WATCH AMON AMARTH’S VIDEO: “FATHER OF THE WOLF”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 182014
 

I’ve had virtually zero blog time since leaving Seattle early yesterday on a work-related trip. I haven’t even had time to listen to music, much less write about it. (You may have noticed, for example, that now two days have passed since the last installment in our MOST INFECTIOUS SONG series). Things aren’t likely to improve tomorrow, though we ought to be back to normal on Monday (“normal” being a relative term, of course).

I was saved from the dreadfulness of having nothing new on the site today by a message from my comrade DGR, bringing to my attention that Amon Amarth finally released their 10-minute mini-movie for the song “Father of the Wolf”. The band played the video at the first show of their U.S. your last night, and now it’s on YouTube. And now it’s on NCS.

In a word, it’s fantastic. Check it out: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ONTOGENY, PROFANE OMEN, RUINE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 172014
 

This will be my last post for today because my fucking day job is taking me out of town and I’ll be disconnected from the almighty inter hole for the next 7 or 8 hours.  That means no new installment of the “Most Infectious Song” list until tomorrow.  However, I did have time to pull together three new things I saw and heard last night — which I obviously think you need to see an dear, too.

ONTOGENY

I received this message from my comrade DGR:

“Ontogeny are going again, which is cool. They’re a San Francisco based Tech-death band that includes members of the group Anomalous. They have a new disc coming called Hymns Of Ahriman. It’s been three years since the last one. These guys write epic death metal songs that become whirlwinds at the drop of a hat, and Ontogeny have a tendency to just go straight into grind right in the middle of a song.

“I guess they couldn’t wait to have a fully produced song out so they just posted the pre-pro demo of the song “Phantom Love”. It’s 8:30 of just sheer madness. They put it up on the 10th of last week and it seems no one picked up on it.” Continue reading »

VIOLATE: “BURN THE MEMORY”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 172014
 

(TheMadIsraeli penned this review of the 2013 debut album by a Croatian band named Violate.)

I’d like to know who is actually in the know about the Croatian metal scene.  It’s not exactly somewhere “on the map” as far as global metal goes, and I’ve certainly heard very few bands who really stood out to me, but I may be missing some.  Violate are one worth taking note of though. They play a style of slightly modernized thrash that’s at the same time buried heavily in the roots and initial tremors of the post-thrash movement of the really early 90’s.  Things are very much set in a strict 50/50 split between speed and groove in their music, and the combination of killer riffs, face-melting solos, and leonine roars of guitarist and main composer Dario Bulatovic and his partner in riff-driven crime Darko are the primary elements that turn Violate’s Burn The Memory into a solid, memorable, and intense debut.

A lot of Violate’s sound is soaked in Burn My Eyes Machine Head and Vulgar Display of Power Pantera, mixed with a lot of Testament, Anthrax, and Exhorder.  As such, while a lot of thrash action is going on here, Violate bob and weave between that and a metallic hardcore edge.  The metallic hardcore elements are really where a lot of the groove comes in.  They have that feel. Continue reading »

SUICIDAL ANGELS: “DIVIDE AND CONQUER”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 172014
 

(TheMadIsraeli wrote this enthusiastic review of the latest album from Suicidal Angels, released earlier this month by NoiseArt Records.)

Much like I have viewed Evile, I’ve viewed Greek death thrashers Suicidal Angels as a reliable source of pure adrenaline-pumping high-quality technical thrash metal.  I’ll admit that while I enjoyed 2012’s Bloodbath it lacked.  It lacked a lot.  So much so that I wondered if the band had run out of steam.  Then the video for Divide and Conquer‘s lead single “Into the Grave” came out and I was proven way fucking wrong.

Suicidal Angels decided to rejuvenate their sound.  How?  By removing the death metal and diving purely into their thrash roots. Divide and Conquer is bathed in the technical violence of Dark Angel, Slayer, Sepultura, and Artillery so much it’s like being served all-you-can-eat rare ribeye steaks.  This shit is so whiplash-inducing and air-guitar-compulsion-facilitating that it’s unbelievable. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2013’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 6

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2013  9 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

Welcome to Part 6 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the three I’m announcing today, click here.

You can think of this latest group of songs as the “comeback” edition of the series. All three songs come from bands who made incredibly exciting returns to the metal scene during 2013 after extended absences, ranging from to 8 years to 17 years. Their 2013 albums surely must rank among the strongest comebacks in metal history, and they have also been widely recognized as three of the best albums of last year. They’re presented here in alphabetical order.

CARCASS

Did any metal album of 2013 draw more attention than Surgical Steel (reviewed by us here)?  It was so highly anticipated that if it had been merely good, massive disappointment would have been the inevitable result. Yet Jeff Walker, Bill Steer, and Dan Wilding pulled off a tour de force that left all but the most hide-bound doubters smiling. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ALTERBEAST, ETHEREAL, HORIZON ABLAZE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

Earlier today I posted a delayed round-up of new music and newsy things that I intended to post yesterday. This round-up is somewhat more timely, and collects three songs and related news that I just discovered today and that I heartily commend to your attention, in alphabetical order.

ALTERBEAST

Alterbeast (formerly comically known as the Gary Busey Amber Alert) are a Sacramento band I first heard about through my NCS comrade DGR (who wrote this review of one of their live shows last October). They are now among the Unique Leader stable of artists, and this spring Unique Leader plans to release their debut album Immortal.

Yesterday we got a first look at the album’s striking cover art by the talented Raymond Swanland (click the image above to see it in its full glory), and we also got a premiere of the album’s first track, “Flesh Bound Text”. You may momentarily be lulled by the piano and violin intro, but you will be jolted fully upright by the tech-death onslaught that follows. It flies like a highly accelerated horde of bats awakened from their slumber by a grenade detonation. But as jet-fueled and acrobatic as the instrumental performances are, what makes the song even more noteworthy are the start-stop dynamics and the deft incorporation of a swirling guitar melody. Awful damned impressive. Continue reading »

CARNIFEX: A SONG PREMIERE + ALBUM DETAILS + TOUR NEWS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

Once upon a time, long ago, when deathcore was a new thing, I was a fan. One of the bands I particularly enjoyed was Carnifex. As has been true of other early deathcore progenitors, their music has slowly evolved more in the direction of straight death metal. But their latest song, which premiered today in a lyric video, is a bit of a return to their roots. Its name is “Dragged Into the Grave” and it comes from their new album Die Without Hope, which will be released on March 4 in North Am and March 7 in Europe by Nuclear Blast. The cover art was created by Godmachine.

The new song will please Carnifex fans, and it will not change the minds of anyone who has written off the band based on previous experience. I’m featuring it here as much for nostalgic reasons as anything else (you can hear it after the jump).

In related news, it was announced yesterday that Carnifex will begin a U.S. Tour next month with support from Betraying the Martyrs, I Declare War, Here Comes the Kraken, and Assassins. Here’s the schedule: Continue reading »

AN ABIGAIL WILLIAMS UPDATE

 Metal News  13 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

You can’t keep a good band down, or at least not this one. In July of 2012, we reported the dismal news that USBM band Abigail Williams were going to call it quits after a farewell U.S. tour that started later that month. But Abigail Williams are back, in a big way.

First, the band’s main man Ken Sorceron has recruited a stellar line-up of musicians to accompany him on a nationwide Abigail Williams tour that’s now in progress: guitarist Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Wolvhammer); bassist John Porada (Terminate), and drummer Jesse Beahler, (ex-Jungle Rot, Nightfire). Along for the ride (though their participation in the tour has been delayed) will be another band we’ve praised at NCS, Erimha. Dates are after the jump.

Second, a slightly different though no less eye-catching line-up will be entering the studio with Sorceron in April to record a new Abigail Williams album: Jeff Wilson; long-time Abigail Williams guitarist Ian Jekelis; drummer Alex Rudinger (The Faceless); and bassist Will Lindsay (ex-Nachtmystium, Wolves In The Throne Room). We are told that fans should expect a release on Candelight Records in late August or early September. This goes on our “highly anticipated” list of 2014 releases. Continue reading »

FREE SHIT: A DISCHARGE COVERS ALBUM BROUGHT TO YOU BY CVLT NATION

 Free Shit, Metal News  1 Response »
Jan 162014
 

I know for many of you Discharge require no introduction. For others, allow me to provide this synopsis from The Font of All Human Knowledge:

Discharge are a British hardcore punk band formed in 1977 by Terence “Tezz” Roberts and Royston “Rainy” Wainwright. They are often considered among one of the very first bands to play hardcore punk…. The band’s 1982 debut album, Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, went to number two on the UK Indie Charts and number 40 in the UK Album Chart…. Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing paved the way for thrash metal, black metal, crust punk, grindcore and various extreme metal subgenres. The musical genre of d-beat is named after Discharge and their distinctive drumbeat…. Many bands that followed Discharge’s stylistic approach, primarily in Sweden, began using the “Dis-” prefix and “-charge” suffix in their names….

With that preamble, here’s the point of this post: CVLT Nation has assembled a free compilation of the Discharge songs on Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, as covered by a hellacious (and diverse) line-up of bands that include the likes of Unru, Plagues, Absvrdist, Dephosphorus, and Occultist, just to name the ones I already know about and like. The full line-up is after the jump, along with a link where you can find out how to download this beast. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ALFAHANNE, INTEGRITY, DYSCARNATE, MORBUS CHRON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 162014
 

I intended to post this round-up of recommended new things yesterday, and even then the news and new music included herein was a bit dated. But life got in the way and I wasn’t able to finish it until now. In the meantime, even more new things hit my fractured radar screen. And so, if life will just stay out of the way, I’ll have another round-up for you later today.

ALFAHANNE

According to a press release I received, Alfahanne are a Swedish band formed in 2010 with members who have been in the black metal scene since the early 90’s in bands such as Vinterland and Maze of Torment — Pehr Skioldhammer (vox and guitar), Fredrik Sööberg (guitars), Niklas Åström (drums), and Jimmy Wiberg (bass). They released a split named Grym with Sweden’s Shining last year, which I haven’t heard. They’ve now recorded a debut album, Alfapokalyps, which is due for release via Dark Essence on February 10 in both CD and vinyl formats (orderable here).

In addition to featuring eye-catching cover art (above), the album includes guest vocal contributions from Niklas Kvarforth (Shining), V’gandr (Helheim), and Hoest (Taake). Recently, the band started streaming an advance track named “Såld På Mörkret”, which includes Hoest’s contribution as a vocalist. It’s a helluva song. Continue reading »

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