RECRUITING FOR A METAL AND GENDER STUDY

 Mosh Pit  2 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 Transient’s Krysta Martinez

(About two years ago we posted a five-part series on metal culture [which can be found here] by cultural anthropologist and dedicated metalhead David Mollica, based in part on his Master’s dissertation and interviews he conducted in preparation for writing it. He is embarked on a new study, and we’ve agreed to help him recruit participants.)

Hey all. You might remember me from my guest series about my research on the culture of heavy metal. Well, I’ve somehow managed to convince another group of professors that letting me study metal is a good idea and I need some help with the project. In my post about women in metal (here) the content was mostly based on conjecture and anecdotes mentioned by men that I had interviewed because only one woman agreed to be interviewed for my research. Well, I’m finally getting around to addressing that issue.

I’m currently working on a research project that looks at gender in the heavy metal community and what it means to you to be a metal head. I’m looking for 10 guys and 10 girls (must be 18 or older) who are willing to be interviewed over the phone, via Skype, or by email. The interview will take about an hour. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ARCHIE HUNT (ATTEN ASH)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

(NCS Russian contributor Comrade Aleks interviews Archie Hunt of North Carolina’s Atten Ash, whose excellent new album The Hourglass was released by Hypnotic Dirge Records in February and whose similarly excellent split with Lycanthia was released by the same label in January.)

Hypnotic Dirge surprises me again! The label has another killer release after a one-year hiatus, and this time it’s by a melodic death-doom band from North Carolina named Atten Ash. The band’s name literally means “near the ash”, and this trio has created a fantastic – and I use this word very rarely – a really fantastic album, The Hourglass. The album was completed three years ago for digital release by the band, but lay on the shelf until Hypnotic Dirge suddenly found it.

I think you need to know that the band consists of three members – Archie Hunt (who roared with Legion of the Fallen) on vocals, with James Greene responsible for the great clear vocal parts and most of instruments, and Barre Gambling of Daylight Dies playing guitars and keyboards.

The Hourglass is a perfect gift for those who like the old death doom stuff of Katatonia from the Brave Murder Day period, the progressive and emotional works of Opeth, and the melancholic and melodic works of Daylight Dies as well. Without any delay we’ve done this interview with Archie Hunt, with the help of Nic Skog, the head of Hypnotic Dirge. Continue reading »

GRUESOME: “HIDEOUS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

(Guest writer Grant Skelton returns to NCS, singing the praises of a new song by Gruesome.)

Some fans may wish to write off Gruesome (which features members of Exhumed, Possessed, Malevolent Creation, and Derketa) and dismiss them as a knockoff or throwback. The band do openly promote themselves by affiliating with Death, particularly the Leprosy material. To that I respond, “What’s wrong with nostalgia?”

One of the advantages of living in the time that we do is that fans can have access to material from bands who had their heyday in the pre-Internet age. To that end, Gruesome (and their forefathers) can sound completely fresh to younger fans who may just be discovering them. To the veterans, Gruesome offer something classic that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. They bear the Florida death metal torch, and they bear it well. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DORMANT INFERNO — “DELIVERANCE”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

Although the vast Indian subcontinent has its fair share of notable metal bands from across the musical spectrum, melodic death/doom isn’t a genre that first springs to mind when thinking about Indian metal. In that sense, Dormant Inferno from Mumbai are something of an outlier — but they clearly knew what they doing when they released their notable debut EP in 2011, entitled In Sanity.

Today we’re premiering one of the new Dormant Inferno tracks that will appear in early April via the Transcending Obscurity India label on a split release with Pakistan’s Dionysus. As good as In Sanity was, the new song reveals a band who have become even more self-assured and powerful. The name of the new split is Beyond Forgotten Shores, and the track we’re bringing you is “Deliverance”. Continue reading »

EXGENESIS: “APHOTIC VEIL”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the debut EP by Exgenesis, whose members are from Sweden and Columbia.)

As far as I can recall, it’s usually in the first quarter of every year when I discover one of my big new musical surprises. Previous examples of this (admittedly, rather vague) trend were my discovery of Restoration by Amiensus in 2013, and the self-titled debut by Ion last year. So, as you can imagine, I’ve been keenly awaiting this year’s discovery, whatever it may be… and Aphotic Veil is definitely it.

Exgenesis is the fruit of a collaboration between two men, Jari Lindholm (Sweden) and Alejandro Lotero (Colombia), which delivers a fantastically fresh and frankly rather ferocious take on Melodic Death/Doom metal a la Daylight Dies/Swallow The Sun/October Tide, breathing new life into this well-worn sound with little more than a keen grasp of dynamics and superior song-writing ability.

The five tracks which make up Aphotic Veil weave together an enviable series of groaning, titanic riffs and grim, torturous growls with punishing flourishes of bone-cracking drum work and touches of darkly beautiful melody, wrapped up in a claustrophobic atmosphere of brooding shadows and haunting half-light which hints at some blackened marrow in the band’s bones. Continue reading »

LOCAL FOCUS: SAN DIEGO AND CHICAGO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

(Leperkahn provides this Local Focus feature, putting the spotlight on bands from two towns. For details about this Local Focus project, go HERE.)

 

A little while back Grant Skelton came up with the idea for Local Focus, which I find to be a great idea. Since I now split my time between Chicago for school and San Diego at home, I figured I’d do a double-feature of sorts on both, since I have things to talk about for both of them. With that, we’ll start with my hometown, San Diego.

CRYPTIC LANGUAGES

These guys are a relatively new stoner doom crew, forming in 2013, featuring Martin Arguelles on guitar, Lewis Davis on bass, and Ross Zafar behind the kit. They released their debut EP, Razorleaf, in November of last year, though I just recently got around to hearing it. It features three songs, though all of them are at least nine minutes long, and the final two are more than eleven minutes long. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AN UNHOLY ANARCHY COMPILATION, MALTHUSIAN, AIMA, GHOLD, BLEAK

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Mar 032015
 

This is another one of those new-music round-ups that I would normally label “Seen and Heard”, but it happens that everything I’ve collected here is so heavy and dark that “Shades of Black” seemed more fitting, even though the music isn’t exclusively black metal. Perhaps needless to say, I’m really high on everything collected here.

UNHOLY ANARCHY RECORDS

Yesterday, Maryland-based Unholy Anarchy Records released a stunning digital compilation of songs via Bandcamp. It’s a free download, but I’m sure that throwing a few bucks their way would be very much appreciated — and this thing is so damned good that a contribution would also be well-deserved. Continue reading »

KATAVASIA: “VIRGIN BLOOD”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 032015
 

 

In early February we introduced you (here) to a new Greek “supergroup” named Katavasia, through KevinP’s interview with the band’s guitarist Astrous (Aenaon) and the world premiere of a song from the band’s debut album, Sacrilegious Testament. Today, Katavasia have unveiled another new song from the album, entitled “Virgin Blood”, and we’re sharing that one with you, too.

For those who missed that earlier post, the band’s line-up also includes vocalist Necroabyssious (Varathron), guitarist/bassist Achilleas C (Varathron/Aenaon), drummer Foivos  (Agnes Vein), and keyboardist Haris (Hail Spirit Noir/Transcending Bizarre?). In addition, the album includes guest appearances by Sakis of Rotting Christ, and Sotiris Vayenas of Septicflesh — who provides a guitar solo on “Virgin Blood”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NEOLITH — “IZI.IM.KURNU-KI”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 022015
 

 

We’ve had the pleasure of premiering two decimating new songs by the Polish band Neolith from their fourth album, Izi.Im.Kurnu-Ki. — and today we have the privilege of helping to premiere a stream of the entire album on its release day.

As good as those first two songs were (“Of Angel and His Orison” and “Enlil”), the album as a whole is equally good. It’s a dynamic combining of melodic death metal and black metal, both atmospheric in its creation of a chilling, infernal aura, and absolutely pulverizing in its frequent explosions of grinding/thrashing riffs and hammering grooves.

The band make effective use of keyboards throughout the album, principally to enhance the music’s eerie atmosphere, but also to help the guitars carry the infectious melodies that move like slithering serpents through the high-speed bombardments and strafing runs that Neolith unleash. Continue reading »

AN NCE PREMIERE: OCCULT 45 — “HUMAN ABHORRENCE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

After releasing a debut EP, a couple of demos, and a split with Drones for Queens, Philadelphia’s Occult 45 have signed with Broken Limbs Recordings for the release of a new EP named Human Abhorrence — and we’re bringing you the premiere of a full stream right now.

The seven tracks on Human Abhorrence will only take about 12 minutes of your time, but Occult 45 pack a lot of highly varied mayhem into those minutes. If you’re like me, your first impulse after finishing it will be to let it run rampant through your head all over again, just to pick up what you missed the first time through. Continue reading »

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