DEPRECATED RISES FROM THE GRAVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 302013
 

In mid-July I saw a report that Deprecated had signed with Unique Leader. The press release stated “The band’s latest album, Deriding His Creation, will be re-released on October 1.” Kind of a tongue-in-cheek announcement, since Deriding His Creation was originally released in 1998, and it was a 14-minute EP. But here’s the reason why this matters:

Deprecated came back to life after a decade-long dormancy with the release of a 2011 single, and the new line-up now includes not only original bass-player Derek Boyer (Suffocation), original drummer Torrey Moores, and original vocalist AJ Magaña (ex-Disgorge, ex-Defeated Sanity), but also new guitarists Terrance Hobbs (Suffocation) and Matt Sotelo (Decrepit Birth).

And what’s more, the guitar and bass tracks of the reissue of Deriding His Creation have been re-recorded by the current line-up, and the EP has been remixed & mastered by Zack Ohren of Castle Ultimate Studios. And as of today, we get to hear the results, because the EP’s updated title track had its premiere. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: SÓLSTAFIR AND GOSPEL OF THE HORNS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 302013
 

New videos have given me an excuse to write again about two excellent songs.

SÓLSTAFIR

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve posted different performances of “Fjara”. I don’t think it will ever grow old for me. And today brought me another excuse to do it again.

On July 25, Iceland’s Sólstafir performed at the Metaldays Festival in Tolmin, Slovenija. Someone with good equipment filmed the band’s performance of “Fjara” and uploaded it to YouTube. It looks like a beautiful setting for a festival (you get a glimpse of it at the end of the clip), though it’s a little strange to see the band performing in blinding sunlight. But apart from some overexposure brought about by all that daylight, the video looks and sounds very good.

And the song remains amazing, and the band remain the Kings of Cool, and I remain very stoked about the idea of seeing them live at Maryland Deathfest next May, where surely they will play this song. Watch and listen next . . . Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: NEW DEICIDE TOUR, NEW SOCIOPATHIC MIXTAPE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jul 302013
 

Here are a couple of items that caught my eye last night.

NEW DEICIDE TOUR

Word has escaped that Deicide will be headlining a U.S. tour this October, though to be honest, the supporting bands are the ones that have really peaked my interest: Disgorge, Necronomicon, and Broken Hope.

I’ve been a fan of Montreal’s Necronomicon for years, and their 2013 album Rise of the Elder Ones is quite good. San Diego’s Disgorge has occupied a storied place in the annals of brutal death metal, and they’re now at work on their first album in eight years, with a revised line-up (Angel Ochoa behind the mic and Diego Soria on bass). And speaking of revivals, Chicago’s Broken Hope will be delivering their first album in 14 years when Century Media releases Omen of Disease in the same month that this tour occurs.

In other words, there’s going to be a full slate of new metal from a group of veteran death metal carnivores, wholly without regard to whether Deicide manages to bring it hard at the top of the bill. Continue reading »

PREMIERES: OBLIVION’S NEW VIDEO AND A NEW NOTHNEGAL TRACK

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 292013
 

We’ve already let loose a string of posts about new song and video premieres today, but we have one more. The first is a new video from . . .

OBLIVION

Not long ago we reported that this Bay Area band who we’ve written about frequently (writings collected here) had signed with the Unique Leader label, and that Unique Leader plans to re-issue the band’s self-released debut album, Called To Rise, on October 15 (check our review of it here). Today we got the new official video for the album’s final track, “Omniverse”. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album, a mix of heart-racing death metal performed with technical flare and eerie atmospherics.

That eerie quality that drifts through the song is captured in the visual effects and animation in the cool new video by Brandon Hunt. Check it out next: Continue reading »

PREMIERES: NEW MUSIC VIDEOS FROM KEN MODE AND CHIMAIRA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 292013
 

The morning has delivered a slew of premieres, including a new Gorguts song and a new Cattle Decapitation video. And in this post, we bring you two more new videos. The first comes from . . .

KEN MODE

The video from this stand-out Canadian band (which premiered on Pitchfork) is for a song named “Secret Vasectomy” from their 2013 album Entrench (which can be streamed and purchased on Bandcamp here). When the song first debuted, guitarist/frontman Jesse Matthewson said this about it:

“Secret Vasectomy” was one of the first songs we put together during the Entrench writing sessions, but more particularly it was the first that we truly collaborated on with Andrew [LaCour], as the other three songs we finished in that first get-together were largely made up of riffs that I’d constructed going into the session. To me, it’s a punk song; a nasty, nasty punk song. Lyrically speaking, I’m sure everyone can relate to the situation of needing to produce, yet feeling utterly uninspired to write anything of any perceived value whatsoever; this is the tipping point. When you refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room as a muse and instead you slump in your chair and shoot blanks.

The video is an interesting one to watch, with scenes of children manically drawing and coloring, accompanied by animation of their creations. Let’s just say it’s not fun happy playtime. The band have explained that this is only the first part of a two-part “music video saga”. Here it is: Continue reading »

PREMIERES: ANOTHER CATTLE DECAPITATION VIDEO — “YOUR DISPOSAL”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 292013
 

The day is still young out here in the Pacific Northwest, but it has already brought us a handful of notable premieres. We started with a new Gorguts song, and we now follow that up with an official music video for a song from . . .

CATTLE DECAPITATION

The song is “Your Disposal”, which appears on the band’s latest album, Monolith of Inhumanity. This one was again directed by Mitch Massie. Let’s see what frontman Travis Ryan says about it:

“Director Mitch Massie has presented us all with a bizarre retelling of the story of Adam and Eve using themes from our latest album Monolith of Inhumanity. Here we see Eve giving birth to humanity, a living, breathing piece of primordial meat birthed into the dirt making its way through the Garden of Eden, hellbent on destruction… A clean and conscious monolith foretelling what could be possible given the fact that humans exhibit superior traits of intelligence, instead the earth is flooded with technological fallout and debris by the hands of man. This video is very much a prequel to our other videos ‘Forced Gender Reassignment’ and of course, ‘Kindgom of Tyrants’.” Continue reading »

PREMIERES: ANOTHER NEW GORGUTS SONG — “COLORED SANDS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 292013
 

The day is still young out here in the Pacific Northwest, but it has already brought us a handful of notable premieres. Without further ado, here’s one of them (more to come).

GORGUTS

The new Gorguts album, Colored Sands, is so full of win it almost beggars description. Nevertheless, in due course we will attempt to do it justice in a review. In the meantime, Decibel magazine has given us the premiere of a third song from the album, and this time it’s the title track. Here’s what the band’s founder Luc Lemay has said about the song:

“‘Colored Sands’ tells the story about the intricate, poetic, mystic ritual of drawing sand mandalas. Tibetan pilgrims can walk for months, sometime a whole year, prostrating face to the ground every tree footsteps until they reach the place where the mandala will be executed.

Once the mandala completed, the monks will dismantle the mandala, and take the sands to the closest stream of water. This stream will bring the sands to the river, the river to the immensity of the ocean to spread the mandala’s peace and beauty to the planet…

The single harmonic, in the beginning of the song, pictures a single grain of sand hitting the ground…then with the pattern in 5 slowly appearing, illustrates the five elements in the Tibetan philosophy such as: air, water, fire, earth and space which are embodied in the mandala through their specific colors. From there the mandala slowly takes form in the music.” Continue reading »

ROUND-UP: BURIAL HORDES, DROWNED, REPTILIAN SHAPE SHIFTERS, CALIGULA’S HORSE, FALLUJAH, AND REPTILIAN DEATH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jul 282013
 

Your humble editor has had a busy weekend and this Sunday is going to be busy too, so this will probably be today’s only post. I did find a little time to browse e-mail and wade through the interhole in search of new things yesterday and this morning. As usual, I found many, and have collected a big group of them in this post. As you’ll see (and hear), it’s a diverse mix, including some not-metal. I’ll have to keep the verbiage brief because time is short. I know that will traumatize most of you, and I’m already grieving for your loss.

BURIAL HORDES

I first happened upon this Greek band in January after discovering their split release with Enshadowed, which is excellent (reviewed here). They have a new album on the way, entitled Incendium. I haven’t yet seen a release date, but the band have recently uploaded the opening track — “Unleash Havoc”. It’s a very cool song, raw and ravaging, bestial and atmospheric. Listen:

https://www.facebook.com/BurialHordesOfficial

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MAN MUST DIE, VASAELETH, DEFEATER, RED FANG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 262013
 

Here are a few choice items from my recent ramblings around the interhole.

MAN MUST DIE

Some bands die who shouldn’t, some bands who should die seem to live forever, and some bands resurrect themselves against punishing odds. Man Must Die must not die, and in fact it looks like they’ve been resurrected after parting company with their big-label support following 2009′s No Tolerance For Imperfection.

When last we checked in with these Scots in April, they were nearing success on their revised crowd-funding goal at Pledge Music to help them self-finance a new recording. And today brought the cheery news that they’ve found label support once again after a long dry spell. Here’s the announcement from Lifeforce Records:

“We are very proud to announce the signing of Scottish extreme metal maniacs MAN MUST DIE for a world wide release (outside the UK) of their next album in late October via Lifeforce Records. The band is currently at Valvetone studios putting the final touches on the new effort.”

In addition, the band announced that Grindscene Records will be releasing the new album in the UK and Ireland.

Nice work lads! I’ll be ready to get brutalized in October. Continue reading »

MERCENARY: “THROUGH OUR DARKEST DAYS”

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 252013
 

(DGR reviews the new album by Mercenary, and following the review you can stream the whole album.)

Two things come to mind when discussing Mercenary these days: One, that the band are releasing their seventh full disc and are still slamming their heads up against the glass ceiling of popularity. Mercenary are one of the best gateway bands for heavy metal in all senses, with powerful singing and songwriting that take them not only through heavy metal but a wide variety of its sub-genres as well. They can move from death metal to power metal in the blink of an eye. That people still turn to radio-friendly schlock as the heaviest music they’ve ever heard rather than Mercenary is truly an exercise in stupidity.

Two: Although the band basically asked for a hard reset (which is something you do by naming your disc Metamorphosis, or by pulling a Before The Dawn and using the Phoenix theme, releasing one album with a new lineup, and then killing the project) after two of their members bailed (the voice of the band at the time, Mikkel Sandager, and brother/keyboardist Morten), it is still incredibly difficult to divorce the band from their prior legacy.

Metamorphosis was a good album and it introduced the world to a slimmer, scrappier Mercenary, but it still drew comparisons to earlier highs such as The Hours That Remain and 11 Dreams. In the face of albums like those, Metamorphosis had a deck stacked against it.

Now we’re one album removed from that and about to hear the band’s latest effort, Through Our Darkest Days. Now that the band are stable again and have gotten used to songwriting as a smaller unit, what effect has that had on the sophomore release of lighter Mercenary? Have they become a nostalgia act? Did they pull away from the gravitational effects of their prior discs? Did they top Metamorphosis? Did they just put out a second Metamorphosis? Question Mark? Continue reading »

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