NEW CHTHONIC VIDEO: “SET FIRE TO THE ISLAND”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 212013
 

Chthonic’s 2013 album Bú-Tik, garnered significant praise from our own Andy Synn when he reviewed the album in June, calling it the band’s “greatest attempt so far at speaking the universal, world language, of metal”. Yet with all of the band’s drawing together of diverse musical and cultural strands, he gave the track “Set Fire To The Island” as an example of “pure Chthonic majesty”, describing it as “a venomous mix of symphonic darkness and calculated wrath.”

Today the band released their official music video for that same song, the fourth video released so far from Bú-Tik. Unlike the three previous videos (all of which we’ve featured here), this one is a live performance, filmed at last year’s Mass Battle concert in Taiwan. According to bassist Doris Yeh (you see, I did have a reason for putting that photo up there!):

“This is the live video we shot when we first played the song. It’s the most exciting song to play off the entire album! It has now become a ‘tradition’ for the fans in Taiwan to come to our show with ghost money, they throw in the air to show respect and release all kinds of their emotions. When I see the ghost money thrown in the air, sometimes the scenery before my eyes seems like a dream.”

Watch the video after the jump. You’ll be glad you did. And if “ghost money” is a new term for you, as it was for me, you might try this. Continue reading »

NEW THINGS FROM SKÁLMÖLD, ANION, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, AND NOCTURNAL GRAVES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 212013
 

In this post I’ve collected three new videos and one new song on which you can feast your eyes and ears. Actually, although I can imagine eyes feasting — because I’ve seen hungry eyes before — ears just look like ears. But they will feast nonetheless.

SKÁLMÖLD

After you have dined upon the following video from Iceland’s Skálmöld, and assuming you enjoy the taste of it, I strongly recommend you read this December 2012 NCS interview of the band’s lyricist and bass-player Snæbjörn Ragnarssonin conducted in Iceland by our very special traveling correspondent Gemma Alexander. There you will learn, among other things, about the complex rules of traditional Icelandic poetry that Snæbjörn follows in his lyrics, the stories from Norse legend that became the foundation for the band’s latest album Börn Loka (“Loki’s Children”), and the use of parallel fifths in the choral arrangements for the last part of the song “Gleipnir”.

I mention “Gleipnir” because that’s the song which is the subject of Skálmöld’s new video. You might be interested in knowing that in Norse legend “Gleipnir” was the name of the magical binding fashioned by dwarves to hold the monstrous wolf Fenrir in captivity — until the events of Ragnarök, when Fenrir breaks free and destroys Odin. Or so says The Font of All Human Knowledge. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM WOLFHEART, CASTEVET, VULTURE INDUSTRIES, AND VATTNET VISKAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Aug 202013
 

As you may have surmised if you read today’s first post, I was immersed in live metal from about 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon until late last night. But before the immersion began, I found some new things while stumbling through the interhole yesterday that I thought were worth some attention, and here they be:

WOLFHEART

Way back in January, we reported the bombshell news that Tuomas Saukkonen had decided to shut down all of his previous musical projects — Before The Dawn, Black Sun Aeon, Routasielu, Dawn Of Solace, and Final Harvest — and start a completely new one under the name Wolfheart. At the same time, he released a teaser of new Wolfheart music. And yesterday he released another one, along with info about the new Wolfheart album, including the ethereal cover art by Heino Brandt (above).

The album’s name is Winterborn and it includes 9 tracks, except that if you pre-order the album now you’ll get a download code for two bonus tracks that will accompany the CD when it ships. The release date is October 11.  Continue reading »

CLEAN SINGING: NEW THINGS FROM IN SOLITUDE AND END OF GREEN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

It’s usually one of my NCS comrades who decides to confuse the shit out of new readers by posting music that includes clean singing. I figured it was my turn.

IN SOLITUDE

There are two things in this post, both of which I’m digging. The first is the just-released title track to Sister, the third album by Sweden’s In Solitude. It’s scheduled for release by Metal Blade in North America on October 1 (and a few days earlier in Europe) and is already available for order here.

The song has a central riff that’s a classic heavy metal mind-controller, the kind that burrows in and makes a comfy home in your cranium. The occult-ish melody is infectious as hell, “Hornper” Åhman’s soaring vocals are mighty appealing, there’s a sweet wah-wah solo, and the galloping rhythm is unstoppable. Despite my usual preference in vocal stylings, this song has got me hooked. Here it is (and don’t forget that this band is touring NorthAm with Watain and Tribulation): Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EMPTINESS, ANCESTORS BLOOD, AND ANAAL NATHRAKH WITH NIKLAS KVARFORTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

This is the second of two posts in which I’ve collected music I found last night in my searches for new things that would help put me in the right frame of mind for the new week. And by “right frame of mind”, I mean “take no prisoners”. Because it’s a goddamned Monday and I knew I would be feeling mean as soon as I saw the light of the new day. I’ve learned through experience that I do better adding fuel to that fire than trying to get in a compliant, accepting, quietly seething mood.

EMPTINESS

I found out about this Belgian band, which includes two members of  the excellent Enthroned, via a recent post on CVLT Nation. Their most recent album is 2012’s Error on the Dark Descent label, though they are now writing new songs. Error is available for streaming on Bandcamp, so I embarked on this phase of my listening session by starting at the beginning of it. Because my mission for the night was to sample a lot of bands I had heard about, I didn’t make my way through the entire album. But I did listen to the first five songs (which is four more than I intended to hear), and man was I floored by them.

The music is difficult to describe, drawing from a multitude of genres but with a healthy helping of death/doom, black metal, and sludge. The sound is deeply corrosive and destructive, a howling, vicious maelstrom of sound and fury. It’s massively heavy and violent, and choked with the black ichor of doom. Yet the songs include hugely compelling riffs and attractive melodies, and all of the instrumental performances are dynamic and technically excellent. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INIQUITOUS SAVAGERY AND SCHAMMASCH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I spent a large part of my Sunday listening to Ulver’s just-released new album more than once (featured here). I think it’s very, very good, but just as it suited a Sunday extremely well, I felt the need for something else with which to face this Monday. Something with teeth and claws, and maybe some bleeding flesh dripping from its jaws. You know, something that would help me get my game face on for the new week.

Mission accomplished. In my searches last night, I came across music from five bands and I’m dividing up what I found between two posts, in the order in which I found the music. All the bands are new to me, except the last one in the second post.

INIQUITOUS SAVAGERY

This Scottish group produced an EP in 2012 named Compelled By Perverse Immorality. I haven’t heard that one, but last night I did hear a new promo single entitled “Propagating A Pestiferous Enmity”, which comes with cover art by Mike Majewski of Devourment (“touched up” by Tom Bradfield, who also mixed and mastered the thing).

This is a mighty fine offering of brutal slamming death metal. It has all the basic ingredients down pat — the hammering riffs, the prominent snare drumming, the brutish rhythms, the grotesque guttural vocals. On top of that, it really turns on the after-burners just as often as it delivers the big, methodical, sledgehammer blows. And it’s not completely atonal either. I certainly won’t use the word “finesse” to describe the music, but I will use the word “flair”.  Continue reading »

TODAY, ULVER SELF-RELEASED A NEW ALBUM

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Aug 182013
 

This is a surprising piece of news about a band who seem to specialize in surprises. Norway’s Ulver have changed their sound dramatically over the years, losing and gaining different groups of fans as their music has changed. Their latest album (their 12th) is named Messe I.X–VI.X. We’ve been expecting it, but the delivery came today in a way we didn’t expect. Here’s the full text of the message that appeared this morning on Ulver’s official site (and thank you BadWolf for the tip about this):

GLOOMY SUNDAY

Dear parish, as CDs are airborne – and leakage is imminent – we have decided to accelerate the digital release on our own platforms. We have held back as long as we can. Messe I.X–VI.X is now available from our webshop and Bandcamp. Just like that.

Again: we urge all conscientious music lovers to purchase digital from our platforms. WAV and all other formats at Bandcamp, 320 kbps MP3 via our webshop. Spotify and iTunes will follow in September, along with the release of Kscope’s standard editions.

Please share and spread the word. We hope you enjoy the somber sound of the wolves’ mass.

Ulver, Oslo, August 18 2013. Continue reading »

SHINING PERFORMANCE I WON’T FORGET

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Aug 162013
 

(DGR brings you a new live video by Norway’s Shining, plus an amusing history lesson about the Grünerløkka district of Oslo, the accuracy of which is probably somewhere around the median accuracy of all history.)

Pleasant surprises abounded this morning when I discovered that blackjazz group (and pretty much shoe-in’s for one of our “most infectious song” titles) Shining had recorded a live video and put in a hell of a high-energy performance of the song “I Won’t Forget” for a news station out in Norway.

The way they did it is actually really cool — setting up in an empty alleyway/blank plot where a former building was located, and then just playing to the crowd of about fifteen to twenty people who had gathered to see what the heck was going on. Some folks seem morbidly curious about the display of musical madness going on and other folks are clearly digging it. I like it because it’s probably the most raw performance footage you can catch of these guys, even when compared to the Live Blackjazz DVD. I’ve watched this clip a couple of times and I enjoy the sort of improvisational aspect of not really having a stage and watching Munkeby just wander around screaming at the camera while playing.

This clip was recorded in a district in Oslo, Norway, known as Grünerløkka – which, as soon as I can uncramp my fingers from the keyboard voodoo required to get the umlaut and crazy strikethrough letter O, I will share some fun facts about, because we here at NCS believe in educating readers and providing folks something to gaze at while they’re trapped in their nine-to-five (or in my case, four to 12:30). Plus, we don’t really have to worry about offending any actual Norwegians because Norwegians as a whole are a learned people with a high literacy rate (up in the high 90% areas!) and many of them have learned second languages. Reading NoCleanSinging would just be a waste of time for them, so we can be sure that none of them is actually here! Continue reading »

NEW DEATH/DOOM DESTRUCTION FROM INTO DARKNESS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 162013
 

 

Last November, as part of a MISCELLANY post (here), I made an impromptu review of the self-titled debut demo by an Italian band named Into Darkness. I tend to get carried away on a daily basis with bouts of metal enthusiasm, and I called that demo “one of the best death/doom releases of 2012“. But even after I calmed down as time passed, I still felt that way.

Today I discovered two new songs from Into Darkness. One, which has just been uploaded to YouTube, is named “Dreadful Omen of A Dark Millenium”. It will be included on a forthcoming 7″ EP. The second, “Shifted To the Red End of the Spectrum”, is also destined for future release on the EP or on a vinyl split, and it’s streaming on Bandcamp. These are two of four songs the band recorded earlier this year that are being released in “rough, unedited” form on pro-tape under the name Cosmic Chaos by an Italian label named Unholy Domain Records.

The two new songs are convincing evidence that Into Darkness are a band whose every release is going to be must-listen music for devoted fans of death/doom. Speaking of devotion, there’s a lot of old-school worship in the music, with strong reminders of both Incantation and Asphyx (and the latter, especially because of the resemblance of Doomed Warrior’s vocals to those of Martin van Drunen). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BROKEN HOPE, GLORIOR BELLI, AND BOMBUS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Aug 162013
 

Well, I made it back home from Idaho last night. Thanks to the wind gods, the smoke that had shrouded the valley where I was working cleared long enough for the plane to take off. I took a few pics from outside the airport to show what was going on back in the direction I’d just come from. I’ll put those at the end of this post. But first things first: here are three kickass new songs (one of which comes with an eye-popping video) that I came across late last night after I got home.

BROKEN HOPE

You want an old-school band who make death metal sound fresh? I give you Broken Hope. I’m getting more and more pumped up about their new album Omen of Disease (their first in 14 years). One week ago we streamed the first advance track from the album (“The Flesh Mechanic”). And then yesterday the band’s label started giving away a second track (you’ve got to surrender your e-mail address to get it). This one is called “Ghastly”, and it’s just as striking as “The Flesh Mechanic”. Much of the song is simply . . . ghastly: the horrific guttural growls, the jagged riffs, the weaponlike drumming, the overarching atmosphere of menace.

But that is definitely not all this song delivers. The pulsating, harmonized guitar lead will grab your attention almost immediately. The choir will surprise you later. Or it would have if I hadn’t mentioned it (sue me). Hell of a song. Go HERE to download it.

And how about the band’s new promo photos by Stephen Jensen? Handsome motherfuckers, aren’t they? There are two more after the jump, plus a YouTube upload of the song. Continue reading »

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