NO CLEAN SINGING

SKELETONWITCH: “SERPENTS UNLEASHED”

Oct 092013

(BadWolf reviews the new album by Skeletonwitch, which is slated for release on October 29 by Prosthetic.)

Hopelessness lives in Ohio. I was born here. My world is flat, industrialized, and divided by thirds into fields of GMO crops, seemingly bombed-out factory complexes, and dilapidated ghettos. (Very well, I’m being harsh to my home, but follow me.) Ohio’s metal scene stands in equivalent disarray, with a few notable exceptions—and the most notable is Skeletonwitch.

Hailing from college town and bar hopper’s paradise Athens, Skeletonwitch bring a home-grown and fun-loving attitude to their puree’d blend of old school heavy metal, thrash, death, and black metal. Their short albums and shorter songs pack in screeched vocal hooks and twin guitar leads at blitzkrieg tempos. Since roughly their 2007 album, Beyond the Permafrost, Skeletonwitch have been the little band that could, plowing uphill with a tireless work ethic and a knack for good songwriting.

They know their strengths—frontman Chance Garnett and furious guitar duo Scott Hedrick and Nate Garnette—and only modify their formula incrementally from album to album. Cynics might call it a lack of imagination, but I call it good branding, and Serpents Unleashed will cement that brand for even more fans. After four years of replacement drummers and studio experimentation, this record feels like the defining moment for the band, the most assured record in their catalog next to 2009’s Breathing the Fire. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: NEW MUSIC FROM ÆVANGELIST, NECROPHOBIC, CARA NEIR, AND VASTUM

Oct 082013

Ævangelist album art by Andrzej Masianis

“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,” or so wrote William Congreve (not William Shakespeare) in his play The Mourning Bride (1697). This is in fact true of some music, but what charms your humble editor is music that’s savage rather than soothing. I have four recent examples of metal savagery for you, in the order in which I heard them this morning.

ÆVANGELIST

The new album by Ævangelist, Omen Ex Simulacra, will be released on November 29 by Debemur Morti. This is a later date than first reported. Based on the band’s previous output and the first two songs released for this album, it will be worth the wait. In July, we featured the first of those two advance tracks (“Abysscape”), and today Debemur Morti began streaming a second one — “Relinquished Destiny”.

This song takes no prisoners. It shoots the wounded in the head and then rips the corpses into small pieces before consuming them. It delivers an atmosphere of alien horror, and the corrosive distortion can’t disguise the experimental-sounding nature of the riffing and drum progressions, which make the song interesting as well as frightening. As icing on this maggot-ridden cake, death/doom descends at the finale. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ARTILLERY, THE OCEAN, “AUTUMN ANNIHILATION”

Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Oct 082013

Here’s a collection of recent items that seemed worth sharing with our esteemed readers, as well as you.

ARTILLERY

I know we have thrash heads in the audience, and for you we present as a public service a new song from Denmark’s Artillery. For those of you born after 1982, Artillery have been recording music since before you were born. For those of you who don’t look both ways before crossing the street, they may still be recording music after you have left this veil of tears. Their seventh album, Legions, will be released by Metal Blade in the US on November 26, and on somewhat earlier dates elsewhere. It features a new vocalist, Michael Bastholm Dahl, and a new drummer, Josua Madsen, along with original guitarists Morten and Michael Stützer and longtime bassist Peter Thorslund.

Yesterday, an advance track was made available for streaming. The introduction to “Chill My Bones (Burn My Flesh)”, with its hand drums and exotic melody, is a surprise, and an immediate hook into the rest of the song. Thrash lives or dies by the power of the riff, and this song has got some good ones going on. I’m also told by a long-time fan of the band that the new vocalist is reminiscent of former vocalist Flemming Rönsdorf, last heard from on the band’s fourth album in 1999. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TUOMAS SAUKKONEN (WOLFHEART)

Interviews 11 Responses »

Oct 082013

(NCS guest writer Kevin Page interviews Tuomas Saukkonen of Wolfheart and formerly of Before the Dawn, Black Sun Aeon, Dawn of Solace, and Routasielu. Wolfheart’s new album Winterborn will be released October 11. This is Kevin’s second NCS interview of Tuomas; the first one can be found here.)

K: The last time we spoke in March 2012 was when Rise of the Phoenix came out. You seemed energized over the new direction of Before the Dawn and were ready to move forward. Now, here we are 1.5 years later, Before the Dawn, Black Sun Aeon, Dawn of Solace, and Routasielu have been stopped, and your sole project is now Wolfheart. What happened ?

T: Well I kept on moving forward . There are a few songs on the last BTD album like “Throne Of Ice” and “Eclipse” which opened the door for Wolfheart musically and I didn’t feel like to follow that path with Before the Dawn anymore. Also Before the Dawn started to feel more and more as a job during the years and I needed to regain the passion toward music even if it meant taking a few steps backwards career wise.

K: Was there a sudden realization one day that “I’m bored, I need to stop this” or was it a gradual thing?

T: A gradual thing. Already while working on Deathstar Rising I felt like this might be the last album for Before the Dawn. Then came big changes and a lot of energy came with that album. But that energy went to music and song writing instead of leading the band.

K: Was there ever a time over the years where it felt mentally draining juggling numerous bands at the same time?

T: Nope. There were times when I felt mentally drained by one band. Sometimes crazy schedules, just simply a lot of work, problems with labels etc. And during those times it was a big relief to have other projects to pour my creativity into. Continue reading »

ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES: NOW OFFERING INDIVIDUAL SINGLES

Metal News 1 Response »

Oct 072013

It goes without saying that you have good taste in metal, because you are visiting NCS. And because you have good taste in metal, you really need to read this.

Elemental Nightmares is a project dedicated to producing for discriminating consumers a series of 13 splits on 7″ vinyl (with accompanying digital downloads and with an option to buy only a digital download) featuring 26 up-and-coming bands from around the world. If you’ve been visiting us for very long, you will recognize many of the names who have contributed new songs to these splits — and we’ll list them for you at the end of this post.

The important news today is that Elemental Nightmares has decided to break apart 50 of the vinyl sets and offer single vinyl splits for sale beginning now. In other words, there will be 50 copies of each split offered on an individual basis, without having to subscribe to the entire series. I still think signing up for the entire series is a wise move (I’ve done it myself), given the quality of the bands, but I understand that’s a significant investment, and I think this decision is a good one. Continue reading »

AEON DISCOVERIES: SATAN’S WRATH, THE ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE, HANNES GROSSMANN AND THE RADIAL COVENANT

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Oct 072013

Here are a few new songs I came across in my adventures through the interhole today. I came across other songs, but trust me, you don’t want to hear them. These, you want to hear. Serendipitously, they all have something to do with the word “Aeon”.

SATAN’S WRATH

It was only last year that Metal Blade released Galloping Blasphemy, the debut album by Satan’s Wrath, a two-man Greek “Satanic blackened thrash” band. But lo and behold, the label is already planning to release a second full-length, Aeons of Satan’s Reign. What’s more, it began streaming a new song today by the name of “Die White Witch Die”.

Poor Jesus, once again made the source of refreshment for the goat lord, but I do like the colorful cover. I also do like “Die White Witch Die”, voiced as it is by one of the goat lord’s hellish minions and filled as it is with rockin’, thrashin’, bloody minded riffs, plus an infernally good slowdown. This isn’t old school, this is roughly three old schools packed into one. Sick guitar solo, too. Continue reading »

GIGAN: “MULTI-DIMENSIONAL FRACTAL SORCERY AND SUPER SCIENCE”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Oct 072013

(In this post Austin Weber reviews the new album by Chicago’s Gigan. A full-album stream follows the review.)

Since Gigan’s inception in 2006, formed by Eric Hersemann upon his exit from Hate Eternal, the band has survived and evolved despite a number of lineup shifts that would have ended most bands. After their excellent 2011 release Quasi-Hallucinogenic Sonic Landscapes, both drummer Keseva “Kaish” Doane and vocalist John Collett left sometime in 2012, though I was unaware of their departures until songs from this record premiered and a new band photo surfaced. Now Gigan is a Chicago-based group, by way of bandleader and composer Hersemann moving to the Windy City. He is now joined by new New York vocalist Eston Browne (Humanity Falls) and drummer Nate Cotton, who had played live for Gigan back in 2009-2010. With this new line-up, Gigan deliver to us a colossal emanation from another realm, entitled Multi-Dimensional Fractal Sorcery And Super Science.

When I listen to Gigan I often think of them as a better, more creative Hate Eternal (sorry Erik Rutan!). This album, while having a stronger atmospheric and synth-laced gravitas, is a labyrinth of destructive percussion and frenzied guitar-work that build in collaboration to monstrous heights of hyper-blasting, ever-shifting insanity. They’ve always been one of the most unique and truly alien-sounding technical death metal bands, their aggressiveness rounded out with a heavy dose of drawn-out atmosphere, oddball riffs, genuinely psychedelic and trance-like moments, and a chaotic nature rooted in the shifting between these different sounds that makes the music a uniquely unhinged, unpredictable experience. Continue reading »

ANATHEMA, ALCEST, MAMIFFER: LIVE AT THE MACHINE SHOP, FLINT, MICHIGAN (Sept 19, 2013)

Concert Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 2 Responses »

Oct 072013

(BadWolf reviews the live performances by Anathema, Alcest, and Mamiffer in Flint, Michigan, on September 19. Photos from the show, which follow the review, were taken by Kyle Lee Tate.)

Metal is rarely beautiful music. Many people, myself included, come to it looking for something harder, ugly—a mirror to hold up to those feelings not accepted by the mainstream society day-to-day. But some bands do take metal and make something beautiful out of it. Gorgeousness is likewise shunned by the worker bees of the modern day (have you ever seen a modern apartment complex? Or a piece of IKEA furniture?).

Doom-turned-progressive pop heavyweights Anathema, who traffic in bittersweet lyrics and soaring melody, trekked through the United States for the first time in twenty years, with French shoegaze-meets-black-metal wunderkinds Alcest in tow. The tour also sported brief opening slots by Seattle-based avant-garde metal-as-soundscape artists Mammifer.

I rolled into Flint Michigan’s legendary metal venue The Machine Shop with photographer Kyle Lee Tate, to find Mamiffer already playing, bathed in stage-smoke and dim, red light. Mamiffer is a collaborate effort between Aaron Turner, the one-time creative force behind legendary post-metal act Isis, and wife Faith Coloccia. Together they make ambient metal with Turner on guitar-and-pedal-board, and Faith on vocals and keyboard. Their music is akin to the sound propagated by the Handmade Birds record label, and popularized by Horseback and Locrian (with whom Mamiffer have collaborated). Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM IHSAHN: “NaCL”

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Oct 072013

Ihsahn’s fifth solo album, Das Seelenbrechen, will be released by Candlelight Records on October 22 in North America. It can be pre-ordered here. Last week a song from the album named “Hiber” was made available for listening on Soundcloud, and today we get the chance to hear another one. Entitled “NaCL”, it’s streaming as a lyric video and it’s available for purchase on iTunes (here, for US fans).

NaCL is the chemical notation for sodium chloride, otherwise known as salt. Whereas “Hiber” was heavy, dark, and occasionally dissonant, on “NaCL”, Ihsahn indulges the more purely progressive side of his solo explorations. It’s anchored by a punchy, complex, and ridiculously compulsive rhythm over which Ihsahn weaves a memorable melody. All clean vocals this time, but they sound great.

Listen next. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: KRODA — “VARULVEN”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Oct 072013

The last album released by the Ukrainian band Kroda was last year’s Live Under Hexenhammer: Heil Ragnarok!. As the name suggests, it was a live recording, and an excellent one. The band’s last studio release was Schwarzpfad from 2011 (reviewed here), which I thought was one of the best albums of that year in any genre. Almost all of Kroda’s releases are now available on Bandcamp.

Last Friday, a new Kroda EP appeared on Bandcamp under the name Varulven. It’s currently available as a “name your own price” digital-only download, though it’s planned for release on CD next month via Purity Through Fire. Varulven is a compilation of four tracks recorded at various times over the last five years. Die-hard fans of the band will be interested in this even if only to complete their collection of Kroda’s discography, but it’s really very good in its own right.

The title track is a studio recording from 2011. It’s a cover of a traditional Nordic song (the name of which means “Werewolf”), and the band describe it as “an experiment in viking-rock style music”. On this track, Kroda weave together elements of folk music (complete with the sounds of a ghostly flute, tumbling drums, and pure female vocals) and pagan metal (jagged growls, slightly distorted riffs and arpeggios, and tremolo-picked guitar melody), setting them to a rock beat. The melody itself, though quite catchy, has a dark undercurrent, which Kroda enhance with the sound of owls, wolves, and sinister whispering, turning it into something that’s haunting. Continue reading »

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