REFLECTIONS IN THE VOID: LIVING METAL

 Mosh Pit  38 Responses »
Aug 212013
 

(This is the third in a series of guest posts by NCS supporter Utmu in which he poses questions and seeks answers.  In the last installment, he sought reader input for a paper about metal that he has been preparing for a college Composition course, which we may be seeing here soon.  And in this post, he’s asking for reader opinions again. Please leave your thoughts in the Comment section after the post.)

I’d like to apologize for the untimely manner in which I’m going about my paper. My composition class ended on August 2 and I’ve been on break since then. The reason why I’ve been reluctant to submit it to Islander is because I want to make a few changes with the structuring. Also, I’d like to proofread it to make sure that it impresses upon people in the way that I want it to, and I’d also like to make sure all of my arguments are cogent. But to the matter at hand!

In the last installment of RitV, I surveyed you all about the general well-being of metal in order to gather information for the paper. Part of me thinks that the results weren’t what I was looking for, but the other part of me does. Regardless of whether or not my respondents understood what I was asking depended entirely on the way in which I asked it—that is to say, any faults in the survey were my doing, not the respondents’. I’ve diagnosed the possible faults of my survey as a symptom of not actually knowing how to conduct one. Specifically, I don’t know when I’m leading my respondents and when I’m informing them (my instructor intended for this to occur as a form of “on-the-job training”, I suppose). However, I still got the general idea from the respondents that metal is indeed alive and well.

Now I’d like to take a moment and ask you how you define living metal. What makes metal alive? Is it based on the extent of perceived innovation in the music? Or is it a function of the simple fact that new music continues to be made, whether innovative or not? Perhaps you would subscribe to a different explanation entirely. Continue reading »

THE LENA ABÉ STORY: BOLLOCKS-FREE EDITION (An NCS Interview)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 212013
 

(NCS guest writer and hard man to please KevinP wrangled the following interview with Lena Abé, bass-player for legendary UK doom squad My Dying Bride and guitarist for Severed Heaven.)

 

K:  So you joined My Dying Bride in 2007, but were a relatively unknown name at the time.  Give us some back-story before entering the fray?

L:   I started playing guitar when I was ten years old. Usual story really, joined bands throughout high school, became involved within the metal scene, and eventually joined My Dying Bride.  Music is in my family, so I was always going to do something along those lines.

 

K:  Are you a native/lifelong Brit?

L:  Mostly yes. I’m half Japanese and half British. Born in Tokyo, but my family moved to the UK when I was still a baby.  I was brought up in Yorkshire and definitely have the accent to prove it.

 

K:  So growing up, when did you first hear about My Dying Bride? 

L:  I can’t remember exactly. I remember friends’ older siblings being into them when I was a kid and  I remember seeing the band in magazines like Kerrang and Terrorizer, old school MTV as well. It was eye-opening because it was the first time I had heard “doom”.  I really got into them around the Songs of Darkness, Words of Light era (2004-ish) and saw them live.  That changed it for me and I then explored the rest of their catalogue.

 

K:  Were you already into death metal/extreme music by that time?

L:  Not fully, but I was half-way there if that makes sense. Continue reading »

NEW THINGS FROM SKÁLMÖLD, ANION, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, AND NOCTURNAL GRAVES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 212013
 

In this post I’ve collected three new videos and one new song on which you can feast your eyes and ears. Actually, although I can imagine eyes feasting — because I’ve seen hungry eyes before — ears just look like ears. But they will feast nonetheless.

SKÁLMÖLD

After you have dined upon the following video from Iceland’s Skálmöld, and assuming you enjoy the taste of it, I strongly recommend you read this December 2012 NCS interview of the band’s lyricist and bass-player Snæbjörn Ragnarssonin conducted in Iceland by our very special traveling correspondent Gemma Alexander. There you will learn, among other things, about the complex rules of traditional Icelandic poetry that Snæbjörn follows in his lyrics, the stories from Norse legend that became the foundation for the band’s latest album Börn Loka (“Loki’s Children”), and the use of parallel fifths in the choral arrangements for the last part of the song “Gleipnir”.

I mention “Gleipnir” because that’s the song which is the subject of Skálmöld’s new video. You might be interested in knowing that in Norse legend “Gleipnir” was the name of the magical binding fashioned by dwarves to hold the monstrous wolf Fenrir in captivity — until the events of Ragnarök, when Fenrir breaks free and destroys Odin. Or so says The Font of All Human Knowledge. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM WOLFHEART, CASTEVET, VULTURE INDUSTRIES, AND VATTNET VISKAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Aug 202013
 

As you may have surmised if you read today’s first post, I was immersed in live metal from about 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon until late last night. But before the immersion began, I found some new things while stumbling through the interhole yesterday that I thought were worth some attention, and here they be:

WOLFHEART

Way back in January, we reported the bombshell news that Tuomas Saukkonen had decided to shut down all of his previous musical projects — Before The Dawn, Black Sun Aeon, Routasielu, Dawn Of Solace, and Final Harvest — and start a completely new one under the name Wolfheart. At the same time, he released a teaser of new Wolfheart music. And yesterday he released another one, along with info about the new Wolfheart album, including the ethereal cover art by Heino Brandt (above).

The album’s name is Winterborn and it includes 9 tracks, except that if you pre-order the album now you’ll get a download code for two bonus tracks that will accompany the CD when it ships. The release date is October 11.  Continue reading »

CLEAN SINGING: NEW THINGS FROM IN SOLITUDE AND END OF GREEN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

It’s usually one of my NCS comrades who decides to confuse the shit out of new readers by posting music that includes clean singing. I figured it was my turn.

IN SOLITUDE

There are two things in this post, both of which I’m digging. The first is the just-released title track to Sister, the third album by Sweden’s In Solitude. It’s scheduled for release by Metal Blade in North America on October 1 (and a few days earlier in Europe) and is already available for order here.

The song has a central riff that’s a classic heavy metal mind-controller, the kind that burrows in and makes a comfy home in your cranium. The occult-ish melody is infectious as hell, “Hornper” Åhman’s soaring vocals are mighty appealing, there’s a sweet wah-wah solo, and the galloping rhythm is unstoppable. Despite my usual preference in vocal stylings, this song has got me hooked. Here it is (and don’t forget that this band is touring NorthAm with Watain and Tribulation): Continue reading »

WATCH REVOCATION COMMUNE WITH THE HOME FOLKS IN NEW VIDEO FOR “INVIDIOUS”

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

Sometimes I overthink things. I just watched Revocation’s brand new official video for “Invidious” (from their new self-titled album). I had fun watching it, not only because the song is excellent but also because it captures the energy of the band performing live in front of an enthusiastic stage-diving Boston crowd. I hope we get half as good a crowd during Revocation’s set at the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour stop in Seattle this afternoon (and tonight), because that’s where I’ll be.

But while I watched the video I was also thinking about how much work it took to make this thing. Like, how did they get all these camera shots with the crowd going nuts everywhere? And how did they edit them together so effectively? And how did they sync the hundreds of video segments so well with the album track?

Somebody did some fuckin’ A-grade work on the video. When I find out who, I’ll stick their names in here. For now, watch this: Continue reading »

CARCASS: “SURGICAL STEEL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

(BadWolf reviews the new album by Carcass.) 

My age was in single digits the last time Carcass released new material, but Surgical Steel does not feel like a comeback album. Carcass never exited the zeitgeist. Their first four albums have remained fresh and relevant since their release, and remain touchstones to which all other extreme metal releases are compared. 1988’s Reek of Putrifaction may still be the best overall grind album on the market. 1991’s Necroticism is one of the only technical death metal albums I can name that boasts actually memorable songs. 1995’s Heartwork—praise it—is one of only a handful of melodic death metal records that still sounds good after puberty’s end.

Carcass will never leave the market—since I’ve been interested in extreme metal, their work has been rereleased and re-rereleased in increasingly indulgent and deluxe packages. The most mainstream of extreme metal acts—The Black Dahlia Murder, for example—routinely sing Carcass’s praises in the pages of glossy print ‘zines.

Keeping that in mind, calling Surgical Steel a comeback album rings false. It’s just an entree I ordered at a popular and crowded restaurant that took a long time—17 years long—to cook. So long I forgot ordering it. Well, I’ve eaten my long-delayed entree. It came to my table still piping hot. The waiter is getting a 50% gratuity. I’m going to walk into the kitchen and congratulate the chef—The Master Butcher—personally. It’s fucking delicious. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EMPTINESS, ANCESTORS BLOOD, AND ANAAL NATHRAKH WITH NIKLAS KVARFORTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

This is the second of two posts in which I’ve collected music I found last night in my searches for new things that would help put me in the right frame of mind for the new week. And by “right frame of mind”, I mean “take no prisoners”. Because it’s a goddamned Monday and I knew I would be feeling mean as soon as I saw the light of the new day. I’ve learned through experience that I do better adding fuel to that fire than trying to get in a compliant, accepting, quietly seething mood.

EMPTINESS

I found out about this Belgian band, which includes two members of  the excellent Enthroned, via a recent post on CVLT Nation. Their most recent album is 2012’s Error on the Dark Descent label, though they are now writing new songs. Error is available for streaming on Bandcamp, so I embarked on this phase of my listening session by starting at the beginning of it. Because my mission for the night was to sample a lot of bands I had heard about, I didn’t make my way through the entire album. But I did listen to the first five songs (which is four more than I intended to hear), and man was I floored by them.

The music is difficult to describe, drawing from a multitude of genres but with a healthy helping of death/doom, black metal, and sludge. The sound is deeply corrosive and destructive, a howling, vicious maelstrom of sound and fury. It’s massively heavy and violent, and choked with the black ichor of doom. Yet the songs include hugely compelling riffs and attractive melodies, and all of the instrumental performances are dynamic and technically excellent. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INIQUITOUS SAVAGERY AND SCHAMMASCH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I spent a large part of my Sunday listening to Ulver’s just-released new album more than once (featured here). I think it’s very, very good, but just as it suited a Sunday extremely well, I felt the need for something else with which to face this Monday. Something with teeth and claws, and maybe some bleeding flesh dripping from its jaws. You know, something that would help me get my game face on for the new week.

Mission accomplished. In my searches last night, I came across music from five bands and I’m dividing up what I found between two posts, in the order in which I found the music. All the bands are new to me, except the last one in the second post.

INIQUITOUS SAVAGERY

This Scottish group produced an EP in 2012 named Compelled By Perverse Immorality. I haven’t heard that one, but last night I did hear a new promo single entitled “Propagating A Pestiferous Enmity”, which comes with cover art by Mike Majewski of Devourment (“touched up” by Tom Bradfield, who also mixed and mastered the thing).

This is a mighty fine offering of brutal slamming death metal. It has all the basic ingredients down pat — the hammering riffs, the prominent snare drumming, the brutish rhythms, the grotesque guttural vocals. On top of that, it really turns on the after-burners just as often as it delivers the big, methodical, sledgehammer blows. And it’s not completely atonal either. I certainly won’t use the word “finesse” to describe the music, but I will use the word “flair”.  Continue reading »

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