SOLSTAFIR: THE “FJARA” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 172012
 


Solstafir’s “Fjara”:  One of the most beautiful, most memorable, most emotionally piercing songs I heard during 2011. Not “extreme” enough in its sound for me to include on our MOST INFECTIOUS SONG list, but I gave it an “honorable mention”. I should have put it on the fucking list anyway.

Today, Metal Hammer premiered the official video for “Fjara”. It suits the song: scenes of the dramatic Icelandic landscape; water falling, surging, receding; a beautiful woman dragging a coffin, the symbol of a loss she cannot escape (shades of Gojira’s “Vacuity” video); the hulk of a dead U.S. bomber; ghosts and spirits . . .

It’s beautifully made, like the song. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

MORE MOVING PICTURES! (KING GIANT, CIPHER SYSTEM, and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 172012
 

We started yesterday with three videos and we’re starting today with three more. Two of today’s offerings are official videos that were released yesterday by King Giant and Cipher System and the third is a Capital Chaos live performance by The Dillinger Escape Plan. All of these bands know how to bring the metal, albeit in very different ways.

KING GIANT

On January 21, Northern Virginia’s King Giant will have the CD release show for their new album Dismal Hollow. We’ve heard it, and BadWolf’s review will be up here soon. But in short, it’s simply one of the new year’s first great albums — a dark, raw, smoke-filled crusher of Southern doom that rocks hard and is also one of the heaviest beasts you’ll hear in 2012. Massive, hook-filled riffs link up with thundering rhythms, head-spinning guitar solo’s, and Dave Hammerly’s incredible vocals to produce one memorable song after another.

We first stumbled across King Giant in September 2010 because of the ass-kicking video for a song called “13 to 1” off their 2009 album Southern Darkness, and wrote about that here. A few months later, they released a performance video for another Southern Darkness song called “Solace” — and we had to write about that one, too. Yesterday, the band released the first video for Dismal Hollow. It was produced and directed by Kevin Barker (who also made those previous KG videos) and funded by the band and their fans through Kickstarter (I’m proud to have chipped in for that project myself). It’s fuckin’ great. Continue reading »

TWO TITANS TIP TITLES (CANNIBAL CORPSE AND MESHUGGAH)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

What a feature-packed Monday this has turned out to be!  The latest thing to catch my bloodshot eye is that gnarly Vincent Locke album cover up there, from one of the gnarliest-ever, ever-gnarly death metal bands ever: Cannibal Corpse.

Yes, the next Cannibal Corpse album is fast approaching (with the Metal Blade release scheduled for March 13) and it will be called Torture. More from today’s press release: “While Torture marks the latest progression in the band’s sound, it also witnesses a return to what drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz accurately terms ‘the frenzied attack of Butchered At Birth (1991) or Tomb Of The Mutilated (1992),’ infusing the band’s advanced musicianship with the raw savagery that haunted their earlier releases, and in the process conceiving the definitive CANNIBAL CORPSE record.” Can I get a throaty FUCK YEAH!?  Thank you.

Also, you may remember that one week ago we zapped up on this site a YouTube leak of the first track from Torture called “Demented Aggression”. Unauthorized thing that it was, it got yanked from YouTube fairly quickly. But now, we have an authorized stream of the song for those who missed it. That’s right after the jump (and yes, it lives up to that “raw savagery” billing), along with pre-order info for the album. Also after the jump: more news about Meshuggah’s next album. Continue reading »

MORE FREE DELICIOUS HEAD FUCKAGE FROM SCION A/V METAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I’m almost to the point of buying a Scion car just to express my gratitude to Scion A/V.  Almost.  Unless you’ve been living in a cave (or the loris compound at the NCS Island), you probably know that Scion A/V has been releasing free EPs and videos from badass metal bands.  But they’re doing more than that.

What I just discovered is that Scion A/V has been enlisting certain metal labels to round up a selection of their artists for performances in Los Angeles before live audiences, professionally recording the shows, and then prepping audio of the performances for free download.

The first team-up was with Nuclear Blast, who helped arrange appearances of Exodus, All Shall Perish, Origin, and Decrepit Birth at The Roxy in West Hollywood on November 12 of last year. As of today, the digital album of those live performances has become available for free download. Here’s the track list, which happens to include many of my favorite songs from each band:

1.  Decrepit Birth: “Metatron”
2.  Decrepit Birth: “The Resonance”
3.  Decrepit Birth: “Polarity”
4.  Origin: “Banishing Illusion”
5.  Origin: “Evolution of Extinction”
6.  Origin: “Swarm”
7.  All Shall Perish: “Wage Slaves”
8.  All Shall Perish: “Procession of Ashes”
9.  All Shall Perish: “Gagged, Bound, Shelved and Forgotten”
10. Exodus: “Beyond the Pale”
11. Exodus: “Blacklist”
12. Exodus: “Metal Command”
Continue reading »

MOVING PICTURES! (from ABIOTIC, PRAY FOR LOCUST, and THE KOREA)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I just returned home last night from 4 days on the road that cut into my web-surfing, music-listening, and NCS-blogging time. So now I’m playing catch-up. Last night I saw new music videos from three bands that I thought were worth sharing — as much for the videos as for the music. I’m guessing all of these bands probably get slapped with the deathcore label, but although the songs include some of the musical tropes from that genre, other trippy things are in the mix, too.

Here are the videos, in the order in which I saw them: from Abiotic (Miami), Pray For Locust (Stockholm), and The Korea (Moscow).

ABIOTIC

I first heard about this South Florida band a couple weeks ago from NCS co-founder IntoTheDarkness. They self-released a seven-song EP last year called A Universal Plague, which is selling on iTunes and Amazon mp3. When ITD recommended them to me, I picked up the EP and listened to two songs, which is all I had time to do at that moment. I liked what I heard, and then by coincidence one of those two songs (“Vermosapien”) turned out to be the one featured in the official video that Abiotic released last night. Continue reading »

“WE SUCK COCKS FOR A LIKE”

 IQ Subtraction, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  42 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I was afraid it would come to this eventually.

Metal bands try all sorts of come-on’s in an effort to increase their Facebook “likes”. They ask politely. They plead and beg pathetically. They get their friends in other bands to solicit “likes” on their behalf. They dangle the carrot of a new song, or album art, or a track list, if their total “likes” reach a certain magic number.

These kind of inducements are too fuckin’ lame (or too tame) for Greek math-metal band Tardive Dyskinesia, who we’ve written about a lot at NCS. A few months back, they posted this status on their FB wall: “The next 38 guys who like us on facebook will win a lollipop licked from all the band members! What are you waiting for…!!” I’d already liked their page or I definitely would have gone for that. Just what I’ve always wanted.

But that was just a warm-up for a status they posted last week. I think you can guess what they offered. As “like” solicitations go, “we suck cocks for a like” was short, to-the-point, and very friendly. It was also the logical next level in “like” solicitations.

I’ve had fun watching the NCS “like” total increasing on our Facebook page. We crossed 1,000 “likes” last week, and that was definitely a good time, but it will probably take a while to reach 2,000 or even 1,500, because there’s a limited number of geniuses in the world. I’d like to get there faster. Taking inspiration from Tardive Dyskinesia, I’m now thinking about NCS offering blowjobs for “likes”. Continue reading »

ROULETTE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 142012
 

That’s what this post is — just a spin of the metal roulette wheel. The tiny ball (otherwise known as my brain) skitters and bounces around and eventually comes to rest in a slot, and then we spin again. Four slots, four bands, new and old, picked at random based on newly available music, but recommended by my tiny, ball-like brain.

BREACH

I first heard mention of this band in the list of albums recommended by Mika Andre (Eryn Non Dae.) as part of our 2011 year-end Listmania. Mika’s list included an album called The Tunnels by a band called Terra Tenebrosa (which, by the way, has been wrecking my sanity ever since). Mika mentioned that Terra Tenebrosa was a projected started by some guys from a Swedish band called Breach.

Then, last night, I saw that a 2002 EP by Breach called Godbox was being re-released in re-mastered form on vinyl by Apocaplexy Records. Apocaplexy gave this description of the music:

“It starts with weird noises and woman screaming. The drums kick in, this gnarly bass, this groove, these melodies. Audible darkness, 98% darker than most Black Metal bands claim to be. The important thing: This is unique, untouched by cliches, timeless . . .This swedish band which lacked brighter attention in their days because everybody rather focused on Refused. This band people compared with Neurosis because yet again it just lacks comparison. It’s more than hardcore, more than metal, more than any other box you want to put this in.” Continue reading »

OF ASSASSIN’S CREED, AYREON, ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS, AND AWESOME ALLITERATION

 Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  35 Responses »
Jan 132012
 

(DemiGodRaven (ex-TNOTB) looks at the similarities between the Assassin’s Creed games and the albums of Ayreon, and speculates about how the latter may shed light on how the former is going to end.)

Anyone who has been aware of my writing for a while knows pretty well that I’m a pretty huge nerd when it comes to video games. They’re my second love, with the first being music. They’re also the two most expensive hobbies in the world, but that is a whole other subject for some other time. Occasionally, there is an incredible crossover between some form of metal and video games, and I can’t help but give it a knowing wink and nod. Or, in this case it’s a confluence of all sorts of things that just happen to share the same archetypal concept.

The thought for this article began to cross my mind as I wrestled my way through the latest Assassin’s Creed game, which if you haven’t been following the series has basically gone from a sort of Lost-esque conspiracy science fiction to batshit fucking insane within the span of two yearly iterations as Ubisoft (the game’s developer and publisher) attempts to strange as much money out of the franchise as possible.

What is funny about the story of these games is that it has pretty much evolved into the same story told by the Ayreon discography, with its dream sequencer experiments and the end of mankind. Of course, you also have to acknowledge that even though the elements of each story are as fantastic as can be, the bare guts of each one are fairly basic and recognizable. I’ll be analyzing this to some extent while also pointing out the ridiculous similarities between the game series and the concept behind most of Ayreon’s work.

As always this deserves warning: I am going to be spoilery as fuck in the following article. Just a note though, it’s not like you should give a shit. Judging by the latest Assassin’s Creed game, the writing team doesn’t. Continue reading »

KNIVES OUT!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  27 Responses »
Jan 132012
 

(Are you looking for some twisted, clawing music and some violent, gore-drenched imagery? Well, look no further!  groverXIII has got you covered.)
I used to love nu metal.

I know… that’s not the best way to start off a post. The very mention of nu metal is generally sufficient to earn the scorn of metalheads everywhere, even though a lot of them got started on nu metal just like I did. And to clarify, it’s not like I still listen to a lot of nu metal. I still listen to Incubus’ S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and Mudvayne’s L.D. 50 on occasion, but that’s about as far as I go. Still, I have some fond memories for bands that I discovered during nu metal’s heyday. I mean, System Of A Down (whom I refuse to classify as nu metal) are still personal favorites, and I’m still hoping for a reunion album.

Anyway, that brings me to Knives Out!, a band comprised mostly of former members of two now-defunct bands that I discovered in the nu metal era. Knives Out! features Todd Smith and Jasan Stepp, two guys from Dog Fashion Disco (whose Faith No More/Mr. Bungle worship took the style to a totally new level); Dave Cullen, who plays bass for Polkadot Cadaver, the spiritual successor to Dog Fashion Disco, which also features Smith and Stepp; and Tommy Sickles and Tom Maxwell, formerly of Nothingface, who I suppose played nu metal, but put such a psychotic, violent twist on the music that they seemed to transcend the label. (Maxwell is also a member of Hellyeah, in the interest of full disclosure, but I’m going to ignore that for this band’s purposes.) Nothingface’s Violence and Skeletons were personal favorites for quite sometime and still get a listen now and again, and Dog Fashion Disco’s entire discography still finds a place in my regular listening rotation. Continue reading »

OTARGOS: “WORSHIP INDUSTRIALIZED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 122012
 

Season of Mist released the most recent album of French black metal band Otargos — No God No Satan — back in 2010. The band is working on new music now, but only within the last two weeks relased an official music video for a song called “Worship Industrialized” from No God No Satan. It’s definitely not something that uses the more traditional black metal motifs.

The music doesn’t start until about the 1:45 mark. Before that, you hear narration of a story, while watching pictures of a desolate, volcanic landscape (filmed in Sicily). The story is about Earth in a post-apocalyptic time when a new religious cult has arisen, one with ironic roots.

After the music begins, the members of Otargos eventually seem to represent forces of freedom capable of stripping away the delusions of the new cult, though they, too, appear to be survivors of the apocalypse that destroyed civilization. The visuals have an epileptic quality, which apparently was the result of a simultaneous multicam capture when the song performance was filmed.

Those visuals and the music go well together, because the music is blistering and vicious — but man, it’s also got a massive beat that’s catchy as fuck. This is the only song I’ve heard from No God No Satan, but it’s enough to send me exploring what else that album has to offer. And congrats to Federico Anastasi (Undeci | Decimi) and his team on a cool video. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

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