WEASELS RIP MY ANKLE: CRYPTICUS, NIDINGR, ARKHUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  25 Responses »
Nov 092012
 

So good to be back in Seattle after a fucking 6-hour flight home last night. Did you know that your feet swell up something fierce after 6 hours at 40,000 feet? Did you know that this is really not a good thing if you’re trying to recover from a serious ankle sprain? Did you know that it could cause your toes to turn black and your ankle to turn red and blue even a week after your accident, so that it feels like weasels are ripping into it? Well, now you know.

Did you know that if your hearing is sort of shitty and you try to listen to metal at the proper head-wrecking volume on your earbuds during a 6-hour night flight that your neighbors who are trying to sleep will look at you like they want to set you on fire? Did you know that if enough neighbors look at you like that, and you’re a weenie, you will sheepishly remove the earbuds and lose out on the chance to catch up on new metal for 6 hours and instead drink heavily and become surly and morose? Well, now you know.

Did you know that when your body’s time clock is still in a time zone that’s three hours later than where you are, your body will wake up thinking that it’s 6:30 a.m. when in fact it’s 3:30 a.m.and you’ve only been asleep for 4 hours after being awake for nearly 24 hours and you will feel like day-old shit with your ankle throbbing and be unable to fall asleep again? Now you know.

Did you know that even when you’re a really important metal blogger and you’re mostly out of touch with metal for more than a day, metal is still happening, as if it did not depend on your paying attention in order to continue happening? Amazingly, that seems to be true.

Here’s what I found this morning in between hobbling trips to the coffee maker to recharge my bowl-sized Deathwish coffee cup: Crypticus (U.S.), Nidingr (Norway), and Arkhum (U.S.). Continue reading »

A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT: DEVOURMENT, WEAPON THE FACTORY?, SYSTEM DIVIDE, ABIGAIL WILLIAMS, AND CLOAK OF ALTERING

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Nov 082012
 

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, wherever you are.  It’s morning for me, three time zones east of where I usually am. I’m pressed for time today because of my day job. I’ll be spending several hours trying to extricate those coke-filled balloons from my ass so I can make my delivery and get back on a plane to Seattle. I got them way to far up in there this time, I’m afraid.

But although I’m pressed for time, I did have time to make a quick review of my usual sources and have a few things to pass along to you, in no particular order: Devourment are releasing a new album; System Divide are going home; Weapon the Factory? are disrobing; Abigail Williams are reuniting; and Cloak of Altering is killing me.  Details to follow.

DEVOURMENT

I saw that these grand-daddies of brutal slamming death metal will have a new album out next year on the Relapse label. Relapse released a teaser video for the thing. I’m ready. I’m more than ready. Check it out following the jump. Continue reading »

ROUND-UP: BOSSE-DE-NAGE, ZUBROWSKA, OBSCENE ENTITY, HELL MILITIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 062012
 

This post is about as lame a post as any post I’ve ever posted, except for the post on Saturday that was actually entitled LAME. (My ankle is now black and blue, but improving, and thank you for asking). To be clear, this post is not lame because the music I’m recommending is lame. Far from it! It’s lame because I don’t have the time or the mental clarity to add much to the recommendations, such as an explanation.

My day job is imposing on me at the moment (and this will continue over the next two days), and to be brutally honest, I’m also experiencing some anxiety over the outcome of state and national elections. Between those two things, this is all I can manage at the moment:

BOSSE-DE-NAGE

A few weeks ago I reviewed a new split release by deafheaven and Bosse-De-Nage. Both of the two songs on the split are long — 10:37 and 9:02, respectively — and I expressed the opinion that together they made up one of the best short releases of 2012. When I wrote the review, only the deafheaven track was available for streaming. Now, so is the Bosse-De-Nage track.

The split will be released by The Flenser Records on November 20, both on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl can be pre-ordered from The Flenser here, and it’s also available at deafheaven’s store at this location. Watch The Flenser Facebook or Bandcamp pages for news about the digital release. The BDN song is streaming at Stereogum as well as on YouTube, and it’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

CRAWLING, WITH NERGAL, INTRONAUT, AND SULPHUR AEON

 Eye-Catchers, Interviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 032012
 

As explained in today’s earlier post, I’ve had a bit of a setback. I can’t walk very well at the moment. But crawling still works. And as I crawled through the interhole and my e-mail this morning while moaning in pain and feeling like a prize dumbass, I found some news about Nergal (Poland) and Intronaut (U.S.) and new music from Sulphur Aeon (Germany) that made me feel better, at least psychologically if not physically.

NERGAL GETS SOME HIGH LEVEL SUPPORT

I saw a note on the Facebook page of Behemoth’s frontman Nergal that looked interesting. You may have seen (either here or elsewhere) that Nergal’s legal troubles in his native Poland have been revived thanks to a ruling by the Polish Supreme Court that he can be criminally prosecuted for offending people’s religious feelings even if he didn’t intend to do that. This whole mess stems from a 2007 Behemoth performance in which Nergal tore up a Bible on stage.

There are plenty of places in the world where governments repress speech, sometimes violently, but I don’t usually think of Poland that way. So I was surprised when the country’s highest court made it easier, not harder, for people in Poland to be prosecuted for expressing “offensive” thoughts about religion.

What Nergal’s note revealed is that the day after this abysmal court ruling, the European Commission — which is the executive body of the European Union, of which Poland is a member — released a statement in support of Nergal. Citing the European Convention of Human Rights, a treaty that Poland signed which protects freedom of expression, the EC stated: “This right protects not only information or ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also those that offend, shock or disturb.”

The full article cited by Nergal is here. It’s not clear how the EC’s position or Poland’s treaty obligations will affect the progress of the case against Nergal, but it’s definitely an interesting and encouraging development. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: NAPALM DEATH, MALEVOLENCE, AND WEST OF MEMPHIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 022012
 

When I resort to two posts in one day that do nothing but throw new music videos at you, you can infer that a lot of good videos have come out in a short space of time AND that I’ve been busy at the old fuckin’ day job. Today, both inferences would be correct. And so here I am, following the five-video post from earlier today with a three-video post now. This one includes new ones from Napalm Death (UK), Malevolence (Portugal) — plus a brand new trailer for a feature-length documentary about The West Memphis Three that’s opening in theaters on Christmas Day.

NAPALM DEATH

The new Napalm Death clip is billed as the “Everyday Pox” tour video. It is indeed a tour video of sorts, since it consists of performance footage synced to the recorded music. And it does include the song “Everyday Pox” (including the cool, creepy John Zorn sax solo), which appears on the band’s 2012 monster Utilitarian, but there are actually two songs in the video.

It begins, as the album does, with an instrumental number called “Circumspect”, and I love the combination of these two tracks, the first bleeding into the second. Those two songs are not side-by-side on the album, but maybe they should have been. “Circumspect” is slow, atmospheric, and icy. It’s not the kind of song most people would expect from this band, but it’s not the first time Napalm Death have thrown curve balls into their albums either. “Everyday Pox” also proceeds at a slightly slower pace than the typically explosive Napalm Death grind blast (though there’s certainly plenty of blasting in the song). Pairing them is a match made in hell. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: WEAPON, UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION, ANTROPOFAGUS, KATALEPSY, DORDEDUH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Nov 022012
 

I was all set to go with this post, all set to call it “BRUTALITY!”, because that was the unifying theme of the new music videos I found from Weapon (Canada), Unfathomable Ruination (UK), Antropofagus (Italy), and Katalepsy (Russia). And then I saw a new official live video from Dordeduh (Romania) — not really brutal, but it still grabbed me. So I’m including it at the end and dropping the “BRUTALITY!” post title.

There are so many videos I want to share in this post that I’m doing my goddamned best to pare down my own verbiage. Here we go . . .

WEAPON

Weapon’s new album Embers and Revelations is out now on the Relapse label. We haven’t reviewed it yet, but it’s well worth your time — a fusing of first wave black and death metal with melodic touches that recall the Bangladeshi origins of the band’s leader, Vetis Monarch.

Yesterday Relapse premiered a lyric video for a brutal Weapon track named “Crepuscular Swamp”. Here it is: Continue reading »

VENOM: “BLACK METAL” TURNS 30

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 012012
 

I learned through a post this morning by Full Metal Attorney that today — November 1 — is the 30th anniversary of the release of Black Metal by Venom. Here’s my own story about discovering the album.

I came to Black Metal very late in my education as a metalhead — as in about four years ago. I had only recently started listening seriously to black metal (the music genre, not the album), after having failed to appreciate the music when I first dabbled in it. At some point during my black metal explorations, I learned that the roots of the genre name could be traced back to Venom’s 1982 album.

So I listened to the album, and became confused — because it didn’t sound much like the black metal bands whose music I was exploring at the time — bands such as Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth, Darkthrone, Satyricon, and Rotting Christ. It was rough and raw and filthy enough, but much of it sounded like a mix of speed metal and punk with sneering growly vocals, the kind of music that seemed more connected to the development of thrash and more in line with Motörhead-style heavy metal, or even Morbid Angel-style death metal, than what I thought of at the time as “black metal”. I was missing the connection.

I also didn’t love the album. I tend to agree with Full Metal Attorney’s assessment — that it’s a real hit-and-miss affair. I’m sure my reaction was influenced by the fact that I was hearing the album so long after it made its early mark, but a lot of it sounded cheesy as hell, even annoying. As Full Metal Attorney writes in his post, “It is absolutely essential, but listening to the whole thing is not”: Continue reading »

THE DAY AFTER, WITH EYE OF SOLITUDE, FUNK VIGILANTE, BLAST RITES, AND LOKURAH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Nov 012012
 

As I always do, I geared up for trick-or-treaters at the NCS headquarters last night. I filled a bowl with nasty death metal band stickers to hand out, because candy is apparently bad for children. To enhance the spooky atmosphere of the night, I bought lengths of pig entrails from an unlicensed butcher and draped them from tree limbs. I shut off all the exterior lights so the kids and their parents would experience the thrill of seeing dozens of large glowing eyes in the loris compound when they hit them with their flashlights.

To provide a full sensory experience, I lit bags of burning dog shit that I’ve been collecting from local parks over the last few months and strategically placed them along the dirt driveway, which has been turned into a mud pit from three straight days of heavy rain in the Seattle area. Above the burning shit bags, I impaled simulated goat corpses on spikes so they would be lit from below and look extra spooky. Cool idea, huh?  I even rigged up a couple of boom boxes outside so they’d start blasting Mayhem when activated by motion sensors.

And then I waited. And waited. And waited. And once again, no trick-or-treaters arrived. I don’t get it. Don’t kids trick or treat any more?

While I waited for those timid knocks on the door, I watched a lengthy series of news reports about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York and got my own Halloween shocks from that. Really awful stuff, seeing the most densely populated part of the U.S. completely fucked, with massive flooding, fires, homes lost, dozens dead, 6 million people still without power, sewage and toxic chemicals floating in flooded streets, and the prospect that storms like this are going to happen more frequently in the years ahead.

To cheer myself up and block out the impatient gibbering from the loris compound, I also watched four new metal videos, to while away the hours while waiting for the non-existent trick-or-treaters. The bands are: Eye of Solitude (UK), Funk Vigilante (Canada), Blast Rites (Poland), and Lokurah (France). Continue reading »

MUSIC FOR SAMHAIN: SATANIC BLOODSPRAYING, VOMITCHAPEL, AND A.M.S.G.

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 312012
 

“Halloween” is a contraction (first used in the 16th century by the Scots) of “All Hallow’s Evening”. It’s the night before a Christian feast day (Nov 1) known as All Hallows or All Saints. How a Christian tradition got wrapped up in ghouls and goblins and spirits of the dead is a long story. But at least a big part of the story is that, like many Christian holidays, this one was intertwined with (and piggy-backed on) a far older pagan celebration known as Samhain (pronounced sah-win or sow-in).

“Samhain” comes from the Old Irish word for “summer’s end”, and in the medieval Gaelic calendar it marked the end of the harvest season and the coming of winter. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “In much of the Gaelic world, bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Some of these rituals hint that they may once have involved human sacrifice.” It was “seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world.”

There’s a metric fuckton of metal that would be appropriate to play in commemoration of Samhain tonight, but I thought I’d go with some quite diverse black metal that I heard for the first time over the last 24 hours. The bands are Satanic BloodSpraying (Bolivia), Vomitchapel (U.S.), and Profound Lore’s latest signing,  A.M.S.G. (Canada), and this post includes two EP reviews, so settle in.

SATANIC BLOODSPRAYING

I’ve not been able to find much information about this Bolivian band beyond the fact that Hells Headbangers released their debut album At the Mercy of Satan in July of this year. It’s an 8-song, 24-minute barrage of vicious, swarming riffs, relentless drumbeats, and vocal blood spray. The music is mangling but also imminently headbang-worthy. Continue reading »

TUESDAY TUMULT: MITOCHONDRION, RETALIATORY MEASURES, PAROXSIHZEM, VON, AND VOYAGER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 302012
 

Here’s another daily round-up of tumultuous metal (and artwork) that caught my attention while I rooted around the interhole over the last 24 hours. In no particular order:

MITOCHONDRION

These Vancouver-based beasts have two releases on the near horizon. First, Dark Descent Records will be releasing a 7″ single named Antinumerology that includes two new Mitochondrion songs: “Insummation” and “137 (Antinumerology)”. The striking artwork has been created by Richard Friend (Loss, Father Befouled), and you can see it on the right (click the image to see a larger version). I haven’t found a release date yet, though it looks like sometime in 2013.

Second, Siege Engine Records will be releasing a double LP version of the band’s 2011 album, Parasignosis. The label is giving away a free test press copy of the LP, though you have to be on Facebook to enter the contest. To do that, “Like” the Siege Engine Records Facebook page and then click on the “Contest!” link toward the top of the page and enter the e-mail address associated with your Facebook account.

The artwork for the LP was created by Alexander L. Brown, and apparently will include a Parasignosis poster that looks stunning (not sure if this will be sold with the LP or separately). A detail from the poster is up above. A photo of the whole thing is just after the jump, and more detail shots can be seen here. This is really great work. Continue reading »

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