PANDEMONIUM: ENSHADOWED, KARMACIPHER, EXGENESIS, GRUESOME, JUST BEFORE DAWN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 102020
 


Enshadowed

 

I wondered whether the words “pandemic” and “pandemonium” were linguistically related. So I did some research.

“Pandemic“, a word that originated in the 1660s in reference to disease, means “incident to a whole people or region” and derives from the Late Latin word pandemus, and in turn from the Greek pandemos, meaning to “pertain to all people; public, common” (from pan– “all” and dēmos “people”).

On the other hand, “pandemonium” was coined by John Milton in 1667 in Paradise Lost (though he spelled it “Pandæmonium”) as the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell, “the high capital of Satan and all his peers,” and the abode of all the demons. He built the name from the Greek pan– “all” and the Late Latin daemonium (“evil spirit”), which in turn derived from the Greek daimonion (“inferior divine power”) and daimōn “lesser god”.

So, although pandemics often produce pandemonium, as we’re witnessing, the words aren’t very closely related.

Now that we’re finished with your home-schooling for the day, let’s move on to the musical pandemonium I selected for this round-up. By coincidence, all the music comes from bands who are established favorites of our site. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BLACK CURSE, HORNWOOD FELL, CZERŃ, LESSER GLOW, TERRESTRIAL HOSPICE, AEONIAN SORROW-CLOUDS, THE COMET IS COMING, AYYUR, HEGEMONY

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 092020
 

 

Here we go again. I decided not to alphabetize the bands today, but focused instead on structuring this a bit like a playlist of new music, with some ebb and flow and movement among genres as you go through it. I also threw in a curveball, as you’ll see.

BLACK CURSE (U.S.)

Chaotic, violent black/death with mutilating levels of distortion and explosive skull-busting rhythms, coupled with an amalgam of malevolent roars, grotesque growls, unhinged shrieks, and freaked-out, ear-shredding leads. The music also devolves into massive doom stomps saturated by musical misery and accented by gouts of splintering pain. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 3): PUTRESCINE, PYRRHON, REMINISCENCE, TESTAMENT, TITHE, ULVAND, VADER, PANZRAM, VALDRIN, WAKE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 062020
 


Putrescine

 

Seems like a year ago when I started this latest mega-roundup of new songs and videos but it was only last Friday. The alphabetized list swelled between Part 1 and Part 2 on Saturday, when I made it up to the letter P. And now I just need to finish the alphabet as fast as I can, because a new list has already started to take shape since I began this one. In a few days we’ll be back to the letter A.

I wish I had time to say something more meaningful about all the music you’ll find below, but unfortunately quick notes are all I have time for. But rest assured, the fact that these tracks are here means that I like them all and hope you will too. Be well, and stay safe. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): FRONT, JUPITERIAN, MAESKYYRN, OCEAN CHIEF, ORTRO, PANOPTICON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 042020
 


Front

 

I bit off more than I can chew. As you may recall, in Part 1 of this post yesterday I included 12 new songs and videos arranged alphabetically by band name, which took us from A through F. At that point I had 11 more songs and videos in mind for Part 2, with band names from F through W. Of course, Friday has become a “release day”, not only for new albums but also for new “singles”, so by day’s end that original group of 11 swelled in size based on new things I spotted.

Not having started work on Part 2 yesterday, and having spent more than 3 hours last night on a Zoom happy hour with all my day-job co-workers, I find myself on a woozy Saturday morning daunted by the prospect of writing-up the now-expanded Part 2 list of 16. As you can see, I decided to get these first 6 (one of which is an even more last-minute addition) ready to go before the day wears on too much longer. We’re still going in alphabetical order, and this Part 2 takes us up to P.

At this point I don’t know when or if I’ll finish the list with the 10 songs still left, because I need to make time for tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK. Stay tuned… but more importantly, be well and stay safe…. Continue reading »

NCS STAY THE FUCK INSIDE LIST II (BY NEILL JAMESON)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 032020
 

 

(Two weeks ago (here) Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) shared with us and you a list of musical suggestions to help us get through the current “end of the world” times, and today he follows that with another selection.)

So not a hell of a lot has changed since the last time I sat down to do one of these. Seems that a lot of you are still stuck at home, bitching and moaning that you’re bored while another batch of you (myself included) is considered “essential” and stuck being out with the public every day, most of whom have no real reason to be out of their house except “boredom”. These are the same assholes who’re going to be shocked they’re waiting for a ventilator in a few weeks while the poor sap who never finished college who’s behind whatever counter (me again) still has to go to work without extra pay, wishing they/we/I could be at home or at the very least stop being told by our jobs to be grateful we still have them while the “Today Show” has some montage about how essential employees are “heroes”, a sentiment not reflected in the majority of their paychecks.

That shit-show aside, I’ve compiled a few bands and labels that, since you have the time, are worth your consideration. Hopefully you find something interesting you haven’t heard before or you think my taste is pure horseshit and are moved to compile your own lists.  Either way it gives you something to emotionally invest in for a few minutes while you try to figure out what household item you can use to wipe your ass with. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): ALKYMIST, APOSENTO, ASHTAR, BEYOND CREATION, BLAZE OF SORROW, CALLIGRAM, CATTLE DECAPITATION, COSMIC BURIAL, DEFACING GOD, DYING FETUS, EXOCRINE, FORGOTTEN TOMB

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 032020
 

 

We begin another mega-roundup today to assist you in enduring your shut-in time, with a second installment planned for Saturday. Long on music and short on words, it’s arranged alphabetically by band name. We have A-F today, and F through W tomorrow, unless an X, Y, or Z band surfaces between now and then.

Lots of old friends in this Part I, and some new names, a scattering of both big names and obscure ones, as well as a mix of genres. Almost everything here surfaced in the last few days. This time I added some artwork thumbnails, but don’t get used to that. It takes time I usually don’t have when I compile these monster collections.

ALKYMIST (Denmark)

Ugly, sludgy riffing that moans and groans… methodical drum pounding… grotesque, gritty growls and terrifying howls… a meaty bass line combined with eerie ringing notes… flares of evil braying chords rising up like a death anthem and descending like a plague gouging its way into the body… and then the guitar begins to pulse and the drums begin to hammer and rock… and things get fairly demented and frightening near the end before a final bout of gouging, groaning, and pounding. Really, the whole song is evil…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AL-NAMROOD, ARSAFES WITH ANILA RAJEEV, PERCHTA, GHOSTS IN GOLD, ÄKTH GÁNAHËTH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 012020
 

 

I was gearing up to do another one of those gigantic Overflowing Streams posts for today, but then something unexpected and serendipitous happened. I had an enormous list of possibilities to check out, assembled  from an hour and a half spent crawling through our e-mail and other sources. And as I began checking out that stuff it happened that I listened to music from five bands right in a row that just seemed to fit together really well — mainly because all the music struck me as exotic, albeit in different ways (and some are justifiable exceptions to our rule about singing).

I thought the unusual effect of listening to them together would be lost if I scattered them among a dozen (or more) other music streams, and so I decided to just stop and put them together here, and leave a larger round-up for another day (hopefully tomorrow).

Al-NAMROOD

Al-Namrood is an anti-religious Saudi Arabian black metal band, which no doubt continues to be a dangerous way for its understandably anonymous members to spend their time in that Kingdom. Their music, insofar as I’m familiar with it (and I’m mainly familiar with their more recent releases), has always been remarkably distinctive, and remarkably good. In the past I have been moved, in fact, to call their music “pitch-black magnificence”. And therefore I felt a thrill when I saw that Shaytan Productions will be releasing their 8th album on June 22nd. Continue reading »

A PLAYLIST OF SCUZZY VILE ABRASIVE MUSIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Apr 012020
 

 

We have SO MUCH planned for your enjoyment at NCS today, but I made a last-minute decision to begin with this interactive post (at least I hope it will become interactive).

Last night a metalhead friend sent me a Facebook message asking: “If you happen to have some scuzzy, vile, positively abrasive new music that you can put up or recommend my way, I’d certainly appreciate the fuck out of it.” I have my own plentiful stockpile of such stuff, but I thought I’d reach out for other ideas. So I posted his request on FB and asked for recommendations. I mentioned that I didn’t think my friend was a big black metal fan, so suggested that BM should probably be filtered out of the suggestions. Other than that, I asked people to open up the sewers on me.

And I did get suggestions, which I decided to leave below. And I further decided this morning to make an open call to anyone reading this post to leave your own recommendations in the Comments for our mutual benefit (but here there’s no need for you to filter out black metal). So go ahead, open up the sewers on me — and remember that the subject of the request is for scuzzy, vile, positively abrasive that’s NEW (or at least new-ish). Continue reading »

(OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 3 OF 3): RALE, REEK, SICK SAD WORLD, SODOMISERY, SUMMIT, THE DITCH AND THE DELTA, UNMERCIFUL, VENTR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 292020
 

 

At last, I’ve called a halt to my effort to pump so much new music into your ears that your brain drowns in it (though I still have plans for a SHADES OF BLACK column later today, so I guess I’m only pausing rather than stopping). Picking up from Part 2, the alphabetical ordering of bands continues here, R through V.

RALE (U.S.)

We begin with four tracks of roaring, howling, mind-warping death/grind courtesy of these North Carolina marauders. Veering between gargantuan roars and shattering screams, the vocals are truly ferocious; there’s a mountainous bass presence; and the riffing shifts from utterly crazed to sickeningly dismal and apocalyptically calamitous. The band inflict truly brutish, skull-flattening punishment; sometimes the distorted fretwork sounds like a giant excavation machine at work in a quarry; and they are equally adept at igniting conflagrations of ravaging chaos. Explosive and electrifying…. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2 OF 3): ACÂRASH, AVOID HUMANITY, BLEED FROM WITHIN, BOLESNO GRINJE, NAGLFAR, NERO OR THE FALL OF ROME, O, OKKULTOKRATI

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 292020
 

 

I did say in the abbreviated Part 1 of this round-up yesterday that there would be a lot more coming — so much that a Part 3 will be on its way later today. In these two Parts I organized the music in alphabetical order by band name, with Alpha through Omega in this installment and then picking up with letters after O in Part 3.

This is the stuff that stuck out to me as I waded through a big mass of new music and videos yesterday. I had to make myself stop, because this could have been a lot longer. I siphoned off some of the black metal I found, and they will be included in today’s SHADES OF BLACK column. Yeah, this is going to be a big NCS Sunday….

ACÂRASH (Norway)

This hard-rocking track is swaggering and sulphurous. It will rumble your guts and bob your head, and the pulsing energy of the riffs is highly infectious. With scorching black-metal vocals, a spiraling and shrieking solo, and occult lyrical themes, it’s a hellish — and hellishly good — song. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries