KING GIANT: SOLACE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Feb 092011
 

Down is good, Crowbar is good, Kyuss is good, but Virginia’s King Giant has become my go-to band for nasty, sludgy, whiskey-soaked Southern doom ‘n roll.

Last September, I stumbled across a King Giant video for a song called “13 to 1” from their self-released 2009 album, Southern Darkness and included it in one of our MISCELLANY posts. That song is heavy and dirty and bluesy — slow and nasty, with sourmash-soaked vocals and big, rounded, beautiful guitar tones, not to mention the unusual tinkling of a banjo during the first 45 seconds. Very cool shit, and the video was a kick to watch, too.

Well, King Giant has just released a video for yet another song from Southern Darkness, called “Solace”. It’s a performance-based clip filmed at a Washington, DC joint called the 9:30 Club — a place of significance for this band. And guess what? It’s another cool video for another hot-shit song. (more after the jump, including the video . . .) Continue reading »

MID-DAY DIVERSIONARY TACTICS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 072011
 

I just took a break from what I usually do during daylight hours to check happenings in the world of metal, and that proved to be quite a long and interesting diversion. It may not be mid-day where you are, but maybe you still need a diversion or two, or three. That’s what we’re here for — to divert you, for better or worse, depending on your alternatives.

DIVERSION ONE

Regular NCS visitors know we’ve got a pathological weakness for anything Finnish, so when I saw a come-on for a new video by a Finnish band called Mygrain, of course I had to watch it. Besides, I’ve been meaning to check out this band ever since I read about the release of their self-titled third album on January 12 (via Spineform Records) — especially because it was mixed and mastered by Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Bloodbath, Nightingale).

The video is for a song called “Trapped In An Hourglass”. Very cool music — fast-paced, Finnish-style melodic death that’s both catchy and cathartic, with two admirable guitar solo’s (one of which is a jazzy bit of picking at about the 3:00 mark), some clean vocals that even I like, and evidence that Finnish howlers can even shriek underwater.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ESSENCE OF THRASH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 072011
 

The three of us who started this site are not big on thrash, which is probably obvious since we write infrequently about straight thrash-metal bands. It’s not that we judge it to be a lesser form of metal. It’s just a matter of taste. Speaking for myself, I like the energy, the speed, and the riffing style, but I’m not crazy about traditional thrash vocals and I tend to get bored with the sameness of the songs on many thrash albums. I’ve found that I like thrash a lot more live than I do on recordings (for example, I thought Exodus and Death Angel put on two hellaciously good performances in Seattle last year).

Needless to say, the re-thrash movement has held little interest for us. There’s nothing wrong with a band immersing itself in its influences, but when you tend to get bored even with the old masters, you tend to get really bored with rank imitators, even talented ones.

I still try to sample new thrash releases every now and then, hoping for a pleasant surprise. For example, I’ve been listening to the new album by Lazarus A.D. (Black Rivers Flow). I’m not sure I like it as much as the band’s debut (The Onslaught), but a couple of the songs are sticking with me (the title track and “The Strong Prevail”). Still, although I think devotees of thrash will probably enjoy this, on the whole this album isn’t ringing my chimes.

Still, I persevere, and sometimes it pays off. For example, over the weekend I gritted my teeth and started watching a new video from a Danish thrash band called Essence, while preparing to stop it quickly. But the song turned out to be different from what I was expecting, and not just different but really good — thrash with some unusual and original ingredients in the mix.  (more after the jump, including the video . . .) Continue reading »

GAS UP THE CHAINSAWS! (NEW VIDZ FROM THE CROWN AND PUTERAEON)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 042011
 

All death metal, all the time — at least for today. We started with Deicide, and now we’ve just seen two new death-metal videos from the other side of the Atlantic. We can take the hint: The metal gods have commanded that we give equal time to the Swedish school of cranial carving.

Our first offering is from The Crown — a band whose 2010 Century Media release, Doomsday King, made a big impression on us and found a place on lots of the Best of 2010 lists we published at this site. The new video is for a song called “Falling ‘Neath the Heaven’s Sea”, which appeared on a 4-song bonus CD that came with the digipack version of Doomsday King. It’s a surprise compared to the songs on the album proper — but a nice one — and the video is an engaging montage of tour photos.

Our second offering is from another Swedish band called Puteraeon, whose debut album The Esoteric Order was released in Europe not long ago on German label Cyclone Empire. We have Johan Huldtgren (Obitus) to thank for turning us on to this band in one of his comments to an earlier post. We’re still waiting for our copy of the CD to arrive, but this new official video for the song “Coma” is proof that the wait will be worth it.  (We were saving this video for a special edition of MISCELLANY tomorrow, but we’ll find something else juicy from Puteraeon for that post.)

Both these bands carry the banner of Swedish death metal proudly, and the songs featured in these videos are excellent. Watch ’em after the jump. Continue reading »

AN EXCLUSIVE NCS PREMIERE: DEICIDE’S “HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A GOD?”

 Metal News, Premieres, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Feb 042011
 

On February 15, the infernal majesty of DEICIDE will unleash hellfire on our fragile world with Century Media’s release of the tenth album in their storied career, To Hell With God. Today, we are proud (and duly humbled) to provide the exclusive premiere of the closing track from the new album, called “How Can You Call Yourself A God?”

As we wrote yesterday, this is a red-letter day for us. Not only is this our first world premiere of a song, it’s a song by one of death metal’s true icons — a band whose name every devoted deathmetalhead knows, a band who helped brick and mortar the foundations of a genre on which so many other bands have built their own work.

Deicide put the “fuck” in “I don’t give a fuck”. They put the “bad” in “bad-ass”. They may have put the “ass” in “bad-ass”, too. They represent all that is unclean about NO CLEAN SINGING. In a nutshell, for us, getting to premiere a Deicide song is like a fever-fueled, ringing-wet, nightmarishly horrific dream come true.

In debuting a track from the new album, we’re joining MetalSucks, who premiered “Hang In Agony Until You’re Dead”, and Invisible Oranges, who premiered “Into the Darkness You Go”, in helping to introduce the new album to all of you. We have a few words about the song itself — plus the fucking song — right after the jump. Continue reading »

A BRIEF BURST OF UNCONTAINABLE ENTHUSIASM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Feb 032011
 

I can justly be accused of being enthusiastic about almost everything. That may not be the most metal of outlooks, especially when my enthusiasm turns out to be misplaced, or cools after a little calm reflection; I do lose my bearings sometimes.

But, with all those caveats out of the way, I have to tell you, right now, about a song I just heard.

On the way to my fucking day job this morning, I started listening to the brand new album from Finland’s Alghazanth, which is called Vinum Intus. I wasn’t familiar with this band until we started that Finland Tribute Week thing, and one of our readers (CarlSK) recommended them in a comment, noting that the band’s vocalist is Mikko Kotamäki, who also fronts Swallow the Sun and Barren Earth.

I only got two songs into this new album and then stopped and started replaying that second song. The way I feel right now, this beautiful song is blowing out of the water almost all the other new black metal releases I’ve yet heard in 2011.  (more after the jump . . . including the song) Continue reading »

AMON AMARTH: “WAR OF THE GODS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Jan 312011
 

This will be quick, but it will be good, I promise.

Everyone knows that Amon Amarth has a new album on the way —“Surtur Rising”. I am very much looking forward to it. Very much.

This past weekend, the first track from the album — “War of the Gods” — debuted on Full Metal Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio show. And as I had hoped, someone has now uploaded the track (which includes Jackie’s quick intro) onto YouTube.

It is classic Amon Amarth — which means if you’re not a big fan, this won’t change your life. But if you are a big fan (as I am), it is just a fucking killer way to start the week. It’s a phalanx of raging Vikings pounding down at you at a full charge, with Johan Hegg barking like a big wolf. It’s got a massively infectious little melody grooved into it, and a boiling guitar solo to boot.

UPDATE: After the jump, we now have the official stream of “WAR OF THE GODS” — not the version ripped from the radio on YouTube, with its imperfections.

Go past the jump and listen . . . and then get your battle ax out of the closet and run into the streets looking for a worthy foe to butcher! Continue reading »

REVOCATION DOES DEATH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 292011
 

The March issue of DECIBEL magazine arrived a couple days ago at the NCS island. There on the cover was a photo of a smiling Chuck Schuldiner licking blood from a nasty cut on his finger. And to commemorate the magazine’s 12-page oral history of Death, the issue included a “Flexi” disk recording of Boston’s Revocation covering “Pull the Plug” from Death’s 1988 album, Leprosy.

I stared at that Flexi disk for a few minutes, trying to think what to do with it.  I tried to shove it into my computer’s CD drive, but it was too big. I shook it really hard and held it up to my ear, but no music came out of it. I even chewed on it, but it still wouldn’t give up its secrets. Slowly, it dawned on me that this thing was meant for a turntable — y’know, those things that make stuff spin around and around, with an arm that holds a needle that somehow makes sound come out of the spinning things?

Problem is, we don’t have any turntables here at NCS. So that Flexi disk is destined to go through life as a coaster.

Then, just as I was resigning myself to having to imagine what “Pull the Plug” would sound like as performed by Revocation, that dim bulb in my head flared briefly and I remembered an e-mail I’d gotten earlier in the week from NCS contributor BadWolf telling me that the Revocation song was streaming over at MetalSucks. I hadn’t been anyplace where I could listen when that e-mail arrived, and then I just forgot about it. So I guess that Flexi disk served a purpose after all.

If you happened to miss that song-stream over at MS, don’t make the same mistake twice — you can stream the song here, right after the jump, and you should, because, to use a journalistic term of art, it’s hot shit. Continue reading »

THINK LOCAL, SOUND GLOBAL: BATTLECROSS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Jan 282011
 

(NCS contributor BadWolf is back with another edition of “Think Local, Sound Global”)

The re-master is a quirky thing; nearly as tricky to successfully pull off as the re-recording or the dreaded lead vocalist swap. It takes guts to do any of them without a huge dedicated fanbase, and a keen ear to do any of them well.

Kudos, then, to Detroit’s underground metal standard-bearers Battlecross. They are at the moment re-mastering their self-produced debut, Push, Pull, Destroy, with new vocal tracks from a different lead singer, but no label to speak of backing them in any way.

Here’s the rub: the new versions of the songs sound amazing. That this band does not have more widespread recognition is a travesty. Battlecross have been playing in Michigan for years at events like Dirtfest and Ogrefest, as well as opening for bigger bands like Mushroomhead and The Faceless—ever sharpening their chops, as well as licking them. These guys are tighter than a nun, and often play right in the crowd just to make a point—they don’t mess around, they slay.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE HAUNTED

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jan 242011
 

We look forward to new albums by The Haunted because it’s always an adventure. To borrow Forrest Gump’s famous line, they’re kind of like a box of chocolates: You never know exactly what you’re gonna get. You might get thrash or melodeath or grind or metallic hardcore, or even something that closely approaches hard rock. It’s probably fair to say that all those ingredients have always been present to some extent in The Haunted’s music, but to greatly varying degrees, depending on the album or even the song within the album.

What you can generally count on, even if you can’t exactly depend on a precise style, is that the music will be super-charged with groove and power, packed with infectious riffs, and scalding in the caustic vocal delivery of Peter Dolving.

The band came together 15 years ago in Gothenburg, Sweden.  Two of the original members (brothers Jonas and Anders Björler) were alumni of the extremely influential Swedish melodeath band, At the Gates, and a third of the original members, guitarist Patrik Jensen, has also been active in Witchery for about as long as he’s been with The Haunted. Dolving was also in the band at the outset, but left after release of The Haunted’s first album, only to return again in 2004 on the band’s fourth record, rEVOLVEr. Those four are still together, with drummer Per Möller Jensen replacing ex-At the Gates drummer Adrian Erlandsson in 1999.

A new album by The Haunted (their seventh) is scheduled for release in March on Century Media. It was engineered and mixed by Tue Madsen, and it will be called Unseen. And now we have a taste of the surprises in store on Unseen, because on Saturday night the band played a song from the album at Swedish radio’s annual music awards. We’ve got the clip after the jump . . . along with a video retrospective on The Haunted’s music. Continue reading »

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