DEVOLVED

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 232010
 

NCS likes math metal. In fact, we likes it a lot. Which is why we were stoked to learn that Devolved was planning a new album for 2010 and that, to build some buzz, the band’s new label would be releasing a re-mixed version of their last full-length, 2004’s Calculated. And guess what? The new version of Calculated arrived in our mailbox earlier this week. And guess what? We like it!

The Background: Devolved started in Australia in 1996 and the band released a demo in 1998, and then a full-length in 2001 called Technologies. The Roadrunner Records-affiliated mag Outsider named Technologies Austrialia’s metal abum of the year.

Numerous line-up changes ensued, and eventually Devolved released Calculated in September 2004, with vocals supplied by Nik Carpenter. In early 2005, the band left Australia and moved to Los Angeles. More lineup changes followed, including the addition of vocalist Kyle Zemanek (ex-Five Finger Death Punch and Deathsett).

Then last May, the band signed with Unique Leader Records, and word is out that a new album is projected for release late this year. And as noted above, Unique Leader has now re-released Calculated. Except, the re-issue has been re-mixed and re-mastered and this time includes Zemanek’s vocals instead of Carpenter’s. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

UK DEATH METAL IN REVIEW (Part 2)

 Album Reviews, Metal News  3 Responses »
Jan 202010
 

While we wait for 2010 to really get up to fucking speed, we’re still periodically looking back at 2009. A couple weeks ago, we wrote about some UK extreme metal bands that we listened to a lot in the Old Year. But one post doesn’t do justice to the subject. The fact is that the UK death metal scene hasn’t been so bursting with putrescent life in years.

So, we’re going to continue our look back today, dip our toes into the acidic pool of brutal death metal, and express our fond regard for three more UK death-dealers: Ingested, Detrimentum, and Infected Disarray.

In our first feature on “UK Death Metal in Review,” we had to push the “death metal” envelope a little to include some extreme bands that hooked us in 2009. No need to push the envelope today. In fact, you wouldn’t want to touch this nasty envelope — it’s radioactive, with razor-sharp edges and some big fucking spikes. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SUNDAY STREAMING

 Album Reviews, Metal News  No Responses »
Jan 172010
 

It’s Sunday. A perfect day to jack your headphones or earbuds into a computer somewhere and let the music stream into your synapses. Why would you want to do that instead of listen on your personal music player so you can move around and take care of other shit at the same time? Because we’ve got some recommendations that, for the moment, you can only stream.

LIVING SACRIFICE

Living Sacrifice has slowly been releasing new songs from its forthcoming album The Infinite Order for streaming on its MySpace page.  The band has now made the entire album available for streaming here. The album will be available for purchase on January 26. We’ll provide our review of the album in the near future, but for now we’ll just say that this mutha is a headbanging jewel. Here’s the track listing:

01. Overkill Exposure
02. Rules Of Engagement
03. Nietzche’s Madman
04. Unfit To Live
05. The Training
06. Organized Lie
07. The Reckoning
08. Love Forgives
09. They Were One
10. God Is My Home
11. Apostasy

We’ve got two more recommendations after the jump, so don’t stop here! Continue reading »

GOD DETHRONED

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 092010
 

Canadian 4th Division, Passchendaele, 14 November, 1917

So much to hear, so little time.

I liked Dutch blackened death metal band God Dethroned‘s 2006 album The Toxic Touch, and “On Wings of Pestilence” was one of those songs I came back to repeatedly. So when the band released its latest album, Passiondale, in April 2009, I promptly bought the CD.  But something happened.  I got distracted and I didn’t listen to it right away. I can’t remember why — other than the fact that I have the attention span of a hummingbird.

I listened to it this week for the first time — only nine months late — and was utterly blown away. The music is sick — the best this band has done in eons. But that’s only part of the story. This is one of those rare metal albums with a concept and lyrical content that are completely integral to the music and that turn what you hear into  something profoundly more powerful. “Epic” is an overused word, but truly, that’s what Passiondale is. (more after the jump) Continue reading »

BRUTAL TRUTH UPDATE

 Album Reviews, Metal News  No Responses »
Jan 062010
 


We were way late talking about Brutal Truth‘s 2009 album Evolution Through Revolution — their first in nearly a decade — but when we finally did, we noted that Brutal Truth planned to release a second album of the same songs — except performing them live, in one take.

Well, that second album is now out — strictly limited to 2,000 copies worldwide. It’s called Evolution In One Take: For Grindfreaks Only! Volume 2. If nothing else, it’s an interesting experiment to listen to each song on Evolution followed by the same song on Volume 2 — which is what we did.  Our impressions after the jump . . . Continue reading »

MATH METAL MONDAY (Part 2)

 Album Reviews, Listmania  No Responses »
Jan 052010
 

SOREPTION

One week ago, on another day that wasn’t a Monday, we published a feature called Math Metal Monday about four technical metal bands whose albums we really enjoyed during 2009.  And then, within a matter of days, I realized we’d left off three bands we listened to repeatedly in ’09 that well and truly belonged on that list: Soreption, Obscura, and Dismal Lapse. Shit!  What were we to do?

And then it hit me.  There would be another Monday!  In fact, another Monday would come pretty damn quick!  Man, was I relieved.

OK, you’re thinking, why is this dude so impressed with himself in figuring out there would be another Monday? It’s not like he invented the electric light, or some shit like that. But what I’m thinking is, I’ve so shredded my brain with all the metal I listened to over the holidays that I’m lucky to remember there’s even a day called Monday. Unfortunately, I still can’t remember what day Monday is.

Anyway, please read about those three overlooked bands after the jump. Continue reading »

THE MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS OF 2009 (Part 11)

 Album Reviews, Listmania  No Responses »
Jan 022010
 

About a week ago we finished posting our list of the Ten Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of 2009. Finishing the list turned out to be a bit of a struggle because your NCS Co-Authors had more favorites than we had open slots on the list.  And each of us had some infectious favorites on our short lists that didn’t survive the final negotiations among us — but they just missed by a nose. So we’re going to roll out those songs now. It’s the next best thing to just reneging on our commitment to make our list a “Top Ten” and instead renaming it the “Top Fourteen.”

LAMB OF GOD:  In Your Words

Lamb of God enjoys such a hallowed place in the pantheon of extreme metal that thousands wait with bated breath for each new release — and then, when it comes, promptly engage in vociferous debate about whether it compares favorably or not to the monster hits of the band’s past.  Wrath was LOG’s first release in over two years, and predictably generated a war of words about whether LOG had lived up to its fans’ stratospheric expectations, and about what it signified about the band’s future trajectory.

We won’t engage in comparisons of the album to LOG’s ground-breaking work of the past: Considered on its own merits, it’s a well-engineered, riff-filled barrage of headbangery by some brilliant song-writers and musicians.

“Infectious” is Lamb of God’s middle name, but our most infectious favorite from Wrath is the first song that appears on the album after the (very cool) instrumental intro.  “In Your Words” launches with an insistent, immediately headbangable riff, followed by an extended scream from the almighty Randy Blythe (whose versatile vocals throughout the album are superb) and a crushing drum attack – and we’re off to the races.  At about  the 2:30 mark, the song defuses into a pounding breakdown and then culminates in an extended cascading wall of pulsing, groovy, tremolo-picked melody.  So damn cool!  See for yourself and then continue reading after the jump for our last three finalists:

Lamb of God: In Your Words Continue reading »

UK DEATH METAL IN REVIEW

 Album Reviews, Listmania  2 Responses »
Dec 312009
 

Alan McFarland (Man Must Die)

As 2009 draws even closer to the end, we’ve continued to think back about albums we really enjoyed this year.  Among them were releases from five UK bands that could loosely be classified as death metal, though they sound almost nothing alike.  Four of them — Man Must Die, Viatrophy, Ignominious Incarceration, and Xerath — turned out killer new albums in 2009, and the fifth — Theoktony — was a prodigiously talented band we only discovered this year, though sadly its future is in doubt.

We don’t pretend that this post is a comprehensive review of the best UK death metal of the year, because we’ve no doubt there are awesome 2009 releases we simply haven’t heard.  The five we’re covering here are simply albums that happened to grab our attention  — and didn’t let go. Continue reading »

MATH METAL MONDAY

 Album Reviews, Listmania  2 Responses »
Dec 292009
 

Yeah, I know it’s not Monday. I was working on this piece with the intent of posting it yesterday, but got sidetracked on the actual Monday morning by some provocative comments from Elise at Reign In Blonde about my weekend rant on Ke$ha. Still, I like the alliteration in the title, so what the fuck — I’m using it anyway.

And this morning I’m thinking:  Enuf about Ke$ha.  Not enuf about math metal.  Need to fix that.  And voilà! (Doesn’t mean we’re dropping the conversation with Elise.  It’s too interesting to just let it go, and I think there’s more to be said — just not right now. In the meantime, you should read her latest observations here.)

As we draw close to the end of 2009, I’ve been thinking back on some bands we haven’t written about that made the year a great one for extreme metal.  This weekend, in an (unsuccessful) effort to cleanse my mental palate of the polluting effect of “Tik Tok,” I spent time listening again to three European bands that can be classified, for want of a better term, as “math metal” — Textures, Tardive Dyskinesia, and CiLiCe — and a fourth European band I used to classify the same way that has now swum deeper into the prog metal end of the pool — Hacride.

All four have often drawn comparisons with Meshuggah. Occasionally, some writers have even branded them as Meshuggah derivatives. Unfair criticism!  They each have their own sound, successfully blending highly technical instrumental work with melody, and they each produced awesome albums in 2009. [Correction: the Textures album was released in 2008.] (More after the jump — including streaming songs from each band) Continue reading »

BLOODSHOTEYE

 Album Reviews, Metal News  2 Responses »
Dec 262009
 

Female death metal vocalists are few and far between. Frankly, I don’t understand how dudes can produce those sounds on a regular basis without destroying their voices. I know there’s a secret, I just don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because I haven’t yet watched Melissa Cook’s The Zen of Screaming instructional video.

But what I really don’t understand is how any woman can produce those harsh, deep, gutteral, death growls — at all. I could tick off on the fingers of one hand the women who are currently carrying it off reasonably well (if I had a six-fingered hand): Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy, Grace Perry of Landmine Marathon, Elizabeth Elliott of Dreaming Dead, Mel Mongeon of Fuck the Facts, Krysta Cameron of iwrestledabearonce, and occasionally Alissa White-Gluz of The Agonist.

As of this morning I need to add a seventh name: Jessica Desjardins of Canadian deathcore band Bloodshoteye.   (More after the jump, including some video) Continue reading »

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