NEVERENDING PLAYLIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 102013
 

Here’s an interesting discovery (via a Facebook post by a record label that I saw this morning). It’s a feature on StumbleUpon.com. I don’t know how long it’s been available because I don’t frequent StumbleUpon, so maybe this is really old news. It’s called “Neverending Playlist”. You type in the name of a band and it creates a playlist of songs by that band.

I typed in the name “Immortal”. I don’t know why, but that’s the first name that popped into my head. I got a playlist of 50 songs. The songs play automatically, from one to another, so you can start it going and then do something else. You can pause and skip songs, too, if you want.

It looks like all the songs are retrieved from YouTube, so StumbleUpon hasn’t compiled its own library of music. But there’s obviously a lot available on YouTube. For example, 50 songs by Immortal. It’s not really “neverending”, though. I was interested to see if StumbleUpon would make new Immortal music once it had exhausted Immortal’s entire existing discography and continue playing from now until the end of forever. Continue reading »

OF WOLVES: “EVOLVE”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit  5 Responses »
Jun 102013
 

The first time I listened to Evolve by Chicago’s Of Wolves I had more “what the fuck?” moments than I’ve experienced with any other album this year. I listened to it as the band wants it to be heard — straight through, letting each song run right into the next one. It was a breathtaking (and breathless experience), with something unexpected lying in wait around every corner, and with more corners than a roller-coaster ride.

These three working men in Chicago are fed up, frustrated, and pissed off. They vent their fury at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and they don’t mince words about it. As they say, “Life has been rough, the music is therapy.”

Apparently, the therapy consists of taking a whole kitchen sink’s worth of musical influences and interests and letting them spill out in a flood of exuberant creativity. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PARASITE INC., PÕHJAST, DISGRAVED

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 092013
 

Hey motherfuckers (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), I hope all of you have been having a kickass weekend. I know I have. Among other things, I finally got introduced properly to the music of a Seattle band that friends of mine have been raving about forever (more about that in another post). And I also came across a lot of new music and videos that put a stupid grin on my face (and by that I mean “more stupid than usual”). In no particular order, here’s a random selection of things that rocked my world over the last 24 hours.

PARASITE INC.

Thanks to a Facebook post by Madam X (of Angry Metal Guy fame), I heard the song you’re about to hear in the next video (and while I’m thinking about Madam X, I’ll throw in a plug for her recent review of Svart Crown’s new album). The band is Parasite Inc., a German collective whose second album Time Tears Down (mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren) is due for release on August 2 by Good Damn Records. The song is “The Pulse of the Dead”.

Do you want riffs that grab you hard from the first few seconds and capable soloing? Check. Would you enjoy some pneumatic rhythms that punch like jackhammers? You got it. How about vicious vocals that sound like a werewolf on the hunt? Yep, you’ll get those, too. A modern, powerhouse production that will ram holes in your walls? Covered. Continue reading »

REFLECTIONS IN THE VOID: HEAVINESS

 Mosh Pit  30 Responses »
Jun 092013
 

(Here’s a guest post by long-time NCS supporter Utmu, who’s looking to kick off a discussion.)

Hello, all. Utmu here again for the first time in a few months–in article form, anyway. I’ve been having some discussions with my friends Helm (of Poetry of Subculture) and Dane Prokofiev, and through them, I’ve really gotten into certain concepts that are applicable to our beloved music genre, metal.

These past few days my head has been abuzz with these ideas, and others like them, and I thought I may actually have a drive with which I can fuel some writing. I’m a lazy writer, as some of the writers of this, and other blogs, may know.

I’ve recently started the widely reviled Composition class (for anyone overseas who may have a different word for it, it’s basically a class centered on writing a research paper or papers), and I think I may enjoy myself. After I finish this engagement paper I will be focusing on an analytical paper, which then leads into the research paper itself. I’ve been so enraptured by the ideas I’ve been fed by Helm that I’ve decided to write a paper about them (credit also should go to Dane, because he’s given me a few ideas that I can use to examine music, and he helped elucidate the concepts I was taught about by Helm). I would like to send it into Islander–this probably will not be until early August, and that’s provided I get over some hurdles.

“Reflections in the Void” could be (operative word being “could”) a column of my very own. However, I’m making no promises. My interest in writing probably isn’t the most stable thing ever; my interest in anything isn’t that stable, for that matter. But I’ll give it a go and see if anything comes of this venture. Additionally, I’ve also wanted to ask questions of you all for a quite some time, much akin to MetalSucks’ “Question of the Week”, although mine may have different concerns. So why not combine the concepts I’ve learned and my desire for surveying and start a dialogue? Continue reading »

THE ABSENCE: “OCEANS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jun 092013
 

I’ve been waiting anxiously for “Oceans” ever since Tampa’s The Absence first announced back in early May that it would be coming — and then I completely overlooked its debut last week, finally hearing it only yesterday. I was anxious to hear it because in my humble opinion The Absence are one of the finest melodic death metal bands the U.S. has yet produced. To this day, their 2007 album Riders of the Plague remains high on my personal list of “most-played” releases ever.

What set The Absence apart from so many other U.S. bands who piled on to the Gothenburg bandwagon was a combination of vibrantly vicious vocals, intensely memorable melodic riffs, and brilliant guitar leads and solos by the duo of Patrick Pintavalle and Peter Joseph. And of course the music was also heavy as hell. But almost three years have passed since the band’s last album (Enemy Unbound), and they’ve had a bit of a rocky road since then, including a split from Metal Blade (who released all three of their full-lengths) and the departure of Peter Joseph, which was announced this past January.

But it definitely seems like The Absence have turned the corner. First, they enlisted the awesome Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry) as Joseph’s replacement. And second, “Oceans” is great. Continue reading »

“BE READY FOR AN ASS WHOOPING, FLORIDA STYLE”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

You probably already have important plans for this Saturday night. Maybe you’re going to wash your cat in the kitchen sink using dishwashing soap. Maybe you’re planning to light bags of dogshit on fire in front of the door where your fuckwad of a neighbor lives. Perhaps you’re going to stand on a street corner and yell passages from The Iliad at passers-by on a bullhorn. But if you’re stuck at home with nothing to do but stare at the walls and regret your miserable existence, I’ve got an idea you might consider: Grab a brew, strip down to your underoos, and watch Obituary live in the comfort of your own squalor.

That’s right, Obituary is performing live tonight in Tampa, Florida, and they’re going to stream their entire concert, as it happens, in multi-cam HD quality over the interhole. The performance begins at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time and will feature sets of music from Slowly We Rot, Cause of Death, and The End Complete. It will cost you $4.99 US dollars to watch.

Also, the band has invited you to take a pic of yourself watching the show and they will put it on their web site, with the winner of the best pic to be rewarded with a “classic” Obituary t-shirt. I’m foreseeing a lot of ugly pics in this band’s future.

I’m going to have to miss this concert myself. I have bodies to bury that are starting to fill up my home with stink. But if not for that, I’d definitely be doing this. Because FUCKING DEATH METAL. Continue reading »

ÀRSAIDH: “ROOTS”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

It’s probably inevitable that associations will be drawn between England’s Winterfylleth and Scotland’s Àrsaidh. Both bands play what might be called atmospheric, folk-influenced black metal. Both bands take the ancient heritage of their respective countries as the inspiration for their music and the focus of their lyrics. And the music of both bands is dramatic and serious-minded. In light of Winterfylleth’s well-earned rise to prominence, and the temptation of fans and critics to compare new bands to better-known ones, I’d be surprised if the comparison weren’t made. Hell, I think I just did it myself.

At a high level, all those similarities exist, and I would add one more: Àrsaidh’s debut album Roots is as deserving of attention as The Threnody of Triumph and The Mercian Sphere. In fact, Roots is downright brilliant. But there are important differences, too — beyond the fact that both albums come from cultures that have warred with each other for longer than they’ve (ostensibly) been united.

Roots really is deeply atmospheric, but it doesn’t rely on riffs or hard-hitting rhythmic movement. For most of the time in the album’s very long songs there’s a background wash of tremolo-driven distortion — rising, falling, sometimes almost pulsating — and racing, rolling, tumbling drumwork. This provides the bottom layer of these multi-faceted songs, to which Àrsaidh adds simple but affecting melodies that are carried by a variety of instruments — acoustic and electric guitar, piano, echoing flutes, synthesized strings (sometimes in the movement of a soaring chorus, sometimes the soulful voice of a single violin). Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER’S “EVERBLACK”: FULL-ALBUM STREAM (FOR 24 HOURS)

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

Saturday morning in Seattle. I’m up and moving around (slowly). Still need to finish that writing project for NCS I mentioned in the last post, but I thought I’d throw this out there in the meantime: Beginning about an hour ago (9 a.m. Eastern Time), Metal Blade began streaming The Black Dahlia Murder’s forthcoming album Everblack in its entirety. So you don’t have to take our word for it that the album is excellent.

But the album stream will only last for 24 hours, so if you’re curious about Everblack, don’t dawdle. Go HERE.

TEMPLE OF THIEVES: “SPECIES”

 Exceptions to the Rule  6 Responses »
Jun 082013
 

Never trust a masked woman with a claw hammer. That’s just a bit of wisdom I’m passing on for you to file away. It may come in handy someday.

As I write this, it’s late on a Friday night and I haven’t finished the main thing I wanted to post on Saturday morning. I also don’t really want to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to finish it either. So I’m leaving you this before I go pass out.

It’s a new video by a band named Temple of Thieves. The band includes former Nile members Chief Spyres on bass and John Ehlers on guitar, plus Cryptopsy drummer Flo Mournier. But the music’s not metal. Though this threesome could punch holes through you like a high-machine-gun if they felt like it, they’re delivering hard rock this time — and it’s really catchy, kind of a throwback to some of what I was listening to in the mid- to late-90s.

And vocalist Michael Rock can fuckin’ sing this kind of music. And the video by Max Stewart, Sean Costello, and Sammy Smith is well done, though it’s a non-stop strobe-fest that epileptics would do well to avoid. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PLANKS / O SPLIT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 072013
 

I first heard the music of Germany’s Planks last September and wrote about them here. What I heard then was a Bandcamp stream of Planks’ amazing 2012 album, Funeral Mouth. Not much later I discovered that Planks had recorded a split with a band named Lentic Waters that was released on vinyl in June 2012 by Apocaplexy Records, and was made available for free download via a link on this page. I wrote about that split here. Now, Planks are on the verge of releasing another split with a band named O.

For this new split both bands recorded cover songs. Planks picked “A Forest”, which was originally recorded by The Cure and appears to be one of the all-time favorite songs of the band’s vocalist/guitarist Ralph Schmidt. Mike Hill from Brooklyn’s Tombs contributed guest vocals on the track.

The other band, O, consists of members from the border region of Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium. The song they picked to cover is the “Laura Palmer Theme” from the David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks. It appears that show is a favorite of everyone in O (I like it a lot too). Continue reading »

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