THIS ENDING: “SYSTEMATIC WORSHIP”

Feb 162012

(DemiGodRaven reviews the new EP by Sweden’s This Ending.)

Man, the artwork makes me uncomfortable. There’s just something about anything being done to the eye that really tends to get under my skin. I don’t know what it is. I can watch some of the goriest stuff ever made, but seeing things happen to either the eye or the fingernails really gives me the willies (penis!), even in artwork form. I shredded about four thousand different zombies to pieces in Dead Space 2, but that scene where you need to put a needle in the protagonist’s eye was the part that got to me. It is hard to tell whether the fact that the artwork for This Ending’s new EP Systematic Worship reminds me of this is a good thing, but the art is definitely evocative.

This Ending are a Sweden-based melo-death group who have been going for a while now, but recently seem to have been reactivated. You’re probably familiar with their name from seeing it on sites such as Blabbermouth alongside the headline “Amon Amarth Drummer’s Band, This Ending…” Fredrik Andersson is indeed the most famous member, but the band have been going strong without a lineup change since 2005, managing at least to release some form of new material about every three years.

They’ve actually had many names and an even longer history prior to that (which you can read about on their facebook page), but I’m focusing on the group’s most recent slate of material: 2012 has brought this self-released three-song EP instead of a full blown album. Also, as a bonus, I have found that you can download two of three songs for free on both their Reverbnation and Soundcloud pages.

One of the luxuries of reviewing such a small EP is that it allows the writer to really drill down and discuss each song. I don’t feel that Systematic Worship necessarily demands or warrants that kind of detailed treatment, especially since two of the songs are available for free, but it might still be useful to give you at least a description of where you’re headed and thoughts about whether any of this is worth your time. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: GRAVEYARD – “THE ALTAR OF SCULPTED SKULLS”

Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers 2 Responses »

Feb 162012

This is a SHORT BUT SWEET feature, but it could just as easily have been an EYE-CATCHERS feature, because . . . that album cover! Be honest: It caught your eyes, just as it did mine.

It’s in the only acceptable kvlt colors — black and white. It has countless skulls. I know this because I tried to count them and I couldn’t do it before I ran out of fingers and toes to count on. That makes the number of skulls countless. Plus, everything is dripping, even the words. And you don’t need color to know what they’re dripping with, and it’s not honey. Then you have the evil-looking candelabras and the ominous hooded figure standing behind the ALTAR OF SCULPTED SKULLS!

Kudos to the artist, Matt ‘Putrid’ Carr (Autopsy, Impetigo, Coffins, Hooded Menace, etc), for this dread-inspiring achievement. It’s everything you want as a visual introduction to your spine-extracting, skull-bleaching, morbid death metal — which happens to be the musical content of Altars of Sculpted Skulls.

That’s right, this is most definitely not the Graveyard that produced all that retro-stoner-doom rock on Hisingen Blues last year. That was the Swedish Graveyard. This is the Graveyard from Spain, the band who released a 2009 debut album called One With the Dead plus an early demo, a previous EP, and an assortment of splits — and the band who, in Altars, have created what is rapidly becoming my favorite old-school death metal release of the new year. Every song is a gem — black diamonds in the rough. Continue reading »

THEMADISRAELI’S TOP 15 OF 2011: “CARNIVAL IS FOREVER”, “WELCOME TO THE MORBID REICH”, AND “AGONY”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Feb 132012

(TheMadIsraeli forges ahead with his mission of reviewing or re-reviewing the albums on his personal list of 2011’s 15 best releases.)

I’m departing from my originally planned two-at-a-time format because grouping these three together seems appropriate to me.

Decapitated went through some hard times. A van accident ended in the death of one of the most skilled drummers metal has ever seen and left their newly recruited vocalist in a coma (from which, to my knowledge, he still hasn’t recovered), and the remaining members seemingly left Vogg behind.

Who knows what caused Vogg to resist pronouncing the death of the band even though there was virtual silence from them for some time. But the even greater wonder is that Vogg was inspired to get back on the horse after not just being thrown off, but also being run over by a freight train along with the horse. Was it his way of coping? Was it just all he knew to do? Regardless of the answer, it seems that out of a morbid tragedy laden with death and destruction, Decapitated has finally come to form.

Sure, the old shit was good — even great at times — but I would still classify the music as high-caliber standard death metal. That was until Organic Hallucinosis came out. It turned Decapitated’s sound upside down and right-side up again and produced a unique take on death metal — more groove-heavy, more experimental, and most importantly, not afraid to take note of modern convention. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: TORTURE DIVISION – “SATAN, SPRIT OCH VÅLD””

Album Reviews 14 Responses »

Feb 132012

You gotta love the badassery on display in this photo.

A big thank-you to byrd36 (Death Metal Baboon) for his recent NCS comment reminding me to check in with Sweden’s Torture Division, because they have recently released yet another very fine — and very free — demo (or you could call it an EP, if you prefer).

byrd36’s comment was in the context of a post discussing the relative merits and demerits of EPs and full-length albums and the strategy of releasing more frequent but shorter collections of music rather than more widely-spaced album-length collections. Torture Division’s practice is to release short demos and give them away for free. In fact, they have no plans to record an album — ever.

However, every time they finish releasing a group of three demo’s, they’ve been giving labels permission to package them up and sell them as compilation CDs. So far, this has happened twice (two CDs have been released, each collecting three demo’s). The demo that they’ve just released is the second in the current run of three. So, presumably after they release the third demo, we’ll see yet another compilation CD.

Here’s the answer they give on their web site to the question “What’s the goal with this?” Continue reading »

INVISIUS: “CHANGES”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Feb 122012

(DemiGodRaven weighs in with a review of Changes, the new album from Denmark’s Invisius.)

I think I may be writing this review out of a subconscious desire to put a picture of a dude’s ass on the front page.

Invisius and I have history. They were one of the first bands whose music I ever reviewed when I started writing, and my review of their album The Spawn Of Condemnation was, for all intents and purposes, a way for me to practice writing an ‘okay’ album review. Anyone who has been writing reviews for a while will tell you that the two easiest things in the world to do are to (a) say an album sucks, and (b) say an album is awesome. It is more difficult to cover that in-between area without sounding too overtly negative or too positive, giving no real reason why you are still giving the disc a 3/5.

The band themselves are a couple of young Danish upstarts whose previous release I thought held potential for something greater, so long as they took the time to really hammer out their sound. The Spawn Of Condemnation sounded like a hybrid of modern day melo-death worship by way of Unearth’s lead vocalist, and at times the band gave in to the occasional metalcore trope. This had the effect of making the album fairly heavy and interesting and at other times overtly bland. It was those heavy parts that led me to adopt an encouraging sort of tone when I wrote my review of Spawn.

However, just because I could encourage them to continue did not mean I could steer them in the direction I wanted them to follow. Among other reasons, I can’t write out a plan for the band to improve, by my lights, because my opinion may not be shared by their more supportive fans. And so, seeing potential in something and attempting to say that I liked the melo-death worship segments better than the metalcore segments didn’t quite work out.

And so we wound up with their new album, Changes. Continue reading »

SCOTS WHA HAE (PART 2)

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 16 Responses »

Feb 122012

Calling this “Part 2” may imply that I intended to spend this weekend listening to music from Scottish bands, but instead, I’m just being my usual impulsive self. Yesterday, I combined music from four Scottish bands (and one South African one) in a post labeled with the unofficial Scottish national anthem penned by Robert Burns. Via our Facebook page and comments on that post, we got recommendations for other Scottish metal bands to check out. So I thought, what the hell, go for it!

Unlike yesterday’s post, where I featured bands I know and like, this one is more like what we publish in the MISCELLANY series — spotlighting bands whose music we’ve never heard before, not knowing what they will sound like or whether we’ll enjoy what they’re doing.

The bands I picked from yesterday’s recommendations are (in no particular order) Scordatura (Glasgow), Sufferinfuck (Livingston/West Lothian), Co-Exist (Glasgow), Threshold Sicks (Perth), and Zombie Militia (Inverness). I’ll tell you up-front that this is a divergent mix of metal, and it is all GOOD. So prepare for an underground roller-coaster ride.

SCORDATURA

I checked out this band (pictured above) based on a suggestion from Lisa Coverdale on our Facebook page. Scordatura have their own Facebook page here. They released a six-song debut EP in 2009 called Open Skies as well as a 2010 pre-production demo. When I visited their Facebook page, I discovered that they’re working on songs for a new album and released two of them last year in a promo that’s available for free download on Bandcamp. So I downloaded it (HERE) and listened. Continue reading »

HEIDEVOLK: “BATAVI”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Feb 122012

(NCS and ALSO, WOLVES are co-publishing this review by AW creator and NCS supporter Trollfiend. The album is the new one by the Dutch band Heidevolk, who we previously featured at NCS here, on Trollfiend’s recommendation.)

I think it’s safe to say that folk metal (or pagan metal, if you prefer) doesn’t have the same massive following here in North America that it does in Europe. Not to say there aren’t tons of folk metal fans in the colonies; I’ve proven (in this post) that pretty much anyone who likes metal likes folk metal to some degree whether they care to admit it or not.

But the fact is, we just don’t live in our history in the same way native Europeans do. We are divorced from our past and our mythology, and while we have carved ourselves a home out of these conquered lands, we’ve really only been here for a few hundred years. Compare that to the fact of many European countries having been settled since the Neolithic (and before) and it’s easy to see why we don’t have the same attachment to traditions, other than the ones we’ve made for ourselves. Like, say, nude pudding wrestling. Or midget porn.

I had a point . . . oh yeah. So part of the reason I first gravitated toward Dutch metal-mongers Heidevolk was because of this idea of living in one’s history. Much as I love Viking metal, Vikings are not directly part of my past, so there is a certain disconnect there. Now I myself am not Dutch, but my family on my mother’s side is from the Netherlands. That’s really my only connection to Heidevolk, but it was enough to get me to give this band a listen. Also, pancakes. Continue reading »

EFFIGIES OF THE FORGOTTEN: BADWOLF’S CLASSIC ALBUM TRIP – IRON MAIDEN’S “SOMEWHERE IN TIME”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Feb 102012

(Today, NCS writer BadWolf inaugurates a new personal series.)

No Clean Singing has made its name in the metal underground by focusing on the undiscovered cutting edge. Bringing relatively unknown, but sweet, bands to prominence is our stock and trade. That said, as our resident grumpy old man, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution: to listen to more old metal albums.

Why? I don’t know, really. There’s no reason to believe that something will be better or worse based on its age—music is not wine. I suppose I just have a renewed interest in retrospective activity, period: I read old books, I watch old movies, listening to old music just feels right. I’m not trying to escape into the past (Obama over Reagan any day of the week, even if I hate them both), but I’m trying to understand what it was like to have a brand new Iron Maiden album in my hand.

It should be noted: I adore Iron Maiden. Their influence on modern extreme metal may be in question to some, but their prowess is never in question. Maiden used to (and on occasion still do) write the best narrative metal songs. They still have the best frontman in guitar music—and the most multitalented! Oh, and they innovated both twin guitar octave harmonies and ‘the gallop.’

Imagine metal without the gallop rhythm. There would never have been a Slayer. I think it’s safe to say that without Slayer there would be no extreme American metal as we know it. There would be no death-chug without Maiden. But that’s a discussion for another time. Continue reading »

WILDERNESSKING: “THE WRITING OF GODS IN THE SAND”

Album Reviews 13 Responses »

Feb 102012

The genre term “Cascadian black metal”, most often used with reference to bands such as Wolves in the Throne Room and Agalloch, seems to be gaining in popularity. Some purists don’t like it because it’s a geographic reference instead of a description of the music and because it’s both over-inclusive and under-inclusive, i.e., there are black metal bands from “Cascadia” who don’t sound like WITTR or Agalloch and don’t share their philosophical perspective, and there are bands outside Cascadia who do.

Personally, I don’t think about this debate too much, despite the fact that I live in “Cascadia”. Consciously or not, I’m starting to think of a certain style of black metal as “Cascadian”, regardless of where the band is located and regardless of whether they have a nature-centric philosophy, just because it’s a convenient shorthand for a certain kind of sound.

To me, it stands for a style of music that incorporates not only traditional black metal instrumentation and vocals but also melodic, “post metal” ambience, prog-metal instrumentals, or even stoner-type shoe-gazing jams. So, for example, I think of San Francisco’s deafheaven as playing Cascadian black metal, even though they’re not from the Pacific Northwest and probably wouldn’t label themselves that way.

The music of Wildernessking reminds me of deafheaven’s music and, to a lesser extent, that of WITTR and Agalloch — and I’d throw in Krallice, Cormorant, and Enslaved for good measure. But Wildernessking isn’t from anywhere remotely near Cascadia. They’re from Cape Town, South Africa, and they’re off to a brilliant start. Continue reading »

PSYCROPTIC: “THE INHERITED REPRESSION

Album Reviews 15 Responses »

Feb 092012

(TheMadIsraeli enthusiastically reviews the new album from Tasmania’s Psycroptic.)

Napalm explosions of technical-as-fuckity-fuck riffs everywhere. Death induced by intricate, fusion-fueled, machine-precise drum attacks. Soul-rending incantations in the vocals. And, like . . .

EVERY POSSIBLE FUCKING THING THAT CAN BE RIGHT ABOUT DEATH METAL.

Psycroptic are the shit. I think we all know this, but it’s SUCH a magnitude of the shit that sometimes . . . sometimes there’s a man . . . well, he’s the man for his time and place . . . and . . .

Ok, enough Big Lebowski quoting. Sometimes an album needs to be defined, because sometimes we’re just not ready for what comes at us through our speakers, headphones, tin cans attached with strings, whatever your preferred listening apparatus is, because Psycroptic will cause said apparatus to melt at scorching hot temperatures and then burn their music directly into your skull so that it infinitely repeats itself with no off-switch. The pain will be great, but it will also be purifying.

I’ve seen and heard some complaints about this band since the departure of vocalist Chalky and the introduction of current frontman Jason Peppiatt. Don’t like him? Time to get over it. I think he is bringing a much-needed, more-focused approach to vocals that matches Psycroptic’s surgically precise instrumental assault. He has a powerful voice, he sounds pissed — like he wants to kill — and that complements the killing music. Continue reading »

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