PLANKS, TRAINWRECK, LENTIC WATERS, KNIFEFIGHT

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 102012
 

I caved in to impulse again this morning.  While browsing the interhole to see what was happening in the world of metal, I saw a Facebook post by Planks about a show they’re playing in Plauen, Germany on November 16 with two other German bands, Trainwreck and Lentic Waters. Event details can be found here. The show seems to be part of a two-day fest called Deaf Row, and I came across a flyer for the fest that I thought was cool enough to paste on the top of this post.

Hannover is on the other side of the world from where I live in Seattle, so it seems unlikely that I’ll be at that show, unless of course the Seattle tech geeks figure out how to get my fuckin’ teleporter working again. I’ve become a big fan of Planks but didn’t know anything about Trainwreck or Lentic Waters, so I thought, what the fuck, time to check out some new music!

PLANKS

I first heard the music of Planks over the most recent Labor Day weekend and wrote about them here. What I heard was a Bandcamp stream of Planks’ amazing new album, Funeral Mouth, which is being released on October 12 but can be downloaded via that Bandcamp link right now.

In compiling today’s post, I discovered that Planks also recorded a split with one of the other bands featured on that November 16 show, Lentic Waters. The split was released in June of this year on vinyl by Apocaplexy Records (which can be ordered here), but it turns out that Apopoplexy also made the split available for free download via a link on this page. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DAYLIGHT DIES, ARES KINGDOM, SYSTEM DIVIDE, AND ULCERATE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 092012
 

Here are a few items of interest I saw between yesterday and today that I thought were worth throwing in your general direction. Catch!

DAYLIGHT DIES

A Frail Becoming, the new album by North Carolina’s Daylight Dies, is being officially released today by Candlelight Records. It’s very, very good. I hope we will have a review soon, because the album deserves whatever we can do to help spread the word.

The latest song to be released for streaming is the album’s fourth track, “Dreaming of Breathing”, which is the subject of a music video directed by Ramon Boutviseth that debuted yesterday. It’s a beautifully filmed video, and the narrative portion suits the moody, dreamlike ambience of the music, while the band footage suits all the thundering that Daylight Dies do so well in their doom-influenced brand of melodic death metal.

Check it out next . . . Continue reading »

“THE ONLY GOOD TORY”: NO CLEAN SINGING RELEASES A UK POWERVIOLENCE COMP

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Oct 082012
 

This is a milestone day for NO CLEAN SINGING. Today, in collaboration with GRIND TO DEATH, we’re launching the NCS Bandcamp page and releasing our first compilation of recorded music — The Only Good Tory — a FREE collection of 46 songs by 46 UK bands who are on the cutting edge of grind, powerviolence, harsh crust, and fastcore. It’s guaranteed to wreck heads.

The lion’s share of the credit for this blockbuster goes to our friend Alex Layzell of GRIND TO DEATH. It was he who conceived of this idea, contacted the bands, assembled the tracks, and arranged for the preparation of a killer artwork booklet prepared by the talented Kex Whelan — which includes separate artwork for each of the 46 tracks on this comp.

We’re making the comp available as a free download to support the bands — this comp is dedicated to them and their passion — and to thank the fans of honest music wherever they may live. But in the near future we’ll be offering the comp on limited-edition tape produced by DIY Noise as a prize for a competition among NCS readers. We haven’t yet thought up a contest for how to do this, but it will probably involve the submission of nude photos. Or not. We’re working on it. Continue reading »

SATURDAY SOUNDINGS: CAUSEMOS, TYRANT OF DEATH, CALIGULA’S HORSE, AND DEATHEMBER

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Oct 062012
 

Here’s another round-up of new musical discoveries from the last 24 hours. NCS writer DGR delivered the first two of these items to my in-box, for which I bow down in gratitude. NCS reader Austin S-K brought me the third one, for which I bow down in gratitude. I came up with the fourth one on my own, but I’m now unable to straighten up so you could bow down in gratitude to me. Not as limber as I used to be. I’ll be spending the rest of the day staring at the floor. And headbanging.

CAUSEMOS

Causemos are a Finnish band who yesterday released their debut album, Infinite Event, as a pay-what-you-want (or pay nothing) download on Bandcamp. (I suppose you might also call this an EP, since the songs only total about 25 minutes of music.) Causemos brand their music as “cosmic space metal”, which is not a bad description. I would elaborate on that description as follows:

Causemos weave together symphonic keyboards and technically demanding melodic death metal, with vocals that move seamlessly between brutish howling/growling and really nice soaring cleans that reminded me a bit of Dave Hunt’s clean ceiling-busters for Anaal Nathrakh. The music is intricate and vitally dynamic, ranging from bombastic hammering to astral streams of progressive ambience. The music has a grandiose and sometimes spacey quality, but not at the expense of headbanging rhythms or infectious melodies — of which there are many. Continue reading »

TIME TO BUST SHIT UP: NEW MUSIC FROM BEHEADED, MALEVOLENCE, UNDEAD CREEP, AND 7 H.TARGET

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 052012
 

Here’s another round-up of music I came across over the last 24 hours that I want to recommend. By my lights, it’s a good way to charge into the weekend, because it helps get in the mood for destroying shit. And isn’t what weekends are for? To destroy all the things you spent the work week building, including your reputation?

Here’s a helping of viciously destructive music from Beheaded (Malta), Malevolence (Portugal), Undead Creep (Italy), and 7 H.Target (Russia).

BEHEADED

Beheaded are from the island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean. Having heard some of their new music, I’m surprised Malta hasn’t imploded and sunk beneath the waves in a titanic geyser.

Beheaded have recorded their third album, Never To Dawn, for release by Unique Leader on November 6. Based on a very old MySpace blog entry by the band, the fantastic cover art appears to have been created by an artist named Yang Guang (click on the image to see a bigger copy of it).

A few days ago Beheaded released an advance track from the album called “Where Hours Etch Their Name”, and it made me hungry not only for the whole album but also for human flesh. It’s a monstrous, and monstrously groovy, behemoth of death metal might that reminded me of Immolation and Hate.

The riffs have a booming, cataclysmic quality, spiced with rapid techy jabbing and whirlwinds of dark melody. The vocals are a paragon of bestiality, and the fuckin’ percussion is explosively off the hook. Beheaded definitely have the knack for forging relentlessly brutal music that’s also groovy and memorable. I’m in lust for this album. Here’s the song: Continue reading »

SWIMMING WITH THE STREAMS: JEFF LOOMIS, MY DYING BRIDE, AND NIDINGR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 042012
 

 

Look what I found! New song streams! They crash and froth in rapids, they meander slowly through dark canyons, and they explode in white water again. They are new songs by Jeff Loomis (U.S.), My Dying Bride (UK), and Nidingr (Norway).

JEFF LOOMIS

Have you listened to the new solo release by Jeff Loomis, Plains of Oblivion? Well, it turns out that Jeff Loomis is already writing and recording new songs, and he plans to roll out three of them through online debuts. The first one premiered today on Metal Hammer’s web site, and it may come as a surprise to those who have Plains of Oblivion still ringing in their heads. Loomis recorded “A Liar’s Chain” with his current touring band, and they’ve been performing the song on tour this year. Guitarist Joe Nurre provides the vocals.

The hard-charging song is as extreme as anything on Plains of Oblivion, or more so. The central riff is a hammering, quasi-industrial beast; Nurre’s vocals vary between death-metal growls and paint-stripping screams (with something like a nu-metal styling in some of the vocal rhythms); and Loomis’ inevitable extended solo brings a dose of satisfying spitfire flash. Cool shit. It’s right here: Continue reading »

MAN MUST DIE: “ANTISOCIAL NETWORK”

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 032012
 

Scotland’s Man Must Die have been an NCS favorite going back to the early months of our existence in 2009; type the band’s name into the NCS search box and you’ll see the history of our MMD coverage. Following the massive head trauma inflicted by The Human Condition (2007) and No Tolerance For Imperfection (2009), I was greedily expecting a new album from these death metal brutes last year. Unfortunately, this statement by the band greeted my sorrowful eyes in September 2011:

“Hey all, we are getting so many questions about a new release so we feel its best to level with you all, at the moment we are without label, we have found ourselves in the surreal position after our most sucessful year and after gaining so many thousands of fans, our efforts to land a deal have fallen on deaf ears, and its very frustrating as we have such a killer album waiting to record, keep you all posted and we hope that we have better news soon :/ cheers – MMD”

We did get a demo version of a killer new song called “Hiding In Plain Sight” last fall (which you can stream here), but then the well seemed to run dry. Last spring there were rumblings of a new single and a new video in the works, but the months passed without either one surfacing . . . until today.

And praise be, now we have both. The single is “Antisocial Network”, it’s available for free download, and it delivers a crippling beating. Continue reading »

CNOC AN TURSA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 032012
 

Put this album on your radar screen: The Giants of Auld by Cnoc An Tursa.

As announced today, this Scottish band from Falkirk are the latest signing by Candlelight Records. Their debut album was recorded at Foel Studios in Wales by noted producer Chris Fielding, who has also produced albums by Winterfylleth and Primordial, among many others.

After doing a bit of reading about the band and listening to all of their music I could find this morning, Winterfylleth and Primordial were the two bands I thought of even before learning about Chris Fielding’s participation in the Cnoc An Tursa recording. Both of those bands have drawn on the heritage of their respective nations (England and Ireland) in crafting music that draws on both black metal and folk traditions. Cnoc An Tursa seem to be following a similar path with respect to their native Scotland, though their music differs from those other two collectives.

Cnoc An Tursa have wrapped their music around old Scottish poetry. One song I found, for example, bears the title “Winter, A Dirge”, which also happens to be the name of a poem by Robert Burns. A second song is named “Bannockburn”, which is the title of yet another Burns poem, in addition to being the site of one of the decisive battles in the first war of Scottish independence from England in 1314. A third, “Hail Land of My Fathers”, is the name of a poem written in the 1800’s by John Stuart Blackie. And a fourth, “Ettrick Forest In November”, was the name of a poem by Sir Walter Scott.

From what I can hear in the YouTube clips I found, the songs do appear to take the poems’ verses for their lyrics. Continue reading »

RUMBLINGS OF THE BEAST: DEAD BEYOND BURIED, GHOULGOTHA, SHADES OF RETRIBUTION

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Oct 032012
 

This is another “Seen and Heard” post. I just got tired of calling them “Seen and Heard”. I thought about spelling it “Scene and Herd”, just to fuck with people a bit, except those words would really send the wrong message about today’s bands.

Dead Beyond Buried (UK), Ghoulgotha (U.S.), and Shades of Retribution (India) are underground collectives who are each doing their own thing their own way (and by my lights, the right way). They will draw fans not from scene kids or those who travel in herds but from metalheads with discerning taste. You’ll see (and hear) what I mean. Their music makes me want to do my part to help elevate their visibility.

So without further ado, here are the items I came across yesterday via e-mails to NCS and perusal of the interhole that I thought were worth spreading around.

DEAD BEYOND BURIED

I really liked this London-based band’s last album on the Seige of Amida label, Inheritors of Hell (2010), but I had kind of forgotten about them. Their name popped up on my radar screen again recently as one of the bands highly recommended by Ageless Oblivion guitarist David Porter in the Porter interview conducted by our Andy Synn not long ago. Not much later I saw that they would be self-releasing a new album (The Dark Era) in the near future, and that was welcome news. And then I saw that they had released a music video a few days ago for one of the new tracks, “Cold Black Stars”, and I got even more interested.

Man, what a surprise! The video, which was filmed, animated and edited by Joe Slatter (www.thedarkpower.co.uk), is one of the best I’ve seen this year. The animation, and how it alternates and eventually merges with the band performance, is fascinating. And the song itself . . . Continue reading »

FROM EXILE: “MARTYR’S GAMBIT”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 022012
 

From Exile are an Atlanta progressive metal band we’ve written about frequently at NCS. You can see a collection of all our previous features via this link. The last time we checked in with them, they had released a new, freely downloadable song called “A Desperate and Willing Enslavement” and a music video to go along with it. The video was a live performance of the band filmed at the studios of Digital Arts Entertainment Lab on the Georgia State University campus in downtown Atlanta. It was filmed as part of a video series focusing largely on Atlanta-based bands called indieATL (check out their web site here).

At the time of that last post, From Exile had disclosed that they recorded a second song as part of the indieATL session and planned to release it (along with a video of the performance) at some future date — and last night they did that. The new track is called “Martyr’s Gambit”, and man, is it cool.

As in the case of “A Desperate and Willing Enslavement”, it’s not as extreme as most of the music we cover at NCS, and all the singing is clean. But the song is heavy, intricate, and superbly rendered, and it features a powerful, oh-so-memorable chorus. The dual vocal harmonies are beautiful, as is the interplay between the triad of guitarists, the nimble bass player, and the hard-hitting drummer. And as the icing on the cake, the instrumental jam in the song’s back half is a galvanizing flow of compulsive energy. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries