AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BELOW THE SUN — “ENVOY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  10 Responses »
Feb 162015
 

 

On a September morning more than 37 years ago, the Voyager 1 spacecraft rose from the Earth on a mission that may have no end. In August 2012 it entered interstellar space, traveling father than anyone, or anything, in human history. Hurtling ahead at a speed of 38,000 mph (61,000 km/h), it passes further beyond our reach with each passing second, pushing forward deeper and deeper into the void.

From their own vantage point in the city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberian Russia, an enigmatic band who call themselves Below the Sun have taken the solitary journey of Voyager 1 as their inspiration, crafting a concept album entitled Envoy that stands as their musical introduction to this world. Today we bring you a full stream of this unusual and unusually accomplished debut work, preceded by this review.

Hearing the album, it’s difficult to believe that it’s the first musical output of this quintet. It has the earmarks of people who already know their craft quite well, and perhaps they do — they wear masks and they go by names they weren’t born with (Vacuum, Quasar, Entropy, Lightspeed, Void), so their histories are hidden. And thus the music speaks for itself. Continue reading »

ESSENTIAL ENTRIES: JANUARY 2015

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 152015
 

 

(In this post Dan Barkasi inaugurates a monthly series recommending music from the month just ended.)

Welcome, welcome, to the first edition of my monthly column, oh so cleverly titled Essential Entries. Classy and functional, right?

In a nutshell, the premise is to feature what particularly tickled my fancy every month. The plan is to get this out a little after each month is completed. Hopefully you’ll find something you’ll like, or simply have fantastic taste and know the stuff already! Either way, enjoy, and I encourage you to make a comment on what you particularly dug, or if there’s something you think yours truly missed.

Without further ado, here’s January, which was a pretty damn good way to kick off 2015.

A Swarm of the Sun – The Rifts

Coming in at the very end of the month, and thankfully, this was caught in time to be included. Atmospheric and complex post-metal meets some doom, and it’s daunting in the best way. The vocals are especially fitting, the piano sections are mesmerizing, and the whole vibe needs to be felt. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FALSE, ACHERONTAS, DØDHEIMSGARD, VOLAHN, MISÞYRMING, GHOST BATH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Feb 152015
 

 

This is a round-up of news and new music that I discovered in a long bout of listening and reading yesterday. It happens that all the items in this collection concern black metal, but black metal is a broad spectrum, and it happens that the music you’re about to hear is quite diverse — and all of it very good.

FALSE

This first item is a piece of news, an official announcement of an album that’s been on my personal “most anticipated” list for 2015 since I heard it was being recorded last year. It’s the debut full-length by False from Minneapolis, and it will be released by Gilead Media in the May-June time frame, both as a double-LP and as a CD. The cover art (above) is killer — I’m eager to see what the LP gatefold looks like.

False have only released three songs in their meteoric career — two of them on an untitled EP in 2011 and one on a 2012 split with Barghest (reviewed here). But False are fond of long songs, and so those three add up to almost 45 minutes of music — 45 very intense minutes. Continue reading »

WHY DO WE LIKE DISGUSTING MUSIC?

 Mosh Pit  39 Responses »
Feb 142015
 


Photo by Tim Flach

 

About the title of this post: I’m using the term “we” very loosely. A lot of people who visit this site, maybe a majority of you, probably don’t like disgusting music. Heavy and harsh, even angry and savage — yes. But disgusting? Not likely. I’m just as sure that many of you do. I do. But why?

I’ve had that question in my head for a long time, but like most hard questions, I put off focusing on it. What got me thinking about it last night was Durf Talitopia’s review of Primitive Man’s new EP, Home Is Where the Hatred Is, at Brutalitopia. He wrote:

These are four songs that make you feel the need to shower after listening, and then maybe consider just drowning yourself in the bathtub…. Home is Where the Hatred Is will definitely not be for everyone.  It’s uncompromising in its ugliness, relentlessly spewing spite and bitterness from every second of every song…. This is music that has little to no commercial appeal, music that most people would probably turn off halfway through the first track.  In short, it’s music made by a band that believes in it…. I love that Home is Where the Hatred Is exists, and I think it’s one of the most distinct, incredible albums I’ve heard in a long, long time… even if I might not listen to it again for a long, long time.

Durf found the EP’s final song particularly disturbing: “‘A Marriage With Nothingness’ is one of the most uncomfortable songs I’ve ever encountered, to the point where I genuinely don’t know if I ever want to listen to it again.”

I hadn’t heard that song, or anything else on the EP, until reading the review. I listened to “A Marriage With Nothingness” first, and then I started writing this post. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AWAY (VOIVOD)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Feb 132015
 

 

(We present Wil Cifer’s interview with Voivod drummer Michel Langevin (Away).)

Here’s an interview I did with one of the most underrated drummers in metal — Away from VoiVod, who I caught up with on the Space and Grind Tour, where they continue to steal the show from Napalm Death.

******

Caught the show last night and you guys were amazing, one thing I thought was interesting was that all of the songs except for the new one were from Nothingface” and back, and when I heard Target Earth I thought, “Wow, this is the album that should have come after Nothingface” just from the vibe it had.

Away – We have three sets and songs from Target Earth are on two of them, but we have been debating that, since we are on tour to promote that album. What do you think, should we play more from Target Earth? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LEVIATHAN, LYCHGATE, IMPLODES, SVIN, KEEP OF KALESSIN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 132015
 

Presented below, for your entertainment and edification, is a collection of songs and videos I discovered this morning. All but one are new. All are recommended. No two of them sound alike.

LEVIATHAN

Within the last couple of days Noisey published an interview of Leviathan’s Jef Whitehead by Drew Millard, preceded by Millard’s thoughts about the subject of the interview (“Whitehead’s a scary guy”). If you want to read that, the link is below. But the main point of attraction to me was an accompanying premiere of a new song from Leviathan’s forthcoming album, Scar Sighted (due for release by Profound Lore on March 3). Below, I’ve included the Soundcloud stream for that, too. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: TUSSK — “PAR T. ANIMAL”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 132015
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews a new two-song offering by Tussk from Staffordshire, England.)

So last Friday I played my first show of 2015 with Beyond Grace, alongside fellow Nottingham natives The Five Hundred (think a more melodically-inclined Lamb of God) and The Winter Hill Syndicate (melodic/metallic/misanthropic hardcore), and bewhiskered Staffordshire riff-mongers Tussk… and it’s the latter band I’ve come here to talk about today.

Now Tussk don’t claim to be reinventing the wheel in the slightest, and their whiskey-soaked strut and shimmy certainly bears more than a few similarities to the cock-sure chaos of Every Time I Die… but after knocking back a couple of heavy doses of their high-proof, high-voltage riffery, each one accompanied by a chaser of smooth, bluesy swagger, I doubt it will matter to you whether you’ve been down this road before or not… what’s important is who’s doing the driving! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECLINE OF THE I — “LE ROUGE, LE VIDE ET LE TORDU”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 122015
 

 

The French band Decline of the I are nearing the release of their second album, a seven-track work entitled Rebellion. We’ve paid close attention to the music as individual tracks have been released for public consumption. Last October we wrote about the first advance track from the album, a song named “Hexenface”, and then covered the premiere of a second one — “Lower Degree of God’s Might” — in mid-January. Now we ourselves have the pleasure of bringing you a third example of what Rebellion holds in store.

The song we’re premiering is “Le rouge, le vide et le tordu” (“The red, the emptiness, the twisted one”), and it is yet another display of the diverse talents of the band’s principal creative force, multi-instrumentalist  A.K., who has also performed in such bands as Vorkreist, Merrimack, and Malhkebre. Continue reading »

GRIND YOUR HEART OUT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Feb 122015
 

 

(Austin Weber brings us a collection of short reviews of grind core albums that have caught his fancy.)

I’m backlogged on metal I want to write about, including a diverse wealth of different-sounding grind bands I feel are worth mentioning. So here is a grind dump of grind bands whose names all coincidentally start with the letter C (except Executive Task Distraction, who have fucked that up). They all happen to kick major ass as well.

Also, watch how many times I say the word “grind”! Since grind is short, sweet, and in your face; the write-ups will be similarly brief. The last two bands give away their albums for free. Freedom is grind, free grind is freedom. Grind yer heart out!

Cave Moth – The Black Lodge

Cave Moth sound like the result of what would happen if you took every crooked and dark element of Gaza and condensed them into a hyper-violent grind format with a bit of mathcore influence and supported by a fuckload of stark dissonance. Continue reading »

SWAMP WITCH: “THE SLITHERING BOG”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 122015
 

(Our guest Grant Skelton reviews the new album by California’s Swamp Witch.)

 

“This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended. It is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arises in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of this ground.”

–John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

Some metal is made to be immediately infectious. When I began my journey as a metal fan, I would describe my metal collection that way. Immediately infectious, catchy, listener-friendly, accessible. I became a metalcore junkie in high school and that lasted into my early-mid 20s. The older I get, the less time I have to listen to music than I did when I was younger. On the other hand, I find that I have an increasing desire to explore new genres. I want metal that takes me somewhere I’ve never been before. Everyone loves a memorable chorus that gets stuck in their head for days, but sometimes you don’t want just that.

Those of you who read fiction will likely be familiar with the term “suspension of disbelief.” It refers to a writer’s ability to make you forget the line between this world and that of the story you are reading. You forget truth, reality, value judgments, and the like and you plunge right into the narrative. Of course, suspension of disbelief requires some action on the part of you as the reader. But good writing invites you to suspend your disbelief without you even being aware that you’re doing it. You will participate in the story, and not merely read it. You live the events with the characters rather than just observe them. Suspension of disbelief is just as important for the most realistic murder mystery as it is for high fantasy realms of swords and sorcery. And music has something similar. A good album takes you somewhere. It tells a story that involves an introduction, a conflict, a climax, and a resolution. It can make you feel anger, grief, joy, fear, guilt, or longing. And it can do so without forcing those feelings upon you. Continue reading »

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