INTERVIEW AND OVERVIEW: CODE — “AUGUR NOX”

 Album Reviews, Interviews  6 Responses »
Nov 192013
 

(We hit the trifecta in this post — BadWolf provides an overview of the new album by <code>, an interview of the band’s guitarist/songwriter Aort, and a full stream of the album.)

Augur Nox, the new album by international outfit <code>, is a gift—as in, I was not expecting it, and 2013’s crop of albums is richer for it.

The last time <code> released an album, 2009’s excellent Resplendent Grotesque, it was up for a Spellemann award (Norway’s equivalent to a Grammy), and rightfully so: That record is a roller coaster of dark moods and powerful guitar work, one that pushed the boundaries of what I considered “normal” for a progressive black metal album at that time.

And then, nothing. <code> parted ways with vocalist Khovst, who has a particular talent for high-pitched screeches as well as super-creepy clean singing. Khvost has gone on to work with many other not-particularly-metal-but-still-super-creepy projects, such as folk outfit Hexvessel, and goth rock band Beastmilk (the new Beastmilk LP is pretty fun, as well).

As for Aort… not a peep. Apparently he spent that time searching for a vocalist who could actually compete with Khvost, as well as writing the material that would become Augur Nox. The wait seems to have paid off—the new <code> frontman, Wacian, suits the band perfectly. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BRODY UTTLEY (RIVERS OF NIHIL)

 Interviews  17 Responses »
Nov 192013
 

What follows in this post was a very cool thing for me to do, given how much I admire Rivers of Nihil, and I hope it’s also a very cool thing for you to read. It’s an interview with one of the band’s uber-talented guitarists, Brody Uttley. This is the kind of interview I feel lucky to do — because the lameness of my questions was surmounted by the thoughtfulness of the answers. And if for some reason you haven’t yet caught on to what this band are doing, I’ll give you a chance to experience your own Eureka! moment at the end.

********

Islander: Thanks for making time to talk with me.  We’ve been following you guys for almost two years at our site, and it’s been a blast to watch what’s happened to you, though I’m sure not as much of a blast as it’s been for you.

Brody Uttley: No problem man! Always great to talk with those who have been watching us grow since the beginning. Things have definitely been very intense lately, between recording the album, doing three tours, and trying to make time for our commitments at home.

 

I: I went back and re-read our first post from January 2012, and the writer wrote this:  “I had the good fortune to see Rivers of Nihil open for Boston slam heavyweights Dysentery a week or so ago, and their precision is unmatched by the vast majority of their peers. It seriously sounded like I was listening to a really loud CD, and anyone who’s played in a band knows that that’s an impressive feat. Mark my words, if they keep this up, this band is going places; talent like this doesn’t go unnoticed for very long.”  Does that show seem like ancient history, given what’s happened since then, or does it seem like yesterday?

B: It honestly seems like it was just yesterday, even though we have grown so much as a band and as individual musicians, it feels very recent that we were playing that show.  We keep in very close contact with all of the Dysentery guys, as well as the Cognitive dudes who were also playing that show.  We keep our oldest friends close, as this industry is constantly shifting and you can never really tell where your “new friends'” intentions lie… Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SUNN O))), ULVER, TEMPEL, NUFUTIC, and DEMONICAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 182013
 

It’s been an action-packed day here at NCS, with some ass to mouth plus three album reviews and two song premieres — and I had two more reviews ready to go, but I’ve deferred those until tomorrow so that we don’t overdose you with awesomenessness. But at the risk of giving you a manic sugar high, I thought I’d round up some of the best things I saw and heard today. We’ll begin with a couple of announcements and end with a new song and a new video

SUNN O))) and ULVER

One week ago I reported about a cryptic announcement by Southern Lord that seemed to suggest a long-rumored collaboration between Sunn O))) and Ulver was about to become a consumable reality. Today we got a more informative announcement, i.e., that these two storied bands have indeed collaborated to create a three-track recording entitled Terrestrials — “a trio of movements which flow like magma beneath the Earth’s crust, sonically uninhibited, unpredictably cosmic, haunting and stirring, yet simultaneously ceremonious and beautiful.”

Southern Lord will be releasing Terrestrials in February 2014, the cover can be seen above, and we are promised that over the course of the next month details shall be dribbled out concerning “the story of how this alliance and recording came to be.” Continue reading »

RANNOCH: “BETWEEN TWO WORLDS”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Nov 182013
 

(Andy Synn reviews the forthcoming debut album by the UK’s Rannoch.)

Every so often an album comes along, pretty much out of nowhere, and absolutely blows you away – sometimes with its technicality, sometimes with its songwriting, and sometimes with its sheer audacity.

Rannoch’s Between Two Worlds blew my mind in every one of these ways, and more.

Do you like Darkane? Opeth? In-Quest? Ihsahn? Bands who take the traditional weapons of heavy metal warfare and stretch them to their breaking point, and beyond? Are you looking for a band capable of melding devastating groove, mesmerising 8-string acrobatics, fluid, rumbling bass lines, and progressive nuance into one cohesive whole?

Then this is the album for you. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “WHERE FLIES THE RAVEN” BY SOL NEGRO (And A Review of “DAWN OF A NEW SUN”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 182013
 

Sol Negro’s Dawn of A New Sun is an absolute gem. Originally released in a limited edition of cassette tapes last year, it’s about to get the full-fledged distribution it deserves via the excellent Mexico-based label Chaos Records. Today we’re giving you a taste of the album by premiering the record’s final track, “Where Flies the Raven”. But first, here are some impressions about Dawn of A New Sun as a whole.

Attempting to categorize the album in genre terms is a challenge. The music is remarkably dynamic, with different songs emphasizing different aspects of what turns out to be Sol Negro’s own very distinctive sound. At different moments I thought of bands such as Obscura and Death (at their most progressively inclined), though shrouded in a mantle of black metal and doom. But as it happens, the reference that may come closest to capturing the band’s core motif lies in the one cover song on the album: “Dead Emotion” by Paradise Lost, a brilliant song from the band’s second album Gothic (1991), which Sol Negro perform brilliantly.

And if all these diverse band references confuse you, trust me when I say that the music is masterfully cohesive. Sol Negro unite elements of doom, progressive death, and black metal to create a genuine feast for the ears. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “YOUR GOD” BY FEARED (And A Review of “VINTER”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Nov 182013
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the forthcoming album by Sweden’s Feared, and we’re also stoked to bring you the premiere of a new Feared song: “Your God”.)

A lot of us music fans, especially metal fans, and even more especially music fans who are musicians, have a good idea (or know very well) what goes into writing an album. It’s something that takes time, commitment, and if you care about your music, a great deal of deliberation over what you’re crafting in order to make it the best and most compelling it can be. But creating music has never really been a process that you can just schedule, put in the time, and expect it to come out fine. Some bands have managed to prove that idea wrong, like The Black Dahlia Murder, who’ve released albums on a reliable schedule and haven’t taken a quality dip. Other bands haven’t fared so well.

Usually, we tend to think of the creation process for an album-length work as a long-term endeavor. As fans, we may bitch about how much time it takes for a band to write and record their next album, but we also tend to become leery when a band releases a new album soon after the one that preceded it. So it’s a surprise that Feared, after releasing a monster of an album earlier this year in Furor Incarnatus, announced they’d be releasing another album this year. Continue reading »

ASS TO MOUTH: “UNDER THE RAZOR’S EDGE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 182013
 

I don’t know about you, but I had a great weekend — stupendous live metal on Friday night, a kickass birthday party on Saturday night (not my birthday, but still kickass), and watching the Seahawks stomp the snot out of the Vikings yesterday. I really wasn’t ready for it to end, but Monday has arrived whether I want it to or not (and to be clear, I don’t want it to). There’s really only one way to dive into the cesspool of a new work week, and that’s with ass to mouth.

Hang on a second. Let me try that again, because I forgot to add capital letters the first time.

There’s really only one way to dive into the cesspool of the new work week, and that’s with Ass To Mouth. I became a fan of ass to mouth back in November 2011. Damn, let’s try that again: I became a fan of Ass To Mouth back in November 2011, when our friend Alex Grind To Death Layzell wrote a guest post for our site focusing on Polish grind bands. And ever since then I can’t get enough ass to mouth.

Fuck. I meant I can’t get enough Ass To Mouth. I’ll be getting a lot more ass to mouth in the near future because their second album, Degenerate, will be released by Selfmadegod Records in February 2014. Last night the label began streaming the first advance track from Degenerate, and man, it’s hell on wheels. Continue reading »

A BACKWARD GLANCE: SPEARHEAD

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Nov 172013
 

I own a standard fuckton of band shirt (not a metric fuckton, because who can understand metrics?). Last night I grabbed a shirt out of one of many mountainous piles before running off to a birthday extravaganza for a friend. The image above is what’s on the front of the shirt. I had no idea which band it was, I just thought it looked cool. Rough guess, I don’t know the names of the bands for 25% of the shirts I have. I knew when I bought them, but the logos for so many are unreadable that as time passes I just go blank.

I spent the night partying with a couple dozen people, not one of whom was a metal head. At one point my shirt became the subject of a guessing game. There are words on the back. They say this:

The heavy burden of the earth thou justly cast to desolation, Kshatriya thou master of the ascesis of power. — Kshatriya 11.18-19.

These words meant nothing to anyone, including me (because I had forgotten their meaning). And then someone had a Eureka! moment and guessed the logo . . . Spearhead! Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 84)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  13 Responses »
Nov 172013
 

Greetings and salutations to one and all. It’s time for another edition of THAT’S METAL!, in which I collect photos, videos, and occasionally news items that I think are metal even though they don’t involve music (or at least not metal music). Actually, it’s way past time for another edition since the last complete one was three weeks ago. Having dragged my feet for so long, I’ve collected a large number of items for this installment. Here we go…

ITEM ONE

We begin with John Kenn Mortensen, a Danish writer and director of television shows for kids and himself a father of twins. In his spare time he makes drawings on post-it notes — those small sticky pieces of paper that people use to remind themselves of things that need remembering. Mortensen is not only a talented illustrator, he also has a dark, demented sense of humor and an occasionally Lovecraftian bent in his imaginings. His style is reminiscent of both Edward Gorey and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). The fact that he does what he does on post-it notes just makes everything more metal.

One example of his work is at the top of this post. Pay close attention to the jar on the right side of the lowest shelf (you can click the image to make it bigger). And here are other examples of Mortensen’s creations: Continue reading »

UNDER THE RADAR ROUND-UP

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Nov 162013
 

(TheMadIsraeli quickly reviews four new releases that deserve attention.)

Time for a round up of some shit that I’m sure some have missed or will miss when it comes out.

TYRANTS BLOOD 

We’ve mentioned Tyrants Blood (which includes former members of Blasphemy) once before on this site, and for good reason.  Their absolutely ravenous clusterfuck of all things brutal and fast is an always welcome treat.  The band’s new album Into the Kingdom of Graves is their most vicious and downright demonic sounding effort yet.  It’s hard to listen to things like the early Deicide records nowadays and think “this is some sinister shit” when bands like Tyrants Blood exist now. Continue reading »

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