NO CLEAN SINGING

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (THE POWER & THE GLORY)

Sep 132015

(Austin Weber prepared this Sunday’s Rearview Mirror post.)

While I’m not the sort of music fan who usually pines for the “good old days”, there are certainly some sounds and styles in the realm of heavy music that are no longer “in”. I’m referring specifically to the early-to-mid-2000s when bands from Botch to Burnt By The Sun and a million others crafted highly volatile yet mercurial mixtures of hardcore and metal. This is the time period when I got into metal, and I was fortunate to catch many of those bands in their heyday.

Of all the bands crafting metallic hardcore crossbreeds around that time, one band still stands out for me, mainly because they never got the respect and appreciation their music deserved, unlike many of their much better known peers. That band, my friends, was the Atlanta based wrecking crew known as The Power & The Glory. Continue reading »

SATURDAY SEEN AND HEARD: VASTUM, KAMPFAR, SOLANUM, ANOXIA

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Sep 122015

Hey there, happy Saturday. I’m feeling a little woozy. For some reason Friday nights usually seem to have that effect on me. I had some ambitious plans for today’s posts, but unless I can figure out how to vacuum all the woozy out of my head, what you’re reading now may be all I can manage. These are just a few of the things I spotted over the last two days that didn’t make it into that big slug of round-up posts yesterday.

VASTUM

San Francisco’s Vastum have completed work on a new album, featuring cover art by the Vastum vocalist Daniel Butler. I can already feel the ground beginning to tremble in anticipation of the detonation to come. The album’s name is Hole Below, and 20 Buck Spin plans to nuke the planet from space with it on November 6, because that’s the only way to be sure. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 4): ABIGAIL WILLIAMS, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, WOLCOTT FALLS, BODYFARM

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Sep 112015

A few days ago I was in a sour mood because it appeared I might have to go to Alaska for my fucking day job, with the prospect of spending 10 days there in a state of metal sensory deprivation. As things turned out, I did in fact have to go to Alaska — and then turned around 24 hours later and flew back to Seattle. So while the entire escapade was ridiculous (and not worth explaining), the good news is that I can return to normal blogging activity.

Of course, while I was distracted with all this nonsense, dozens of new songs and videos appeared that were worth recommending to you. Our pal Leperkahn stepped up and wrote a 3-part post that we published earlier today featuring 16 of them. However, that collection did not cover everything on my own list of goodies, and in addition Austin Weber sent in a couple of suggestions himself. So in this post I’ve included Austin’s two songs (and I’ll identify which ones they are when I come to them), plus a couple of my own. At the risk of driving you into sensory overload, still more will follow from my list over the weekend.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

Last fall we debuted demo versions of two awesome songs from Abigail Williams’ new album, The Accuser, but today brought the premiere of the album’s first track. I actually got wind of it yesterday through an e-mail alert from Bandcamp that the song had appeared on Candlelight’s page for the album. The song’s name is “Path of Broken Glass“. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 3): SPEEDTRAP, SPELLJAMMER, TSJUDER, VHÖL, WINDHAND, GOROD

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Here’s Part 3 of Leperkahn’s round-up of new music for this Friday. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here.)

SPEEDTRAP

Prior to finding a full stream of their new album Straight Shooter on Noisey, I hadn’t heard of Finnish troupe Speedtrap. If you’re in the same boat that I was in, I’ll tell you that these guys sound pretty much exactly like you think they will, in that they love Motörhead, as everyone should. This thing is chock full of blazing riffs and cheesy lyrics sung by an oddly bluesy power-metal-type singer — I’m in love.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/speedtrap-straight-shooter
https://www.facebook.com/speedtrapmetal
https://speedtrap.bandcamp.com/ Continue reading »

RIWEN: “THE COLD”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Here’s Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Riwen.)

Although I don’t listen to as much of it these days, there’s still a part of me that holds Hardcore very dear to my heart, as this was the music that really started my love affair with the howling distortion of a clanging, chugging, buzzing electric guitar.

Of course I’d been exposed to music before this – my Dad was (and is) a big Prog aficionado, and as a result I was lucky enough to grow up with the sounds of Pink Floyd, Yes, Rush, King Crimson, Queen, et al, as the soundtrack to my formative years – but when it finally came time for me to start spreading my own musical wings, it was the sound of Hardcore that first drew me in, possibly (probably) because it was the direct antithesis of Prog in so many ways!

I tell you this because if there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that The Cold, the debut full-length by Scandinavian brawlers Riwen (whom I last mentioned several times in conjunction with their EP release), really recaptures that primal, gritty essence which initially drew the younger me to Hardcore all those years ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GENEVIEVE — “CHARNEL FLOW”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by Maryland’s Genevieve, coming soon from Grimoire Records.)

Much like Dark Descent, Grimoire Records has really been on a fucking roll as of late. They’ve somehow managed to release several of my favorite records of the year. And it would seem from the press I’ve seen elsewhere for Dendritic Arbor, Bearstorm, and others that it’s not just our site that has been latching on to all the great things the label is doing. So with that being said, we are very proud to let you hear a song called “Charnel Flow”, the first song to drop from Grimoire’s next release, an album entitled Escapism by a Maryland group known as Genevieve.

Don’t let their innocent-sounding name fool you, because Genevieve’s music dwells in the very pits of despair and disgust. They traffic in a particularly dark blend of black and death metal that’s very noisey and stomach-churning. Listening to “Charnel Flow” brings to mind the warped riffing and unconventional nature of Portal in its death metal moments, which is intertwined with equally warped and odd black metal passages that remind me of the deliciously twisted black metal band Imperial Triumphant. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): MEPHORASH, NAPALM DEATH, NIGHTFELL, RUBY THE HATCHET, SATAN

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Leperkahn compiled this second of at least four round-ups of new music we’ll be presenting today. Part 1 is here.)

MEPHORASH

In my infinite wisdom, I totally forgot that the Swedish black metal band Mephorash’s new album 1557 – Rites of Nullification had already been released (despite Andy Synn’s glowing review) until I saw that Mephorash posted a stream to a track other than the advance track they had previously presented on their FB page. This “new” track, entitled “Phezur – Dissolving the Sea of Yetzirah” has me strongly regretting that lapse in memory.

The song masterfully conjures a deeply evil, occult, Luciferian atmosphere with its stirring riffs and caustic snarls, and the riff that comes in about a quarter of the way through the song is certainly quite the earworm. It moves through periods of chaos, groove, eerie calm, and infernal majesty, all while maintaining a truly nefarious aura. Make this the soundtrack to your next black mass if you know what’s good for you. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): BLACK BREATH, DARK SERMON, EXMORTUS, HEGEMON, HOODED MENACE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Leperkahn steps forward to shoulder round-up duty — and there have been so many noteworthy new songs over the last few days that he’s stepping forward with a three-part post, to which Austin Weber and your humble editor will also be adding a fourth and maybe a fifth before we’re done today.)

I’ve been meaning to get an album review out at some point (don’t have anything written currently, though I will say that you should go and preorder Horrendous’s upcoming album Anareta immediately if you know what’s good for you), but in the meantime an ungodly amount of new tidbits turned up on the web in the last couple days.

Considering that Islander is slaving away in Anchorage for however long his reptilian overlords command him to, I figure I’d take another stab at covering a few of them – and by a few, I mean fifteen. For your sanity (and perhaps mine, though that might be a lost cause), I’ve divided it up into three posts. We’ll go alphabetically, since there’s way too much stuff for me to want to find any other type of pattern. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLËED — “HATE MARCH KILL”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 102015

Are you feeling kind of sluggish and bored? Are the people around you making you yawn and/or want to strangle them? Could you use a full-throttle adrenaline ride and the opportunity to yell “MARCH MARCH MARCH KILL KILL KILL” for all your worth? Okay, we can arrange that right now — because we’re bringing you the premiere of “Hate March Kill” by the band Blëed from Edmonton, Canada.

The song comes from the band’s new album The Hatred Inside, which will be released on September 29. And it will definitely get your engine running. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LOCRIAN — “HEAVY WATER”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 102015

Relapse Record released the latest album by the Chicago-Baltimore experimental trio Locrian in late July. Entitled Infinite Dissolution, it’s a concept album based on the frightening (but all too plausible) prospect that the world is on the brink of a new wave of mass extinction of species, one that could lead to the extinction of our own.

The album is richly varied in its sound, both harsh and sublime. Through music, it traces a narrative inspired by the album’s disturbing central idea. Perhaps unexpectedly, the album’s penultimate song, “Heavy Waters”, is buoyant and bright, a shimmering, uplifting, cathartic piece — something you could dance to. It could be seen as a hopeful possibility — the chance of a rebirth for life if (and maybe it’s just a question of when) humanity succeeds in wrecking all that’s around us now.

“Heavy Waters” has been out for months, of course, but what we have for you today is brand new — the premiere of a mind-bending video created by George Moore, an abstract interpretation of the music that’s as much fun to watch as the music is to hear. Continue reading »

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