FEISTODON: MASTODON/FEIST SPLIT STREAMING!

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 202012
 

(BadWolf brings us the news!)

In case you haven’t heard, tomorrow, April 21st, is Record Store Day, when all sorts of super-cool (mostly) vinyl releases will be available at record stores across the country for one day only.

In fairness, Record Store Day is some hipster shit—the vast majority of these releases are Pitchfork-approved independent releases, or classic rock re-issues. BUT!!! Participating stores will have two Mastodon split-7” records available, one with psych-rockers The Flaming Lips, and one with lo-fi loving singer-songwriter Feist

So far, the split with Feist has been hyped the hardest on metal blogs as well as indie blogs. And now, it’s streaming!

Behold: Continue reading »

CARNIVOROUS MUSIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 192012
 

This photo seemed appropriate for this post. (Thanks to Alfonso for sharing it on FB.) It’s a pic of what two fishermen pulled up in their net from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez on Sunday. Fortunately for them, it was already dead. This Great White shark measured almost 20 feet long and weighed an estimate 2,000 pounds. It took 50 people to help pull the carcass ashore. More details can be found here.

And that’s about all the introduction I can afford for this post, except to say that I’ve rounded up a bunch of new flesh-eating music and am throwing it at your head. Here’s what I caught in my net, in no particular order:

New videos from Cryptopsy (Canada), Fester (Norway), Mordbrand (Sweden), and In Mourning (Sweden), plus new songs from Carach Angren (The Netherlands) and Antigama (Poland). That ought to hold you . . . and eat you. (To learn more about each band, click on their names.) Continue reading »

FULL ALBUM STREAM: BEFORE THE DAWN’S “RISE OF THE PHOENIX”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 192012
 

Well, for those of you who follow us on Facebook, I did promise a full album stream in my last status yesterday — and this isn’t it.  The one I promised is coming in about 45 minutes.  This one is an unexpected stack of fucking good pancake, with an ice-cream-sized scoop of butter on top and enough syrup to sink a fucken battleship.

Today, the Finnish Kaaoszine web site began streaming the new album by Before the Dawn, Rise of the Phoenix, which will be released by Nuclear Blast in Europe on April 25. The stream will last for one week. The Kaaoszine feature also includes a track-by-track description of the album by BTD vocalist/guitarist/one-man army Tuomas Saukkonen.

I think this makes our 1,000th post about this album, including the one two days ago about the new and thoroughly awesome new BTD music video, which is new. But all the attention is completely deserved. Give this thing a spin. You’ll be glad you did. HERE is the link for the stream.

That is all.

A SCATTERING OF SOUNDS: BLODHEMN AND INANIMATE EXISTENCE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 182012
 

Blog-time is still short for yours truly, and likely will be until middle of next week. With one very exciting exception tomorrow, about all I can manage at the moment are posts like this one — collecting new music I’ve heard recently that I think is worth spreading around. In today’s round-up, songs from Blodhemn (Norway), Inanimate Existence (California),

BLODHEMN

Blodhemn started life as a one-man band in 2004, and Invisus (that one man) continues to write the music, provide the vocals, and play all the instruments for Blodhemn’s studio recordings, though he now has a live band recruited from Bergen for stage performances. Blodhemn released an EP in 2010 called Brenn Alle Bruer, and just last week, Blodhemn signed with Indie Recordings for the release of a debut album that has already been recorded.

I’ve heard one song from the forthcoming album, “Djevelen i Menneskeform” (devil in human form), which premiered in late January as a teaser for the album. It’s a style of black metal I’ve really grown to enjoy — a kind of brawling, bottle-throwing, stomp ‘n’ rock music that’s as catchy as it is vicious. I’ve referred to this style of music before as black metal that’s hot instead of cold, though Invisus’ vocals still bring the feel of a searing Nordic ice storm.

Check out “Djevelen i Menneskeform” after the jump and prepare for sore-neck syndrome. Continue reading »

SCION ROCK FEST 2012: CAN SOMEONE LOAN A BROTHER A TELEPORTER BATTERY? (THERE’S ALSO A BLACK BREATH VIDEO IN HERE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Apr 182012
 

There are some places in these continental United States that are farther away from Seattle than Tampa, Florida, but Tampa is pretty fucking far out there. And on June 2, it’s going to be really far out, because that’s the day when Scion is sponsoring this year’s edition of the Scion Rock Fest.

Scion A/V has been doing a lot of very cool things with metal, and I continue to hope they get a few car sales out of it because I believe in people making a buck when they make underground music or help support it. Yesterday, I saw two things that reminded me of the good that Scion is doing for our kinda music. One was a new Scion-funded music video by Black Breath, which we’ll come back to after the jump, and the other was this “rock” fest in Tampa.

Scion has announced that the festival will include 26 bands playing at four different Tampa venues throughout the day. They’ve also released that poster you see up above. Obviously, there aren’t 26 names on there . . . yet. But the ones that are on there make for an excellent line-up: Sleep (holy shit!), Repulsion, Merzbow, Church of Misery, Psychic TV, Oxbow, Decapitated (!!), Terror, Cerebral Ballzy (?), All Pigs Must Die (!!), Idea of Gemini, and Cellgraft.

The other names have been “masked”, but I can see a few letters here and there. The name in the second line on the far right looks a helluva lot like Suffocation. And on the top row, I can almost make out Saint Vitus. Can you make out any other names? I’ll put a bigger image after the jump. Continue reading »

NEWLY MINTED: BEFORE THE DAWN, ALLEGAEON, AND THE ODIOUS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 172012
 

In this post, I’m collecting three newly minted pieces that went into circulation yesterday or this morning, like shiny gold coins that dropped into our grimy claws: a new video from Finland’s Before the Dawn; a new song from Colorado’s Allegaeon (pronounced uh-lee-juhn, in case you forgot), and a new lyric video from Portland’s The Odious. Here we go:

BEFORE THE DAWN

Such a coincidence. Earlier today, I posted a review of a new EP from a UK band — Twilight’s Embrace — that reminded me of Before the Dawn’s style of goth/doom-infused melodeath, and lo and behold, it’s not long before I get an e-mail from DGR alerting me to this new video. It’s for a song called “Pitch-Black Universe” from the band’s forthcoming album Rise of the Phoenix (out on April 27 via Nuclear Blast).

The song is what we’ve come to expect from Before the Dawn — jabbing riffs, sweeping/swirling guitars, bearlike vocals, broken glass, fires burning, the drip of blood, pitch blackness. The video is sweet, too. It’s immediately after the jump. Continue reading »

BACK AND FORTH: AVATAR AND THE WRETCHED END

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 162012
 

Sweden’s Avatar are batting 1,000 in the video game. First, there was the video released last December for the title track to their current album, Black Waltz, which included all sorts of grisly tricks performed by circus sideshow freaks Hellzapoppin (check that here). Then there was the live performance video for “Let It Burn”, which we featured in March. And now we have another winner in the band’s new video for the song “Torn Apart”.

Let me see if I can describe this without spoiling it for you: It involves a bar fight, which involves Mexican wrestling masks, pro-wrestling body slams, the gimp from Pulp Fiction, and assorted other strange characters, and the whole thing runs in reverse!

Oh shit. I guess I should have said “Spoiler Alert!!” Well, anyway, if you’ve never seen headbanging and windmilling and loogie-hawking in reverse, now’s your chance. It’s pretty fuckin’ cool. Also, you get to see how Avatar’s face-painted frontman Johannes Eckerström prepares his vocal chords for a shrieking session on stage. Also, “Torn Apart” is a hot song.

Also, the highly anticipated new album by Norway’s The Wretched End started streaming in full today. Details about that after the jump. Continue reading »

BE’LAKOR: “REMNANTS”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Apr 162012
 

I’m going to say this up-front, so it gets maximum attention: “For fans of Amon Amarth and Insomnium!” Those are names to conjure with, and they are the names that first popped into my head when I listened to a brand new song called “Remnants” by a Melbourne, Australia band named Be’lakor.

The song comes from this band’s third album, Of Breath and Bone, which will be released in June. It was the first song by Be’lakor that I had ever heard, but it was the kind of song that got me as excited as a hypoglycemic kid in a candy store. I hoped that the rest of the album would live up to this first taste.

The introductory instrumental has an almost folk-metal air, with the lead guitar tuned so that it sounds like bagpipes, but then the big Amon Amarth-like riffs come down like thunder and you get your first taste of George Kosmas’ truly cavernous roars — they’re right in the middle of Johan Hegg/Niilo Sevänen territory, and that’s a territory laced with gold.

And onward from there, the song delivers a succession of riveting riffs, goth/doom melodies, and beautifully constructed guitar leads and solo’s. It gallops, it chugs, it vibrates with arcane power, it rumbles like avalanche, it pulses with urgency, and it soars with virulently infectious melodies. It’s a dynamic song, continually shifting in tone and speed, and it has well and truly hooked me. Continue reading »

TITANIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 162012
 

It’s late where I am, but not too late to commemorate the sinking of the Titanic. April 15, 1912, that great ship and 1,514 passengers and crew went to their graves in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. I’ll get to who reminded me of this, at the end of the post.

It seems to be true that as the Titanic sunk, the ship’s eight-member band valiantly played on, until the black water claimed them. Maybe not quite as insane as the bagpipers who led British troops across No Man’s Land in World War I, but still a vivid example of British reserve and fortitude in the face of imminent obliteration.

But I like to think it’s an example of something else, too — people dedicated to their music, realizing they’re fucked no matter what, on a ship with only enough lifeboats to hold half the people on board, deciding to spend their last hours playing, probably for themselves as much as for anyone else.

And on that cheery note, here are a batch of recent music videos that don’t have anything to do with the Titanic but are just as fuckin’ metal as that ship’s band, courtesy of the following performers: Agalloch, The Devastated, Threat Signal, and Alestorm. Continue reading »

REPLENISH: ALDA and SKY BURIAL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 152012
 

Replenish Records is a label based in Washington, D.C., that I discovered only yesterday. What caught my attention in their e-mail to me was their impending release on double-vinyl — and as a free digital download — of an album previously pressed only on cassette: Tahoma, by the band Alda. I saw Alda open for Agalloch in Seattle last year, and they floored me. So the chance to get this album as a legit download was hot news.

In the same e-mail, Replenish reported their release on vinyl (and as another free download) of the debut full-length by a Tennessee band called Sky Burial. That was a new name to me, but I decided to check that out, too, especially because I found the minimalist album art strangely appealing. So, here are a few more words about each band and then a chance to hear their music. At the end of the post, you’ll also find a link to the Replenish Bandcamp page, where more releases can be explored.

ALDA

Alda are from Tacoma, Washington, just down I-5 from the NCS stomping grounds in Seattle. They are a black metal band cut from the same Cascadian cloth as Agalloch, so if you are a fan of the latter (as I am, in spades), there’s a good chance you’ll get off on Alda, too. They have a similar nature-centric take on the music and a similar ritualistic approach to their live performances. Their songs are long and often hypnotic, with tribal percussion, and memorable, sweeping melodies. But they also know how to slash and burn. Continue reading »

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