AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AVULSED — “HORRIFIED BY REPULSION”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 172014
 

The Spanish death metal band Avulsed have been slaughtering souls and raping ears for more than two decades, and the passage of time seems to have had no effect on the strength and immediacy of their powers — their latest album, 2013’s Ritual Zombi, is a classic undead crusher (and as you can see, it’s adorned by deliciously grotesque artwork).

Part of what makes Ritual Zombi such a potent album is the sound of Dave Rotten’s voice. To steal the words from one appreciative review, “his decrepit, rumbling, nihilistic growls remain an immense feature here…. [He] gurgles like a human sewer spewing forth flesh-eating plasma”. But although his vocal presence strides the album’s landscape like a titanic golem, the record is also loaded with grisly riffs and suppurating guitar leads that have a way of getting stuck in your head.

Speaking of grisly old-school riffs and morbid melodies, we’re pleased to bring you the premiere of Avulsed’s lyric video for “Horrified By Repulsion” from Ritual Zombi. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AUROCH, MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, ZOMBIEFICATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jun 172014
 

Lots and lots of excellent new metal has begun streaming on the web over the last 24 hours — too much for me to gather together in a single post. But I’m going to make a start with this round-up of flesh-eating goodness, beginning with news of two full-album streams.

AUROCH

Taman Shud, the forthcoming new album by Vancouver’s Auroch, is already garnering a slew of highly favorable reviews. It will get one more as soon as I can kick myself in the ass hard enough to translate my own feelings into feeble words.

But in the meantime, you can hear the entire album for yourselves, because yesterday Profound Lore launched a full stream on YouTube — and I’ve embedded it after the jump. The album will be released on June 24 and can be pre-ordered here or purchased in digital form at Bandcamp. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISKORD — “LETHARGIC REGRESSION”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Jun 162014
 

(Austin Weber wrote the following introduction to our premiere of a new song by Norway’s Diskord.)

To metalheads, Norway is synonymous with black metal and all things grim and frostbitten. What metalheads don’t usually associate with Norway is death metal. So in that respect, the Oslo, Norway trio Diskord are a bit of an oddity, geographically speaking — and even more so when you consider that their brand of death metal calls to mind a largely American and old-school-influenced approach.

Hot on the heels of their 2012 disasterpiece, Dystopics, comes an appropriately titled new EP from the group: Oscillations. We at No Clean Singing are excited to bring you the first unholy taste of this upcoming effort with the premiere of “Lethargic Regression”.

“Lethargic Regression” is a schizophrenic entity, one that bounces uncomfortably between disorienting dissonant waves and split-second tempo shifts. The maddening assault hits like a calculated blend of Demilich on a bender with Atheist, Gorguts, and Immolation in tow, all the while frequently pulling you down toward the grave with Autopsy-esque lurches and pestilential pit-stops. Continue reading »

WATCH THE NEW MISERY INDEX VIDEO: “THE CALLING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jun 162014
 

Hot off the presses, we present a brand new music video by Baltimore’s Misery Index for “The Calling”, from their most excellent 2014 album The Killing Gods. It’s a fast-cutting montage of black-and-white, close-up film of the band performing the song and B&W scenes from one or more old movies with occult themes.

As you will see, the imagery suits the song very well. It was assembled by director David Hall at Handshake Inc., and he has once again done a bang-up job. Continue reading »

“AT WAR WITH REALITY”: AT THE GATES TO BEGIN RECORDING THEIR NEW ALBUM

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Jun 162014
 

I just saw a press release from Century Media in the NCS in-box that elevated by pulse rate: It announces that the seminal Swedish melodic death metal band At the Gates have completed pre-production work and are now ready to begin recording their new album, At War With Reality.

The album will be recorded by the same line-up who recorded Slaughter of the Soul (1995), and studio updates are expected either later this month or in July. The album is projected for release in October or November of this year. After the jump, you can watch a brief video message from vocalist Tomas Lindberg providing further details about the upcoming recording sessions.

To be honest, this is an enterprise seemingly fraught with peril. On the one hand, after having seen this band perform twice in recent years, including at MDF XII, I could hardly be more excited to hear new songs from them. On the other hand, how can they top themselves — or even equal the massive impact their existing albums produced, given the passage of so much time? Continue reading »

DISSOLUTION: “NATURAL SELECTION”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jun 162014
 

(DGR reviews the third album from Canada’s Dissolution, released in April 2014.)

There probably isn’t a single thing that ignites the self-righteous music fan’s fury more than the “for fans of” sticker that will often grace the front of their favorite underground bands’ CD releases. Rarely, we proclaim, is such a thing ever right — those other bands have never even gotten close to my favorite band’s genre, or their sound. It pigeonholes them! And why in god’s name do all of the stickers say, “For fans of The Black Dahlia Murder?!”.

We then usually shake our fists at the sky and go outside and download the thing from Itunes anyway.

However, and I preface this with some hesitation since I have been known to rage on the “for fans of” sticker myself, they do occasionally get it right and nail a band right in the wheelhouse of their sound. It’s a bit too reductive of a practice, but considering that the labels have a split-second to capture someone’s attention in a record store, I can see why it is done.

I open this review of Canada-based death metal band Dissolution’s newest album Natural Selection with such a musing, because this is a disc that I can easily recommend to people via the “for fans of” sticker method. Do you enjoy Carcass? Have you missed The Absence during their seemingly endless break? Because if so, then do I have the album for you. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 69: VIT, HOTH, MONUMENTOMB, FAIL TO DECAY

 MISCELLANY  8 Responses »
Jun 152014
 

Welcome to another edition of MISCELLANY. Here’s how this game works: I pick bands whose music I’ve never heard, usually focusing on under-the-radar groups who may have been overlooked by our readers. The selection process is fairly random. In this case I picked a couple bands who were recommended to me by a friend and a couple whose names came from the band themselves or their PR people.

I try to limit my listening to a song or two and then write my impressions, while streaming what I heard so you can form your own opinions. I don’t know in advance whether I’ll like the music, so there’s an element of surprise involved (good or bad) — though in this case I had some reasons for believing the music would be worthwhile. Here we go…

VIT

Vit’s 2013 EP The Dry Season came highly recommended from Ryan Schutte of Seattle’s Lb.! (he called it “a masterpiece”). The EP is available on Bandcamp, and upon visiting that page I saw that the EP includes guest appearances by Austin Lunn (Panopticon) on resonator guitar and banjo and Johan Becker on violin.

A little more poking around revealed that Vit’s drummer John Kerr is also a bandmate of Lunn’s in Seidr. And then I saw that the EP was mixed by Topon Das (Fuck the Facts) and mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD) — and after all that my expectations had grown quite high. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KILL-TOWN DEATH FEST, THRONE, VILKACIS, FELIX MARTIN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Jun 152014
 

Well, it’s Sunday, and that means … more blog posts! I have three in mind for today. Of course, having them in my mind and getting them out on the web are two different things, but at least there will be this one — a Sunday round-up of things I spotted yesterday.

KILL-TOWN DEATH FEST

This first item falls into the category of Things Worth Applauding Even Though I Will Never Hear Them. This is a very small category, especially when it comes to tours and festivals that I can’t see, because if they look really enticing they usually just make me green with envy and kind of ill-tempered and not in an applauding mood.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the Kill-Town Death Fest. It will take place on September 4-7, 2014, in Copenhagen, Denmark, which might as well be Mars as far as I’m concerned. But good god almighty, look at that just-announced FINAL line-up on the above poster! (If you’re having any trouble reading it, clicking on it will make it bigger.) I mean, all those bands are so up my alley that I can’t even take a piss in it any more because there’s no room left! Hail Santa and all his elves!

If you’re lucky enough to live within striking distance of this thing, please don’t tell me because that will open my bile ducts I’m very happy for you. More info and ticket sales can be found here. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PANTHEON I, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION, BASTARD SAPLING, ESKAPI

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 142014
 

Hey motherfuckers, what up? (I feel I can call you a motherfucker because this is a metal blog and about half the metal bands I’ve seen on stage call me and everyone else in the audience a motherfucker at least a dozen times per set.) I’ll tell you what up with me.

I’m not watching the World Cup, because if I wanted to watch dudes run around for 90 minutes trying to score, I’d rather go to a bar. (I read that on the internet.) Or I’d go outside and set an ant bed on fire (they’d run around faster, though no more intelligibly, and it would all be over sooner). What I’ve been doing is crawling through the interhole finding things to write about on a Saturday morning. In particular, these things:

PANTHEON I

I saw the recent news that this Norwegian band have prepared a new album named From the Abyss They Rise and have signed with Non Serviam Records for its release on August 11. In fact, it’s already available for pre-order (here). From what I read, it appears the album will be a compilation, beginning with an EP’s worth of new songs and ending with music from their first demo. This is their first work in four years, and based on what they’ve done before, it should be worth checking out. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BLACK CRUCIFIXION, GATECREEPER, NICHOLAS BARKER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 132014
 

I spied three videos this morning that I commend to your attention.

BLACK CRUCIFIXION

I am a pathetic excuse for a human being. Among other reasons, I failed to review one of the 2013 albums I most enjoyed — Coronation of King Darkness by Finland’s Black Crucifixion. I only managed to write about a single song after it premiered in advance of the album’s release. Pathetic.

This morning I was reminded of my abject failure by the debut of an amazing video for a song from that album named “Heroes End Up On Gallows”. The video was eight months in the making, and it is a striking work of dark and fiery beauty. We are seeing it now because Coronation of King Darkness will soon be released on vinyl by Svart Records, with a gatefold sleeve and new cover art (above). Continue reading »

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