Metal is mood music. A few recent cases in point:
RAWHIDE
“City Kids” puts you in the mood to pound six shots of whisky in rapid succession, rip your shirt off, start busting up the furniture, run out into the street and expose yourself to passing cars, pick fights in the nearest bar, black out, and wake up wondering how all that vomit got on your pants and whether that’s your blood in your mouth or someone else’s. Death punk ‘n’ roll.
We don’t usually report news about tours unless they involve nationally or internationally known bands, because providing comprehensive daily news isn’t really part of our mission statement. But I’m making an exception in this post because the band is so damned interesting and because some friends in the Pacific Northwest provided the impetus for making this tour a cross-country reality.
The band’s name is Cleric and they’re from Philadelphia. I came across them in August through a recommendation by Ryan Schutte, guitarist for the awesome Seattle band Lb.! (pound) (who has since then helped Cleric arrange shows up in my part of the country). Back then, I listened to one long song from the band’s 2010 album Regressions that just completely blew my mind, and I wrote this:
This song is one of the most eye-popping, jaw-dropping, extravagant pieces of music I’ve heard all year. It’s almost 20 minutes long, and I was transfixed (and somewhat scared) the whole time. It’s an out-and-out barrage of freakazoidical, destructive, synapse-severing mayhem. It doesn’t follow a straight line, it doesn’t play nice, it doesn’t let up. A thoroughly brain-puréeing, remorselessly spine-crushing experience. Something like Portal, Blackjazz -vintage Shining, and Behold… the Arctopus communing in a hurricane. During an earthquake.
Four months after Regressions came out, they were robbed in Philadelphia “of nearly everything that helped to build and eventually portray their sound, and the closest they came to touring was driving to pawn shops looking for stolen gear.” The story I received in a press release today continues: Continue reading »
You want something new in your ears? I mean, other than a stranger’s tongue or that bedbug that crawled in there while you were sleeping? Well then, check out this selection of recommended new songs discovered over the last 24 hours.
SOLIUM FATALIS
I found out about this band (whose name means “Fated Throne”) thanks to a tip from my NCS comrade TheMadIsraeli. It’s the brainchild of New Hampshire guitarist Jim Gregory, but it also includes the superb Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Scarve, Bent Sea) on drums, Scarve bassist Loic Colin, and Excrecor guitarist/frontman Jeff DeMarco on vocals. Solium Fatalis released their self-titled debut album just days ago, and it features eye-catching cover art by Septic Flesh frontman/bassist Seth Siro Anton.
Two songs from the album are streaming on Bandcamp. I listened to them last night and they’re really good – a dynamic offering of blackened melodic death metal built upon excellent instrumental performances, a voracious vocal turn, and a well-crafted production that gives the music a sharp, heavy sound. Seductive Eastern melodies flow through the stately but savage “Molecular Devices” and the jolting fury of “The 7th Gate”. I don’t know why I haven’t heard more about this album, but I’m definitely going after it now (it’s available on iTunes and Amazon) Continue reading »
Most of today we were distracted by other things, and hence kind of light on the spotlighting of new music. Hell, even Andy Synn could only manage to write a three-line album review, though he did write three of them, and BadWolf was so distracted that he experienced temporary website confusion and wrote up a song premiere for someone else, though it was a really good write-up for a really hot song. I put up photos of calcified birds and bats. Just one of those fuckin’ days.
We’ll try to do better tomorrow. But I thought before I completely checked out for the day I’d throw one piece of audio-visual sweetness your way.
Take a pit-bull guard-dog that hasn’t been fed in a week and then taunt him until he’s barking and ready to tear your throat out. Add a full-throttle headless drummer wearing a Blotted Science shirt (high fives for that!). Throw in a couple of mutant guitarists and a bassist with super-animated fingers. Set all of them on fire and tell them you won’t put it out until they finish their song, and then stand way back and let them GO! Continue reading »
Ihsahn’s fifth solo album, Das Seelenbrechen, will be released by Candlelight Records on October 22 in North America. It can be pre-ordered here. Last month a song from the album named “Hiber” debuted on a BBC radio show. It was available at the station’s on-line site for a week. Today Candlelight made “Hiber” available for listening at Soundcloud.
“Hiber” is how the name is shown on Candlelight and Ihsahn’s Facebook pages and on the Soundcloud stream. However, previous press releases announcing the album’s track list spell it “Hilber”. A rose by any other name . . .
I’ve already raved about the song. I’ll rave about it again: It swirls and it stomps, it echoes and it pounds, the guitar spirals around complex rhythms, a string section takes wing, and Ihsahn claws with his voice (no clean singing on this one, thank you very much). It’s dark, disconcerting, and occasionally dissonant, but it will also stick with you. Imaginative, heavy music.
If you missed it when it was on the radio, have a listen now: Continue reading »
In this post I’m finishing up the round-up of recommended new songs I heard yesterday and this morning. For the first batch of goodies, go here.
MONOLITHE
I seem to have stumbled across quite a lot of doom-oriented music in the last 24 hours, what with Hamferð and Tombstoned in Part 1 of this post and now Monolithe in this one. But if you listen to all three songs you’ll hear different approaches to musical misery and ruin.
This French band, the creation of one Sylvain Bégot, has released a series of three 50-minute, single-track albums since 2003, along with two free EPs. The fourth album in the series — Monolithe IV — has now been completed and will be released by Debemur Morti Productions on October 18 (it can be pre-ordered here).
I haven’t listened to any of this band’s previous works, and was first attracted to this new one mainly by the striking cover art (by Norwegian artist Robert Høyem — click the image above to see a larger version). And then today I heard a 6-minute excerpt from the new album, which was recently unveiled on Soundcloud. Continue reading »
I ran roughshod through the interhole yesterday and this morning, and it seemed like around every corner was new music worth sharing. Even more good tunes were lurking in the NCS e-mail inbox. So, I’ve divided what I found into two posts, this one being the first.
HAMFERÐ
I first came across Hamferð in August 2012 because they were the first band from the Faroe Islands (population: 49,000) to enter the globe-spanning Wacken Metal Battle competition — and they won the whole thing, earning the right to play at the Wacken festival on August 6 of last year. That remarkable story is what snagged my interest, and listening to their 2010 EP Vilst er Síðsta Fet made me a fan (for more details about their story and a review of that EP, go here).
Hamferð have now finished their debut album Evst, and a couple of hours ago they announced that it will be released on October 11 in The Faroe Islands and November 15 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (it will also be released digitally worldwide on the same day). It will be a concept album and appears to be a continuation of ideas developed on the EP. Once again, the lyrics will be in Faroese (the band’s name is a Faroese term for the apparitions of sailors appearing before their loved ones).
Interestingly, although winning Wacken Metal Battle gave Hamferð the option for a label contract with Nuclear Blast, they turned it down “to be able to continue their work without unwanted influences”. Continue reading »
The prolific one-man show known as Benighted In Sodom who has released about three-dozen demos, splits, EPs, and full-length albums since 2006 has yet another album in the works. The album doesn’t yet have a title or artwork, but Matron Thorn did have the wonderfully good taste to pick that painting at the top of this post by Zdzisław Beksiński to stand in for the album art in a YouTube clip released last night for a new song.
For those who may not be familiar with Thorn (who relocated to Portland, Oregon, last year), he is not only the sole member of Benighted In Sodom but also plays all instruments on the recordings of Ævangelist, which is a fantastic band I’ve featured frequently in past posts (they have their own new album — Omen Ex Simulacra — due for release later this month). In fact, it was through my interest in Ævangelist that I recently began following Benighted In Sodom.
The song that appeared last night — “Sometimes I Don’t Mind” — isn’t the first new Benighted song that has surfaced recently. Just a few days ago Thorn put another one on Soundcloud with the title “Even the Nice Things”. I’m not going to bother trying to compare these songs to Benighted’s previous output, mainly because I’m not that familiar with it but also because, based on what I’ve read, Thorn doesn’t seem to have ever been wedded to the same kind of music for very long. So let’s just take them as they come. Continue reading »
In February we had the privilege of premiering a full stream of Furor Incarnatus by Feared. Now the group are already storming back with a new album set for release on November 25 — Vinter — and today Revolver magazine premiered a lyric video for one of the new songs: “Erased”
Feared originated as the project of guitar wizard Ola Englund (The Haunted, Six Feet Under) and he’s now joined on Vinter by Demonoid vocalist Mario Ramos, bassist Jocke Skog (ex-Clawfinger), and drummer extraordinaire Kevin Talley (Battlecross). Revolver quotes Ola Englund as follows:
“After Furor Incarnatus, I quickly felt the need to show our fans that we are not resting, even though we are all working with our other bands. I’ve always felt that Feared is an ongoing experiment and with Vinter I feel like we’ve found our home. It’s a dark and beautiful album, and I think we’ve all matured a lot from making it.”
There is indeed a dark keyboard melody that comes and goes in “Erased”, but what will grab your attention first is a downright convulsing groove; you’ll want to loosen up your neck muscles before listening. Working with elements of hardcore, melodic death metal, and (yes, again) groove, Feared have delivered an attractive teaser for this new album. Continue reading »
I haven’t attempted to compile a round-up of noteworthy findings in several days, so I’ve had to ruthlessly cut what interested me or this post would have been longer than a reticulated python. Even truncated, it’s as long as a boa constrictor. And everything in here is awfully bloodthirsty, right up until the final item.
ELIRAN KANTOR AND ICED EARTH
Is that a fuckin’ brutal album cover up there or what? It’s the latest cover art by Eliran Kantor, who I watch like a hawk because he’s so damned good, and it graces the 11th album by Iced Earth, which is planned for release by Century Media in January 2014. With a grisly cover like that and song titles such as “Democide”, “Cthulhu”, and “Parasite”, in addition to the title track, this could be very interesting.
Speaking of brutal, how ’bout a new Deicide track? Continue reading »