EPISODE 13: “ULTIMATE STERILIZATION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 252011
 

Episode 13 is a Turkish metal band who we’ve featured once before at NCS — though it was in July 2010 when we did that (here). Since then, the band have released their third album called Death Reclaims the Earth. That album was finished at the time of our earlier feature, but hadn’t yet been released because the band was looking for a label outside Turkey to increase exposure to their music. The one they found is a personal favorite of mine — Misantrof AntiRecords, the non-commercial Norwegian label founded and run by Daniel Vrangsinn (Carpathian Forest, Vrangsinn).

Vrangsinn’s philosophy is to let bands retain full creative control and ownership of their work. He provides a platform for distributing the music — free of charge for downloads. I’ve found lots of great shit through Misantrof, and so seeing the partnership between them and Episode 13 was a nice discovery. Death Reclaims the Earth is available for download at Misantrof (here), either as high-quality FLAC files or as mp3’s.

Misantrof released this album last October, but I was diverted with other shit at the time and just overlooked the news. What reminded me of the album was a recent Episode 13 post on FB that featured one of the tracks from the album called “Ultimate Sterilization”. So, I stopped and listened to the song, and I’m really glad I did. I think you’ll be glad you did, too. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

RUDRA: “NOW THEREFORE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Oct 252011
 

Latecomers to NCS may not know about Singapore’s Rudra. And old-timers may have forgotten. For me, their latest album, Brahmavidya: Immortal I, was one of the highlight discoveries of the current year. It completes a trilogy of albums that began with 2005’s Primordial I and continued with 2009’s Transcendental I. I went on and on (and on) about the new album here, so I’ll keep the comments about it in this post brief: It’s really fucking good.

Standing near the intersection of melodic black metal and death metal, Rudra have taken inspiration from Vedic Sanskrit literature and created something that’s interesting and powerful and quite memorable.

I was reminded of Rudra when I discovered yesterday that they released a music video for a song called “Now Therefore”, which is the opening track on Immortal I. This seems to have been out since August, and I missed it. It’s not nearly as fascinating as the video they did for “Hymns From the Blazing Chariot” (from Transcendental I), but “Now Therefore” is a helluva good song. So, check out some Vedic metal after the jump. Continue reading »

KVELERTAK, SKELETONWITCH, TOMBS, AND PSYCHIC LIMB: LIVE ON A BOAT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Oct 252011
 

At approximately 7 p.m. on October 22, 2011, a small cruise boat called the Jewel left the Skyport Marina in New York City. On board were a gaggle of metalheads and four very good metal bands — Kvelertak, Skeletonwitch, Tombs, and Psychic Limb. Also on board was a dude named (((unartig))), armed with A/V recording equipment. He vividly caught portions of all four performances on film. And by “vivid”, I mean that he caught the look, the feel, and the rampant energy of these performances. You feel like you’re right in the middle of the mayhem. Shit, I can almost smell the sweat and the beer just from watching these clips.

I’ve put all the clips after the jump. These are definitely worth the time. Continue reading »

DIMMU WILL ENTHRONE DARKNESS TRIUMPHANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Oct 242011
 

I’m writing this post just to show how much we here at NCS love all of our European brethren and sistern (sistern?) even though we are not ourselves European and even when we also want to hate our European brethren and sistern because of opportunities they have that we lack. Such as this opportunity:

Dimmu Borgir will be playing a series of shows during the month of November at nothing but small clubs in the UK, Ireland, and on the Continent. There will be no support acts. Each performance will consist of two sets. In the first set, the band will play one album in its entirety. It won’t be the latest album. It will be . . . wait for it . . .  1997’s Enthrone Darkness Triumphant. Color me green with envy.

The second set will be a selection of Dimmu “classics” from a variety of other albums in their substantial discography.

After the jump, you can see all the dates and places where Dimmu will be doing this. We’re also including links to places where you can buy tickets, though I suspect tickets will be tough to come by. Good luck. Also after the jump, because I’m now thinking about this, two tracks to stream from Enthrone Darkness Triumphant. Continue reading »

MORE MONDAY GOODIES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 242011
 

It’s shaping up to be a very metal week. On top of everything else we’ve done so far today, I’ve discovered new music and videos from three bands whose music I admire, and so I’m just going to stitch them together in this post, and then wait to see what else comes our way before the day is over.

First up is a brand new official video from Darkest Hour, for a song called “Your Everyday Disaster” off the latest album (The Human Romance, reviewed by our own Andy Synn here). I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve witnessed a Darkest Hour live show, but I never get tired of it. Those dudes never fail to bring it, with a blast of high-intensity energy. The strobe-like editing of the video (which includes “backstage” clips as well as live shots) captures something of that adrenaline-charged experience.

After that, I’ve got a new song from a Hungarian band called Meankind, whose free debut EP TheMadIsraeli reviewed here. That review, by the way, includes a speed-chess video for a Meankind song called “Incomprehensible Appetite”, which is still one of my favorites this year. The new song is called “Mantrap”. It’s more speedy, hard-hitting Meankind death metal.

And last, but not least, we have the latest offering from RXYZYXR. The last time we featured this multinational group (here), we were having fun with a new video for a song called “Nonzero” — still a blast of a video to watch and a blast of a song to hear. Now, the band have put up for streaming a re-worked version of a song called “Fractal Scout”, which originally appeared on their instrumental-only, four-song debut EP, Geometrical Metal. The new version includes vocals by Thomas Wills, who became part of this project after the EP was first released. Thomas’ vocals include lots of cleans, but we’re making an exception to our usual rule, because we like this song.

All these goodies are after the jump . . . Continue reading »

BIRDS ON THE WIRES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Oct 242011
 

I found this on a fascinating web site called The Ark In Space. One day a dude named Jarbas Agnelli saw a picture of birds on electric wires in a newspaper he was reading — the same picture you’re seeing in the top half of the frame up above. He noticed that the positions of the birds looked like a piece of musical notation.  So, he decided to see what kind of melody might be created based on the position of the birds on the wires, as shown in the photo.

He contacted the photographer who had taken the original picture, who also became intrigued by Agnelli’s idea.  That led to a further story in the newspaper, and Agnelli pursued his idea diligently, creating an animation based on the photo, accompanied by the musical score he created based on the birds’ positions. He says there is absolutely no Photoshopping involved here — that the melody is created from the exact positions of the birds on the wires.  Check it out after the jump.

Now, this was so cool that that we here at NCS decided to do something similar with . . . other birds. You can also see and hear the results of our experiment after the jump. Continue reading »

SON OF AURELIUS THROWS A CURVEBALL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 232011
 

The 2010 debut album from California’s Son of Aurelius, The Farthest Reaches, drew an avalanche of critical acclaim and enthusiastic fan response. It made several of the Top 10 lists we published at the end of that year, including one from our own Andy Synn, who wrote this: “Son Of Aurelius have come seemingly out of nowhere with an epic, heroic take on the technical death metal genre, impressing nigh on everyone whom they have encountered. The songs on The Farthest Reaches have a character and individuality not usually found in the sort of music which usually contains technical wizardry of this level.”

So, when Son of Aurelius makes new music available, we sit up and pay attention, like good, obedient bloodhounds. That’s what happened today: Son of Aurelius started streaming a “pre-production” track off their next album. It’s called “Strange Aeons”, and it’s a strange choice as a musical tease for the next album. There are no vocals and no technical “wow” factor. It’s mid-paced, with prominent synthetic keyboards, and drums that sound programmed (though I doubt they are, with a beast like Spencer Edwards in the line-up).

In short, it sounds like a dreamlike mood-piece or instrumental interlude. Perhaps the plan is to add vocals later, but I can’t see vocals fitting with this music. As it is, it’s mildly interesting, but at least for me, nothing more than that. Have a listen after the jump and tell me if I’m a fuck for reacting so placidly.

By the way, is that an ass-kicking piece of artwork up there or what? I found it on SoA’s facebook page, but I don’t know what it is. New album cover maybe? And by the way (again), there’s no news I’ve seen about when the new album will be finished. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: GOJIRA

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 232011
 

I’m afraid I don’t have any new Gojira music for you today. The wait for the Sea Shepherd EP continues . . .

BUT, I do have new Gojira artwork for you. Today, the band made available for free download a pack of 5 wallpaper images, the first of which is up above. They are all cooooool.

You can download them by going to THIS PAGE.

After the jump, the rest of the wallpaper art . . . and an old Gojira song, because I really can’t be mentioning Gojira without music. Continue reading »

SÓLSTAFIR: “FJARA”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Oct 222011
 

About 10 days ago, I put up a post about the forthcoming album by this Icelandic band, which had then just started streaming on a Finnish metal site. I also featured one song from the album, which had simply floored me. That song drew an extremely positive response here at NCS. I just discovered that two days ago Sólstafir appeared on Icelandic television, with a live performance of another song from the album called “Fjara” (Icelandic for beach) and it’s now up on YouTube.

This is clearly fated to be an atypically mellow day at NCS, with that new Devin Townsend demo and that William Basinski track included in our last post. At least for the day, we may have to adopt Andy Synn’s tongue-in-cheek re-naming of the site: “No, Clean Singing!”

“Fjara” is a slow, doom-y, song that’s quite beautiful and, to me, quite arresting. Just like the first song I heard from this album, it made me stop, pay attention, become fully drawn into the music, and start playing it again as soon as it finished. I have no doubt it will follow me around like a ghost the rest of this day.

The black-and-white video really suits the music, too; you can tell that the band members were emotionally invested in this song to the hilt when they played it. Do check it out after the jump. Svartir Sandar is out now on Season of Mist. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could watch bands like this on American TV? Continue reading »

CATCHING UP

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 222011
 

Because of work-related travel and longer hours than usual this week, I didn’t have time for my usual daily interhole browsing for metal news and new music. So I did that this morning, while listening to the last piece of music in this post. I found a half-dozen items that I thought were well worth sharing, and they’re collected in this post. Almost all of them are new videos, and there’s tremendous diversity in the music. The subjects are Vallenfyre, King Conquer, Devin Townsend (with a new song), Shining, Decapitated, and finally, William Basinski.

And yeah, the meerkats are still secretly controlling the world, according to the NCS lorises. They think they’ve identified the kingpin. I don’t buy this nonsense for a minute, of course, because, really, this one looks way too young to be the kingpin.

VALLENFYRE

In our continuing coverage of Vallenfyre (UK) and their forthcoming album, The Fragile King (due for release on Oct 31 in Europe and Nov 1 in North America), I found a video preview that surfaced yesterday on Metal Injection. It was filmed during the making of a music video for a song from the album called “Cathedrals of Dread” and features comments from each of the band’s members about how this “supergroup” came together and about the genesis of the music. It also includes snippets of the song, which provide further confirmation (though none is needed here) that this album will be a must-hear release.

Our most recent previous posts about Vallenfyre can be found here and here. The video preview is right after the jump. Continue reading »

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