THE THALL MEME

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  21 Responses »
Dec 012011
 

Definitions of the words in the title to this post from The Oxford English Dictionary (online):

MEME

noun
an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.

Origin:

1970s: from Greek mimēma ‘that which is imitated’, on the pattern of gene

Word trends:

When Richard Dawkins coined the word meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he wanted a word like gene that conveyed the way in which ideas and behaviour spread within society by non-genetic means. Since then the word has been picked up to describe a piece of information spread by email or via blogs and social networking sites. A meme can be almost anything—a joke, a video clip, a cartoon, a news story—and can also evolve as it spreads, with users editing the content or adding comments. Common collocates in the Oxford English Corpus are spread, pass, and transmit: as with the Internet sense of  viral, meme uses the metaphor of disease and infection

THALL

Ask Vildhjarta, because I have no fucking idea. Continue reading »

OPERA IX: “MANDRAGORA”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Dec 012011
 

Opera IX is a symphonic black metal band from Italy who’ve been around since 1989, which makes them . . . survivors. On January 24, 2012 in Europe and February 28 in North America, Agonia Records will release their first studio album in 7 years — Strix Maledictae In Aeternum. The new album is described as the last in a trilogy of records that explores witchcraft.

I’ve heard a bit of Opera IX music in the past, but it came from the days when Cadaveria was fronting the band, and I’ve heard nothing since. But curiosity about what had become of their post-Cadaveria sound led me to watch an official video that was released in early November for a song from the new album called “Mandragora”. I’m including the video after the jump (because it’s NSFW), and featuring it here for three reasons.

First, I enjoyed the song. It reminded me of Satanica-era Behemoth, an imperial mix of black and death metal. Second, I was surprised to see that the video is hosted on YouTube, because it features copious nudity. And then I saw the little notation on the YouTube page: “This video has been age-restricted based on our Community Guidelines.” I’d never actually read the Community Guidelines, and I wondered why the video was available with an age restriction rather than being banned altogether. Continue reading »

NEW ASPHYX ON THE HORIZON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 302011
 


On a day at NCS that began with Vallenfyre, it seemed only fitting to bring our posting day to a close with news about Asphyx.

They’re one of those bands whose name springs to mind immediately when I see or hear the phrase “death/doom”, and they made a strong comeback with Death…The Brutal Way (2009) after a nearly decade-long recording hiatus. They’ve now finished work on their newest studio album, titled Deathhammer, and today Century Media announced that it will be released on February 27, 2012 in Europe and February 28 in North America.

In addition to that welcome news, the band also released an image (above) of the cover art for the album, created by Axel Hermann, who worked on all of the band’s early releases. Brutal.

One more tidbit — the new album was mixed and mastered by the legendary Dan Swanö, who produced Death…The Brutal Way as well as the band’s Live Death Doom release. And speaking of that DVD, I’ve added a clip from the DVD after the jump featuring the title track to the last Asphyx album. Twenty years on, and still wielding the deadly hammer of doom. Gotta love it. Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON (NO. 2)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 302011
 

(Brutish friend of NCS, SurgicalBrute, brings us a further installment in what may be turning into a continuing series.  This time he’s spotlighting Drowned (Germany), Speedwolf (U.S.-Denver), Depravity (Finland), and Grá (Sweden).)

I remember when I first got into metal I was trying to absorb everything. I’d see names like Dismember, Overkill, and Darkthrone tossed around message boards and off I’d go to check them out. I was discovering new bands every day, and even if a band didn’t appeal to me the first time around, I would do my best to give them a fair try because my tastes were always changing.

It was around this time that I discovered something fairly simple….I hate technical metal. Bands like Nile, Meshuggah, and Necrophagist. I tried them over and over again, and while I can appreciate the skill of the muscians involved, more often than not, it sounds so cold and clinical that it comes across flat to my ears.

I think that’s why I eventually found myself gravitating toward the darker underbelly of metal. While the music is rarely complex, it’s the raw energy these bands bring with them that I enjoy so much.

So, in an effort to bring a few more of these bands to wider attention, it’s time for another dose of underground metal. \m/ Continue reading »

NOCTEM: “THE ARRIVAL OF THE FALSE GODS” (PIG HEADS FOR EVERYONE!)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Nov 292011
 

Just so that last post featuring me tooting my own horn about myself doesn’t linger at the top of the NCS site for the next 8 1/2 hours until tomorrow’s first scheduled post, I have this official video, just released, from the most excellent Noctem, whose new album Oblivion our most excellent Andy Synn reviewed here and who Andy also interviewed here.

The featured song is called “The Arrival of the False Gods”, which Andy described as “all piledriving rhythms and violent vocal catharsis whose brooding guitar adds a palpable sense of menace to the proceedings”. If you’re an epileptic off your meds or have a moral problem with bands who play with pig heads on stage and eat pig organs during the performance, don’t watch this.

P.S. My interview by The Number of the Blog can be found via THIS LINK.

NEW NACHTMYSTIUM TRACK ON THE WAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 292011
 

About the only way you could get Nachtmystium to stand still would be to nail their feet to the floor. Blake Judd and company are just too musically peripatetic to expect that what comes next will resemble what came before. Or at least that’s what I thought. But Nachtmystium and Chicago black metal band Murmur are releasing a 7″ split EP on a Lithuanian label called Inferna Profundus Records, which will include a new track from each band, and here’s what Nachtmystium has said about their contribution to the record:

“Our track is a total return to form, harking back to the writing styles of “Demise” and “Instinct: Decay”. This is a good sneak peak of what’s to come on our next full-length, which we intend to start recording in January / February, 2012 and will be released world-wide on Century Media Records.”

The 7″ vinyl can be ordered from Inferna Profundus here and will be available for shipping in a week or two. Following the vinyl release, Nachtmystium’s new track, “I Wait In Hell”, will also be released digitally via iTunes, Amazon, and other online music outlets via Century Media Records.

So, is the track really a throwback to Demise and Instinct:Decay? Well, hearing is believing, and I like what I hear (from both bands). After the jump, we’ve got a clip that includes two-minute segments from “I Wait In Hell” and Murmur’s song, “Shuttle I”. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA SEASON IS UPON US: DECIBEL’S ALBUM OF THE YEAR

 Listmania, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Nov 282011
 

As the end of 2011 approaches, we are about to be deluged with lists of the year’s best metal. We’re going to be doing again what we’ve done the last two years — publishing (1) lists of the year’s best albums by our regular writers, by guest contributors, and by our readers, and (2) our list of 2011’s most infectious extreme metal songs. As usual, we’re going to invite your participation in this frenzy of listmania at our site. Details about how you can do that will be coming later this week.

Listmania has already started at DECIBEL magazine — the only U.S.-based print metal mag still worth reading, in our humble opinion. The January 2012 issue will include their annual list of the Top 40 best extreme metal albums of the year. We haven’t yet received our copy here at NCS, but this morning we learned that DECIBEL has named Path of Totality by Brooklyn-based Tombs as the “Album of the Year”.

We’ve featured music and videos from Path of Totality several times this year, and it’s definitely one of my own favorite releases of 2011. So, congrats to Tombs for this signal recognition by DECIBEL. After the jump, you can stream the whole album, and if you like what you hear, it’s available on the Tombs Bandcamp page (here). Also after the jump, check out a cool video of Tombs performing live on a Hudson River metal cruise on October 22. We featured this video previously, but one good turn deserves another. Continue reading »

CORMORANT HITS BANDCAMP AND NPR WITH NEW MUSICS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Nov 282011
 

Thanks to Metal Bandcamp and MaxR, I discovered yesterday that Cormorant has made its new album, Dwellings, available for pre-order on Bandcamp (here). This supplements the now-closed exclusive pre-order option that the band offered earlier in the fall through their blog page.

As MaxR reported, you can choose between 7 different packages ranging from the download-only for $7 up to a bundle that includes the CD, a t-shirt, a zip-up hoodie, and the album download for $50 (plus shipping). The CD comes in a 6-panel Digipak, which includes the hand-drawn vertical panorama cover artwork by Alice Duke, full-color on-disk design, and a 12-page booklet containing lyrics and liner notes.The pre-orders will ship on December 7, which is the day after the official album release.

Maybe best of all, for people who are as impatient as I am, if you make a pre-order, you get an immediate download of three tracks from the album. Like MaxR, I went with the shirt+CD option and got me that immediate download in the bargain. The band is also now streaming those three tracks on their Bandcamp page. You can find two of them streaming elsewhere (“Junta” and “The Purest Land”), but as MaxR noted, the third one didn’t seem to be currently available anywhere except at Bandcamp.

That third song is called “The First Man”, and it’s now available for purchase all by itself for $1. A few words about the song, plus the song-stream, follow the jump. But as of this morning, the whole album is now streaming at NPR, whose writer Lars Gotrich had this to say about the record: “Dwellings is, far and away, the best metal record of 2011: an emotionally and musically complex album which wrestles with our desperate and sometimes violent attempts to secure a place in history.”

By the way, speaking of the fantastic Dwellings album cover by Alice Duke, you should check out her on-line portfolio here for more fantastic-ness. Also after the jump: the full vertical piece of artwork, of which the cover is only a part. Continue reading »

LONE GUNMEN: LIBERTEER, AMPUTATION SPREE, and MORGH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 272011
 

Here we have three one-man projects, one recently signed to a major label and the others unsigned, and all of them worth a listen: Liberteer (California), Amputation Spree (North Carolina), and Morgh (Pennsylvania).

LIBERTEER

Liberteer is the creation of SoCal resident Matt Widener, a former Marine, a former member of Exhumed, and the bass player for Cretin. Widener’s previous solo project was called Citizen. Earlier this month, Relapse Records announced that it had signed Liberteer and will be releasing the band’s debut album, Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees, on January 31, 2012. Widener had these comments about the Liberteer project:

“My thoughts on politics slowly changed over the past six years. In Citizen I had a sense of outrage about our government, but because it still supported the idea of state, it doesn’t make much sense to me now. I’ve come to embrace the ideas of anarchy. The old band name, Citizen, represents a system of exclusion and nationalism, things I can’t stand now, so I had to rename the band and change a lot of things. I think the good things about the music are still there—the thematic, major-key riffs, the d-beats and blasts—but the message is now pure.

“The album is one long song, with a handful of the coolest riffs reappearing as leitmotifs, like a pissed off opera made of blasts and d-beats. It’s utterly relentless. Plus, there’s a training montage at the halfway point.”

Seeing this in a press release was enough to pique my interest. I’m particularly curious about the “training montage”. But what sealed the deal was listening to the title track. Continue reading »

AGALLOCH LIVE IN TEL AVIV

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 262011
 

Last night, Oregonian black-metal icons Agalloch played a special show in Tel Aviv, Israel. Through the wonders of the interhole, a high-quality video of the show’s opening has already surfaced. It depicts the usual Agalloch incense-burning ritual that takes place before the live music starts, followed by “They Escaped the Weight of Darkness” and “Into the Painted Grey”. A second video features the band performing “Odal” and “Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor”. The video quality of both clips is excellent, and the sound quality is decent. As a die-hard Agalloch acolyte, I have to feature these videos (after the jump). They’re reminders of how fucking much I’ve enjoyed the Agalloch shows I’ve seen.

And this also gives me an excuse to report other Agalloch news that I meant to say something about a while ago: Agalloch has established a Bandcamp page and are using it to distribute eight (mainly acoustic and ambient) tracks of music, available for purchase individually, that previously appeared on compilations or hard-to-find EPs and LPs. You can stream and buy them HERE, including the epic 18-minute song “Scars of the Shattered Sky”, which originally appeared as a bonus “D side” track on the Ashes Against the Grain LP. I picked one of those songs to play for you after the jump, too.

“Temples of magma stream across the grey
The arc that transcends my iconic pride . . .” Continue reading »

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