AN NCS PREMIERE: INFERION — “CONTEMPT”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

“Contempt” is a boiling cauldron of interesting extremity. I’m referring to the song we’re about to premiere from the third album by Florida’s Inferion, which is entitled This Will Decay and is scheduled for release by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on October 21.

The music is seething in its ferocity, a flurry of scything riffs, weaponized drum and bass work, and scathing vocal vehemence that ranges from sulfurous black metal shrieks to cavernous death metal roars. And if that were all, this hybrid of black and death metal would be fine enough, but that’s not all.

Without missing a step, the song also includes an undercurrent of melody that, when it fully surfaces, proves to be quite entrancing. It adds a layer of depth and texture to an already dynamic, well-executed piece of music — one that still does an effective job just tearing your head off. Continue reading »

REVOCATION: “DEATHLESS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the forthcoming new album by Boston’s Revocation.)

Sometimes I think the best thing a band in Revocation’s position can do, with as many releases into their career as they are now, is to take a musical step back, in the interest of maintaining the essence of what the band are about.  Their previous self-titled album was good, but I and others felt that the music was stagnating a bit.  Oddly, this wasn’t because the band were getting too comfortable. Instead, I think the S/T suffered from attempts to include more progressive elements, sections, and song structures in the music, which detracted from the adrenaline and the intensity, while the core death/thrash sections felt a bit phoned in at times.  I can see where Revocation may have wanted to integrate more “out there” moments into their music, but I think maybe even Revocation themselves realized that they needed to get back in touch with what made them stand out in the first place.

In a lot of ways, Deathless feels like a back-to-basics record, at least within Revocation’s own sonic domain.  It finds the band more in the straight-up riff-driven death/thrash quality of their debut, Empire of the Obscene, and the album that catapulted them to notoriety, Existence Is Futile.  The result is Revocation’s best record since Chaos of Forms. The idea of moving in a more pure, riff-driven direction with more maturity was a really smart move, and it proves that Revocation are in fact still 100% in touch with the intensity and the knack for inducing adrenaline rush that they were founded on.

“Deathless” is 100%, back-to-front, Revocation-patented thrash-driven death metal at its best. David Davidson, as per usual, makes this record, and this band as a whole. His signature thrash/death/fusion riffing style is definitely in top form here, but those fusion-y elements of his style also feel dialed back in order to bring the thrash and death metal elements to the forefront.  It’s an interesting choice, considering it’s one of the things that “makes” him as a guitarist, but it also gives those moments when they come around an even greater impact. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECAYING — “ZERO HOUR”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

Given my near-pathological affection for old-school death metal, and particularly the curriculum taught in old European schools, I was kind of stunned to realize that I’ve failed to write about Finland’s Decaying since reviewing their debut album (Devastate) back in 2011. Since then, they’ve released two more albums — Encirclement (2012) and The Last Days of War (2012) — and now their fourth album is almost upon us. The new album’s name is One To Conquer, and based on the song from the album we’re about to premiere, it should be another strong one.

Decaying have a penchant for including longer, doom-suffocated tracks in their military-themed albums, but they’re fully capable of rolling right over you in a crushing assault as well — and that’s the style of “Zero Hour”. If you like your old school death metal in the form of a smoking tank attack with a howling, rasp-voiced commander exhorting the battalion to show no mercy, “Zero Hour” is your thing. It’s definitely my thing: The song is a gassed up, heavy-grooved headbang trigger with a beautifully morbid melody — death metal militarism that will put a charge into your brainstem.

Especially with the timbre of the voracious vocals, you may think of Asphyx or Hail of Bullets, but fans of Bolt Thrower should eat this up, too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FIDES INVERSA — “VI”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

The two-headed Italian entity known as Fides Inversa released their debut album, Hanc Aciem Sola Retundit Virtus (The Algolagnia Divine), in 2009. At last, they have readied their second full-length assault. Bearing the title Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans, it will be released by W.T.C. Productions on October 31, 2014. Included within are seven songs identified only by Roman numerals, of which we bring you the premiere of “VI“.

“VI” burns like a bonfire blazing under a black sky, riffs flickering and roaring, with crackling drumbeats and zealous infernal incantations rising over the conflagration. It’s a monument to the cleansing light of chaos that explodes from the void, fueled by an infectious guitar melody that peals with the sound of ritual bells.

Or, to put it in more prosaic terms, this is hot-blooded black metal that’s both scathing and charismatic. Continue reading »

DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT: “DEATHRAY”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

We haven’t previously posted about the forthcoming album Z² by the Devin Townsend Project, which is now scheduled for worldwide release on October 27, but not for lack of interest. It is Devin Townsend, after all, and few musicians muster the kind of enthusiasm around here that he does. Now we have a chance to make amends for our neglect, because Gun Shy Assassin has just premiered a lyric video for one of the new album’s new songs: “Deathray”.

Z² is a double album, and this new song comes from the Dark Matters half of the release. It will come as no surprise when I tell you the video is a kick to watch. Of course, it involves an intergalactic invasion of our pathetic planet.

The music is also a kick. It’s a hard-rocking intergalactic shake. I feel the groove! You will too! Run for your fetid lives!  Prepare for the coming of your Zootoonian overlords!  (listen and watch next) Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLACK THERAPY — “THE FINAL OUTCOME”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Oct 062014
 

Well, I didn’t expect I’d have to visit Rome to get one of the most satisfying injections of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal of the year, but that’s what Black Therapy have delivered via the song we’re about to premiere — “The Final Outcome”. It comes in the form of a lyric video.

The song is the title track to a new EP that will be released on October 17 by Revalve Records. The EP follows the band’s 2013 debut album, Symptoms of A Common Sickness.

You’d better limber up your neck muscles before listening, because “The Final Outcome” is a high-voltage gallop, with jolting verse riffs, a catchy-as-hell chorus, and the kind of rapidly swirling lead guitar melody that may cause you to form your hands into claws and lift them toward the heavens. To top off all this goodness, the song also features expertly crafted, hard-driving drums and vocals that are acid enough to etch glass.

Plus, the EP was recorded by Stefano Morabito (16th Cellar Studio), who seems to produce the majority of high-flying extremity to come out of Italy these days. Not surprisingly, the music sounds great. Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED, PART 4 (I THINK)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

 

(Leperkahn once again steps up to the plate during my round-up hiatus with a collection of noteworthy news and new music.)

MARDUK

You can pretty much assume that a new Marduk record will kick ass 100% of the time. Their most recent full-length, Serpent Sermon, is certainly a better testament to that than most of their releases. Luckily for us, January 2015 will give us yet another dose of their feral, maniacal black metal, entitled Front Schwein. I literally don’t know anything else about the record, other than my hypothesis that it’ll be one of the better records January offers. Get psyched.

[Editor’s intrusion: “schwein” is German for pig, and “frontschwein” seems to be an expression for the grunts at the front in wartime.]

https://www.facebook.com/Mardukofficial
http://marduk.nu/ Continue reading »

SLUGDGE: “GASTRONOMICON”

 Album Reviews  17 Responses »
Oct 052014
 

 

The story of my blogging life: As I neared completion of this review, which I’ve been meaning to write since early summer, a friend of mine tossed off the following words on Facebook that put all my tediously crafted prose to shame: “Intergalactic riffing slugs! For the curious, imagine Akercocke, Carcass, and Morbid Angel having a love baby. And it’s a slug. From outer space. And it wants you dead.”

Sigh.

Slugdge is a two-man outfit from Preston, England, consisting of Matt Moss and Kev Pearson. What might first appear to be a typo in the band’s name is simply one of many manifestations of the band’s fixation with slugs: Their 2013 debut album was named Born of Slime, and their 2014 follow-up, Gastronomicon, includes song titles such as “Lettuce Prey”, “The Sound of Mucus”, “Invertehate”, and “Salters of Madness”. The band’s name is pronounced “Slug-j”. They seem to worship an entity named Mollusca.

Wait!  Don’t leave!  I can’t stand slugs either (they grow to the size of bananas around Puget Sound), and I tend to have a predisposed skepticism about the music of bands who prefer pun-filled song titles and generate a surface aura of goofiness. But trust me, you need this album in your life. It’s one of the year’s biggest and best surprises. Continue reading »

MOLOCH: “VERWÜSTUNG”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 052014
 

 

Moloch is an incredibly prolific one-man Ukrainian band, the alter-ego of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Sergiy Fjordsson. Since 2004 (according to Metal-Archives) Moloch has released more than 90 demos, splits, EPs, compilations, and full-length albums, and the grand total is undoubtedly higher if we include recordings that were circulated only among small groups of friends and colleagues. In 2014 alone, Moloch has participated in splits with Sabbat, Krieg, and Nunslaughter, released two EPs (Horizont and Die Isolation), and produced an album named Verwüstung. Yet despite this breathtakingly large output, the only work with which I’m familiar — and only recently so — is Verwüstung. But it made an impact on me, hence this review.

As a Moloch neophyte, I’m unable to compare and contrast Verwüstung with any of Moloch’s other releases. For me, it stands alone, but it stands tall.

The album includes two types of music, reflecting what I gather are Fjordsson’s two divergent musical passions. The first track (“Todesstille”) and the last one (“Verwüstung”) are wordless dark ambient pieces. They are markedly different from the six songs that come between them, but they don’t feel tacked on. They feel more like steps in a ritual, with “Todesstille” clearing the mind in preparation for what is to come and “Verwüstung” providing a cooling-off period and a time of reflection after the emotionally harrowing storm of black metal that precedes it. Continue reading »

VOMIT ORCHESTRA AND T.O.M.B.

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 052014
 

 

On Friday I got a reminder that despite how much my tastes in metal have expanded over the years and how much more deeply into the underground I’ve gone exploring, there are still branches of the cave system I’ve still not discovered. As different as the music in this post is from the range of music I usually patronize, I do like what I’ve found — so I’m sharing it. Both discoveries were spawned by a song premiere we did late last week. Both are strange, though in very different ways.

VOMIT ORCHESTRA

Three days ago I had the pleasure of premiering (here) a long symphony of pain named “Scour (Parts I and II)” by the band Venowl from their forthcoming split with Cara Neir. Venowl’s music is itself on the periphery of the metal I know best, but at least in their case I was familiar with most of their previous releases. And then two days ago I was introduced for the first time to the music of the UK project Emit, and specifically to a 2012 demo entitled Spectre Music of An Antiquary that’s being reissued in remastered form by Crucial Blast Records. I wrote a mini-review of that album and premiered one of its tracks — “Beneath Carvings Linger” (here).

This in turn led to a conversation online with ][ of Venowl, who unlike me was quite familiar with Emit. He mentioned that the man behind Emit had guested on older material by a band named Vomit Orchestra — another name I had never heard. When I confessed my ignorance, ][ linked me to a new Vomit Orchestra song that really grabbed me, and that’s the first offering in this post. Continue reading »

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