LET’S TANGO BITCHES!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 052012
 

That dude up there is Greg Burgess, guitarist for Colorado metallers Allegaeon (I said “metallers” to make Trollfiend giggle like a little girl). He can play some guitar, and not just metal guitar: He can tango, bitches!

He just posted a video playing a tango composition on acoustic guitar, which is quite beautiful. But he CAN play some metallz, too. And so can Allegaeon’s Ryan Glisan. Fuck, all the Allegaeon dudes can. Don’t believe me bitches? Well, after the jump, watch the official video for “Nex of Terra”, a song from the band’s self-titled 2008 EP. I fuckin’ love the song. A fine example of Rocky Mountain Scandinavi-ish melodic death metal. It will get your blood pumping. Bitches.

Allegaeon is working on their second full-length album. Highly anticipated. Tango and rock after the jump (and let us know if you have any recommendations for tango metal.) Continue reading »

GOJIRA SPEAKS, WE OBEY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

About an hour ago, Gojira added a link to the uncut version of “Vacuity” on their Facebook page, declared “Sharing Friday”, and commanded: “Share the name Gojira everywhere!!”

Who are we to ignore such a command?

Some things never lose their awesomeness with the passage of time. Besides, lacking anything new from these French titans, we must make do.

 

Gojira – Vacuity from Julien Mokrani on Vimeo.

REMEMBERING WHEN THE HAUNTED WERE WORTH A SHIT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

As an early fan of Sweden’s The Haunted, I was deeply disappointed by their seventh studio album, Unseen, released last year. Andy Synn loved the album, though he admitted in his review that it was a true “grower” and not without its flaws. I’m afraid it didn’t grow on me. Though it had its moments, it seemed instead like another milepost in the decline of a once invigorating band.

In a curious turn of events, yesterday The Haunted released a previously unreleased video for the song “99” from their 2004 album, rEVOLVEr, which happens to be the last album from the band I really enjoyed. It’s a montage of live performance clips shot during the summer of 2004 at Stengade in Copenhagen and at the Swedish Rock Festival.

Why was it released only now? Could it be that the band felt the need to remind fans of an earlier time when their music meant more to metalheads than it seems to mean today?  Or maybe that’s just my own prejudice coming through. I do know that it sure as fuck reminded me of why I used to await their albums with eagerness. The song is a headbanger, and the video rocks hard. Be reminded after the jump.

And if you think I’m full of shit either (a) because I liked anything by The Haunted that post-dates Made Me Do It, or (b) because Unseen turned me sour, feel free to leave a comment. Just don’t use the word “shit”, because we frown on bad language here. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 41: FUNERAL WHORE, FALLING LEAVES, AND PARIUS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 022012
 

Your humble editor has been under the weather since last weekend, causing him to fall even further behind in planned NCS projects (and also causing him occasionally to refer to himself in the third person). Concentrating for very long has proven difficult, and given that your editor’s normal attention span is comparable to that of a hummingbird, this is a serious deficit. I haven’t been able to listen to more than a song or two at a stretch, and even typing hurts.

However, the show must go on, and it occurred to me that writing another installment of MISCELLANY would be feasible despite my current disabilities.  Why?  Because in the MISCELLANY series, the general rule is that I only listen to one song per band from bands whose music I’ve never heard before, and then I dutifully record the results, not knowing in advance whether the music will or won’t be worthwhile.

Almost two months have passed since the last installment of this series, and the list of listening candidates has grown to gargantuan proportions. Confronted with so many choices, I decided to take the easy way out and simply pick the last three bands who contacted us (either directly or through a PR representative): Funeral Whore (The Netherlands), Falling Leaves (Jordan), and Parius (U.S. – Pennsylvania).

FUNERAL WHORE

What first caught my attention about this Dutch band was the news that their debut album, Step Into Damnation, would be released by the Mexican label Chaos Records (on February 27). I’ve had good luck with Chaos releases, and of course it didn’t hurt one tiny bit that the music was described with references to Grave, Unleashed, and Entombed. Continue reading »

ANOTHER OAK PANTHEON UPDATE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 022012
 

We climbed on the Oak Pantheon bandwagon last June, which I suppose was before it was a bandwagon. Since then we’ve been closely following this Minneapolis duo (a trio, if you include producer Sean Golyer). Their self-released debut in 2011, The Void, was wonderful. It appeared on many of the Best of 2011 lists we published. As I wrote in a subsequent post: “[T]he music is hugely distracting and tremendously appealing. As a gross generalization, it’s folk-influenced black metal with memorable acoustic and electric melodies, infectious rhythms, and a scarifying dose of Nordic vocals. Sweeping beauty and the beast, indeed.”

The Void is still available for download at Oak Pantheon’s Bandcamp page. But as creative musicians are wont to do, the band are working on a new album for release later this year. They’ve created a “teaser reel” of rough instrumental mixes for three songs from the album, and they’ve asked fans to listen and then vote on which song Oak Pantheon should preview in full before the album drops.

After the jump, you can stream the teaser reel and find out how to vote on the track you would most like to hear in full. Also after the jump, I’m excerpting a recent interview of the band that provides more info about the musical direction of the new album. Continue reading »

VIDEO ROUNDUP: NAPALM DEATH AND COMEBACK KID

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Feb 012012
 


The thoroughly awesome Napalm Death will be releasing their 14th (!) studio album, Utilitarian, on February 27th in Europe and February 28th in North America. I’m really looking forward to it. Yesterday, thanks to a tip from TheMadIsraeli, I realized I had missed the album teaser that the band released last week.

The video was created by the band’s guitarist and backing vocalist Mitch Harris. It’s a politically charged animation interspersed with news clips of protests, and it’s a head-trip and a half to watch. A comment I saw on YouTube pretty much sums up the message: “Fuck the System, Fuck Governments, Fuck Aliens!”

And the music goes really fuckin hard, too. The riffs crush without remorse, and Barney Greenway sounds raw and pissed off. I’m also liking the use of clean vocals (I know, that’s heresy, but I’m just being honest). This is grindcore done right.

Watch that after the jump if you haven’t see it yet . . . and then we’ll move on to the new video from Comeback Kid. Continue reading »

ILLINOIZE: NEW GOODIES FROM THE HORDE AND AWAKING LEVIATHAN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  37 Responses »
Feb 012012
 

An e-mail from NCS reader Black Shuck delivered two nice pieces of news on Sunday concerning two Illinois bands we’ve featured here in the past — The Horde and Awaking Leviathan.

Some dude took us to task in a recent comment for false advertising  —  the name of the site is NO CLEAN SINGING, but we had reviewed an album that did that clean singing like half of the time. I can see why that would be confusing, but the music in this post won’t confuse anyone. Not only is there no clean singing, there’s nothing clean about the music in any respect.

THE HORDE

This band’s 2011 album, Thy Blackened Reign, is a hell-ripping cavalcade of Viking black thrash. Thematically, it takes its cues from Norse mythology, and musically it swings some mighty sharp-edged battle-axes. Speed metal and thrash are effectively fused together with elements of death metal and black metal. It delivers a cathartic, fist-pumping experience.

A couple of days ago, the band released a music video for the song “Odin’s Blood”. In someone else’s hands, the gang shouts of the song title and the first-pumping could have become cheesy, but these dudes have such authenticity and so much conviction for what they’re doing that they succeed. And holy shit . . . those riffs! Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

ABOMINABLE PUTRIDITY RAINS DOWN THE PUTRIDITY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  25 Responses »
Jan 302012
 


Russia’s Abominable Putridity will release their second album, The Anomalies of Artificial Origin, via Brutal Bands on February 28. We featured two early song releases from this collection last May, along with Par Olofsson’s brutal cover art, but it appears the album has now leaked in full, and all the songs have now made their way to YouTube over the last couple of days.

What’s more, the band have themselves been linking to the YouTube videos via their Facebook page. We presume this means they want people to start listening to the music now. Who are we to disagree?

So, after the jump we’ve collected all of them. This isn’t the time or place for a full review — we’ll do that later. For now, let’s just say that if you’re a fan of wantonly destructive slam metal with pile-driving grooves and cavernously croaking vocals, this will probably make your day. Continue reading »

ALTARS OF DESTRUCTION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 302012
 

Sometimes, the unfinished dreams of youth can be recaptured and brought to fruition despite the passage of decades. This is one such story.

I first learned about Altars of Destruction almost one year ago from fireangel of the Finland-based Night Elves blog, who provided me quite a lot of information about the band and their significance in the history of Finnish metal. To sum up:

AoD was founded in 1986 by the brothers Kimmo (guitar) and Pasi Osmo (bass) and Jukka Sandberg (drums). By 1988, the band’s line-up had solidified with the addition of guitarist Mika Ahlqvist, vocalist Mika Luoma, and new drummer Juhani Mäenpää. AoD was one of the earliest thrash bands in Finland, playing alongside Stone, who we featured in our Finland Tribute Week series (here) and whose former members are now in bands such as Children of Bodom (Roope Latvala) and SubUrban Tribe (Janne Joutsenniemi, who is also a producer for the excellent Finnish band MyGrain).

After the replacement of Mika Ahlqvist with guitarist Junnu Mäki, AoD released an EP (Painful Awakening) in 1989, but unfortunately dissolved due to internal and external difficulties before recording what was to be their debut album. But beginning in about 2006, the band began the process of re-forming, with Jussi Samppala (Tyrant Disciple) eventually stepping in on drums, and in 2010 — more than two decades after the band first formed — they finally released their “debut” album, Gallery of Pain. It’s a mix of old and new material and is available for streaming at MySpace (here). Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON: WHAT’S NEW FOR 2012

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 302012
 

 

(NCS guest contributor SurgicalBrute keeping it real with a collection of alerts about forthcoming releases from four underground bands — Maveth (Finland), Ketzer (Germany), Witchrist (NZ), and Anhedonist (Seattle) — plus examples of music from the featured bands.)

Another year is done, and everyone’s “best of” opinion has been given. So what’s a metalhead to do? Well, you forget about everything you got in 2011 and start looking forward to 2012.

A few big names are already being thrown around, some of whom are personal favorites (Desaster, Evoken, fucking Asphyx) and some of whom are enjoyed by the wider community (Meshuggah, Testament, Neurosis). So, with another potentially strong year ahead of us, here’s a few more bands to keep your eye on

MAVETH

Unholy blackened death, Maveth is composed of 3/5 of Finnish death metal band Cryptborn (one of my personal Best of 2011 picks). Mixing killer blast beats with some surprisingly melodic riffs, they never really let one style dominate, equally taking the best from both genres. Maveth’s first full length has yet to receive a release date.  (Maveth music right after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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