SEEN AND HEARD: ULCERATE AND CARCASS STREAMS, SLAYER-GOJIRA-4ARM TOUR UPDATE, A NEW VEIL OF MAYA TOUR WITH VILDHJARTA, A NEW SONG BY HAIL OF BULLETS, AND ALBUM NEWS FOR GIFT OF GODS AND SARKE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 102013
 

Painstakingly selected from among the detritus that litters the interhole and the NCS in-box, here are items of interest that appeared over the last 24 hours.

ULCERATE

If you need more darkness in your life — and who doesn’t? — then you should listen to Vermis, the new death metal monstrosity by New Zealand’s Ulcerate. The album won’t be released in North America until September 17 (a day earlier in the UK and September 13 in certain European countries), but yesterday Metal Sucks began hosting an exclusive stream of the album. Ulcerate are one of those rare death metal bands who are pushing (or dragging) the genre in new directions. The music of Vermis is harrowing and inhuman, but it exerts a powerful attraction. You should hear it.

THIS is the link for the stream.

CARCASS

The new Carcass album, which we reviewed here, is due for release on September 16. I have a feeling that anyone interested in hearing the new Carcass album has already heard it, but just in case, it’s now streaming in full, too. Nuclear Blast has uploaded the entire album to YouTube. Obviously, it’s one of the biggest releases of 2013, and it also happens to be a fine album. You can hear it next.  (thanks Daniel for the tip) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ARGENTINUM ASTRUM, ARCEYE, AND GERM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 092013
 

I woke up at an inhuman hour this morning, so early that friends of mine were still awake from last night and posting things on Facebook. By mid-afternoon on this wretched Monday I expect to have a thousand-yard stare and enough coffee in my gut to eat through sheet metal. What do you do when nothing else is awake except stealthy night predators and night-owl friends? I’ll tell you what I did: I decided to go spelunking through the dank caverns of the interhole in search of new metal. I found some veins of gold.

ARGENTINUM ASTRUM

Argentinum Astrum are from Knoxville, Tennessee. I discovered their existence through a post at CVLT Nation, which reports that the band have a three-song album coming under the title of Malleus Maleficarum. CVLT Nation is also streaming one of those three songs, identified by the Roman numeral “I”. It’s powerful. And by “powerful” I mean it will pound your bones to splinters and then sink them in a vat of tar.

“Heavy” doesn’t begin to describe it. It builds from ominous droning tones and a scattering of freakish noise, eventually joined by a lilting guitar melody, into a full-on crush-fest. Low and slow, the sludgy melodic riffs ring massive bells of doom and the drum hits come down like a rain of boulders. The vocals are pure acid spray. The song heaves like a storm-fueled ocean swell and eventually begins to rock like an earthquake. What a wonderful way to start the day! Continue reading »

NEW THALL: VILDHJARTA — “DIMMAN”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 082013
 

Way back in April we reported that Sweden’s Vildhjarta were almost finished with their new concept EP, Thousands of Evils, which will be released by Century Media. They had already unveiled the wonderful cover art and had previously released three teasers on YouTube with snippets of the new music (which can be heard here), and at that point bootleg videos had begun to surface with entire songs from the new EP performed live at the Thallium Festival in Minsk, Belarus. Now, at last, a new studio track from the EP by the name of “Dimman” has made its appearance.

It comes on a Sunday, without warning or fanfare, and I’m guessing it’s a leak. Hell, I’m not 100% positive it’s the entire track. But hey, I listened to it anyway.

“Dimman” is instrumental-only. It descends with an extended acoustic/synth intro that’s both snappy and spacey (and of course there’s a burly bass line booming away, too). Electric guitar joins in for a few healthy measures, and then the thall begins. My colon is still reverberating, even from only a minute and a half of it. Listen next if you’re interested in seeing what Vildhjarta have gotten up to, but listen fast because I doubt “Dimman” will be on YouTube long. Continue reading »

NEW AND NASTY: DEMONICAL, CRAVEN IDOL, AND MONDVOLLAND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 072013
 

I hate to let a day go by without something new on the site, and although this morning kind of got away from me, I do have three items from yesterday that I thought were worth sharing.

DEMONICAL

I’ve been following this Swedish death metal band since 2010 and have written about them often since then. Their 2013 album is one I’ve been gleefully anticipating and I finally had the chance to hear it last week. Its name is Darkness Unbound, it’s scheduled for release by Cyclone Empire on September 20, and it’s awfully good.

This, however, is not the time for a review. Instead, I simply want to throw your way a new lyric video for a track named “The Order”. Demonical remain thoroughly wedded to the sound and spirit of evil, throwback, Swedish death metal, and man, do they do it right. Wonderful guitar tone, malicious vocals, an air of festering menace, sharp production values — “The Order” will put a charge into any fan of old-school Swedish butchery. Continue reading »

SARTEGOS, MITOCHONDRION, PROTEAN COLLECTIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 062013
 

We’re going to be a little light on content today because your humble editor will soon be embarking on a drive with his spouse to Vancouver, BC, where we will then engage in various entertaining activities that do not include blogging. I do have one very unusual premiere to bring you a bit later this morning, one guest review, and this round-up of items that tunneled their way into my head yesterday and left its meager contents in a state of satisfying disarray.

SARTEGOS

The ghastly words sound as if they’re bubbling up through a lava pool in a caldera, the air rendered opaque with the suffocating stench of sulphur. Primitive occult riffs vibrate with unholy energy. The muffled thump of drums roll like an avalanche of skulls hitting a barren plain. A twisted guitar melody echoes like the recital of a satanic liturgy across the vault of a hellish cathedral. And damned if the thing won’t hook you right through the gills. That’s “Meianoite No Jardim De Deus”, a song by Sartegos.

Sartegos are one of the few metal bands I’ve ever heard of who make their home in Galicia, an autonomous community in northwest Spain with its own language. In English, the song I heard means “Midnight in God’s Garden”, and it’s as dark as the name sounds. It appears on a 2013 EP entitled As Fontes Do Negrume (“The Origin Of Darkness”) that was recently released on CD by Bloody Productions and is about to get a vinyl treatment by I, Voidhanger Records.  Continue reading »

VATTNET VISKAR: “BREATH OF THE ALMIGHTY”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 052013
 

Century Media released Vattnet Viskar’s debut album Sky Swallower on September 3 in North America and it will be out on September 9 in Europe). Previously we featured the first advance track from the album, “Apex”. Not long ago a second song from the album debuted via a music video — “Breath of the Almighty”.

I can’t watch it or listen to it at my current location. I can merely embed it and then come back here when I get a better internet connection and say something. But of course by then you will have seen it, if you know what’s good for you. Here it is: Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: DEALS DEATH – “POINT ZERO SOLUTION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 052013
 


The last time we featured Gothenburg’s Deals Death (here) was way back in April 2012. Their debut album on the Spinefarm label (Elite) had recently been released and they had just premiered a video for the song “Collapse”. In typically eloquent fashion, I wrote that “it pushes all those ‘Fuckitall, let’s headbang!’ buttons.”

Now we have a new video, and a new album on the way, with a September 13 European release date. The album is named Point Zero Solution, and the video is for the title track. And guess what? It pushes all those headbang buttons again.

The video was directed by Patric Ullaeus, who’s a real pro at this kind of thing, so it’s a slick production. Lots of fireballs and contrasts between light and shadow, and of course plenty of opportunities to admire (or get jealous over) frontman Olle Ekman’s impressive physique. The song plays to Deals Death’s strengths, which is to say it’s a thundering gallop of wild-eyed, flame-maned Gothenburgian stallions, all pounding hooves and compulsive riffs, with Ekman’s glass-scraping howls and brief keyboard notes rising above the fray. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY (HORROR DIVISION): AVULSED; BISON, BISON; MAMMOTH MAMMOTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 042013
 

The Horror Division of NCS hereby delivers unto you three new videos. We like them. We would like them better if the first band were named Avulsed Avulsed, because that would provide a second thing in common that all three videos share. As it is, they only share one thing (apart from the fact that they’re all fun to watch and hear): horror thematics.

AVULSED

When my NCS comrades and I were gathered together in Seattle last week we spoke of many important things, including which metal songs included the best opening grunts and growls. No one mentioned “Dead Flesh Awakened” by Avulsed, but then again none of us had heard it last week. It appears on this long-running Spanish band’s brand new album, Ritual Zombi, which just came out (and is available for purchase or download on Bandcamp).

As of today, however, “Dead Flesh Awakened” has become the subject of a brand new video that premiered at DECIBEL. The song starts with Dave Rotten giving voice to what sounds like a lion’s growl. More lionine growling comes later. Along with a lot of skull-cleaving grooves and grisly melody and filthy death metal goodness. Plus zombies. Don’t forget the zombies. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: TOO DAMNED MANY THINGS TO PUT IN THE TITLE OF THIS POST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 042013
 

Yesterday I posted our final article of the day at about 1:30 pm EDT and then turned my attention for the rest of the day to what I actually get paid to do. While I wasn’t looking, someone re-opened Pandora’s box and a horde of red-eyed bat-winged things flew out in a blizzard of leathery wings and ammoniac guano. Yeah, baby, a veritable flood of nasty shit — so many noteworthy news items and new songs that to fit all of them in this post will require that I wire my jaws shut and mumble only a few words per item. Here . . . we . . . GO!

SLAYER-GOJIRA-4ARM TOUR

It started with dates in Hollywood and NYC and predictably has now mushroomed into a full U.S. tour. Well, at least 16 cities in the fullness of the U.S., which do not include all the wonderful cities in the Pacific Northwest or 36 other states. But fear not, others may yet get to see Gojira (!!!), the aging remnants of Slayer, and Melbourne’s 4ARM, because more dates will be announced later. Here are the ones announced yesterday:

OCTOBER
25 The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
28 Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, CA
30 Events Center @ San Jose State, San Jose, CA Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NECROPHOBIC, DEVOURER, HAMFERÐ, AND CARPE NOCTEM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  15 Responses »
Sep 032013
 

This is a round-up of new songs and videos that debuted over the last 24 hours. There is a unifying theme to what I’ve selected: Although the styles of metal range from rampaging black metal to the sublime weight of doom, darkness pervades the sounds.

NECROPHOBIC

Only yesterday we posted Part 1 of Andy Synn’s review of the recently completed SUMMER BREEZE festival in Germany. It included words of praise for the live performance by Sweden’s Necrophobic. And today brought us the North American premiere of the first single from this influential band’s new album Womb of Lilithu, their seventh studio album and the first one in four years.

The new track is “Splendour Nigri Solis” and it’s now streaming at Spotify (here), though because it debuted in Europe earlier, it has also made its way to YouTube. It’s a thumping, thrashing, swirling whirlwind of black metal vehemence (with imperious, cleanly-sung, off-tempo sections that are as cool as the speedy parts). Continue reading »

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