REMNANTS OF 2013 (PART 1)

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
May 132014
 

(Austin Weber puts the spotlight on a big load of 2013 releases that he feels were overlooked.  This is Part 1 of a four-part piece; we’ll have the other parts on each of the remaining days this week.)

At a certain point, from time to time, trying to cover a lot of different bands in a single article can feel like a chore — a chore similar to an ugly child left in the ICU, one whom I have finally found the time to visit and finally snuff out! But I hope the emotional reaction you have is different from how it felt to complete another mammoth article. [Editor’s intrusion: I’ve divided this piece into four parts in an effort to make the readers’ emotional reaction more pleasurable.]

Much like last year, when I compiled a Remnants of 2012 post, I once again found some music I felt the metal scene greatly overlooked. Unfortunately, I’m overloaded in my life right now, so I don’t have time to write as much as I would like about each of these releases. A few of them are also from 2012, deal with it. And a few aren’t metal, deal with that too. Enjoy! Continue reading »

H.R. GIGER, DEAD AT 74

 Metal News  8 Responses »
May 132014
 

According to press reports this morning, Hans Rudolf (H.R.) Giger died in Zurich, Switzerland yesterday from injuries suffered in a fall. He was 74 years old.

He is of course best known to most of the world as the creator of the creature in Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie Alien, for which Giger won an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, but his work is also well known in the community of metal and rock because it has adorned the cover of some compelling albums.

Perhaps Giger himself put his finger on what has made him so beloved among metal heads (this, from a 1979 interview):

“My paintings seem to make the strongest impression on people who are, well, who are crazy. A good many people think as I do. If they like my work they are creative… or they are crazy.”

Continue reading »

WOLVHAMMER: “DEATH DIVISION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 132014
 

Wolvhammer’s new album is named Clawing Into Black Sun. That’s a name you should remember, because I’m betting it’s going to get a lot of very favorable attention both before and after Profound Lore releases it on my birthday. I have many good reasons for this bet, but I’ll give you three of them.

First, the band’s last two albums — Black Marketeers of World War III (which I reviewed in 2010) and 2011’s The Obsidian Plains (which I did not review because I’m a halfwit) — were very good. I even really liked their cover of “Burn” by The Cure that was included on a Record Store Day split with the The Atlas Moth last year (it’s streaming here).

Second, some talented people are in this band: guitarist Jeff Wilson (Abigail Williams, Chrome Wave, Doomsday, ex-Nachtmystium, ex-Krieg), bass player Joe Noel (ex-Samothrace, ex-Altar of Plagues (live)), vocalist Adam Clemens (ex-Iron Thrones), drummer Heath Rave (ex-Across Tundras); and new guitarist Brendan Seven.

And the third reason is “Death Division”. That’s the name of the new song that premiered yesterday at DECIBEL. Hell of a song. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VINTERBRIS, BINAH, TENGGER CAVALRY

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  15 Responses »
May 122014
 


Vinterbris — drawing by Kim Holm

A lot of music and videos reached my ears and eyes over the weekend and today, and I’ve been collecting the best of what I heard in a series of posts. I guess I could have called all of them “Seen and Heard”, but I labeled the first one today “Videography”, and the next one (to be posted tomorrow) will be “Shades of Black”. Here are the next three goodies:

VINTERBRIS

I first came across this band from Bergen (Norway) last month after discovering that the very talented Norwegian artist Kim Holm had created the cover art for their forthcoming new album, Solace. I found an advance song named “Fathoms”, liked it a lot, and featured it here. (You can listen to another one at Pitchfork, where Kim Kelly spotlighted it.)

Today Vinterbris unveiled a wonderful music video for another new song, “Dysphoria”, which fittingly features Kim Holm’s creation of artwork for the songs on the album. As the band have explained, nothing in this video is sped up or otherwise altered. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: VALLENFYRE, ABORYM, MASTIC SCUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 122014
 

Mondays are usually big days for metal premieres, and today is no exception. We had one ourselves (but of course you’ve already checked that out, haven’t you?), and I’ve selected a few more that I thought were worth spilling some words over — and worth your ear and eye time, too, of course. I’ve included two of them in this post, along with another recent premiere; all of these are new videos.

VALLENFYRE

I’m sure we could think or more things to write about this band’s new album Splinters, but we’ve written quite a lot already. So I’ll just crib from the last line of our review and leave it at that:  “Splinters is straight-up volcanic desolation at its finest”.

What’s new from Vallenfyre today is an official video for the title track, which premiered at Metal Hammer. It’s an excellent song and the video is a very well-made, very creative interpretation of the music. I quote from the band’s statement about the video: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: A FULL ALBUM STREAM OF MIASMAL’S “CURSED REDEEMER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  13 Responses »
May 122014
 


From the first seconds of the first song on Cursed Redeemer, Sweden’s Miasmal rip the door open on a death metal blast furnace, and the conflagration doesn’t diminish (much) from then until the album’s final notes. It’s an adrenaline rush that also happens to be adroitly composed and performed with top-shelf skill, and we’re damned happy to bring you a stream of the whole scorching thing, right here, right now, on the day before its US release.

Miasmal (who include two members of the excellent Agrimonia) call Gothenburg home, but don’t be fooled by the geography: This isn’t melodic death metal (though the songs do include a slew of memorable melodic hooks), and it’s not predominantly gore-drenched or doom-driven death metal either.

If you’re familiar with the history of death metal in Sweden, then you know that it was influenced in its early development more by punk and d-beat hardcore than the scene in the U.S., and that comes through loud and clear in Cursed Redeemer. But these dudes also know how to kick out some mighty galvanizing thrash licks, too. And they also deliver blunt-force trauma with convincing enthusiasm. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 68: DESECRESY, URSCHREI, NARROW HOUSE

 MISCELLANY  7 Responses »
May 122014
 

I’m bending the normal self-imposed rules of the MISCELLANY game today. Usually, the way this works is I randomly pick bands whose music I’ve never heard before, I listen to a song or two, I write my impressions, and I stream what I’ve heard so you can form your own judgments. For today’s installment of the series, however, the selections aren’t exactly random: The bands were recommended by people whose judgment I trust, and in all three cases I listened to a song before deciding to make them the subjects of this post.

The truth is, all three of these albums are ones I would really like to review in full, based on what I’ve now heard. But I’m so far behind in my reviews that I fear I’ll never manage it. Rather than run the risk of failing to write anything at all, I decided I would at least do this.

DESECRESY

Patrick Bruss, the main man behind the excellent Crypticus, recommended this first group, and it was a very enthusiastic recommendation — for which I am truly grateful.

Desecresy are a two-man band from Finland, and their new album (their third) is entitled Chasmic Transcendence. It was released in mid-April and is now streaming in full at the Bandcamp site of Spain’s Xtreem Music, where it can also be ordered and downloaded (here). Although I hadn’t previously heard of this band (so far as I can remember), the songs I’ve heard from this album have blown me away like an acorn in a hurricane. Continue reading »

BONUSES!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
May 112014
 

(DGR brings you this collection of bonuses, because he loves you. Well, maybe not you in particular, but the idea of you.)

Don’t worry, I know ninety percent of the time whenever my name pops up it’s because I’ve got another long review written up, and believe me, I’ve got three of those in the works. I’ve found myself stricken with a bit of writer’s block at the moment, though, so I began to distract myself by starting this article that you see here, and since then have found myself expanding upon it more and more. Now I am generally interested in potentially digging up rarer tracks and doing a series on them.

One of the things that has always aggravated the completionist side of my mind has been the release of limited editions and the inclusion of bonus tracks. I know I’m not the only one, but when it comes to content I tend to be one of those people who absolutely devours it and I need every single piece of it when it comes to albums that I have enjoyed and loved over the years. Of course, this often means there are always one or two songs that I discover later, recorded around the same time and included on some odd Japanese or rare edition, and oftentimes those songs are also great. But a lot of people may not even be aware that those tunes exist.

So what I found myself doing recently was starting to record my thoughts on bonus tracks in my regular reviews of albums here. However, there have been occasions when I really wish I had gotten the chance to go more in depth with those songs, or wound up neglecting them for many a reason — the review copy didn’t have them, general forgetfulness, or just no way to add another paragraph to the already ridiculously long tome of a review I had written. However, I still had those thoughts half-recorded or germinating, and I figured I’d finally take the time to expand upon them and let people know about some of the recent extra songs they may have missed and whether they’re worth hunting down. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 88)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  13 Responses »
May 112014
 

Welcome to another (long-delayed) edition of THAT’S METAL!, in which I present images, videos, and occasional news items about events that I think are metal, even though they having nothing to do with metal music. For this installment I’ve collected a whopping 10 items.

ITEM ONE

As usual, I begin with an image, the one you see at the top of this post. It’s a drawing entitled “Single Note” made with pen and ink by an American artist named Ben Sack. The diameter of the original is 4 feet and the circumference is 12.5 feet.

Clicking on the image will allow you to see a larger version, but even that won’t reveal the astonishing degree of detail that Sack meticulously created, incorporating a variety of architectural styles both ancient and modern (and some that have never existed except in the imagination). Perhaps equally humbling is the fact that Sack is only three years out of college. Here are a couple of enlarged details from “Single Note”: Continue reading »

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: PLANNING FOR BURIAL, KING DUDE, STRIGASKÓR NR. 42

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
May 102014
 

Well, here we are at another Saturday, an unusual one for me because I was a good lad last night and did not celebrate the end of the work week by getting thoroughly shit-faced (you know, the whole “where did I leave my pants?” and “Is that my blood?” thing). It is therefore likely that I will welcome the dawn of the new day.

I say “likely” because I am writing this on Friday night, though it will be posted automatically on Saturday morning, and I can’t rule out the possibility that before I crawl out of bed on Saturn’s Day, a septic-tank pumper truck will lose control, do a barrel roll into my yard, and leave a load of raw sewage on my doorstep. I hate when that happens.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, I have some new music for you. And because Saturday morning promises to be an unusual one (barring a tragic sewage mishap), I thought I’d package together some out-of-the-ordinary songs. To be clear, they’re out of the ordinary under almost all circumstances, but they’re mainly out of the ordinary at this site because they’re different from the usual fare. But I hope you’ll still give ’em a spin. I’m sober, so trust me. Continue reading »

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