I saw that a new Ghost video had premiered yesterday at Rolling Stone. It’s a professionally filmed clip of the band performing the infernal carnival of “Secular Haze” at a sold-out Webster Hall in New York. It reminds me of how damned much I’ve enjoyed the multiple live Ghost performances I’ve seen.

So, of course, I’m embedding the video here. Watch it next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MARYLAND DEATHFEST, NECROPHOBIC, UNCOFFINED, AND NEOLITHIC VOID

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

Here’s a round-up of noteworthy things seen and heard over the last 24 hours.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST

The organizers of MDF XII have been slowly announcing the names of bands who will appear at next year’s edition of the best metal festival in the US. The most recent announcement came earlier this week with four new names: Cancer, from the UK, who will be making their first US appearance since 1993; Sacrifice from Canada, who will be making their first appearance since 1992; Nocturnus (who for legal reasons must call themselves Nocturnus A.D.), who will be playing the entirety of their debut album The Key; Crowbar; and Death Toll 80K from Finland.

I have several friends who are especially hot over the return of Nocturnus, including NCS writer BadWolf, who reviewed The Key in retrospective back in July 2012 (here). There seems to be some uncertainty about which of the band’s original members will be appearing, other than drummer/vocalist Mike Browning. However, Nocturnus performed songs from The Key live in Mexico City last April. Photos of that show can be found here, and videos are on YouTube, too. I wouldn’t recognize the performers, but presumably it will be the same line-up at MDF.

Here’s one of those videos: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INFERNO, SLEGEST, DARKMOON WARRIOR, AND PATRONS OF THE ROTTING GATE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  9 Responses »
Sep 252013
 

In this post I’ve collected three new songs from three new albums that caught my ears over the last 24 hours, as well as a full-album stream of another recent release. As you might have guessed from the title of the post, all of the music flies the black metal flag, but the styles are nevertheless significantly different from each other. The bands are Inferno (Czech Republic), Slegest (Norway), Darkmoon Warrior (Germany), and Patrons of the Rotting Gate (Ireland). I might add that all four albums are adorned by some very eye-catching artwork.

INFERNO

Inferno’s current album, their sixth, is entitled Omniabsence Filled By His Greatness and was released on September 24 by Agonia Records. The fantastic cover art that you see above was creatd by Fenomeno Design (Blut Aus Nord, Glorior Belli, Perdition). Yesterday Agonia uploaded one of the new tracks to Soundcloud.

“The Funeral of Existence” rings with chiming guitars and thrums with heavy weight in the low end. It rocks and rolls, its ephemeral melody will reverberate through your skull, and when the blasting and growling begins it will be time to run for cover before the roof comes down. Damned fine piece of progressive black metal, and really well-produced. This may well be a damned fine album, too — I now intend to find out. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: DOOMRIDERS, MYGRAIN, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, VULTURE INDUSTRIES

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 252013
 


Within the last day or two, a number of new albums became available for streaming in full. Here are four that I think are worth checking out. In some cases I’ve been able to embed the streams here. In other cases, I’ll have to give you a link to hear it elsewhere. The bands are listed in alphabetical order; as you’ll discover, this selection includes a lot of Exceptions to the Rule around here (you know, the one about singing).

DOOMRIDERS

Doomriders, the Boston outfit fronted by Converge bassist Nate Newton, are releasing Grand Blood on October 15 via Deathwish Inc. It’s the follow-up to Darkness Comes Alive. Stream it at Pitchfork Advance here. Continue reading »

LISTEN TO “ZOCHROT” BY CARCASS WHILE I GET MY SHIT TOGETHER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 252013
 

We’ve been way light on the content today. I don’t mean to imply any misgivings about Andy Synn’s Otargos review, but we’re way past mid-morning here on the West Coast of these United States, and on a typical day we would have three or four posts up on the site by now. However, I was out listening to live metal last night (a review is coming), didn’t get home and to bed until nearly 3 a.m., and am only now dragging myself into the world of the living (hail satan that I didn’t have to go to work at the usual hour this morning).

I do have a new post in the works, but it will take me a while longer to finish it. In the meantime, enjoy “Zochrot”. That’s not the name of a foot fungus. It’s the name of a “B-side” track recorded by Carcass that isn’t on their new album Surgical Steel but instead was included as part of DECIBEL magazine’s Flexi-Disc series. Subscribers to the magazine got a copy with the August issue. Everyone else is shit out of luck because, at least for now, it isn’t being released in any other format.

However, today DECIBEL did start making the song available for listening on Soundcloud. It’s got a bouncy groove (definitely not the deathgrind side of Carcass’ personality) and a couple of nice solos. Not a bad way to pass the time while I get my shit together. You can hear “Zochrot” by visiting this page (DECIBEL didn’t make the song embeddable): Continue reading »

NEW WOLFHEART SONG AND VIDEO: “ROUTA PT. 2”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Sep 242013
 

I’ll make this short: Wolfheart — the new solo project of Tuomas Saukkonen (ex-Before the Dawn, ex-Black Sun Aeon) — has just released a new official video for “Routa Pt. 2”, a song that will appear on Wolfheart’s debut album Winterborn.

The video, which was beautifully filmed and produced by OneManArmy, is full of fire and ice, just like the song. The video also includes an excerpt of a certain review of Winterborn that I’m quite fond of. In case you want to read all of it, I’ll refer you here. In a nutshell, it says that Winterborn is one of the year’s standout albums.

The album and related Wolfheart merch can now be pre-ordered at the following location, and pre-orders will get two bonus tracks — “Frey” and “4:19 A.M.”; eventually, we understand that the album will also become available digitally, but the details on that haven’t yet been announced.

http://www.madsupply.com/en/shop/band+merchandise/wolfheart

Now, watch and listen to the video for “Routa Pt. 2”: Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM HAIL OF BULLETS AND VALKYRJA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Sep 232013
 

This morning brought the premiere of two new songs from two forthcoming albums that we’ve been eagerly awaiting. You can and should hear both of them below.

HAIL OF BULLETS

The new Hail of Bullets album is entitled III: The Rommel Chronicles and it will be released in NorthAm by Metal Blade on October 29 (pre-orders available here). The new song is “DG-7”, and it follows the previous premiere of “Pour Le Mérite” (featured here).

The hammerstrikes of doom . . . the writhing melodies of dank death . . . the rampaging riff-tanks . . . soloing that’s both flame-spitting and soulful . . . the hoarse howls of the incomparable Martin van Drunen . . . it’s all here, and it’s all so damned fine: Dutch death metal devastation comes your way next. Continue reading »

A DEATH METAL SANDWICH: BLOOD MORTIZED, ERYN NON DAE., A SMILE FULL OF ALE, CRYPTOPSY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Sep 232013
 

Here are a four new (or new-ish) things I saw and heard since the weekend began that I’m really liking. I could keep them to myself, but I believe that goes against the first rule of blogging: Assume that everyone is fascinated by everything that interests you, and therefore keep nothing to yourself.

You can think of this as a death metal sandwich, two slices of rotting death metal bread on the outside and two unusual goodies in the middle.

BLOOD MORTIZED

We’ve been tracking the output of Sweden’s Blood Mortized since the beginning, and now they’re about to follow up their 2012 album The Key To A Black Heart (reviewed here) with a new full-length — The Demon, The Angel, The Disease. Today the band unveiled a music video for a track off the forthcoming album. To sum up:

The Music: Doing it the flesh-crawling bone-smashing old way, and doing it right. OOOF!

The Video: Gore, gore, gore, gore! And more gore! Continue reading »

TEASERS: EYE OF SOLITUDE AND VALDUR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 222013
 

I was already eager for the new albums headed our way from the two bands featured in this post. I really didn’t need to be teased about them, because I’m impatient enough as it is. But they obviously didn’t get the memo.

EYE OF SOLITUDE

This UK band’s 2012 album, Sui Caedere (“to kill one’s self”) was really excellent. So was The Deceit, a three-song EP they released early this year (reviewed here). Both of them are still available on Bandcamp, and I encourage you to check them out. The new album is entitled Canto III and it will be released by Kaotoxin Records on November 25 in Europe and December 3 in the US.

Seems that it’s going to be a monster — six tracks that are lyrically based on Dante’s Inferno, with a total run-time of over 66 minutes. It appears that the album will also include guest contributions by violinist Casper and vocalist Anton Rosa from the Russian band Dominia. It further appears that the band will be adding some black metal touches to their orchestrally enhanced blend of funereal doom and death.

Yesterday I heard a teaser of music from the album that you’ll have a chance to hear momentarily. It’s titanically heavy and sweeping, but of course it’s way too short. However, brief as it is, it’s a potent reminder of how gargantuan Daniel Neagoe’s vocals are. Check it out: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CULT OF ERINYES, LORN, AND NOSFERATU

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Sep 212013
 

When I staggered to bed last night I had a few ideas percolating about what I would post today. When I staggered out of bed this morning and started wandering through the interhole those ideas went out the window, and instead what you’re about to hear took their place. By chance I listened to three new songs in a row that really grabbed me. By chance, they’re all shades and phases of black metal, with interesting twists. I wasn’t familiar with any of the bands before listening to these new tracks, and with luck like this I should probably buy a lottery ticket today.

CULT OF ERINYES

This three-person Belgian band have recorded their second album, Blessed Extinction, which will be released in digipak format on October 21, 2013, by the Italian label Code666 Records. They’ve just begun streaming an advance track named “自爆 (Jibaku)”, which I discovered thanks to a Facebook post by Nico at Kaotoxin Records, who’s an acquaintance of mine and a friend of the band.

If the song consisted of nothing but the hurricane of cutting guitars, thundering percussion, and acid vocals with which it begins, I’d be happy enough, because that first phase of the song shoots a megawatt charge straight to the brainstem. But the song holds in store much more than that. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries