TURKEY AND BUG STUFFING: BLOTTED SCIENCE HELPS YOU WORK UP AN APPETITE FOR THANKSGIVING

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 232011
 

In October, then first-time NCS guest contributor The Baby Killer gave us his review of the new album by the wonderfully inventive and technically mesmerizing Blotted Science. The album is called The Animation of Entomology, and the songs were recorded as soundtracks for movie clips featuring . . . bugs. We previously posted the first of those movie clips — an excerpt from the 2005 remake of King Kong set to the sounds of a Blotted Science song called “Cretaceous Chasm”. One of the best music videos of the year, imho.

Now we have two more of these bug-filled Blotted Science clips — just in time for Turkey Day! To quote the band’s introduction to the most recent clip: “With everyone sitting down to eat their Thanksgiving turkey tomorrow, I can’t think of anything better to go with the stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie, than a swarm of roaches…” Well now, I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

The most recent video offering is a song called “Ingesting Blattaria”, which accompanies a clip from that moving 1982 art film, Creepshow. In case you were wondering, “blattaria” is the scientific name for the order that includes the 4,500 known species of cockroaches. The second video is a clip from Slither (2006), with a Blotted Science song called “Vermicular Asphyxiation” as the musical score.

In both cases, the music syncs perfectly (and ingeniously) with what’s on-screen. The alien slugs slither in Slither, and so does the music. The roaches hungrily scamper and swarm in Creepshow, and so does the Blotted Science score. This shit is fucking great! Watch both of the new vidz after the jump. Bon appetit! Continue reading »

THREE BANDS, THREE SONGS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Nov 232011
 

As I write this, it’s very early on a Wednesday morning. I just finished watching Abigail Williams, Hate, Keep of Kalessin, and Mayhem at El Corazon in Seattle. All four bands were excellent. The highlights of the evening were new songs from Abigail Williams (quite different from anything I’ve heard from the band before, and I think the best work they’ve yet done) and an absolutely mind-boggling performance by Hellhammer, the drummer of Mayhem.

The third highlight of the evening was getting to spend time with Fredrik Huldtgren and his girlfriend. Fredrik is the vocalist of a Swedish band called Canopy, which has been a favorite at NCS for a long time, and he happens to be in town visiting, just in time for some truly ass-sucking Seattle weather — somewhat offset by a very badass night of metal.

Spending time with Fredrik put me in mind of three bands, all of whom I like a lot. There’s a connection between them, but rather than explain it, I’d rather let you guess, or simply wonder. The three bands are Canopy, Obitus, and Lifelover. If you don’t know the music of these bands, then there are some worthwhile discoveries for you after the jump.

With luck, I’ll wake up in a few hours and think of something more to bring your way on an NCS Wednesday. And if the site just appears to be frozen for the rest of the day, you’ll know it’s because my bed has swallowed me whole, like a python chowing down on a wayward dog. Continue reading »

TWO “NEW” OBSCURA SONGS AND LIVING SACRIFICE CLIPS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 222011
 

Earlier this month, we reported plans by German tech-metallers Obscura to self-release a collection of previously undistributed demo tracks and new cover songs. It will be called Illegimitation and will include four songs from the band’s 2003 demo, three pre-production versions of songs recorded in 2006 following a tour with Suffocation (including an early version of “Incarnated”, which ultimately appeared on Cosmogenesis (2009)), and covers of songs by Death, Atheist, and Cynic that the band recorded earlier this year.

The band is raising money for the production of the album in both CD and LP formats as well as associated merch through Kickstarter; pledges starting at $5 will get you a range of stuff from a digital download of the album on up. You can get there via this link.

Today, the band put up two of the 2003 demo tracks on their Facebook bandpage for streaming: “…And All Will Come To An End” and “Crucified”. More about those songs, plus a chance to stream one of them here, after the jump.

Also after the jump: One of our favorite metal bands, Living Sacrifice, will be releasing a DVD during the week of December 9 called In Finite Live. It’s a professionally shot and edited, multi-camera performance by the band in Pomona, California, plus six more songs performed in the band’s hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. The DVD also includes bonus goodies, and it’s available for pre-order for ten bucks here. After the jump, we’ve got two song-clips from the DVD. Stay with us . . . Continue reading »

SATANIC POP METAL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  31 Responses »
Nov 212011
 

Oh hell yeah, baby, Semargl is back with another video! Long-time NCS readers know that I have a real weakness for this Ukrainian band, despite the fact that they are not trve, kvlt, grimm, krieg, brootal, or even terribly serious. Despite the corpsepaint and spikes, they’ve never really pretended to be any of those things either. And now, after further evolution of their sound, they’ve abandoned all pretense (what little of it once existed), titling their next album Satanic Pop Metal, which has pretty much been their style of music for quite some time.

Satanic Pop Metal will be the band’s fifth album and it will be released on a not-yet-disclosed date by the German label Twilight-Vertrieb. I expect nothing less (and nothing more) than a bouncy, hook-laden, groove-infused good time, with a dollop of nasty on top and dripping down the sides. It will be finger-lickin’ good, though I don’t know where their fingers have been.

The new official video is a live performance of “Join In Fire”, which will be appearing on the new album. The performance was filmed at a Halloween Night show in Kiev last month. In addition to the new album, Semargl plans to release a live DVD next year that will also include this clip. More metal bands should have black-clad dancers named Alina and Olga. Watch Alina, Olga, and Semargl have some fun after the jump.

Continue reading »

I SAW YOU NAKED THIS WEEKEND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  38 Responses »
Nov 202011
 

Nah, just kidding. I didn’t really see you naked this weekend. I just wanted to get your attention. And by the way, those of you who felt a little thrill at the idea of me seeing you naked, please don’t send me photos of you in the nude; I’m pretty sure you’re the ones I do NOT want to see naked.

What I did see were new videos that I thought were worth sharing. Still catching up on what I missed while on vacation, I found:

  • A new official video from Chthonic for the song “Quell the Souls in Sing Ling Temple” from the band’s latest album, the excellent Takasago Army (reviewed at NCS here); it was posted to YouTube on November 17 (thanks to TNOTB for this one)
  • A video of Textures performing “Consonant Hemispheres” on Dutch television on November 18; the song is from the band’s 2011 album Dualism (reviewed at NCS here)
  • A video of Vader performing “I Am Who Feasts Upon Your Soul” at a club in Liverpool, England, on November 10; the song is from Vader’s latest album Welcome To the Morbid Reich (reviewed at NCS here)
  • “A new fan-filmed video of Italy’s Hour of Penance performing a scorching new song called “Sedition Through Scorn” (posted on November 15)
  • “A new video for the song “Dagger” from Vildhjarta’s new album Masstaden, which hasn’t yet been reviewed at NCS — but will be soon; I’m putting this one last because the site that’s streaming it hasn’t devoted enough bandwidth to make this thing play reliably

All these videos are available after the jump. Get naked and watch them. Continue reading »

THE BIZARRE WORLD OF DEVIN TOWNSEND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 202011
 

Since returning from my vacation late Friday, I’ve been catching up (sporadically) on metal developments while I was away. Quite a few of them turned out to involve Devin Townsend. He is as multi-talented and as exuberantly creative as anyone working in metal today, and as I’ve learned again recently, his live shows are also fan-fucking-tastic. So, I pay attention when I see anything new about him, and I’m collecting in this post all of the recent items I saw — though DT is both so prolific and so unpredictable that I may well have missed something.

ITEM ONE

The first item is captured in the poster above. No sooner did DT finish his four-night series of special shows in London last week (one of which our own Andy Synn reviewed here) than he announced another very special London show — though this one is nearly a year off in the future. This one he’s billing as the biggest show he has ever done and the culmination of his entire career. It will involve “an art exhibition, actors, Ziltoid, stilt walkers, fire breathers” and a host of guest musicians “playing music that has never been attempted due to the size of the songs and the need for certain things“. The extravaganza will happen on October 27 at the Roundhouse, and tickets went on sale last Friday. Details are available here.

By the way, for poor schmoes like me who are too distant from London to make this show, it will be filmed for DVD.

After the jump, I’ve got three more items, and all of them are listening experiences. Continue reading »

KRODA LIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 192011
 

In July I reviewed the new album, Schwarzpfad, by Ukrainian black metal band Kroda. I tried to sum up my thoughts with these words: “Schwarzpfad is without doubt one of the best albums I’ve heard this year and one of the most memorable black-metal albums I’ve ever heard — an immaculate marriage of beautiful, folk-influenced melodies, black ‘n’ roll strut, and bestial voraciousness. It’s a brilliantly conceived, complex work that yields something new with every listen. Highly recommended.”

As the end of this year approaches, I haven’t changed my mind — Schwarzpfad is still one of the best albums I’ve heard in 2011, and certainly among the handful I’ve listened to most often.

On February 20, 2011, Kroda performed at the Metal Point Fest in Khmelnistkiy, Ukraine. Two days ago, the band uploaded the entire 33-minute set to YouTube, and I spent my early waking moments this morning (my first morning back home after vacation) watching and listening to it. It includes three songs: “Schwarzpfad II (Universal Provenances)”, “Schwarzpfad III (Forefather of Hangmen)”, and “Schwarzpfad IV (Heil Ragnarok!)”.

The smoke-shrouded performance was filmed from multiple camera angles, and although the video quality isn’t razor-sharp, it’s suitable for this music. The audio quality isn’t razor-sharp either, with particularly noticeable distortion in the bass-end, but fuck, the songs are so damned good and it’s so motherfucking cool to see Kroda performing live that it’s a small price to pay.

As I remember, Schwarzpfad was written and recorded by one man — Eisenslav — but he recruited some talented brothers to bring about this live performance. The video is after the jump. Bang yo fucken heads. Continue reading »

TWO NEW NON-METAL ALBUMS FROM CLOUDKICKER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 182011
 

I am very slowly making my way home from vacation today, with limited net access, so I’m writing this in a hurry.  Still, I thought the news was sufficiently interesting that I wanted to get this out there before tomorrow.

Here at NCS, we were latecomers to the musical phenomenon known as Cloudkicker (a/k/a Ben Sharp). But late was better than never, and when we had our eyes opened, they opened wide. NCS co-founder and infrequent contributor IntoTheDarkness put Cloudkicker’s 2010 album, Beacons, at No. 3 on his personal list of the year’s Top 25 releases, calling it “the best instrumental album all year.”

Our more regular contributor BadWolf had it at No. 6 on his list of the year’s best, calling it “one of the first pieces of genuinely brilliant metal-as-art to be released not only outside of the label system but outside of capitalism period.” And one of our guest contributors, The Artist Formerly Known As Dan, assigned it to the No. 8 position on his best-of-2010 list, with these words: “He doesn’t need a label because he can already do everything he needs to by himself.  And he’s beyond talented.” And last, I included a song from Beacons on our list of 2010’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

With that backdrop, you can imagine how interested I was to see an e-mail from MaxR at Metal Bandcamp today with this news: Cloudkicker has just released not one but two new albums — Loop and Let Yourself Be Huge. I’ve turned the album titles into links that will take you to the Cloudkicker Bandcamp pages where each album is available for free download, or any donation you feel is fair. Both albums are streaming here after the jump — and I’ve got a few more observations about the music, too (it’s not metal). Continue reading »

SEVEN YEAR STORM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 172011
 

(TheMadIsraeli follows his review of First Reign’s EP with some notes about a band-in-the-making from First Reign’s drummer.)

Seven Year Storm is the upcoming project of First Reign drummer Sean Lang. I don’t have much to say except that it’s dazzling progressive groove metal with some mighty badass orchestration. The songs are in raw form, and the guitars are recorded with synths and the like; so for now, this actually sounds more like… brutal video game music? It’s awesome even in its current form. Also, did I mention Dean Lamb from fucking Archspire will be involved?

Songs and videos are after the jump. Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 152011
 

My blogging time still being restricted, I’m just gonna hit you quickly with the following three items and then run away back to cloudland. What I have are new songs from Coldworker (Sweden), Mordbrand (Sweden again), and Zillah (Scotland).

COLDWORKER

I’ve been a fan of Coldworker since their early days. Both albums they’ve released to date — The Contaminated Void (2006) and Rotting Paradise (2008) — are worth your time if you like extreme trauma in your music. Featuring former members of Nasum, Relentless, Ruin, and Phobos, they play a violent amalgamation of grind and death metal.

In August, they signed with Listenable Records, which will be releasing their third album, The Doomsayer’s Call, on February 13, 2012. The cover art, which you can see above, is by the masterful Pär Olofsson (not his usual style, but still quite cool). Yesterday, they released the first song from the album. It’s called “Violent Society”. It will tear you a new one but leave you smiling as you bleed out. Give it a listen after the jump. Continue reading »

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