NO CLEAN SINGING

BANDCAMP IS NOW HOME TO THE 200TH METAL LABEL

Aug 022016

Today marks a milestone worth recognizing: Norway’s Indie Recordings has become the 200th metal label to set up shop on Bandcamp. We learned this through a post by our friends at Metal Bandcamp, who have been keeping track of such things since 2011. As a measure of how much things have changed, in November 2011 the founder of Metal Bandcamp, MaxR, wrote a guest post for our site (here) identifying the 10 metal labels who had established Bandcamp pages as of that time — only 10 in 2011, but now 200.

If you want to see the actual list of all 200 metal labels that Metal Bandcamp has compiled, go here, and to read more about this 200-label milestone, check out Max’s post about the event here.

Things really have changed dramatically in the distribution of music since Bandcamp first launched. Our first post about the phenomenon of Bandcamp was this one back in March 2010. After outlining the features then offered by Bandcamp in detail, I concluded with this thought: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ORPHALIS — “RESHAPING THE OMNIPRESENCE”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Aug 022016

In mid-June we had the pleasure of bringing you the premiere of a lyric video for a track called “Encased In A Higher Intellect” by the German band Orphalis from their second album The Birth of Infinity, which will be released by Amputated Vein Records later this month. Today we bring you a first listen for another song from the album, this one named “Reshaping the Omnipresence“.

For those of you who haven’t yet encountered Orphalis, they execute a particularly brutal form of technical death metal that’s both electrifying and bludgeoning. And those talents are on full display in this adrenaline-triggering new song. Continue reading »

SOME HARDCORE…

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Aug 022016

(NCS contributor Todd Manning returns to NCS with these recommendations of recent hardcore releases and reissues.)

If Black Metal has staked its claim to the heart of winter, maybe Hardcore, Punk, and Grind should do the same for the dead of summer. This latest batch of releases does nothing if not invoke the atmosphere of furnace-like basement shows and all the blood, sweat, and beer that comes along with the territory. As Metal labels seem to take a breather from their first-quarter release schedules, their feral counterparts are here to take up the slack.

G.L.O.S.S.

And perhaps you’ve heard of this first act, seeing as how they’ve been receiving quite a bit of attention. The second release from G.L.O.S.S., Trans Day of Revenge, is an exhibition of absolutely unhinged Hardcore Punk, seething with the type of anger and outrage that is the lifeblood of the genre. There is a loose ferocity to their sound that places a premium on emotion over precision, but in this case that’s definitely a good thing. Focused on LGBT issues, their focus is laser-sharp and timely and should not be slept on. This release as well as the first demo are both available on Bandcamp at the name-your-price level. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): NEUROSIS, PROSTERNATUR, ARÊTE, MYSTICUM, SOLAR MASS, HORN IMPALER, HORSE DRAWN

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Aug 012016

On Friday I mentioned that I would be out in the woods over the weekend and unable to post a Shades of Black installment on Sunday. I said I would get it ready for Saturday instead. That obviously didn’t happen. Rather than wait until next Sunday, I’ve decided to do it now — and to double-down by making this a multi-part post. I’m not saying how many other parts there will be or when the rest of them will appear this week — because I’m desperately trying to remember the lesson that part-time, half-witted metal bloggers should never reveal plans that may fall apart immediately.

In this first part, I’m focusing on six individual songs and videos that have appeared recently. I’ll get to some EPs and full album releases in the next part. But first, a trailer for a highly anticipated new album…

NEUROSIS

This first item is kind of outside the bounds of what Shades of Black usually focuses on, but I got so excited about it that I didn’t want to delay spreading the word until our next Seen and Heard round-up. It’s a video trailer for the new eleventh album by the mighty Neurosis. It’s name is Fires Within Fires and it will be released on September 23 by Neurot Recordings. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMA CLUSTER VOID — “IRON EMPRESS”

Premieres 8 Responses »

Aug 012016

(Austin Weber arranged, and now introduces, our premiere of a song from the debut album by the multinational band Coma Cluster Void.)

While 2016 has been an exceptionally good year for quality metal releases so far, there’s one album I’ve been anxiously awaiting above almost all else, Coma Cluster Void’s debut full-length, Mind Cemeteries. Some of you may be familiar with the group from when we premiered the album’s title track here at NCS last year. Others still may have noticed that our esteemed editor placed the album on a list of his most anticipated 2016 releases back in January at NCS. It seems things have come full circle, as we get to debut another song by the band! The one we are premiering today is a ferocious ode to chaos and bleakness entitled “Iron Empress”.

From what the band told me, the song title is a reference to the foreboding being that adorns the cover art of the album, the Iron Empress on the cover standing in as a metaphor for the album’s concept and themes. Coma Cluster Void members John Strieder and Mike DiSalvo explained a bit about this in the following statement: Continue reading »

BLACK METAL (PART 3): A COLLECTION CURATED BY NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG)

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Aug 012016

(Neill Jameson (Krieg) returns with the third installment of a three-part post devoted to under-the-radar black metal releases worthy of greater attention. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.)

One thing I’ve come to realize while doing this series is my mix tapes in the late ’90s were fucking great and anyone who was forced to drive with me during those times should start a kickstarter to throw me a parade. The other thing I’ve realized is how fortunate I was to come up at a time when all this was actually happening and not a footnote in some elderly man’s rantings twenty years later. The emphasis on performing music you were passionate about versus the current metal scene’s (sometimes) inane need for innovation meant that while you might be getting three dozen variations on the same Darkthrone or Emperor songs, at least they still possessed something special.

The conversation around black metal at the time was easier to digest, too, since it was basically all based on a form of honesty that isn’t really around any more, and there wasn’t someone standing up on a soap box because they were offended you owned a Burzum record. While I value the deeper intellectualism that the contemporary era can bring, it also has its shortcomings, especially in people’s perceptions.

Anyway, this is the final piece of my three-part black metal series. My list is obviously far from complete and I may revisit it someday, but for now here’s six more: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): VOLTURYON, NECROMANCING THE STONE, DAWN OF DEMISE, EVERGREY, MASTIC SCUM, SPURN, S-TOOL, NOCTEM

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Aug 012016

(DGR volunteered for round-up duty to start our week, and brings us new music from seven bands plus new-album news from an eighth.)

We have been trying our damndest to keep up with the flow of music that has been spilling forth from the gaping maw of heavy metal recently, but it has become clear that this is a war that must be fought on multiple fronts. Thus, I find myself once again deploying to the Seen and Heard front lines with a veritable smorgasbord of new music, videos, and album announcements for you to all enjoy.

I had a lot of fun figuring out where to position each band this time, as I have a very symmetrical idea of how things in this Seen and Heard should be approached — resulting in tremendously heavy music spilling into some infectiously light stuff and then returning right back to the abyss from which it came. You may need to settle in for this one; there’s a lot of fantastic stuff packed within this round-up, and it just goes to show that 2016 is proving to be a hell of a year for metal. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (WOLFHEART)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 5 Responses »

Jul 312016

(DGR takes over The Rearview Mirror again, with a look back at the Finnish band Wolfheart — and it’s not the one you’re probably thinking of.)

When prolific Finnish musician Tuomas Saukkonen launched a new solo project entitled Wolfheart in 2013, there was a small part of my brain that fired and said there had been a Wolfheart before — which was true; there have actually been a couple of them. But I quickly wrote off the hunch as a misfiring neuron, which has pretty much been shown to be the basis of this site.

Why it mattered to me that there had been a Wolfheart prior to the formation of the current excellent Wolfheart is a question that would go unanswered for some time, until I remembered that the other Wolfheart had been a project launched by a couple of the members in Charon — and then it all made sense, as I am a fan of Charon, albeit in an ass-backwards sense because I didn’t really check them out until an eternity after Poisonblack had launched in the mid 2000s, it being the project of one of the main guys behind Sentenced, who hung it up in 2005. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: VOIDS OF VOMIT — “RITVAL EXPIATION”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jul 302016

There are only two songs on this new EP by the two-man Italian band Voids of Vomit. Only two songs… but they are so good that my only criticism of what V.o.V. have done is that they didn’t do enough. Why couldn’t they have made three songs? Or four? Or six?

I am speaking selfishly, of course. Suppressing my own selfishness, I should simply be grateful for these two tracks… and indeed I am. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have, because after another few paragraphs you will find our premiere of the two songs on Ritval Expiation. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MESHUGGAH, AUROCH, ARSIS, ANICON, ANCIIENTS, BRAIN TENTACLES, BATTLE DAGORATH, FERAL LIGHT, HELEN MONEY, VANHELGA

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 15 Responses »

Jul 292016

I mentioned in a post earlier this week that I’ve been distracted during nights this week by a televised political convention (because I am a political junkie with low willpower), and I also had to make a quick out-of-town trip. Metal didn’t wait for me while I was diverted, and so I have an immense list of new things from the last few days that I want to recommend. I’ve cut the list down to a mere 10 items, which I’ve collected here. Seriously, I’m aware that 10 is a lot, so I’ve choked back my usual desire to spill a lot of words.

I’m starting with two news items and then following those with 8 new songs or videos, presented in alphabetical order by the name of the artist.

MESHUGGAH

I no longer subscribe to Revolver magazine. If I still had the subscription, I might have seen the full-page ad at the top of this post, which so far seems to be the only disclosure that Meshuggah’s new album The Violent Sleep of Reason will be released by Nuclear Blast on October 7. Here’s another fan pic of the ad: Continue reading »

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