DEATH RITUALS: SNĚŤ, RATTENFÄNGER, VACIVUS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 292019
 


Sněť

 

I think I’ve figured out what I want to do with today’s usual SHADES OF BLACK column, but before I get to that I couldn’t resist compiling the following stupendous songs by three monstrously good death metal bands. They just seem to belong together. (And because Saturday night carousing led to a slow start to Sunday morning, it may be tomorrow before you’ll see SOB.)

SNĚŤ

In the Czech language Sněť seems to mean gangrene, and that’s the name chosen by the quintet from Prague whose debut demo I’ve chosen to begin the slaughtering. It was released as a name-your-price download in April, and I finally learned about it (recently) thanks to a recent recommendation from Rennie (starkweather), who continues to be a reliable source of great discoveries.

There’s not a lot of music on the Sněť demo, just two compact tracks, the first of which is an instrumental, but man, do they make a titanic impact. Continue reading »

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: STRIGOI, PIERRE NOIR, ALFAHANNE, DOLORE, HELLHOOKAH

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Sep 212019
 

 

I had originally planned to post most of this collection (all but the opening song) nearly two week ago. I obviously didn’t get it finished then, and other obligations and ideas have kept pushing it side in favor of other posts since then. As the days have passed, a couple hundred other interesting songs have surfaced, from which a more “hot off the presses” round-up might have been assembled. But I decided just to pull this one off the shelf instead, brush off the light coating of dust, and present it on this Saturday.

In different ways, the second through fifth songs in this collection are off the usual beaten paths here at NCS, different in different ways from the kinds of music we usually focus on. The first one, which is more recent, is more in the main line of our usual interests, but I’m so excited by it that I didn’t want to defer recommending it. It’s also surprising, and not completely out of place in a post devoted to deviations from the mean.

STRIGOI

It’s not an overstatement, at least among those of us who toil at NCS, that whatever groups Greg Mackintosh becomes involved in (in addition to Paradise Lost) will be worth checking out, sooner rather than later. With Vallenfyre now ended, he has turned to Strigoi, a group he created with the aid of Extreme Noise Terror and Vallenfyre bassist Chris Casket, and so far, no one else aside from drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, who did studio session work on Strigoi’s first album. That band name, we’re told, refers to “the troubled spirits in Romanian mythology who could rise from the grave and assume an entirely different form”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HOUR OF PENANCE, EXHUMED, CREPUSCLE, XOTH, HIGH COMMAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 122019
 


Hour of Penance

 

Much as I hate to do this, I’m going to resort to the format I used last Saturday when I was similarly pressed for time — just serve up some of the new songs and videos I’d like to recommend from what I’ve encountered this week, sans verbiage from me (except in one case). I’m probably going to do the same thing tomorrow, because I have a long list of recommendations.

My shortage of time is going to persist from now through the weekend, thanks to travel, meetings, and nose-to-the-grindstone efforts required by that thing that pays all the bills around here (my fucking day job). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HIDEOUS DIVINITY, CATTLE DECAPITATION, NILE, PEDOPHILE PRIESTS, HELLRUNE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 072019
 

 

I’m always reluctant to do what I’m doing in this post, i.e., just inserting videos and song streams without any commentary.  Trying to describe music I want to recommend, and to explain why I’m recommending it, is a continuing challenge, but I must admit it’s also fun for me (and cathartic to get my feelings about the music  off my chest). Unfortunately for me, if not for you, I don’t have time for that today. Still, I think there might be some value in the filtering/selection-process itself, and in alerting people to things they might have overlooked on their own.

Even though I’m keeping quiet, I hope you’ll feel free to share your own reactions in the Comments. And with that, here we go… Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KONKHRA, GATECREEPER, THE HOLEUM, TYRANT GOATGALDRAKONA, ATAVISTIK DEATH POSE

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Sep 042019
 

 

Sometimes there’s a through-line or organizing principle of some kind in the selections I make for these round-ups. Sometimes it’s just what the category tag says, the one I chose almost 10 years ago for posts like this one — Random Fucking Music — just a random scattering of things I’ve happened upon and enjoy.  Today, I do think there’s a through-line: Almost all of the following tracks are neck-wreckers, though I’ve put one track in the middle of the run that’s less brutishly head-moving and more progressively dynamic (though I think you’ll want to move your head to that one as well).

KONKHRA

Formed in 1989, the Danish death metal band Konkhra had quite a run, releasing six studio albums, a live album, and a handful of other shorter releases from 1990 through 2009 — and then the machine ground to a halt. However, now ten years later, Konkhra have revived, and if Metal-Archives is to be believed, the current line-up dates back to the recordings of the early and mid-90s. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS (PART 2): ORTHODOXY, PANDEMONIUM, NEKROSITY

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Aug 302019
 

 

We’re concluding a round-up of new death metal we began here earlier today. All of the following songs come from albums set for release in the coming weeks.

ORTHODOXY

This first selection, “Flame of Primordial Essence“, is one of nine tracks on Novus Lux Dominus, the debut album by the Spanish band Orthodoxy, whose line-up includes members of Domains, Profundis Tenebrarum, and Whoredom. It’s a successor to the band’s 2015 demo, Shaarimoth, which we praised here. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS (PART 1): GRAVEVIEW, REEK, VITRIOL

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Aug 302019
 

 

Today’s round-up of new music, divided into two parts, focuses on flavors of death metal (particularly destructive death metal, I should add), hence the title of this post. We begin with a stream of a complete new release (which includes a couple of exclusive song streams you’ll find only at NCS) and then move from there into advance tracks from forthcoming records. Look for Part 2 (which hasn’t yet been finished) a bit later today.

GRAVEVIEW

The first thing that struck me about Graveview after listening to only the first track on the recently released compilation of their two demos is how goddamn massive they sound — like being right up next to some giant excavation machine gouging out the guts of a stone quarry, operated by madmen who are ignoring all occupational safety and health regulations. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VASTUM, NAER MATARON, BYYRTH, ANUNCIAÇOM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 282019
 

 

Man, every day brings so much new music. Honestly, it’s overwhelming. But that’s not a new development, is it? It just continues adding to the endless difficulty of trying to sift the wheat from the chaff. I feel confident there’s a lot more new wheat out there I haven’t come to yet, but I did pick these gleaming grains from the harvest of last night’s listening session. (Figure of speech of course, because this is some gnarly and nasty shit I’ve picked out.)

VASTUM

Any year that brings a new Vastum album is a very good year. I mean, other than all the other things in the daily headlines that make every year terrible. To counterbalance the greater-than-usual terribleness of what’s happening in the world during 2019, we will have Orificial Purge, and man, couldn’t we all use some a that? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ALCEST, IN MOURNING, THE GREAT OLD ONES, SELENITE, JADE, SVPREMACIST

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 232019
 

 

I’m posting this Friday round-up on my way to Sea-Tac airport, where I hope to depart the area for a mini-vacation in Wyoming with a bunch of other miscreants, returning Monday night. I’m not sure how much else I’ll be able to write for NCS between now and then, and I’ve been scurrying even to get this round-up completed before I disappear into the wild blue yonder.

A ton of new music has appeared over the last 24 hours, much of it from bigger names in the metal cosmos. I’ve included some of that here, but not all of it. There is, for example, a video released today for a new Insomnium song called “Valediction” (here) from the album Heart Like A Grave, out on October 4th, that I haven’t included. I assume it’s proving to be a crowd-pleaser. I’ve only listened to it once, and it did get its hooks in my noggin, but I also have some mixed feelings about it. And anyway, I wanted to make room for a couple of more obscure names in addition to the big ones below.

ALCEST

I’m beginning with a video for a new song by Alcest named “Protection“, from their new album Spiritual Instinct. Here’s what vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Neige had to say about it: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WELLS VALLEY, INDUS, HEKTIK, BURDEN LIMBS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 202019
 

 

It’s an eclectic mix of sounds that I’ve chosen for today’s round-up; an authoritative but not infallible source doesn’t consider any of them metal. As on other occasions, I’ve benefited from recommendations received from Rennie (starkweather), which are the first two bands in this selection. The first of those, Wells Valley, was already a known quantity to me, though I didn’t know they had a new album set for release. The second one (Indus) was a new discovery, as were the next two, which I learned about in other ways.

Hektik‘s new EP seemed to pair up very well with the recent Indus EP, which is why I’ve put them back-to-back in the middle. The music of Burden Limbs is a different breed of cat altogether, but I’ve found myself hooked on the song I’ve included here, and by the forthcoming EP from which it comes.

WELLS VALLEY

In June of this year Black Lion Records released a compilation CD (also available as a name-your-price Bandcamp download here) named Afterlife In Darkness I. It includes songs by 29 bands taken from past and future releases by Black Lion. I should have paid closer attention to it, because one of the five tracks from forthcoming albums on that comp is the new song (“Paragon“) by Wells Valley that I’ve picked to start today’s collection, which is also now streaming on a recently established Bandcamp page for their new album. Continue reading »

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