NO CLEAN SINGING

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (THE FORESHADOWING, BINARY CODE, THE LION’S DAUGHTER)

Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus 11 Responses »

Jul 112016

(Andy Synn returns to an old, irregular series of album reviews in haiku. Three reviews of three lines each come after the jump. With music, of course.)

This week is brought to you by the number “the”.

By which I mean that every band I’m reviewing this week is one of those “the something” bands.

Naming conventions aside though, they’re all quite different, running the gamut from leviathan Doom to scintillating Tech to totally not Metal at all, so whoever you are, there should be something to tickle your earbuds over the course of the next 5-7 days!

Let’s begin with some of my trademark pithy haikus, as I know some of you have been missing them and clamouring (quietly) for their return. Continue reading »

BLACK METAL (PT. 1): A COLLECTION CURATED BY NEILL JAMESON (KRIEG)

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Jul 112016

(We welcome back Neill Jameson (Krieg) with the first installment of a multi-part post devoted to under-the-radar black metal releases worthy of greater attention.)

While it seems a lot of what’s going around in black metal these days is more driven by aesthetics and shock value than ever, it still has a certain potency that other genres within metal don’t seem to be able to match. That being said, I can’t think of a lot of current bands that I obsessively listen to the way I would when I was younger and potentially more full of shit than I am now at this ripe old age.

Elderly bitching aside, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about records and bands that went somewhat under the radar at the time of release and sit in relative obscurity now, mostly because people have shitty taste (myself included), so I figured I’d use a column or two and shed some light on some records in the genre I’ve never been able to walk away from for whatever reason, the sort of releases that if I ever came into an excess of money I’d love to release on vinyl so that they would sit in my office unsold while people download it along with some weird virus that broadcasts Russian incest porn to their e-mail contacts. Here’s a few to start with: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STILLA — “SKUGGFLOCK”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Jul 112016

Skuggflock is the name of the new third album by Sweden’s Stilla, and August 19 is the date set for its joint release by Bindrune Recordings in North America and Nordvis Produktion in Europe. Today we are joining with sites across the Atlantic to bring you the premiere of the album’s title track.

Stilla are a black metal band, but far from the stereotype of a Scandinavian black metal band, and Skuggflock moves in directions that are far from the norm. That much was evident from the first track that appeared from the new album, “Vårens sista önskan”, which we wrote about in May, soon after it appeared. Fast and furious at the start, it morphs into a multitude of forms as it surges forward, becoming bleak and haunting in its ambience, and ultimately kindling memories of horror movie soundtracks from the ’70s, a la Goblin. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): MAKE, ULTHAR, WITCH IN HER TOMB, CAIRN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 2 Responses »

Jul 102016

Ms. Islander and I were at an outdoor wedding and reception yesterday. It began in the late afternoon and continued late into the night around a fire with an intermittent misting rain. We had a great time, but it has caused a slow start for my Sunday blogging.

I had collected music from eight bands to recommend in this latest Shades of Black post, but because it’s already early afternoon here in the Pacific Northwest I’ve decided to split up the collection into two parts. Otherwise, this post would be appearing even later than it already is; also, eight may be too much music to digest in one sitting anyway. With luck, I’ll get the second half finished in time to post on Monday. Hope you enjoy what’s included here.

MAKE

I’m going to start and finish this collection with music from two bands I discovered thanks to tips from my friend Miloš. The first of these is a trio of songs from an album entitled Pilgrimage of Loathing by a North Carolina band named Make. The album, which is their third full-length, will be released on July 15 by the Portland (OR) label Accident Prone. Before hearing the music, I was enamored of the cover art by Fritz Silberbaur — and then became enamored of the music, too. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (DAWN)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 10 Responses »

Jul 102016

I devoted last week’s Rearview Mirror post to Unanimated, and it seemed only natural to follow that one with this week’s feature on Dawn — another early Swedish band whose music evolved from death metal toward melodic black metal, producing albums between 1994 and 1998 that are still revered today and who are still hinting at a further album to come, although when that will happen remains a mystery.

Dawn’s first three demos were released during 1992 – 1993, and those were followed in 1994 by their debut album Nær sólen gar niþer for evogher (“when the sun goes down forever”). After a split with Pyphomgertum and a 1996 EP, Sorgh på svarte vingar fløgh (“Sorrow flew on black wings”), the band released their widely acclaimed second album, Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy). That was in 1998, and Dawn haven’t released anything new since then. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ADE, GOJIRA, INTO ORBIT, KILL, PAIN, VALBORG, BLOODWAY, WITHDRAWAL

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Jul 092016

If you’re reading this, it means you survived another week. Congratulations. That seems like good cause for celebration, since about 155,000 people die every day on average.

To help you celebrate, here’s a collection of new music I sifted from the never-ending torrent of new metal over the last 48 hours, presented in alphabetical order by band name.

ADE

The Italian death metal band ADE, whom we last mentioned in these pages almost four years ago, have a new album headed our way on July 15 via Spain’s Xtreem Music. Like its predecessors, Carthago Delenda Est again draws upon themes from ancient Roman history, and the title suggests that its focus is on Rome’s efforts to destroy the North African city-state of Carthage in the Punic Wars. The Font of All Human Knowledge tells us: Continue reading »

BLOGGING FROM THE LEFT COAST

Mosh Pit 22 Responses »

Jul 082016

Falls of Rauros live in Seattle

As I guess most people know, I live in the Seattle area. It’s a great place to live in almost all ways, except as a place from which to conduct the operations of this putrid little blog — a downside about which I was vividly reminded over the last 12 hours.

It’s a time zone problem. When the normal work day begins out here in the Pacific time zone, it’s already lunchtime on the East Coast, mid-afternoon in South America, the end of the work day in the UK, evening in Western Europe, and the dead of night in India — just to mention a few of the places inhabited by bands and labels whose releases we tend to write about most often. And don’t get me started on Australia and New Zealand (which are further west, but on the other side of the completely bamboozling international date line).

This creates all sorts of complications, especially when we have agreed to post premieres for bands or labels who are on the other side of the world. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WITCHTHROAT SERPENT (NIKO LASS)

Interviews No Responses »

Jul 082016

(We present another interview by our comrade, Comrade Aleks, and this time he had a great conversation with Niko Lass of the French band Witchthroat Serpent.)

Who would introduce the band better than themselves? Nobody! And as we want to do things right, let’s start with the official press-release I got from Witchthroat Serpent: about their new album Sang-Dragon:

“Sanguis draconis is a thick, blood-red resin extracted from exotic trees. Since the dawn of time, it has uses in medicine, crafts, and of course. magic. And so is Witchthroat Serpent’s music: dark and heady as blood, weird as it would come from another world, and ridden with that old powerful magic men both used to practice and fear.

“Witchthroat Serpent was created in November 2011 in Toulouse, France, by Fredrik Bolzann (guitar/vox), Niko Lass (drums), and Lo Klav (bass), with the aim to spread occult and powerful doom metal. The self-titled first album was released on CD in 2014 by Deadlight Entertainment, soon followed by a tape version through Zanjeer Zani and on LP by US label Emetic Records the year after.”

Witchthroat Serpent is not a clone. It has its own spells, and sure knows how to use them to enthrall the listener. Morbid groove and psychedelic tunes to seduce you to your perdition. And so too is their new album Sang-Dragon (enthralling), recorded in one day at Drudenhaus studio in September 2015. First released on CD by Deadlight Ent., it will be spread on noble black wax by Svart Records on August 26th. Before that, after just returning from a successful Spanish-French tour in May, the trio appeared on stage at Crumble Fest on June 4th and will play at Motocultor Fest on August 19th.

We had a nice conversation with Niko — informative, productive and honest. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MONOLITHE — “ZETA RETICULI”

Album Reviews, Premieres 1 Response »

Jul 082016

Only seven months ago we brought you the premiere of a full-album stream on the release date of Epsilon Aurigae, the fifth album by the remarkable Parisian band Monolithe. But that album was only the first part of a two-album work with a common theme, and the second part — entitled Zeta Reticuli — is being released today by Debemur Morti Productions. Once again, we are fortunate to bring you the premiere of a complete album stream.

Both of these albums were recorded at the same time, and as was true of Epsilon Aurigae, Zeta Reticuli is composed of three long tracks, each of them exactly 15 minutes in length. Both albums are named for binary star systems, capturing the idea of two objects orbiting a single gravitational center, or in this case, two albums revolving around a common set of ideas. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE SCIMITAR (DARRYL SHEPARD)

Interviews No Responses »

Jul 072016

(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview with Darryl Shepard of the bi-coastal band The Scimitar from Massachusetts.)

A scimitar is a backsword or sabre with a curved blade, originating in the Middle East. The curved sword or “scimitar” was widespread throughout the Middle East from at least the Ottoman period, with early examples dating to the Abbasid-era (9th century) Khurasan. Also, The Scimitar is a severe and dark stoner doom band from Massachusetts. It was started by Darryl Shepard (guitars, vocals) and Dave Gein (bass) when they were on hiatus from Black Pyramid. They invited Brian Banfield to play drums later as The Scimitar turned out to be their main doom project.

Crushing, sharp, and heavy, The Scimitar is a merciless weapon, but the band have been silent since their first album Doomsayer was released two years ago. I posed a few questions to Darryl to clarify the band’s current status and to go deeper into the history of The Scimitar. Continue reading »

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