THE END TIMES ARE UPON US

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Apr 152012
 


 

I’m still trying to get my head fully back into metal, but this isn’t exactly the re-introduction I was anticipating. My friend Ian sent me a link to this video. The performance is by a band called Children Medieval Band, whose members are Stefan (10) – vocal, guitar, violin; Olga (8) – keyboard; and Cornelia (5) – drum, harp. They were trained using EarPower software. They have put their 21st Century training to use by covering . . . Rammstein.

The uploader of the video explains: “Rammstein has some amazing compositions, likeable to younger kids.” I’ve thought the same thing! Just wait ’til these kiddies run Rammstein’s “Pussy” through that EarPower software. They’ll be humming the refrain for days and days.

But maybe their parents should wait until the kids are older before exposing them to the wonders of the uncensored “Pussy” video. Y’know, until Cornelia gets to be 9 or 10 years old.

In case the video of the kids getting medieval with Rammstein’s “Sonne” has whetted your appetite for the original, it’s after the jump. Continue reading »

THE SWEATPANTS MOSH UPDATE (NO. 2)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 152012
 

(Time to slam. We’re pleased to welcome back guest columnist JJ “Shiv” Polachek, with another installment of the Sweatpants Mosh Update. For the uninitiated, Shiv is the vocalist for both 7 Horns 7 Eyes, whose debut full-length Throes of Absolution will be released on April 24 by Century Media, and Ovid’s Withering, whose debut EP we recently reviewed here.)

Welcome back to the Sweatpants Mosh Update! Today I’d like to pay tribute to the fallen warriors of the Sweatpants Mosh — the rising stars of slam who had made their mark and showed their promise and potential, only to fall at the hands of breaking up for whatever reason. Many of these prolific visionaries would have been leaders of our current slam generation if they simply hadn’t succumbed to the final deathblow of disbanding. I’m hoping this is enough text for the intro paragraph to look legit so I can just start talking about the actual music. Here’s a picture of a baby goat just to make sure there’s something cool before the jump.

Continue reading »

DISTRACTIONS

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  32 Responses »
Apr 142012
 

For reasons I explained yesterday, I haven’t been my usual upbeat self lately, and I’m still pretty down. NCS readers have been really understanding and sympathetic. Some of you have even sent me e-mails with links to videos and music, in hopes that they would prove to be distractions from my grief  . . . and they have been.

I’ve collected some of them in this post, in case  you might need some distractions, too. I’ve arranged them in order of increasing weirdness and depravity, with the finale being a NSFW video by a band of Finnish deviants named Turmion Kätilöt (pictured above). Nothing takes your mind off grief like depravity.

ITEM ONE

This item, and the next two, came my way from Ben C. (Church of the Riff). I liked his introductions so much I’m just going to steal them. Here’s his preface to Item One: “Meet Buck. He’s a deer, who’s dating a hunter’s daughter. It sounds tame, but this is seriously some Pixar quality shit.” And so it is.

You can probably guess where this one is headed, just from Ben’s description. The high points for me were the near-kiss in the tunnel, the hunter’s stoic bloodhound, and the final few seconds. There’s a metaphor in here. I think it’s a message about tolerance for interspecies love. What do you think? Continue reading »

EPIC MUSIC AND MOVIN’ PICTURE SHOWS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 132012
 


 

(DemiGodRaven checks in with some quick music updates . . .)

Let us all reap the rewards that a little extra time given to a disc can provide. Mechina have uploaded the titular single of their new disc Empyrean, and it is fucking excellent. The band have been one of my favorite recent discoveries as their hybridization (holy shit, spellcheck says that is a word! I was going nuts while typing it. Just constantly repeating, “You’re a fucking idiot for thinking this is real”) of death metal, industrial, one part Fear Factory (mostly in the vocal work, their lead vocalist sounds similar to Burton Bell’s old singing voice), and sci-fi philosophy have bought me hook, line, and sinker.

“Empyrean” is a shorter song but is one of the first chances we’ve gotten to hear anything solid from the new disc since they delayed it in January back to May. It still has amazing orchestral work, driving drum beats, and those vocals just seem to be getting better and better. (after the jump, a new video . . .)

Continue reading »

MUMAKIL GOING SILENT FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 122012
 

(DemiGodRaven reports some unfortunate news . . .)

Considering that they are one of the loudest and most blast-reliant grind bands out there, the announcement that Mumakil are going to be silent for the next few weeks comes as a bit of a shocker. This is due in part to their drummer developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which makes drumming outright impossible. He showed signs of it recently, and after a visit to the doctor the band was forced to silence their new album recording as well as their upcoming tour. I’ve personally suffered through that right-wrist pain in a very light instance and stopped drumming for about two months. Believe me, the sheer act of attempting to hold a stick during that time frame was torture.

This news sucks, as Mumakil are fucking intense and one of my surface-level grind favorites. They’re obnoxious as all hell. I found them via the Misery Index split they did a few years back and enjoyed the hell out of their 2009 release, Behold The Failure. The song “Barbecue In Bhopal” is a solid forty seconds of ass-whooping before it ends. Actually, the first five or so tracks blur into each other before you see your first real break for all of about . . . five seconds . . . before you’re back into a whirlwind of guitars and screaming.

The band’s official statement was posted on their facebook: Continue reading »

ALL OVER THE PLACE: REVERENCE, ZATOKREV, AND THE KOREA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 112012
 

We’ve got some show reviews and an interview coming up today that you won’t want to miss, but I thought I’d start off our Wednesday with an assortment of metal that I discovered yesterday while browsing the interhole. The first two items are from bands whose music I’d never heard before: Reverence (France) and Zatokrev (Switzerland). Both have been signed by Candlelight Records, and the songs I heard are new. The Reverence track comes packaged with an official video that’s a real eye-catcher. The third item is a new video from a Russian band we’ve featured here before — The Korea.

Stylistically, the music is all over the place — as diverse as the bands’ locations. As you’ll see, my reasons for picking each of these items are also all over the place. Here we go:

REVERENCE

This French band had their genesis in 1998. After assorted demos and splits (including one with Blut Aus Nord in 2003), they released their first album in 2005. Two more followed that one, and in 2010 the band signed up with Candlelight. Their fourth album and first Candlelight release, The Asthenic Ascension, hit the streets in Europe on April 9 and is being sold as a CD here.

To launch the new album, the band released a music video for “Earth”, the new album’s opening track. Although I’ve seen Reverence described as industrial black metal, “Earth” begins with a slow, lush, orchestral introduction, and when the metal starts, that symphonic air remains. The music swells with keyboard grandeur and heavy riffs and includes a mix of clean and harsh vocals.

“Industrial” this is not; it has more in common with Dimmu Borgir than Blut Aus Nord. Though I enjoyed the song, it’s not enough on its own to make me rush out and get the album. It’s the combination of the music and the video that landed “Earth” in this post. Continue reading »

GET U SUM NEW CATTLE DECAPITATION: “LIFESTALKER”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Apr 102012
 

Metal Blade will release Cattle Decaptation’s new album Monolith of Inhumanity on May 8 in the U.S. and on May 4 in Europe and the UK. Today, Metal Hammer grabbed the second song premiere from the album (we featured the first one here, along with a lot more info about the album). The song is called “Lifestalker”, and man has it fucked me up. I’ve had to play it repeatedly to make sure I didn’t have a spontaneous hallucination at the 1:30 mark.

Oh yes, the song begins with a white-hot blast of death-grind, all blistering riffage and meaty slams and Travis Ryan going from horrific rising growls to hair-on-fire shrieks. And then at that 1:30 mark a few bass notes announce a surprising shift into something very different and very, very cool. I ain’t gonna spoil the surprise — you should hear it for yourself. And even after that “what the fuck?” interlude, the back end of the song pays off again with another dose of fiery fretwork, drummer-pummel, and insane vocals.

I don’t think it’s premature to say this album will be the best thing Cattle Decap have ever done. Speed yourselves onward past the jump and listen . . . Continue reading »

JEFF LOOMIS AND THOSE RIFFS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 102012
 

(TheMadIsraeli dragged himself out of his phlegm-soaked sickbed to write this retrospective about one of his guitar idols and to provide a brief review of Plains of Oblivion.)

I’m going to share something personal and meaningful about myself with you NCS folk.

I want to be a musician, in a band, and doing the albums-and-touring deal for a living.  If I were, I wouldn’t be doing this music journalism bullshit [editor’s intrusion: I’m sure he meant that in the nicest possible way].  It’s pretty much my alternative as a means of remaining close to something I love.  I’m a guitar player. I’ve played the instrument for over 10 years now (13, to be precise), trying my best to hone my skill and technique.  I’m all too broke to realize any of these dreams though — so broke that I can’t afford to buy a suitable PC, camera, or other gear necessary to produce anything of respectable quality.  So I sit here, wishing, waiting.

I like to think I’m a guitarist first and a music journalist second, as much as it seems The Good Lord doesn’t want to arrange the cards in that order. But even though that’s not the hand I’ve been dealt, it doesn’t change a simple fact about me . . .  I love metal, and I love the fucking guitar.

We guitar players hold onto our idols — those people who for each of us were the inspiration, the people who are our personal golden standard of WHAT IT IS to be a badass riff-writer or shredder.  For myself, I’m unable to pick one favorite, but I can tell you the 5 definitive icons in my evolution as a guitarist:

Chuck Schuldiner, Christofer Malmstrom, Per Nillson, Jeff Loomis, and Alex Skolnick.

If you’ve been paying attention to news in the metal world lately and know what day today is, you would probably know who this piece is going to be about even without the post title and photo. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP: THE ATLAS MOTH, TOMBS, AND EMBERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 102012
 

Hey, you don’t have to tell me. I’m well aware that this site is like life-giving oxygen to our readers, and I know the air has been getting thin. You’ve been gasping because our daily output of posts has diminished in recent days. It’s just one of those rare times when all of us who write for NCS have been distracted or diverted by one thing or another, all at the same time.

In my case, the diversion was a happy one: Over the last three days I was distracted by events surrounding a long-time friend’s out-of-town wedding, including getting there and getting back and getting hammered in between.

She is now off on her honeymoon and I am now mostly recovered from the celebration and have been trying to figure out what I missed while I was whooping it up and bearing witness to the joyous union. Among other things, I discovered three new music videos for three not-so-new, but excellent songs. The videos are reminders of how good the songs are (I’ve loved all three since I first heard them), but they also add new dimensions to the songs.

The music and the videos have a few other things in common. The first two were produced with backing from Scion A/V, and the production values are quite high. The first two also involve candles. The third is creatively self-produced, making do with Creative Commons footage, but it shares this element with the other two more ambitious projects: You can drown yourself in the audio-visual experience, because there’s a powerful intensity to all three songs, and the visuals suit them well.

So, after the jump, the new videos for “Your Calm Waters” by The Atlas Moth, “Passageways” by Tombs, and “Shadows” by Embers. Continue reading »

DISCOVERIES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Apr 072012
 

I had some other ideas in mind for a Saturday morning post, but I got distracted following up on recommendations from other people — so I’m going with those for now. One, two, three . . . Meankind, Soul Cycle, and Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects.

ONE: MEANKIND

We’ve been keeping our eyes on this high-speed Hungarian death metal band ever since TheMadIsraeli reviewed their free EP, 22.Zero, last August (here). Back then, they had put together a speed-chess video (included with our review) for a song called “Incomprehensible Appetite”. I still love that fuckin’ video. So, naturally, I perked right up when TheMadIsraeli e-mailed me this a.m. to report that Meankind have a new video.

But before I get to that, you should know that Meankind self-released yet another free EP in January titled Live, Love, Slay, which I highly recommend. It includes a song called “Mantrap” that we featured in another post last fall, and it can be downloaded on Bandcamp. Check out Church of the Riff’s feature on that EP here. Also, while on the subject of Meankind, I’d like to plug That Devil Music, who have a recent interview with Meankind at this place. Now, onward to the video . . . Continue reading »

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