SEEN AND HEARD: GOATWHORE, HIGH ON FIRE, AEON, GENERAL SURGERY, FURYBORN

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Sep 242012
 

This is another daily collection of things I saw and heard this morning that I thought were worth sharing. It’s heavy on the death metal, because the death metal is heavy on me.

GOATWHORE

This is a big Goatwhore day. First, I saw the news that Goatwhore will be touring the U.S. and Canada with High On Fire and Lo-Pan. The tour begins on Nov. 15 in Austin and concludes on Dec. 22 in San Francisco. On selected stops, Primate (featuring Brutal Truth vocalist Kevin Sharp) and Corrosion of Conformity will also be performing.

This should be an ass-mauling, face-lacerating show. I’m happy that it’s stopping in Seattle, because it’s important to be happy for yourself in order to be happy for other people, or so I tell myself whenever I see stupendous tours that stop in Seattle but may not stop where you live. The full schedule is after the jump.

I also saw that Goatwhore have today premiered a new official lyric video for “Death To the Architects of Heaven”, a killer song from their 2012 album, Blood For the Master. You can watch that after the jump, too. Continue reading »

HAPPY FUCKING MONDAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 242012
 

I’m sure there are exceptions, but if Monday’s are awesome for you, please keep it to yourself so I can wallow in the misery of a new work week without having the suck factor multiplied.

About all I can say for Monday’s is that they go down better with metal, which is sort of like saying that a fresh dog turd tastes better when it’s wrapped in crisp bacon and smothered in peanut butter, though that’s probably a true statement, too, except of course I don’t have direct personal knowledge of that because I’ve never been that hungry or that high.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Monday’s suck but they go down better with metal. I do have personal experience of that. Today, in fact, I am having such an experience, thanks to Deiphago, Valdur, and Ade. All this music is so bestial that it makes this Monday seem like a cute fluffy kitty by comparison.

DEIPHAGO

Satan Alpha Omega is a hell of a record. I mean that literally — it’s metal hell, as good an example of being burned by sonic fire as you’re likely to find this year, an unrelenting storm of molten black/death that moves at the speed of a pyroclastic flow and is just as unstoppable. Despite (or maybe because of) how utterly ferocious the music is, I found it utterly gripping.

If you haven’t heard it yet, it’s now streaming for a limited time at Zero Tolerance magazine’s web site (here). [UPDATE: Thanks to NCS reader JC, I now know that it’s also streaming on Bandcamp, so I’m adding that player to this post right after the jump.] If you survive the experience and you like what you hear, Satan Alpha Omega can be ordered in various physical formats through Hells Headbangers, and it’s downloadable at Bandcamp, iTunes, and Amazon mp3. Find Deiphago on Facebook here. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (THE DGR EDITION): THE NEOLOGIST, AETHER REALM, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, SOMA RAS, THE KENNEDY VEIL

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Sep 232012
 

Our Sacramento-based contributor DGR hit me with a flurry of e-mails this morning, bringing to light a multitude of musical developments for your entertainment. I’ve now packaged them in this Sunday edition of the “Seen and Heard” post.

THE NEOLOGIST

DGR began covering the work of this East Coast duo during the days of the sadly departed The Number of the Blog, and he introduced their work to NCS beginning last January. In addition to creating their own original songs, The Neologist have also been recording cover songs as tributes to their influences. They’ve made an entire In Flames cover album titled In Flames We Trust: Volume I, and they’ve also been releasing tracks from a work in progress by the name of Working the Soil, which will eventually become a complete album of Soilwork covers. And everything they’re doing is . . . free (or available on Bandcamp with a “name your price” option).

Today’s news is that The Neologist have just released their sophomore album of original music, The Promise of Eternal Separation.  This new album comes with a variety of “extras”, including a cover version of “Red Clouds” by Disarmonia Mundi, a dub-step remix of “A Call To Harms” by Jester Strikes, and two bonus tracks from the band’s Kazakhstan release and Vatican City release (both of which are due in October 2012).

DGR promises a review of The Promise of Eternal Separation, but the music is already streaming and available for download on Bandcamp (here), so go check that out. But that’s not all we have from The Neologist camp. Continue reading »

BELPHEGOR vs. CRADLE OF FILTH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  22 Responses »
Sep 212012
 

Today I spent a little time with Belphegor and Cradle of Filth. Despite the title of this post, I don’t really consider them in competition with each other. They’re really in different leagues, and interleague play hasn’t started yet. I know they’re in different leagues because the uniforms are different. Belphegor are in the helmeted-and-gas-masked division and, as you can see below, Cradle of Filth are in the eyeliner-and-funny-hats division:

Cradle of Filth have a new album — The Manticore and Other Horrors — that will be released on October 29 (EU) via Peaceville Records and October 30 (NA) via Nuclear Blast USA. Today I listened to one of the tracks from the album. Belphegor have a new album due for release in March 2013, and today I watched a video of drum and bass tracks being laid down at Erik Rutan’s Mana Studios in Florida. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: NEUROSIS, REVOCATION, HACRIDE, JAY-Z / SWIZZ BEATZ, AND BIG CHOCOLATE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 212012
 

Sifting through what the interhole brung me this morning, here are things I saw and heard that I thought were worth sharing with you. Fair warning: musically, this shit is all over the place, including places outside of metal (gasp!).

NEUROSIS

This band have a new album set for release in Germany on October 26, in the rest of Europe on October 29, and in North America on October 30, just in time to scare the shit out of small and adult-sized children on Halloween. The album is named Honor Found In Decay. The band themselves are calling it “their pinnacle studio effort”, which scares me. I witnessed a live Neurosis performance last year for the first time, and for the first time in my life I wanted to kill myself by the end of it. Do I want that feeling again?

That was a rhetorical question. Though I’d rather not have that feeling again, I can’t help but be drawn to this new album, especially after hearing the track that NPR premiered this morning. Its name is “At the Well” and it’s mesmerizing. It falls down on your head with cataclysmic impact and it shimmers with ethereal light and it rumbles and rolls like an avalanche. It’s agonizing and it grooves and it’s loaded with interesting synthesized sounds. It did not make me feel suicidal.

It’s very much worth hearing. Go to THIS PLACE to do that. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EARLY GRAVES, THE TONY DANZA TAPDANCE EXTRAVAGANZA, AND ARCHONS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 202012
 

Here’s a quick round-up of new things that caught my eye this morning.

EARLY GRAVES

I’m very fucking stoked for the new Early Graves album, Red Horse, which will be out October 30 on No Sleep Records. The title track debuted at the end of August, and I included it in this feature. Now, NPR has premiered a second song — “Pure Hell”.

According to NPR, the band’s new vocalist John Strachan (Funeral Pyre) wrote the song for Makh Daniels, Early Graves’ original vocalist who tragically died in a van accident a little more than two years ago: “He always had that pure hell back patch. So I wrote this for him and the way he lived.”

The song title has a second meaning, too: Sonically, it’s pure hell, too — an explosive, violent, smoking-hot rush of grindcore insanity with a massive, skull-crushing breakdown in the back half. Go HERE to get smashed by this music. Continue reading »

MORE SEEN AND HEARD: FORGOTTEN TOMB AND BECOMING THE ARCHETYPE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 192012
 

I already wrote one of these round-up posts early this morning, but hours have passed since then and I’ve found more new things worth sharing.

FORGOTTEN TOMB

This Italian band is one whose name I’ve heard or seen before but whose music I don’t recall ever delving into. I gather from my reading that their sound has evolved over the course of five albums, the last of which was Under Saturn Retrograde (2011), starting out as fast black metal, moving to depressive, doom-oriented black metal with a lyrical focus on suicide, and then eventually settling into a kind of blackened goth-oriented mix of metal and rock with clean production and a predominance of clean vocals.

The band have a new album slated for release by Agonia Records on October 30 in Europe and November 6 in North America. Its title is …And Don’t Deliver Us From Evil…, and today Agonia started streaming a new song from the album called “Deprived”, which will be released separately as a 7″ single with a second acoustic track.

I don’t know how well this song represents the rest of the album, but it’s really good. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ARCH ENEMY, ARKAIK, OAK PANTHEON, THE SECRET

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 192012
 


 

Here’s a grab bag of things I saw and heard over the last 24 hours that I thought were good enough to pass your way. I saw and heard other things that I’m keeping to myself, for your own protection.

ARCH ENEMY

Laboratory testing of animals is a hot-button issue for lots of people. On one side are those who view it as utterly unethical, as a vestige of humanity’s barbarism that should be abandoned as quickly as possible. On the other side are those who argue that animal testing is essential for the development of things like new medicines that will save lives (of course, animals are also used to test products that have nothing to do with human health).

But I suppose there are lots of people who give the issues no serious thought at all, which is unfortunate. Sweden’s Arch Enemy are trying to get more people to think about the treatment of animals in laboratory testing through a video they released today. The video is for “Cruelty Without Beauty”, a song from their latest album, 2011’s Khaos Legions. It effectively mixes disturbing film clips of animal testing with animation — and of course shots of Angela Gossow venting her rage.

I had mixed feelings about the album, because I thought the quality of the songs was a mixed bag. For me, “Cruelty Without Beauty” is one of the stronger tracks, though I should confess that I lean toward the side of the debate that the song represents. Check out the video, which gives a voice to the voiceless, after the jump. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION, RAGNAROK, BEITHIOCH, AND DEATHSTORM

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 172012
 

You may have noticed that we’ve had fewer than the usual number of posts on the site over the weekend and again today. This is because your humble editor has (a) been devoting extensive time to other extracurricular activities that involved (i) heavy drinking, and (ii) screaming himself hoarse at an NFL game; and (b) hacking into his mother-in-law’s new computer, while recovering from (a)(i) and (a)(ii), in order to reset a password that she must have mis-typed when doing the initial set-up.

All of this proved to be a significant diversion from the demands of NCS. Things should be at least somewhat back to (ab)normal around here by tomorrow. However, I did want to add one more post today to share a few items I saw and heard over the last 24 hours. Fair warning: the shit I found will peel back the skin from your face like a bloody onion.

UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION

This London-based band is a delicious new find for me. This past spring, they recorded their debut album, Misshapen Congenital Entropy, at 16th Cellar studios in Rome with Stefano Morabito, who has produced albums for bands such as Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour of Penance, Vomit the Soul, Inherit Disease, and Blasphemer. It will be released on October 1 by Sevared Records, and limited edition pre-orders are now being accepted at this location.

Recently, the band have uploaded two songs for streaming — “Carved Inherent Delusion” and “Edges of Disfigured Atrocity”, which features Konstantin Lühring from Defeated Sanity and Despondency as a guest vocalist. (Giulio Moschini of Hour of Penance also provides guest vokillz on the album.) Both songs are available as “name your price” downloads on Bandcamp. Both songs will also smash your cranium into tiny little fragments and chop up the goo inside like minced garlic. Continue reading »

ABRAHAM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 172012
 

Abraham are a band from Lausanne, Switzerland. Pelagic Records plans to release their second album, The Serpent, The Prophet, and The Whore, on September 28 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and on October 1 in the UK and the rest of Europe.

I found out about Abraham from record producer Sean Golyer (Oak Pantheon) over the weekend. He sent me a link to one song from the new album, and I found a music video for another one that the band debuted yesterday. Both songs really grabbed me. The music is difficult to pigeon-hole, genre-wise, but these two songs are intense, heavy, and very interesting — reminiscent of early Neurosis and Cult of Luna in their most pissed-off moments.

The long first segment of “Dawn” drones with a dark synth beat, acid vocals, and shrieks of guitar feedback, and then evolves as tumbling drums and a tremolo-guitar enter the fray. Heavy bass, post-metal guitar chiming, and a barrage of double-kicks and blast-beats kick the song into a building, high-intensity finish.

The new video is for a song named “Start With A Heartbeat”. Like “Dawn”, it isn’t built around a verse-chorus-verse structure, but instead sweeps the listener along in an increasingly turbulent flow. The pacing steadily increases in a really interesting way, with all the instrumentalists accelerating like a rushing river channeled through boulder-strewn rapids. A strobing effect in the video amplifies the sensation of something barreling forward, almost out of control. Continue reading »

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