OF WOLVES: “EVOLVE”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit  5 Responses »
Jun 102013
 

The first time I listened to Evolve by Chicago’s Of Wolves I had more “what the fuck?” moments than I’ve experienced with any other album this year. I listened to it as the band wants it to be heard — straight through, letting each song run right into the next one. It was a breathtaking (and breathless experience), with something unexpected lying in wait around every corner, and with more corners than a roller-coaster ride.

These three working men in Chicago are fed up, frustrated, and pissed off. They vent their fury at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and they don’t mince words about it. As they say, “Life has been rough, the music is therapy.”

Apparently, the therapy consists of taking a whole kitchen sink’s worth of musical influences and interests and letting them spill out in a flood of exuberant creativity. Continue reading »

ÀRSAIDH: “ROOTS”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

It’s probably inevitable that associations will be drawn between England’s Winterfylleth and Scotland’s Àrsaidh. Both bands play what might be called atmospheric, folk-influenced black metal. Both bands take the ancient heritage of their respective countries as the inspiration for their music and the focus of their lyrics. And the music of both bands is dramatic and serious-minded. In light of Winterfylleth’s well-earned rise to prominence, and the temptation of fans and critics to compare new bands to better-known ones, I’d be surprised if the comparison weren’t made. Hell, I think I just did it myself.

At a high level, all those similarities exist, and I would add one more: Àrsaidh’s debut album Roots is as deserving of attention as The Threnody of Triumph and The Mercian Sphere. In fact, Roots is downright brilliant. But there are important differences, too — beyond the fact that both albums come from cultures that have warred with each other for longer than they’ve (ostensibly) been united.

Roots really is deeply atmospheric, but it doesn’t rely on riffs or hard-hitting rhythmic movement. For most of the time in the album’s very long songs there’s a background wash of tremolo-driven distortion — rising, falling, sometimes almost pulsating — and racing, rolling, tumbling drumwork. This provides the bottom layer of these multi-faceted songs, to which Àrsaidh adds simple but affecting melodies that are carried by a variety of instruments — acoustic and electric guitar, piano, echoing flutes, synthesized strings (sometimes in the movement of a soaring chorus, sometimes the soulful voice of a single violin). Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PLANKS / O SPLIT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 072013
 

I first heard the music of Germany’s Planks last September and wrote about them here. What I heard then was a Bandcamp stream of Planks’ amazing 2012 album, Funeral Mouth. Not much later I discovered that Planks had recorded a split with a band named Lentic Waters that was released on vinyl in June 2012 by Apocaplexy Records, and was made available for free download via a link on this page. I wrote about that split here. Now, Planks are on the verge of releasing another split with a band named O.

For this new split both bands recorded cover songs. Planks picked “A Forest”, which was originally recorded by The Cure and appears to be one of the all-time favorite songs of the band’s vocalist/guitarist Ralph Schmidt. Mike Hill from Brooklyn’s Tombs contributed guest vocals on the track.

The other band, O, consists of members from the border region of Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium. The song they picked to cover is the “Laura Palmer Theme” from the David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks. It appears that show is a favorite of everyone in O (I like it a lot too). Continue reading »

LOW: LYCUS AND ORTEGA

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  8 Responses »
Jun 062013
 

This is the second part of a two-part post about new music that swallowed me up last night. By blind chance, all four of the songs I heard sound like granite must feel, sitting on your chest or coming down in an avalanche on your head. Part 1 (here) dealt with Geryon and Hollow Leg. This one focuses on Lycus (Oakland) and Ortega (The Netherlands).

LYCUS

In addition to delivering crushing music, all four of the bands featured in this two-part post bring us striking cover art for their new releases. As you can see, the debut album by Lycus, Tempest, is adorned with the awesome painted art of the Italian madman Paolo Girardi (go past the jump to see more of the album art).  Tempest is scheduled for release by 20 Buck Spin on July 9 (digitally and on CD/LP).

I haven’t yet carved out time to listen to the album, and nothing from it is yet available for public streaming, but I did check out the first song from the band’s Demo MMXI. That demo was released two years ago by Graceless Recordings (run by Mike Meacham of LOSS) and on vinyl by The Flenser Records, and it’s a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

FUCK THE FACTS: “AMER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Jun 052013
 

Just so you know where I’m coming from: I like grind but I don’t consider myself an expert in the field. Many people are far more passionate and knowledgable about every nook and cranny of it than I am. I do know enough to know that there is considerable variation in the music, despite what some people even less knowledgable than I am might think. I also know that Fuck the Facts aren’t your average grindcore band. Over the course of more than a decade’s worth of records and with a line-up that has remained stable for about the last five years, they’ve evolved into something exceptional, and the qualities that make them so worthy of attention are on full display in their forthcoming EP, Amer.

Amer’s music is complex, technically demanding, and in a near-constant state of flux within each of the EP’s seven songs. Those songs aren’t long — five are in the two-three minute range and two are less than two minutes long — but the band pack a lot of variety into those relatively small containers. They can definitely explode with blast-beat shrapnel and a blistering wall of accelerated guitar noise, but that’s only part of the story.

Fuck the Facts also come at you hard with industrial-strength jackhammer riffs and a ton of pulverising groove, accented by a massive bass guitar that oh-so-briefly even takes a lead role in the music. They rush ahead with convulsive rhythms, like a freight train with the trottle open. They drop heavily into slow, lumbering movements that produce a sensation of being slowly crushed into dust. They even weave swirling, near-clean lead-guitar melodies through the heavy explosiveness of the other instruments. Continue reading »

ENSHINE: “ORIGIN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 052013
 

(DGR reviews the recently released album by a multi-national collective who call themselves Enshine.)

This is probably one of the most pretentious-sounding opening paragraphs I have ever written and for that I sincerely apologize.

One of the things that has always drawn me to the specific brand of European death-doom that Enshine wallows in is the sense of ethereal beauty that seems to weave its way through each song. Groups like October Tide and Swallow The Sun have mastered it; and bands like In Mourning incorporate many of these elements as well. Yes, it usually is tied into the feelings and delivery of melancholy and depression, but for some reason I’ve always found that stuff like that has a certain aura to which I am unerringly attracted. A person described it to me once, in reference to Swallow the Sun’s Hope disc, as devastatingly beautiful. I know I am going to like a disc like this if it takes me to a certain place I have set aside in my head, one of empty spaces, snow falling from the sky, long-since devastated cities. Places that you just know were beautiful long ago, and the sense of fragility that these vacant places emanates makes them beautiful now. If an album can take me to that place, evoke those images, then it’s almost guaranteed I will enjoy it. And so, even though I finally bit into Origin by Enshine during a heatwave out where I live, I find myself entranced by it.

Enshine is the two-man project of Jari Lindholm (Seas Of Tears, ex-Slumber) and Sebastian Pierre (Fractal Gates, Inborn Suffering). The group was founded in 2009 as a solo project for Jari, but eventually Sebastian would find his way into the group. According to their Facebook page they spent about two years in the studio working on what would become Origin, with the final dates being wrapped up in 2012. Hence, if you look them up elsewhere and see that even though they’ve been around for four years they only have Origin to their name, you will know why. Quality does take time, and who knows what was happening behind the curtain that could stall an album recording? All we really know is what we have in front of us, which is an excellent hybrid of death metal and doom metal that spreads out enough melody and melancholy to make this an enjoyable listen. Continue reading »

HARDBANGER: “FOURSOME”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 052013
 

I’m late to the Hardbanger party. This French band started releasing singles and accompanying videos back in the spring of 2012, beginning with “Neck”. Before the year ended, they released “She Says” and “Civilization” (a cover of a song by a French band named Justice). And then this past April they collected those three songs plus one more new one (“Shapes of Envy”) and released it as a debut EP in an unusual format, with the title of Foursome. I finally paid attention only yesterday. But believe me, in the case of Foursome, late is much better than never.

There are many things to like about what Hardbanger have done, beginning with the music of course. It doesn’t fit neatly into any recognizable sub-genre, which is part of its attraction. The sinister, mid-paced songs are built on a foundation of huge, beefy, stomping riffs, crushing bass tones, and relatively simple but utterly brain-thumping, low-end, rock-style drumbeats. The songs come at you like a blunt meat cleaver, and they’re about as instantly headbang-inducing as you could imagine.

The vocals are uber-deep, growled, and somewhat distorted. It’s like listening to Peter Steele doing harsh vocals, and I don’t mean something like the sound of his Carnivore vox. I mean that rich bass voice for which he’s best known in the music of Type O Negative, but rumbling like a cement mixer loaded with gravel. Yet the vocals are almost completely intelligible, with lyrics (particularly in the chorus) that make you want to sing along. Continue reading »

GO WORSHIP “THE WORSHIP” BY TORTURE DIVISION

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 042013
 

Fuckin’ Torture Division have just released a new, free, three-song demo — The Worship — and it fuckin’ destroys, as pure Grade A undiluted death metal should.

For those who somehow remain ignorant about Torture Division, here’s a quick primer: The three members of the band – Lord K Philipson (guitar), Tobben Gustafsson (drums), and Jörgen Sandström (bass/vocals) — collectively have over 60 years of combined death metal experience, including membership in bands such as Grave, Entombed, Vicious Art, The Project Hate MCMXCIX, Vomitory, and God Among Insects.  In their words, “we know what we do, we love what we do and that we will keep on doing it until the end of days.”

They also have an unusual approach to recording and distributing their music. Their modus operandi is to release short demos and give them away for free. And today they made available The Worship as the latest installment in the series. It was again mixed and mastered by the masterful Dan Swanö, and is now available for download (along with a booklet) from his Unisound web site.

But first, you really need to read Torture Division’s introduction to The Worship, which is funny as shit. Plus, if you love what Torture Division are doing and how they’re doing it, as I do, then you need to throw them a donation to help finance the continuation of this fine demolition project. And to do both of those things, go HERE. Continue reading »

CHTHONIC: “BU-TIK”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jun 032013
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Taiwan’s Chthonic.)

Hail true believers!

One of the reasons I elected to review the new Chthonic album, apart from being a huge fan of the band already, was because they’re at such an interesting point in their career right now, one that’s ripe for (over)analysis.

Bear with me, as this might get a little intellectual.

Professor Edward Said was considered one of the founding members of the post-Colonial movement of political/social discourse. He was also responsible for the more specific theoretical approach/consideration of ‘Orientalism’. Now, in a nutshell this posited that Western understanding and concepts of Eastern culture would always be imprecise, due to the necessity of translation – not just verbal, but mental translation – of underlying concepts. It also stated that there’s an inherent reflexivity involved, since we (as Westerners) view and understand the East through reflections on, and comparisons with, ourselves and our own experiences.

Now, more relevantly, it also exposes (in theory at least) that attempts by Eastern culture to bridge this gap are just as hamstrung – they often end up using imagery/translations already established by the West, communicating with us using words/concepts we’ve created already, with all their inherent deficiencies and reliance on familiar, but imprecise, Western analogues.

So what exactly does all this pontificating have to do with Chthonic? Well, due to their current position in the metal world, they’re caught at very much of a crossroads between East and West, culturally, politically, and musically. Continue reading »

NOEIN, Y U NO LOVE EIN?!

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 032013
 

(Guest writer Old Man Windbreaker returns to NCS. After some initial confusion, he delivers an album review.)

Greetings once again from Old Man Windbreaker’s oldmancave of broken winds. Yes.

Today, you shall learn about Noein, and One’s contempt for the people behind it.

One is, of course, speaking about the Japanese anime called “Noein”. It presents a sci-fi multi-verse with high-minded quantum-physics-inspired concepts. It also features a fictional dog, like any good anime should. But, One hates them for it. And this is why… Continue reading »

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