NO CLEAN SINGING

MORE SEEN AND HEARD: GHOST B.C., IMPENDING DOOM, MAGENTA HARVEST, AND VHOLDGHAST

Sep 262013

I know that I’ve already posted one round-up today, but I found more things I wanted to share. So, here goes:

GHOST B.C.

I have an extremely powerful attraction to Ghost’s music, even though I listen to almost nothing else that comes within ICBM range of it. So, I was drawn like a fly to honey when I saw that a new Ghost video had premiered yesterday at Rolling Stone. It’s a professionally filmed clip of the band performing the infernal carnival of “Secular Haze” at a sold-out Webster Hall in New York. It reminds me of how damned much I’ve enjoyed the multiple live Ghost performances I’ve seen.

So, of course, I’m embedding the video here. Watch it next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MARYLAND DEATHFEST, NECROPHOBIC, UNCOFFINED, AND NEOLITHIC VOID

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Sep 262013

Here’s a round-up of noteworthy things seen and heard over the last 24 hours.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST

The organizers of MDF XII have been slowly announcing the names of bands who will appear at next year’s edition of the best metal festival in the US. The most recent announcement came earlier this week with four new names: Cancer, from the UK, who will be making their first US appearance since 1993; Sacrifice from Canada, who will be making their first appearance since 1992; Nocturnus (who for legal reasons must call themselves Nocturnus A.D.), who will be playing the entirety of their debut album The Key; Crowbar; and Death Toll 80K from Finland.

I have several friends who are especially hot over the return of Nocturnus, including NCS writer BadWolf, who reviewed The Key in retrospective back in July 2012 (here). There seems to be some uncertainty about which of the band’s original members will be appearing, other than drummer/vocalist Mike Browning. However, Nocturnus performed songs from The Key live in Mexico City last April. Photos of that show can be found here, and videos are on YouTube, too. I wouldn’t recognize the performers, but presumably it will be the same line-up at MDF.

Here’s one of those videos: Continue reading »

GIVE ‘TIL IT HURTS: CORMORANT AND THE ABSENCE

Metal News 8 Responses »

Sep 262013

So many bands are trying to raise money through crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Some of them deserve a helping hand. I’ll tell you about two that I think deserve your help, because I like both bands and really hope your money will enable them to get their new music in a form suitable to send to me so that I can have it. In fact, I can think of few betters uses for your money, unless of course you’d prefer to just send it directly to me. If that sounds good, hit me up.

Where was I? Oh yeah, two bands I hope you will help finance, for me.

CORMORANT

Contrary to early speculation, the departure of vocalist/bassist Arthur von Nagel did not put an end to Cormorant. In fact, they just finished tracking their third album to analog tape with engineer/producer Justin Weis (Slough Feg, Agalloch, Hammers of Misfortune, Ludicra), having first supplemented their remaining line-up through the addition of Marcus Luscombe, who has become the new bassist and lead vocalist.

Luscombe is an Australian-born San Francisco Bay Area native who has been lead guitarist, songwriter, and backing vocalist for for a band named Vengince and lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist for another band named Cloakwheel. According to Cormorant, “His unique stylings and weird, proggy bass lines have added new elements to the Cormorant sound, and we can’t wait for you to hear how he sounds on the album!” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INFERNO, SLEGEST, DARKMOON WARRIOR, AND PATRONS OF THE ROTTING GATE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 9 Responses »

Sep 252013

In this post I’ve collected three new songs from three new albums that caught my ears over the last 24 hours, as well as a full-album stream of another recent release. As you might have guessed from the title of the post, all of the music flies the black metal flag, but the styles are nevertheless significantly different from each other. The bands are Inferno (Czech Republic), Slegest (Norway), Darkmoon Warrior (Germany), and Patrons of the Rotting Gate (Ireland). I might add that all four albums are adorned by some very eye-catching artwork.

INFERNO

Inferno’s current album, their sixth, is entitled Omniabsence Filled By His Greatness and was released on September 24 by Agonia Records. The fantastic cover art that you see above was creatd by Fenomeno Design (Blut Aus Nord, Glorior Belli, Perdition). Yesterday Agonia uploaded one of the new tracks to Soundcloud.

“The Funeral of Existence” rings with chiming guitars and thrums with heavy weight in the low end. It rocks and rolls, its ephemeral melody will reverberate through your skull, and when the blasting and growling begins it will be time to run for cover before the roof comes down. Damned fine piece of progressive black metal, and really well-produced. This may well be a damned fine album, too — I now intend to find out. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: DOOMRIDERS, MYGRAIN, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, VULTURE INDUSTRIES

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Sep 252013

Within the last day or two, a number of new albums became available for streaming in full. Here are four that I think are worth checking out. In some cases I’ve been able to embed the streams here. In other cases, I’ll have to give you a link to hear it elsewhere. The bands are listed in alphabetical order; as you’ll discover, this selection includes a lot of Exceptions to the Rule around here (you know, the one about singing).

DOOMRIDERS

Doomriders, the Boston outfit fronted by Converge bassist Nate Newton, are releasing Grand Blood on October 15 via Deathwish Inc. It’s the follow-up to Darkness Comes Alive. Stream it at Pitchfork Advance here. Continue reading »

LISTEN TO “ZOCHROT” BY CARCASS WHILE I GET MY SHIT TOGETHER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Sep 252013

We’ve been way light on the content today. I don’t mean to imply any misgivings about Andy Synn’s Otargos review, but we’re way past mid-morning here on the West Coast of these United States, and on a typical day we would have three or four posts up on the site by now. However, I was out listening to live metal last night (a review is coming), didn’t get home and to bed until nearly 3 a.m., and am only now dragging myself into the world of the living (hail satan that I didn’t have to go to work at the usual hour this morning).

I do have a new post in the works, but it will take me a while longer to finish it. In the meantime, enjoy “Zochrot”. That’s not the name of a foot fungus. It’s the name of a “B-side” track recorded by Carcass that isn’t on their new album Surgical Steel but instead was included as part of DECIBEL magazine’s Flexi-Disc series. Subscribers to the magazine got a copy with the August issue. Everyone else is shit out of luck because, at least for now, it isn’t being released in any other format.

However, today DECIBEL did start making the song available for listening on Soundcloud. It’s got a bouncy groove (definitely not the deathgrind side of Carcass’ personality) and a couple of nice solos. Not a bad way to pass the time while I get my shit together. You can hear “Zochrot” by visiting this page (DECIBEL didn’t make the song embeddable): Continue reading »

OTARGOS: “APEX TERROR”

Album Reviews 7 Responses »

Sep 252013

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Otargos, which is out now in Europe on Listenable Records and is scheduled for release in North America on November 5.)

France really is in the middle of something of a metal renaissance (“rebirth” all you non-bilinguals) right now. And I’m not just talking about the steady rise of artists like Alcest and Gojira (or their many imitators). No, I’m talking about some of the seriously nasty underground filth and fury that our Gallic cousins have been pumping out over the last several years.

In particular, 2013 has seen (or will see) the arrival of three truly phenomenal records from the French death/black metal scene – the sickening brutality of “Profane” by Svart Crown, the sneering bombast of Glorior Belli’s Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls (which I believe one of my brethren will be reviewing shortly), and this, the inhuman, predatory malice of Apex Terror. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 59: THACLTHI

MISCELLANY 1 Response »

Sep 242013

This latest installment of the MISCELLANY series is really a carry-over from the immediately preceding installment. I originally picked four bands to explore for that installment, but by the time I began writing about the fourth one I decided the post was already so long that people might lose patience before reaching the end — particularly when they discovered the length of the last song. So I carved out the last band, and they’re the subject of this post.

And as a reminder about the way MISCELLANY works: I randomly pick bands whose music I’ve never heard (usually bands whose names I’ve never heard either), I listen to one recent track from each of them (though sometimes I cheat and listen to more than one), I write my impressions, and I stream the music so you can judge for yourselves.

THACLTHI

This pick was truly a random choice. After reviewing the new album by Progenie Terrestre Pura earlier this month, I made a mental note to explore the web site of the long-running label that released the album, Avantgarde Music. I finally did that yesterday. I found lots of bands whose music I’d never heard before. Being short on time, I picked one to explore, and I honestly have no explanation for the selection I made.

The band’s name is THACLTHI, which means “in silence” in the ancient Etruscan language, and they appear to reside in the town of Volterra (or “Velathri” as the Etruscans called it) in the Tuscany region of Italy. They have a new album named …Erat Ante Oculos that was released on tape last month by Unholy Domain Records and will be released by Avantgarde on November 13, 2013. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 58: DOMINIA, GOD EAT GOD, SENSORY AMUSIA

Calendar, MISCELLANY 5 Responses »

Sep 242013

For newcomers to this series, here’s how the MISCELLANY game works: I impulsively pick bands whose music I’ve never heard (usually bands whose names I’ve never heard either), I listen to one recent track from each of them (though sometimes I cheat and listen to more than one), I write my impressions, and I stream the music so you can judge for yourselves. In this installment I explored the music of Dominia (Russia), God Eat God (UK/Russia), and Sensory Amusia (Australia).

DOMINIA

Over the weekend I posted a teaser clip for the forthcoming third album by UK-based Eye of Solitude, an album I’m eager to hear. I mentioned that the album will include guest contributions by violinist Casper and vocalist Anton Rosa from the Russian band Dominia. I wasn’t familiar with Dominia, but yesterday I received a message from an NCS supporter who I’ll call JcDA encouraging me to check them out. So I went exploring.

Dominia’s last album was Judgement of Tormented Souls, released in 2008, but they’ve recorded a new one entitled Theophania. Last month they released a two-song single that includes one track destined for the new album (“Death Only”) and a live recording of another song recorded earlier in the band’s career (“Cellar Door”). The single can be acquired on Bandcamp via this link. I listened to both songs.

NEW WOLFHEART SONG AND VIDEO: “ROUTA PT. 2”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Sep 242013

I’ll make this short: Wolfheart — the new solo project of Tuomas Saukkonen (ex-Before the Dawn, ex-Black Sun Aeon) — has just released a new official video for “Routa Pt. 2”, a song that will appear on Wolfheart’s debut album Winterborn.

The video, which was beautifully filmed and produced by OneManArmy, is full of fire and ice, just like the song. The video also includes an excerpt of a certain review of Winterborn that I’m quite fond of. In case you want to read all of it, I’ll refer you here. In a nutshell, it says that Winterborn is one of the year’s standout albums.

The album and related Wolfheart merch can now be pre-ordered at the following location, and pre-orders will get two bonus tracks — “Frey” and “4:19 A.M.”; eventually, we understand that the album will also become available digitally, but the details on that haven’t yet been announced.

http://www.madsupply.com/en/shop/band+merchandise/wolfheart

Now, watch and listen to the video for “Routa Pt. 2”: Continue reading »

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