THE CONTORTIONIST: FULL ALBUM STREAM AND DEBUT VIDEO FOR “CAUSALITY”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 162012
 

Within certain circles, much eagerness seems to have been building for the new album from Indiana’s The Contortionist. Entitled Intrinsic, it will be released tomorrow via eOne/Good Fight Music.

To be brutally honest, I can’t say that I’ve been among the eager, because my own tastes tend to veer off in different directions. But I have at least been interested, and I suspect some of you are in the same camp. So, as a public service, I want to bring two pieces of information to your attention.

First, the entirety of Intrinsic is streaming at this location, at least for a little while.

Second, today Noisecreep exclusively premiered the band’s official video for “Causality”, the album’s third track. The song combines djent-style pneumatics, prog-style instrumentals, a dreamy/spacy keyboard layer, and a combo of hardcore roaring and ethereal crooning. It becomes . . . beautiful. The well-made video is pretty to watch, too . . . the dreams of a middle-aged man, both a kind of discovery and a kind of emotionally wrenching journey.  Nice shots of the band performing, too.

Anyway, to check that out, follow this link.

100 RIFFS IN 12 MINUTES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 162012
 

Alex Chadwick has got some mad skillz. He’s a guitarist who made a video for something called the Chicago Music Exchange, and in the video he plays 100 famous guitar riffs, one after the other, straight through in one take. They’re arranged in chronological order, so you get something like a 12-minute history of rock ‘n roll. And he does it really fuckin’ well, changing the tuning on the fly and even quickly playing some bottleneck guitar when the riffs call for it. Since the video went up on YouTube in early June, it’s been watched by more than 2.8 million people . . . and counting.

The songs from which he selected the riffs are almost entirely rock songs, though you’ll see some metal in there, too.  What would really be cool would be to see someone as good as Chadwick do a video like this composed entirely of metal riffs — straight through, in one take.

By the way, in the video, Chadwick is playing a 1958 Fender Stratocaster Three-Tone Sunburst that the Chicago Music Exchange is selling for a cool $33,000.

For the old farts in the audience (including me), this video is like a trip down memory lane, and for the younger farts in the audience, it’s some schoolin’. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

DEUS OTIOSUS AND ETERNITY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 152012
 

Deus Otiosus is Latin for “idle god”. It’s a phrase that refers to a theological concept of a god who created the world, set it in motion, and then checked out, leaving things to unfold as they have, which is a convenient explanation for both the ugliness that human beings have persisted in inflicting on each other and nature’s periodic outbursts of destruction. Deus Otiosus is also the name of a pulverizing Danish death metal band we spotlighted in a MISCELLANY post last August.

Eternity, of course, is another big concept, one that’s especially hard for us mere mortals to wrap our minds around, bound as we are by time and a strict (if unknown) sell-by date. Of course, the concept of eternity requires no religious belief, and it’s no more provable. Eternity is also the name of a German black metal band who’ve been kicking around since 1994, which may not be as long as eternity but is still longer than some of our readers have been alive.

Today I discovered new music from both bands, and it seemed fitting to package them together in this post, though appreciating their music requires neither a leap of faith nor solving the great mystery of the universe.

DEUS OTIOSUS

This band (whose Facebook page is here) have a second album on the way later this year called Godless, which is another concept for explaining why shit happens. The very nice album cover is taken from an engraving by Gustave Doré. Today the band started streaming a song from that album called “Pest Grave”, which is about the black plague. It’s a blast of death metal mixed with blackened thrash and energized with fire-breathing guitar fury, and it includes a grim melodic breakdown. The abyss-deep vocals are vividly voracious, too. I liked it. Listen right after the jump — and bring on Godless! Continue reading »

OH THOSE CRAZY FINNS!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 152012
 

I would like to chalk this up to the benefits of clean living, but who am I kidding? It’s just more of the dumb luck with which my entire life seems to have been blessed.

So, I’m sitting around feeling all mopey and disgusted because of some news I saw this morning that turned an inspiring metal story into what looks like a big fuckin’ con job . . . which will be described in tomorrow’s first post. And on top of that, a run of five straight days of glorious weather in Seattle has been interrupted with some gray dankness up in the sky this morning. In a nutshell, I needed some cheering up, pronto.

And then what should appear in my e-mail in-box at just the right moment but a message from Finnish NCS fan jeimssi with a link to a brand new Mors Subita video, which includes some film made by jeimssi himself.

I pressed play, and suddenly I perked right up, I got the big smiley face, I banged my fuckin’ head. I barely resisted the urge to rip off my headphones, grab a brew, put the music on the external speakers, and start finding shit in my house to bust up — an urge I resisted at the last minute only after remembering that it’s 7:45 in the fucken morning and my wife is still asleep. That was a near thing, as in a near-death experience, as in yours truly coming THAT close to being the victim of a spousal homicide. Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN: DARKTHRONE, OMNIUM GATHERUM, TESTAMENT, AND INDESINENCE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jul 142012
 

Yesterday I started putting up short posts during brief windows of time permitted by my fucking day job, just trying to spread the word, for your entertainment and edification, about new videos, new music, and news that I’d seen yesterday. I got two of those posts up on the site and ran out of time before I could finish the third one. So here it is, a day late but no dollars short.

DARKTHRONE

I saw on the Terrorizer web site that this Norwegian duo have finished recording their next album, the first one since 2010’s Circle the Wagons, and that it’s scheduled for release later this year. You can bet that it will make waves and draw lots of attention, because it’s Darkthrone. What I wouldn’t venture to predict is what it will sound like, except it won’t be black metal, because Fenriz has kind of a “been there, done that” attitude about the band’s musical roots. The Terrorizer report did quote guitarist/vocalist Nocturno Culto, as follows:

“The album will be called The Underground Resistance. I can’t speak for Fenriz, but I think he’s going for more epic lyrics. I can only speak for myself and this time around they are very personal lyrics. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried this and it’s difficult to do it nicely and put it into good words. There was a lot of hate and people trying to ruin your day and I had stuff to say for my sake.”

Of the album, he adds: “Our music now is basically just metal, it will be a step away from the last album as usual.” Yup.

While I’m on the subject of Darkthrone, I’ll mention that the Peaceville label has re-issued the band’s 2001 album Plaguewielder as a special 2-CD set, with the second CD consisting of lengthy track-by-track commentary from Fenriz. It also includes new cover artwork by the amazing Zbigniew M. Bielak, which is right after the jump, big as life. Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN: THE ROTTED AND CHROME WAVES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 132012
 

Two more quick items to pass along, and I hope my day job will allow time for one more post like this one before this day is over. Fucking day job.

The items in this post are both videos. The first one comes from a UK band called The Rotted, whose most recent album Ad Nauseum was released by Candlelight last fall. We never got around to reviewing it, but I’ll tell you what, it’s a fuckin’ blast!

The new video is for a song from that album called “Surrounded By Skulls”. Can you guess why the mere title of that song appeals to me? But it’s not merely the title that’s appealing. The song itself is virally infectious. It’s a combo of crusty hardcore punk, d-beat, and death metal that’s irresistibly catchy, with a real shout-along chorus. The video is a kick to watch, too. Looks like a live show by these dudes would be some head-busting fun. Also, there are a lot of skulls.

The second video is from Chrome Waves, a band I’ve written about twice before. The last time (here), I was raving about a song from their debut EP called “Light Behind A Shadow”, and lo and behold that’s the subject of the band’s first official video, which Metal Injection premiered today. By the way, the album was released earlier this month by Gravedancer Records and it can now be ordered as a CD from this location, as well as downloaded from iTunes and Amazon mp3. Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN: A NEW ABSU SINGLE AND NEWS ABOUT THE NEXT OAK PANTHEON ALBUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 132012
 

I’m still in kind of a work-related trash compactor, except it’s my mind and my time that are being compressed. I’ve had just enough time to glance around the interhole to realize that there’s a fuckload of happenings I’d love to share with our readers, but not enough time to package all of them together in a single post. But rather than just give up, I’m going to dash off a post here and then one or two more a bit later — quickly tossing out at least a few of the items that have caught my eye. This post has a black metal theme.

ABSU: “HALL OF THE MASTERS”

As they’ve done in the past, The Cartoon Network is again providing free new music as part of their “Adult Swim Singles Program”. Surprisingly, the single they released today is more extreme than what we would have expected. It’s a new single called “Hall of the Masters” from Texas-based Absu, a kvlt black metal band that’s well loved around NCS. It’s a hell-ripping thrasher of a song, and you can download it for free by visiting this page.

You can also give it a listen right after the jump. Continue reading »

A WHOLE FUCKLOAD OF ALBUM RELEASE AND TOUR NEWS (AND A NEW GRAVE TRACK)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 112012
 

If you made your way through today’s earlier post about the first direct observation of Dark Matter, then you know we now have an official definition of “fuckload”: It’s a number that’s equal to the number of miles in 18 megaparsecs, which is (yes, I finally did the math) 1,126,656,000,000,000,000,000. Conveniently, that’s about 1.1 sextillion of whatever you’re counting, which is why it makes so much sense to just call it a fuckload.

And today there was a fuckload of news about forthcoming albums, with album art and release dates and such, plus a press release about a hellacious new tour. I don’t have time to write about the entire fuckload of news items, so I’m just going to pick the four that got the most “fuck yeah’s!” in a random survey I did of myself.

The bands in question are: Hooded Menace, Eyeconoclast, Cryptopsy, and Obituary.  And then at the end, I’ve got a new song from Grave’s next album, because we always have to have the musics.

HOODED MENACE

We’ll start this fucker off with Finland’s Hooded Menace. Today it was announced that their first album for Relapse Records, Effigies of Evil, will be released on September 11 (it can be pre-ordered in a variety of formats and bundles here). David D’Andrea did the album cover, which is cool. Relapse describes the album as “combining the grooving riffs of Black Sabbath and early Cathedral with the fire of classic Autopsy and Asphyx”. Fuck yeah. Continue reading »

5 OF MY FAVOURITE . . . GUITAR SOLOS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Jul 112012
 

(You can probably tell from the spelling in the post title that our UK-based writer Andy Synn is responsible for this post.  What do you think of Andy’s picks?  What are your favorite solos?  Leave comments!)

Greetings true-believers! Ok, so after the review-fest of “Unofficial UK Week” last week (which I swear, wasn’t intentionally timed to coincide with Independence Day) I’m easing up a bit this week. I should have a review of a truly badass new album by a certain Norwegian band for you in the next few days, and I’m slowly working on another Synn Report and a longer column or two for next week, but for now I thought I’d drop the inaugural column in what I hope to be a semi-regular series highlighting “5 of my Favourite…” things.

Today I’ve chosen to pick out 5 (ok, 6 actually, but I refuse to change the title) of my favourite guitar solos. Not of all time exactly, just five that came to mind when I was doing some random listening recently. Future iterations of the column, if it proves a success, will feature other random “5’s” in whatever order they happen to occur to me.

Enslaved – “Ground”

First off we have the defining solo in “Ground” by Enslaved. It’s a well-known fact that Ice Dale is a true guitar god, managing to rock both a killer solo and a series of iconic rock poses with a shirtless flourish. I’d swear he was the black metal reincarnation of Jimmy Page, if not for the fact that Page isn’t dead yet. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP (Part 2): SYBREED, ANCIENT ASCENDANT, KHONSU, SELFHATE, AND MORE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 112012
 

I’m still catching up with developments in metal that I missed while cut off from the web during my recent mini-vacation. And I saw some things yesterday that also perked my interest. In our last post yesterday, I rounded up some of the recent developments I thought were worth sharing. Here are some of the rest. They involve Sybreed (Switzerland), Ancient Ascendant (UK), Khonsu (Norway), Selfhate (France), Beak (U.S.), and Ensiferum (Finland).

SYBREED

The first item is the revealing of the cover art to Sybreed’s next album, God Is An Automaton. It’s by the very busy and very talented Seth Siro Anton, who is also the front man for Septic Flesh, whose headlining North American tour we posted about yesterday. The album will be released by Listenable on Sept 24 in Europe and on October 2 in North America.

Sybreed have been posting excerpts of songs from the new album, and they’re up to five so far. I don’t really find short song excerpts worth mentioning, except I did it yesterday with respect to the forthcoming Napalm/Converge split, so what the hell. The Sybreed excerpts released to date are collected right after the jump, in reverse order of their appearance. Continue reading »

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