SEEN AND HEARD: ASTRAL BLOOD, ALTARAGE, KAWIR, SACRILEGIOUS RITE, KAUAN, SHADOWMASTER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 182017
 

 

And so we come to the end of another work week. Three days have passed since the last round-up of new music I pulled together, and those have been eventful days for the release of new metal, not even counting the many excellent premieres we introduced ourselves. I’ve had to resist the temptation to cram a big mountain of them into this post (instead of a small mountain), in part because I’m off to the airport again for a long weekend in the Rocky Mountains, capped by the coming of a black sun on Monday.

I hope you’ll enjoy the picks I’ve made for this truncated round-up, and that you’ll enjoy the two more premieres we’ll be bringing you later today. I think I’ll have time to pull together some more new music this weekend despite being away from the forested NCS fortress near the Puget Sound.

ASTRAL BLOOD

I’m beginning this collection with a new single by Minnesota’s Astral Blood, in part because it gives me the opportunity to post not one but two pieces of artwork by Luciana Nedelea that will cover the front and back of the album from which it comes. The album is named SYZYGY, and the front piece is above. This is the piece for the back cover: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IN TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE, THE HOWLING VOID, WAR POSSESSION

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 152017
 

 

Non-blog life is rapidly encroaching on me, so I’m forced to make this round-up short. But it’s sweet. It’s short but sweet. I just made that up… pretty good expression, don’t you think?

IN TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE

For me and many others, The Grim Muse by Poland’s In Twilight’s Embrace was one of 2015’s highlights — a multifaceted and uniformly strong melodic death metal album loaded with fantastic riffs, memorable lead-guitar melodies and solos, powerful performances by the rhythm section, and absolutely ferocious vocals. We had the privilege of premiering the full album stream, and then last year we also debuted a full stream of their next release, an EP named Trembling that also consisted of tracks from the recording session for The Grim Muse.

Today I was excited to learn through an announcement at DECIBEL that the band’s fourth album, Vanitas, will be released on September 22 (through their longstanding label partner Arachnophobia Records). At the same time, DECIBEL premiered a track from the album named “The Hell of Mediocrity“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): CAUSTIC, HELPLESS, IMPALERS, THE BODY AND FULL OF HELL, SERPENT COLUMN, MANGLER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 122017
 

 

Yesterday I launched the first two parts of a week-ending round-up (here and here). As promised (every now and then I do keep a promise), I’m continuing the flood of new music today with Part 3. There’s more to come tomorrow, but the remaining songs I picked out will be packaged in our usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK feature.

Some of what you’ll find below are full album streams, though I’m just sketching out some brief thoughts about them and hoping you’ll be intrigued enough to dive deeper into the releases. Wish I had time for more complete reviews, but in the words of American clergyman Robert Schuller, “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”

CAUSTIC

I admit that my current mood (fairly black and pissed off) may have influenced the first three picks in this Saturday collection. It certainly influenced my decision to listen to Caustic’s new two-track single… because it’s named Murder the World. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): ENSLAVED, ANTARKTIS, AETHERIAN, CLARET ASH, SATOR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 112017
 

 

In this post I continue an end-of-week round-up that I began here earlier today. I’ll post a third installment on Saturday. In this one, we have new music from five favorites of our site, all of whom are returning this year with new releases.

ENSLAVED

I’ve already published two previous posts about the new Enslaved album, E, even without any music to share with you. Now we finally have an advance track, “Storm Son“, which arrived today in the form of an animated music video designed by Josh Graham.

The song is a 10-minute beguiler, described as follows by songwriter/guitarist Ivar Bjørnson: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MIDNIGHT, KARTIKEYA, IMPUREZA, ENDSEEKER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 112017
 

 

Surprise! Hope your kids or your parents or your bosses weren’t looking over your shoulder when you landed on this post. But hey, we have to have our fun where we find it. Just tell ’em that’s a recently discovered Michaelangelo that’s making news throughout the art world.

Midnight also has a new promo photo that you can view after the jump. Your kids/parents/bosses will really love it!

I’ve got a few bits of additional info about Midnight’s new album to start this end-of-week round-up, plus another piece of album art and news about a long-awaited new album, and then some music. I’ve collected so many new song streams that I’ve decided to break up this rond-up into somewhat smaller bites so your mind won’t choke on it. I’ll probably be posting round-ups from now straight through the weekend.

MIDNIGHT

As you can see, the new Midnight album is named Sweet Death and Ecstasy. There’s some more info about the album that I’ll quote below. Unfortunately, Hells Headbangers didn’t tell us who created the scissor-sisters cover art. Might be William Lacey, who’s done work for these sleazy Clevelanders before, but I’m not sure if he’s responsible for this one. Here’s that new promo shot: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELL WITCH, SUMMONING, INCANTATION, OBITUARY, BOLT THROWER, BLASPHEMY, SXUPERION, SERPENTS LAIR, FIREBREATHER, ORBSEVEN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 082017
 

 

This is, obviously, a humongous round-up of things I’ve recently discovered. I’ve organized it in this way:

First up there are two news items that feature imagery and info about eagerly anticipated new releases but no music. Then I’ve got new videos and music streams by (or related to) a quartet of venerable and revered bands, followed by new advance tracks from two younger favorites who are returning with new releases this year. And then I’ll close this out with music from two bands whom I’ve just discovered.

BELL WITCH

On most days I post a piece of usually dark or surreal artwork on our Facebook page. I keep an archive of what I’ve posted over the years, as a way of trying to avoid repeating myself. In that archive I’ve counted 22 paintings by the Polish artist Mariusz Lewandowski that I’ve posted over the years since I began doing that, which I think is proof of how strongly I like his creations. But as far as I can recall, he has never created artwork for the cover of a metal album… until now. And his cover for the new Bell Witch album will surely stand as one of the best album covers of the year, if not THE best. Continue reading »

IRRELEVANT LISTENING (VOL. 3)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 082017
 

 

(Last year TheMadIsraeli posted the first two installments in this irregular series, and now brings us a third one.)

Another installment of irrelevant listening where I share albums in my rotation lately that aren’t current. Let’s get started.

Killswitch Engage – Alive Or Just Breathing: Top-Shelf Edition

Alive Or Just Breathing is the melodic metalcore album that in my mind has never been topped. Even the band themselves admitted in an interview, I think it was this year, that this is STILL their best album. I’ve written about this album before on the site and stumbled upon the so-called “Top Shelf” expanded edition (released in 2005) some time ago. Continue reading »

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 »

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