NO CLEAN SINGING

THAT MR. PICKLES IS ONE METAL DOGE!

Mar 152014

Hey, I’ve been drinking mayonnaise, but I think Mr. Pickles is one metal doge! I think you will, too, even if you’re laying off the mayonnaise.

What? You don’t know about Mr. Pickles? Read this description of the new Adult Swim cartoon series, coming this fall:

“In Mr. Pickles, the urban sprawl of modern society pollutes the old-fashioned town where the Goodman family lives with their lovable pet dog, Mr. Pickles, a deviant collie with a secret satanic streak. From creators Will Carsola and Dave Stewart.”

Go ahead, watch the pilot for the series next. Trust your old pal Islander: No matter what else you see today, it will not top this video for sheer undiluted whatthefuckedness. Continue reading »

NEW MOSH MEAT FROM XIBALBA AND SUBURBAN SCUM

Mar 152014

Some people have no use for a mosh pit. They prefer to go to shows and watch and listen and do their own thing in their own space. In my case, I’m too old and too big to mosh very much any more. My cat-like reflexes have dulled to the point of being loris-like, and there’s now a high risk I’d either wind up on my ass or inadvertently send someone else to the ER. But I’m damned sure if I heard either one of these next two songs at a live venue, I wouldn’t be able to resist.

The songs come from a new split by California’s Xibalba and New Jersey’s Suburban Scum. It will be released May 13 by Closed Casket Activities, both digitally and on 12″ vinyl. I liked the fuck out of Xibalba’s 2012 Southern Lord album Hasta La Muerte and have been eager to hear what they came up with for this split. I hadn’t come across Suburban Scum before; their last release was a 2012 EP entitled Hanging By A Thread (on 6131 Records).

Yesterday Closed Casket Activities started streaming one song from the split by each band. Xibalba’s “Death Threat” is heavier than the massed assemblage at your average truck-stop diner. Continue reading »

LISTEN TO TWO NEW TRIPTYKON SONGS: “BREATHING” AND “BOLESKINE HOUSE”

Metal News 3 Responses »

Mar 142014

In early February, Century Media announced that it and Prowling Death Records Ltd. intended to release the second album by Triptykon on April 14 in Europe and April 15 in North America. The title is Melana Chasmata, which according to Century Media means (roughly) “black, deep depressions/valleys”. It will feature nine songs and a playing time of around 67 minutes. The cover art is above, and yes, we have yet another pairing of HR Giger and Triptykon. And now we’re pleased as fuck to bring you a stream of two album tracks: “Breathing” and “Boleskin House”.

“Breathing” is absolutely bruising and massively headbangable (massively). The riffs are titanic, V. Santura turns in a screaming guitar solo, and Tom G Warrior sounds like Tom G Warrior and no other. Of its own accord, this chugfest of a song vaulted right onto our list of candidates for 2014’s most infectious extreme metal songs.

“Boleskin House” comes next, and it’s something else altogether — a slow, rumbling, grinding, bleak behemoth that lumbers and stomps, with a change in vocal style and a fat load of tribal drumming, concrete-scraping bass leads, and psychedelic guitar melody. And still… it’s massively headbangable, too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLACK JESUS, DEATHEMBER, COGNITIVE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Mar 142014

As we confront the brink of the weekend, what I have for you here are three new songs that are a hell of a lot of vicious fun for your earholes.

BLACK JESUS

Today CVLT Nation premiered five tracks from an album by a Melbourne, Australia band named Black Jesus. I’m not sure whether the album includes more tracks and I have no idea at the moment when or how the album will be released. But I started listening to it as soon as I saw this description: “The Black Jesus sound is a melting pot of 80’s Punk/ Hardcore & D-Beat pioneers Discharge, meets From Enslavement to Obliteration era Napalm Death and Entombed’s Left Hand Path. It is entirely unpretentious, completely exhilarating, and has a nasty ‘f* off’ attitude to match.”

I was in kind of a rush to get this round-up done, so I haven’t listened to all the tracks that are streaming, but I sure as fuck like what I’ve heard so far. Take the title track, for example. It puts a charge into the old brain stem right from the get-go with a mess of sawing riffs, scalding vocals, and delicious drum swarms. You definitely do get that Discharge / Entombed feel, but when the song passes the 2:00 mark it turns into a freight train chugfest that will give you some serious neck sprain. Damn, this is a blast. Continue reading »

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT / TALANAS / BEYOND GRACE — UK TOUR REPORT

Concert Reviews, Metal News 8 Responses »

Mar 142014

(Andy Synn provides this report on the recently completed UK tour by The Monolith Deathcult, Talanas, and Andy’s band Beyond Grace.)

So I’ve been harangued into putting together a short (relatively) report of the happenings and happenstances of our tour last month. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure where to start as I’m writing this now, other than to say that – despite the inevitable stresses that came about – I wish I was still on tour now. Playing a show every night, to new people, in a new place… well, that 30 mins onstage you get makes all the rest of it worthwhile.

DAY 01 – BRIGHTON, STICKY MIKE’S FROG BAR

My first piece of advice for any of you going on tour – try to get a good night’s sleep the night before you leave. Definitely don’t stay up late sending out digital promos and organising the launch of your new EP so that you only have time to get in 3 hours before having to go collect the van, drive it back to load your backline, then drive down to London (and then on to Brighton). Yeah, don’t do that. Continue reading »

A NEW ABORTION FROM ABORTED: LISTEN TO “NECROTIC MANIFESTO”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Mar 142014

This week has brought a cornucopia of song premieres from albums we’re highly anticipating, including new goodies from Hour of Penance, Misery Index, Massacre, and Eyehategod — and this morning we got one more: DECIBEL magazine debuted the title track from Necrotic Manifesto, the forthcoming monstrosity from Belgium’s Aborted, and you can listen here as well.

Man, it is one decimating track, with this death/grind war machine firing on all cylinders: brutally militaristic snare attacks; flesh-raking riff assaults; Sven De Caluwe barking and screeching like a rabid mastiff; explosive bass drops; and an infernally inspired guitar solo that will pop out your eyes and make you drool. What a fine, fine introduction to this necrotic new album. Continue reading »

COLTSBLOOD: “INTO THE UNFATHOMABLE ABYSS”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Mar 142014

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the debut album by Liverpool’s Coltsblood.)

Pure soul-crushing, bowel-clenching, knee-shaking doom. That’s what we have here. Make no mistake, this is not designed to be a pleasant or an easy listen.

This whole album is a bleeding, gasping slog through a black morass of sludgy, slime-drenched chords and crumbling, fractured vocals, punctuated by sky-splitting explosions of crackling snare.

It’s dense. It’s claustrophobic. It’s brutish and unrepentantly severe.

And I love it. Continue reading »

APHONIC THRENODY / ENNUI: “IMMORTAL IN DEATH”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Mar 142014

I’ve been trying to understand why I find the kind of music on the excellent new split by Aphonic Threnody and Ennui (entitled Immortal In Death) so appealing. I didn’t always. When I got into metal, the music that grabbed me raced like thoroughbreds with their bloodstreams flooded by adrenaline. Immortal In Death moves like draught horses pulling a granite crypt, with no finish line in sight. Yet the music is immensely powerful and emotionally intense despite its glacial pacing and its black moods. It overwhelms the senses, maybe even more thoroughly than the kind of high-octane romps that were my first loves.

Each band contributes one very long song to the split, and although they are more alike than they are dissimilar, I’ll still take them one at a time.

APHONIC THRENODY

My own experience with this multinational funeral doom band (whose members come from other well-regarded underground groups) goes back to 2011, when I came across their debut album First Funeral (and wrote about some of the music here). Though the band favored long songs on that release (all of them in the 9-10 minute range), “Ruins” dwarfs them. It’s a nearly 21-minute monolith — and it represents Aphonic Threnody’s crowning achievement so far. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM HOUR OF PENANCE: “RESURGENCE OF THE EMPIRE”

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 13 Responses »

Mar 132014

Almost exactly two years have passed since Italy’s Hour of Penance delivered their last album, Sedition. Recently the band announced details about the release of their next album, the name of which is Regicide. It’s due for release by the Prosthetic label on May 13 in North America (May 12 in the UK and EU, May 16 in Germany). And today we got an official lyric video for the album’s first advance track — “Resurgence of the Empire”. You can watch and hear it after the jump.

The lyrical themes of the album revolve around tearing down the walls of ignorance and fear erected by religion and other “dysfunctional authorities” so that freedom might bloom. “Resurgence of Empire” by itself would serve quite well as a battering ram in that demolition project. It would work well on actual walls as well as metaphorical ones. You’ll find out why I say that momentarily. Continue reading »

ALBUM NEWS AND A TEASER OF MUSIC FROM VALLENFYRE

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Mar 132014

That album cover up there is one I want on a fuckin’ shirt ASAP. It was unveiled today by Century Media and it will adorn the second album by the mighty Vallenfyre, which is entitled Splinters. The artist is Brian D’Agosto. The album is now scheduled for release on May 12 in Europe and May 13 in North America.

I’m really, really eager for this album. We were early adopters of this band beginning when the first whispers of their existence surfaced back in 2010, and their debut album A Fragile King (2011) fully justified our early optimism. If you are somehow unaware of Vallenfyre, the band consists of Greg Mackintosh (Paradise Lost) on vocals and lead guitars, Hamish Glencross (My Dying Bride) on rhythm and lead guitars, Scoot (Doom, Extinction of Mankind) on bass, and drummer Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, Paradise Lost, The Haunted).

Today also brought the first taste of music from the new album. It comes in the form of a studio video that includes a minute and a half of the song “Scabs”. Continue reading »

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