BLACK METAL (PART 6): A COLLECTION CURATED BY NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG, POISON BLOOD)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 072017
 

 

(Last year we were fortunate to present five installments in a series by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) recommending black metal releases from years past. Neill now brings us (and you) a further installment collecting music from six more bands. To get a look at previous editions of the series, click this link and scroll down. If we’re lucky, more will come our way in the future.)

For some reason people seem to like talking to me, especially the ones I don’t want to talk to. And inevitably in these conversations I get poked and prodded about current black metal because the vacant look in my eyes isn’t speaking loudly enough. And most of the time I try to shrug it off because I’m terrible in social situations and also I don’t have a lot to say about many modern bands. Like fresh out of the womb modern with a demo in one hand and a fistful of dreams in the other, not new projects with veteran members or anything like that. Jesus this got confusing.

What I’m trying to get at is (1) I’m old and boring, and (2) it’s incredibly difficult for me to constantly keep up with modern shit when there’s still so much to be mined from an earlier age. Which is why I like to dip back into the well that was supposed to be a three-part series that’s now on its sixth iteration with no real ending planned.

Dedicated for those of you who complain about people being stuck mining the past while spending an absurd amount of money to look like you were an extra in one of the original Mad Max films. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR: A LIFE ONCE LOST (AND MIND POWER AND OLDBONES)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, THE REARVIEW MIRROR  10 Responses »
Aug 072017
 

 

The original idea for The Rearview Mirror (credit to DGR) was to give us a quick and easy way to begin Sundays at our site when we had nothing else ready to go. It was supposed to be quick and easy because all we’d do would be to post a song stream from fondly remembered releases from the past, as opposed to our usual constant focus on new and forthcoming albums, EPs, and splits. Yesterday would have been a good day for that since I was on a mini-vacation and had nothing ready to go. Of course, I forgot.

It didn’t take long for the original idea to morph. “Wordiness” is our middle name, and so our Rearview Mirror posts expanded into essays and took almost as much time to prepare as everything else around here. Which is probably why the series eventually melted away. It might come back on a regular basis since I’m now thinking about it, or it might not. But I am reviving it at least for today… since I don’t have anything else ready to go on this Monday morning (things are in the works, just not finished).

But this post still doesn’t follow the original Rearview Mirror idea. Wordiness still reigns (though in this case I’ve cribbed from some things we’ve written in the past). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: REBEL WIZARD, THE KING IS BLIND, OWLCRUSHER, VOIDSCAPE, PROJECT OMEGA, NESSERIA, THE INVICT, VOREAN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 022017
 

 

Well, as you can see, I’ve gotten carried away again.

Here’s a selection of new music by 8 bands, chosen in part to display once again the diversity and promise of extreme music in the current day.

REBEL WIZARD

The sound of Rebel Wizard has now become branded in my head; I would have known this first song was a Rebel Wizard creation even if the music’s source had been concealed. And in an age in which new metal arrives every day in a flood, with so many bands rushing through ravines already carved by their influences, creating a distinctive style and sound is a rare achievement, and even more rare when it’s distinctive despite being difficult to categorize in conventional genre terms. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SATYRICON, ABIGOR, WINGS OF DAHAK, ONE TAIL ONE HEAD, UHTCEARU, ASTROPHOBOS, LUSTWORM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Aug 012017
 

 

In this past Sunday’s regular episode of this feature I explained that I had more new music in a black vein that I wanted to share and expected I would do it on Monday. So, I’m a day late, and with the delay I’ve expanded it a bit. The result is divergent music by seven bands from seven countries, but we begin with a news item.

SATYRICON

Today we got some additional information about the new album by Satyricon. As previously reported, it is entitled Deep Calleth Upon Deep and will be released by Napalm Records on September 22. The cover art is an obscure 1898 drawing by the famous Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. The album has been described by the label as “a wholesale reinvention and a brand new era in SATYRICON history”. And with that titillating pronouncement we also have this statement by frontman Satyr: Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: NEW MUSIC FROM DYSCARNATE, ARCHSPIRE, ORACULUM, ANTIVERSUM, CASKET ROBBERY, BLACK BLOOD INVOCATION, SACROSCUM, MORBITORY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 282017
 

 

Although I put together a round-up of news and new music yesterday, I still had a lot of new stuff I wanted to spread around today. As I began picking through a very long list of newly revealed tracks, it dawned on me that a big chunk of what I found attractive fell within the realms of death metal. And that’s what I’ve got for you below — new (or newly discovered) deathly music from 8 bands.

DYSCARNATE

Five years after their superb last album and with a new bassist/vocalist (Al Llewellyn) now in the three-person line-up, Dyscarnate are returning with their third full-length, With All Their Might. Yesterday DECIBEL premiered a new song and video from the album, and it’s  fittingly named “Iron Strengthens Iron“. Continue reading »

A NEW DARK DESCENT SAMPLER ARRIVES, WITH BRAND NEW SONGS BY 11 BANDS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 282017
 

 

Colorado-based Dark Descent Records must be very, very happy with 2017. (I’m talking about their slate of music releases, of course, because many other things about the year suck harder than a shop vac.) Here we are just past the halfway point, and Dark Descent has already served up new albums by the likes of Heresiarch, Undergang, Father Befouled, Bestia Arcana, Ascended Dead, Phrenelith, Ensnared, Gorephilia, Craven Idol, Lantern, Excommunion, Sarcasm, and Diabolical Messiah, and a new EP by Devouring Star (and I might have overlooked something).

But with more than five months left in the year, the label has a lot more nastiness up its sleeve, and today we’re getting a big taste of what’s to come. Today Dark Descent has released via Bandcamp and YouTube a new sampler that consists of a whopping 11 track premieres all at once, and they all happen to be from releases we’ve been very eager to hear, or that come as very intriguing surprises. Many appear headed our way before year-end; some may not arrive until 2018.

Below you’ll find some info about those 11 offerings, plus impressions of the music (aided by a bit of a sneak peak we got in advance), and of course streams of each song. To begin, here’s the track list: Continue reading »

BRIDGE BURNER: “ILLNESS & LOATHING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 242017
 

 

(Our friend from New Zealand Craig Hayes (Six Noises) brings us this alert about the first excerpt of sound from the new album by NZ’s Bridge Burner.)

Crusty New Zealand death metal band Bridge Burner features members who’ve played in groups like Graves, Diocletian, Ulcerate, Punished, Heresiarch, Witchrist, In Dread Response, and The Mark of Man. That’s an intimidating roll call of bands, but I’d draw your attention to the first name on that list, because the death of turbo-speed Auckland punk/metal band Graves resulted in the birth of Bridge Burner.

Graves released a couple of thoroughly neck-wrecking and nihilistic albums before calling it quits in 2015. And the band’s guitarist, Josh Hughes, went on to compose all the pulverizing music on Bridge Burner’s first EP, Mantras of Self Loathing. That release featured a crushing mix of brute-force punk and death metal, and vocalist/lyricist Ben Read howled with unhinged rage over the vitriolic barrages within. Mantras of Self Loathing’s marriage of intensity to belligerence promised great things, and Bridge Burner have recently stoked the fires of anticipation even more by releasing the preliminary mix of a storming track entitled “Illness & Loathing” from their upcoming full-length debut. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MALOKARPATAN, LASCAR, PRECARIA, NOCTURNES MIST, PERISHED

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jul 232017
 

 

Another Sunday, another edition of SHADES OF BLACK, and this time I’ve chosen advance tracks by five bands from forthcoming releases. Two of those releases are reissues of earlier works, but the bands were new to me despite the existence of those earlier efforts, and perhaps they’ll be new to you as well.

MALOKARPATAN

In the fall of 2015 the Slovakian band Malokarpatan released their debut album Stridžie dni (“the witching days”), which turned out to be one of the biggest and best surprises of that year, even though I didn’t tumble to it until early 2016. With lyrics written in a local dialect, the album was based on the grotesque myths and folklore of Western Slovakia, based on “rural witchcraft, drunkenness and also national pride.” As I wrote then: Continue reading »

CAUGHT IN THE DOOM CRUSH: MORBID EVILS, OWL COVEN, JUDD MADDEN, DWOOM, LIVID, KING ZOG

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 222017
 

 

I started working on this post a month ago, but kept shoving it off to the side due to more urgent commitments. As time passed, I found a few more tracks to include. But still, I haven’t had time to write what I intended to write about each of the releases included here, and I’m not sure when that time would come. So I’ve decided to let the music mainly speak for itself, and I’ve picked out only one song from each release for this playlist, though in most cases you’ll be able to hear the full release if you’re interested.

All of the releases in this compilation are crushers — doom crushers, to be precise. But they’re not all cut from the same cloth. Some are apocalyptic, some are narcotic, some have harsh vocals, some have clean singing, and one has no singing at all. So get ready to travel in the low and slow lane, and if you have an eggshell skull it might be better to strap on a protective helmet.

MORBID EVILS

The first track I’ve chosen comes from the second album by Morbid Evils, a Finnish band that includes vocalist Keijo Niinimaa of Rotten Sound. Entitled Deceases, it examines the subject of death from various perspectives, blending elements of sludge, doom, drone, and black metal. The album will be released on August 25 by Svart Records. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HATE MOON, GALARE, SENTIENT DIVIDE, DEATH CRUSADE, PLANET EATER, ARCTOS, ASCEND/DESCEND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 212017
 

 

Do you groan when you see these big round-up posts? Especially when they come three in a row, day after day? Is it too much to process? Do you feel overwhelmed by the volume?

These are what are known as rhetorical questions, i.e., a figure of speech in the form of a question that isn’t intended to elicit an answer, e.g., “Can’t you do anything right?” Right or wrong, too much or too little, on we go… this time with new or newly discovered metal from seven bands.

HATE MOON

Fólkvangr Records tells us that “Hate Moon is a Norse-Gael symphonic black metal band hailing from Pennsylvania”, formed by “two Irish American descendants of Norse Vikings” (Tuathail and Tohmar) who have created music that “romanticizes the ancient Celtic world through a soundscape of historical fantasy”. Their debut album is The Imprisoning War, and the first item in today’s round-up is an album track named “Mountain of Death“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries