ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  14 Responses »
Jan 162013
 

(Andy Synn’s first installment of album reviews in haiku drew a lot of interest, and a bunch of hilarious haikus in the comments, too. So Andy decided to do it again . . . .)

Well the first edition of this was such a success that I’ve been working on several more in the time since publishing that first, relatively off-the-cuff, entry in the series.

I hadn’t originally intended to return to the well so soon, but with Islander’s work commitment cutting down on his ability to write and post to the site, “Reviews In Haikus” has become a good fallback option!

So here’s another 3 albums, irreverently reviewed in English Haiku style. There’s no real hidden puns or subtexts this time round, as no-one got my “clever” little joke/reference in the last one, so all the humour and references are nice and obviously telegraphed. Suck it, nerds.

 

WINTERFYLLETH – THE THRENODY OF TRIUMPH

Instinctive decay

Old souls, young blood, tales of woe

Black metal refined

Continue reading »

ANNIVERSARY REVIEWS BY WILLIAM SMITH: THE CLASS OF 1993

 Album Reviews, Listmania  6 Responses »
Jan 152013
 

(William Smith is the vocalist for Buckshot Facelift and a Long Island band named Artificial Brain that I’ve written about twice — here and here. He also writes a very entertaining blog called Vitos Squid Stop and Death Metal Museum. I asked him around this time last year if he would write something for NCS . . . and he gave us a 2-part list of “anniversary” albums — five albums recorded 10 years and 20 years earlier, respeectively. And this year he’s done it again. In this first part, he discusses some death metal gems from 20 years ago.)

Wow, time flies! I can’t believe another 12 months has passed and I’ve had my head in the thrift store record bins too long to be a credible judge of what came out since last year. Now, I could scrap together a hodgepodge of the random demos and albums I acquired in 2012, but it’s so much more fun to look through my personal vault and bring you all on a trip down memory lane to that most special of years in Death Metal – 1993.

We all know the story – bands such as Deicide, Morbid Angel, Sinister, Death, Carcass, and so on and so on, were proving their mettle in the worldwide markets, and tape trading was still the most viable and pragmatic way to get new music.  Here now, I present to you 5 of my favorite obscure gems that were just bubbling under the surface during this glorious period in Death Metal.

(In all honesty, I was 11 years old in 1993 and got into tape trading about 3 years later – what a poser!). In the (German-translated) words of Mangled Torsos, let’s “hold on the past”… Continue reading »

ANTESTOR: “OMEN”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
Jan 152013
 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album from Norway’s Antestor — a band whose previous albums were the subject of a SYNN REPORT and who had the good taste to use a painting by Zdzisław Beksiński for their album cover.)

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Through years of strife and sorrow, we’ve remained vigilant for Antestor’s return and now finally… the time is here.

The logical progression of the blackened direction that ruled The Forsaken, Antestor’s latest manages to incorporate elements of all their previous records into a cohesive whole, in a perfect synthesis of their doomy past and their pitch-black future. Heavier, sharper, and more refined throughout, there’s a seamless mixing of the old and the new, with every member putting his own authoritative stamp on the individual performances.

To give you some idea of how to situate this album in your mind, think of the more aggressive assault of Dark Funeral, mixed with the more technical and atmospheric playing of Dark Fortress, and you’ll be in the right ballpark. But this is an Antestor album through and through, with all the clever nuances and subtle undercurrents we’ve come to expect, and in no way derivative of anyone else. I merely make the comparison to put you in the right frame of mind, oh dear reader. Continue reading »

NEW SUFFOCATION SONG: “CYCLES OF SUFFERING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 142013
 

As reported in my last post, I’m still droning away at my day job.  But I decided to take another quick break, and lo and behold, look what I found!  Another new song from Suffocation’s next album, Pinnacle of Bedlam, which is due for release by Nuclear Blast on Feb 15 in Europe and Feb 19 in North America.

The new song is called “Cycles of Suffering”, and you can hear it below. It’s a techy flurry of knife-edged riffs and battering drums, with a very cool guitar solo. And Frank the Tank sounds . . . brutal.

To hear the first track released from the album (“As Grace Descends”), go to this page, where the song can also be downloaded.

LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, PORTAL, INTER ARMA, AND BLACK AWAKENING

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 142013
 

As previously disclosed, my head and my free time are being squeezed down to the thinness of a pancake by my fucking day job this week. But to maintain my own sanity, I did take a quick break today to glance around the interhole in search of filth. I found some, and voila!

LECHEROUS NOCTURNE

Man, talk about delayed gratification. It was January 2012 when I reported that this killer South Carolina band had completed their third album, Behold Almighty Doctrine, and that it would be released later in the year by Unique Leader Records. I even brandished the same delicious album cover that you see up above.

I’m not sure what happened, but 2012 came and went, and the new album never appeared. However, I now see that it will finally be released on March 19. And yesterday the band debuted a song called “Those Having Been Hidden Away”. I like it and will play it for you right after the jump. It’s the sound of a furious tech-death demolition project joined in progress, with a cool bounding bass line and a load of slashing riffs and brutalizing percussion. Continue reading »

NEWSNEWSNEWS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 142013
 

(Here’s a newsy post from DGR.)

Normally Islander is like a sponge when it comes to a lot of the news that is happening around the web; however, like a lot of us he has a job outside of the website (some of you may have already met him!) so some stuff may have flown by him that happened throughout the week. Well not anymore, as I present a round up of stuff that caught my eye that unfortunately never got yacked about here on NCS.

We’re running through a glut of all sorts of things this week from music videos, lyric videos, free tuneage (almost typed this as free tuna! – didn’t want to overpromise to you folks, we’re not that rich…yet), to album announcements, to a limited-time charity deal if you like electronica-rock, to the ever-lovely melodrama of a band as members leave and use the loveliness of Facebook to get those last few barbs in. Have your coffees at the ready to slam into your face as we work our way through the stuff we missed that might be of interest to you.

Aborted

Aborted (above) rang in 2012 pretty early with the release of Global Flatline and that disc quickly became a favorite around NCS. It appeared on a couple of our lists and really reminded people why we all thought Aborted were a great band. Late last week the group released a lyric video for the song “Vermincular, Obscene, and Obese” that animates their cover art for Global Flatline in the background so you can actually see what the heck Sven is saying when he growls out the closing lines of each sentence. Continue reading »

LIVE REPORT: DEATH GRIPS at THE MAGIC STICK, DETROIT, 11-19-12

 Concert Reviews, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  2 Responses »
Jan 142013
 


 

(NCS writer BadWolf was in the audience when Death Grips played Detroit last November, and he provides the following report.  The very cool photos accompanying this review were taken by BadWolf’s partner in crime, Nicholas Vechery.)

This show was a long time coming. I first heard Death Grips almost exactly a year ago to the week as I write this article, and almost instantly the group became something of a personal muse to me—I wasted no time pimping the group here, and later made them the subject of my first article for Stereogum. In 2012 the band released two albums, both excellent, and in between booked-then-cancelled a major summer tour. For better or for worse, 2012 saw MC Ride and drummer Zach Hill ride the popularity wave at its very zenith, leaving many of their loyal fans tumbling in the surf. So when Death Grips booked a second tour, and played Detroit’s Magic Stick on November 19, attendance was mandatory.

I attended the show with photographer Nick Vechery, too late to catch any of the tour’s opening act, genre-bending MC Mykki Blanco. Although Blanco hails from NYC’s now-prominent Brooklyn hip-hop scene, I find his music less appealing than, say, Azalia Banks on her 1991 EP.

Death Grips took the stage just after Vechery and I purchased our beer. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 14

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  2 Responses »
Jan 132013
 

Welcome to the Part 14 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day (almost) until the list is finished, I’m posting at least two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

Most of the song pairings I’ve selected for this series have had something in common — for example, they’ve shared a similar genre affiliation or at least a common nationality. But today’s picks are a complete mismatch, like those last two clean socks you find in your drawer that don’t even remotely go together. But I love both these songs, even though it’s a big stretch to include the second one in the list at all.

BLACK BREATH

This Pacific Northwest band’s 2012 album Sentenced To Life was a big breakout for them. It has received a ton of critical praise and it brought the band a ton of enthusiastic new fans. BadWolf reviewed it for us last March (here), and then later named it to his list of the year’s Top 10 albums (the “no clean singing” version), with these words: “Words do not sufficiently describe how much I love this record’s mix of d-beat, thrash, NWOBHM, and Swedish death metal. . . . [S]eriously, if you have not, go buy this album. Satisfaction guaranteed.” Continue reading »

TOSHIHIRO EGAWA DOES BABYMETAL

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jan 132013
 

I sure as fuck didn’t see this coming. But thanks to Phro, I see it now, and so do you. And it turns out to be a nice coincidence, as I’ll explain.

In a nutshell, metal album artist Toshihiro Egawa has created t-shirt artwork for the Japanese Kawai Metal band BabyMetal. It is Phro, of course, who has periodically reminded NCS readers about the existence of BabyMetal ever since we first learned about them in October 2011. For those not in the know, BabyMetal are three cute girls (no pedo!) who play a perversely catchy mash-up of J-Pop/Idol music and metal. Over time, they seem to have been getting darker in their imagery and their outfits. But getting Toshihiro Egawa to create a shirt design is like a really giant leap forward into a death metal abyss.

Egawa is a 40-year old artist from Osaka who has become one of the world’s best known creators of album art and shirt designs for the more brutal end of the death metal and slam spectrum. To see just a partial list of bands for whom he has created artwork, go here. In fact (and here’s that coincidence), he created the thoroughly disgusting, gore-drenched cover for the forthcoming album by Devourment that’s the subject matter of a new lyric video which we featured in a post earlier today.

From Devourment to BabyMetal is what I’d call a very sharp turn on a very slick road. Continue reading »

DEVOURMENT, CEREKLOTH, ODIUM NOVA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Jan 132013
 

I’ve been preoccupied by my day job the last couple of days, and unfortunately for me, this distracting state of affairs will continue all the way through the coming week and into the next weekend. I’m afraid this means that things are likely to slow down here at NCS. I will do my best to prepare at least one new thing each day, just to preserve my own sanity, but much more than that will be unlikely.

Before things really get nasty, I thought I’d make a quick survey of what I missed in the world of metal over the last 48 hours. I found the following three items of interest.

DEVOURMENT

As we reported last month, these Texas-based grand-daddies of slam have recorded a new album. Entitled Conceived In Sewage, it’s scheduled for release by Relapse on February 19 in North America (and somewhat later dates in the rest of the world). We only had teaser excerpts available at the time of our last post, but Devourment have now released an entire song — “Fifty Ton War Machine” — and have made it available as a single at places like iTunes. As you can see, the artwork for the single is badass.

Devourment have also released a lyric video for the song. First, a word about the music: It’s ugly. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries