FŌR: “BLAKAZ ASKǬ HERTÔ”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Sep 292013
 

It would be very difficult to describe the attraction of FŌR’s new EP Blakaz Askǭ Hertô to anyone who is not already convinced about the power of blackened death metal and susceptible to the apocalyptic atmospherics that the style is capable of creating. It would be flat-out impossible to do that for anyone who is not already far along the left-hand path of extreme metal in general. Despite these challenges, I shall forge ahead.

Nothing played with a guitar and bass is truly devoid of melody — every string does represent a note. But FŌR have tuned the instruments so low, have so ramped up the distortion levels, and have made such abundant use of repeated tremolo-picked chords and feedback that what most people would call “melody” has been banished to some inaccessible netherworld. The songs are usually dominated by horrific grinding noise, occasionally segmented by massive hammering riffs that brutishly bludgeon like the ultimate hammer of doom.

The dense shroud of guitar and bass radioactivity is monolithic, impenetrable, suffocating, like a slow-moving mass of corrosive static. It’s a nearly relentless assault on the senses that reaches its apex in the 10-minute closing track “Lineage of the Amorphous”, in which one chord after another is struck in slow progression and the droning, fuzzed-out feedback just hangs there with the roentgen levels in the red zone until the the pick hand attacks again. Continue reading »

“THAT’S MUSIC!” — BUT IT’S NOT METAL: NILS FRAHM AND ÓLAFUR ARNALDS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  9 Responses »
Sep 292013
 

We’re actually going to have a “THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC” post today, but we’re beginning with something on the flip side of that, using a title that I think BadWolf originally coined for something else we posted that doesn’t fall within our usual ambit. We don’t do this often, because we know people don’t usually come here for non-metal music. Also, I almost never listen to anything but metal. But I did yesterday.

One of the blogs I follow is written by fellow Seattle-ite Gemma Alexander. Yesterday she wrote about two live performances she caught on Friday night at Seattle’s Decibel Festival, “a world class celebration of underground and experimental electronic music”. Her vivid description of what she saw and heard (which I highly recommend) intrigued me so much that I went in search of music by the two performers — Nils Frahm from Germany and Ólafur Arnalds from Iceland.

Later, having spent more than an hour immersed in the music of both, I decided I ought to share what I found, because it’s pretty amazing.

NILS FRAHM

Nils Frahm is a Berlin-based contemporary/experimental composer whose principal instrument is the piano — and an assortment of electronic effects that transform the sound. I gather that in his live performances, Frahm improvises and experiments, in essence creating new works using his recorded music as the template. Here’s how Gemma described what she witnessed: Continue reading »

READY TO HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN? WATCH THESE KIDS COVER TOOL’S “Forty Six & 2”

 Exceptions to the Rule  21 Responses »
Sep 282013
 

Holy fuckin’ shit on a stick!

I just came across a professionally filmed video of a bunch of teen-aged (and sub-teen) music students recording a cover of Tool’s song “Forty Six & 2” from their 1996 Ænima album. It’s ridiculously impressive. The vocalist and the drummer are especially amazing to watch and hear, but all of the kids really kick the hell out of this song.

Their instructor is a dude named Aaron O’Keefe who teaches at various music academies in Ohio. He’s obviously doing a fantastic job.

Yes, this is an Exception to the Rule round here, but one that’s completely justified in my humble opinion. If there’s ever a School of Rock sequel, Jack Black could save some time: Here’s your cast, dude.

Watch this next: Continue reading »

A SATURDAY SMORGASBORD: PHANTOM, FATES WARNING, DISPARAGED, CARPATHIAN FOREST, CARCASS, IMMOLATION

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 282013
 

Happy Saturday motherfuckers (and of course I mean that in the nicest possible way). You haven’t asked what I’ve been listening to this morning, but I’m going to share that with you anyway, because sometimes people want things that they don’t know they want, and I feel sure this is such a time.

PHANTOM

In listening to the kind of albums I, Voidhanger releases, I’m used to getting my brain pureed in a blender or torn apart by black hurricanes of harrowing noise. But this morning I listened to the first song on a forthcoming I, Voidhanger album that takes a different turn. The album is Incendiary Serum by a Danish band named Phantom, and it’s scheduled for release before the end of this year. The opening track is “Ghostly”, and it is ghostly (and ghastly).

The aura of the music is still very black and bleak, still filled by vocal vomit, but it’s slow, crushing, and melodic. Powerful degraded riffs stomp and moan, twisted tremolo trills flit through the murk, minor-key piano melodies sing the songs of dead, homeless souls. You can headbang, and you can sink into a state of melancholy bereavement. This is an excellent melding of doom, death, and black metal. I, Voidhanger does not disappoint. Here’s “Ghostly”: Continue reading »

PYRRHON SIGNS WITH RELAPSE

 Metal News  1 Response »
Sep 272013
 

It’s not every day that we pause to take note of a band signing with a label, but we’re doing it now for reasons that will become evident. The band is New York’s Pyrrhon (pronounced “peer-on”, as the press release says), and the label is Relapse.

The new multi-album deal follows release of the band’s debut EP (Fever Kingdoms) on The Path Less Traveled record label in 2010, and by the 2011 release of their first album An Excellent Servant But A Terrible Master by Selfmadegod Records. A new album has been completed — tracked and mixed by Ryan Jones (Today is the Day, Mutilation Rites) and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Krallice) — and it obviously got Relapse’s attention. Its name is The Mother of Virtues, and we’ll all get to hear it sometime in 2014.

September has been a good month for Doug Moore. He’s the vocalist and lyricist for Pyrrhon, but this month he also took over the reins as Editor of Invisible Oranges following Fred Pessaro’s departure for a position at Noisey. This elevation follows several years of writing for IO and other music sites. There may have been another serious metal blogger whose band has signed with a label the magnitude of Relapse, but if there is, I’m not aware of it. That’s a pretty good September two-fer. Continue reading »

MEPHISTOPHELES: “SOUNDS OF THE END”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

(NCS guest contributor Austin Weber reviews the forthcoming second album by Tasmanian death metal band Mephistopheles.)

In the past couple of years, the number of creative and talented Australian metal bands has grown and become a force to be reckoned with. Which is not to say their scene hasn’t always slayed; I’ve been jamming plenty of bands from there for years, including the almighty but now defunct Alchemist. Well, we can add another name to the pile of Australia’s best in Tasmania’s own Mephistopheles. A band on the cusp of releasing their second album Sounds Of The End, they have crafted an album that will stand as among the best metal that comes out this year. While few know the name, many will recognize members of their lineup which includes vocalist Matt Chalky (Psycroptic) and sole guitarist Ben Lawless (live for Spawn Of Possession), who also performs vocals.

Sounds Of The End matches its name not only in ferocity but also with an uplifting beauty that sometimes includes some very emotive clean singing. Sonically, Mephistopheles mix and match technical death metal of the Spawn Of Possession school and old-school death metal variety with a rarely straightforward and often reflective black metal side. Their love for songs that revolve around big groovy riffs instead of a shower of leads and solely blazing nature further sets them apart from the preconceived notion of what technical death metal sounds like. Mephistopheles also likes to use that back and forth, wind-sweeping build-up sort of riff that you hear in The Faceless, but done a bit differently, and used to good effect. Continue reading »

HEXER: “HEXER”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

I have a bad habit of yawning by the time I reach the second or third track of most recent thrash releases. Unlike many seasoned metalheads I know, I didn’t grow up on the old gods of thrash, I do not worship at the altar of Slayer or Metallica, and though I’ve explored the field after getting into metal through other pathways, my tolerance for the genre remains limited. I enjoy an ass-burning riff as much as the next person, but the idea of writing songs that sound different from each other seems to be a foreign concept to many current-generation thrash bands, and I’ve always had trouble appreciating the “classic” thrash vocal style.

But what I’ve discovered in recent years is that I didn’t dig deep enough into the darker corners of thrash before convincing myself that it would always fall low on my own list of genre preferences. What I’ve discovered is a strain of thrash that ignites a fever in the blood. What I’m talking about is the infection of black metal within the thrash blood stream. It’s not a recent scourge — the disease sprang to virulent life long ago — but I’ve only discovered its appeal recently. The self-titled debut album of Philadelphia’s Hexer is a very fine recent example of that virus.

This new album is not entirely new. It collects six songs from two 2011 EPs that the band distributed locally on cassette, but they’re now getting a remastered, professionally packaged vinyl/digital release by the reliable Gilead Media label. And the 36 minutes of music the album contains are anything but dull: Hexer is a romping blast of hellfire and brimstone, with the kind of riff mastery that will cause foaming at the mouth.

Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 40: IN ELEMENT

 Free Shit, THE SYNN REPORT  3 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

(In this milestone 40th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of Argentina’s In Element.)

Recommended for fans of: Darkane, Mnemic, After The Burial

 

It seems we’ve reached another big round number in the annals of this column, and as a result I thought I needed to do something a bit special to celebrate. Because that’s just how I roll.

So today’s artist not only hails from Argentina –  receiving its first visit from The Synn Report – but they also offer all of their studio releases (3 albums and one EP) for free download over on their website! That’s right, if you like what you hear you can go straight over to www.in-element.com and download to your heart’s content. Though I’d appreciate it if some of you also bought some physical albums and/or merch, because they definitely deserve your support!

Formed in 2003 and releasing their first album in 2005, these Argentinian antagonists combine state of the art, cybernetically-enhanced melodeath with punishingly technical metalcore flourishes, vicious death metal vocals, and a glorious atmosphere of star-kissed, celestial ambience. Continue reading »

MINDGRINDER, VAURA, YEAR OF NO LIGHT

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 272013
 

I know it seems like all we’ve done recently is collect new songs for you to hear, but there’s a good reason for this: All we’ve done recently is collect new songs for you to hear. In fact, we’re doing it again in this post, though we’ll be breaking the habit with a review or two later today. I’ve had more time than usual to go exploring, and I continue to find new music that get’s me pumped up. So, here we go again… and the bands, in alphabetical order, are MindGrinder (Norway), Vaura (U.S.), and Year of No Light (France).

MINDGRINDER

Until about two days ago I didn’t know MindGrinder existed, despite the fact that they produced two albums in 2004 and 2005. But in my defense, eight years is a long time between albums, and yes, they did release a new album on September 20 entitled Prop Agenda. I found out about it haphazardly, because the artist who created the cover (Eliran Kantor) is someone who I follow on Facebook and he happened to post the cover on his page.

That peaked my curiosity and I went in search of music and found two cuts from the album. The first one I heard is a cover of Emperor’s “I Am the Black Wizards”, on which the father of Emperor’s Samoth (who is a renowned blues artist in Norway) laid down the bass track. It blew my fuckin’ mind (you can tell I’m enthusiastic because I can’t help but use the F word when I get excited). Continue reading »

AMORAL: “IF NOT HERE, WHERE?”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 262013
 

Amoral are a Finnish band who I first heard about almost two years ago through my internet pen pal fireangel of the Night Elves. They released their fifth album, Beneath, in 2011, but they recently announced that they’ve completed a new one entitled Fallen Leaves & Dead Sparrows that will be released next year. Today they began streaming the first advance track from the album, a song called “If Not Here, Where?”

I gather from some info that fireangel sent me in the past that Amoral’s sound began to change following the addition of new vocalist Ari Koivunen before the recording of the fourth album — more melodic songs with big choruses, more clean vocals, a drift toward more “classic” metal, with even some glam overtones. You can probably guess why I didn’t dive right into Beneath. I did post a video for one of the songs from that album (“Wrapped In Barbwire”), because it was such a catchy motherfucker, with groovy riffs and a repeatable chorus — but the vocals still weren’t my kind of thing.

The new song, on the other hand, has hooked me — and not just because the clean vocals are balanced by jagged howls. At more than 9 minutes, it’s an ambitious undertaking, one that begins with an extended, primarily acoustic overture and Koivunen’s power-metal-styled tenor in the spotlight. For some reason, I thought I was about to hear a previously unreleased Journey or Yes song. And then the heavy riffing began, and the song grew progressively more interesting as it grew more  . . .progressive. Continue reading »

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