MOOD MUSIC FOR MONDAY: PYRAMIDS, KJELD, DECLINE OF THE I

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Jan 192015
 

 

I was getting bored with those “Seen and Heard” post titles, so I changed  it for today — but that’s still what this is: a collection of new songs that I spotted and heard over the last 24 hours and would like to recommend to you. And since it’s Monday, you know what kind of mood I’m talking about.

P.S. This is a holiday in the U.S., and although I still have to work, we won’t have the usual volume of posts today. Hope you enjoy this one, and the next installment of our “Most Infectious” song list, which will be up a bit later.

PYRAMIDS

When I first saw the album cover (above) for the new album by Texas-based Pyramids, I quipped to some friends: “This is what happens when you let monkeys play with a tape dispenser”. I’m still not sure what the photo signifies, but the music is no joke.

The new album is named A Northern Meadow and it’s set for release by Profound Lore on March 17. And on this album the Pyramids line-up is augmented by some notable guests: Vindsval of Blut Aus Nord; Colin Marston of Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, and Krallice; and composer/musician William Fowler Collins. This will be my first exposure to the band’s music (so far as I can remember), but I’m now very eager to hear the album because the first advance track has now premiered. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ACHERONTAS, A.M.S.G., EXTIRPATE, THE WAGAKKI BAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 182015
 

I’m feeling kind of under the weather, thanks for asking. And by “under the weather”, I mean that I got shit-faced last night in Houston, went to bed really late, woke up less than four hours later — hungover as fuck — in order to make a flight back to Seattle, and am now sitting on that airplane gamely fighting waves of nausea with the outcome still too close to call. How’s it going with you?

Apart from not exactly being at the top of my game, I’m also impaired by my inability to easily stream music on this airplane wi-fi, so I haven’t been able to listen to anything new since the plane took off, but in addition to some news items I do have a couple of videos and a song in here that I saw and heard yesterday before getting shit-faced.

Also, I’m thinking about ordering a copy of that book up there. Do you think it would help me the next time I get in my current situation? Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 21

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014  7 Responses »
Jan 172015
 

We have arrived at Part 21 in the continuing rollout of our list of 2014′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. For the other songs we’ve previously named to the list, go here.

The two songs I’m adding today aren’t as loud and extreme as the majority of what’s on the list. They’re also exceptions to the rule embodied in the site’s name. But they’re both very good, very infectious songs — and they have some other things in common, too. Prepare for some satanic rock.

THE HOUSE OF CAPRICORN

Morning Star Rise marked a conscious change in sound for New Zealand’s The House of Capricorn, a change exemplified by the song I’m adding to the list today. Relatively speaking “Ivory Crown” is one of the more subdued tracks on the album — if you’re looking for tracks that drive harder on the mayhem end of the spectrum, then I’d recommend “The Road To Hell Is Marked” or “Our Shrouded King”. But “Ivory Crown” is built around such killer melodic hooks that it’s powerfully addictive. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MORGOTH, NAR MATTARU, GEHENNAH, SELVANS, HEREZA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 172015
 

As I explained in yesterday’s round-up, there’s been such a flood of new songs and album announcements since the first of the year that I’m feeling overwhelmed. I haven’t been able to pounce on them with my usual catlike speed and agility this week, so I’m behind. And although catching up is already out of the question, I do want to throw a few more goodies your way this weekend.

MORGOTH

After releasing a collection of albums and EPs in the early ’90s, Germany’s Morgoth disbanded in 1998, but re-formed in 2011. They released a single named God Is Evil last year, and now they’ve completed a comeback album with the title Ungod. The album will feature vocals by new member Karsten “Jagger” Jäger (Disbelief), who replaced Marc Grewe in December. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 20

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014  5 Responses »
Jan 162015
 

Welcome to Part 20 in the continuing rollout of our list of 2014′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. For the other songs we’ve previously named to the list, go here.

Since we’ve reached a nice round number with Part 20 of this list, do you think it’s a good time to stop, especially since we’re more than two weeks into January? Nah, I don’t think so either. Here are two more skull-clubbing songs.

VALLENFYRE

This first song that I’m adding to the list today was a really tough call. Not because we weren’t going to have a Vallenfyre song on the list — that was a foregone conclusion — but because the band’s 2014 album Splinters was loaded with potential selections. I’m partial to the song from the album we premiered (“Odious Bliss”) and for a long time I just sort of assumed that the album’s opening track “Scabs” would be the pick. But as I got closer to writing this post I changed my mind. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SANNHET, CRYPT SERMON, THE BANNER, ABOMINATOR, GALAR

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 162015
 

My memory of what happened a year ago is hazy (my memory of what happened yesterday is hazy, too, but more like partly cloudy instead of overcast with dense fog). But this January seems to have brought an unprecedented tide of new music. Wholly apart from all the new album promos we’ve received since the first of the year, every day has bought new song or video premieres that are worth hearing. It’s as if labels and bands were just waiting for the holidays to end and then opened the floodgates.

I’ve got a list of new music to check out that’s grown absurdly long, and since I haven’t managed to write a round-up in five days, it’s unrealistic to catch up in a single post. So even more so than usual, I chose this collection of songs on a truly random basis. I have a lot more I’d like to throw your way — with luck I can do that this weekend.

SANNHET

Sannhet are from Brooklyn. Their second album, Revisionist, is coming from The Flenser on March 3. Yesterday Stereogum premiered the album’s first advance track, a song named “Lost Crown”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEIRESS — “DISMALIST”

 Premieres  13 Responses »
Jan 162015
 

At the bottom of this post you’ll find the premiere of a fantastic new song by Seattle’s Heiress. I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you just skipped to the end and started listening. But whether you do that or plod through the words I feel compelled to write, by all means — listen to the song!

Nowadays, I try to stay on top of new metal, without letting grass grow under my feet. It wasn’t always that way. I moved to Seattle from Texas in 1995. I barely listened to metal back then; grunge was the rage in my new hometown, and I got caught up in that. Himsa didn’t come out with their debut album until four years later, and I still didn’t discover them until years after that. But when I did, it made an enormous impact on me as a fledgling metal fan. I still mourn the passing of that band.

Even though I now try to stay on top of things in a more timely way, I still didn’t completely tumble to Heiress until I saw them perform live last year. I don’t know why it took me so fucking long, especially since Himsa’s ex-vocalist (and a fixture in Seattle’s heavy music scene) John Pettibone fronts Heiress. Continue reading »

LEVIATHAN: “ALL TONGUES TOWARD”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 152015
 

 

“Eagerly awaited” is an overused and often mis-used term. How can something be eagerly awaited if you don’t know you’re waiting? But in the case of Leviathan’s new album Scar Sighted — which is due for a March 3 release by Profound Lore — it’s genuinely eagerly awaited, and also long-awaited.

And it’s long-awaited not simply because four years have passed since True Traitor, True Whore, but because it seems that Wrest (Jef Whitehead) has been through a lot of significant changes in his personal life, the kind of changes that couldn’t help but influence the music (see this interview of Wrest to learn what I’m talking about). I’ve been very curious to hear the results.

And today we finally have the first piece of music from Scar Sighted: A track named “All Tongues Toward” is now available for listening — and it comes with another piece of Wrest’s artwork for the album: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 19

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014  4 Responses »
Jan 152015
 

 

We’ve arrived at Part 19 in the continuing rollout of our list of 2014′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. For the other songs we’ve previously named to the list, go here.

Such an overused word, “epic” is. A couple of years ago I promised one of my then co-writers that I would stop using it. Add that to the list of promises broken. If the list of broken vows weren’t already so long, I’d be disturbed by my lack of faithfulness: These two songs are epic.

PANOPTICON

I went on at excruciating length about Roads To the North when I reviewed the album. I will be more brief here. I’ll quote only a part of what I wrote after I noted some differences between this new album and works that preceded it, because it’s relevant to what I’m doing today: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MINDFUL OF PRIPYAT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 152015
 

This is the third of three EP reviews I’m posting today. The first band was Australia’s Ur Draugr, the second was New Zealand’s The Skull, and now we leap across seas and continents to visit a band from Italy named…

MINDFUL OF PRIPYAT

Mindful of Pripyat are a new death/grind collective from Milan who released their debut assault — …And Deeper, I Drown In Doom — via Bandcamp last week. I was drawn to explore the music because the band includes Giulia (aka Doomed Warrior) from the fantastic Into Darkness on guitars, bass, and vox. Her bandmates are Tya (lead vocals and noise) and Gio (drums and vocals) — and yes, all three members vocalize.

Taking their inspiration from old-school grindcore in the vein of Napalm Death, Terrorizer, and Dead Infection and with a conceptual focus on dystopian futures and post-apocalyptic scenarios, Mindful of Pripyat have delivered 16 tracks in less than 20 minutes. They make very good use of the time. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries