AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOLFGANG ROTHBAUER (ZOMBIE INC)

 Interviews  5 Responses »
May 082013
 

(Occasional NCS contributor and a tough man to please, KevinP, recently had a talk with Wolfgang Rothbauer, guitarist for Austria’s Zombie Inc., whose new album Homo Gusticus was recently released by Massacre Records. We’re pretty sure Wolfgang is in the middle of the photo above. At the end of the interview we’ll have some music from the new album plus two videos.) 

 

K:  OK, ready when you are.

W:  I am ready! but be aware…I am the murderer of 6 beers already!!

 

K:  Oh boy, hahaha.  I know this is one of those annoying interview questions, but give us a little backstory on how the band formed (this will help out all the newbies who are just discovering Zombie Inc).

W:  Well, it was just Gerald Huber (Collapse 7) and me, who met in 2009 for some beers…I had to record some vocals for his project…after this we had more beers and talked about the good old 90`s death metal…after this we decided to form an old school death metal band… we knew that this would not be perfect and “real” if Martin Schirenc wasn’t on vocals …so we asked our long-time friend to follow us…he was surprised but followed…the other guys too, but they were later replaced by Martin Arzberger on bass (Molokh, Hollenthon) and Florian Musil on drums (Raising the Veil, Molokh). After our infection caused by the zombie babypiss, we deformed to zombies…so here we are! Continue reading »

TIM LAMBESIS (AS I LAY DYING) ARRESTED ON SUSPICION OF HIRING SOMEONE TO MURDER HIS WIFE

 Metal News  14 Responses »
May 072013
 

Our last post was a joke. Unfortunately, this one isn’t. FOX5-San Diego and Reuters are reporting tonight that Tim Lambesis, lead singer for As I Lay Dying and Pyrithion and the man behind Austrian Death Machine, has been arrested  after he allegedly hired someone to kill his estranged wife. Here’s more from the FOX5 report:

“Tim Lambesis, lead singer and co-founder of the heavy-metal group As I Lay Dying, was arrested at a store on Vista Way in Oceanside about 2 p.m., after allegedly soliciting an undercover detective to kill his spouse, an Encinitas resident, according to sheriff’s officials.

Authorities began investigating Lambesis, 32, in the case on Thursday, when they received information that he allegedly was trying to get someone to commit the slaying.

He was booked into the Vista Jail on suspicion of solicitation of murder.”

The reports don’t indicate that Lambesis has yet been charged, merely arrested. But if the reports are correct that his arrest was based on statements he made to an undercover detective, you can bet those charges will be forthcoming soon. Continue reading »

I”M PEEING MYSELF OVER THE “EMMURE REMIX” OF THE ATLAS MOTH’S “HOLES IN THE DESERT”

 IQ Subtraction  16 Responses »
May 072013
 

Before diving into the subject of this post, let me make one thing clear:  I do not understand why metal blogs spend print on Emmure’s Frankie Palmieri. The writers I have in mind do not listen to Emmure. Most of their readers do not listen to Emmure. Frankie Palmeri is not an interesting person. Therefore, why write about him? The only answer I can think of is that he’s easy to make fun of, because he says ridiculous things. Seems like a waste of space to me. Now, having gotten that off my chest, I’ll move on and write about Frankie Palmeri.

By way of background, Emmure are touring Europe at the moment. So are The Atlas Moth — a band whose music I like a lot. The Atlas Moth have been stopping at venues where Emmure have previously stopped. Upon finding Emmure stickers and assorted tags at these venues, The Atlas Moth have been defacing them with drawings of dicks, because, well, The Atlas Moth think Emmure sucks. This has led to a war of words with Frank Palmeri, which is sort of like going to war with a cockatoo. Things that sound like words come out, but they don’t make much sense.

Yesterday (May 7), while performing in Moscow, Franki Palmeri received an electric shock while in the middle of a song, a shock that was powerful enough to knock him straight down and out cold. Obviously, a dangerous situation that could have been worse, though Palmeri has recovered and is already making PR hay out of the incident.

And finally I come to the subject of this post. In a display of creative genius, Cris Bissell, the drummer for a Wisconsin band named Orwell, created a music video, pairing up a continuous loop of film showing Palmeri getting zapped to The Atlas Moth song “Holes in the Desert” (which is a killer song). I found this to be funny as shit. Why?  Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HAGGIS AND BONG, NEKKAR, MADLEAF, AND DARKALL SLAVES

 Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
May 072013
 

I’m hoping everything in this post will tickle your fancy. It includes four quite diverse songs that I heard this morning. They’re nothing alike, but I thought they were all cool . . . and not the kind of thing you’re likely to come across elsewhere (at least not packaged together and hand-tied with a pink bow, like I’m doing for you).

HAGGIS AND BONG

Still one of the best metal band names ever. And still some of the most stirring bagpipe-injected metal you can find. Haggis and Bong come not from Scotland but from South Africa, and they’ve been a favorite topic of mine here at NCS dating all the way back to January 2010, when the band was just a duo of pipers and a drummer (you can find all of my blathering about them over the years via this link).

Since those early days they’ve expanded themselves into a genuine metal band — but one in which the pipes still play a prominent role — and today they’ve released a free single that’s their heaviest work yet. In addition to including some mosh-worthy distorted riffing and pounding rhythm work, “Battle Destroyer” incorporates the pipes in an unusual way — no jigs or reels this time. Check out the song after the jump and go download it here if you dig it as much as I do. Continue reading »

CHTHONIC’S NEW MUSIC VIDEO FOR “DEFENDERS OF BU-TIK PALACE” IS A FEAST FOR THE EYES AND EARS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
May 072013
 

This morning, Taiwan’s Chthonic premiered their official video for “Defenders of Bú-Tik Palace”, the first single from their forthcoming album Bú-Tik. Man, is it a feast for the eyes. With very high-production values, it’s like some kind of cyber-legend, bursting with acrobatic martial artistry and fantastic settings, blending the past and the future.

Although the video is a high-budget fantasy, the Bú-Tik Palace is also intended to draw together historical connections important to Cthonic. According to the band, “The BuTik Palace in Puli was used as command headquarters by Japanese colonial government to repress a Seediq Aboriginal Uprising in Wushe in 1930. During the initial phase of the 228 Massacre in 1947, militiamen in Taiwan also used it as its command headquarters. The chants in the second half of the song are the names of all martyrs who sacrificed themselves in resistance against dictators and fought for independence.”

According to this interview with Doris Yeh, the song was also intended to draw together connections between the band’s three previous albums. Musically, it’s an electric piece of Scandinavian-style melodic death metal, but one in which traditional music and a traditional vertical fiddle eventually make their appearance. The song also features guest vocals by Mei-yun Tang, a famed Taiwanese opera singer. Continue reading »

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR A BLACK METAL VIKING BIKER FILM WITH ZOMBIES, YOUR DREAM IS ABOUT TO COME TRUE

 Metal News  2 Responses »
May 072013
 

Are you like me?  Have you felt an emptiness in your life because no one has ever made a Black Metal Viking Biker-film With Zombies?  Have you given up hope that this void will ever be filled?  Well, don’t give up!  Stop thinking about opening your femoral artery with a straight razor and just bleeding out with tears in your eyes over the cruelty of life — a brighter day is just around the corner!  Your hopeless dreams may yet come true.

Yes, it’s true. A Black Metal Viking Biker-film With Zombies is in pre-production. Its title is Saga, and it stars none other than Ted Skjellum, better known to metal fans as Nocturno Culto, one of the Darkthrone duo, a member of Sarke, and a former stalwart in Satyricon. This isn’t Skjellum’s first adventure in film-making — in 2007 he released a documentary film about black metal and life in Norway called The Misanthrope — but as far as I know, it’s his first turn as an actor. He will be collaborating with writer, producer, director and photographer Jorn Steen.

In Saga, Culto will play a director of metal music videos who makes a feature-length Viking movie based upon the northern classic Eyrbyggja Saga. In the story, a dead Viking breaks out of his tomb during filming and terrorizes the locals at the shooting location. Culto will also get to ride a Moto Guzzi in the film.

Is your heart skipping a beat over this news?  Well, don’t get too excited just yet, because although all the actors are lined up and the locations are being prepared, there’s still a need for money. Isn’t there always. But you can help! Continue reading »

DEATHEMBER: “GOING POSTAL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 072013
 

I certainly don’t pretend to be an historian of “groove metal” as a genre. But when I think about it at a high level, two evolutionary pathways come to mind. One line runs through bands such as Pantera and perhaps, in a more extreme vein, early Sepultura, encompassing music that’s primal, relatively stripped-down, visceral, generally mid-paced, and melodic. That line detoured through things like nu-metal and, in the more modern era, runs through bands such as Lamb of God.

I think of the second line as one that started with Meshuggah, a more rhythmically complex, highly syncopated, speedier, and less melodic kind of music that in the modern era branched off into sub-genres such as djent and the less easily classifiable kind of metal created by Gojira.

Sweden’s Deathember proudly carry the “groove metal” flag in their debut album Going Postal, but they represent an intersection of those two lines I’m hypothesizing. They tap into the infectious, primal appeal of the first line, but their music also incorporates unusual rhythmic patterns and technically demanding instrumental interaction of the kind that’s closer to the second line. It’s definitely not djent or any other form of overt Meshuggah worship, yet it’s highly percussive music, grounded in the power of beat and rhythm, while also incorporating infectious melodies. It’s a very appealing combination. Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
May 062013
 

What do you do when you get flooded with tantalizing news and new music over the span of 24 hours, and it’s all too much to cover in your usual long-winded style of prose (I don’t mean your long-winded style, I mean mine)? You swallow all those words and you do this . . . really short blurbs about many items . . . from Howl, The Resistance, Strychnia, The Absence, Darkane, Mordbrand, and After the Burial. Whew!

HOWL

Today, Rhode Island’s Howl premiered a new official music video for “Demonic”, a song off their new album Bloodlines, which is out now and which features some incredibly eye-catching cover art. “Demonic” is a cross between scorching and crushing. Scorshing? It’s catchy, too. The video comes next . . . Continue reading »

DECEASE: “EXHORT TO OBLITERATE”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
May 062013
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by a Romanian band named Decease.)

Death-thrash is one of those sub-sub genres of metal I will be eternally in love with. The rancid, putrid vocals, the scorching riffs that mix thrash’s precision and technicality with death metal’s heft and skin-flaying speed, the non-stop assault of an old-fashioned thrash beat (or skank beat, as Suffocation call it), I’m just all bout’ it. I ran across the video for Decease’s single off their debut Exhort to Obliterate called “Atrocious Deeds”, and my ears were immediately hooked. After Islander shared that video in a round-up, the band was kind enough to hook us up with the album.

I’m glad they did. Decease have a lot going for them. Influences can be heard from early Kreator, early Sepultura, and Exhorder. The resulting sound is a blitzkrieg of surgical precision, raw intensity (balls to the wall, as it were), and a paradoxical sense of reckless abandon. The band is a three-piece, consisting of guitarist/vocalist Radu Vulpe, bassist Catalin Vulpe, and drummer George Alb.

The rusty-blade attack of the production, combined with the zealot-like attack of the riffs and unrelenting assault of the rhythm section, all topped off by Radu’s Chaos A.D.-era Sepultura death grunts, should send you into a whiplash-inducing trance. I would certainly hope so, considering we do usually favor the obscenely brutal and intense around here. Continue reading »

BURZUM OUT OF METAL

 Metal News  23 Responses »
May 062013
 

In every field of artistic endeavor, whether it be music, painting, writing, sculpture, acting, filmmaking — you name it — there are examples of people who have created great works of art but are deplorable as human beings. They make you question yourself: Is it right for me to admire, enjoy, and even praise this person’s artistic work if the creator is someone whose actions or expressions outside of their art clash with my own principles and beliefs?

Metal is no exception to this quandary. Perhaps the single most notorious example is Varg Vikernes. On the one hand, he played a leading role in the origination and development of Norwegian black metal under the name Burzum (and as a member of Mayhem), and he has continued to create notable music under the Burzum name nearly two decades later. On the other hand, in 1994 he was convicted of murdering Mayhem guitarist Euronymous and burning churches in Norway, and he spent 16 years in prison for those crimes.

He has also written extensively about his own beliefs in the racial purity of Northern Europeans and the superiority of its pagan traditions, filling volumes’ worth of words with racist, anti-semitic, and homophobic diatribes. In Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, director Sam Dunn described him as “the most notorious metal musician of all time”, and it’s hard to disagree.

Well, metal may have seen the last of Varg Vikernes. In an April 30 post on one of his blogs (Thulean Perspective), he summed up his own role in the history of black metal and the evolution of that movement into what he terms “nihilstic shit”, ending with the proclamation that “I no longer play metal music”.  Continue reading »

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