JUST A FEW JAPANESE METAL BANDS

 Phro's Posts, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Dec 312012
 

(Yesterday, TheMadIsraeli began what turned out to be a glowing review of a new album by a Japanese metal band named Shatter Silence with his opinion that, generally, “Japan’s metal scene sucks”. Here follows a response by our Japan-based contributor Phro, whose own blog is here.)

So, apparently if TheMadIsraeli doesn’t know anything about your scene, it sucks. While we probably shouldn’t spend too much time kowtowing to the whims of Internet badasses, here’s a list of some Japanese metal bands I found after 15 minutes on Google. Gee, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

(Obviously, this is hardly a complete list, nor is it in any way representative of the entirety of the Japanese metal scene. And it largely reflects my personal taste, though I’ve included some bands that I know are popular, even if I’m not necessarily a fan.)
Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 3

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  9 Responses »
Dec 302012
 

This is Part 3 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting 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 we’re announcing today, click here.

2012 was a great year for melancholy, doom-influenced melodic death metal, and both Finland’s Before the Dawn and Sweden’s In Mourning can claim two of the best releases in that genre. Both of their albums supplied multiple candidates for this list, and it seemed like a natural fit to pair the two that I ultimately selected.

BEFORE THE DAWN

The dulcet clean vocals of Lars Eikind may be gone, but Tuomas Saukkonen is still at the helm of Before the Dawn, and on Rise of the Phoenix he masterfully charted a new post-Eikind course that proved to be tremendously satisfying. As Andy Synn wrote in our review of the album, “at its best this album marries melodic power and precision in a way few others can match.”

My initial temptation was to put the song “Phoenix Rising” on this list, but ultimately I couldn’t resist the siren’s call of “Throne of Ice”. Continue reading »

SHATTER SILENCE: “GLORY WILL UNDER THE SUN”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Dec 302012
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the 2012 album from Japan’s Shatter Silence.)

I generally think Japan’s metal scene sucks.  Watching from afar, it seems to me that for as much as many Japanese worship the music, as much as they are such rabid fans of it, very few of them “get” metal when it comes to creating it.  What’s even weirder is that the bands who DO seem to get it, who produce badass shit that sounds like the musicians have a grasp on the music, seem to be completely overlooked within Japan.  This is only what I and friends have witnessed, so if anyone wants to prove me wrong I’d be glad to find that out.

Shatter Silence are one of those badass bands. Hailing from Osaka, they deliver a blistering blast-furnace style of melodic death metal, intense in technical riffing and with thrash speed and relentlessness.  This is the band’s sophomore effort; I’ve only heard a couple tunes off the debut and it seems just as killer, which is why it perplexes me that this band only has 300+ likes on Facebook.  These guys do this style every bit as well as the Europeans, maybe even better in some cases than newer releases from the West.

The opener “Awake in Decay” is testament enough to this fact.  It’s a whirlwind of molten riffs played with majesty and fury.  The high speed pedal-point riffing and harmonized, almost black metal tremolo picked attack of this song, combined with the propulsive drum work brimming with energy, make for a pretty good introduction to what this band is all about.

Your only moment of respite is the introduction to the band’s clean vocals, which in this case take the form of a band-wide layered choral approach.  It’s interesting, since they never once have a single voice during the clean vocal sections.  It creates something of an angelic feeling in the midst of what is otherwise music that strips flesh from bone.   Continue reading »

OMNIUM GATHERUM: “BEYOND” (Two Thumbs Up)

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Dec 302012
 

If there were a Hell, a special room would be reserved in it for the kind of sadists like us who publish enthusiastic reviews of new albums months before their release. But in our defense, Omnium Gatherum’s new album is one of those that, once heard, must be trumpeted to the skies without delay. Keeping quiet about it is simply too much to ask.

We’ve already posted Andy Synn’s detailed review, and we have at least one more coming in the near future, so I will be brief, especially because I’m still trying to finish compiling our list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Speaking of which, with 2013 just around the corner, it’s time to start making a list of  candidates for the most infectious songs of next year. I have no trouble deciding which songs from Beyond belong on that list:  all of them.

Good lord, there ought to be some kind of law against stuffing a single album with so many undeniable melodic hooks and neck-snapping rhythms, or at least some requirement that they be shared with bands who slave away for years and never come up with anything as good as any song picked randomly from this album. Hell, the ballad “Who Could Say” would be a radio hit even in our metal-challenged nation if the vocals were exclusively clean instead of being mixed with Jukka Pelkonen’s monstrous roars.

But don’t get the wrong idea: despite the tremendous melodies, this is still very heavy, very powerful music, as often doom-shrouded and melancholy as it is furiously hard-charging. And despite the alluring simplicity of all the viral riffs, the music is multi-layered, with depths left to plumb after the first listen. Continue reading »

FORK TONGUE’S OVERLOOKED GEMS OF 2012

 Listmania, LISTMANIA 2012  11 Responses »
Dec 302012
 

(As our Listmania series continues for this rapidly closing 2012, we welcome guest writer Fork Tongue and his list of overlooked gems from the underground.)

Hello faithful NCS readers! 2012 was a helluva year in metal. When I hear old school metalheads say that we will never see another era like the mid 80’s through the early 90’s, it gets under my skin a bit. Old school metalheads talk about the days of yesteryear with a gleam in their eye and a chip on their shoulder. As well they should, as it was a great time for the music we all love. But after a bleak period from the mid 90’s through the mid 2000’s (at least in the mainstream) there has been a metal renaissance.

It’s been building and building, and in 2009 it hit what I thought would be it’s pinnacle. I was wrong. 2009, 2010, 2011, and now 2012 have all been unbelievable years that rival or better “the good ol’ days”, and anyone who doesn’t think so isn’t looking hard enough or is just an old fuddy duddy. There are tens of thousands of metal bands, so yes, there is more crap to wade through, but the law of averages tells you there’s also more truly great stuff out there than at any point in metal’s relatively short history. My list will show this, as it’s all about the overlooked gems of the year. Long live the renaissance!

No long-winded descriptions here. I’ll let the music speak for itself. Continue reading »

FOLKPOCALYPSE 2012

 Exceptions to the Rule, Listmania, LISTMANIA 2012  37 Responses »
Dec 302012
 

(Our trollish fiend friend Trollfiend has emerged from his lair at ALSO, WOLVES and delivers this year-end list.)

One of the things I like about folk metal is that it seems to be largely free of kvlt haters.  You’ll rarely if ever hear someone slag on a band as not being ‘true’ folk metal.  That may be in part because no one can really seem to settle on a definition of the genre; quite a few people suggest that it’s not a genre at all.  But assuming for the nonce that those people are a) asshats and b) wrong, I think it’s safe to say that “metal played with or featuring folk or traditional rhythms and/or instruments” probably covers the spectrum pretty well. In fact it’s a damn loose definition; by those criteria I could easily call Nile a ‘folk metal’ band.

Of course, that’s a lack of kvlt haters within the genre.  Plenty of people outside the genre slag on folk metal all the time, probably because it’s not BRUTAL enough for them.  But that’s okay; not everyone likes the same shit, and if all you care about is BRUTAL, you can look at pretty much all the other “best of” or “top 10” lists that have cropped up everywhere like rancid boils.  I can save you the trouble of slogging through all of those lists, though, because they all say Pig Destroyer.

No, what I’m about to offer you is my baker’s dozen of the best folk metal albums of 2012 as chosen by me, the guy who likes this kind of shit.  That makes me an expert.  Also, because people seem to think folk metal is a fad that died out in 2009 (or should have) I am largely populating this list with new, newish, or up-and-coming bands just to make the point that it hasn’t gone away and is going to stick around like herpes, i.e., whether you want it to or not.  And it will probably itch like a motherfucker.  So you won’t see Enslaved’s RIITIIR or Korpiklaani’s Manala or Eluveitie’s Helvetios on here, which is fine, because I’m sure they’ll be covered elsewhere. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 2

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  12 Responses »
Dec 292012
 

This is Part 2 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting 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 we’re announcing today, click this link.

Picking the songs for this list is hard, but deciding how to pair them for these daily posts is a bit of a kick. It provides an opportunity for some small amount of creativity, which is the amount that I have. A small amount.

Sometimes, my creativity may be reflected in nothing more than pairing two bands who happen to be from the same country, or whose names begin with the same letter (see above re small amount of creativity). Sometimes, the two songs may be paired because of the musical contrast between them. And sometimes, they might be grouped together because there’s some kind of kinship the music shares — and that’s what’s going on today.

CATTLE DECAPITATION

As in the case of our first two song selections, this one comes from an album that was a big hit at NCS (see our review here). Of course, it was a big hit just about anywhere you looked this year, and it’s now popping up on tons of year-end lists, including our own. To quote from our latest list posted earlier today, Monolith of Inhumanity is “a bona fide classic”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BRUJERIA, RECTIFIED SPIRIT, APOTHESARY, AND AN NCS PODCAST!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 292012
 

Happy fuckin’ Saturday to one and all. I’m starting to think about what kind of rowdiness I should get into on New Year’s Eve. I may really pull out the stops and stay up ’til 10:30 this year, and maybe see if there are some fireworks on TV in a later time zone. Y’know, get really raw and wild. I might even try to get frisky with my wife, though I’ll have to get her liquored up and hide her knives.

In the meantime, here are a few items of interest I discovered over the last 24 hours.

BRUJERIA

Don’t tell my wife, but I have rough, hot, sticky man-love for Brujeria. I would dearly love to catch them live, and get up really close where I could feel their heat and they could feel mine, and perhaps there would be an exchange of bodily fluids such as sweat and saliva. And I could wear a bandana over my face and a ballcap and I’d brush up on my Spanish so I could yell along to the lyrics without sounding like the fuckin’ gringo that I am.

But until then, I will have to make do with videos such as the one below, which was shot at the RBF Club in Sofia, Bulgaria, on December 21, 2012, by Vasil Vasev. The up-close-and-personal footage is high-quality and captures the sense of chaos that I imagine a Brujeria show would spawn. Also very cool: the flashes of green that appear in this black-and-white film. More of Vasse’s clips from this show can be found here. Continue reading »

THE 40 BEST METAL ALBUMS I HEARD BEFORE DECEMBER 15: A LIST BY KAZZ

 Listmania, LISTMANIA 2012  8 Responses »
Dec 292012
 

(In this guest post, NCS supporter Kazz lights the way through his list of the Top 40 metal albums of 2012, with selected commentary.)

This is a top 40. But instead of just writing some stuff about the top 10 (or, frighteningly, all 40) I just picked out a few releases that I felt were under the radar and needed to have some more words on the internet about them (except for my number one pick, which I couldn’t resist adding my 2 cents on). I’ll start at 25 because all the albums I wanted to write about are in that portion.

25.  Arkhamin Kirjasto– Torches Ablaze

24.  Six Feet Under– Undead
 

23.  Forefather– Last of the Line

Forefather isn’t reinventing the wheel here, but they’re playing a style that they’ve been one of the leaders in for over ten years. Their melodic/epic take on Viking/folk metal is full of memorable and stirring hooks. Vocals alternate between competent rasps and soaring cleans while keyboards add some texture to their driving Anglo-Saxon anthems. Continue reading »

THE BEST OF 2012: LISTS FROM AUSTIN WEBER

 Listmania, LISTMANIA 2012  7 Responses »
Dec 292012
 


(We welcome back Louisville-based music writer Austin Webber with his personal round-up of the year’s best metal, organized by genre and accompanied by lots of music. This is a really diverse list with lots of names that haven’t appeared in our previous lists. The album art for almost all of these picks is also amazing.)

2012 was a great year for a wide range of metal subgenres and one that also solidified its future through the progression of many genre-muddying acts to quite interesting results! I’ve decided not to elaborate on the merits of this year’s obvious biggies and a large number of other bands because they are already on everyone else’s lists, and thus you’ve  been made aware of them too many times. A few here you may know, but hopefully you find something new. That’s my goal and the reason for this list.

For albums I already reviewed through my gig with LEO Weekly (a local Louisville, KY print publication with additional online component) I will paste in my reviews of them instead of writing a short synopsis. Continue reading »

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