SEEN AND HEARD: ALFAHANNE, INTEGRITY, DYSCARNATE, MORBUS CHRON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

I intended to post this round-up of recommended new things yesterday, and even then the news and new music included herein was a bit dated. But life got in the way and I wasn’t able to finish it until now. In the meantime, even more new things hit my fractured radar screen. And so, if life will just stay out of the way, I’ll have another round-up for you later today.

ALFAHANNE

According to a press release I received, Alfahanne are a Swedish band formed in 2010 with members who have been in the black metal scene since the early 90’s in bands such as Vinterland and Maze of Torment — Pehr Skioldhammer (vox and guitar), Fredrik Sööberg (guitars), Niklas Åström (drums), and Jimmy Wiberg (bass). They released a split named Grym with Sweden’s Shining last year, which I haven’t heard. They’ve now recorded a debut album, Alfapokalyps, which is due for release via Dark Essence on February 10 in both CD and vinyl formats (orderable here).

In addition to featuring eye-catching cover art (above), the album includes guest vocal contributions from Niklas Kvarforth (Shining), V’gandr (Helheim), and Hoest (Taake). Recently, the band started streaming an advance track named “Såld På Mörkret”, which includes Hoest’s contribution as a vocalist. It’s a helluva song. Continue reading »

OCULUS INFERNUS — IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR EXAMINES HELLBEAR, KROSSBURST, AND SATANIKA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

(We welcome back Professor D. Grover the XIIIth (ex-The Number of the Blog) with what we hope will be the first of many regular appearances at our site. Today, he introduces the music of three bands whose names are new to NCS.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. It has been too long, it seems, and although my life is filled nearly to its brim, I find that the old urges to write still surface from time to time. Although I lack the time and attention to run yet another site independently, my good friend Islander has always been an exceptionally welcoming host, and No Clean Singing has perhaps the best base of readers to be found on the internet among the various metal sites out there. As such, when I decided to revive Oculus Infernus Industries on a part-time basis, I knew where I needed to go.

In this particular missive, I shall present to you three works from musical collectives with whom you may not be familiar. Fear not, as this is intentional. It is ever my aim to unearth those diabolically unknown recordings so that you may peruse them for yourselves and reach your own determinations regarding their true meanings. Let us commence. Continue reading »

2013 LISTMANIA WRAP-UP

 LISTMANIA 2013  19 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

With one or two possible late-arriving exceptions, our 2013 edition of Listmania has finally drawn to a close. Or to put it differently, since we’re halfway through 2014′s first month, I decided it was time to compile this wrap this up.

Our 2013 series of lists proved to be another extensive one — in fact, the biggest one in four-year history: We published more than 50 lists with accompanying commentary. Some of these were lists that appeared at other “big platform” web sites or magazines — places with large audiences, many of which cover musical genres well beyond metal. We also published our own staff lists, of course. But the largest group of list posts came from guest writers — NCS readers, band members, and fellow bloggers/writers. Plus, we also received many lists in reader comments on THIS POST.

In this article I’m collecting links to all of the 2013 list posts that we published. For people who are looking for the best metal that 2013 had to offer, these lists provide a tremendous resource.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to 2013 Listmania and to everyone who made time to read what we pulled together. Continue reading »

MECHINA: “XENON”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jan 152014
 

(DGR reviews the latest album by Chicago’s Mechina.)

My story with Mechina is one that is somewhat strange. If you’re in a band and people tell you that services like Last.fm are fucking useless, they’re lying to you. I am an old technology grognard and believe me, I have found tons of bands through Last.fm, and Mechina was one of the best surprises to ever come out of that service.

My discovery dates all the way back to when Andromeda came out at the end of 2011, and my review would prove to be one of the last things I wrote for my former site, an article that I titled, “I keep getting lost in Mechina’s Andromeda”. The song was a revelation. I am a complete sucker for symphonic elements in metal bands. Fleshgod Apocalypse, Dimmu Borgir, and Septic Flesh, for example, have been frequent go-to’s, yet they’ve all been in the black metal and more intense side of death metal realm. Mechina were different because they were more groove-oriented, with the industrial flair that made the band seem futuristic, not to mention that the concept behind each of the albums was slowly morphing into a science fiction epic. Continue reading »

LIFE IS ALL DYNAMICS

 Mosh Pit  20 Responses »
Jan 152014
 

(In this post, our man Andy Synn provides observations about the so-called Loudness War.)

The so-called “Loudness War” is an interesting – if ill-defined – phenomenon. Granted, it’s not a real war (as far as I know, no-one has died, nor have any regimes been overthrown or countries subjugated purely because of differences in mixing/mastering preferences), but it’s still a source of conflict among listeners, bands, and engineers.

To those of you unaware of the term (possibly due to being prematurely deafened), it is:

“a pejorative term for the apparent competition to master and release recordings with increasing loudness.” (Wikipedia)

And the main complaint about it is that it reduces/compresses the dynamic range of music, so you’re left with something aggressively homogeneous – with neither ups nor downs, neither highs nor lows… something actually less than the sum of its parts. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE OCEAN, BEHEMOTH, OBLITERATIONS, SOREPTION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 152014
 

Satan has been a busy little sulphurous bee this week. So many newsy metal announcements, so many new metally songs, more than my addled brain can keep up with. Here are a few of the items I spied over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing. More will come in another post today.

TOURISM: THE OCEAN / SCALE THE SUMMIT / THE ATLAS MOTH / SILVER SNAKES

Who are these people who are constantly blaring that “Metal Sucks” and why are they associating with miscreants such as The Ocean, Scale the Summit, The Atlas Moth, and Silver Snakes? I must add that question to the long list of life’s mysteries to which I must devote my investigative energies. Whoever those people are and whatever obscure impulses motivate them, they are presenting a U.S. tour of the afore-mentioned miscreants, wisely choosing to launch it in The Emerald City, for which I will give thanks by sacrificing a neighbor’s child under the next full moon.

Other less important cities will be visited by this very impressive line-up, and I will list them after the jump for those whose eyesight isn’t sharp enough to discern them on the tour poster above. And speaking of the line-up, though I have been savaged by the first three bands in previous musical performances, Silver Snakes have not had the pleasure of savaging me before, and in fact I was unaware of their existence before those people who blare “Metal Sucks” presented them in this new tour, though I sometimes see silver snakes while on the verge of a blackout drunk. Therefore, along with the dates I will provide a bit of their music, which involves clean singing along with heaviness and lightness. Continue reading »

NAUSEA: “CONDEMNED TO THE SYSTEM”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 152014
 

(TheMadIsraeli has been on a reviewing roll, and the subject of these thoughts is the latest album by Nausea.)

Nausea is a death grind powerhouse that includes guitarist/vocalist Oscar Garcia of Terrorizer fame and guitarist Leon De Muerte of Murder Construct.  Nausea have also been around forever, having been formed while Terrorizer were still together (there is a split with both bands from ’88), yet this album, Condemned To The System, is only their second full-length, their catalogue mostly consisting of demo’s and EP’s (lots of them). Their only other full-length is Crimes Against Humanity from ’91.

Nausea appears to be Oscar’s way of carrying on the legacy of the World Downfall Terrorizer sound, and he succeeds magnificently.  If you ever wanted something that could serve as an evolved sequel to that legendary grindcore record, Condemned to the System is it.  The gritty as fuck, sharp as nails guitar tone is back; the grooves and the power chord, slide, and tremolo-picked heavy riffing are there; and of course Garcia’s rancid, bestial roar remains perfectly intact. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 5

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  6 Responses »
Jan 142014
 

Welcome to Part 5 of my 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.

2013 was a banner year for the ongoing revival of old school death metal. Two of the standout releases in that vein are the sources of today’s two additions to this list — but they won’t be the last.

HAIL OF BULLETS

Hail of Bullets returned to the battlefield in 2013 with their third album, III: The Rommel Chronicles. TheMadIsraeli reviewed it for us (here) and it has subsequently appeared on many of our year-end lists. It’s a masterful fusion of scorching-fast death metal and abysmal, suffocating doom. To quote from TheMadIsraeli’s review: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: “ASYLUM” BY TALANAS

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 142014
 

(In this post, Andy Synn reviews the forthcoming EP by Talanas, which will be released on February 22 by Eulogy Media.)

It’s always nice when bands throw out an unexpected curve-ball, something designed to both challenge and reward their listeners.

Progressive Death Metal proto-titans Talanas have decided to do just that with their new, about to be released, mini-album Asylum, putting a markedly different spin on their signature sound.

Whereas the band’s usual approach – akin to Akercocke and My Dying Bride copulating in a field of dead flowers and broken dreams – gives the listener the sensation of being choked and pummelled by an iron fist in a velvet glove, they’ve taken a decidedly different turn on Asylum, stripping out the deathly aggression and metallic distortion, accentuating instead the ethereal wonder and decayed glamour of their gothic roots. Continue reading »

FRAMEWORK: “A WORLD DISTORTED”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 142014
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by a New Jersey band named Framework.)

Framework (formerly known as Exorbitance) are the kind of band you listen to if you miss that fast as fuck thrash-based style of melodic death metal you got from bands like Carnal Forge, The Absence, or the most obvious culprit, At The Gates.  Their debut under the Framework name, A World Distorted, is a fucking amazing record, showcasing these blood-hungry Americans’ ability to craft melodic death metal that retains the militancy and commitment to crafting brutal, yet epic songs that give you whiplash.

It’s very rare that you find a band playing just straight-up, no-nonsense melodic death metal this well and writing an album THIS good that doesn’t feel at all like a rehash, even if the influences are worn on their sleeves.  A World Distorted is frankly one of the best debuts from a melodic death metal band I’ve heard in YEARS.

The music is all about killer riffs, captivating melodies that make you want to charge into battle in slow motion, and those delicious old school Lindberg-esque snarls.  Guitarists Andrew Pevny and Devin DeCicco and bassist Chris DeBenedetto know their shit, and they know it so well that they sound like they were around during the inception of the Gothenburg scene itself.  Vocalist Glenn Ferguson sounds like he’s straight from the mid-nineties and drummer James Applegate is an insanely tight, precise, and brutalizing drummer to listen to.  These guys really bring back that Gothenburg vibe while retaining the developments by American counterparts like The Black Dahlia Murder and The Absence. Continue reading »

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