SEEN AND HEARD: CORPSESSED, SKELETHAL, NARTHRAAL, SKALLBANK, THE HU, TENGGER CAVALRY

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Nov 062018
 

 

I know there was a ton of new music released yesterday. I can tell just from rapidly scrolling through the 130 e-mails that hit our in-box between 12:55 a.m. and 10:35 p.m. yesterday (yes, I counted them). But (with two exceptions) I had already decided what I wanted to put in this round-up before any of those e-mails arrived, and I decided to just go with these and defer figuring out what Monday might have brought until another day.

The first of the two exceptions is one of the five recommendations I received yesterday from my Norwegian friend eiterorm. I suspect at least a few of the other four will also find their way into another round-up later this week. And that one exception led to a second. Most of the the rest of what I’ve collected below came out late last week or I discovered them last week.

CORPSESSED

More than four years ago, our former contributor Leperkahn introduced his brief comments about Corpsessed’s Abysmal Thresholds with these words: “I’ve been seriously hungering for some absolutely cavernous death metal, the kind of stuff that sounds like it was recorded in a Lovecraftian studio at The Mountains Of Madness”. And he found what he was looking for in this Finnish band’s debut album: “To put it succinctly, these guys play death metal that sounds straight out of the abyss. Since putting it on I’ve had to check a few times to make sure Cthulhu isn’t looming behind my back”. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: OPETH, THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, ARSIS, ICHOR, DÉCEMBRE NOIR, KÖHLBRAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 032018
 

 

I thought I’d round up a quintet of videos that surfaced over the last couple of days, in the hope of making your Saturday a bit more entertaining. I’m going to (mostly) dispense with the usual commentary this time and leave you to go exploring on your own. Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t want your commentary — so please do leave us some!

OPETH

The first one is a live recording of Opeth performing the glorious “Ghost of Perdition” on May 11, 2017. It comes from the band’s new live album, Garden of the Titans: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, which was released on November 2nd by Moderbolaget Records and Nuclear Blast on DVD, Blu-Ray, and vinyl formats. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON HALLOWEEN: DIRGE, VALKYRJA, CLOAK, INTEGRITY, WINDHAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 012018
 

 

I didn’t go trick-or-treating last night, or dress up for a costume party, or make any ritual sacrifices of kids in the neighborhood, much as I wanted to. No one came to our door asking for handouts either; the human heads impaled on spikes apparently did a good job protecting the perimeter of the NCS headquarters, though the ungodly screams coming out of the loris compound may have also played a role.

I was left to celebrate Halloween by listening to new metal, and man, there was a shitload of it to catch up with. There might be another day of the year when more metal bands and labels release new music than on Halloween, but I doubt it. Releasing cover songs also seems to be a Halloween thing. I picked just a few tracks to share around today… though I’m beginning with one that didn’t come out yesterday, though last night was when I first got around to hearing it.

DIRGE

In March of 2014 we had the privilege of premiering a full stream of the sixth album by the Parisian band Dirge, and I’m mentioning that because I decided to quote myself as a way of introducing their new seventh album. There are few things I enjoy more than quoting myself. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: SULPHUR AEON, HOUSE OF ATREUS, UNDERGANG, EVULSE, RESUMED, BLOOD OF THE WOLF

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Oct 252018
 

 

“It’s death metal” doesn’t really tell you very much, which is why fans of extreme music long ago began inventing an ever-expanding, increasingly-hyphenated roster of sub-genres. I suppose one of those is “ritualistic death metal”, a kind of phrase that’s difficult to define but you sort of know it when you hear it… sort of. However, my use of the label “Death Rituals” for occasional posts like this one isn’t really intended to describe the style of music, it’s just a short-hand preview of the fact that I’ve decided to devote a round-up of new music to different styles of death metal, and that’s what you’ll find below.

SULPHUR AEON

I’ll go out on a limb and assert that Sulphur Aeon’s Swallowed By the Ocean’s Tide was one of the most explosive death metal debuts of the last 10 years. It didn’t hurt that the cover art by Ola Larsson was equally attention-grabbing. Together, the art and the music vaulted this German band onto the radar screens of fans and critics across the metal-listening parts of the globe in strikingly impressive fashion, and they cemented their reputation with 2015’s Gateway to the Antisphere. Now Sulphur Aeon and Ola Larsson have joined forces again for the band’s third album, The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THOREN — “DALEB DATH”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 222018
 

 

Instrumental metal, perhaps more so than metal with vocals, is a risky endeavor with mixed results. In addition to the risks of mediocrity (which are certainly not unique to solely instrumental performances), there’s the further risk that even when the music is excellent, it can seem to cry out for a voice (at least in the reception of listeners). You can expect to hear the unique dimensions of sound that vocals might add, and be disappointed when they remain absent.

The Detroit-based instrumental death metal band Thoren avoid these risks, not only because the music is so astonishingly good, but also because it’s impossible to imagine what vocals might add, or perhaps more to the point, how anyone could perform vocals over these bewildering sonic creations that would fit in any coherent or satisfying way. As proof, we offer “Daleb Dath“. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: ACCEPT, OTTONE PESANTE, AZUSA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 202018
 

The subject of this little Saturday round-up of new videos is… happiness…

ACCEPT

Happiness… happiness is being Accept and performing “Symphony No. 40″ before a bazillion people at Wacken Open Air with your own backing orchestra and conductor, stadium-sized video screens, abundant pyrotechnics, a couple dozen cameras filming the event, and a damned good editor splicing all the footage together. It doesn’t hurt that your lead guitarist (Wolf Hoffmann) looks like Bruce Willis. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLOODBATH, TAUR IM DUINATH, FACELESS BURIAL, DUST PROPHET

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 182018
 

 

I think this must be a first — for five days in a row I’ve had enough time to compile a round-up of new songs. Doesn’t mean I’m anywhere close to catching up with everything I’d like to recommend, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Today, I chose the first four good songs I found when I began scrolling through the morass of e-mails that had arrived at NCS overnight and this morning. Not exactly the most thorough method of making a selection, but it had the coincidental benefit of presenting some pleasing variety, as you’ll see….

BLOODBATH

“Chainsaw Lullaby” is a clever and amusing title, and of course it makes no secret about the meat of the sound. But before we get to this new song off Bloodbath’s forthcoming album, The Arrow of Satan is Drawn, let’s here from Anders ‘Blakkheim’ Nyström about the track: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AGRYPNIE, DEAD SOUL COMMUNION, GREAT FALLS, VOID, DEADLY CARNAGE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 172018
 

 

I can guarantee you this won’t last, but for the fourth day in a row I’ve had enough time to compile a round-up of new songs, two of which are presented through extremely cool videos.

I can also guarantee you that you won’t see where this collection is going. No two songs sound remotely alike. Sometimes there’s a flow or a connection between the songs I pick for these posts that just feels right as I hear the music, even if I’m not always able to explain it. This time I just fuckin’ liked all the songs and videos, and the only other thing that feels right is imagining how the movement from one to the next will throw you off balance.

AGRYPNIE

Way back in January of this year my comrade Andy Synn identified Agrypnie’s fifth album as one of his “most anticipated” releases for 2018, relishing the prospect of “some seriously intense blastery, brilliantly moody melody, and artfully applied aggression… along with a heaping helping of brooding atmosphere… and a bevy of unpredictable twists and turns designed to expand the band’s already expansive ‘Post’ Black Metal sound”. At last, that album is upon us. Actually, two of them are upon us. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WHOREDOM RIFE, DISCIPLES OF THE VOID, THE CRAWLING, NEKROMANT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 162018
 

 

Happy Tuesday to one and all. This makes the third day in a row when I’ve found time to round up new songs, and the third day in a row when I’ve focused on underground bands as opposed to bigger names. It’s not that I have any kind of reflexive distaste for the music of economically successful bands whose names are a known quantity world-wide (which, like the music of bands who toil in relative obscurity, is simply a familiar mix of excellence and mediocrity). It’s more that they really don’t need one more metal blog giving them a boost. And sometimes (but not always), that feeling steers me toward bands such as those discussed below.

WHOREDOM RIFE

This Norwegian duo from Trondheim (multi-instrumentalist V. Einride and vocalist K.R.) have made a big and favorable impression on discerning consumers of metal extremity in a relatively short time, through their self-titled debut EP in 2016 and their first album last year, the fantastic Dommedagskvad, both of which were released by Terratur Possessions. Now they return with a new album, NID – Hymner Av Hat. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: NEW MUSIC FROM SVARTIDAUÐI, WINGS OF DAHAK, BLASPHEMER, ROTTEN EVISCERATION, CURSUS BELLUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 152018
 

 

I’m in catch-up mode on songs that debuted last week. At first I thought I would include the new Soilwork and Gorod songs in this collection, along with a few others from what I’d call similarly higher-profile bands, but then last night I hit this stretch of four songs in a row that seemed to hang together so damned well that I jettisoned those earlier plans. All four have slaughtering death metal at the core, hence the title of this post, but you’ll notice significant differences among them as well.

And then, the first thing I saw this morning were messages from multiple friends on Facebook pointing me to a new Svartidauði song, which was such a welcome surprise that I hurriedly inserted it at the top before getting to the four I chose last night. No need to change the post title.

SVARTIDAUÐI

Yes indeed, the Icelandic band Svartidauði, whom I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing live both in Reykjavík and here in the U.S., have a new album coming our way. Entitled Revelations of the Red Sword, it will be released by Ván Records on December 3rd, six years to the day after the advent of their debut album Flesh Cathedral. This morning, along with that announcement, the band provided a stream of a new song called “Burning Worlds of Excrement” — which could double as a headline for the daily news. Continue reading »

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