NEWS AND VIDEO ROUND-UP: NE OBLIVISCARIS, ZOMBIE, INC., BLOODSHOT DAWN, AND OVERKILL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

One exciting news item + three brand new videos = this post.

NE OBLIVISCARIS

I know that less than three weeks have passed since our last update about Australia’s Ne Obliviscaris, but I think I already made clear that just about any news concerning this band and their forthcoming album is going to get space at NCS.

The new album is called Portal of I, and I expect to drown blissfully in the one hour and 11 minutes of unique music it will undoubtedly serve up. Now, finally, after years of work and more difficulties than many bands encounter, we have a release date for NeO’s debut album: May 7, 2012. We don’t yet have pre-order information, but we understand that’s coming soon.

In addition to the release date, NeO have also announced that they will be touring Australia in support of the album. Although I have no hope of seeing any of these shows except in my mind’s eye, I’m swallowing my frustration and including the tour dates anyway:

Friday, May 18@ The Corner Hotel, Melbourne 18+
Saturday, May 19@ The Castle, Dandenong, Melbourne *ALL AGES*
Saturday, June 9@ The Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Saturday, June 16@ The Bald Faced Stag (The Wall), Sydney
Brisbane show: TBA

Now, onward to those three new music videos . . . Continue reading »

RAINBOWDRAGONEYES DROPPING NEWS BOMBS ON US LIKE WE’RE PROTESTING HIS LEGITIMACY AS A RULER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Apr 032012
 

(I give up. Nintendo metal on NCS, thanks to DemiGodRaven.)

Seems like an upstanding gentleman.

That’s right folks, you’re finally getting the chance to read about a project called Rainbowdragoneyes on NCS. For those who aren’t in the know on this project, it is best described by the artist himself as chiptunes + hate. This basically boils down to heavy metal songs done using 8 bit/16 bit synthesizers so that they sound like the backing music to your favorite Nintendo/Sega games.

I picked up on this project with the album The Primordial Booze, which is so goddamn infectious that it is just impossible to deny a listen. I’ve blared it at work on multiple occasions, usually to the amusing response of, “Who’s the asshole screaming over the Nintendo?”. Each of the songs has a powerful melody that is catchy as all get out.

Well, the artist himself has finally put up some updates as to what he’s been doing since his tour of half the US (one of my greater disappointments was that he was unable to hit the west coast), and surprise, surprise it is making a bunch more music. Continue reading »

SEASON OF MIST ON BANDCAMP!

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Apr 032012
 

Thanks to MaxR of Metal Bandcamp, I just discovered that the wonderful Season of Mist label has recently set up camp on Bandcamp. As Max reports, “The bands have individual pages, each featuring their Season of Mist discography. Among the 44 bands available now, we find symphonic death metal giants Septicflesh from Greece, and their three albums from the Season of Mist catalog: Sumerian Daemons, Communion, and The Great Mass from 2011.”

In addition to Septic Flesh, you will find pages for the most recent releases by such NCS favorites as Solstafir, Thy Catafalque, Drudkh, Rotting Christ, Ghost Brigade, Nader Sadek, Benighted, Elitist, Esoteric, Minushuman, Nothnegal, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Terrorizer, and a whole lot more.

As those who are familiar with Bandcamp will immediately realize, this means not only that the albums can be digitally downloaded, but also that they can be streamed in their entirety. It also means that bloggers like me can embed full-album streams in our posts, which is what I’m about to do.

For the hell of it, I’m going to include an album stream after the post for a record called Legion Helvete by the Norwegian band Tsjuder, who trace their roots back to 1993.  Legion Helvete was released in October 2011. I meant to listen to it then, but failed. I’ve been listening to it this morning, and the music is absolutely killer. Continue reading »

DYING FETUS: “SUBJECTED TO A BEATING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Apr 032012
 

The next album from Dying Fetus — Reign Supreme — will be released by Relapse Records on June 19. I would say that it’s on my “highly anticipated” list, except I don’t really talk like that in real life. I mean, if I were talking to a friend over a beer about this album, I wouldn’t say: “I highly anticipate the new Dying Fetus album, how about you?” So, I think it’s more accurate to say that Reign Supreme is on my “gimme that fucker NOW!” list.

June 19 seems far away, but at least we’ve now got a new song from the album to enjoy in the meantime. It’s called “Subjected To A Beating”, and it was released yesterday in a lyric video.

The lyrics are vicious, the bloody imaginings of revenge by an imprisoned man. The music is equally vicious. It features an immediately compelling opening riff, a grisly tremolo lead that appears like a slithering reptile, some meaty slams, and a spasming guitar solo that’s the musical equivalent of a tongue-swallowing seizure. Check it out after the jump. Continue reading »

FREE SHIT!

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Apr 022012
 

(Veteran metal blogger and NCS web site designer groverXIII brings you some free treats to begin the month of April.)

Ahroy! It’s your old pal, groverXIII, back with some more free musical goodness for you all! Let’s jump right on in here with free releases from four up-and-coming unsigned bands.

Entity – The Meaning Of Infinity

We’ll start things off with a progressive metal band from sunny Orlando called Entity. These guys are a four-piece, and they have a rather varied sound, technical and melodic with some interesting song structures. They’re not afraid to blast the listener (see the second track, ‘Triadic Complex’, for a prime example), but they also make good use of clean vocals and soaring guitar solos.

My only gripe with the music is that the drums sound overly processed and fake; I was actually assuming that they used a drum machine until I checked their Facebook page, which lists a drummer. To be honest, though, it’s a pretty minor complaint, given how good the music is. You can acquire this fine EP on the band’s Bandcamp page. Continue reading »

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 312012
 

Nope, this post has nothing to do with Vietnam. I just crawled out of bed not long ago, somewhat worse for wear after a little end-of-the-work-week blowout last night, and for some reason the bellowed words of Robin Williams from that movie of the same name blared into my damaged head. Maybe it’s because I felt like I’d awakened in a war zone.

This post has nothing much to do with Carach Angren either. I just happened to see this cover for their new album, Where the Corpses Sink Forever (due on May 18 from Season of Mist), and was reminded how much I like it. So what the fuck. Also, the creative facepaint connects to the first video I watched while chugging my morning joe. You’ll see what I mean.

And that’s what this post is really about — new music videos. I watched four of them in a row on this slightly hungover Saturday morning and liked all four, and therefore . . . here they are! I could have sub-titled this post “Bang Ur Fuckin Head and Then Melt It Down”, because that pretty much sums up the sequence of the following music.

AVATAR

I’ve developed a real weakness for this Swedish band since watching their can’t-look-away video for “Black Waltz”, which is the title track from their current album on eOne Music (we featured that video here, right after the start of this year). Yesterday, they released another video for a song from Black Waltz, which was premiered by Loudwire. This one’s called “Let It Burn”.

The video is a live performance of the song. Stylistically, the music is quite different from “Black Waltz”. It’s a straight-ahead, massively infectious headbanger, and if you’re like me you’ll be fist-pumping and yelling “LET IT BURN!” by the time you get to the end. It comes right after the jump. Continue reading »

NEW MESHUGGAH VIDEO: WATCH “BREAK THOSE BONES WHOSE SINEWS GAVE IT MOTION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Mar 302012
 

Well, well, what a happy coincidence. We just posted TheMadIsraeli’s review of Meshuggah’s Koloss album, and minutes later I see that the band have released an official video for “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion”.

My sweet fuck, this really is a heavy song, and the video is so damned much fun to watch. I don’t really need anything more than what it delivers — watching Tomas Haake methodically murder the drums, slo-mo headbanging by the rest of the band, Jens Kidman being . . . Jens Kidman, all against a black backdrop.

Do watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

GRAVEDANCER: BYZANTINE, CHROME WAVES, AND CONAN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 292012
 

Josh Eldridge used to be head of publicity at Century Media Records, and then later in business development and A&R. I remember him fondly because he was the first major label rep who gave NCS a shot at a song premiere for a big-name band (Deicide’s “How Can You Call Yourself A God”). Later still, he became the head of marketing for The MuseBox marketing company and founded his own business called ConspiracyPR.

Now, in partnership with MuseBox, he has formed a new metal label called Gravedancer Records and has made a deal for worldwide distribution of the label’s first three signings by EMI. And these aren’t just any three signings. The first bands signed to Gravedancer are Byzantine, Chrome Waves, and Conan. This shows extremely good taste (not that we hold ourselves out as arbiters of taste, of course), and a reason to pay attention to what Eldridge and Gravedancer do next. Allow me to elaborate:

BYZANTINE

The revival of this West Virginia band, with the reuniting of Chris Ojeda and Tony Rohrbaugh, was one of the real bright spots of news in 2011. TheMadIsraeli interviewed both of them for this post in February, and we’ve been following their progress closely. Small pieces of awesome music have surfaced now and then, enough to make us confident that Byzantine’s next album will be something special. The most recent taste of what’s to come is a Chris Ojeda playthrough that has now appeared on YouTube. That’s the first thing that will greet you after the jump. Continue reading »

HEAD SCRAMBLE: TARDIVE DYSKINESIA AND NEOSIS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 292012
 

In this post, two bands with new music, both swimming in the same musical sea. One old favorite and one new discovery: Tardive Dyskinesia (Greece) and NEOSIS (Switzerland).

TARDIVE DYSKINESIA

Our attachment to this band goes back to the early days of NCS when we featured their 2009 album Sea of See Through Skins in a post about “math metal” (a post that also included Textures, CiLiCe, and Hacride). What a quaint term “math metal” now seems. Those were the days before the term “djent” polluted our vocabulary, before everyone’s neighbor began writing off-kilter pneumatic riffs a la Meshuggah and calling them “songs”.

It’s been a long wait for a new TD album, though the band have periodically given us reasons to remember them, including a free recording of a live performance (featured here). But now they’re beginning the ramp-up process for release of their third album, Static Apathy in Fast Forward, which is due later this year. Recently, they started streaming a rough mix of a new song called “Prehistoric Man”, which will appear (though possibly in altered form) on the new album, and I’m really digging it.

The song features to good effect the band’s blend of turbulent, head-twisting rhythms and progressive-minded instrumental passages that first attracted us to them years ago, with perhaps a more prominent place for melody and a few other added ingredients as well. There’s quite a lot of clean singing in the song, though the mixing of clean and harsh vocals also appeared now and then on Sea of See Through Skins, but I think it works well in “Prehistoric Man”. Continue reading »

ABOVE THE EARTH: “SUPERCRUSH!”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Mar 282012
 

Kartikeya are a Russian melodic death metal band we’ve written about frequently at this site (use the search box on this page and you’ll see what I mean). The leader of Kartikeya is a very talented dude named Roman “Arsafes” Iskorostenskiy. We’ve previously explored a few of his other musical projects besides Kartikeya — a Russian pagan-metal band called Nevid (Невидь) and Arsafes’ own solo effort, with a 2010 EP called A New Way of Creation. But there’s still more:

Arsafes and a Serbian singer named Aleksandra Radosavljevic have collaborated to create a project called Above the Earth. Together they’ve recorded a demo of music described as “Atmospheric/Ambient/Progressive Metal”. The first piece of music I heard was an excerpt from a song called “All Our Dreams”, which they posted on YouTube as a preview of the demo. The first thought that popped into my head as the music began was, “this sounds like Devin Townsend!”

And then today, they posted the first full song, and guess what? It’s a cover of “Supercrush” from DT’s Addicted album. Now, you know we don’t include much clean singing on this site, because it’s mainly my site and I don’t have much patience for clean singing in metal. But there are exceptions, to be sure, and Devin Townsend is one of them — and “Supercrush” happens to be one of my favorite DT songs.

So, I approached this cover with both excitement and fear — excitement, because I know Arsafes is one immensely talented guy, and fear, because how can a cover of a song like “Supercrush” do anything but pale in comparison to the original? Well, it turns out that my fears were groundless, because Above the Earth nail that fucking song. Continue reading »

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