IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T BANGED YOUR HEAD YET TODAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

I discovered a French band called Svart Crown more than a year ago when I reviewed their second album, Witnessing the Fall. I compared them to a joint venture between Immortal and Immolation. Since then, the band signed with Listenable Records, which put the album into wider distribution. It’s still a damned strong listen.

This morning I saw that the band have released an official video for “Into A Demential Sea”, one of the songs from Witnessing the Fall. To crib from my review (since I’m too fucking lazy to come up with any new phraseology), it’s “almost experimental in its combination of raging guitars, complex drumming, and sharp rhythm breaks that cause the song to trudge with death-doom chord progressions.”

But more importantly, it will trigger the old headbang reflex, which is a reflex that needs to be triggered often, so that you don’t get fixed-neck syndrome, which is a precursor to tight-sphincter complex and stick-up-the-ass disease.

And in other welcome news, an Ulcerate-Svart Crown European tour has been announced for February 2012. I say “welcome” because I’m trying to be happy for our European readers. I myself do not find this news welcome, because, since I can’t go to any of these shows, the news simply makes me jealous and slightly miserable because of my loss. I’m going to console myself by watching this video again. It’s after the big goddamn tour poster which immediately follows the jump. I hope all you Euro motherfuckers are happy. Continue reading »

LAMB OF GOD: THE “GHOST WALKING” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

As we reported yesterday, Lamb of God premiered the first track from their new album, Resolution, on Metal Sucks. Today, they’ve unveiled the official music video for the same song (“Ghost Walking”).

It’s one of those “lyric videos”, but with a creative visual twist. Gaze upon it after the jump.

Resolution will be released on Jan. 24 and is available for pre-order at this link. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 4

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Here’s the last feature in today’s impromptu mini-series on female-fronted metal bands who are not Amaranthe.

When I started collecting bands for this series, this last post was originally going to be about a Vancouver band called Without Mercy (pictured above). About six weeks ago, I got an e-mail from an NCS reader (David) pointing me to them, and more specifically to the YouTube channel for their female vocalist, Alxs Ness.

But today, when I got the idea of pulling together a handful of female-fronted bands as compensation for that Amaranthe thing and started doing a little homework about Alxs, I found out that at some point over the last six weeks she had become the vocalist for yet another Vancouver band called Abriosis. So, if I’m understanding things correctly, she will be the vocalist for both bands. [CORRECTION: Since posting this piece originally, I’ve learned that Alxs did leave Without Mercy, but Without Mercy is moving ahead with a new vocalist and working on new music.]

Abriosis put out a self-titled EP in 2008 and a debut album earlier this year called Tattered and Bound. Both of those collections were pre-Alxs Ness, so that sort of disqualifies them for discussion in this post. Instead, what I have for you after the jump is an amusing video (complete with some toaster-ball near the end) depicting how Abriosis met their new vocalist, and a second video of the band jamming one of their songs with Alxs behind the mic. Not surprisingly, Abriosis plans to record a new EP next year with the new line-up. Abriosis has a Facebook page here.

Without Mercy released an EP in 2007 called All Else Fails and then a self-titled debut album in 2009, which is available for streaming and purchase via Bandcamp. I like the heady dose of death-thrash brutality I’ve heard so far from the album, and I’m putting up an album stream for you to hear after the jump. But, first things first — the YouTube clip that David sent me featuring Alxs’ vocal cover of “Eaten” by Bloodbath. Elize Ryd, eat your heart out. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 3

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

In this third part of our impromptu mini-series on female fronted metal bands we’ve recently discovered, the subject is Winds of Genocide. This band is based in Durham City, in the northeast of England and are fronted by a woman named Kat “Shevil” Gillham. Their debut effort is an EP released in 2010 called The Arrival of Apokalyptic Armageddon. I heard about them recently via a message from occasional NCS contributor “Willard Shrapnelspear”. He may not have been a patron of NCS for very long, but he has already figured out the kind of rank, disgusting musical assaults I often prefer in metal.

Just a few days ago, the reliable, Singapore-based Pulverised Records (home of bands such as Desultory, Interment, Impiety, Bastard Priest, and Morbus Chron) announced the signing of Winds of Genocide for the release of their debut album sometime in 2012. The music is described in a press release as “an offensive d-beat onslaught” and “a bastardized fusion of Cianide, Amebix, Unleashed and Bolt Thrower.” That all sounded pretty fuckin good to me.

The most recent song released by the band is a tune from an upcoming split with Abigail (Japan), and it’s called “Into the Darkness of Eternal Nuclear Winter”. The band describes it as “kinda like Unanimated, Naglfar, early Unleashed thrown into a blender with old school Svensk Käng/ Crust Punk”. Check it out on the Soundcloud player right after the jump. It’s also the first song streaming on the ReverbNation player that I’m also including after the jump. It includes songs from that 2010 EP, too. Check it out. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 2

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Still making up for the infliction of Amaranthe on your ears earlier today . . .

Part 2 of this day-long mini-series focuses on an L.A. band called My Ruin. As in the case of Wykked Wytch, this band is a new discovery for me despite the fact that they’ve previously release six albums, and a seventh one is about to debut. The core of the band is a husband and wife team consisting of vocalist Tairrie B and multi-instrumentalist Mick Murphy. The new album is called A Southern Revelation, and fittingly it was recorded in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Although the band has had label support in the past (and apparently an ugly falling out with their last label), the new album is 100% DIY and will be made available on December 7 as a free digital download on My Ruin’s Bandcamp page HERE.

To promote the album, My Ruin recently premiered an official music video for the album’s opening track, a song called “Tennessee Elegy”. The video was made by the band themselves and friends on a low budget, but it looks pretty good to me. As for the music on the new album, I’ve seen it referred to as Black Sabbath meets Black Label Society, and that’s a decent description, based on this one song. Continue reading »

HUMBLED

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  30 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Believe it or not, I try hard each day to concoct something interesting to post on this site. I try to avoid posting completely lame-ass bullshit (hereafter, “C-LAB”). Some days, avoiding C-LAB is difficult. I run out of time, or I party too hard and too late, and I do something that basically just feels like I’m showing my ass. And then some days, I feel like I’ve written something really good.

But how do I really know whether I’ve done a C-LAB post or instead something better than that, i.e.,  something that’s mainly lame-ass bullshit (“M-LAB”) but not C-LAB? Well, one way to find out is to check Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a service that gives web sites a shitload of data about their traffic. It’s mainly used by people who are trying to make money off their sites. Since we don’t advertise, and therefore don’t make shit off what we do here, I only use it to satisfy my curiosity about whether we’re dishing up C-LAB or M-LAB.

I don’t check our Google Analytics account that often, but since we’re nearing the end of the year, I thought I’d explore the data more deeply than usual. What I found really boggled my already boggled mind. I found that the third most popular post we’ve ever done since starting NCS is THIS ONE about Elize Ryd, the vocalist for a band called Amaranthe, which I posted in January 2010. Continue reading »

CHROME WAVES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 042011
 

Unless I miss my bet (and I would bet a lot on this), the day will come when you will be reading and hearing about this band far and wide, and you can tell your friends that you heard them first at NO CLEAN SINGING. Your friends may then look at you like a slug just crawled out of your nose, but pay them no mind. Who cares if they’ve never heard of NCS? What matters is the music of Chrome Waves.

First, here’s the line-up of this band:

Vocals: Stavros Giannopolous (vocalist and guitarist for The Atlas Moth), whose current album is popping up on “Best of 2011” lists far and wide)

Guitars: Jeff Wilson (guitarist of Wolvhammer, whose 2011 album The Obsidian Plains is superb and is also appearing on lots of year-end best-lists; formerly of Nachtmystium and Bringers of Disease)

Drums and bass: Bob Fouts (bassist for doom-metal band Apostle of Solitude; formerly with The Gates of Slumber)

I saw those names, and that was all the inducement I needed to spend some time with the first track they’ve released — a song that publicly debuted only last night called “”Height of the Rifles”. After the jump, we’ll be streaming it for you, but first, a little more intelligence about Chrome Waves from this interview of Bob Fouts. Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “A SERPENT’S TONGUE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 032011
 

I’m awake now, but still want to keep my “fuck yeah” face on.

I may write something later.  Or not.

This just up-loaded video sounds like the album track synced with video of the band’s last hometown performance in Reading, England, before embarking on their current US tour.

YOUR GALLIC GOODIES FOR THE DAY: OUTCAST AND HYPNO5E

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 022011
 

On March 4, 2011, we included a song from a French band called Outcast in a post called Diversionary Tactics. The title of the song was “Elements”, and it was very fucking diverting. To quote from the post: “The riffs and time signatures jump around like barefoot children on a hot pavement, the drums rarely repeat the same patterns twice, there’s a freaky-good guitar solo, and the vocals bray in a hot fury (a mix of hardcore howls and death-metal growls). If you’re a fan of bands like Textures, CiLiCe, and Tardive Dyskinesia, do check this shit out.”

The song was taken from Outcast’s third studio album, Awaken the Reason, which hadn’t yet been released — an album mixed by Jochem Jacobs of Textures and mastered by Alan Douches. Well, here we are in December and the album still hasn’t been released. BUT, the latest word is that it will be coming in early 2012 and that specific info about the release date and the label will be coming within days — AND today, the band released another song from the album called “Abysmal”.

The music still puts me in mind of those three bands I mentioned in the March post — its pneumatic rhythms are pummeling and physically convulsive, with lots of funky, math-metally riffing, but it also includes nice melodic choruses and swirling, proggy, clean guitar solos in between the rounds of heavy, djent-style head-bashing. I am definitely looking forward to the album, just as much as I have been since March. Bring it on! You can hear the song after the jump.

The other offering of Gallic goodness for today comes from a band called Hypno5e, who I had the pleasure of seeing on the Art As Metal tour a couple years ago with Revocation and The Binary Code. Yesterday, Lambgoat exclusively premiered the title song from the band’s forthcoming second album, Acid Mist Tomorrow. It’s a helluva song, parts of which are very strongly reminiscent of Gojira (a plus, of course) and parts of which are soft, melodic, beautiful, and experimentally progressive. And you can hear it after the jump, too. The album should be very interesting and absolutely worth hearing. Fair warning: clean singing is involved. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries