ISKALD: “NEDOM OG NORD”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 222014
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Norway’s Iskald, which just may be the best of their storied career.)

Majestic. Masterful. Malevolent.

Passionate. Progressive. Powerful.

No, those aren’t the taglines to this year’s latest Oscar-baiting epic, they’re the words that immediately came to mind whilst enjoying my first listen to Iskald’s fourth album Nedom Og Nord.

Now Black Metal, for all its evocative imagery and striking musical palette, can sometimes be a difficult genre to talk about… at least in a fresh way.

That’s not because it’s become completely swamped by cliché (like all genres, there are those who go beyond it, and those who sink beneath it…) but because there’s a particular vocabulary so closely tied to how we talk about the genre.

“Chilling”, “Frostbitten”, “Grim”… all words that evoke the cold, frozen heart of the genre, and all words which crop up (in various permutations) throughout any discussion of it and its myriad forms, from its most basic, to its most esoteric.

And there’s a feeling that Iskald know this, because this time around they’ve pulled out all the stops to make this album truly definitive. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HANGING GARDEN, DRUG HONKEY, VALLENFYRE, VETUR

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Jan 212014
 

I’ve been in a state of Seahawks-inspired delirium since Sunday morning. Apart from my own ridiculous heights of excitement, the city I call home as been completely engulfed in a similar type of out-of-body experience. Everyone wants to talk about Sunday’s win and the impending Super Bowl trip, even the people who are still trying to figure out how many innings it takes to complete a football game. You can’t listen to radio or watch any kind of sports-related TV without being engulfed in Seahawks talk (although much of it has consisted of uninformed yammering about Richard Sherman). Some of you have probably found yourselves in a similar environment in past years, but it hasn’t happened here in Seattle in a long, long time.

One result of all this is that I’m way behind on my usual search for metal news and new metal. This morning I did tear myself away from Seahawks mania long enough to check out a few things and put this post together.

HANGING GARDEN

If you haven’t heard the 2013 EP by Finland’s Hanging Garden, stop wasting time and go find it. I don’t want to have to tell you twice. I Was A Soldier (Lifeforce records) is worth your 15 minutes, and all the other minutes you’ll spend with it after the first listen. To give you some evidence of why the EP is so worthwhile, allow me to show you a video that premiered today for its final track, “Will You Share This Ending With Me?” Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 8

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  7 Responses »
Jan 212014
 

Welcome to Part 8 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

BEASTWARS

I thought this New Zealand band’s self-titled 2011 debut was stunning. The fact that they managed to top it with their second album in 2013 was genuinely impressive. Blood Becomes Fire (which I reviewed here) triumphs on the strength of Matt Hyde’s utterly dominating vocals and a phalanx of compelling, sludgy Clayton Anderson riffs. Add in James Woods’ bass lines, which mimic the grinding of tectonic plates deep in the Earth, and Nathan Hickey’s bone-breaking drumwork, and you get metal that’s as apocalyptically heavy as it is neck-snapping.

This was one of many albums released last year that had more than one song I thought was deserving of recognition on this list, but after many replays of this album, “Dune” has come out on top. I wrote in my review that “Matt Hyde has soul, and when he sings it sounds like he’s hacking up hot, smoking chunks of it.” You’ll understand what I mean when you listen to “Dune”. It’s also marked by massive chugging, a bass guitar that grinds like giant grit-encrusted gears about to lock up, and riffs that punch and rumble. It’s an intense song, but one that’s also physically compulsive. Continue reading »

A NEW AT THE GATES ALBUM?!? YES PLEASE!

 Metal News  19 Responses »
Jan 212014
 

I just read a post at Metal Injection that elevated my heart rate significantly above its usual slothlike repose. I have nothing else to add to what Greg Kennelty wrote, so I’m simply going to post it here to spread the exciting news. Feel free to excrete reproductive juices in the Comments.

“Oh my God I am so excited right now. Just minutes ago, At the Gates took to their Facebook page to post the below video. There was no description given or title for the video, and there is no description listed on YouTube. The comments section is also disabled.” Continue reading »

SOREPTION: “ENGINEERING THE VOID”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
Jan 212014
 

(Here we have TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Soreption, which will be released on February 18 by Unique Leader.)

I first heard about Swedish tech-death Cthulhu Soreption when Vildhjarta mastermind Daniel Bergstrom told me to check them out, hailing them as the new flagship name of technical death metal. I listened to their 2010 debut Deterioration of Minds and was blown away by their brand of mechanical madness. Not only were these guys tighter than advanced machinery, they knew how to write technical death metal that was engrossing on a musicianship level, yet still concise and to the point. That’s a pretty hard thing to do in this style, considering that the vast majority of kindred albums mainly suffer from the writing of songs that just meander through riff sprees and never stick out.

Soreption definitely nailed it with their debut, and now with the band’s sophomore effort Engineering the Void they have created the sonic equivalent of a planet destroyer. Seriously, the record is what I imagine the Earth getting crushed by a giant machine built for grinding planets into dust would sound like. It’s so cold, so devoid of mercy, that this would put anyone not up to the listen into a corner in the fetal position. It’s an autonomous meat grinder, a fucking genocide mechanism, this is tech death at its most pristine and most carnivorous. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 7

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  14 Responses »
Jan 202014
 

We present Part 7 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

BLOOD RED THRONE

Norway’s Blood Red Throne greeted 2013 with a new self-titled album featuring a new line-up of talent. Andy Synn summed it up as follows in his NCS review:

“Marrying the demented aggression of Cannibal Corpse to the teeth-grinding groove of Pantera at their most abrasive, shot through with touches of subtly complex guitar work a la Death at their most focussed and hostile, BRT’s seventh full-length album captures every aspect of their sound in microcosm, while also being their shortest, most refined, record since 2003’s Affiliated With The Suffering….

“…For all their extremity – and there are moments on this album where the mind-bending blast frenzy, the ravenous banshee howls, and the crushing meltdown riffage combine into an eruption of absolute face-melting extremity – Blood Red Throne are a band with real character. That, along with their monstrous, inhuman tightness (and unbelievable ability to consume alcohol) is their key strength.” Continue reading »

ESCHATOS, CRYPTODIRA, FALL OF THE ALBATROSS, LEFT IN DESPAIR: LIVE AT HAYMARKET WHISKEY BAR (JANUARY 14, 2012)

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 202014
 

(Austin Weber turns in the following show report, and we are once again grateful to Nik Vechery for the kickass photos accompanying his write-up.)

A few weeks ago I worked with a Long Island based group named Cryptodira to premiere their new EP An Unmarked Grave here at NCS. So when I found out they had tour plans that included a date in my hometown of Louisville, I knew to call photographer Nik Vechery, and the plan was set to cover the show.

Nik, as usual, spent the night drinking piss-poor PBR’s while I imbibed some higher-class microbrews that I’ve previously enjoyed called Zombie Dust and Gumballhead. Both are made by Three Floyds Brewery based in neighbouring Munster, Indiana. Each beer has a strange hop that features a unique (to my tastebuds) mango aftertaste that is mouthgasmically sublime.

I also met one-time guest NCS contributor and frequent commenter This is The News aka Tom and his wife, who apparently also reads No Clean Singing. But enough about beer and interwebz-real-life collisions, there was a show after all. What follows is a live music assessment formed by yours truly, the hermit hornswoggler. Continue reading »

CHECK OUT THE NEW SINGLE FROM THE HAUNTED: “EYE OF THE STORM”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jan 202014
 

Last June we were delighted to report that The Haunted’s founder Patrik Jensen had succeeded in breathing new life into the band by convincing two former members — vocalist Marco Aro (The Resistance, Face Down) and drummer extraordinaire Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, Paradise Lost) — to come back to the fold along with original bassist Jonas Björler, and by recruiting young guitar wizard Ola Englund (Feared, Six Feet Under) to join the  line-up. They have recorded a new three-song “single” entitled Eye of the Storm, which will be released by Century Media on January 21, and today they premiered the title track.

Jabbing riffs and swirling lead guitar arpeggios erupt over a deep, grumbling bass line and an immaculate drum track. A beautiful but all too brief guitar solo flies by, and Marco Aro howls the  lyrics in fine, caustic fashion. Feel free to debate whether the band have recaptured their past greatness, but at a minimum, this is a catchy, head-bobbing number that’s got me smiling. Listen after the jump. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “HARVEST OF SHAME” BY FIRST REIGN

 Album Reviews, Premieres  9 Responses »
Jan 202014
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by First Reign from BC, Canada, and we bring you the premiere of a full-album stream.)

What a beast of an album.

Non-European melodic death metal that’s REALLY good is really hard to come by. It always has been. For every one band from somewhere else, you could name three European bands of at least equal weight. First Reign are a Canadian band who I believe are at the head of the class of what they do. I’ve covered them before, reviewing their debut EP, but with the band’s debut album, Harvest of Shame, they’ve undergone a transformation. They are more technical, more progressive, and with a much darker tonality.

Imagine the ferocity of At the Gates, the guitar acrobatics and power-metal clean interjections of Into Eternity (pre-Stu Block), and a Death-like sense of composition, combined with some traditional death metal carnage, and you have First Reign. Harvest of Shame is a bleak, twisting labyrinth of melodic death metal might. The band’s seamless integration of their various influences and their commitment to producing melodic death metal that is truly their own is astounding. I’d be hard-pressed to name any one band who truly sounds like this one, even though I can rattle off the names of others who have laid the groundwork for their sound. Continue reading »

THE KENNEDY VEIL: “TRINITY OF FALSEHOOD”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Jan 202014
 

(DGR reviews the new album by The Kennedy Veil, which is being released on January 21 by Unique Leader. Stream the full album at the end of the end of the review.)

Every city has its own musical niche and story to tell. Sacramento is no different. Our heavy metal scene has grown and shifted into a thrashing beast over the past decade. Instead of the kind of city that seems to produce one big band per decade, it has become one that has delivered some of the heaviest groups out there, making Sacramento something of a force to be reckoned with.

We may not do ambient too often, but it seems that right now Sacramento has decreed that we can do brutality with the best of them and that we eat death metal for breakfast. It was in this atmosphere that The Kennedy Veil was founded way back in 2009, a group that served in part as a reaction to the -core side of metal invading the death metal side a little too much for their tastes. While they never fully eschewed that sound, the group became known as one of the faster and more technical death metal bands out there.

They released an album in 2011 entitled The Sentence Of Their Conqueror, and it was on the strength of that, as well as a relentless live push, that the band signed with Unique Leader — which honestly felt like a forgone conclusion, because if there was a label that the band would’ve slotted right into, it was the young upstart Unique Leader. Continue reading »

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