WOMBBATH: “UNDERNEATH THE ROTTEN SOIL”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 102015
 

 

Well, it was only yesterday that we posted a big feature about the first album from Sweden’s Wombbath in 22 years and a video teaser reel of song excerpts from the album — which is entitled Downfall Rising. And maybe we should have been a little more patient, because today an entire new song from the album hit YouTube — “Underneath Rotten Soil” — and you can hear it below.

As reported yesterday, the reincarnation of this long-missing cult band now consists of original guitarist Håkan Stuvemark (Skineater, ex-In Thy Dreams) plus vocalist/bassist Jonny Petterson (Ashcloud, Syn:drom, etc.), guitarist Al Riglin, and drummer Henrik Åberg — although Jeramie Kling (Infernaeon, The Absence) did the drumming on the new album and additional guitar parts on the record were contributed by Taylor Nordberg (Infernaeon). Continue reading »

NU SCENE AND HERD: THE SCHOENBERG AUTOMATON, WARFORGED, LAMB OF GOD, BLACK FAST, PERIHELION, DYSTROPHY, NEKROGOBLIKON, DIRE NECRO CERBERUS, GLADIUS SKY, INIQUITOUS DEEDS, SHAPE OF DESPAIR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 102015
 

 

(Austin Weber has stepped up for round-up duties today, with a collection of new music and videos from 11 bands.)

Seeing as Islander is once again away in a work-related hell setting, I figured I’d step in again and keep our readers up to date with several newly released jams as well as newly released albums from a variety of bands.

Unfortunately, however, I’m low on spare time, as you may or may not have noticed from my recent absence from posting here at the site these last few weeks. So, I’m going to try something new and say nary a word about the songs/albums posted below — much as that fucking pains me to do! Not because I don’t feel strongly about each and every one of them, but simply because it’s almost 6 AM here, I haven’t gone to bed, and need to be up again in 4 hours. Thankfully, you came here for the music more than anything I would hope.

Without further ado… Continue reading »

PARADISE LOST: “THE PLAGUE WITHIN”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jun 102015
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Paradise Lost.)

I guess, when it comes to Paradise Lost, the old axe that everything is cyclical rears its ugly head once again. I’ve never been much of a believer in it, but lo and behold, Paradise Lost have released their darkest, doomiest, and arguably heaviest record in some time — a record we were told was never likely, as Nick Holmes was likely never to growl again and instead would forever sing through Paradise Lost’s goth-laden doom, and a record that would never be this heavy despite the fact that the band had gotten heavier since returning to their doom standard a few records ago.

Then again, things change. Continue reading »

DJENT OR DJENRE

 Mosh Pit  23 Responses »
Jun 092015
 

 

(Andy Synn presents a rare thing — an actual calm, reasoned, fairly objective discussion of Djent, and (surprisingly) a defense of sorts.)

Oh the dreaded “DJ-word”. Never has a genre risen, seemingly from out of nowhere, to such prominence so quickly. And perhaps never before has a genre gotten so over-saturated and over-exposed in such quick succession.

And it’s because of this (and perhaps a few other issues that I may, or may not, touch on in this column) that the merest mention of the word can reduce even the sanest Metalhead to a frothing ball of apoplectic fury. “It’s all the same!”, “It’s just nu-metal with fancier gear!”, “It’s not even a real genre!” are all things I’ve heard multiple times, spilling from the mouths (and fingers) of everyone from the angriest internet troll to the most elitist critic.

But rather than just brush all these protests and allegations aside, I thought I might try to actually engage with them for once, and look at not just what’s being said, but why it’s being said in the first place. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TEMPLE OF DAGON — “REVELATIONS OF THE SPIRIT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 092015
 

 

I’m going to apologize in advance for a potential excess of enthusiasm about the new EP by Temple of Dagon that we’re about to premiere, but I can’t help myself and there’s no one here to stop me.

Revelations of the Spirit is one of the heaviest and most electrifying things I’ve heard all year. The riffs are massive. The guitar leads are infectious. The bass lines are pavement-cracking. The drum blows are spine-shaking. The vocals are raw and ravenous. The music is both savage and scintillating, fusing elements from a variety of genres, from crust/punk to thrash to concussive Bolt Thrower-style death metal. It’s a paragon of head-wrecking metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOWLS OF EBB — “IRON LAURELS, WOVEN IN RUST”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jun 092015
 

 

The 2014 debut album of Howls of Ebb — Vigils of the 3rd Eye — was a strikingly distinctive collection of songs, reflecting a musical vision of otherworldly darkness and derangement. The band have now completed a successor, a mini-album named The Marrow Veil that will also be released by the I, Voidhanger label, and today we bring you an edited version of a song named “Iron Laurels, Woven In Rust“.

The complete version of the song is more than 12 minutes in length. The MLP’s opening track, “Standing On Bedlam, Burning In Bliss”, is almost 20 minutes long. Between them sits the only short track on this three-song offering, “Dusks Tyrannical Lore”, at 2:29. The significant length of the two longer songs isn’t the only difference between The Marrow Veil and Vigils of the 3rd Eye — this isn’t Vigils 2.0. Continue reading »

WOMBBATH: A MUSICAL TEASER FOR “DOWNFALL RISING”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 092015
 

 

I have many musical weaknesses, but as I’ve confessed more than once, perhaps the most crippling one is old school Swedish death metal. I have something akin to a Pavlovian response when I hear HM-2 distortion in action; the saliva just starts flowing in a disgusting torrent. And so you may imagine how grossly I soiled myself when my friend Tito V. tipped me late yesterday to the fact that Wombbath were about to release a video teaser reel for their new album — Downfall Rising.

I’m not going to assume that everyone knows who Wombbath are, because hell, they haven’t released a new album since 1993 (Internal Caustic Torments) — and probably not many of you have yet heard the split they released with Warhound this past spring. But that 1993 album is a true classic (it was reissued earlier this year — more about that in a minute), and anything that comes out with the Wombbath name attached to it is going to be worth exploring. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM MÖTORHEAD AND HELLBASTARD

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 092015
 

 

I’m late to this party, but it’s a hell of a party, so late is way better than never. And plus, these two bands and their new songs just seemed to call out for a union (jack).

MOTÖRHEAD

Mötorhead’s 22nd studio album, Bad Magic, is due for release on August 28. Sometime last week one of the album’s new songs, “Thunder & Lightning”, was uploaded to YouTube, and it’s still there — for which I’m grateful, since I missed it when it first surfaced. It’s such a fuckin’ good song. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VIALS OF WRATH, LETHAL CREATION, ABYSSAL ASCENDANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 082015
 

 

On days like today, when we have unexpectedly flooded our site with posts, I worry that we may be overloading our readers with new music — even though we’re actually not writing about everything we’d like to write about. Chalk it up to a genuine enthusiasm for what we’re hearing. With that said, here’s some more new music!

The first item in this collection is introduced by occasional NCS contributor Grant Skelton… and for the second time today we’re featuring wonderful cover art by Sam Nelson (Stigma).

VIALS OF WRATH

Special thanks to DC Mills for sending me this song — Grant Skelton.

Back in January, I mentioned (here) that Vials of Wrath’s upcoming album Days Without Names was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. At that time, the band teased less than 1 minute of a song called “Burning Autumn Leaves (Under A Harvest Moon).” Today, I am happy to report that VoW have released a new song from Days Without Names. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TRAPPED WITHIN BURNING MACHINERY — “DIVA PLAVALAGUNA”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Jun 082015
 

 

Try to begin wrapping your minds around this idea: an hour-long doom metal space opera inspired by the Diva Plavalaguna — the “blue lady” from Luc Besson’s 1997 sci-fi film The Fifth Element. The idea is in fact a reality, because that’s what California’s Trapped Within Burning Machinery have created, and today we bring you the premiere of a song from the new album, named for the blue lady herself.

The new album, fittingly entitled The Filth Element, is the band’s second full-length, following 2012’s The Putrid Stench of Decaying Self. It began to take shape with a version of the song you’re about to hear and then evolved into an entire album of tracks that use characters from the movie as “hosts”, enabling the band to incorporate different stylistic elements in approaching the story from different perspectives. Continue reading »

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