Of course you’re well aware by now that your humble editor has a weakness for bagpipe music. Thanks to The Presurfer, I saw this video shortly after crawling out of bed this morning. And it produced this reaction:
But wait . . . there’s more. Continue reading »
I’m going to do to you what I did to myself last night, and I hope you get the same charge out of it that I got. It will take more time than it usually takes to zip through our posts here, but even if you choose to stay with me for only part of the journey, I think it will be worthwhile. It starts with Solstafir, it continues with Dimma, and it ends with both of them, in the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a live tag-team performance by two bands.
SOLSTAFIR
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve written about Sólstafir and their brilliant two-disk 2011 album, Svartir Sandir. They’re only a borderline metal band, but the borderland they occupy is a place I go to live in my mind quite often. There’s a song that ends the second disc called “Djákninn”. It’s a jam that’s nearly 11 minutes long, and I get lost in it every time I listen.
Listening is like getting behind the wheel of a car with some muscle under the hood, starting from a standing stillness and patiently shifting through the gears as it builds speed on an a climbing open road with some curves ahead. You hear the engine begin to purr, and as the throttle opens up in stages, it begins to roar, and then you’re really cruising like there’s no tomorrow, with the wind rushing through the open windows under a blue sky with not another care in the world. Continue reading »
BadWolf introduced me and many of you to Death Grips through the first installment of a series in which he spotlights the music of non-metal bands (here) — though I think most listeners would agree that there’s a helluva lot about Death Grips that’s metal. Because of BadWolf’s post, I got interested and starting following the band’s news. Early this month we reported that they intended to release two albums this year, including a song called “Blackjack”, which I included in that earlier post.
More news surfaced yesterday, and it kinda blows my mind: Death Grips has signed a record deal with Epic, the major label owned by Sony whose stable includes artists such as Fiona Apple, Natasha Bedingfield, and Brandy. Okay, to be fair, Epic is also home to Lamb of God, Ozzy Osbourne, and Judas Priest. As well as George Michael and Jennifer Lopez. And Mudvayne.
I hear the distant rumble of a throaty “What the fuck?!?” Or maybe that’s just my throat. I mean, Death Grips isn’t exactly a natural fit with the Epic roster, and I do wonder by what logic Epic saw this as a money-making signing, because this band is definitely out there. Or under there (“I am below / so far below / the bottom line”). Maybe Epic is trying to put some edge on their image.
As for Death Grips, I’m happy they get some label backing regardless of where it comes from; I certainly don’t expect that this group is going to “sell out”. I’m also now waiting for the J-Lo cover of “Beware” — “Dismiss this life / worship death / Cold blood night of serpent’s breath”. Fuck yeah. And I’m also happy that to celebrate the signing news, the band released another new song called “Get Got”. More details about the two albums plus the song are after the jump.
Anyone who thinks Job For A Cowboy is still a deathcore band didn’t hear the band’s 2011 EP, Gloom. You can simulate listening to it by reading Andy Synn’s NCS review (here). Or you can check out a song from JFAC’s forthcoming album, Demonocracy, because that’s what we have for you in this post.
The new, 9-track album, produced by Jason Suecof, is scheduled for release on April 10 by Metal Blade, who is accepting pre-orders for it now (here). It catches the eye with an album cover by Brent Elliott White, and it includes the return of two musicians who made their first JFAC appearance on Gloom — guitarist Tony Sannicandro and Cephalic Carnage bassist Nick Schendzielos, who replaced Brent Riggs last year.
Gloom revealed a band who were unabashedly leaving their deathcore roots behind and instead connecting with their death metal forebears, and even incorporating elements of black metal and doom on certain songs. What then does Demonocracy hold in store? Continue reading »
For some reason, That Word leaped to mind twice this morning, prompted by the music in this post. I’m sure I’m leaving myself open to vicious assault by Meshuggah purists for using it in their case, since they came first and That Word came later. But I kind of view it as a form of homage to The Masters, even though I still have no clue what it means.
And speaking of The Masters, what I have for you is a fan-filmed video of Meshuggah performing one of the new songs from KOLOSS — “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion” — at the Soundwave festival in Brisbane, Australia, yesterday. But first, I have to share a new discovery I made this morning via a status from a Facebook friend (thanks Talae).
TOWN PORTAL
This Danish three-man band is relatively new, and their six-song debut EP, Vacuum Horror, is available on Bandcamp for a “name your price” download. That Word came to mind when I listened to the EP this morning because it’s loaded with Meshuggah-esque groove, and it has that phat low-end tone that I now tend to associate with That Word. The band do acknowledge the Meshuggah influence, but it’s only one part of what makes their music click. I would not, for example, classify them as a djent band despite the often massive, head-snapping rhythmic structures.
The sound is probably closer to a metalicized math-rock. Along with all the low-end convulsion, head-swimming guitar melodies abound. There’s no singing on the EP, but that simply makes room for a group of very skilled instrumentalists to spin a kaleidoscope of musical colors. The swirling guitar leads are creative, the arrangements are beautifully constructed, and the production quality of the recording is excellent. Listen to two songs from Vacuum Horror after the jump. Continue reading »
We’re masquerading as Also, Wolves in this post, except we won’t fool anyone because this won’t be as funny or as clever as Trollfiend’s prose. But as he would say, Behold the Trollfinger!
So, the music of Russia’s Troll Bends Fir won’t bubble your skin from the heat or cause you to pee out your bunghole from fright like much of what we feature here, but it might still capture you like a mink in a trap, particularly the song we’re eventually coming to in this post.
We featured the music of this band once before last October. Then, the music was humppa, which was in keeping both with the band’s own description of its music as “beer folk” and and also with the prominent appearance of “troll” in their name. Fun-loving, toe-tapping, humppa-folk-metal is a big smile, particularly if you’re beered-up to your eyebrows. But it turns out that Troll Bends Fir are more multi-faceted than I suspected.
The band’s latest album, a compilation released last September called Братья Во Хмелю (Brothers in Drinks), includes more than beer-folk-rock-metal. It includes a song called “Ave Celia!”, which is the only song on the album that doesn’t have a Russian title in the original. And “Ave Celia!” is the subject of a new official video that’s well worth watching . . . and hearing. Continue reading »
Last August, NCS writer Andy Synn introduced us to Iceland’s Atrum through a justifiably enthusiastic review of their debut EP, Opus Victim. To quote from Andy’s write-up: “This extreme metal quartet’s music blurs the line between black and death metal, melding them with inspirations and aspirations drawn from classical music, to craft an epic blizzard of blackened fury and ground-shaking death metal heft that recalls a more deathly Keep Of Kalessin wrapped in a cold and venomous shroud of despondency.” In the ensuing Comments, TheMadIsraeli and I added our hearty endorsements. Suffice to say, NO CLEAN SINGING backs Atrum to the hilt.
Last week, as a tune-up for the Wacken Metal Battle 2012 festival in Iceland on the 3rd of next month, Atrum performed on Icelandic national TV, and the song they performed is a new one — “Peasant” — which is destined to appear on the band’s first full-length album, which is in the works.
Atrum won the Icelandic Wacken competition last year, which gave them a slot at the giant Wacken Open Air fest in Europe last summer. They’ll be appearing at this year’s Metal Battle show with the remarkable Solstafir, among other bands.
“Peasant” is a vivid reminder of just how good this band is. It thunders like an avalanche. Get buried by it after the jump. Continue reading »
According to the National Park Service, Florida’s Everglades swamp is “the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States.” It’s home to a wide variety of rare and endangered species, many of whom you would not want to meet up close and personal, including alligators, crocodiles, cottonmouths, Boa constrictors, Burmese pythons, rattlesnakes, and poisonous toads.
But there are other, far more menacing creatures in Florida and they’re crawling out of the abysmal swamps to eat your face.
I’m referring to the metal bands whose music is collected in a killer comp that’s available for free download on Bandcamp. Naturally, it’s called Swamp Abyss Sorcery, and it was packaged up by Satanik Recordings (who also released that Prostitute album we praised not long ago). The comp includes music by a few bands we already knew about and liked here at NCS, including the tar-choked, grungy, inexorable sludge metal of Shroud Eater and the crusty blackened thrash of Hot Graves. But man, they’re just part of the nasty menagerie of slavering creatures crawling and flying out of this download.
I’ve embedded the Bandcamp player after the jump so you can sample the sounds. Seriously, there’s some mighty fine shit to be had here. To do the download, go HERE. Continue reading »
If someone were to play a word association game with you and said “Deicide”, what would be the first word to pop into your head? Would it be “claymation”? Nah, I didn’t think so. For me, it would be “motherfucking”. As in “MOTHERFUCKING DEICIDE!!”
But the game may change after you watch the band’s new video for “Conviction”, a song off Deicide’s 2011 album To Hell With God.
Jesus, where to start? Actually, we could start with Jesus, because he’s in the video. He’s not having a good day, because Glen Benton is on his tail, hell-bent on nailing him to a church door and then sending him straight to hell.
I guess Christians who aren’t familiar with Deicide will be offended by this, but it’s not exactly Benton’s first offense. I mean, the guy has branded an inverted cross on his forehead at least 12 different times and 20+ years ago he wrote a song called “Crucifixation”, the first line of which was “Give praise to Satan, he has won.” And that was only the beginning. The damnation of Christ has been a constant Deicide drumbeat for two decades. But now we get the message in claymation. I gotta admit, I didn’t see that coming.
I guess I won’t be surprised if the video causes fresh uproar among people who take Deicide’s schtick seriously, even when a video like this makes it even harder to do that. Maybe after 20+ years, the by-now calculated sensationalism still works. We’ll see.
Don’t get me wrong — the music is still badass, and I am still going to see Deicide when they play here in March with Jungle Rot, Abigail Williams, Lecherous Nocturne, and Super Happy Story Time Land. I just don’t get the urge to do a fist-pump when I watch this video. The urge I feel . . . is to giggle. The video is after the jump. Continue reading »
Midnightmares is certainly not the most delayed album on my mental “most eagerly awaiting” list. No one can take that honor away from Necrophagist. But still . . .
In October 2010, I wrote a post about Dreaming Dead’s video for a song called “Overlord” from that Midnightmares album. I referred to the fact that the album had been recorded as a three-piece, while the band continued to hunt for a second guitarist (who frontwoman Elizabeth Schall wanted to be female). I noted: “We haven’t seen any definitive release date, and the band may be holding that up in an effort to find a label who would distribute it.”
Over the next year I wrote about the band a couple more times, including a piece about Elizabeth Schall shredding with a potential second guitarist (Stephanie Pickard) at the NAMM trade show (that partnership apparently didn’t work out) and another one about a second song from the album (the title track) being streamed temporarily last September.
And then last October I got a press release stating that the band were “readying to unleash their long-awaited new full-length Midnightmares“. It included the Travis Smith album cover you see above and a track list. Well, here we are near the end of February . . . and still no album. But in the meantime, we’ve gotten another new song and a video that reminds us why it’s still worth waiting, plus a bit of updated news. Continue reading »