LISTMANIA 2014: A BIG YEAR-END LIST FROM AUSTIN WEBER

 LISTMANIA 2014  27 Responses »
Dec 092014
 

 

(NCS writer Austin Weber brought us this big list of his personal favorites from 2014, divided into 7 categories.)

I hate to begin with the obvious and easiest intro, but 2014 really was one hell of a prolific year for quality metal releases from all stripes and sub-genres. I felt slightly overwhelmed, but I found a lot of killer releases by new bands this year, in addition to new releases by the many bands I was already aware of, many of whom took evolutionary leaps my feeble mind could not have possibly predicted. And the future still looks bright for metal potential. So, all is well.

As I did with my last two years’ “best of” lists, I chose to skip over many of the names that would appear on most lists, in favor of more underground or less championed fare. This is to give you, the reader, a shot at hearing more quality releases from the year, beyond the same pile of releases whose names will be hammered into your brain by a multitude of other year-end lists. The intro to this article goes on for too long; if it’s TLDR to you, skip to the lists. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2014: A YEAR-END LIST FROM PATRICK BRUSS (CRYPTICUS)

 LISTMANIA 2014  16 Responses »
Dec 092014
 

(I invited Patrick Bruss, aka Crypticus, to share his year-end list with us, because I had a high degree of confidence I would like everything on it that I knew about and would need to track down everything else I didn’t know about. And I was right.)

 

BRUTALLY DECEASED – Black Infernal Vortex

Listen to those chainsaws! Lots of Sunlight Studio-style bands these days, but only a few have the special rotted & filthy feeling that made those DISMEMBER & GOD MACABRE albums so much fun. These guys are bathing in it. Savage yet melodic riffs & a slaughterhouse production.

http://brutallydeceased.bandcamp.com

 


Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2014: NPR MUSIC’S 50 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2014 (JUST THE HEAVY STUFF)

 LISTMANIA 2014  21 Responses »
Dec 082014
 

NPR (formerly National Public Radio) is an American national treasure, one that has somehow survived as a non-profit national radio and on-line broadcaster (with 900 public radio station members) despite largely weaning itself from governmental support. According to Alexa, its online site is the 138th most popular of all U.S.-based web sites and one of the top 1,000 in the world.

Today NPR Music posted a list of its 50 favorite albums of 2014. It’s a cross-genre list, reflecting the broad demographic of NPR Music listeners, but there’s some heavy stuff in the mix. As we’ve done occasionally in past years, I’ve siphoned off the metal albums from the overall list and am presenting them after the jump, just to give all us underground dwellers a sense of what’s presented to the NPR audience as the best metal of the year.

NPR didn’t rank those 50 albums, so I’m listing the metal releases in the order I saw them on the NPR list — which you can see in full here. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2014: A YEAR-END LIST FROM AUSTIN LUNN (PANOPTICON, SEIDR)

 LISTMANIA 2014  18 Responses »
Dec 082014
 

(We are grateful to Austin Lunn for accepting our invitation to share his favorite releases from 2014.)

There are a lot of releases this year that I have really enjoyed….so in no particular order here goes:

 

Wheels Within Wheels – Thirty Five Thoughts to Nineteen Elements

Mesmerizing, horrifying… a blown-out, hypnotic soundscape forming beauty out of the ugliness that man has made. This record, as all WWW records, is not for the faint of heart, but if you like blackened, doomy, droned-out dirges, this is for you. Don’t miss out.

Continue reading »

BEST ALBUMS AND EP’S OF 2014: A LIST FROM KEVINP

 LISTMANIA 2014  32 Responses »
Dec 082014
 

 

(In this post NCS contributor KevinP rolls out his personal list of the year’s best EPs and albums. To read his reviews of many of these albums, you can find them collected at Metal Bandcamp via this link.)

Another year stacked with quality releases.  There were so many, I neglected my family half the year to listen to them all.   I also decided to include EP’s this time around.  So let’s dispense with the blather and get to it.

TOP 5 EP’S

 

5.  (tie) Ascension – Deathless Light / Cult of Fire – Čtvrtá Symfonie Ohně (The Fourth Symphony of Fire) Continue reading »

“F” EVERYTHING: FIEND AND FVCK MOUNTAIN

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 072014
 

 

(DGR brings us some ugly ass music for the end of an ugly ass week.)

Allow me to be short and succinct with this opener: Work has kicked my ass these past two weeks and the holiday music is really starting to get to me. Long story short: Here’s two recent discoveries of sonic destruction that I’ve been using to sandblast my brain smooth so as to forget all forty thousand versions of Little Drummer Boy that I have to listen to each night while working on these projects/messes. Both albums are currently name your own price and conveniently enough, came out in October of this year.

FIEND

When it comes to grind releases, for me it’s a tossup as to whether or not I’ll truly enjoy it. Part of the reason is that there are subsections of grind that feel like the ultimate pick-up-and-play genre — just slam around on your instruments for a while and about five minutes later its guaranteed you’re going to have, well, something. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ASHCLOUD, AHAMKARA, AND PERDITOR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 062014
 

 

If you’ve been regularly visiting our site over the last week then you’ve seen me bitching and whining about having to work day and night on a project for my fucking day job on the other side of the continent from Seattle. I’ll finally be able to head home tomorrow, where other projects lie in wait like a school of piranha.

Today, after finally getting to sleep like a hibernating bear overnight, I’m not working (much) and I got the chance to check out some songs I’ve been meaning to hear. I’ve packaged some of them together in this post and hope you’ll like them as much as I have.

ASHCLOUD

Ashcloud is the new name of a band once known as Skinbag, whose members are Sweden’s Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Syn:drom, Skineater) and UK-based Gareth Nash (Body Harvest). They’ve recently signed with Spain’s Xtreem Music, and spring of 2015 will see the release of their debut album Abandon All Light, which will include remastered versions of songs from an unreleased Skinbag EP plus new Ashcloud tracks. The temporary cover art you see above will be replaced by artwork by Daniel Devilish. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: THE POPMATTERS LIST OF THE BEST METAL OF 2014

 LISTMANIA 2014  32 Responses »
Dec 052014
 

 

PopMatters is a popular culture web site with broad coverage of music, film, television, books, comics, software and video games — you name it. Its articles get picked up regularly by the mainstream media, and it claims a readership of more than 1 million unique visitors per month. In other words, it fits the profile of “big platform” web sites whose lists of 2014′s best metal we usually re-post here at NCS as part of our own LISTMANIA series.

Today, PopMatters published its list of “The Best Metal of 2014″, ranking the chosen albums from #15 to #1. The list was compiled by Adrien Begrand, Dean Brown, Brice Ezell, and Benjamin Hedge Olson. Like all of these metal lists from big sites whose content isn’t limited to metal, it’s a real mixed bag of picks, and of course the reason we post them here is to generate some discussion/controversy.Also, don’t be fooled — that graphic up there that I lifted from PopMatters is a head-fake. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2014: A LIST FROM GRANT SKELTON

 LISTMANIA 2014  19 Responses »
Dec 052014
 

 

(Grant Skelton, a recent contributor to our site, presents this list of his favorite albums of 2014.)

Below – Across The Dark River

This band are one of my first forays into doom metal. Like any metalhead, I always appreciate some Sabbath. But on the whole I’ve only recently begun to venture into doom. In all honesty, it’s been refreshing considering that doom seems to be one of the only genres in which the bands aren’t trying to out brutalize one another. If anything, doom bands seem to try to play slower than many of their counterparts (Sunn O)) for example).

“Portal” was the first song I heard from this album, and is definitely one of the standout tracks from the record. Even though it was released back in the spring, it is very appropriate for winter. Every track on this album is dark, dreary, head-nodding doomy deliciousness. If drummer Doc (Jens Vestergren) is using trigger pads for his bass kicks, then they are subtle and devoid of any “clicky” sound. The bass coats the guitars like varnish. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, LORD MANTIS, THE CROWN, BAPTISTS, FINSTERFORST, HONGO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 052014
 

 

I’m still on the east coast of the US working day and night for the old fucking day job and have had almost no time to search out new new music and write about it — until last night, when I did have enough time to round up this big collection of recommended new videos. Some of these you may have seen already since I wasn’t able to pounce on them with my usual alacrity and grace, but I’m willing to bet big money you haven’t seen all of them.

P.S.  The end is near — I’ll be back in Seattle by Sunday, and things should get a little closer to normal around here after that.  (Thank you, please hold your applause so that others may enjoy the videos.)

BEHEMOTH

You’d think the mighty Behemoth would have done a live video before now, but this new one for “Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer” off The Satanist turns out to be their first ever. The video, which was filmed by Grupa 13, is really, really well done. Of course, the song is a blasphemous killer. Continue reading »

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