SHORT BUT SWEET: PYRE / ENTRAPMENT SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 232013
 

Last month the Dutch label/distro Soulseller Records released a 45 rpm black vinyl split featuring two songs each from Pyre (Russia) and Entrapment (The Netherlands). I don’t have the vinyl — yet — but I did discover all four of the songs on Bandcamp, and what a discovery that proved to be. I admit that I have a real weak spot for the style of metal both bands play; more accurately, it’s a G-spot (or at least the male equivalent thereof). But even making allowances for my predisposition toward this kind of music, what both bands have done here is impressive.

The genre to which I’m referring is old school, Swedish-style, metal of fucking death. I hasten to add that Pyre and Entrapment do not sound like clones of each other. Although both bands have obviously plunged their hands up to the elbows in the river of gore that spread out from late-80’s/early 90’s Stockholm, they have very distinctive takes on the tradition, and there are some nods to Autopsy and NYDM in the music, too.

PYRE

Pyre are based in St. Petersburg, and this is only their second release (the first was a 2012 EP, Ravenous Decease), but man, they already sound like they’ve been at this for a long time. “Destined To Die” is a hard-rocking, punk-fueled rampage that gets the neck snapping immediately. The guitars and bass are stuffed full of HM-2 distortion, the gut-punch drumming is pitch-perfect for this kind of music, and the vocalist sounds a helluva lot like LG Petrov. Very nice screaming guitar solo in this one, too. Continue reading »

AGALLOCH: LIVE FROM BELGIUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 222013
 

I’m going to be scarce around here the rest of the day and a big part of tomorrow. Two friends of mine are getting married tomorrow, and I intend to help them celebrate the joyous occasion to the utmost of my abilities. If the NCS site becomes comatose, please look for me at hospitals in the vicinity of Ithaca, NY.

Until we meet again, I’d like to leave you with something that really made my morning, and I hope it will make yours brighter, too. It’s a video of about half of Agalloch’s live set in Aalter, Belgium, on April 22, 2013, as part of the LUCIFER OVER EUROPE tour. The video and the audio quality are both very good. In fact, if you decide not to stare at a computer screen for 44 minutes, the audio is good enough that you could just blast it in the background.

So fucking heavy, so fucking sublime. Four excellent musicians really locked in, casting spells. Thank you John Haughm, Don Anderson, Jason Walton, and Aesop Dekker for getting my weekend off to a fine start. Continue reading »

TOURISM AND DE-TOURISM

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Jun 222013
 

Happy fucking Saturday to one and all. In this post I’ve collected information about a random assortment of new tours that have recently been announced. But first, I have to mention a tour that it seems was announced a bit prematurely.

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE – ANAAL NATHRAKH?

Two days ago it was announced that Fleshgod Apocalypse would be leading ‘The Lords Of Extremity Tour‘ in the UK this October, with support from Anaal Nathrakh, Bound By Exile, and Scordatura. There were press releases, official-looking poster art, and sponsorship by the likes of Nuclear Blast and Terrorizer. And who in their right mind would miss the chance to see Fleshgod Apocalypze and Anaal Nathrakh on the same bill?

There was just this one little problem. Here’s a statement that appeared on Anaal Nathrakh’s Facebook page about 3 hours ago:

“For anyone hoping to see us in the UK in October: It appears we have been announced for a string of UK dates with Fleshgod Apocalypse in October. We did NOT agree to play these shows. Repeat: at no point have we ever said that we would play these dates, or that Mick would even be in Europe at the time. Continue reading »

EVILE: “SKULL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 212013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by British thrashers Evile, which is out now via Century Media and Earache.)

Evile may very well be THE best of the so called re-thrash movement (I don’t count Vektor, they have a completely original sound IMO), bringing together elements of Forbidden, Slayer, Sepultura, and early Metallica to create a sound that has managed to remain old school, true to the roots, yet still distinct in its delivery.

With three killer albums to their credit thus far, the question, of course, is whether or not Skull manages to be a genuinely awesome fourth. I really think that opinion comes down to what you’ve liked most over the course of Evile’s three previous albums. While Evile have always had “their” sound, the three albums pre-dating this one had distinctly different areas of emphasis among the elements, which made them distinctly different from one another.

Skull is an odd edition in the Evile discography, mainly because it’s three steps back and strikes a ton of notes resonant with their debut Enter the Grave. The songs are one-note as far as tempo goes for the most part, the riffs are stripped-down, and the gang shouts are back. However, none of this changes the fact that I love it front to back. Like Enter the Grave, Skull is packed with adrenaline-surged immediacy and cut-throat riffage out the ass. Although I think by now these things are just to be expected with an Evile album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CRIMINAL ELEMENT, WOLVSERPENT, A.M.S.G., MURDER MADE GOD, AND FREE SHIT FROM METAL BLADE

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 212013
 

This is a round-up of carefully selected items I saw and heard yesterday while prowling through the filthy chambers of the interhole. As usual, I’ve made an effort to include a variety of metal, so you don’t get too comfortable. Comfortable isn’t what we aim for around here.

CRIMINAL ELEMENT

Criminal Element is a band that until yesterday had completely slipped beneath my cracked radar screen. I learned about them from my NCS compadres TheMadIsraeli and DGR. They came into existence in the vicinity of 2005, and at the time of their first EP (Career Criminal), the line-up boasted two members from Suffocation (Derek Boyer and Terrance Hobbs) and one from Dying Fetus (Vince Matthews, and when the band first began Sparky Voyles from Dying Fetus was also on board)).

In the current incarnation of Criminal Element, Boyer, Hobbs, and Matthews are joined by Darin Morris from Misery Index (at one point Adam Jarvis and Mark Kloeppel from Misery Index were also part of this project). With a line-up like that, you can understand why I paid attention when I learned that Criminal Element released a new album (Modus Operandi) in April. Continue reading »

SPAM

 IQ Subtraction  14 Responses »
Jun 212013
 

Spam is evolving. I know this because our site gets bombarded by it every day. It used to be that I’d get e-mails from people in Africa offering me mountainous stacks of cash from dead relatives I never knew I had, or cancer-striken widows just looking for a good Christian willing to spend millions caring for orphans. For some reason I don’t get those e-mails any more, which is too bad, because now I can’t write responses and share them with everyone here on the site like I used to do. Now I’m seeing the spam in a daily flood of bullshit comments.

I guess there have always been spam comments, but I rarely saw them until recently. The WordPress software we use to create content for NCS includes a spam filter plugin called Akismet that runs in the background and has always done an excellent job detecting spam comments and eliminating them before they ever appear. But as I said, spam is evolving, and Akismet’s algorithms haven’t yet completely adapted to the spammers’ new strategies. Because of the way the new shit is crafted, Akismet puts them in a “moderation” queue, and I get an e-mail for every one of them that Akismet isn’t sure about, allowing me to decide whether the comment should appear or be trashed. And every now and then, one of them will slip through even that filter and appear on the site.

The reason this new generation of spam is puzzling Akismet is that the comments sort of look like they could be real, by which I mean that it’s more difficult for Akismet’s programmers to develop rules that will be effective in determining if they’re real or not. Which is why I’m having to look at them. And I’m getting really fuckin’ tired of looking at them. Continue reading »

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE REVEAL NEW ALBUM DETAILS: “LABYRINTH” IS COMING

 Metal News  9 Responses »
Jun 202013
 

Man, what a day this has been. We’ve had so much to tell you about since the sun came up, somewhere up above the dank cloud layer in the Pacific Northwest. At least I’m pretty sure the sun is up there. The latest piece of exciting news comes from the mighty Fleshgod Apocalypse. They have just revealed the title of their new album (Labyrinth) and the cover art (above) by Colin Marks (Origin, Kataklysm), as well as the street dates: Labyrinth will be released on August 16, 2013, in Europe and August 20, 2013, in North America via Nuclear Blast.

Allow me now to share with you two quotes from the band’s announcement. First, from drummer extraordinaire Francesco Paoli:

Labyrinth is going to be THE album for FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE. It’s the perfect combination of all our strong points with the best production we’ve ever had. It’s definitely the most FLESHGOD thing we’ve ever thought with the most FLESHGOD riffs, lyrics, melodies, drum parts, solos, etc…We went deep inside the core of this music, we broke it, and we finally unleashed these eleven songs.

I want to be honest, it needed so much work and time to come up with this but now I’m like, ‘ok next time will be tough to reach this point!’ Honesty and quality pay, always, and all of you guys supporting the band DESERVE THE BEST. You might think that I’m overrating it just because it’s our ‘child’ but, trust me, this album is fuckin’ dangerous. Just take your time, listen to it and get lost into the Labyrinth. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAJESTIC DOWNFALL’S “WHITE DARK”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jun 202013
 

Jacobo Córdova may be best known in his guise as Mr. Jacko, the bassist/guitarist for Mexican death metal powerhouse Zombiefication. But he has another project, one in which he does everything, called Majestic Downfall. While Zombiefication has already produced one of 2013’s best death metal albums in At the Caves of Eternal, 2013 will also see the release of Majestic Downfall’s third album, fittingly entitled Three. It will come our way on July 15 via the completely dependable Chaos Records.  Today we have the privilege of bringing you a trio of Three premieres.

First, we’re unveiling the awesome cover art for the album (click the image above to see an even larger version). The artist is Norway’s Robert Høyem of At the Ends Design, who has created artwork for a long list of metal bands, including Shining, Iskald, Evoken, Kampfar, and Gravdal.

Second, near the end of this post we’ll show you Three’s track list.

And third, we’re giving you an exclusive listen to the first advance song from the new album — “White Dark”. Continue reading »

BENEA REACH: “POSSESSION”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jun 202013
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Norway’s Benea Reach, which is out now via Spinefarm.)

To djent, or not to djent? That is the question…

Ok, so it’s not really all that pertinent, I just mention it to start things off. Disregarding my own personal views on that particular sub-genre, I’d like to state how inaccurate it would be to call Benea Reach a “Djent” act… although I can see how they might appeal to certain fans of that particular sound.

Pre-dating the now almost ubiquitous genre by a fair few years (for context, Benea Reach were already two albums deep before 2010), the group’s pulsing, post-Meshuggah sound holds just as much of a debt to the emotive tumult of Cult Of Luna and the frantic post-hardcore dynamic of Refused, resulting in something resolutely more underground and, ultimately for me, far more rewarding. Continue reading »

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