TODAY IN THRASH: EVILE AND ESSENCE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 262013
 

While wandering the interhole last night and this morning I came across many items of interest — too many to pack into a single round-up post. So I’ll subdivide my findings and start here, with two discoveries that should interest thrash heads far and wide.

EVILE

You’re looking at the first item above. It’s the recently revealed cover art for Skull, the forthcoming fourth album by the UK’s Evile, which is due for release on May 27 by Earache Records and Century Media. The artist is none other than NCS favorite Eliran Kantor. Like all of his art, this piece snags the attention and pulls it into the details of the work — which are mysterious. Evile explain that the artwork embodies a concept that’s connected to the music . . . but what that is we’ll have to learn later as more details trickle out.

As for the music, Evile drummer Ben Carter is quoted as saying, “Our fans can expect this album to be a return to our thrashier roots, as well as exploring new ground in typical EVILE form.”

And now it’s time for some actual music instead of musical forecasts. Continue reading »

THE “YEAR ZERO” VIDEO: AN INSIDE LOOK AT GHOST B.C.’S PRE-PERFORMANCE RITUAL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 252013
 

The Nameless Ghouls in Sweden’s Ghost B.C. have jealously guarded their true identities, which makes it so surprising that without much fanfare they’ve now revealed them for all the world to see.

Earlier this month the band released a track named “Year Zero” from their forthcoming second album Infestissumam (Latin for “hostile”), which is due for release on April 9. Today they premiered an official video for the same song. Apart from cryptic images of children, the main action consists of a group of women of different ages assembling for a visit by their lord and master and a light repast of raw steak, grapes, and goblets of wine.

All of this proves to be simply spiritual and material nourishment in preparation for donning the costumery of Ghost B.C. and finishing off the track in the garb to which we Ghost fans have become accustomed.

So there you have it. Secrets revealed. And that’s not all that’s revealed: we get to see the band members buck nekkid when they change clothes. Which means this video is NSFW. Continue reading »

UNEARTHED: SHEVILS, ÖGENIX, THE SOLEMN CURSE, AND TAKEN BY THE TIDE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 252013
 

Yesterday I devoted space to four under-the-radar bands with divergent styles of metal that I thought deserved more attention from fans of extreme music. Shining the spotlight on deserving but relatively unheralded bands has consistently been one of this site’s objectives, but my recent day-job death march put me way behind in doing it. So I’m doing it again today, with four more bands unearthed from the underground who have recently released new music. Once again, their musical styles are all over the map.

SHEVILS

Shevils are based in Oslo, Norway. They released their debut EP last year under the title Necropolis, and earlier this month they premiered a new song named “We Walk On Shattered Glass”, which will appear on an upcoming album that’s projected for release in the fall of 2013. I took a chance on the song, not knowing anything about the band, and it kicked my ass right up between my shoulder blades. This has made it difficult to sit down, but I’m not complaining.

The new song delivers hardcore vehemence with musical flair, combining skull-pounding grooves, vein-bursting vocals, and a catchy melody that will get stuck in your head. Continue reading »

TROLLFEST COVER BRITNEY SPEARS (and TOM WAITS) AND SUIDAKRA REVEAL NEW COVER ART

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 252013
 

This morning brought new goodies from two of our favorite folk metal bands, who enjoy capital letters so much that they refuse to stop at just one: Norway’s TrollfesT and Germany’s SuidAkrA.

SUIDAKRA

SuidAkrA will be releasing a new album via AFM Records on May 24. Its name is Eternal Defiance and it will include 10 tracks plus a bonus song (“Mrs McGrath”). This morning the band unveiled the album’s cover art by Kris Verwimp. It’s an eye-catcher, and one that makes me curious about the significance of the four faces superimposed on the red dragon. Time will tell . . . I’m hoping for good things from this album.

TROLLFEST

The world’s premier exponents of True Norwegian Balkan Metal also have something new on the way — a 12” picture vinyl entitled A Decade Of Drekkadence, which the band is releasing in celebration of their 10th Anniversary. The picture disc, created by Swedish cartoonist Jonas Darnell and designer Terje Johnsen, is also an eye-catcher, but in a different way — nutty instead of dramatic — but what did you expect from these guys? Here it is: Continue reading »

OBSCURITY: GEVURAH, SYN:DROM, THRAWSUNBLAT, AND ODRADEK ROOM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 242013
 

We’re sitting on a cornucopia of promos for forthcoming releases by relatively high-profile bands such as Amorphis, Arsis, Children of Bodom, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Finntroll, Heaven Shall Burn, and Hypocrisy. We will be reviewing some of those, and more that I haven’t named. But this morning I felt like exploring new music from more obscure bands whose music I’d never heard. As usual, there’s no rhyme or reason to what I picked.

GEVURAH

The obscurity of this two-man Montreal band is likely to be short-lived since they’ve now been signed by Profound Lore. PL plans to release Gevurah’s five-track debut EP Necheshirion (Hebrew for “snake-like”) on May 28. I haven’t yet seen much publicity about this news, but I did find a stream of one song from the EP, “Flesh Bounds Desecrated”.

That song is an unmitigated aural assault of blackened death metal (or deathened black metal). With almost overpowering force, the band deliver a fast-moving wave-front of blasting drums and harrowing guitar and bass licks, with raw mid-range vocals that scrape like sharpened nails on skin. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELPHEGOR, BLOOD RED THRONE, AND BLACK FUCKING CANCER

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 232013
 

I’m making a slow start on the blog today. I was putting the finishing touches on a pocket-sized fusion reactor that runs on spit, produces beer as a by-product, and will supply the power (and beer) needs of an entire neighborhood for a century. I’ve been working on the idea for a few days and figured I’d just go ahead and get er done.

Also, I stayed up late last night partying with my co-workers after completing that month-long day-job project I’ve been whining about, and I got obliterated.

Anyways, here are a few things I saw and heard this morning after finishing the reactor and waiting for those skull trolls in my head to stop hammering on shit with lead mallets. I hate skull trolls.

BELPHEGOR

According to a press release I got, Austria’s Belphegor have finished tracking drums, bass, and guitar for their new album, working with producer Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal). That’s the good news. The bad news is that the release of the new album has been pushed back to early 2014. Frontman Helmuth Lehner,  who nearly died last year as a result of complications from a typhus infection he contracted on tour in Brazil, is scheduled to record vocals in June and July, with mixing and mastering to be done in September. Continue reading »

REVEL IN FLESH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 212013
 

You would be forgiven if you thought the title of this post was a command from us to you or a statement of your humble editor’s “words to live by”. However, it is instead the name of a German death metal band whose members previously paid dues in bands such as Immortal Rites, Dawn of Dreams, and Apophis. Come April 12, FDA Rekotz will release the second album by Revel In Flesh, Manifested Darkness.

Two songs from the new album are now available for streaming, with the second one going up just yesterday. I was attracted to the music because I heard good things about the band’s debut album (Deathevokation), because I’m really enjoying the new album’s cover art (by Spanish artist Juanjo Castellano), because Manifested Darkness was mixed and mastered at Unisound Studio by Dan Swanö, and mainly because I’m just fuckin’ addicted to the style of metal to which Revel In Flesh pays homage.

And that style (mainly, though not exclusively) is the kind of Swedish death metal popularized by the likes of Nihilism, Entombed, Dismember, and Grave. Now if you’re the kind of listener who does an eye-roll when hearing about yet another band plumbing the well-plumbed depths of that genre, bear with me a few minutes longer. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP, WITH HEAVEN SHALL BURN, CHILDREN OF BODOM, AND ALTAR OF PLAGUES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 202013
 

I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to go home to Seattle tonight after more than 3 weeks of grueling bullshit for my day job. I even had a couple of hours yesterday to start catching up on all the metal I missed while buried in work. Of course, I found a lot of new things. In this post are a few of the more recent discoveries.

HEAVEN SHALL BURN

Yesterday, Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn released  a second song from their forthcoming album Veto. Its name is “Die Stürme Rufen Dich”, which means “the storms call you” (according to Google Translate). It’s venomous, heavy-booted music with catchy melodic hooks and Marcus Bischoff’s distinctive vox spraying acid all over everything. In other words, it’s recognizably Heaven Shall Burn.

If you’re a fan of this band, I think you’ll like the song.  It’s up next. Continue reading »

“BAD MOTHERFUCKER” IS THE BEST MUSIC VIDEO YOU WILL SEE THIS YEAR

 Exceptions to the Rule, Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 202013
 

Yeah, that’s a pretty grandiose claim since it’s only March and I have no crystal ball that would tell me what the rest of 2013 will bring. But I can’t imagine any other music video will be more fun than “Bad Motherfucker” by Biting Elbows.

Our friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth e-mailed me about this video two days ago, and I’ve been so smashed by work that I didn’t watch it until this morning. His e-mail gave it a big build-up, and man, was he right.

Biting Elbows are an indie/punk band from Moscow, so I guess you’d have to say they’re “off topic” for this site — but the video is definitely metal. After seeing it I did a bit of research and learned that 18 months ago they released another one named “Insane Office Escape” with the music from their single “The Stampede” as the soundtrack. It was directed by the band’s front man Ilya Naishuller, and it apparently racked up 2 million hits in a matter of days.

The new video, also directed by Naishuller, is for a song named “Bad Motherfucker”. Sub-titled “Insane Office Escape 2”, it starts right after the closing moments of the previous video. It’s a piece of branded content for the Russian vodka company Neft, whose product is used at the start of the video as an impromptu disinfectant; if you pay attention, you’ll also see the company’s logo reappearing in odd places later. Continue reading »

ARCHONS CALLS IT QUITS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 192013
 

(Here’s a news update from DGR.)

It sucks to come home from work and start your day off likes this, but sometimes that is the way the world works. Melo-death group Archons are calling it quits, as posted in this message here on their Facebook page. The opening section is in French so I grabbed the pertinent bit for you guys here

We have an important announcement to do today. We officially announce you that ARCHONS has decided to disband. The decision was taken in good will from everybody. We all want to pass on to something else. Sadly, this means the second album won’t be released. Even if most of the recording is done, there is still too much to do. We thank all of you for your incredible support for all these years. We will never forget what we lived with Archons. Thank you!

I really enjoyed these guys and their debut disc The Consequences Of Silence, and while I don’t think the group from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, fully escaped sounding a bit like “Arch DarkTranquilArsis”, as one joking user put it, I still thought it was a damn good hybrid and Archons did do a lot with the genre – given its inherent scent of stagnation. They had excellent guitar work and were able to write some damn good music. Continue reading »

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