SEEN AND HEARD: PIG DESTROYER, REVOCATION, THE RITUAL AURA, KVALVAAG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 112018
 

 

A whirlwind trip to Denver for my fucking day job prevented me from posting anything yesterday other than my premiere and review of the new Temple Desecration album. So I’ve got some catching-up to do. Later today I’ll post Part 2 of a post I began on Monday (“Doom Meets Death”) along with a couple more song premieres and the beginning of a three-day series of photos by Teddie Taylor from this year’s edition of Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. But first, it’s time for a mid-week round-up of new music and videos.

PIG DESTROYER

Pig Destroyer’s new album, Head Cage, has been high on our list of highly anticipated albums for the second half of this year. Yesterday they provided the album’s first single (and video), “Army of Cops“. To put things politely, it produced some mixed reactions across the interhole. For example, there was this exchange among certain people affiliated with NCS, whose names I’ve concealed because I didn’t ask permission to quote them: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FINNR’S CANE — “ELEGY”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 092018
 

 

Ten years on from their formation and five years after their second album, the persistently evolving Canadian band Finnr’s Cane are nearing the release of their third full-length, Elegy. The first two singles from the album that have appeared so far — “Strange Sun” and “Willow” — are sufficient by themselves to prove that the album is difficult to pin down in genre terms. the former a head-banging display of more traditional black metal, the latter a piece inspired by the quiet hours of the morning and the slow sway of willow branches under dim light, a time of solitude when sadness and joy can commingle. And today we have the premiere of the album’s title track, which reveals further dimensions of the album.

Largely unhindered by stiff genre confines, the band bring into play styles and sounds that suit the emotional intensity and atmosphere of the album’s themes, which include “urban desolation, loss and grieving, personal struggle, the rebirth of the natural world”, and, as noted, “the quiet hours of the early morning”. The presence of a cello instead of a bass guitar in the instrumentation well-suits these goals, as does the blending of clean and harsh vocals. Those ingredients play key roles in “Elegy” (the song), which proves to be both soulful and desolate, introspective and wrenching. Continue reading »

WHERE DOOM MEETS DEATH (PART 1): NEW MUSIC FROM XORESTH, UNTIL DEATH OVERTAKES ME, ATAVISMA, SEDATION THERAPY, AND THRONE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 092018
 

 

Through a happy coincidence, I’m drowning in despair this morning. I have a collection of new tracks that I thought would be worthy of a Monday round-up, and most of it comes in varying flavors of doom.

Of course “doom” as a genre label doesn’t tell you very much because the genre has subdivided so many times over so many decades. As the title of this post suggests, you’ll find flavors of death/doom metal in this collection, but the title is meant to have a second meaning — a hint at the atmosphere to be found in the songs that are less closely connected to death metal. And as the title further suggests, I’ll have a Part 2 either later today or tomorrow.

XORESTH

When you watch the video for this first song you will see Xoresth’s music labeled as Funeral Doom. To be more precise, this is music for the funeral of all humankind, with no surviving soul left to mourn. As I hear it, it’s a vision of the future in which our planetary home has been burned to a cinder and then frozen in a heatless void. Not for naught, the name of the album is Vortex of Desolation. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ABORTED, OMNIUM GATHERUM, SKELETONWITCH, CAST THE STONE, DAKHMA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 062018
 

 

The last 24 hours brought a big slug of new music from a bunch of well-known bands, and the first four items in this end-of-the-week round-up are among those. I found quite a lot of good new music from lesser-known bands as well, and put one of those at the end of this collection.

ABORTED

To begin I present for your enjoyment the official video for “Squalor Opera“, a new song taken from the next album by perennial NCS favorites, Aborted. Entitled TerrorVision, it will be released through Century Media on September 21st, 2018. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: GOROD, IMMOLATION, VOID ROT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 052018
 

 

I know we’ve thrown a ton of music and videos your way recently, but I find myself with a bit of free time left before I have to bid NCS good-by for the day, so I thought I’d do one more thing. To quote the timeless words of Bart in Blazing Saddles, “Excuse me while I whip this out.”

GOROD

Breaking news: A few minutes ago I happened to be loitering on Facebook (only briefly so as not to damage my health) when that eye-catching artwork up there popped into my news feed, accompanied by these words from the band Gorod: Continue reading »

DELIRIUM REIGNS SUPREME: PLOUGHSHARE, DESTROYER ATTACK, ERIPHION, LODGE OF THE EMPTY BED

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 052018
 

 

Sometimes when you have no plan, the plan makes itself. A guiding hand intervenes, or if you’re not superstitious, you nod your head at the pleasures of serendipity and synchronicity.

I didn’t plan to make this post, but in searching for new music I happened, by a fortunate chance, to listen to the music in this post in the exact same order as I’m presenting it here. And it all seemed to fit together in a way that spawned the title of this post.

PLOUGHSHARE

Literature of Piss was the 2017 debut EP of this band from Canberra, Australia. In Offal, Salvation is the band’s 2018 debut album. “The Urinary Chalice Held Aloft” is the name of one of the tracks on the album. Perhaps you begin to get a sense of the band’s worldview. Continue reading »

FIVE FOR THE FOURTH: AL-NAMROOD, DECLINE OF THE I, VANHÄVD, PANZER SQUAD, WOLFBASTARD

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 042018
 

 

Today is the Independence Day holiday here in the U.S. The first thing I saw upon scanning the local Seattle paper after waking up was a fascinating story that included the photo above, and this headline:

 

Puget Sound explorers partied so hard for July 4, 1841, a sailor blew up his hand with a howitzer

 

We’ve come so far since that event, marked by the monument above near Puget Sound, which was reportedly the first official Fourth of July celebration held west of the Mississippi: Now we can blow off our hands without using military armament; inexpensive fireworks will do the job just as well. And what better way to commemorate the birth of the nation than by an orgy of drunkenness and self-inflicted wounds? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KRISIUN, KHONSU, MIRE, BIRTH THE WRETCHED, ENDOLITH, KIELKROPF

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 032018
 

 

As you may have noticed, I compiled another round-up earlier today, though I was just following instructions with that one, all the choices having been urged upon me by my comrade DGR (and Andy Synn, in part) to suit a What Year Is It?!? theme. I haven’t completely escaped the urgings of my comrades in this collection either, since three of the songs and videos were pressed upon me by Mr. Synn.

However, although I’m less the curator of this particular gallery and more like the slovenly dude who frames the stuff and hangs it on the wall, I did include music of my own choosing at the end (and for better or worse, I’ll be picking everything for our Independence Day round-up tomorrow).

But before we get to all the music, I have a couple of news items (and even the second of those was brought to my attention by my colleagues).

KRISIUN

How could I resist the opportunity to brandish (extra-large) the painted artwork of Eliran Kantor at the top of our page again? Obviously, I couldn’t. It will appear on Krisiun’s new album, Scourge of the Enthroned, marred by text, as follows: Continue reading »

WHAT YEAR IS IT?! NEW STUFF FROM INTO ETERNITY, UNEARTH, BLEEDING THROUGH, JOURNAL, JACK KETCH, SILENT CIVILIAN (ON THE WAY), AND MUNICIPAL WASTE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 032018
 

 

This is a SEEN AND HEARD round-up that’s going under a different name today. If the reason for that isn’t already obvious from the title of this post, let me explain:

Below you will find new songs and one new video, plus a news item, from seven bands. One of them is by a band whose last release was 10 years ago. Three are from bands whose last albums came out eight years ago. Two more are by bands whose last albums were released six and four years ago, respectively. And the video for the last one is set in a time when if you wanted to watch a movie at home, you went to the VHS store.

I can’t take credit for the Robin Williams–Jumanji meme or the post title. That was suggested by DGR, and actually it was he (with an assist from Andy Synn) who foisted all these new songs and videos on me. Basically, today I’m just a marionette whose strings are being pulled by others. Let’s get this over with so I can go back to listening to really disgusting death and black metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WITHOUT WAVES — “VICTORIAN PUNISHMENT”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 022018
 

 

In March of last year Prosthetic Records released Lunar, the surprising debut album of Chicago’s Without Waves, a constantly morphing collection of music that displayed a form of artistic experimentation which brought into play a range of influences, from extreme metal to jazz fusion, from electronica to atmospheric rock. Next month Without Waves will embark on a six-state tour with label mates Zaius, and to mark the occasion they’ve prepared a music video that we’re bringing you today, for one of the eye-opening tracks off Lunar.

If you haven’t heard “Victorian Punishment” before, you’ll discover that it rarely stays in the same place for very long, nor does it follow a predictable course. It’s a study in sharp contrasts of style, volume, and mood. It puts your head in a blender set to puree, and then smoothly untangles everything. It’s a shock to the system, and a spell. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries