CULT OF FIRE: मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (“ASCETIC MEDITATION OF DEATH”)

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Oct 212013
 

Consider the idea of a Czech black metal band creating an album in homage to the Goddess Kali, the Aghoris, and Hindu funeral rites. With the album and song titles in Hindi. And they perform in embroidered robes and a striking array of strange hoods. Who wouldn’t be at least a little curious about the music? I certainly was.

मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (“Ascetic Meditation of Death”) is Cult of Fire’s second album, and is due for release on November 30 on the German label Iron Bonehead Productions. From the opening moments of the first track, it’s apparent that the band set their sights on creating something more complex and more artistically ambitious than a straightforward black metal blitzkrieg.

The music is in constant motion, transitioning between moods of light and dark, alternating the pace between hard-driving rhythms and stately progressions, crossing boundaries between incendiary assaults and gorgeous panoramas that more closely resemble post-rock than black metal. The melodies range from the bleak and heart-broken to the shimmering and soaring, but the overall atmosphere is one of epic grandeur, dramatic and impassioned. Continue reading »

DEVEYKUS: HASIDIC DOOM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 202013
 

I’m on the tail end of that four-day retreat I mentioned yesterday, still largely metal-deprived, and with a long plane flight home looming on the horizon. But I hate to let a day go by without posting something. Yesterday I put up some videos from an unusual Japanese band. So I thought, in keeping with the theme, that I ought to look for something equally off the beaten path. And my wishes were answered.

I happened to see a link posted by a Facebook friend to a recent interview that Kim Kelly conducted with trombonist Dan Blackberg about his band Deveykus. They’re a Hasidic doom metal band. I thought, fuck yeah, that sounds way off the beaten path. In the interview, Blackberg explained:

“The music we make is based on traditional Hasidic wordless melodies called nigunim (or nign in the singular) that are meant to be sung over and over again until your spirit either reaches some transcendent state, or your vocal chords give out. Hasidic culture, like a lot of cultures based around religious fundamentalism, has a ton of totally fucked up things about it, and then some seriously amazing music! One of the great traits of the culture is that they put singing these melodies above praying as a way to get your spirit lifted towards some divine energy. I can get behind that. Another great thing they do is appropriate all kinds of music with the excuse that they’re “reclaiming some divine spark in the melodies.” I think it’s great to turn that around and “reclaim” these melodies that almost no one outside of that world would ever hear for everyone!”

Continue reading »

THE WAGAKKI BAND

 Exceptions to the Rule  9 Responses »
Oct 192013
 

Since Thursday I’ve been away from Seattle at a “retreat” with most of my co-workers hosted by the business I work for. Between the planned daytime and nighttime activities and staying up ’til 4 a.m. the last two nights while engaged in assorted unplanned and self-destructive activities, I’ve not had much time for NCS.  And my laptop has been very lonely.

This afternoon I decided to get online and at least quickly check my messages, and there I found one from our old Tokyo-based pal Phro. After being a frequent presence at this site and then eventually starting his own fiction blog, Phro now has a professional writing gig for a site called Rocket News 24. Phro’s message drew my attention to one of his recent articles, which was about a Japanese group named the Wagakki Band.

The Wagakki Band are unusual in at least two ways. First, they record covers of vocaloid songs. I didn’t know what vocaloids were, but The Font of All Human Knowledge explains that a vocaloid is software that enables users to synthesize singing by typing in the lyrics and information about the melody. I guess you could call it a digital vocalist. Apparently, vocaloid music has a big following in Japan, though it seems mostly unknown in the West.  Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GOJIRA, LIVING SACRIFICE, SO HIDEOUS, AND MAN THE MACHETES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 182013
 

Here’s a collection of items I spotted on a quick dash through the interhole today.

GOJIRA

I saw that the gents at Metal Sucks premiered a new Gojira video. It’s a professionally filmed live performance of “The Gift of Guilt”, from last year’s L’Enfant Sauvage, at London’s O2 Brixton Academy. I confess that when the first finger-tapped notes of the melody began, I got chills and a flood of beautiful memories of the live Gojira shows I’ve been lucky enough to attend. The video is also fresh evidence that Mario Duplantier is one of the best drummers in metal today.

To watch the clip, jump over to this location.

On top of that, MS reported that Roadrunner Records has released a live EP that includes three Gojira songs (including “The Gift of Guilt” and three songs by Norway’s Kvelertak, and it can be yours for the price of an e-mail address. To stream and or download it, go here. This is the track list: Continue reading »

HAIL OF BULLETS: “III: THE ROMMEL CHRONICLES”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Oct 182013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Hail of Bullets.)

“In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine” – Erwin Rommel

Hail of Bullets really are the sonic incarnation of war at its most savage and horrifying. Their dedication to concept albums about real events, events that played out like a ballet of death, has proven effective, not only musically, but in their ability to capture the mood of the solider in the thick of war. No band has channeled the deadly precision, the zealous dedication to completing the objective and killing the enemy, or the rush of frantic horror in the last seconds of life, quite like Hail Of Bullets.

What accounts for this? Besides the lyrics, I don’t know if it’s the guitar tone, which sounds like the corpses of freshly dead soldiers being churned into putrid meat by tank treads, or van Drunen’s vocals, which sound less like an attempt to be brutal and more like an attempt to capture the sensation of a soldier frantically stabbing his enemy to death with a bayonet. …Of Frost and War summoned the bitter cold of winter warfare on the Eastern front, the imminence of death, and bitter defeat. On Divine Winds channeled the fanaticism, the fervor, and the imperialistic arrogance of Japanese forces in the second World War.

III: The Rommel Chronicles is more interesting, as its subject is someone who was a more ambiguous figure. I find it intriguing that they chose to make an album about Rommel, who was both a badass German tank commander and one of a group of conspirators who attempted to overthrow/assassinate Hitler himself. Continue reading »

ORANSSI PAZUZU: “VALONIELU”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Oct 172013
 

(In this post BadWolf reviews the new album by Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu, which is out now via 20 Buck Spin in the US and Svart Records in Europe.)

In the first seconds of Oranssi Pazuzu’s new album, Valonielu, I knew I was in for something different. “Vino Verso” opens with a swell of synth and guitar, like something out of my favorite 80’s Judas Priest record—but wait, I thought, Isn’t this a black metal album? The dirty guitars kick in, but they work at a slow, syncopated, doom-sludge stomp. Then the synths break back in, reminiscent of Sanford Parker’s blackened-dance accents on Nachtmystium’s Addicts album. It’s was one left turn after another, and then I looked at my iPod—I was only two minutes into the album. What. The. Fuck.

I like weird black metal. Something about the genre lends itself to unexpected twists in the music—perhaps it’s because the basic building blocks of the genre, blastbeats and tremolo picking, are both simple and versatile. And pretty optional. Oranssi Pazuzu seldom do either, which begs the question: Is this black metal, or have we gotten so lazy with genre tags that we just lump any two things with tangental similarity together? There is a downside to resisting new subgenre tags for a band like this. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: KATAKLYSM (“ELEVATE”) AND REVOCATION (“FRACKED”)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 172013
 

In this post we bring you two excellent new videos that premiered this morning.

KATAKLYSM

The new video from Canada’s Kataklysm is for a new song — “Elevate” — that will appear on this veteran band’s latest album, Waiting For the End To Come. The song is somewhat surprising, in that it’s a bit of a departure from what might be considered the band’s typical style. It still thunders and howls, but as my colleague Andy Synn put it, it’s a lot more spacious and has a big central melody. There were even moments near the song’s end when I was thinking “melodic black metal”. I haven’t listened to the song more than twice yet, but so far it is solidifying my impression that Kataklysm are coming back strong and that Waiting could be one of their best albums in a long time.

The video itself is also excellent. Its jerky-jerky motion and dramatic atmosphere suit the music, and it’s really well-made and interesting to watch. Also, zombies.  You can’t go wrong with zombies. Continue reading »

THE HOWLING WIND: “VORTEX”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 172013
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Tim Call and Ryan Lipynsky under their moniker The Howling Wind.)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. And although we may rarely think about it, it permeates the way we think, talk, and write about music.

When we use words like “heavy”, “crushing”, “dark”, etc., we’re drawing on the experience of our other senses in order to describe the musical experience. We talk about how it feels, how it tastes. We wax lyrical about colour and light and shade. We even assign emotion to the faintest of sounds. The language of music incorporates all the senses.

The duo who comprise The Howling Wind have – whether consciously or unconsciously – exploited this idea for years. Each of their albums is crowned with a distinctive colour scheme which serves both to reflect the music contained within and also to set each release apart from the others. From the rust and verdigris palette of Pestilence and Peril, through the cold, stark blues of Into The Cryosphere, up to the crimson occult shades of last year’s Of Babalon, the cover for each album has been both a promise and a warning of things to come.

So when you see the pitiless greys which grace the cover of Vortex you should prepare yourself for a truly bleak and unforgiving experience. Continue reading »

EXTOL’S “BETRAYAL”: A NEW VIDEO, A NEW SHIRT, AND A CHANCE TO HELP HOMELESS KIDS IN KENYA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Oct 172013
 

Most metalheads I know are good-hearted people (maybe because I steer clear of the assholes). Most metalheads I know also live from paycheck to paycheck — if they’ve got a paycheck. So when someone asks metalheads to spend money on a charitable cause, there needs to be an extra incentive; worthy causes are almost endless, but disposable income is in short supply. Offering something tangible that people are going to be tempted to buy anyway — and then donating all the proceeds to a good cause — that’s the kind of idea that should succeed. And that’s what Norway’s Extol and their record label have just done.

I assume you know who Extol are — but if not, they’re a progressive death metal band who’ve made one of this year’s standout albums (self-titled, and glorified in this NCS review). What they and their label Facedown Records have done is to make a special shirt available for sale, with all profits donated to New Life Mission Aid for use in helping homeless children in Kenya. As the band’s Peter Espevoll explains in a video for this project, New Life Mission Aid is a Norwegian charitable organization dedicated to providing food, shelter, and education to homeless kids in Kenya.

The shirt, as you can see, is badass. The design was created by Dave Quiggle. It’s dedicated to the new album’s opening song “Betrayal”, which in itself was inspired by the plight of those homeless children. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CASKET / SEWERCIDE SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 162013
 


Delicious cover art by Kator.

In early November, Maryland-based Unholy Anarchy Records plans to release a 7″ split by two young bands who are new discoveries for me — Philadelphia-based Casket and Sewercide from Melbourne, Australia. Each band contributes one song to the split, and both of them are good.

CASKET

Casket’s offering is “Armed To the Teeth”. It thrashes and lashes with a firm whiphand, raising welts with a blaze of head-snapping riffs before splitting the skin wide open with a an off-speed beatdown. There’s more than a little hardcore punk blood that courses through the thrash spine of the song, and a miasma of ghoulish death metal fouls the air in that breakdown. Good vocal foulness, too, in a mix of rancid, nails-on-the-chalkboard rants and guttural grunts. And finally, there’s just the right amount of gauziness to the production, because you need a wrapping of gauze to soak up the blood.

SEWERCIDE

Sewercide’s track is “Vector of Disease”, and it’s a romping, wrecking, open-throttle thrasher. You can smell the exhaust from this well-tuned engine, along with a strong whiff of sulphur, because it’s plenty evil. Rippling lead guitar lines, an eye-watering solo, and turn-on-a-dime tempo changes help make the song one worth coming back, too. Standout drumwork and unhinged vocal vehemence, too. Continue reading »

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