FALKENBACH AND FROSTSEELE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
May 272013
 

Here are two more recent songs I heard over the weekend. They seemed like a fitting pair, and (as you’ll discover) not only because the band” names both begin with F.

FALKENBACH

Falkenbach is the German one-man project of Vratyas Vakyas. Since 1996 he has released five albums on an irregular and unpredictable schedule, the last being 2011’s Tiurida. Apparently, a new one named Asa is now in the works, and about 10 days ago Falkenbach released a lyric video for the first single from the album, a song named “Eweroun”. It has hypnotized me in short order.

From the beginning introductory passage, which features acoustic strumming and a somber folk melody voiced in a clean baritone, straight through the balance of the song, with heavier instrumentation joining the acoustic guitar and the vocals rising in range, it’s extremely memorable. It makes a virtue of simplicity, though it’s far from simplistic. If that makes any sense. Which it probably doesn’t. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GHOST B.C., THE DEATHISODES, AND DIRE NECRO CERBERUS

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 272013
 

My NCS comrades and I were busy little beavers over the weekend (scabby, rabid ones, of course), making headway on new reviews. But I also heard a lot of new individual songs that grabbed me, so I’ll be dropping those morsels into round-up posts today in between a slew of album reviews — starting with this one.

GHOST B.C.

When Ghost B.C. released their new album, Infestissumam, in Japan, they included a bonus track. It’s a cover of “Waiting For the Night” by Depeche Mode, from their 1990 album Violator. Late last week Ghost released the song to YouTube for those of us who like the band but can’t get our paws on the Japanese version of the album. The original song doesn’t mention Belial, Behemoth, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Satanas, or Lucifer, but it does include some other Ghost-ly lyrics: “I’m waiting for the night to fall / I know that it will save us all / When everything’s dark…”

Even though there’s not any typically overt Satan worship in the words, Ghost do put their own spooky stamp (and some beefy low-end riffs) on the music. Cool song (and an exception to our Rule, of course). Check it next. Continue reading »

HEAD WRECKAGE (Part 3): BANEWREAKER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
May 252013
 

This started as one long post collecting new stuff from three bands that I saw and heard yesterday, the common theme being what they will do to your head. Part 1 started in Germany, with Beyond. In Part 2 we jumped to Finland for a visit with Altars of Destruction. And in this finale, we’re taking the boom tube to Eugene, Oregon for some head-smashing by . . .

BANEWREAKER

I discovered Banewreaker because certain members of Arkhum, another Eugene band I’ve been high on for a long time, contributed to a new Banewreaker song that appeared on Bandcamp yesterday. Specifically, Kenneth Parker did the vocals and Arkhum bassist Nate Kelly added guitar parts. In addition, Arkhum guitarist Stephen Parker produced the new song — which is called “Masterful Wroth”.

I’m not certain whether the line-up that recorded the song, which also includes drummer Aidan Leger-Jeffrey and lead guitarist Josh Vincent, is Banewreaker, or whether Banewreaker is normally Josh Vincent’s solo project — because the Bandcamp page includes a demo instrumental track by Vincent alone. I’ll figure this out, but for now I just want to strongly recommend that you listen to both of these tracks. Continue reading »

NYLITHIA’S LATEST VIDEO INSANITY: “VEIN OF CREATION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 252013
 

I first found out about this riveting ensemble of maniacs from Vancouver in March 2012 (writing about them here), and then last September we had the pleasure of debuting a Nylithia song called “Hyperthrash”. In a nutshell, they’ve been working on an album also called Hyperthrash, releasing one song at a time for download, with separate artwork and videos for each song. So far, four songs are available — “Trainsaw”, “Immersed In the Maniacal”, “Vein of Creation”, and the afore-mentioned “Hyperthrash”.

Very late last night the band uploaded their newest official video, and this one is for “Vein of Creation”, a song that originally had its premiere at MetalSucks in December 2011. It gives me an excuse to paraphrase what I’ve written before about the band’s music: This ain’t no retro-thrash. It’s thrash from some accelerated parallel universe. It’s a balls-to-the-wall, fret-burning, drum-shredding, neuron-twisting explosion. It’s a head-wrecking combo of blazing speed, eye-popping intricacy, neck-slapping grooves, and a fuckton of exuberance.

And as for the video . . . the Vein of Creation monster is among us, and ready for a good time. Continue reading »

HEAD WRECKAGE (Part 2): ALTARS OF DESTRUCTION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 252013
 

This started as one long post collecting new stuff from three bands that I saw and heard yesterday, the common theme being what they will do to your head. I decided to break it up into three parts. Part 1 started in Germany, with Beyond. In this part, we’re jumping over to Finland.

ALTARS OF DESTRUCTION

AoD was founded in 1986 by the brothers Kimmo (guitar) and Pasi Osmo (bass) and Jukka Sandberg (drums). From what I’ve read, they were one of the earliest and most influential thrash bands in Finland, though they broke up after releasing a debut EP in 1989. They re-formed in 2007 and finally released a debut album in 2010 named Gallery of Pain. There’s a lot more detail about the band’s history in a post I wrote back in January 2012.

What made me think of them again was their release yesterday of an official video for one of the songs from Gallery, “Suicide…Are You Fucking Insane?” The video sets the album track to a montage of film from a live show, but the real star of the show is the song itself. It’s a goddamn rampage of raw, radioactive, old-school thrash with a breakdown that hits like a battle tank, and of course you gotta love it when the vocalist blasts out the song’s title. I’d like to carry around an audio clip of “ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?!?”. I hear shit on a daily basis when blasting it in someone’s face would be the perfect response.

Might work on a suicide prevention hotline, too. Continue reading »

HEAD WRECKAGE (Part 1): BEYOND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 252013
 

Yesterday I should have been doing the work that I actually get paid to do, or at least trying to finish some album reviews, for which I’m paid only by a sense that I may have done a good deed. Instead, I spent time surfing the web for something new that would leave my head a smoldering wreck. At that, at least, I succeeded. I found music from three different bands who are musically quite different from each other, but all of whom inflict some serious head wreckage.

Originally I had included all of this music in one post, but it seemed like a lot to take in, so I’ve broken it up into three parts, one for each band.

BEYOND

Is that album cover up there a thoroughly killing piece of art or what? It halted me in my tracks as soon as I saw it. It turns out to be the front cover created by Comaworx for a forthcoming album by a band named Beyond, which is projected for release by Iron Bonehead in the July/August timeframe this year. The album’s title is Fatal Power of Death.

Having been transfixed by the artwork, I went in search of music. Lo and behold, what did I find but the album’s title track and a second song called “Whirlwinds of Chaotic Carnage”, which Iron Bonehead had just uploaded to SoundCloud. I’m probably lucky that only two songs were uploaded, because they alone came close to caving in my damned skull.

The title song, “Fatal Power of Death”, is an absolute howling storm of distortion, pierced by some blistering solos that race up the scale like liquid fire and the reverberation of crippling, cavernous death metal vocals. In the mid-section, the pace slows and an Oriental-sounding melody surfaces over the subterranean grinding, changing the atmosphere — until the riff monsters and heavy-artillery percussion return for a big finish. Continue reading »

NEW VIDEOS: CHTHONIC, COBALT, AND KATECHON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 242013
 

Here are three new videos I spied this morning. All three are worth your time.

CHTHONIC

This morning, Taiwan’s Chthonic premiered yet another official video (here) for a song from their forthcoming album Bú-Tik. That album will be released by Spinefarm on May 29 in Taiwan and Japan, May 31 in Europe, June 3 in the UK, and June 18 in North America. The new song is “Sail Into the Sunset’s Fire”. According to the band, it tells a tale of pirates in East Asia during the Age Of Exploration (some of whom eventually settled along Taiwan’s western coast) who sought to overthrow both the Ming Empire of China and the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan.

You don’t get much of a sense about the song’s historical roots in the video. It was filmed in an outdoor swimming pool during an unexpected thunderstorm, and those shots are interspersed with comic-strip graphics. The music in the song itself doesn’t have as much of the ethnic flavor that I most enjoy in what Chthonic have done previously — it’s more of a straight-ahead, Scandinavian-styled melodeath romp. But hey, I’m entertained anyway.

Watch the video next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MERCENARY, DARK TRANQUILLITY, BALFOR, AND MAJESTIC DOWNFALL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
May 242013
 

I’ve collected here new music from three bands and older music from a fourth, all of which I came across yesterday. It’s all good, all worth hearing. So read on and listen up . . .

MERCENARY

Denmark’s Mercenary has finished work on their seventh album, Through Our Darkest Days, and it’s due for release on July 26 through NoiseArt Records. It follows an album — 2011’s Metamorphosis — that received a decidedly lukewarm reception from critics. Yesterday the band debuted the new album’s title track, which I found out about via a tip from my NCS comrade TheMadIsraeli. His first impression? “It sounds like the Mercenary of 11 Dreams is back”.

I never heard that 2004 album, though I’ve certainly seen a lot of praise heaped upon it, so I can’t comment on how the new track compares to 11 Dreams. But I do think this new song is a good one, mixing Scandinavian riff chugs, a very catchy keyboard/guitar melody, and an extended guitar solo that’s quite nice, with vocals that are a mix of harsh howls and raspy cleans. As I listened, I was reminded of late-stage Soilwork. I’m curious what other people who know Mercenary’s previous music better than I do think of this. Continue reading »

CONVERGE RELEASE “POUND FOR POUND: THE WOLVERINE BLUES SESSIONS”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 232013
 

You may remember that last August Converge and Napalm Death released a split, both digitally and as a 7″ vinyl record. (If you missed that, it’s still available here.) Converge contributed two songs to the split, a song called “No Light Escapes” and a cover of Entombed’s masterful “Wolverine Blues”. The cover song included a multitude of guest vocals. It turns out that when Converge created the cover track, each of the guest vocalists recorded a full version of the song, which Converge then used to compile the final version included on the split.

Today, Converge released a digital EP entitled Pound For Pound: The Wolverine Blues Sessions, which includes the complete mixes of each guest vocalist’s recording (as well as Jacob Bannon’s and Nate Newton’s), presented as five unique versions of the song, to wit:

1. Wolverine Blues w/ Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, etc)
2. Wolverine Blues w/ Jacob Bannon (Converge, Wear Your Wounds)
3. Wolverine Blues w/ Kevin Baker (All Pigs Must Die, The Hope Conspiracy, etc)
4. Wolverine Blues w/ Nate Newton (Converge, Doomriders, Old Man Gloom, etc)
5. Wolverine Blues w / Tomas Lindberg (Disfear, At The Gates, etc) and Kurt (Converge, etc)

Check out a full stream of this unusual EP right after the jump. You can get it here.  Cool cover art, too. Continue reading »

NEW AND NOTABLE: COPROLITH, ORPHANED LAND, AND POWER TRIP

 Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 222013
 

In this post I’ve collected a small group of new songs that I came across while wandering through the interhole over the last 24 hours.

COPROLITH

I’ve been keeping an eye on this Finnish band (pictured above) since hearing their 2012 EP Hate Infected. When I reviewed it, I characterized the music as “the military-industrial complex of the nether regions, an effective fusion of titanic death metal might and melodic black metal hooks” and compared the band to the likes of Behemoth and Hate. They now have a new album on the way entitled Death March, which will be released in the fall of this year by Violent Journey Records.

Yesterday they released a music video for one of the new songs, “Life=Disease”, which is now available digitally through Amazon and probably elsewhere. The song reminds me less of those Polish behemoths than Hate Infected. It has more of an old-school death metal flavor, with a bit of a charred crust. It hammers and howls forcefully, with teeth bared and claws raking. Continue reading »

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