VREID’S NEW VIDEO FOR “THE REAP” IS KILLER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 112013
 

In our review of Vreid’s new album Welcome Farewell, Andy Synn compared the listening experience to sex. He said some other things, too, but that’s the part I remember. I remember the music, too. Welcome Farewell is dynamite, and destined to be on year-end lists of all right-thinking metalheads.

I think my favorite song on the album is “The Reap”. It’s massively infectious, with wonderful guitar melodies wrapped around a swinging rhythm, but still black at its core. It’s pretty much guaranteed to be on a certain year-end list I’ll be making 10 or 11 months from now. I’m so happy that the band chose this song for their first official video from Welcome Farewell.

I’m also really fuckin’ happy with the video, especially because it includes animation by Kim Holm, a Norwegian cartoonist who (among other things) created the separate pieces of artwork for each song on  Sólstafir’s 2011 album Svartir Sandar (I collected all of those creations in this post). I’d also like to applaud the video’s director Einar Loftesnes for making something that visually captures the spirit of the music so well.

Check out the video next; the album is due for release by Indie Recordings on March 5.
Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 3): ROTTING CHRIST, STARKILL, CULT OF LUNA, AND MUSE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

This is the third and final installment in my Sunday round-up of new music. These are all items that emerged last week, but I didn’t make room for them on the days of their release. After the first item, the remainder are all new videos.

ROTTING CHRIST

Allow me to repeat, for the third time, the new Rotting Christ album is brilliant. Its name is ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ (“Do What Thou Wilt”), and it’s scheduled for release by Season of Mist in North America on March 5. We’ve previously posted about the first two songs from the album that have been publicly unveiled — the title track “Kata Ton Demona Eaftou” and “In Yumen – Xibalba”. Last week, one more went up for listening — “P’unchaw Kachun – Tuta Kachun”. Since we’ll have a review soon, I’ll say only this about the new track: Listen.


Continue reading »

BANDS YOU NEED TO HEAR: SHATTERED SKIES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli reminds us about an Irish band he first introduced to us back in June 2011 — a band who have just released a single and video called “15 Minutes” from their forthcoming debut album.)

I decided to use a shirt design by this band since they don’t have official artwork for their upcoming full-length revealed yet.  I thought it quite badass.

Shattered Skies are a band I only gave a brief mention to on the site when I first started writing here.  They had a free to download debut EP out at the time called Reanimations which I included in an EP download bundle I had put together. I’ve followed the band since, because I really liked their sound and found it quite engrossing.  I felt doing a spotlight feature on them was appropriate at this time, especially since they’ve finally announced a full-length to be out this year titled The World We Used to Know.

Shattered Skies are a rather interesting band, stemming from the djent movement but having moved out into a rather odd arena that is all their own.  This band is an exception to the rule around here, a huge one, but one I feel worth bringing to the forefront.

Essentially what we have is a band who combine djent rhythmic conventions with Evergrey-style power metal. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 2): A HILL TO DIE UPON, THORNGOTH, AND OBLIVIONIZED

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

Here’s our second installment, with one more coming, of a Sunday smorgasbord of new metal for your entertainment and edification. Once again, we’re graced with brand new music from three old favorites around these parts. Let’s cut right to the chase:

A HILL TO DIE UPON

This Illinois band is a big favorite of ours; all of our previous ravings about them can be found here. Their last album, 2011’s Omens, garnered these words of praise from Andy Synn: “One of this year’s great discoveries, A Hill To Die Upon ply their trade in the bloodstained arena of blackened death metal, taking their cues from the crushing power of Satanica-era Behemoth and the decaying grooves of Sheol-era Naglfar all wrapped up in a monumental package of fire-brand riffage and pulsing drums that recalls Immortal in their prime.”

Yesterday, A Hill To Die Upon released a new single named “manden med leen”, which can be acquired for the dirt-cheap price of $1 on Bandcamp. The mid-paced song is majestic and magnetic (in part due to the effective addition of keyboards to the band’s repertoire), and includes an unexpected and quite interesting acoustic-sounding interlude. But at its core it still rips and crushes. Killer stuff. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC (Part 1): BILL SKINS FIFTH, KAKUNA Vs METAPOD, AND CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 102013
 

This may be a Sunday, but it’s not a sleepy one here on our metallic island. I have many new musics to spread around — so many that I’m dividing this round-up into 3 parts, this being the first. So as not to get too bogged down in rolling these out, I will attempt to minimize the verbiage, which of course goes against every fiber of my being. Ready, set, GO!

BILL SKINS FIFTH

Let’s start with metal from Finland. I’ve been following this band (whose name will be recognized by sharp-eyed fans of the movie Silence of the Lambs) since 2010, and have reviewed both of their EPs, which I recommend. For background, and a link for free download of their last EP (which we hosted), see all my previous blather here.

Bill Skins Fifth have now completed work on yet another EP, this one with the title For the Threat, and on Friday they premiered a lyric video for one of the new tracks, “Spotlight Junkie”. As I’ve come to expect from this band, “Spotlight Junkie” is a hook-filled slice of galloping/jabbing melodic death metal, with skull-scouring vocals, tasty dual-guitar dueling, a catchy chorus, and high energy. Check it out next (the EP can be pre-ordered here): Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KOZELJNIK, BLACK TABLE, AND VON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Feb 082013
 

My head is spinning with new music that I want to spread around and introduce to new listeners. I’m afraid I’ll never have time enough to write about all of it. Correction: I know there’ll never be enough time. I’ll do what I can, but there will necessarily be a degree of randomness in the selections. Still, I look for themes around which to organize the picks.

The theme of this post is the rich diversity of black metal. If you’re one of those people who did an eye roll at reading the last sentence, thinking that it all sounds alike, I can only say that you haven’t listened enough. Try out these three offerings as proof. They consist of new music from Kozeljnik (Serbia), Black Table (NY/NJ), and Von (California).

KOZELJNIK

This band is composed of two members: Kozeljnik, who is the vocalist, guitarist, and bass player, and L.G., the drummer. Both of them are also members of a long-running excellent Serbian band named The Stone, which I featured in a MISCELLANY post back in March 2011. Kozeljnik has released an EP and two albums (Sigil Rust and Deeper the Fall), and they’re on the verge of releasing a second EP named Null: The Acheron of Multiform Negation.

One song from the new EP is now streaming and available for download on Bandcamp (here) — “Time, Neglected in the Wound of a Martyr”. The last album, Deeper the Fall, is also available on Bandcamp (here). Last night I listened to the new song as well as the first track from Deeper the Fall, “Thetruthisdeath”. Both are them are striking, and strikingly different from the norm. Continue reading »

MORE GEMS: CREST OF DARKNESS AND OCTOPUS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 072013
 

It’s getting late in our usual posting day, but I thought I’d throw a couple more things your way that I discovered today.

CREST OF DARKNESS

Norway’s Crest of Darkness have a new album (their sixth studio release) scheduled to appear on February 25 via My Kingdom Music. Its name is In the Presence of Death, and the cover art is above. This band trace their origins back to the mid-90s, though I haven’t ever explored their albums with any care. After hearing the first song to be released from In the Presence of Death, that’s about to change.

The track is called “From the Dead”, and it grabbed my interest within the first 10 seconds. And by the time it really began to roll 30 seconds later, I was hooked. There’s no doubt that this is black metal with lots of bite, but not the kind that depends heavily on drum blasting and knife-edged whirlwinds of tremolo guitar. Depending on where you are in the song, it includes rock beats, industrial rhythms, progressive guitar parts, a head-spinning solo, and ominous, pounding riffs. I really like this and want more!

Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: NEW THINGS FROM BLUE STAHLI AND CARACH ANGREN

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 072013
 

Here are a duo of new videos I spied yesterday and this morning that I thought were worth sharing. They stood out because the visuals enhanced the music and were actually very entertaining to watch, which I honestly can’t say about most metal videos.

BLUE STAHLI

I discovered Blue Stahli thanks to an interview with him that DGR did for us last year. I’ve been following his social media and music releases since then, and it’s obvious that he’s a clever, creative, slightly unhinged dude, and I like his style, even though the kind of music he makes isn’t my usual kind of thing.

This morning, Bloody Disgusting premiered a music video for the song “ULTRAnumb”, which comes from Blue Stahli’s 2011 self-titled album, which you can acquire here. The song is a catchy piece of work with an industrial beat and harsh vox that remind me of Devin Townsend’s, plus clean crooning that doesn’t make me run for the exits. And the video . . . the video is a complete head trip, most of it funny as hell, and ultimately full of gore, too. Continue reading »

OMNIUM GATHERUM DEBUT THEIR OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR “THE UNKNOWING” . . . AND IT’S ALL BEAUTIFUL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 062013
 

Sadistic bastards that we are, we published three different glowing reviews of Beyond, the forthcoming album by Finland’s Omnium Gatherum, months before the album’s scheduled release dates (Feb 25 in Europe and Mar 5 in the U.S.). We had no music we could share with you then, but Omnium Gatherum eventually started streaming one of the album’s numerous stand-out tracks, “New Dynamic” (which you can hear at this location). And as of this morning Metal Hammer premiered an official video for a second one — “The Unknowing”.

In addition, the same song is now available on iTunes.

The imagery in this new video was an inspired choice as accompaniment for the music. Along with close-up film of the band performing the song, it depicts the majesty, power, and sublime beauty of a sunlit coastal sea from dawn until dusk. And that pretty much captures the spirit of the song — majestic, powerful, beautiful. It’s one of many tracks from the album that I’ve already put on our list of candidates for our list of 2013’s most infectious extreme metal songs.

Check out the video after the jump, and give thanks to Olli-Pekka Lappalainen, who directed and edited the video, and to director of photography, Tapio Aulu. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH: “PITCH BLACK” IS NOW OUT!

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Feb 042013
 

Last week when I caught wind that Scion AV would be releasing something new from Meshuggah tomorrow, I ventured a guess that it would be a new Meshuggah song, perhaps as part of a two-track EP, maybe with a live track included along with the new song. Well, it turns out I was right.

Yes, Pitch Black is a two-song release with a previously unreleased studio recording from 2003 — “Pitch Black” — and a live track. The second track is a previously unreleased, live version of “Dancers To A Discordant System” from obZen. Both songs are very much worth hearing and having.

What do these songs bring? Here’s a partial list: brute, bruising, chugs with that reliable Meshuggah tone; spacey cosmic ambience; near-spoken-word vocals, some of it positively robotic; a fidgety, squirming guitar solo in the title track; and funky bass lines as the foundation for what sure as fuck sound like sax solos (or a guitar tuned to sound identical to one) on both songs. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries