“THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 82.5)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  20 Responses »
Oct 032013
 

(photo by Nick Brandt)

This isn’t a typical installment of our THAT’S METAL! series, in which we collect images, videos, and news items that we think are metal even though they’re not music. It features only one item. I had originally intended to save it for the next full installment, but it has been spread around the interhole so much over the last 24 hours that I felt if I waited, it would be old news to everyone.

The story originally appeared in the October 2013 print edition of New Scientist magazine, and then a couple of days ago it made it to the magazine’s web site. It’s about a lake in northern Tanzania (Africa) that turns animals into statues.

The temperature of Lake Natron can reach 60°C (140°F), but the real threat seems to come from the water’s high alkalinity (between pH 9 and pH 10.5). According to the article:

“The lake takes its name from natron, a naturally occurring compound made mainly of sodium carbonate, with a bit of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) thrown in. Here, this has come from volcanic ash, accumulated from the Great Rift valley. Animals that become immersed in the water die and are calcified.” Continue reading »

IHSAHN: “HIBER” (OR IS IT “HILBER”?)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 032013
 

Ihsahn’s fifth solo album, Das Seelenbrechen, will be released by Candlelight Records on October 22 in North America. It can be pre-ordered here. Last month a song from the album named “Hiber” debuted on a BBC radio show. It was available at the station’s on-line site for a week. Today Candlelight made “Hiber” available for listening at Soundcloud.

“Hiber” is how the name is shown on Candlelight and Ihsahn’s Facebook pages and on the Soundcloud stream. However, previous press releases announcing the album’s track list spell it “Hilber”. A rose by any other name . . .

I’ve already raved about the song. I’ll rave about it again: It swirls and it stomps, it echoes and it pounds, the guitar spirals around complex rhythms, a string section takes wing, and Ihsahn claws with his voice (no clean singing on this one, thank you very much). It’s dark, disconcerting, and occasionally dissonant, but it will also stick with you. Imaginative, heavy music.

If you missed it when it was on the radio, have a listen now: Continue reading »

WATCH GOJIRA LIVE AT HELLFEST 2013

 Metal News  13 Responses »
Oct 032013
 

Beginning this Friday and for the following week, you will be able to stream Gojira’s 50-minute performance at Hellfest 2013, the French metal festival in Clisson, France. Gojira performed on June 23, and according to this site their setlist consisted of the following songs:

Explosia
Flying Whales
Backbone
The Heaviest Matter of the Universe
L’Enfant Sauvage
Connected
Remembrance
Wisdom Comes
Jam (Mario on guitar, Joe on drums)
Fire Is Everything
Oroborus
Where Dragons Dwell

As for where you can stream the film of the performance, well, you can do it right here because the player can be embedded and I’ve embedded it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (Pt 2): MONOLITHE, CRONIAN, HORNA, DEN SAAKALDTE, AND ARMAGEDON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 022013
 

In this post I’m finishing up the round-up of recommended new songs I heard yesterday and this morning. For the first batch of goodies, go here.

MONOLITHE

I seem to have stumbled across quite a lot of doom-oriented music in the last 24 hours, what with Hamferð and Tombstoned in Part 1 of this post and now Monolithe in this one. But if you listen to all three songs you’ll hear different approaches to musical misery and ruin.

This French band, the creation of one Sylvain Bégot, has released a series of three 50-minute, single-track albums since 2003, along with two free EPs. The fourth album in the series — Monolithe IV — has now been completed and will be released by Debemur Morti Productions on October 18 (it can be pre-ordered here).

I haven’t listened to any of this band’s previous works, and was first attracted to this new one mainly by the striking cover art (by Norwegian artist Robert Høyem — click the image above to see a larger version). And then today I heard a 6-minute excerpt from the new album, which was recently unveiled on Soundcloud. Continue reading »

FREE SHIT: A RELAPSE FALL SAMPLER

 Free Shit, Metal News  12 Responses »
Oct 022013
 

Relapse Records has released a free fall 2013 sampler that includes 26 songs by 26 bands from the Relapse roster, including an exclusive new track by Toxic Holocaust. It’s an extremely diverse range of metal from an extremely solid line-up of groups. To download the sampler without charge, transport yourself over to Amazon via the link below — and to see which bands are on the sampler, keep reading.

RELAPSE SAMPLER

Red Fang
Toxic Holocaust
Windhand
Revocation
Exhumed
True Widow
Nothing
ASG
Ulcerate Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT – “GOLIATH”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 022013
 

(NCS guest writer Austin Weber put this New York band’s 2012 debut album Abominamentvm on his NCS list of last year’s best records. Now he reviews their new two-track release, Goliath.)

For the uninitiated, Imperial Triumphant are arguably one of the best new US black metal bands around. These New York City natives take a technically oriented approach to unorthodox black metal that is fueled by an unyielding desire to spread the anti-gospel.  Last year they released their debut album Abominamentvm, an impressive effort that distorted and contorted black metal in a unique way, deconstructing its tropes and showcasing audible bass playing, which is something that sadly is far too uncommon in black metal. A Deathspell Omega influence seems to be apparent, and yet their music also contains traces of old school black metal fury, occasional lumbering doominess, and unsettling psychedelic drone bursts, all of which do much to set them apart from being merely a product of one strain of influences.

The artwork is a good introduction and foil to Goliath‘s musical monstrosity. Your eyes are drawn immediately to a mammoth elephant, but as you look down you realize the beast has squashed a man’s head into a vicious oblivion of blood. That’s kind of how it feels to listen to this. Though Goliath is merely two songs, there’s a lot to immerse yourself in, as both are equally packed-to-the-brim, tour de force experiences. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (Pt 1): HAMFERÐ, INQUISITION, TOMBSTONED

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 022013
 

I ran roughshod through the interhole yesterday and this morning, and it seemed like around every corner was new music worth sharing. Even more good tunes were lurking in the NCS e-mail inbox. So, I’ve divided what I found into two posts, this one being the first.

HAMFERÐ

I first came across Hamferð in August 2012 because they were the first band from the Faroe Islands (population: 49,000) to enter the globe-spanning Wacken Metal Battle competition — and they won the whole thing, earning the right to play at the Wacken festival on August 6 of last year. That remarkable story is what snagged my interest, and listening to their 2010 EP Vilst er Síðsta Fet made me a fan (for more details about their story and a review of that EP, go here).

Hamferð have now finished their debut album Evst, and a couple of hours ago they announced that it will be released on October 11 in The Faroe Islands and November 15 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (it will also be released digitally worldwide on the same day). It will be a concept album and appears to be a continuation of ideas developed on the EP. Once again, the lyrics will be in Faroese (the band’s name is a Faroese term for the apparitions of sailors appearing before their loved ones).

Interestingly, although winning Wacken Metal Battle gave Hamferð the option for a label contract with Nuclear Blast, they turned it down “to be able to continue their work without unwanted influences”. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM BENIGHTED IN SODOM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 022013
 

The prolific one-man show known as Benighted In Sodom who has released about three-dozen demos, splits, EPs, and full-length albums since 2006 has yet another album in the works. The album doesn’t yet have a title or artwork, but Matron Thorn did have the wonderfully good taste to pick that painting at the top of this post by Zdzisław Beksiński to stand in for the album art in a YouTube clip released last night for a new song.

For those who may not be familiar with Thorn (who relocated to Portland, Oregon, last year), he is not only the sole member of Benighted In Sodom but also plays all instruments on the recordings of Ævangelist, which is a fantastic band I’ve featured frequently in past posts (they have their own new album — Omen Ex Simulacra — due for release later this month). In fact, it was through my interest in Ævangelist that I recently began following Benighted In Sodom.

The song that appeared last night — “Sometimes I Don’t Mind” — isn’t the first new Benighted song that has surfaced recently. Just a few days ago Thorn put another one on Soundcloud with the title “Even the Nice Things”. I’m not going to bother trying to compare these songs to Benighted’s previous output, mainly because I’m not that familiar with it but also because, based on what I’ve read, Thorn doesn’t seem to have ever been wedded to the same kind of music for very long. So let’s just take them as they come. Continue reading »

BLATANT PLUG — TOUR EDITION

 Metal News  1 Response »
Oct 012013
 

(Here we have a message from Andy Synn . . .) 

That’s right NCS ne’er do wells and miscreants, it’s about time for me to abuse my lofty position here at the site in order to promote and advertise one of my bands again.

I know it’s corrupt, and entirely motivated by self-interest… but it’s also pretty cool, I promise.

So suck it up… bitch.

Come the end of November Bloodguard will be embarking on a week long tour of the UK’s finest small venues – some of which we’ve played before, some of which will be entirely new to us – as main support for Lithuanian melodic death metal types Awakening Sun. Continue reading »

FEARED: “ERASED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 012013
 

In February we had the privilege of premiering a full stream of Furor Incarnatus by Feared. Now the group are already storming back with a new album set for release on November 25 — Vinter — and today Revolver magazine premiered a lyric video for one of the new songs: “Erased”

Feared originated as the project of guitar wizard Ola Englund (The Haunted, Six Feet Under) and he’s now joined on Vinter by Demonoid vocalist Mario Ramos, bassist Jocke Skog (ex-Clawfinger), and drummer extraordinaire Kevin Talley (Battlecross). Revolver quotes Ola Englund as follows:

“After Furor Incarnatus, I quickly felt the need to show our fans that we are not resting, even though we are all working with our other bands. I’ve always felt that Feared is an ongoing experiment and with Vinter I feel like we’ve found our home. It’s a dark and beautiful album, and I think we’ve all matured a lot from making it.”

There is indeed a dark keyboard melody that comes and goes in “Erased”, but what will grab your attention first is a downright convulsing groove; you’ll want to loosen up your neck muscles before listening. Working with elements of hardcore, melodic death metal, and (yes, again) groove, Feared have delivered an attractive teaser for this new album. Continue reading »

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