THREAT SIGNAL

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 292011
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album from Canada’s Threat Signal, calling it “one of the best albums of the year”, and then after the review we’ve got two songs and three videos — including a solo that Threat Signal guitarist Travis Montgomery composed for one of the new songs by . . . Textures.)

Total reinvention.  It’s rare to see a band do this, and it’s even more rare to see a band do this and have the result turn out better than the original product.  Not only did Threat Signal suffer a huge blow to the line-up, vocalist Jon Howard being the only member left from the Under Reprisal crew, but although their sophomore album Vigilance was good, it didn’t do so well in the realm of public opinion.  It killed all the steam generated by their debut — and before Vigilance, they had been in a position to come out, kick ass, and kick ass even harder with material that bested their debut.

So where did this leave Threat Signal?

This band stayed relatively quiet for the longest time until this video cropped up: (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HATESPHERE: “THE GREAT BLUDGEONING”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 282011
 

(TheMadIsraeli has been a reviewing machine lately, and here’s his assessment of the new album by Denmark’s Hatesphere., which is out now on Napalm Records.)

Hatesphere.  One of my favorite bands of all time.  How anyone could develop the capacity to dislike this Danish deathrash legend is ENTIRELY beyond me; they produce some of the sickest riffs, melodies, grooves and overall bewildering sonic assaults of any band in their genre niche.

I was NOT a fan, however, of their previous album To The Nines.  The band had lost its signature lineup, including favorite vocalist of mine Jacob Bredhal, and while the true core of the band remained in founding guitarist Pepe “Lyse” Hanson, the new line-up he’d aquired just… wasn’t working.  At all.

Now we’re here at the new Hatesphere album The Great Bludgeoning.  New musicians in hand, specifically a new drummer, vocalist, and bassist, and I’m happy to say this album has undone the bad taste To The Nines left in my mouth. Continue reading »

SKELETONWITCH: “FOREVER ABOMINATION”

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
Sep 282011
 

(NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the new album by Skeletonwitch.)

If you’ve followed any of my writings so far, you’ll know that I have a huge love for the riff-fuelled blackened majesty that makes up the work of bands such as Iskald, Elite and Vreid. You’ll also know that I consider those three bands to be amongst the best working today, with songs that are equal parts triumph and despair.

Skeletonwitch have long been upon a path similar to that of these bands, albeit one entirely of their own making, steadily growing and transfiguring themselves, fusing the best of Europe’s scintillating majesty with the best of America’s unlimited ambition, resulting in a singular take on the sound which is equal parts Immortal and Metallica, as much enslaved to Emperor’s eldritch power as it is to Slayer’s berserker fury.

Concision and precision have always been the watchwords of Skeletonwitch’s style, and they remain key elements of each song on Forever Abomination. However, despite their continued short and sharp delivery, each song somehow feels more fleshed out and atmospheric, and indeed longer, than ever before. There’s more meat on the bone, more muscle and sinew exerted with every writhing riff and twisting drum fill; the skeleton now bears a more fully realised body, all pulsing musculature devoid of fat or waste.

With the release of Forever Abomination, I can say that Skeletonwitch can now confidently count themselves amongst the bands whose songs of fire and ice transcend the limitations of any one genre, instead rising to the challenge of embracing the best of multiple styles to create a newly formed monstrosity of unknown, and perhaps unlimited, potential.(more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MACHINE HEAD: “UNTO THE LOCUST”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Sep 272011
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new Machine Head album, Unto the Locust, which is being released today on Roadrunner Records.)

It’s time for me to come out of the closet.  I AM A MACHINE HEAD FAN.  I mean yeah, I have no problem admitting that The More Things Change, The Burning Red and Supercharger are nothing but sonic packages of primate anus waste and that every copy of them that exists should be torched in the fires of mallcore hell — but the great albums from this band outweigh the bad.

Burn My Eyes?  Classic post-thrash, the epitome.  Through The Ashes Of Empires was a solid return to form, while using what was good about their… shall-not-be-named-again mid-period exploits.  And The Blackening saw Machine Head taking a respectably ambitious turn, risking looking like complete and utter posers and tools by expanding the scope of their songwriting, breaking into epic song lengths of up to 10 minutes.

Unto The Locust is this band’s best album since Burn My Eyes.  Indisputable this fact shall be.  This is an all-guns-blazing post-thrash assault that actually reveals the MH crew bringing back to the music their old 80’s thrash influences to a surprising extent.  There are even a lot of moments that recall Vio-Lence or Forbidden — bands in which members of Machine Head have previously done time. Continue reading »

CLINGING TO THE TREES OF A FOREST FIRE: “OMEGA DRUNK ON THE BLOOD OF ALPHA”

 Album Reviews, Phro's Posts  69 Responses »
Sep 272011
 

(In this post, NCS contributor Phro reviews an album by Clinging To the Trees of A Forest Fire as only Phro can.)

(Phro’s note: Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire is a Denver (woo!) funeral grind band (band’s words, not mine, but incredibly appropriate) that will rip your face skin off and then burn it as you stare hopelessly and slowly bleed to death.  Today, I listened to their 2008 album Omega Drunk On the Blood of Alpha.  It’s fucking amazing.  If you want to hear or get more of their music, go to their facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/CTTTOAFF) or their bandcamp page (http://ctttoaff.bandcamp.com/))

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!”

Furious wind whips at my face like tiny dicks fighting for a place in the bukkake circle, desperately trying to get close enough to the girl to avoid just masturbating in a room full of perverts and a slightly uncomfortable woman.  My arms flail as I fight against gravity, Newton, and all that physics has birthed—screaming—into the world.

“Motherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfucker!!!”

My screams are nearly drowned out by the robotic howl of the wind. Continue reading »

OPETH: “HERITAGE”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
Sep 262011
 

(NCS writer BadWolf reviews the controversial new album from Opeth.)

The mark of a good album is that I cannot stop listening to it, the mark of a great album is that it makes me think, and Heritage is spinning my gears the way Opeth first did six years ago. When I first heard Ghost Reveries, it opened up my eyes to the possibilities of metal to be artful, emotional.  Heritage is opening my eyes to the possibilities of abandoning metal (and genre, period) entirely.  This is in many ways a massive departure, but a necessary one.

But first let’s talk about that adjective “progressive.” Opeth are prog, but not progressive; after all, how can Mikael Åkerfeldt progress when he’s effectively re-written 1999’s Still Life album 4 times in a decade to varying results? For ten years Opeth has only explored Chiarascuro (admittedly, an amazing concept). They have already mastered the juxtaposition between light and dark in a metal context to the point where they’re being imitated constantly (with almost no success).  Heritage needed to happen—Opeth needed to expand their palate or commit to rereleasing lesser permutations of Blackwater Park forever. Here’s a very NCS metaphor: the sex was getting boring. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

TEXTURES: “DUALISM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 262011
 

(TheMadIsraeli provides a glowing, detailed, review of the new album from Textures, and following that we’ve got the album’s first official music video and more tracks to hear.)

FUCKING.  TEXTURES.

This album I highly anticipate will alienate some longtime fans of this band who were expecting a Silhouettes part two.  Dualism lives up to its name — in fact, I was surprised by how much it honors the name on so many levels. Everything on this album is about balance.  Elements are so evenly distributed in their use that it makes the album unusually well-rounded.

Let’s get one thing straight at the outset: Textures isn’t djent. Textures is progressive groove metal, and this album proves it.  It includes songs that really weave hill-and-valley-laden sonic tapestries that take the listener on a journey, sometimes in durations as short as under three minutes.  This is an album that means business, a mission statement by a band really trying to put out the definitive word that they are playing their own game with their own set of rules and always have been. This album simply makes it official.

Duality begins innocently enough. Opener “Arms Of The Sea” starts out with an ominous dissonant lead, building the tension into a mammoth sludge riff filled with dark, southern swagger.  This may be the catchiest riff Textures have ever written, no lie.  The song lumbers on at its methodical pace, an odd choice for an album opener to be sure, but so effective once it clicks with you.  It’s got heavy parts, pretty parts, ascending build-ups and descending crescendos, diverse vocal delivery all over the map, and top-notch tasteful drumming by master of the kit Stef Broks. In retrospect, this song serves as a good summation of the album as a whole, although it may not seem so at first. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: VAULTING, RIGOR MORTIS, AND SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers  3 Responses »
Sep 252011
 

It’s been a while since we published an installment in this EYE-CATCHERS series. To remind you, the object of this series is to listen to new music based solely on the attractiveness of the album covers — testing the completely irrational hypothesis that cool album art correlates with cool music.

I was inspired to do another one of these posts by an e-mail exchange I had recently with NCS reader Treezplease. He sent me a handful of album-art images and a song to accompany each one, and I dived in. I’m going to include two of those test subjects in this post, and maybe more later. But at about the same time, I also got an e-mail from a German band called Vaulting. I visited their Bandcamp page to listen to something, and right away I saw the album cover up above. So I just had to lead off this post with it, because it truly is a fucking eye-catcher, isn’t it?

VAULTING

Vaulting was founded in 2006 in Wiesbaden, Germany, by two brothers, guitarist Matthias Gathof and drummer Sebastian Gathof. To date, the band have released a 5-song demo in 2007, an 8-song EP in 2008 called Epilog, and a five-track EP in 2009 called Modus Humanis, the cover of which you’re looking at right now. The band are also on the verge of releasing their first full-length album, Nucleus. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ARTIFICIAL BRAIN

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Sep 242011
 

I had an interesting and very fruitful exchange of e-mails yesterday with one of our readers who goes by the name Treezplease. He started off with a handful of recommendations for our really irregular and infrequent EYE-CATCHERS series (in which we pick bands to hear based solely on the quality of the album art). But he threw in a couple of other names, and one of them was this Long Island, NY band — Artificial Brain.

I immediately liked the name, because I have long suspected that my own brain is artificial rather than something you would expect to find in nature. Treezplease threw a song my way — “Spacid” — and I listened to it, and it seemed to send a signal to my own artificial brain that cause a biomechanoid larva to awaken and begin eating its way out through one of my ear canals. Or at least that’s what it felt like. I’m not 100% sure because I passed out. When I came to, I did have a trail of phosphorescent slime running from my ear down my neck and something had burrowed a hole right down through my floor, and I’m afraid it may be headed in your direction.

Later, I discovered that “Spacid” is part of a 3-song demo that Artificial Brain made available for free download on Bandcamp in June of this year. And I saw this note on the Bandcamp page: “Space/Death/Black Metal featuring members of Revocation and Biolich.” Uh, whut da fuck? I don’t know Biolich, but Revocation? Fuck yeah. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SEAS OF STONE

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers  3 Responses »
Sep 232011
 

(Here’s a brief review from NCS writer TheMadIsraeli . . .)

Just look at this fucking album cover:

It’s got bears fighting on it.  FUCKING BEARS. I suppose you can call this an edition of the NCS EYE CATCHERS series, since I totally downloaded this on merit of the album cover alone. But what exactly could such a mammoth album cover encompass?

Seas Of Stone (from Dresden, Germany) plays dense, humid, mist-engulfed doom/sludge metal that channels the atmosphere of hiking the northern woodlands, and hopefully NOT getting fucked a new one by fucking bears.  The production on this 3-song EP is pretty astounding, channeling the very mood and ambience of the album cover itself.  The instruments are all dense and behemoth in tone, playing sludge that induces a dreading sense of being mobbed.

By fucking bears. (a bit more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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