THE SYNN REPORT, PART 31: LILITU

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  11 Responses »
Jan 102013
 

(In this 31st edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of a band from Georgia named Lilitu.)

Recommended for fans of: Green Carnation, Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium

Something of a mysterious and fluctuating entity, over the years the gothically-inclined melodic black/death metallers of Lilitu have gone from relative obscurity, to underground acclaim, to the cusp of mainstream (at least in metal circles) attention, and then right back again.

The brainchild of one Henry Derek Bonner, the band has gone through numerous line-up changes since its inception (including, in one of its most recent incarnations, current Arsis bassist Noah Martin), as well as steadily transfiguring its sonic identity from a more earthen, doomy sound, tinged with blackened melancholy, through a more progressive, gothically-influenced approach, to its final form of focussed, melodic death metal dynamism.

An entire album entitled White Nights In A Day Room, Black Sun In The Daytime was shelved around 2006, and the last known communication from the band confirmed that the group had become a two-piece — with all musical and vocal duties being shared by Bonner and his new partner in crime Justin Blake Stubbs — and that they would be taking their sound back towards its roots, with a darker, more primordial sound, with a more potent black metal influence, something which had steadily been pared back over the years. Continue reading »

LET THE FLAME WARS BEGIN: THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS ARE OUT

 Off Topic  13 Responses »
Jan 102013
 

Briefly departing from our usual focus on metal, I thought I’d mention that the nominations for the 85th annual Academy Awards were announced this morning by actress Emma Stone and Oscars show host Seth MacFarlane. As usual, many of the the nominations were predictable and expected and some weren’t. And once again, there were omissions that will get many movie fans riled up and pissed off.

Not surprisingly, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln leads this year’s Oscar race with 12 nominations, including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, and acting nominations for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Surprisingly, Life of Pi picked up a whopping 11 nominations, including best picture, best director for Ang Lee, best adapted screenplay, and a shitload of technical nominations.

The best actress nominations included both the youngest and the oldest nominees in the history of the category: 9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis for Beasts of the Southern Wild” (she was 5 years old when the movie was filmed) and 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva for the Austrian drama Amour. The other nominees are Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty, Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook, and Naomi Watts for The Impossible.

As mentioned, Daniel Day-Lewis picked up a predictable best actor nomination for Lincoln, but so did Hugh Jackman for Les Miserables, Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook, Joaquin Phoenix for The Master, and Denzel Washington for Flight. Now for a few oversights . . . Continue reading »

ANOTHER EARACHE / OSMOSE BANDCAMP UPDATE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Jan 102013
 

In mid-November I wrote a feature about the decision by two landmark metal labels — Earache and Osmose — to establish Bandcamp sites and begin uploading albums from their landmark catalogues for digital distribution. At that point, I had gotten word that Earache was interested in receiving fan feedback on what they should add from the hundreds of albums under their control, so I put in my two cents’ worth with a list of 9 albums.

Since then, many of my wishes have been granted. As previously reported, Earache subsequently added groundbreaking albums from my short wish list by Entombed, Bolt Thrower, and Morbid Angel. And today I got an e-mail alert that they’ve now just added another album from my list — Reek of Putrefaction by Carcass. In addition to the fact that this album occupies a key place in metal history, it’s also timely, given that Carcass are apparently recording a new album.

But that’s not all!  Though I missed the news, Earache also recently added yet another album from my list — Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses, the 1992 debut album by Brutal Truth! I feel like Aladdin with a magic lamp and a drunk genie who’s lost count of how many wishes have already been granted.

But that’s still not all . . . Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ENSHADOWED / BURIAL HORDES SPLIT

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 102013
 

One of our first album reviews of 2013 was Andy Synn’s recent complimentary write-up on the new work by Enshadowed, Magic Chaos Psychedelia. With Enshadowed on my mind, I discovered by coincidence that they appeared on a recent split with another Greek band, Burial Hordes (whose discography is listed here). The split was released last October as a vinyl 7″ and on tape by a Greek label named Razorbleed Productions, though they’ve apparently sold out of the tape. Copies of the tapes still seem to be available through NoiseGoat Productions and versions of the 7″ can still be found here.

What caught my attention is that today Razorbleed uploaded both tracks from the split to YouTube. After listening to them, I tracked down the artwork for the split, and my eyes got really big when I found it. As you can see above, the cover kills.

The music kills, too.  I wish that the tracks could be made available digitally. Maybe if we all whine and beg loudly it will happen. Continue reading »

INTRONAUT’S ARTWORK FOR “MILK LEG” PRODUCES A STIFFENING EFFECT

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

Certain kinds of sensory phenomena send a rush of blood to certain parts of the male and female anatomy, just as other phenomena seem to suck all the blood right out of those same anatomical features. The artwork for Intronaut’s new single, “Milk Leg”, produces the former effect in yours truly — and do forgive me if that’s too much information.

This post is way past the time when I stop plastering the site with daily blather, but I couldn’t resist adding this, because I like the art very much. The song “Milk Leg” will become available digitally on February 5, and it will appear on Intronaut’s new album Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words With Tones), which is due for release on March 19 in North America and March 18 in Europe.

Is the song worth a shit? I have no idea, nor do I yet have any idea whether the rest of the album will produce a stiffening effect comparable to that of the eye-catching album art. I do indeed hope that “Milk Leg” will also produce a third-leg effect.

I only have this one additional comment: I wish that when record labels reveal artwork for albums, EPs, or singles, they would identify the artist. We may be primarily after the music, but if the artwork alone is worth spreading — as this clearly  is — then please give credit where credit is due. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 11

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  6 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

After taking an extra day to collect my thoughts about what should come next on this list, which is sort of like trying to collect hummingbirds, I’m prepared to resume.

This is Part 11 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.

2012 was a banner year for what could be broadly termed technical death metal. I do think that’s a broad term, which could encompass everything from Hate Eternal or the ephemeral Necrophagist to Atheist, from the brutal and largely atonal to the melodic and experimental. But across that range, 2012 was a great year.

I will say that as much as I enjoy “tech death”, “infectious” isn’t a word I would often apply to the music. It can be galvanizing and even intellectually involving without being memorable. But the songs I’m adding today were both. Continue reading »

WITNESSED: OMNIUM GATHERUM’S “NEW DYNAMIC”, PLUS NEW MUSIC FROM WORMED AND CRYSTALIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

I’ve again gotten tired of “Seen and Heard” as the title for these round-up posts. I thought about using “Scene and Herd”, but decided that would give the wrong impression about the news and new music included in these posts, since the subjects are items that get me interested and often excited. So, for now at least, “Witnessed”. This round-up includes not only some things I’d like to share but also a blurb from DGR. Here we go:

OMNIUM GATHERUM

Sadistic bastards that we are, in December we published three different glowing reviews of Beyond, the forthcoming album by Finland’s Omnium Gatherum, despite the fact that the album won’t be released until late February in Europe and March 5 in the U.S. and we had no music we were authorized to stream from the album. Well, now we have music.

This morning Omnium Gatherum put up the song “New Dynamic” on YouTube.  Good choice: along with “The Sonic Sign”, it’s my favorite track on Beyond. Give it a listen and then let us know if you think we were being overly enthusiastic about what Omnium Gatherum has accomplished or if you agree that this shit is fantastic. Continue reading »

MARIE CACHET, VARG VIKERNES, and BURZUM MAKE A MOVIE: “FOREBEARS”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  60 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

Burzum’s Varg Vikernes and his wife Marie Cachet have made a movie entitled ForeBears. But before getting to that, some background:

On the night of March 31, 2012, I discovered that someone had uploaded the entirety of the new, as-yet unreleased Burzum album Umskiptar to YouTube. At the same time, whoever manages Varg’s web page uploaded a batch of photos of Varg wearing, among other things, chain mail and an archaic helmet. The YouTube stream didn’t stay up for long, but long enough for me to listen to the album once. On April 1, I posted (here) a generally unflattering review along with some snarky comments about Varg and those photos.

That post became a gathering point for a ton of comments, mostly from people who are not regular visitors to NCS, and it still gets a lot of traffic to this day. I’m not sure why — maybe because it was such an early review of Umskiptar. It also led Varg’s wife Marie Cachet (though I didn’t know she was his wife at that time) to ask that I remove the Varg photos that I had added to my article — which she had made — because I posted them without her permission. I then had a very polite e-mail exchange with her, and she graciously agreed to allow me to keep the photos with the post after adding proper credit, despite the fact that I was poking fun at them. Continue reading »

KATAKLYSM: “IN THE ARMS OF DEVASTATION”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

(TheMadIsraeli continues his reconsideration of the music of Kataklysm. To see what this is all about, check out his introduction to the series here. Previous installments can be found via this link.)

If I were to tell NCS readers which Kataklysm albums I consider essential listening, I’d name Temple Of Knowledge, Victims Of A Fallen World, and this one. In The Arms of Devastation (2006) is quite possibly the best album modern Kataklysm has produced. By retaining the core of the new sound while introducing new influences, this album is infectious, brutal, and full of rage.

It also benefits from the fact that it’s the first album since Temple Of Knowledge that contains the diversity that album did, mostly assisted by the fact the band takes influences from all over the map. You’ll hear the typical Grave influence that has stayed with this band (especially in the guitar tone on this particular album), but the music also reflects the sounds and styles of Vader, Hypocrisy, and Amon Amarth, among other bands.

This album also includes a lot of the best songs of this era of Kataklysm. “Like Angels Weeping the Dark”, “Crippled And Broken”, and “The Road To Devastation” are good examples. Continue reading »

MORE SEEN AND HEARD: OFFICIUM TRISTE, VENOMOUS MAXIMUS, DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 082013
 

Well, I’m afraid I need to take a break from our normal afternoon roll-out of the 2012 Most Infectious Extreme Metal Song list. I could explain why, but then I’d have to kill you.  Well, I wouldn’t kill you myself. I’d send out a squad of ninja lorises.  You’d probably die of old age before they got there.

Anyway, I do have something else for you. Actually, I have three new videos to share. Because time is short, I won’t say much about them other than to say I think you should watch and hear them.

OFFICIUM TRISTE

This long-running doom/death band from The Netherlands have a new album due for release on Hammerheart Records. Its name is Mors Viri, and it was mixed by Ronnie Björnström. The album features vocals by long-time Officium Triste member Pim Blankenstein, and that’s basically all I needed to know.

The video is for a new song called “The Wounded and the Dying”. It’s really just the music, but doom fans will want to hear this. Listen: Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries