FREE SHIT: THE SINISTER PATH UNSIGNED METAL BAND COMPILATION VOL. 1

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Nov 052013
 

Thanks to a Facebook post by our friend Vonlughlio, I learned about a new compilation made available on Bandcamp today by Australia’s Sinister Path Promotions. It’s quite a hefty offering — 45 tracks from 45 bands located all over the world. But there is quality here as well as quantity. Just to pick out the names of bands we’ve written about here at NCS, the comp includes songs by Hemoptysis (U.S.), Feared (Sweden), Begging For Incest (Germany), Bhayanak Maut (India), Take Over and Destroy (TOAD) (U.S.), and Necrosis (UK).

After the jump you can listen to the tracks on this monster compilation — and you can also download it for free (or pay what you want) at Bandcamp. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 62: EASTERN SPELL, HYBRID REALITY, HOLLOW BRANCHES, THE DOWN TRODDENCE, THOSE DARN GNOMES

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Nov 052013
 

We get messages every day from bands who ask us to check out their music. I wish I had the time to listen to everything that comes in, but I don’t. I don’t even have time to write about everything I hear that I like. But I thought for this MISCELLANY post I would write about the music of the last five bands who wrote us over the weekend. Obviously, there’s not much rhyme or reason to the selection, and as you’ll see, the bands don’t have much in common with each other.

But that’s the way MISCELLANY works: I pick underground bands whose music I’ve never heard, I listen to one or two recent songs, I write up my impressions, and I stream the tracks so you can make up your own minds. Here we go:

EASTERN SPELL

Eastern Spell are a group of hairy, doomy dudes from Portland, Maine. Earlier this year they released a single via Bandcamp entitled Entraced, and about two weeks ago they also released a video for the song. Eastern Spell bring the misery with seismic resonance. It’s slow, pulverizing music, with burly riffs, agonized, gravel-throated vocals, and a drummer who sounds like he’s trying to drive his kit straight into the ground. Deep into the 11-minute song, the band briefly rumble into more animated life, and there’s a surprising (and beautiful) acoustic finish to the song, but in the main this is suffocating sludge/doom — done very well. Continue reading »

AN NCS DISCOGRAPHY DOWNLOAD: PREY FOR NOTHING

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Nov 052013
 

(TheMadIsraeli brings you an overview of an Israeli band named Prey For Nothing and free downloads of their two albums.)

Prey for Nothing are currently the best melodic death metal band in recent years you’ve never heard of. Their relative obscurity is unfortunate and the reasons hard to imagine; maybe they’re simply the victim of the tidal wave of music that circulates the internet, or maybe it’s their location (Israel), from which very few bands have made a name for themselves outside the country.  All I know is, this band, while relatively young, have not gotten their just due.  Their last record, Against All Good and Evil (2011), was a stunning sophomore effort and one of the best albums of its year.

So who are Prey for Nothing?  Basically, think of an amalgamation of sounds that borrow from schools of thought ranging from Death, to Kreator, to Insomnium, and beyond.  While definitely melodic death, Prey For Nothing would verge on simply being progressive death metal were it not for some of the more pedal-point riffy moments  and harmony/theme heavy guitar sections that are typically not native to death metal.  They are excellent songwriters, more progressively inclined than most, but only to spice things up and keep them interesting and not so much to show off how good they are.  The same goes on the technique front, as all of these guys are immensely talented at their craft, particularly guitarist/main composer Yaniv Aboudy, whose biting character of riffage is exceptionally complemented by his neo-classical flourishes and ferocious napalm spray tech displays.  The music is venomous, dignified, enigmatic and soul-reaping. Continue reading »

UNHUMAN: “UNHUMAN”

 Album Reviews  13 Responses »
Nov 052013
 

(Austin Weber is back for the second day in a row, this time with a review of the new album by Montreal’s Unhuman.)

As any good metalhead knows, the Canadian metal scene is insane. So many amazing, influential bands have come from here, though overall it’s always been their death metal scene I’ve been drawn to the most. A big part of what makes their scene so strong is that many of the best performers have shared their talents among multiple groups/studio projects/playing live for each other.

Unhuman falls in that category, as a group collectively steeped in years of death metal mayhem that starts with founding member and composer of almost all of the music on Unhuman’s Unhuman — Youri Raymond. It’s a name some will have heard before as a member/songwriting contributor for some of the tracks on last year’s amazing Cryptopsy album. Still others may know him due to his involvement with Secret Chiefs 3, as he contributed vocals on several tracks on Book Of Horizons, which is what led me to Unhuman a long time ago. He added current drummer Alexandre Dupras (The Plasma Rifle, Teramobil) in 1999 and then added current bassist Mathieu Bérubé (Teramobil again, whose latest release I previously reviewed hereat NCS) in 2008, and rounded out their line-up with guitarist Kevin Chartré (Beyond Creation, Brought By Pain) in 2011. Continue reading »

THE POETRY OF DEATH

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  6 Responses »
Nov 052013
 

Nothing is more fearful, or more fearsome, than death. Nothing of such importance is more unknowable or more frightening. No wonder the subject is of such central importance in music of all kinds, but especially in the realm of extreme music — which is an artform that can plumb, and exorcise, the intensity of loss, despair, horror, rage, and fear, like few others. Death becomes metal.

To find any kind of grace in the extinction of life’s spark requires the suspension of disbelief, or the eye of an artist. Bodies move after life, in the constriction of the sinews or in the transportation of the hollow remains to some kind of resting place. There is no beauty in such motion, not really. Certainly not when the face is beloved or even only familiar. It can be perceived as beautiful, but still terrible, only when the ultimate silence is a kind of reprieve, or when the shape of death is distant, when it is the flesh of a stranger that becomes mere sculpted alabaster matter.

Filmmaker Pedro Pires has found the shape of this awful beauty in his short film Danse Macabre, which I found last night through a link from an acquaintance. It’s not easy to watch if you have lost someone close to you, especially in the case of a suicide. In fact, it’s wrenching. It’s also NSFW, because the imagery of dead flesh is naked, as it always is eventually. But it’s powerful and powerfully realized, and it’s metal even though it’s not music (though the accompanying music deepens its effect). Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: NOOTHGRUSH / COFFINS SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Nov 042013
 

Doom comes in many flavors, but at the core of the sound there’s always a black hole, no matter what else may be draped around it. It’s just a question of how big that light-sucking core happens to be. On the forthcoming Southern Lord split LP by Noothgrush and Coffins, it’s massive.

NOOTHGRUSH

My introduction to Oakland’s Noothgrush came in 2011 via Southern Lord’s The Power of the Riff tour, a limited run of west coast dates that marked the band’s return after splitting up in 2001 (and their first show in Seattle since 1997). Reading again what I wrote about the show (here) reminds me of what a revelation the band’s music was:

“Imagine this: You’re chained in an iron receptacle, and through vents in the bottom, hot paving tar slowly flows in. Inexorably, at a glacial pace, it covers your feet, it climbs up your legs, it reaches and passes the part of your body that does all the thinking, it covers your abdomen and your chest, your arms strain at their chains and you scream as the tar boils the flesh away until it reaches the empty cavity on top of your shoulders and pours into your ears, mouth, and nose, suffocating you in a blistering black agony. Your last sensations are the smell of your own incinerating flesh and the shrieking chants of this band’s vocalist…. Sick, sloooooow, sludgy, and ultimately irresistible.”

Pelican, who performed later the same night, posted this on their Facebook page right about the time Noothgrush finished their set: “Good lord, Noothgrush are heavier than a knapsack full of anvils.” Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RANDY PIRO (ORBWEAVER)

 Interviews  4 Responses »
Nov 042013
 

(NCW contributor KevinP had a chat with guitarist/vocalist Randy Piro of “Miami mind-erasers” Orbweaver.)

 

K:  Since you are new to most people (and our readers), I’m going to make you start out with the dreaded,  “please give us a history of the band and how things came to be”.

R:  I started Orbweaver in late 2010 after playing in a few bands (Hate Eternal and Gigan). I actually intended to take a bit of time away from music…but my imagination caught up with me. So after I had a few songs written, I started finding the right members to bring it to life.

I wrote our original drummer, Mike Pena, after seeing him play a blistering set with his band Nuclear infantry. We met and started working on what would become the 3 song demo.

Sally [Gates] then came into the band on bass first. Once we found Jason [Ledgard] she moved over to guitar. That’s when things really started to take form.

Mike left the band shortly after we recorded Strange Transmissions, and after a long process of finding the right replacement we hooked up with Scott Spasiano. Scott is the perfect drummer for the band, both creatively and personality wise.

 

K:  Your music is by no means “traditional” in any sense of the word, even for death metal.  Did you find it difficult to find other musicians who shared the same vision?

R:  Absolutely! To be honest even Mike didn’t fully grasp the intent at first. Once we recorded the demo he got it… Lots of people would just give me this blank stare as I was showing them the material.  But I figured this would be the case. So I did what I could to find people who came from different musical backgrounds. Continue reading »

CIRCLE TAKES THE SQUARE, GREAT FLOODS, ESCHATOS, GREYHAVEN: LIVE AT HAYMARKET WHISKEY BAR, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY (Oct 29, 2013)

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 042013
 

(NCS contributor Austin Weber wrote the following review. All of the excellent photos are by Nicholas Vechery.)

While Circle Takes The Square are not wholly a metal band, they do have some heavy moments and enough metal influence to interest open-minded metalheads. I know some of our more eclectic readers probably like them or used to. I planned to bring previous NCS collaborator Nik Vechery in tow to take photos, though I arrived a bit later than him due to awesome traffic and found my way to Haymarket Whiskey Bar in the downtown area of Louisville, Kenfucky. Which of course led to numerous Jack and Coke’s for me, and plenty of piss-beer PBR’s for Nik. Several local bands played first followed by Circle Takes The Square who gave an exhilarating and adrenaline-filled performance.

GREYHAVEN

Opening the show was a local band I’d never heard of, and upon seeking them out online could find no music to get a glimpse at what they might sound like. Except that there used to be a progressive metal band called Greyhaven that is pretty cheesy. This Greyhaven were a sort of noisy punk-rock meets quasi-metal group with occasional djenty chugs slicing overtop at faster tempos then you would normally hear in that style. It was gritty and frantic, and a decently interesting merger of sounds. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: UNDER THE CHURCH — “DEMO 2013”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Nov 032013
 

A week ago I posted a list of the best releases I’d heard over the last five years by newer bands whose sound was strongly influenced by old school Swedish death metal. The last release I put on that list before posting it, though you couldn’t tell, was the 2013 demo by a Swedish band named Under the Church. I heard it for the first time the day I finished the list, and one listen was all it took. Since then I’ve listened to it again and again, and the more I’ve listened, the more I’ve liked it.

Word has been spreading ever since the demo became available months ago, probably in part because the band was started by two former members of Nirvana 2002 — drummer Erik Qvick and bassist Lars Henriksson — but mainly because the music is so good. And sure enough, in the week since my list went up, Under the Church announced some good news: They’re going to record an album, and the album is going to be released by Pulverised Records. If you’ve already heard the demo, then you know just how good this news is. If you haven’t, I’m going to explain. Continue reading »

WILLOWTIP SIGNING BONANZA: NAUSEA, MITHRAS, PLAGUE WIDOW

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 032013
 

In the last three days I saw three signing announcements for three bands who kick so much ass that they produce epidemic proportions of asslessness. It finally dawned on my foggy mind that all three signings were with the same label: Willowtip Records, based in the incomparably named borough on the left bank of Connoquenessing Creek — Zelienople, Pennsylvania. The three bands are Nausea, Mithras, and Plague Widow. In case these names are unfamiliar to you, here’s a bit of background along with more details about the new albums that are headed our way — and some music to hear from each band.

NAUSEA

An introduction is probably unnecessary in this case, but here goes: Nausea are a seminal SoCal grind band whose earliest demos go back to 1987, yet their only full-length album was 1991’s Crime Against Humanity. They split up in 1994 but reformed in 2001, and they’ve been playing a lot of live shows in the last three years, including Maryland Deathfest and a recent European tour. The current line-up consists of original vocalist/guitarist Oscar Garcia and original drummer Eric Castro, plus two new members: Bassist Alejandro CB (Pounder, Chemical Bitches) and guitarist Leon del Muerte (Murder Construct, ex-Exhumed, Phobia, Impaled, Intronaut).

The new album is entitled Condemned To the System, and Willowtip will be releasing it on January 7, 2014. It will include both new songs and previously unreleased vintage tracks. Continue reading »

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