SHORT BUT SWEET: PSYCHOTIC PULSE — “AVOLITION”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Nov 092013
 

(DGR reviews the latest EP by Psychotic Pulse from Toronto.)

Psychotic Pulse were initially brought to my attention by their drummer, who was (and is) the proprietor of a project known as Tyrant Of Death. The group had just released their self-titled debut earlier this year, and to no surprise it turned out really, really well. They manifested themselves as a hybrid of industrial, groove, and death metal that strode atop shrieking vocals with many a heavy section that triggered near instantaneous headbanging. I thought the Psychotic Pulse self-titled disc was great.

Psychotic Pulse have the industrialized, machine-like sound hardwired into their system. They’re precise as can be and nail every beat almost perfectly, with enough machine noise and electronics filtered into their sound to bring to mind the apocalypse via The Terminator; metal by way of Skynet, with the machines making as much cacophonous noise as they can unleash as a form of psychological warfare. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THOSE DARN GNOMES – “RELIEF ORGAN”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Nov 082013
 

Regular readers of the site should recognize the name of this San Diego band, since I wrote about them only three days ago. Plus, their name is Those Darn Gnomes — not an easy name to forget once you’ve seen it. Their music isn’t easy to forget either. As of three days ago I had heard only one song, a long number named “Blacklip”, which will appear on their forthcoming debut album The Invariant. And now I’ve heard a second one — and you’ll get to hear it, too, because we’re premiering it right now.

The song’s name is “Relief Organ”. Like “Blacklip”, it’s longer than average, and like “Blacklip”, it’s a wild ride: heavy, slow, sludgy riffs mixed with distorted, proggy meanderings, mixed with cool jazz interludes, mixed with blasting drums and a blizzard of distorted chords, mixed with gargling gutturals, vomit-spewing howls, and mellow jazz-influenced female vocals (courtesy of guest vocalist Katie Walker). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VINDENSÅNG – “LIGHTS OF THE ABYSS”

 Premieres  11 Responses »
Nov 082013
 


(photo by Veleda Thorsson)

The best and the worst thing about life is that it’s full of surprises. When you need a bit of good fortune or at least a little stability, it delivers a car wreck and a shattered leg, as happened to a good friend yesterday. On the other hand, it delivers, on the same day, a brilliant new song from a band you last wrote about more than two years ago in a post that still holds the record for the fewest words ever written on this site about music.

More than two years ago I featured a song by a band from Pennsylvania named Vindensång from their 2008 debut album Terminus: Rebirth in Eight Parts, and introduced it with the word “THIS”. Now, the same band have a new album named Alpha, which they plan to release on February 4, 2014, and which will be a musical sequel to Terminus. And what we bring you today is the intergalactic premiere of one of the new album tracks, “Lights of the Abyss”. Continue reading »

DISTASTE: “BLACK AGE OF NIHIL”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Nov 082013
 

(In this post DGR reviews the new album released last month by Austria’s Distaste.)

Distaste are one of those bands I can only claim to have gone into recently. Probably the fault of Man Must Die, Mumakil, Afgrund, and a few others, but I’ve found myself really digging into the short-song/blastbeat-filled/punk-riff segment of grind recently. Basically, it has started to boil down to where if a band puts a circle pit riff over some blasts and some dude starts screaming about how much of a wreck the world is, then chances are my adrenaline has shot through the roof.

I came upon Distaste rather randomly, just surfing through Bandcamp and coming across the three-piece Austrian group’s album Black Age Of Nihil just a little over three weeks after it saw release in early October. Coming off of about a million spins at that point of Afgrund’s Corporatocracy and its predecessor The Age Of Dumb, Black Age Of Nihil immediately grabbed me. At first, I couldn’t quite figure out why, until it came to light that Afgrund’s front man as of 2010, Armin Schweiger, is one-third of this band, playing guitar and doing vocals in this troupe as a founding member of the band rather than simply being the voice behind all the yelling. Continue reading »

WATAIN, IN SOLITUDE, AND TRIBULATION: LIVE IN DETROIT, OCTOBER 14, 2013

 Concert Reviews  11 Responses »
Nov 072013
 

(Our man BadWolf turned out for the Watain / In Solitude / Tribulation show in Detroit last month and provides these impressions, and some pics.)

A Watain tour always causes a ruckus, in more than one way: For one, the band always puts on a killer live show. For another, their use of live animal blood and much-publicized visa troubles, not to mention blasphemous musical content, have cemented Watain’s reputation as outlaws—and gotten them banned from more than a few venues in the process.

Their fall tour, however, got me especially excited, thanks to the addition of two perfect touring partners. Show openers Tribulation released a powerful black metal album in early 2013, one which blended the black-thrash sound Watain has popularized with psychedelic and film score elements. In Solitude played second fiddle, fresh off a Decibel cover, while supporting the recent release of their third album, Sister, which has already been called album of the year by a few metal journalists, particularly Adrien Begrand [http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/post—a-fond-farewell]. I think it’s pretty damn good, despite (or perhaps because of?) only containing clean singing. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LIVING SACRIFICE, FEARED, CORPSESSED, LIE IN RUINS, IMPURE WORSHIP

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 072013
 

Yesterday produced a lot of new excellent video and song premieres, and I also caught up with a few things that I missed when they first came out. In an earlier post today I collected three of the new videos, and in this post are five songs worth hearing.

LIVING SACRIFICE

Solid State Records will be releasing the eighth studio album by Living Sacrifice — Ghost Thief — on November 12, and I’ve been really eager to hear it. The first advance track from the album, “Screwtape”, didn’t grab me by the throat as hard as I hoped it would. But yesterday the title track debuted, and my first thought was, “that’s more like it!”

It was a good sign when the tremolo drilling and drum blasting started, and the jolting rhythms plus Bruce Fitzhugh’s bestial vox sealed the deal. This is neck-wrecking, riff-hammering Living Sacrifice in prime form. Listen next (via Rolling Stone). Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: EXMORTUS, BEASTWARS, SMOHALLA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 072013
 

Wouldn’t you know it. I embarked on a trip for my job before the sun came up yesterday, only to find by nightfall that some infernal bastard had dynamited the levy and loosed a flood of good metal while I was otherwise occupied. Too much stuff surged through the hole yesterday for just one post. Too much for two posts, but that’s probably all I can manage today.

In this one I have new videos that I think you might like. In the next one will be new songs. Prepare your anus. (I know that’s not really my style, but I see bands say that on Facebook and I thought I would be more cool if I said it. Honestly, I have no interest in your anus. But you sure got a perty mouth.)

EXMORTUS

California’s Exmortus have an album coming next year on the Prosthetic label, but in advance of that Prosthetic has released a 7″ single called Immortality Made Flesh. The title song is one that will appear on the album and the b-side is a cover of Judas Priest’s “Freewheel Burning”. Yesterday, Metal Injection premiered a video of the band executing the title track in a jam room (with the studio recording as the soundtrack). Hot damn, is it invigorating! Continue reading »

FAST AND SLOW: ANOTHER NCS COMP IS COMING

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Nov 062013
 

Remember that really long, really loud UK showcase comp we helped put out with GRIND TO DEATH and DIY Noise a little over a year ago? The one called The Only Good Tory? The one you can still download for free at the NCS Bandcamp page? Well, guess what? We’re doing it again — but with a few new wrinkles for Vol. 2.

Once again, Grind To Death’s Alex Layzell will be curating the comp, it will again be limited to UK bands, and he and I are both excited and grateful that Eduardo Carrillo of DIY Noise is going to be hand-making the tapes again, which is an exceptional thing since he has pretty much stopped putting out releases for other people. This time we’re also planning to have a printed zine and buttons to go along with the tapes, though we will again be making the music available for free download at the NCS Bandcamp.

But here’s the biggest new wrinkle: While our last comp was 100% grind and powerviolence, this time we’re going to have a “fast” side and a “slow” side. Half the runtime will be dedicated to grind/powerviolence bands and half will be dedicated to bands in the sludge/doom tarpit. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CLERIC, PHUTURE DOOM, GATES OF AARU

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 062013
 

Collected here are new songs I heard yesterday that are way off all the usual beaten paths. I have no idea whether you’ll like them, but I sure did. The bands are Cleric (Philadelphia), Phuture Doom (Detroit), and Gates of Aaru (Johannesburg).

CLERIC

There are two bands named Cleric who we’ve written about in the past. The one I want to talk about today is the one from Philadelphia, the one whose 2010 album Regressions I once described as “something like Portal, Blackjazz-vintage Shining, and Behold… the Arctopus communing in a hurricane. During an earthquake.” The fact that the instruments used on the album included the saz, the tenori-on, and the theremin had something to do with my general “what the fuck?!?” attitude about the music.

Cleric are now on tour (check the dates here) and will soon be in Seattle (hell yeah), and today DECIBEL started streaming a new Cleric work named “Resumption”. That’s a fitting title for the song, because Cleric have more or less picked up where Regressions left off three years ago. The song is almost 12 minutes long, and it comes off as a free-form storm of instrumental acrobatics, highly unstable tempos, and throat-rupturing vocals. It jabs like a welterweight, hallucinates like an opium addict, and somersaults like a high-wire acrobat. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: EXIVIOUS, OBLITERATION, VAURA

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Nov 062013
 

Happy fucking Wednesday motherfuckers (and you know I mean that in the nicest possible way, using Frank Mullen’s voice). I thought I’d give you a heads up that the content on the site is likely to be a little thin over the next three days, because my day job is sending me out of town from early this morning through late Friday night, and it will be another one of those day-and-night missions.

So, although I believe we’ll have a couple of song premieres on Friday and I know at least part of what we’ve got coming today, after that it’s the great unknown. I might be reduced to writing about my meals or the decor in my hotel room. If you have pets, we might have room for pics of their bowel movements if you want to send those along.

As for today, I’ll have a round-up of unusual new music I found yesterday, an announcement about a new music compilation we’ll be co-sponsoring, and this post that you’re reading right now, the point of which is to alert you to some new album streams that are worth hearing. Continue reading »

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