HAPPY SAINT SHITFACED DAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Mar 172013
 

Yeah, it’s fuckin’ St Patrick’s Day. I usually look forward to this day, partly because I have a soft spot in my heart for the Irish even though I have no Irish ancestry and partly because, hey, any excuse to get wasted. And is there more to St Patrick’s Day than getting shitfaced? Does anyone sit in quiet contemplation of the contributions of the Irish people to the development of civilization?

But I have to say I’m not excited about Saint Shitfaced Day this year because I’m on the home stretch of the fuckin’ work project that has kept me away from Seattle for 3 weeks and counting. It’s now like a race to the finish, with Tuesday slated for the project’s completion, and I have no freedom to party at all today.

In fact, this is the only post I’ll be able to manage today, having worked til midnight last night and having started again at 6 a.m. this morning. Consequently, his will be real quick and dirty.

GOATWHORE

I saw that photo up there of the almighty Goatwhore playing at the IndieMerchStore Riverboat Party at SXSW in Austin yesterday. Fuckin’ metal. Also kind of different to see Goatwhore playing in broad daylight. Amazingly, they didn’t burst into flames. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HACRIDE, DYNASTY OF DARKNESS, ZOMBIEFICATION, AND HATE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Mar 152013
 

I caught a slight break from the daily work grind last night, long enough to find three items I think are worth your time, and then NCS writer DGR added a fourth.

HACRIDE

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Hacride’s new album is in my “highly anticipated” category for 2013. As in, I get high thinking about it. It’s not simply that the band have proven their worth with their past releases, it’s that they’ve proven they’re unlikely to stand still and simply deliver more of the same (though I would be happy enough with that). So, curiosity is one reason I’ve been eager to hear Back To Where You’ve Never Been.

The first taste came yesterday when Metal Sucks premiered a song from the album named “Overcome”, and man, it’s really strong. It’s loud, it’s brash, it’s packed with energy, it’s built around some killer grooves, and it’s interesting. I even dig the clean singing. Don’t waste time, go here to check this out. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ARSIS, AOSOTH, MECHINA, AGONIA RECORDS, AND FINNTROLL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 142013
 

I thought I’d let you know that despite my inability to contribute much to the site the last few days, I’m still alive. I’m beginning Day 18 away from Seattle, mired in a seemingly endless project for my fucking day job, and largely unable to listen to music, pay much attention to metal news, or write much. However, the end is in sight: it appears I’ll be able to go home next Tuesday or Wednesday.

While my blog life has been fucked up, other folks have been stepping up to fill the hole (if only they could fill the holes in my head), and one of them is DGR. In this post are some items he discovered recently, along with a few I came across this morning that we’d like to share with you — Islander

ARSIS (written by DGR)

The glorious Arsis info dump of 2013 happened yesterday, with the guys announcing pretty much everything you’ve ever wanted to know about their upcoming album Unwelcome, which will see release April 30th of this year. Continue reading »

THE AMENTA BARE THEIR TEETH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 142013
 

(DGR has a few things to say about the new video from The Amenta.)

If there were a list of bands I had to come up with who I think sounded like the apocalypse, The Amenta would easily rank alongside groups like Behemoth, Xerath, Zonaria, and Ulcerate. They’ve got a really good grip on that loud and hollow sound that one would imagine emanating from a group playing at the end of the world.

Their music has a very loud machine quality that sounds like the grinding of gears on top of a heavy blast of death metal, with the occasional black metal shriek and blast. I personally came in late in the game with this group of Australians back when they made their EP Void avalable for download. Now they have released a music video for their new song ‘Teeth’ that you can view at the end of this post, which they have released ahead of their new album Flesh Is Heir – which hits toward the end of this month.

The way the video plays out is that, well, unfortunate things happen, and a large part of it winds up being a creepy long-haired dude crawling all over a lady with enough chains and grime to have been cleaned out of a prop shop. We must be early in their relationship by the time the video for “Teeth” was filmed because after awhile I imagine she’d probably just have about a half hour set aside for ‘creepy dude to crawl all over me with chains and what not’ as part of her day. Continue reading »

A DGR ROUND-UP: THE OCEAN AND ROBOTS PULLING LEVERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 122013
 

(NCS writer DGR brings us a round-up of new music from The Ocean and Robots Pulling Levers.)

Here’s a couple of things that caught my eye over the weekend and yesterday.

A couple days ago The Ocean premiered a new song off of their upcoming two disc album Pelagial (one with vocals – the other an instrumental version) entitled “Bathyalpelagic II: The Wish in Dreams”, and it is a solid piece of metal for those who enjoyed the group’s heavier aspect from their two-part release Heliocentric/Anthropocentric back in 2010.

It’s been three years since those two discs hit, and so far this intro song proves that the band have not decided to rest on their laurels during this passage of time. It’s not as moody and introspective as the stuff on Heliocentric – instead going for the much more straightforward bombast and powerful chorus work of something like “She Was The Universe”. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 53: DARKENING, MONTE PENUMBRA, AND BOVINE

 Free Shit, MISCELLANY, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 102013
 

Today is Day 14 of me being away from home for my job. Since last night was a Saturday night, I got a break from the usual day-and-night grind. Carousing with my co-workers, I ate too much, had a few drinks, and then lost an hour of sleep because of daylight savings time beginning here in the U.S. But before collapsing into bed I did play the MISCELLANY game for the first time since last December.

For those people who are new to the site or have forgotten, here’s how this works: I randomly pick an assortment of bands whose music I’ve never heard (usually bands with new releases who are relatively unknown). I listen to one or two songs, not knowing what the music will be like, and I write my impressions. And then I stream for you what I’ve heard so you can make up your own mind.

For this session, there really was no rhyme or reason to what I picked. The music is from Darkening (U.S.), Monte Penumbra (Portugal), and Bovine (UK). Continue reading »

A TASTE OF EYECONOCLAST’S NEW ALBUM: “DRONES OF THE AWAKENING”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 092013
 

Within the shantytown of Blogville, we were relatively early supporters of Italy’s Eyeconoclast, reviewing their 2011 EP Sharpening Our Blades On the Mainstream here. Last July, Prosthetic Records announced that they had signed the band and that Eyeconoclast would be entering the studio to record their first album for Prosthetic. We wrote about that, too.

And now the album is finished. It has a name — Drones of the Awakening — and a cool album cover (by Fabio Listrani), and it’s scheduled for release in NorthAm on April 16. And yesterday Prosthetic released a teaser reel of excerpts from each track on the album. Before offering a few potentially incoherent thoughts about the teaser, I want to make sure you know who is in this band.

It includes former Hour of Penance drummer Mauro Mercurio, bassist Paolo “Urizen” Ballarotto (who used to play with Malfeitor), guitarist Stefano Morabito (who is also a very talented record producer at his 16th Cellar Studios — he recorded the new album), guitarist Alessio Cosenza, and vocalist Giuseppe Di Giorgio (Black Therapy). In other words, Eyeconoclast is loaded with talent. Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: ROUNDABOUT ROUND-UP (PART 2)

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 092013
 

(This is Part 2 of a two-part post, in which NCS contributor Austin Weber puts the spotlight on six underground bands. In this part the subjects are Terracide, Fields of Elysium, and In Human Form.  Part 1 can be found here.)

The new age of music has been creeping into a higher plane of existence for some time, due to more inexpensive and accessible sound-recording equipment intertwined with the development of  many new exciting avenues for independent distribution. Combined with the ability to raise funds without label support, this has leveled the playing field for the creation of new music. But this is a dual-edged sword because it can mean a lack of promotion for many groups who truly are doing great things. This is an article for those kinds of bands.

Terracide– Primordium

If Iron Maiden taught us anything it’s that melodies and metal rule, and I am a huge fan of anything from power metal to melodic death metal. Terracide are a new group from Washington, DC, playing a high-voltage combo of energetic power metal, thrash, and death metal. This is a step up from both your average melodic death metal, due to the huge power metal influence and flashes of thrash inherent in their music. Continue reading »

GOROD HEADLINE BLOODLETTING NORTH AMERICA 9, POLYPHIA MAKE WAVES, AND BETHLEHEM PLAN THEIR NEXT ALBUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 082013
 

I just took a short break from the work grind, flitted around the interhole and the NCS e-mail inbox like a blowfly in search of a raw wound, and came across three items I wanted to pass along. Two are news items, one is new music.

TOURISM: BLOODLETTING NORTH AMERICA 9

I saw that a new North American tour has just been announced. It begins May 3 and runs through June 1. It made my already bulging eyes bulge further from their sockets, sort of like what happens to frogs when you inflate them with a bicycle pump.

The headliner is Gorod. I could stop there, but the rest of the line-up is cool, too: Inanimate Existence, Kamikabe, and Vale of Pnath.

But that’s not all.  On selected dates, the tour will also be joined by Fallujah, Pyrexia, Applaud, The Impaler, River of Nihil, The Kennedy Veil, Cognitive, and Archspire. Continue reading »

COMING UP FOR AIR: DAMNATION PLAN, KHORS, ONE INCH GIANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 082013
 

Hi. This is Day 12 of me being away from home and working like an indentured servant on my fucking day-and-night job. I know there’s been tremendous curiosity about what I am doing. I’m not at liberty to disclose where I am, but I thought I’d share a few details about the nature of the project.

As some of you have guessed, it does indeed involve super-science. My colleagues and I are testing methods for grafting additional penises onto parts of the male anatomy where penises are not usually found. There’s a gamers convention in town, so we’ve had no trouble finding willing test subjects.

We’ve had more trouble finding willing penis donors, so we’ve just been taking them without consent. Because there’s a gamers convention in town, we’ve had no trouble finding people who aren’t actually using their penises, so no harm done. That’s all I can tell you at the moment.

As you know, the demands of the project have almost entirely prevented me from listening to metal or writing about it for almost two weeks. However, the work schedule for today and tomorrow isn’t quite as awful as it has been, so I have a brief window of opportunity to come up for air and see what I’ve been missing. Here’s a small selection of items I found this morning. Continue reading »

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