SEEN AND HEARD: OF WOLVES, OLDD WVRMS, UNENDLICH, PERNICION, EWIGKEIT, LACERATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 072019
 

 

At the not-inconsiderable risk of overwhelming our visitors with new music, I’m following up yesterday’s two-part round-up of music from the black(ened) realms with another collection of new tracks. One of them is yet another example of black metal, but the songs that follow are much more wide-ranging in their styles — I made a conscious decision to compile a varied playlist that I hope will be appealing, but will at least keep you off-balance. All the songs are from forthcoming albums.

OF WOLVES

Beginning last October, Chicago’s Of Wolves began rolling out three songs that they had originally composed as separate pieces but then, after noticing the interesting flow among them when performed live, decided to combine into a single track on their new album, Balance. The first of those, “Clear Cutting”, premiered at DECIBEL; the second, “Bloodshed”, premiered at our own site in November; and the third, “Heart To Hand”, got its debut at Sludgelord last month.

Now the band have released a combined video for these combined tracks, and as of today have made it available for download on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

THE GRINDING GEARS OF OUR HORRIBLE MACHINE (WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE’RE HEADED — PLUS NEW MUSIC FROM MĘKA)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 042019
 


an 1888 painting by Vasily Vasilevich Vereshchagin

 

We’re now at the end of that hybrid week which always ends the holiday season, and which for most people seems to be a mix of fucking off and becoming wage slaves again. Although no one asked me, I thought I’d commemorate the moment by telling you where we are in our posting schedule and what lies ahead (other than another probably shitty year in the outside world).

We’re almost finished with our year-end LISTMANIA series — almost, but not quite. Next week we’ll have at least one more year-end list from a guest, and possibly two or three (I’m crossing my fingers that those latter two, which are a bit uncertain, will pan out, because in past years those particular writer/musicians have delivered highly anticipated and eagerly viewed collections). But either way, we’ll close out the main part of LISTMANIA next week…

…and we’ll also begin the final segment, which is my sole contribution to the series, i.e., the list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, which I’ll roll out in installments every day or two until around the end of February. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR: JUBAL, OBED MARSH, DEPARTURE CHANDELIER, CVLT OV THE SVN, SVRM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Dec 312018
 

 

Man, have I got a red-hot New Year’s Eve planned with my wife. Bring in some kind of dangerous take-out food. Watch some re-runs of Law and Order. Maybe have an egg nog with a shot of whiskey (but only one because I don’t need the calories and I’m cutting back on the booze). Asleep by 10:30 at the latest. I’m so fucking excited that I’m hyperventilating.

You think I’m joking, but I’m really not (except about the hyperventilating). After more than a few decades of severe misbehavior, the idea of a quiet night and a New Year’s Day without a cataclysmic hangover has become very appealing. No more day-after’s wondering “is that blood on my shirt mine?”, “whose room is this?”, and “where did I leave my pants?”

These days I tend to get a lot of my thrills from heavy music, and I spent this morning catching up on some new sounds, some of which I’m recommending to you in this round-up. This actually started as what might have been a second SHADES OF BLACK installment yesterday, but I decided to throw in a few other styles of music and finish it up for today.

JUBAL

I was quite impressed by the first demo (Archaic Discipline) released by the hooded Dutch duo Jubal through Clandestine Faith earlier this year, and said so here: “There is foreboding, catastrophe, and grandeur in the sensations of these savage, dramatic songs, along with a panoply of killer riffs and the kind of vocals that summon visions of demons coming for your throat.” I was thus excited to learn that Jubal have a new release headed our way in 2019. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON CHRISTMAS DAY: ROTTING CHRIST, SWALLOW THE SUN, ÖRNATORPET, DEATHCHANT, MORTAL SCEPTER (AND A LOT MORE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 252018
 

 

If today is a holiday for you, we hope you’re enjoying it, regardless of whether it has any ecclesiastical meaning to you. If it’s not a holiday for you, we hope it will be a good day for you, too.

We don’t observe any holidays at NCS, not because we’re against them, but because from our first year the goal was to post something every day of the year, a goal we’ve kept with very rare exceptions. I can’t exactly remember why I set that goal (come on, it was 9 years ago!), but probably because I thought our best chance of getting readers was to be out there on days when there was no competition. Now, we keep doing it out of sheer stubbornness.

Since it is Christmas Day, I thought about exclusively going with metal that has some kind of holiday theme, but with a trio of exceptions at the end of this giant new-music round-up, I tossed that idea out the window, unless you count the introductory music from Rotting Christ. And why wouldn’t you?

ROTTING CHRIST

My NCS colleagues and I seem to be having a disagreement about RC‘s new album The Heretics. One of us, who shall remain unnamed, thinks it’s repetitive and boring, a distillation of the sound of the last three or four albums but lacking in dynamic peaks and troughs. A couple of us (including me) acknowledge that it’s basically Rotting Christ firmly in their established groove, but is nonetheless a whole lot of fun. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KALEIKR, 0N0, VITRIOL, EYRTH, MOURNING SIGN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 152018
 

 

Having been immersed in year-end LISTMANIA and other diversions since completing a recent vacation, I have a large backlog of newly released music that I’ve only just begin working my way through over the last couple of days. From what I’ve heard so far, I assembled the following collection — almost all of them advance tracks from forthcoming releases, plus one new bonus track that arrived late last month.

KALEIKR

In extreme metal circles these days, when one thinks of Iceland one thinks of black metal. Draugsól was one of many Icelandic black metal bands who proved their worth, with a fine 2017 debut album named Volaða land (we learned more about the band and that album in a 2017 NCS interview of guitarist M.K. and vocalist A.J.). Now, two of Draugsól’s three members (guitarist/bassist/vocalist Maximilian Klimkoare and drummer Kjartan Harðarson) are forging ahead under a new name — Kaleikr — and their new album Heart of Lead will be released on February 15th by Debemur Morti Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (VICIOUS HEADBANGERS EDITION): LEGION OF THE DAMNED, MISERY INDEX, DESERTED FEAR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

Our focus on LISTMANIA at this time of the year tends to diminish the frequency of round-up posts such as this one; even when I’m not doing the writing myself, the behind-the-scenes work that I do to get year-end features ready for publication (such as Andy Synn‘s impressive week-long series of lists, and DGR’s week-long series of catch-up reviews, both of which concluded today) takes some time. My ability to listen to new music and select songs and videos to recommend has been further restricted by the two-week vacation I took, which ended last weekend, and by way too much holiday-season partying this week.

Our 2018 LISTMANIA orgy isn’t nearly finished, by the way. Next week we’ll begin rolling our year-end lists from other NCS writers and guests, and at some point I’ll start revealing my own contribution to LISTMANIA — a list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. But I still do hope to throw in a new-music round-up every now and then.

The three new songs you’ll find below, all of which come with music videos, barely make a dent in my backlog, but I hope to do a bit more catching up with another SEEN AND HEARD post tomorrow and the usual SHADES OF BLACK column on Sunday. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SAHON, ONIROPHAGUS, STRANGULIATORIUS, DESECRAVITY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 012018
 

 

The effect of my vacation on this Saturday round-up is a good-news/bad-news story. The bad news is that I haven’t had time to sift through as many new songs and videos as I usually do before making my selections. The good news is that I found a lot to like anyway.

SAHON

In May of this year we had the great pleasure of premiering a song called “Faith of Savagery” from the hell-raising fourth album by the South Korean thrash band Sahon. The album was subsequently released by Transcending Obscurity Records on July 15th, and now Sahon have just released a music video — and it happens to be for the same great song we premiered.

If you’re feeling sluggish, sullen, spiteful, or have an itch in your brain that you haven’t figured out how to scratch, this video is what the doctor ordered. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ROTTING CHRIST, POPIÓŁ, WARDRUNA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 292018
 

 

Last Sunday when I wrote about my imminent two-week vacation I though it was unlikely that I would be able to assemble any new-music round-ups. But for my traveling companions, yesterday was an especially lazy day, and so I found a bit of guilt-free time to explore new music.

Not a lot of time, mind you, and so I didn’t cast a very wide net over everything of interest that had surfaced since the last of these round-ups, nor was I able to choose as many songs as I usually do. But these three struck a strong chord, and I’m happy with the choices.

ROTTING CHRIST

Season of Mist uses the term “anthemic” to describe the new Rotting Christ song it released yesterday, and so it is — in a way that’s distinctively Rotting Christ. If you’re familiar with their music, you would know it’s them even if no one told you. Continue reading »

BLOG SLOW-DOWN AHEAD (AND NEW MUSIC FROM HELLLIGHT)

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 252018
 

 

Over the next two weeks you’re probably going to notice a diminution in the number of posts at NCS, compared to what you’ve become accustomed to. Rest assured that it’s not a sign of some awful catastrophe that has befallen us, or an indication that we’re getting tired of what we do. To banish any such concerns, I’m writing now to explain that I (Islander) will just be on vacation.

Of course, it’s likely that the rest of the NCS staff and contributors will continue to send reviews and interviews to me for publication at their usual pace, but because I tend to write most of the daily posts, things will probably slow down a bit. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DEATH KARMA, ULVDALIR, HANORMALE, PROLIFERHATE, BATTALIONS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 242018
 

 

I didn’t really listen to these songs for the first time today. It was actually last night, though I did listen to them again on this Saturday morning, just to make sure that the vodka in my system on the previous evening hadn’t warped my judgment. I concluded it hadn’t, even if it might have super-heated an already warm reaction.

I like the way this playlist of new music and videos flows, even without the vodka lubricant, though it won’t put you in a single headspace and let you linger there for very long. It starts in ravaging and ravishing fashion, shifts into much more bewildering and cerebral gears, and then just rocks out.

DEATH KARMA

Thanks to a tip from my Norwegian fiend friend eitororm, I learned that the Czech band Death Karma, who share a couple of members (Vladimír Pavelka and Tom Coroner) with Cult of Fire, will be releasing a new album, The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part 2, TODAY on CD (and digitally on November 26th). Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries