Metal is mood music. A few recent cases in point:
RAWHIDE
“City Kids” puts you in the mood to pound six shots of whisky in rapid succession, rip your shirt off, start busting up the furniture, run out into the street and expose yourself to passing cars, pick fights in the nearest bar, black out, and wake up wondering how all that vomit got on your pants and whether that’s your blood in your mouth or someone else’s. Death punk ‘n’ roll.
(Andy Synn reviews the debut album by the London-based duo known as Chapters.)
Phew… we’ve been waiting a while for this one haven’t we? But honestly… it’s worth the wait.
Now I have a confession to make. When it comes to the UK/British metal scene I simply tend not to like most of what’s presented in the metal press as being the paradigm of what this fair isle has to offer. That’s not to say I don’t love a lot of British bands (even a cursory search of the site will show up a plethora of UK acts who I’ve praised to high heaven over the years), it’s just that the ones who seem to get all the acclaim and accolades are only the ones who fit certain trends… trends which I simply don’t have any interest in.
And then there’s Chapters, and their phenomenal debut album The Imperial Skies. Continue reading »
We don’t usually report news about tours unless they involve nationally or internationally known bands, because providing comprehensive daily news isn’t really part of our mission statement. But I’m making an exception in this post because the band is so damned interesting and because some friends in the Pacific Northwest provided the impetus for making this tour a cross-country reality.
The band’s name is Cleric and they’re from Philadelphia. I came across them in August through a recommendation by Ryan Schutte, guitarist for the awesome Seattle band Lb.! (pound) (who has since then helped Cleric arrange shows up in my part of the country). Back then, I listened to one long song from the band’s 2010 album Regressions that just completely blew my mind, and I wrote this:
This song is one of the most eye-popping, jaw-dropping, extravagant pieces of music I’ve heard all year. It’s almost 20 minutes long, and I was transfixed (and somewhat scared) the whole time. It’s an out-and-out barrage of freakazoidical, destructive, synapse-severing mayhem. It doesn’t follow a straight line, it doesn’t play nice, it doesn’t let up. A thoroughly brain-puréeing, remorselessly spine-crushing experience. Something like Portal, Blackjazz -vintage Shining, and Behold… the Arctopus communing in a hurricane. During an earthquake.
Four months after Regressions came out, they were robbed in Philadelphia “of nearly everything that helped to build and eventually portray their sound, and the closest they came to touring was driving to pawn shops looking for stolen gear.” The story I received in a press release today continues: Continue reading »
You want something new in your ears? I mean, other than a stranger’s tongue or that bedbug that crawled in there while you were sleeping? Well then, check out this selection of recommended new songs discovered over the last 24 hours.
SOLIUM FATALIS
I found out about this band (whose name means “Fated Throne”) thanks to a tip from my NCS comrade TheMadIsraeli. It’s the brainchild of New Hampshire guitarist Jim Gregory, but it also includes the superb Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Scarve, Bent Sea) on drums, Scarve bassist Loic Colin, and Excrecor guitarist/frontman Jeff DeMarco on vocals. Solium Fatalis released their self-titled debut album just days ago, and it features eye-catching cover art by Septic Flesh frontman/bassist Seth Siro Anton.
Two songs from the album are streaming on Bandcamp. I listened to them last night and they’re really good – a dynamic offering of blackened melodic death metal built upon excellent instrumental performances, a voracious vocal turn, and a well-crafted production that gives the music a sharp, heavy sound. Seductive Eastern melodies flow through the stately but savage “Molecular Devices” and the jolting fury of “The 7th Gate”. I don’t know why I haven’t heard more about this album, but I’m definitely going after it now (it’s available on iTunes and Amazon) Continue reading »
After almost four years of hit-or-miss experimentation, we’ve arrived at the glorious 60th edition of MISCELLANY. I wish I could tell you that I have something red-hot and extra-special lined up to celebrate the occasion, but that’s not the way MISCELLANY works. The way it works is that I randomly pick bands I’ve never heard, I listen to a song or two, I write my impressions, and I stream what I heard so you can make up your own minds.
All of which means that when I picked the following bands I didn’t know what they would sound like or whether they would be worth a damn: Omnihility (U.S.), Dejadeath (Spain), The Slow Death (Australia), and Elision of Animus (Portugal).
OMNIHILITY
I know I’ve heard this band’s name before, but I’m also pretty sure I never listened to their music until deciding to make them my first stop on this MISCELLANY tour after receiving a message from the band. They’re from Eugene, Oregon, which I confess warmed my heart, since I know they’re going to be enduring the same dank Pacific Northwest winter that I am, or something very close to it. Continue reading »
Most of today we were distracted by other things, and hence kind of light on the spotlighting of new music. Hell, even Andy Synn could only manage to write a three-line album review, though he did write three of them, and BadWolf was so distracted that he experienced temporary website confusion and wrote up a song premiere for someone else, though it was a really good write-up for a really hot song. I put up photos of calcified birds and bats. Just one of those fuckin’ days.
We’ll try to do better tomorrow. But I thought before I completely checked out for the day I’d throw one piece of audio-visual sweetness your way.
Take a pit-bull guard-dog that hasn’t been fed in a week and then taunt him until he’s barking and ready to tear your throat out. Add a full-throttle headless drummer wearing a Blotted Science shirt (high fives for that!). Throw in a couple of mutant guitarists and a bassist with super-animated fingers. Set all of them on fire and tell them you won’t put it out until they finish their song, and then stand way back and let them GO! Continue reading »
(Andy Synn delivers another installment of his irregular series of album reviews in haiku. Two more reviews come after the jump. With music.)
YOUR CHANCE TO DIE – THE AMERICAN DREAM
Throwing off the chains
Born from deathcore’s murky past
Rise with righteous wrath
https://www.facebook.com/yourchancetodiesc Continue reading »
(photo by Nick Brandt)
This isn’t a typical installment of our THAT’S METAL! series, in which we collect images, videos, and news items that we think are metal even though they’re not music. It features only one item. I had originally intended to save it for the next full installment, but it has been spread around the interhole so much over the last 24 hours that I felt if I waited, it would be old news to everyone.
The story originally appeared in the October 2013 print edition of New Scientist magazine, and then a couple of days ago it made it to the magazine’s web site. It’s about a lake in northern Tanzania (Africa) that turns animals into statues.
The temperature of Lake Natron can reach 60°C (140°F), but the real threat seems to come from the water’s high alkalinity (between pH 9 and pH 10.5). According to the article:
“The lake takes its name from natron, a naturally occurring compound made mainly of sodium carbonate, with a bit of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) thrown in. Here, this has come from volcanic ash, accumulated from the Great Rift valley. Animals that become immersed in the water die and are calcified.” Continue reading »
Ihsahn’s fifth solo album, Das Seelenbrechen, will be released by Candlelight Records on October 22 in North America. It can be pre-ordered here. Last month a song from the album named “Hiber” debuted on a BBC radio show. It was available at the station’s on-line site for a week. Today Candlelight made “Hiber” available for listening at Soundcloud.
“Hiber” is how the name is shown on Candlelight and Ihsahn’s Facebook pages and on the Soundcloud stream. However, previous press releases announcing the album’s track list spell it “Hilber”. A rose by any other name . . .
I’ve already raved about the song. I’ll rave about it again: It swirls and it stomps, it echoes and it pounds, the guitar spirals around complex rhythms, a string section takes wing, and Ihsahn claws with his voice (no clean singing on this one, thank you very much). It’s dark, disconcerting, and occasionally dissonant, but it will also stick with you. Imaginative, heavy music.
If you missed it when it was on the radio, have a listen now: Continue reading »
Beginning this Friday and for the following week, you will be able to stream Gojira’s 50-minute performance at Hellfest 2013, the French metal festival in Clisson, France. Gojira performed on June 23, and according to this site their setlist consisted of the following songs:
Explosia
Flying Whales
Backbone
The Heaviest Matter of the Universe
L’Enfant Sauvage
Connected
Remembrance
Wisdom Comes
Jam (Mario on guitar, Joe on drums)
Fire Is Everything
Oroborus
Where Dragons Dwell
As for where you can stream the film of the performance, well, you can do it right here because the player can be embedded and I’ve embedded it. Continue reading »