OVERFLOWING STREAMS: PARADISE LOST, FLESHKILLER, ABHORRENT DECIMATION, TWO LABEL SAMPLERS, AND A BUNCH OF LINKS

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Jul 082017
 

 

I’ve been recovering from a concussion I suffered last Sunday night. Based on the experience so far, my advice to you is this: Never get a fucking concussion. Between the persistent headache, the nausea, and the general feeling of debilitation that forces me to nap in a dark, quiet room as often as I can, it has put a real dent in my usual scouring of the interhole and our e-mails for new music to recommend. Just in case you were wondering why there were no round-ups this week.

I’ve been feeling (slightly) better over the last 48 hours, so I’ve been looking at what I missed — and damn, did I miss a lot. I’ve picked a trio of things to stream and comment on specifically, and a lot more things to just point you to. I’ve also included two new worthy label samplers. I also plan to write a SEEN AND HEARD post to cover a handful of other new songs and videos.

PARADISE LOST

I haven’t heard the new Paradise Lost album, Medusa, but a couple of trusted friends who write for print zines have heard it, and they have a high opinion of it. The album comes out September 1st on Nuclear Blast. Yesterday brought the debut of the first single from the album, “The Longest Winter“. Continue reading »

BRO-COUNTRY FOR NO MEN: AUTHENTIC COUNTRY ARTISTS FOR METAL FANS

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  22 Responses »
Jul 072017
 

 

(We have a little-used category of posts that, for want of a better term, we call “Off Topic”. This is one of those “not metal” posts. But it also fits in another category of posts — “That’s Music — But It’s Not Metal” — which is too complicated to explain in detail, but basically refers to music that isn’t metal, but also kind of is “metal”. I’ll shut up now and let Grant Skelton take it from here.)

I used to loathe country music. Going to college near Nashville, the Mecca of country music, probably didn’t help. Metal was all I wanted to hear. That is, until I discovered late greats like Johnny Cash and Townes Van Zandt.

Whole libraries have been written on each of those two. And even among metal fans, Cash and Van Zandt seem to occupy something of a sacred place. Late last year, Islander gushed over Panzerfaust’s cover of Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” referring to Cash as, “the most black metal country singer you can find.” Neurot Recordings has released two compilations (Volume I and Volume II) of Townes Van Zandt covers by Scott Kelly, Wino, Mike Scheidt, and Steve Von Till. Dorthia Cottrell of Windhand recorded her creepy rendition of Van Zandt’s song “Rake” for her self-titled 2015 solo album The much-hyped upcoming outlaw country cover album from DevilDriver (whether you hate that idea or love it) further underscores my point.

Don’t get me wrong, the country music you’ll hear on the radio is nothing more than the foul ordure of red-state identity politics. The songs aren’t songs, they’re lists of ideals and symbols that perpetuate a mythical, illusory way of life. But this article isn’t about that. It’s about artists whose music, while not metal in the slightest, I believe will still be meaningful and enjoyable to readers of our site. On my honor, here you will find no songs about girls in trucks. Continue reading »

RAPID FIRE RECOMMENDATIONS: WRATH OF BELIAL, EZERATH, MALKAVIAN, SUNLESS, THE FUROR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 062017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli compiled this group of recommendations, with brief rationales and lots of music streams.)

There’s too much good metal coming out in 2017, and frankly, for me to attempt to review everything that catches my ear with the frequency at which good things are arriving would be madness. I’ve decided to start a new every-now-and-then series to offer either brief reviews or simple recommendations of albums that would get full length-reviews if the time or energy were there for me to do so. Most of these will be things that’ve already been out for a bit, but some will be records that aren’t out yet. With that said, let’s get started.

 

Wrath Of Belial – Bloodstained Rebellion

One of the best melodic death metal albums released this year. Fast, intensive riffing, very emotive with more brutal vocals than the genre commonly is associated with nowadays. Think of a mix of Kataklysm, The Black Dahlia Murder, and The Arcane Order. These guys are fucking sick. Continue reading »

A ROLL OF THE DICE: DENY THE URGE AND ART AGAINST AGONY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 012017
 

 

Happy Saturday to one and all. My original plan was to take the day off, but I began to experience that needling feeling of urgency, the one I can’t ever completely suppress — sort of like that feeling you get in your bladder soon after drinking a gallon of beer, except in my case it’s the urge to post new music at NCS.

But it’s late in the day or well into evening for most people who might read this, and later than usual for a Saturday post here in the Pacific Northwest, so I decided to hurry this along by just posting two new songs. I decided to pick music by bands I didn’t recall hearing before, and I decided to make the selection a random one, like a roll of the dice. And so these are the first two good songs I heard this morning by bands I hadn’t heard before.

DENY THE URGE

When I saw this band’s “verb-the-noun” name I guessed they would be a deathcore or metalcore group and nearly skipped past them. I’m glad I didn’t.

When I saw Dan Seagrave’s album art, I realized my guess based on their name was most likely wrong, and the music definitely proved me wrong. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (WEEKDAY EDITION): MYRKUR, KOSMOGYR, WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, THETA, VULTURE INDUSTRIES, ASAGRAUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Jun 302017
 

 

I began writing this post on Tuesday, intending to finish and publish it the next day. Events conspired against that plan, and I was defeated again yesterday by technical problems ironically created by malfunctioning software installed in our web-host server by the company we pay to armor us against malware.

I’ve resisted the temptation to make this burly collection even bigger by including more new music I’ve spotted in the days since I started it. I also resisted the temptation to just shove this column into its usual place on Sunday, especially because I’ve taken a few liberties with the usual configuration of SHADES OF BLACK. Posting it today will also me to harness different new audio assaults to char the coming Sabbath.

MYRKUR

I stay away from metal message boards for fear of losing IQ points, which as you well know are meager enough already. But I could guess that the people who think they are the trve keepers of the holy black flame are gnashing their teeth all over again because Myrkur has released a new song and soon enough will release a new album. Based on experience, I presume that the readers of this site will take the music as it comes and assess it on its own merits, which is what I’ve done — and I do like what I hear. Continue reading »

A DGR SEEN AND HEARD: DISTASTE, LENG TCH’E, ABORTED, THE HAUNTED, SAMAEL, THE RITUAL AURA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 272017
 

 

(DGR once again takes over round-up duties at our metallic fortress, presenting news and new music from six bands.)

This weekend was glorious if you were in a death grind sort of mood, as it felt like Friday was the first crack in a dam about to burst from a small handful of bands. Austria’s Distaste put out a new EP entitled Todt (which is curently name-your-own-price), and Belgium-based grinders Leng Tch’e and their fellow countrymen in the restless Aborted both began streaming new songs from their upcoming releases.

In fact, in compling this roundup I felt I had to temper the blade a little bit by tacking on something that wasn’t just raw fury from front to back, so Samael find themselves paired up alongside an EP announcement for Australian tech-death wonders The Ritual Aura and an ambient teaser that, were we not aware of just how heavy those guys can get, would be fairly calming. So, if you were looking to start your day without a massive pile of non-stop guitar batterings, relentless drumming, and vocals fired at the speed of a machine-gun, my friend…you’ve come to the wrong place. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT, WOMAN IS THE EARTH, LEPRA, HELLEBORUS, ULVEN, EORONT, PALE HANDS, AMERICAN, BARBARIC HORDE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Jun 262017
 

 

Yesterday, in the first part of this week’s SHADES OF BLACK, I recommended five recently released albums and throttled my tendency to put my own impressions into words. In this concluding part I opened the throttle, sort of. The music of nine bands is included here, ranging from individual advance tracks or singles to full albums or EPs. I know it’s a lot, but you’re men and women of steel, you can handle it… probably.

DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT

Most of us here were enormous fans of this German black metal band’s last album from 2015, Stellar. My friend Andy went so far as to call it in his review “a near-perfect snapshot of the genre. Its power and its potential. Both what it is, and what it can be.” And on August 25 we’ll have another album from this band, one entitled Finisterre. Continue reading »

DARK HARDCORE (PART III): RECOMMENDATIONS FROM NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 262017
 

 

(About 14 months ago Neill Jameson began a series for our site in which he recommended music in the vein of dark and negative hardcore. We posted a second installment in the series a few months later (here), and after that Neill compiled other lists of recommendations in different genres, including black metal. You can find all of these previous lists via this link. Now we’re fortunate to have Neill back with us for a third collection of negative hardcore.)

 

A year or so ago I started with the project of forcing my tastes unto others through these lists and in the spirit of having two ouroboros tattoos I figured I’d circle back to the first subject, which was dark and negative hardcore. I’m fitting one extra in from my usual format because I think this will probably conclude this genre, at least for the moment. So with that fascinating introduction let’s just jump into it. Continue reading »

EXTINCTION OF MANKIND AND BURNING THROATS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

As I explained in an earlier post today, I’ve resisted the temptation to compile yet another gigantic round-up this week, deciding instead to spread around some of the good new things I found in a listening session last night across a few different pairings.

I’m a big fan of both songs collected here, and I’m also going to suggest you do something weird with them if you want a Grade A head-wrecking experience, though I’m sure it’s an idea that not everyone will find appealing. But I’ll come back to that at the end of the post.  First, here are the two songs, along with some introductory verbiage.

EXTINCTION OF MANKIND

The death/crust crew Extinction of Mankind have been plying their trade since the early ’90s, though more than a decade has passed since their last album, Northern Scum. While we’ve had a long wait for a new album, the band haven’t been completely dormant. In 2010 they put out splits with Phobia and Disgust, and now they have another split on the way with Apocalypse. This one will be a 7″, and EoM’s song from that split is now up on YouTube (actually, it’s been there since mid-May but I just found it). It’s excellent. Continue reading »

SHADOWFLAG AND DEVIL’S FORCE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

I’m continuing to make my way through some of the songs and videos that have come out since I basically checked out of NCS to work on Northwest Terror Fest. Especially because I’m getting a slow start on this Friday, I decided to put together this pair of good ones I found last night, and if the day goes right, a couple more pairings before we hit the weekend, rather than compiling another overstuffed SEEN AND HEARD post.

SHADOWFLAG

I hadn’t encountered this UK black metal band before last night. Metal-Archives (which lists them as “Shadow Flag”) identifies two albums released in 2013 and 2015, and today they’re releasing a third one named The Delusion Machine. I can’t comment on the whole album yet, but I sure as hell have fallen hard for a song called “Singularity 45“, which is the subject of the lyric video I saw last night. That’s the first item in this pairing. Continue reading »

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