AT THE HEART OF WINTER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  34 Responses »
Dec 022013
 

(Guest writer Ben raises an interesting question about the effect of seasonal change on listening habits. Read . . . and comment!)

Hello NCS readers, my name is Ben, and as Winter comes into it’s fullness (at least where I’m living in Wisconsin) I’ve noticed something interesting this year.

As the temperature decreases down to the teens or lower, the volume increases and the aggression in the music increases considerably. It’s probably obvious I listen to “heavy” music, seeing as I’m a regular visitor of NCS, but my taste is quite varied. I can, on a daily basis, be listening to bands like Death, At The Gates, and Godflesh, as well as classical compositions, jazz, drum and bass, etc. But the right choice for the winter days and nights, just seems to be unrelenting Metal.

As you may have noticed, the title of this post is a nod to the frostbite-loving Norwegians we all know as Immortal.  Now I’m not the biggest Immortal fan, or Black Metal for that matter. I appreciate it, but I get sick of hearing about how “evil” a band supposedly is. For the reasons I described earlier, though, over the past few weeks Immortal has more often than usual been a nice choice of music for the working hours. Continue reading »

OBSCURE BRUTALITY NO. 5: KLABAUTAMANN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 022013
 

(Our supporter xBenx has compiled a series of guest posts, this being the fifth installment. Each one focuses on a different band that he fears may have been overlooked by the masses, and today the spotlight is on Germany’s Klabautamann.)

In truth, this is neither head-crushing nor really “brutal”, but Klabautamann’s Merkur album from 2009 is brilliant.

Admittedly, these Germans are indebted to Enslaved’s post-millennium discography, but that doesn’t restrict them from forging their own compelling compositions of progressive black metal. The modus operandi found in this 2009 offering was simple; lush, spacious melodic passages meld seamlessly with their contrast — white-hot furnaces of blazing fury. It may be a straightforward dichotomy, but it’s one that has kept me returning frequently. Continue reading »

YOU’RE THE BEST AROUND, NOTHING’S EVER GONNA KEEP YA DOWN

 LISTMANIA 2013  22 Responses »
Dec 022013
 

(Guest writer KevinP gets a jump on our year-end list series with an assortment of favorites from the year that’s drawing to a close.)

Before I go through my Top 25 Metal Albums of the Year, I felt morally obligated, for some reason or another, to compile a list of my “Other Best Stuff of 2013”, so here goes.

BEST METAL COUNTRY:  FRANCE

Yes, that’s right, I just said FRANCE.  No, this isn’t a Nickelodeon You Can’t Do that On Television “Opposite Sketch” (which was a Canadian show, but they have a bunch of Frenchies there, so it’s all tied together).

Why France. you say?  Well, how about stellar albums by Otargos, Pyrapisme, Monolithe, Blut Aus Nord, Peste Noire, Ataraxie, Temple of Baal, Supuration, Svart Crown, Aosoth, Seth, Year of No Light, Dunkelnacht.  And I’m still waiting on Impureza & Loudblast before year’s end.  Capisce? (Italian word, both countries are in Europe, just roll with it, okay?) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, VALLENFYRE, NILE, CANNABIS CORPSE, GOATCRAFT, DEFECT DESIGNER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Dec 022013
 

I’m still on vacation, and probably should be vacationing instead of spending time on the internet catching up on what’s been happening in the world of metal. Honestly, I expected that nothing would be happening without me there to notice it. You can imagine my shock and dismay in discovering that the world continues to turn even when I don’t pay attention to it. Something is seriously wrong.

Honestly, I didn’t try to dig too deeply into what I’ve been missing, but I did manage to fight through my depression and found a batch of recent things worth mentioning before returning to fucking off.

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE

The last time a band’s merchandising ploy pulled me up short was when Ghost B.C. started selling dildos and butt plugs. But it happened again yesterday when, thanks to a link sent my way by The Autistic Metalhead, I discovered that Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse had started selling their own brand of pasta. It’s true. They’ve got four varieties and they’re shipping worldwide. In my case, it would cost 28 Euro, plus 20 Euro for shipping and handling. Continue reading »

SAN DIEGO DEATH METAL PART II: NOW, WITHOUT THE TENUOUS BOB FILNER CONNECTIONS (OR, IN SOME CASES, THE “SAN DIEGO” OR THE “DEATH METAL”)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 012013
 

(Back in September our guest writer Leperkahn introduced us to three San Diego bands with which to despise the city’s mayor, Bob Filner. Now Leperkahn returns with some new goodies. Also, another mayor to despise.)

Hello again, fellow NCSers. It’s been a while since I’ve posted around here, but the maelstrom of calculus, Common App, and my job at sdmetal.com ate up a lot of time. Alas, the stream of records has slowed recently, so I haven’t had anything to review, and I have this whole week off. Thus, I return to spread metal and to procrastinate those essays.

Much like my second post for this site, this will be a round-up of various San Diego(ish) metal bands worth hearing. This was going to be a fully death-metal-themed list, but then the final band in this post popped up in my mind, thus skewing that. Also, since my last San Diego metal roundup, we have found a mayor to outdo even Bob Filner in his depravity – Rob Ford. Thus, politics will be kept out of this metal, unless you consider this metal in politics: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: LOUDWIRE’S “10 BEST METAL SONGS OF 2013”

 LISTMANIA 2013  27 Responses »
Dec 012013
 

As in past years, while awaiting the rollout of our own series of posts devoted to the year’s best metal, I continue to keep an eye out for year-end lists published by what I call “big platform” web sites — those with web traffic that greatly exceeds even the biggest metal-only sites. By definition, this means they cover music or other forms of entertainment beyond metal. I get a perverse kind of fun watching what they say in their year-end posts, in part because they write for a broader audience that on average is less knowledgable about metal.

Last year I included a year-end metal list by a “big platform” site that wasn’t included in our round-ups for previous years. It’s called Loudwire.com, and it’s the national music website covering active rock and heavy metal of the Townsquare Media Group. Loudwire has over 825,000 Facebook fans and last year it reported that it was receiving more than 1.2 million unique visitors per month.

Last year Loudwire published a staff list of the year’s 10 Best Metal Albums. It’s not clear they’re doing that again this year, but what they have published is a list of the “10 Best Metal Songs of 2013”. And here it is: Continue reading »

SHEVILS: “LOST IN TARTARUS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 302013
 

Shevils‘ latest album Lost In Tartarus deftly straddles the line between hardcore abrasiveness and pop-punk hookiness. It delivers 10 mostly short songs that are all irresistibly catchy but backed by enough split-lipped, heavy-booted aggression to feed an appetite for destruction.

It’s almost all one high-energy, blood-pumping, head-nodding romp after another. Most of the tracks are built around punchy, start-stop riffs and compulsive rhythms that are driven home by conjoined bass-and-drum beats that will get your head bobbing. Some (like “Black Eyes” made me want to pogo — if I were young enough to do that without spraining an ankle) and others (like “Timelines”) made me want to bust up some furniture.

There’s a dark, menacing air to “These Walls Are Coming Down”. Corrosive and battering, it benefits from magnetic bass guitar work, which really shines throughout the album but plays a near-starring role on this track. “We Walk on Shattered Glass” ingeniously combines a big, strutting, hooky riff with a piercing, almost spacey guitar lead that comes and goes. Continue reading »

WORKS OF ART

 Mosh Pit  20 Responses »
Nov 302013
 


Photos by me.

I may have mentioned that I’m on vacation. “Active” is not the word for my vacations. More like “slothful”. I sleep like I’m in hibernation, eat a little, drink a lot, and talk with people unlike any I know at home. I swim with fish that make rainbows look drab, stare at turquoise vistas, and photograph dramatic clouds that leave me silent in awe (yes, silent, it’s a miracle!), every vision unlike any other, never to be repeated.

And I read a lot. I’ve read a few things during my trip that made me think about metal, even though I haven’t been listening much since this vacation began. For example, I read this final sentence from a movie review by David Denby:

“It’s a film devoted to inanition, made with considerable artistry, but it’s far from a work of art.”

My first thought was, “What the fuck does ‘inanition’ mean?” But even before finding the answer, I was thinking about whether the statement was relevant to metal. Probably a poor allocation of limited brainpower, because over-analyzing the things you enjoy is usually a mistake. But I decided yes, it might be relevant, perhaps especially at this time of year when people are compiling their Best of 2013 lists. Continue reading »

OBSCURE BRUTALITY NO. 4: ESSENZ

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 302013
 

(Our supporter xBenx has compiled a series of guest posts, this being the fourth installment. Each one focuses on a different band that he fears may have been overlooked by the masses, and today the spotlight is on Germany’s Essenz. Click that wonderful cover art to make it larger.)

This is proof that I’m not stuck in the past, as Essenz are one of the more curious troupes I’ve come across in the past few years. Straddling a strange middle ground between black and doom, they erect gigantic foreboding sermons of dread, which crawl, or blast, with an incessant fervour. Both albums are worth hearing, though my preference leans towards the debut (KVIITIIVZ – Beschwörung des Unaussprechlichen) — but don’t rule out the second opus (Mundus Numen), as it has been steadily consuming my being on a regular basis lately.

These platters are best administered through (quality) headphones, so you can block out the outside world’s banal monotony. Though some may say that’s exactly what Essenz sound like. I’ll let you be the judge. Continue reading »

EXHALE: “WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Nov 292013
 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Exhale.)

When Exhale released the music video for “Wrath Unleashed” the band managed to worm their way inside my skull like no other managed to this year. Based on one furious, grinding, explosive blast of metal I found myself looking forward to Exhale’s release of When Worlds Collide… and then waiting… and waiting.

For being a minute and twenty seconds long, “Wrath Unleashed” has a way of grabbing you with its bony fingers and gripping your arm like a claw, then never letting go. Keep in mind, the video for “Wrath Unleashed” was uploaded to YouTube in late December of last year, so Worlds Collide has had a long time to simmer and get us hyped up about its forthcoming release. It’s rare that a band is able to hook someone like that on the strength of one song, so when Exhale managed to pull that off, I knew we would be in for something special.

Later releases of “Avsky” and “Machinery” would add fuel to that fire. Although initially difficult to find because it was on a sampler, “Avsky” promised more of that initial rush that was delivered via “Wrath Unleashed”, and it felt good. If the song could’ve been inserted into my veins then I’d probably still be riding that high. “Machinery” was the sort of song that hit like molten steel, sparks and everything ejected from it in every which direction. It was the sort of song (as I described it in my initial discussion following its release) that you put on in your car at full blast and then drive full speed into a wall. Continue reading »

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