LISTMANIA: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 3)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 132011
 

This is the third part of a multi-part post about up-and-coming Norwegian bands. The first part is HERE, and the second part is HERE.  And here’s an abbreviated version of the full explanation that appears in Part 1:

“Pyro” is the name of a radio program on one of the radio channels (P3) operated by NRK, the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners, and Pyro is the program that focuses mainly on metal and hard rock.

Last week, the Pyro web site rolled out its 2011 list of the most promising metal bands in Norway. What I’m doing in this series is just repeating what I found on the Pyro web site, doing my best (with the lame assistance of Google Translate) to give Pyro’s descriptions of each band they picked as the best new metal bands in Norway, plus the same music from each band that they gave as an example (most of the songs can be found on Amazon mp3 or downloaded from the Urørt site via the links provided in the music descriptions below). Since my verbiage isn’t a professional translation, any fuck-ups are mine, not Pyro’s. I’ve also added some notes of my own, which are in brackets.

So here we go with Part 3. In this part, we’re including  Aristillus, Livstid, The Good the Bad and the Zugly, Blodspor, and The Konsortium. Below the images in the rest of this post, I’ve turned each of the band’s names into links that will take you to their social media sites, in case you want to explore further. Continue reading »

DEATH IS NEVER FINISHED: REMEMBERING CHUCK SCHULDINER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  21 Responses »
Dec 132011
 

On December 13, 2001 — ten years ago today — Chuck Schuldiner died of a brain tumor after a two-year battle to survive. To honor his memory, NPR writer Lars Gotrich persuaded eleven metal musicians to pick their favorite Death song, and write what it and Schuldiner have meant to them. The list of contributors includes three former members of Death — Paul Masvidal (Cynic), Gene Hoglan (Fear Factory), and Richard Christy (Charred Walls of the Damned), all of whom, interestingly, chose songs from the 1991 album, Human.

The list of contributors also includes Arthur von Nagel (Cormorant), Elizabeth Schall (Dreaming Dead), John Dyer Baizley (Baroness), Stephan Gebedi (Hail of Bullets), Matt Harvey (Exhumed), Kevin Conway (East of the Wall), Anthony Buda (Revocation), and Steffen Kummerer (Obscura).

It’s an interesting read (and includes streams of the chosen songs), and I thought Gotrich’s introduction eloquently captured the wonder many of us have experienced as we listened to Death’s music from different albums over time — as an artist, Chuck Schuldiner was not only a great talent, he was also constantly moving in new directions. Here’s an excerpt from Gotrich’s introduction (which continues after the jump). To read the whole thing, go here.

“There’s something to be said for the visionary who dismantles the very movement he’s created or pioneered. . . . For a humble guitarist from Florida named Chuck Schuldiner, his metal band Death (not to be confused with the proto-punk band of the same name) was a mere instrument. Along with the Bay Area’s Possessed, Death not only helped spawn an entire extreme genre around gore and technical guitar wizardry, but like horror movies sometimes do, Death also challenged our notions of life. Continue reading »

BERGEN BANDS: AETERNUS, HELHEIM, SULPHUR, AND VULTURE INDUSTRIES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Dec 122011
 

Every day I discover something that reinforces just how fucking ignorant I am. As if I needed any reminders. Take yesterday for example. Yesterday I learned about a band from Bergen, Norway called Aeternus. They’ve been active since 1993, they released their first album in 1997 (Beyond the Wandering Moon), and five more have followed, with the most recent one (HeXaeon) surfacing in 2006.

Their current line-up includes the band’s founder, Ares (vocals and guitars), who has played with a number of other Norwegian black metal bands over his career, including a stint in Gorgoroth; V’gandr (bass), who’s also a member of Helheim and a live musician with Taake; Phobos (drums), who is also active in a very good band called Gravdal; and Specter (guitars), another member of Gravdal. Despite the pedigree of Aeternus’ members, I’d managed to go through life to this point without ever hearing their music.

What I discovered yesterday was that the band’s label, Dark Essence Records, has uploaded a collection of Aeternus songs to SoundCloud. The music is drawn from throughout the band’s history and includes two songs from HeXaeon (“What I Crave” and “The 9th Revolution”), one from A Darker Monument (2003) (“Sons of War”), one from Ascension of Terror (2001) (“Denial of Salvation”), one from Shadows of Old (1999) (“The Summoning of Shadows”), two from And So the Night Became (1998) (“Warrior of the Crescent Moon” and “Fyrndeheimen”), and one from Beyond the Wandering Moon (“Vind”).

This retrospective is well-timed because after the passage of five years since the last album, the band is now recording their seventh full-length, which should be ready for release sometime in 2012. It allows listeners to trace the path of Aeternus’ music from the early days up to the time of the last release, as a prelude to what will come next. And that’s not all . . . Continue reading »

DAT GRUVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  35 Responses »
Dec 112011
 

Nature or nurture?  Present from birth or learned behavior?  When it comes to the impulse to move to a groove, it’s pretty clear that human beings are hard-wired to do it.  The following video is further evidence of that.

But the following video is evidence of other things, too:  that if exposed to metal at an early age, before their psyches are corrupted by pop music, children will get it immediately; that in addition to the impulse to move to a groove, the impulse to headbang is also hard-wired; and that Vildhjarta’s master plan to take over the world within the space of a single generation is proceeding successfully.

We’ve all seen other examples of this kind of “metal kids” video before, but this is the best one I’ve seen, because this young dude has definitely got some moves . . . and because of the headbang thing.

According to the description below the video clip, the guy who made it had some friends over to his place and decided to play some of his tunes for one of their kids. Watch what happens. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 2)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 112011
 

This is the second part of a multi-part post about up-and-coming Norwegian bands. The first part is HERE, and this is an abbreviated version of the full explanation, which appears in Part 1:

“Pyro” is the name of a radio program on one of the radio channels (P3) operated by NRK, the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners, and Pyro is the program that focuses mainly on metal and hard rock.

Last week, the Pyro web site rolled out its 2011 list of the most promising metal bands in Norway. What I’m doing in this series is just rolling out what I found on the Pyro web site, doing my best (with the lame assistance of Google Translate) to give Pyro’s descriptions of each band they picked as the best new metal bands in Norway, plus the same music from each band that they gave as an example — except I’m giving a few more examples of songs because I’m having to find my own sources for the music (the Pyro stream clips aren’t embeddable). Since the verbiage isn’t a professional translation, any fuck-ups are mine, not Pyro’s.

So here we go with Part 2. In this part, we’re including Maladronia Institute, No Dawn, Corsair, Springskalle, and Okular. The musical styles vary a lot, but I enjoyed listening to all five (and by coincidence, I’ll be reviewing Okular’s new album soon). Below the images in the rest of this post, I’ve turned each of the band’s names into links that will take you to social media sites for each of them, in case you want to explore further. Continue reading »

YAY! MORE CHRISTMAS SEASON CHEER!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

Yessirree, it’s that special time of year when our tender ears are bombarded not only by multi-media ads exhorting us to spend our money like there’s no tomorrow, but also by manifold forms of musical Christmas cheer, whether in the form of carols or other “standards” we’ve heard a jillion times before, or special seasonal items being released for the first time.

Take this new video by Ancient VVisdom, for example. Specially timed to help celebrate the Yuletide season with tidings of great joy and the harking of heralds, these Austin-based musical angels have chosen to bless us all, every one, with a very catchy tune from their well-received 2011 debut, A Godlike Inferno. It’s called “The Opposition”, and it’s guaranteed to be a hit wherever fine Christmas music is heard on a non-stop basis, such as shopping malls and elevators.

So go ahead, get in the Christmas spirit: fill up a glass with eggnog, light some votive candles, and sing along with Ancient VVisdom to these stirring lyrics:

“Hail to thee, Lord Lucifer/I sing praises to thee/and I suffer no longer” Continue reading »

ARTIFICIAL BRAIN IS STILL COMMUNICATING WITH MY ARTIFICIAL BRAIN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

“The name of this game is death fucking metal, the kind that rampages like a heartless, mechanized beast the size of a house. The music slams and hammers with advanced pneumatics, interwoven with snakelike guitar leads and bounding bass lines. It’s fast and technical, and the vocals are downright voracious. Very fucking impressive, and possibly originating from space.”

That’s what I wrote in our review of the new EP from a Long Island, NY band called Artificial Brain, which includes Revocation guitarist Dan Gargiulo, possibly may include ex-Biolich vocalist Will Smith, and others whose identities I haven’t yet discovered with certainty. I wrote other things, too, but I’m pretty sure I was under the influence of biomechanoid larva from space who Artificial Brain keep as pets and use to infiltrate the weak-minded.

Wait, that didn’t come out right.  Anyway, whatever the fucking things are that wormed into my brain stem when I listened to the EP, those things have returned and are acting as receptors of microwave transmissions from space. I feel like something is crawling under my skin and looking out through my eyes with multifaceted cornea. Milky white foam is coming out my nose and dropping onto my keyboard.

I also hear a massive mechanized noise that’s starting to crack the walls in my home. I think it’s the sound of the new Artificial Brain video for “Tongues”, the one song from the EP I didn’t stream with my review. The EP is still available for free download at the Artificial Brain Bandcamp page. The video is after the jump. The green slime is coming out of my ears again. My brain is in a mixer. Continue reading »

FUCK. IT’S ALREADY THURSDAY AND WE HAVEN’T POSTED ANY FINNISH METAL. TIME TO FIX THAT EGREGIOUS OVERSIGHT.

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

Bob Malmström. That’s a band name. They’re from someplace called Westend in Finland. They claim to have originated borgarcore, which seems to be an abbreviation for bourgeois-hardcore. They are politically incorrect, in that they celebrate the enjoyment of things like eating meat, wearing furs, drinking copious amounts of Dom, lap dances, and making big piles of money.

In October, Spinefarm Records released Bob Malmström’s debut album, Tala svenska eller dö, which means “Speak Swedish or Die”. This has something to do with a linguistic minority group in Finland consisting of Swedish-speaking Finns. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “they maintain a strong identity and are alternatively seen either as a distinct subgroup of the Finnish people or as a separate ethnic group or even as a distinct nationality,” and they represent about 5.5% of the total Finnish population.

There seems to be some kind of continuing controversy over various government protections of the right of Swedish-speaking Finns to speak Swedish. Problem is, I can’t quite tell which side of this debate Bob Malmström is on. I found this Bob Malmström interview in Finnish, but as we all know, Google Translate does an especially piss-poor job converting Finnish into English, and the translation I get is mostly gibberish. So, I can’t tell whether Bob Malmström is protesting prejudice against the finlandssvenskar/suomenruotsalaiset or fomenting it — or just putting everyone on. Any Finns out there care to help me out?

Anyway, although this is all kind of an interesting aspect of Finnish culture that I didn’t know existed, it’s not the reason for this post. The reason for this post is the recently released official music video for a Bob Malmström song called “Eliten”, which has been rocking my ass this morning. It’s kind of a searing, headbanging, thrash/hardcore/punk onslaught, as rendered by a bunch of dudes in suits sipping champagne. Fuckin good pancake. Check it after the jump. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 1)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

This is a different spin on Listmania. For this post, we’re jumping outside North America and landing in Norway. Also, this isn’t really a “Best Album” list. Let me explain:

NRK is the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. It operates three main TV channels, three main radio channels, and several “niche” channels on radio and the internet. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners in the 15-30 age bracket, and of course, since this is Norway, it includes a healthy dose of metal. As far as I can figure out with help from Google Translate, “Pyro” is the name of the NRK P3 radio program that focuses mainly on metal and hard rock.

Last week, the Pyro web site rolled out its 2011 list of the most promising metal bands in Norway. I found out about this by seeing a Facebook post by a Norwegian band who showed up on the list. I got curious, and so I visited the site. Now, because this is radio programming, I figured the music wasn’t going to be quite as extreme as a lot of the metal that’s our bread and butter here at NCS. On the other hand, this is fucking Norway, and so I decided it would be worth spending some time exploring what they had to offer — and I guessed right.

I don’t speak Norwegian, of course. So, I used Google Translate. It rendered the Norwegian text on the web site into a kind of English . . . the kind spoken by people who’ve suffered some kind of severe trauma to the speech center in the brain. But I could get the gist of the text, and so I’ve tried my best to clean it up and make it mean what I think it means. But since this isn’t really a translation, I may have fucked it up. All errors are mine, not Pyro’s.

On the other hand, I’m not terribly worried about the text, because the site included music from each of the bands, so we’ve got music to hear, and the music is what counts, isn’t it? Continue reading »

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