INTERLUDE: TWO AMAZING FAN-MADE VIDEOS FOR VALLENFYRE AND PARADISE LOST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 242012
 

As previously mentioned, we’ve got another doom-oriented post planned for today, as a bookend for the one with which we started, but in the meantime here’s one more interlude.

Vallenfyre and Paradise Lost are two of our favorite bands, united by the common presence of Greg Mackintosh. Both of them have released extremely strong albums over the last eight months — Vallenfyre’s A Fragile King (reviewed at NCS here and here) last November and Tragic Idol by Paradise Lost (reviewed here) earlier this year.

Both of them also seem to be united by the dedication of fans who are not only faithful but also really fuckin’ talented. Witness the two videos featured in this post, which I just saw this morning.

The first one is a stop-action animation for Vallenfyre’s tremendously monstrous song “Ravenous Whore”. It tells the story of theocratic rat people trying to summon a creature through the sacrifice of one of their own, and it’s really well-done. Not only is the animation extremely cool, but the conception and syncing of the visuals to the music are creative and beautifully executed. Credit goes to Jamie Evans from the UK, who is submitting the video to the upcoming Bradford Animation Festival.

The second video is another animation, in the style of a lyric video, for the song “Theories From Another World”, which is probably my favorite track on Tragic Idol. A Russian fan who goes by the name MrHuempolbu created the animation using the Tragic Idol cover artwork created by Jean Emmanuel Simoulin (www.metastazis.com), and it’s also superb.

Both videos are greatly helped by the fact that the songs kick so much ass, but the creativity and artistic skill shown in both of them deserve a round of applause. Watch them next . . . Continue reading »

INTERLUDE: FALLEN JOY, FROM ASHES RISE, AND THROWERS

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 242012
 

We started this day with doom (mixed with stoner) in a review of the debut EP by France’s Mudbath. We’ll be going back to doom in the next post (and I’m talkin’ about seriously catastrophic doom), but just to prevent things from getting too abysmal around here, this post includes two videos and a song that I saw and heard yesterday that get the blood pumping (instead of freezing it into a viscous sludge). And the bands are: Fallen Joy (France), From Ashes Rise (U.S. – Portland), and Throwers (Germany) — clicking on their names will take you to their Facebook pages for more info.

FALLEN JOY

Fallen Joy have a debut album coming soon called Inner Supremacy. The artwork for the cover and the CD booklet can be seen above, created by the very talented Strychneen Studio; in fact, I discovered this band through Strychneen’s posting of the album art on their Facebook page.

So far, the band have released one song from the new album for streaming on SoundCloud (here), and now they’ve released a music video for the same song: “Hymn To Silent Soldiers”. Whoever those silent soldiers may be, the song is also a hymn to bands such as At the Gates, but with some blackening in this canticle and an air of modernity in the riffing and soloing. The song is a blood-pumping, jolting gallop with riffs that blister and a nice blend of black- and death-metal vocals. Check out the video right after the jump. Continue reading »

BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME: THE “TELOS” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 232012
 

Between the Buried and Me have a new album coming. Its title is Parallax II: Future Sequence, it will be released on October 9, and it’s already available for pre-order from Metal Blade HERE and from this site, which is offering some nice bundles (including a spacesuit!). Today we also have a new official video for “Telos”, a song from the album that has made the rounds in a few fan-filmed videos of recent BTBAM shows.

The video is mainly a series of fade-in, fade-out ads for the release with a couple of excellent pieces of album art interspersed. The main benefit of the video is the the song, straight from the album. It’s a neuron-twister of a tech-death workout spliced into an ethereal space-swimming, time-traveling segment, which is part jazz fusion, part prog exploration.

I’m tolerating the clean vocals in the cosmic-drift part of the song, but confess that I’m much higher on the harsh, tech-death mind-fuckery, which is really excellent.

Check out the video after the jump. Continue reading »

ZATOKREV’S “GODDAMN LIGHTS” IS A GODDAMN EPIC HEADBANG

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 232012
 

I find it occasionally amusing and more often annoying to see how often male metal fanboys and even metal bloggers describe their enthusiasm for music by referring in graphic (but presumably figurative) terms to having explosive orgasms. I took a personal vow that I would never resort to anything so stupid and juvenile in my writing for NCS. And then this morning I saw Zatokrev’s official music video for a new song called “Goddamn Lights”.

I came so hard that I punched a gaping hole in the wall with my cum. I splooged so voluminously that I’ll be scrubbing my computer screen with industrial-strength solvent for the rest of the week. Both of my heads exploded with the force of my money shot like the second coming (cumming) of Krakatoa. My shorts are in tatters.

I also took a personal vow that I would try to hold my use of the term “epic” to a bare minimum (having failed in my vow never to use the word at all). But “Goddamn Lights” is just fucking epic — not only to hear, but also to watch. It’s a hybrid of Agalloch-ian melodic black metal and dramatic progressive metal, with undertones of stoner metal and psychedelic rock. It’s a guaranteed headbang trigger. It’s both scarifying and beautiful. It gets this work week off to an awesome start.

And the video is beautifully made (credit to Lionel Weitnauer for the awesomeness), the band drenched in hot colors, with the shadows filled by images of nature. Continue reading »

DIOCLETIAN / WEREGOAT: “DISCIPLES OF WAR”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 232012
 

At least some of you who are on Facebook and who have liked the NCS Facebook page saw this album art when I posted it late yesterday. Based on how many people saw that FB post, it seems like the artwork has generated a lot of interest. So I thought I ought to explain what it is in more detail.

It’s the cover of a forthcoming split by Diocletian from New Zealand and Weregoat from Portland, Oregon. The title of the split is Disciples of War. It will be released on 12″ vinyl by Parasitic Records and on CD by Dark Descent. I don’t have a release date yet and pre-orders haven’t started. Once I get more info, I’ll add an update.

The complex, hand-drawn album art is, as you can see, amazing, and amazingly vile. It was created by Daniel “Desecrator” Corcuera, a 27 year-old artist who lives in Chile. Based on a brief bio I found on a site that was describing an exhibition of his work in Portland (here), it appears he is entirely self-taught and spends his time as a tattoo artist, illustrator, and vocalist/bassist for a band called Slaughtbbath.

Desecrator has created album art and logos for bands such as Bestial Mockery, Sathanas, Vomitor, Suicidal Winds, Dead Congregation, Hooded Menace, Thornspawn, Satanic Warmaster, and more. A listing of many bands for whom he has created artwork can be found here. And via this link, you can find an interview with him and more of his artwork.

As for the music on the split, I expect it will be utterly savage. We’ve written about Diocletian multiple times, most recently here. Their most recent releases are a May 2012 7″ EP entitled European Annihilation, produced for their European tour earlier this year, and a June 2012 hour-long compilation of the songs from their first four recordings between 2005 and 2008 by the name of Annihilation Rituals. The word “annihilation” appears in these titles for a reason. Continue reading »

WOLVES AND WORMS FOR THE WIN (AND CEREBRAL BORE, TOO)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 222012
 

I saw two of these live videos yesterday and one this morning. They involve three of my favorite bands. They are all from S Nations — Sweden, Singapore, and Scotland. I feel compelled to share them.

In the first one, Sweden’s Wolfbrigade throws down hard at the D.I.Y. Fest in Gdynia, Poland, on July 14, 2012. These dudes have been crushing skulls and kicking asses since the mid-90’s (with a break-up in 2004, followed by a revival in 2007), and it’s clear that they still know how to bring it on stage. Their new album, Damned (on the Southern Lord label), is one of my 2012 favorites (reviewed here). To quote myself (always the right way to go), it’s “a boiling stew of d-beat drums, swarming chainsaw guitars, slamming rhythms, and molten guitar solo’s that come for you like grasping alien face-huggers that are a shitload stronger than you are.”

Apparently, one of the factors leading to the band’s dissolution in 2004 was the fact that frontman Micke needed surgery for vocal chord problems and couldn’t sing for at least a year after that. I’d say he’s fully recovered. The sound quality on the new fan-filmed video isn’t pro-quality, but you don’t need that to feel the power of this performance.

The second video is Singapore’s awesome Wormrot performing at the Obscene Extreme Fest in the Czech Republic, also in mid-July (Wolfbrigade performed there, too). This video captures the band’s entire 30-minute set. It will grind your pointy heads down to a nub.

And finally, I have a last-minute addition to the post: video of Scotland’s Cerebral Bore playing at the first show of SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2013 at L.A.’s House of Blues on Friday night. Vocals by Som, always surprising. Continue reading »

ENTOMBED COVERS KING DIAMOND: “WELCOME HOME”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Jul 222012
 

Back in June I saw the news that Screaming Records was going to release a limited 7″ vinyl single by Sweden’s legendary Entombed. I’ve been waiting hungrily since then for the music to hit the web, and yesterday some of it did.

This new single is called When In Sodom Revisited and it includes three songs: a remixed and remastered version of the original “When In Sodom” track, which originally appeared on the band’s 2006 EP by the same name; an alternate version of the song composed, performed, and recorded by a Danish artist and sound designer named Klaus “Q” Hedegaard Nielsen (Beta Satan, The Malpractice), and a new studio recording by Entombed of the King Diamond song “Welcome Home”.

This single is the second Entombed release for 2012, the first being a digital release of a variant version of the song “Amok”, which we previously featured here. The recording of “Welcome Home”, however, is the first release by the current Entombed lineup — with Victor Brandt (TOTALT JÄVLA MÖRKER, AEON, SATYRICON) and second guitarist Nico Elgstrand (who previously played bass for the group) joining L-G Petrov, Alex Hellid, and Olle Dahlstedt.

For those of you who remember the post we ran on the 20th anniversary of King Diamond’s Abigail album (here), it will come as no surprise to learn that I prefer this Entombed cover to the original — mainly because I’ll take L-G’s vocals over King’s. The cover is a cool song. Continue reading »

PERCUSSION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  20 Responses »
Jul 222012
 

Percussion is an important part of almost all forms of music. Of course, it’s vital to metal, and it’s not limited to the drums. I may be stretching the dictionary definition of the word percussion, but I’d go so far as to say that in genres of extreme metal that use distorted down-tuned guitars and bass, those instruments are used more for percussion and rhythm than for creating melodies.

The presence of percussion instruments in all the world’s cultures stretching back many thousands of years suggests there’s something about the appeal of beat and rhythm, the patterns of sounds and silences, that’s innate in human beings, something we’re born with rather than something we’re taught. Maybe it comes from the beat of the heart we heard in the womb, or maybe it’s a puzzling product of natural selection, but whatever the explanation, the human affinity for rhythm — and especially for percussion — seems like an essential part of who we are (even for spastic white-bread dudes who can’t dance to save their lives).

In this post I’ve gather some fascinating videos of some fascinating people doing fascinating things with percussion, and what they have in common is that they’re using their hands and fingers to strike a variety of different instruments (and machines) directly. The music isn’t metal, but it’s metal, if you know what I mean.

EFRAIN TORO

I learned about Efrain Toro because my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting and spending a little time with his daughter and her new husband on their honeymoon last spring while we were on vacation. Efrain Toro is a Puerto Rican percussionist and music teacher who has some interesting ideas about rhythm. Much of what I’ve read about his theories is over my head and I suspect would mean a lot more to people who, unlike myself, have some actual musical training. But from what I’ve read about him, he seems to be regarded as one of the best percussionists in the world, across a wide range of musical styles and types of drums. Continue reading »

ROLLING WITH IT: SPASMODIC, COFFINS, AND DEMONIAC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 212012
 

I suppose our first post for this Saturday could have been about something melodious and harmonious, but when you start Friday with Hellish Outcast and then move on to the likes of Hell United, Skeletal Spectre, and Sophicide, it’s tough to change course, especially after a Friday night of blowing it out for the weekend. So we’re just gonna roll with the feeling and stay immersed in the kind of metal that comes for you hard, with raking claws and gnashing fangs.

In this post, new music from Spasmodic (Sweden) and Coffins (Japan) and the re-issue of a classic by Demoniac (New Zealand).

SPASMODIC

Spasmodic gave the world a four-song EP in 2010 by the name of Carve Perfection, which was a compilation of earlier material. They have also finished recording an 8-song demo album called Mondo Illustrated, for which they’ve been seeking label support for a release.

Three days ago they unveiled one of the songs from the latest demo, “Wanda La Put”. It features guest vocals by Emperor Magus Caligula, formerly of Dark Funeral. It’s fucking nutz. It’s a blast furnace of big razor-edged riffs, pummeling rhythms, and wolf-bark vocals (the kind of wolves that leaped in packs out of Hades). The heat comes off this song in waves, and the groove carves like a megawatt laser. Continue reading »

HELL DIVERS: HELL UNITED, SKELETAL SPECTRE, AND SOPHICIDE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 202012
 

Each of the three metal bands featured in this post have new albums on the way. Each of them have publicly released one song from their new albums. None of them sound quite like the others, but they do have these two points in common: First, all three of the new songs are very fucking good. Second, all three of them will make you feel like you’ve just taken a deep dive into the bowels of hell.

HELL UNITED

Hell United are a band of veteran Polish musicians (two of them playing in an earlier incarnation of this band as far back as 1997) who recently signed with Hellthrasher Productions for the September 11 release of their second album, Aura Damage. Just a few days ago, Hellthrasher started streaming the new album’s third track, “Deathlike Cold”.

The evil in this track starts flowing immediately in the tremolo-laced death-doom chords of the intro, and then it turns into a flood, with a dense wall of spitfire riffing, machine-gun percussion, and vocal outpourings of genuine bestiality. This horrific onslaught of hybridized black metal and brutal death-doom may qualify as war metal (a term we’ve had fun discussing around here off and on). Whatever you call it, it cored out my skull and left me hungry for more. Continue reading »

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