AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACKWITCH PUDDING — “GODS OF GRUNGUS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jul 152014
 

 

There’s some kind of party going on at the beginning of “Gods of Grungus”, the song we’re premiering today by Portland, Oregon’s Blackwitch Pudding. It sounds like a party that’s about to get way out of hand — and then the pounding starts, bones begin to splinter, and the splash of viscera begins to paint the walls red. Or at least that’s what I was imagining while I banged my head ’til the vertebrae began to disjoint.

The song is one of four that will appear on the band’s forthcoming EP, Covered In Pudding Vol. 1, which follows the 2013 debut album by these three robed wizards, Taste the Pudding. It’s a methodically pulverizing concoction, loaded with craggy monolithic riffs, gut-jarring bass and drum hammering, and vocals that are choked with gravel, booze, and the contents of a full ashtray. As this demented and doomed party continues, the guitar begins to squall and wretch like the victim of a ritual sacrifice. The song is a putrescent mass of riff infection, and it’s really damned easy to catch the disease.

If you’re in the mood for some filthy stoner doom that you can carry around in your head all day, look no further. Bonus points if you can figure out the song that these doom wizards are parodying. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MORTALS

 Interviews  7 Responses »
Jul 152014
 

photos by Samantha Marble

 

I don’t consider myself a very good interviewer, which is why I don’t do it very often. Of course, this means that my deficiencies in skill are compounded by inexperience. But I really, really like the new album by Brooklyn-based Mortals — Cursed To See the Future — and when I learned more about the fascinating backgrounds and day jobs of the three women in the band, I felt I had to put my insecurities aside and try to talk with them.

And that happened last week. It started as a Facebook chat and ended via e-mail, and I had a blast. I also learned a valuable lesson about interviewing: When the people you’re questioning are smart, funny, and really interesting, the resulting interview can be highly entertaining even when you, the interviewer, don’t know what you’re doing. You just have to keep the subjects talking.

In this case, the subjects were Caryn Havlik (drums), Elizabeth Cline (guitar), and Lesley Wolf (vocal and bass) – and I’m very grateful to them for giving me so much of their time (and for indulging all the jock questions).

Before getting to the questions and answers, I think it’s important that you listen to a Mortals song or two, just in case you don’t know what they sound like. Because when you hear the way they sound, I think it’s going to make the conversation even more interesting. So, listen to these: Continue reading »

DAVID GRAY GOES DARTH VADER GOES LEGO GOES AKERCOCKE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 142014
 

Here’s just a short little something something that may make you smile, as it did me.

Akercocke may sadly be no more, but the spirit of the band lives on… in Legos. What you’re about to see is an animated video made by Akercocke fan “LegonardoDaFinci“, using Legos. It stars Darth Vader (aka Blast Vader) in the role of Akercocke’s drummer David Gray in a “drum play-through” of part of the song “Eyes of the Dawn” from Akercocke’s Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone (2005). LegonardoDaFinci did something like this before, in a Lego-ized tribute to Cryptopsy (here).

David Gray, of course, is still alive and well and performing in the UK black metal band Voices along with former Akercocke members Peter Benjamin and Sam Loynes. Their debut album From the Human Forest Create a Fugue of Imaginary Rain was released in March 2013 by Candlelight — and, what the hell, I might as well embed the player for that album right after the video. Continue reading »

DOOM QUIZ PART 3: ALTAR OF OBLIVION, BARABBAS, BONEWORM, MATUS, EVOKE THY LORDS

 Interviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 142014
 


Altar of Oblivion

(Today our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks brings us Part 3 of a six-part series in which he puts the same five questions to doom bands from around the world, and introduces us to their music at the same time.)

Sometimes I use this unpopular “quiz” format because there are too many interesting bands that I would like to bring to light, and in my opinion it’s a good way to spread some news and to get new points of view on a few issues (including even some political questions). The list of questions I put to the bands is below:

1. What is the band’s latest news and what are your plans for the near future?

2. What do we get (in the broadest sense) from the release of your last album?

3. What is the best response that your band has ever received?

4. What role does the church (or any other religious organization) play in your life or (let’s take it wider) in the life of the heavy scene? Is there any spiritual, religious, or antireligious component in your songs?

5. What does the Media in your country tell about the situation in Ukraine? And how do you see that situation? Some people from other countries have asked me strange questions about Russia’s policy, and let me say that I have a few friends in Ukraine and my colleagues have relatives there, and believe me, there’s no media in ANY country that is showing the problem as it really is. We can watch as the Cold War turns into real warfare.

Today, we bring the answers to these questions from Altar Of Oblivion (Denmark), Barabbas (France), Boneworm (USA), Matus (formerly Don Juan Matus) (Peru), and Evoke Thy Lords (Russia). Continue reading »

LISTEN TO THIS NEW ENTOMBED SONG (AGAIN): “VULTURE AND THE TRAITOR”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Jul 142014
 

 

Sweden’s Entombed A.D. have recorded a new album named Back To the Front, and it’s finally due for release by Century Media on August 4 in Europe and August 5 in NorthAm. As you can see, it features a great piece of cover art by Zbigniew Bielak. It also features the talents of L-G Petrov, Nico Elgstrand, Victor Brandt, and Olle Dahlstedt. Why this group are calling themselves Entombed A.D. instead of Entombed is a long story that you can read about somewhere else. What I want you to do is listen to this new song “Vulture and the Traitor” from the album.

Actually, you may be listening to it a second time, because it briefly appeared on YouTube last November. That turned out to be an unauthorized posting because it was removed after I wrote about the track back then. If you missed that clip, don’t miss this one. It has a definite old-school feel in its sludgy riff tone and in its mix of d-beat, punk, and hardcore rhythms. L-G Petrov’s completely distinctive throaty vocals are in great form, and the song also boasts a hot-as-hell guitar solo. I really am enjoying the song (again).

You can also bang your fuckin’ head to a previously released single from the album named “Bedlam Attack”, which appeared in late May; it includes some very cool off-speed sections in addition to all the curb stomping — and holy shit, those vocals… Both tracks come right after the jump. Continue reading »

JUMP-START YOUR MONDAY WITH TEMPLE OF VOID, DAJJAL, MUTILATION PROCESS, AND ZOMBIEFICATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 142014
 

If you’re like me, you have a hard time getting your game face on for the work week when Monday mornings roll around. But assorted friends of mine pointed me to two new songs yesterday that seem tailor-made to juice up all those sluggish Monday-morning brains out there, and I’ve also included a review of a murderous two-song EP plus one phenomenally good new Zombiefication track I found on my own that will finish the job nicely. Death fucking metal.

TEMPLE OF VOID

In June 2013 I praised a three-song demo by Detroit’s Temple of Void, which included some truly staggering, mega-weight riffs and a blanket of indigo melodies, usually delivered at a lumbering pace, along with elements of viscera-draped death metal a la Autopsy, a pummeling of Bolt-Thrower-style hammer blows, and some inspired psychedelic guitar solos. Now these dudes have finished a full-length album (Of Terror and the Supernatural), and yesterday an advance track became available for listening.

“Savage Howl” is a fitting name for this thing. The big gear-grinding guitar chords are savage, the gruesome deep-throated vocals are savage, the morbid melodies are savage, and when the band start rolling out a repeating cycle of enormous, stomping riffs, you will headbang savagely. This is top-shelf supernatural death/doom and a really enticing teaser for the album to come. Continue reading »

PANOPTICON’S “ROADS TO THE NORTH” — A REVIEW AND A NEW SONG TO STREAM

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jul 142014
 

 

Let’s face it: Kentucky is a very hard act to follow. In my case, it would probably be impossible for anyone, including Panopticon’s Austin Lunn, to re-create that experience of slack-jawed wonder when I first heard it. But Panopticon’s new album Roads To the North isn’t a re-creation of Kentucky, any more than Kentucky was a repetition of the albums that preceded it. It is, however, every bit as good.

The Panopticon albums with which I’m familiar (from Collapse on) have been very personal records. They’re a function of Lunn’s moods and the subjects that happened to inspire him when he wrote the songs. Social Disservices was full of righteous fury. Kentucky reflected Lunn’s deep feeling about the history and culture of the state he then called home; it dealt with tragic aspects of Kentucky’s coal-mining industry, but you could also hear in the music that it was at least equally inspired by feelings of affection and passion for the place.

Unlike the last two albums, political themes don’t run through Roads To the North, or at least not as overtly. As Lunn has disclosed in interviews, it’s more a reflection of changes in his personal life over the last several years, including time spent in Norway learning a new profession (as a craft beer brewer), relocating from Kentucky to Minnesota to practice his new skills, and becoming a father, as well as changes in his perspectives about the world around him. But although the music may not be as politically charged as before, it’s no less passionate. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SERPENTS ATHIRST, KNIFE OF MELQART, UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Jul 132014
 

This is a small collection of new songs I discovered yesterday that explore the dark in very different ways. Two of the bands are newcomers, while the last is on the verge of releasing its third album.

SERPENTS ATHIRST

Serpents Athirst are a Sri Lankan black metal band whose discography consists of a 2011 split and a 2012 demo named Prevail. They have a new three-song EP coming out later this year entitled Heralding Ceremonial Mass Obliteration, and one of the new songs is now up on YouTube. I’m assuming that the image on the YouTube clip (above) will appear on the cover of the EP, because I really like it. I really like the song, too.

It’s appropriately named “Ritual Vomitting”, and I’ve listened to it a half dozen times since finding it yesterday afternoon via a link from a Facebook friend. The sound is utterly filthy, with a thoroughly grit-caked and grime-coated production, and for most of its putrid length the riffs and drums just roll forward in a repeating rampage of hammer blows, accented by the tick and shimmer of cymbals — but it’s electrifying. And the echoing vocals are fantastically horrific, ranging from rancid roars to something that sounds like the vocalist is being forcibly turned inside out. I’ll probably listen to it another half dozen times today. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: DAWN, ELUVEITIE, EXTOL, GHOULGOTHA, LOUDBLAST, MAVETH-EMBRACE OF THORNS, NEOCAESAR, TYRANT OF DEATH

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jul 122014
 

It was a rare Friday night for your humble editor, in that your humble editor didn’t get completely shit-faced. This means that I was able to listen to music on this Saturday morning without experiencing severe brain pain and heaving waves of nausea. I made my way through a long list of new songs and videos I had collected over the last few days, from which I’ve sifted a still pretty long list of things I commend to your ears and eyes, presented in alphabetical order with a minimum of words. But before getting to those, here’s a piece of somewhat older news I only discovered recently.

DAWN

Over the years since I began getting into metal I’ve done a lot of deep diving back into music that was released before I wised up, but I didn’t know about Dawn until just a few days ago. They were formed circa 1990 by guitarist Fredrik Söderberg (Cranium) and recorded a smattering of demos plus two albums (1994’s Nær Sólen Gar Niþer For Evogher and 1998’s Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)) before disbanding for nearly a decade. They’ve reactivated, and the line-up now includes, in addition to Söderberg, original vocalist Henke Forss (Retaliation) plus drummer Tomas Asklund (Gorgoroth, ex-Dissection, ex-Dark Funeral) and bass player Philip von Segebaden (ex-Afflicted, ex-Cranium). That’s a hell of a line-up.

Beginning in April, Century Media has reissued the band’s discography from the 1990s on vinyl, and Dawn have also been working on a new album. A “semi-official rehearsal track” has been up on YouTube for a while, though the song title apparently isn’t correct. Here it is, followed by a full stream of Slaughtersun: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EMPIRE AURIGA — “JUBILEE WARLORD”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 112014
 

Millennia of evolutionary adaptation are supposed too have given human beings certain survival instincts, and yet we’re inexplicably drawn to explore dark, haunted places where hidden dangers lie in wait and comfort, warmth, and light have been banished. Michigan’s Empire Auriga have seemingly made it their mission to capture those frigid, bereft sensations in their music. Eight years after their debut album Auriga Dying, they’re about to deliver a new album named Ascending the Solarthrone, and today we bring you the premiere of a new song from the album: “Jubilee Warlord”.

The word “jubilee” connotes a kind of celebration, but there is no joy in this song, only a dense atmosphere of mourning and anguish. The music moves glacially across icy waves of eerie, distorted, ambient melody punctuated by cannon-blast drum beats and wretched, skin-clawing howls. Prolonged piercing notes rise up and fall again, like rays of light trying to escape a crushing gravity well — without success. Continue reading »

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