WEASELS RIP MY ANKLE: CRYPTICUS, NIDINGR, ARKHUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  25 Responses »
Nov 092012
 

So good to be back in Seattle after a fucking 6-hour flight home last night. Did you know that your feet swell up something fierce after 6 hours at 40,000 feet? Did you know that this is really not a good thing if you’re trying to recover from a serious ankle sprain? Did you know that it could cause your toes to turn black and your ankle to turn red and blue even a week after your accident, so that it feels like weasels are ripping into it? Well, now you know.

Did you know that if your hearing is sort of shitty and you try to listen to metal at the proper head-wrecking volume on your earbuds during a 6-hour night flight that your neighbors who are trying to sleep will look at you like they want to set you on fire? Did you know that if enough neighbors look at you like that, and you’re a weenie, you will sheepishly remove the earbuds and lose out on the chance to catch up on new metal for 6 hours and instead drink heavily and become surly and morose? Well, now you know.

Did you know that when your body’s time clock is still in a time zone that’s three hours later than where you are, your body will wake up thinking that it’s 6:30 a.m. when in fact it’s 3:30 a.m.and you’ve only been asleep for 4 hours after being awake for nearly 24 hours and you will feel like day-old shit with your ankle throbbing and be unable to fall asleep again? Now you know.

Did you know that even when you’re a really important metal blogger and you’re mostly out of touch with metal for more than a day, metal is still happening, as if it did not depend on your paying attention in order to continue happening? Amazingly, that seems to be true.

Here’s what I found this morning in between hobbling trips to the coffee maker to recharge my bowl-sized Deathwish coffee cup: Crypticus (U.S.), Nidingr (Norway), and Arkhum (U.S.). Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “MONOLITH

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Nov 092012
 

(Please welcome guest writer ElizabethKristina with a review of the new album by Sylosis.)

Writing this review was my first run-in with this British quartet, so naturally, curiosity got the better of me and I read up a little on the band. The foursome hails from Reading, Berkshire in the UK. Formed back in 2000 with the intention of playing thrash and death metal, it took Sylosis eight years before they got their big break with Nuclear Blast Records to record their first album, 2008’s Conclusion of Age. Now in 2012, the band sees the release of their third full-length album, Monolith.

While the title conjures images of a large stone block floating through space, this album is nothing of the sort. Sylosis have really kept up with their original mission to play thrash, but have evolved to incorporate a more progressive sound; the classic thrash elements are definitely present throughout Monolith, but the interweaving of progressive melodies and tempos breathes new life into both styles.

The first song of the album, “Out From Below,” with its atmospheric build-up and satisfying explosion of speed and riffage, evokes an Opeth-like sound, and also sets the rest of the album up quite nicely. “Fear of the World” features some aggressive and full-sounding vocals, but also has a beautiful moment of clean-singing about three minutes in.

“Behind the Sun” was a personal favorite of mine as it brought to mind Mastodon with some of the singing and guitar work. “A Dying Vine” also features great guitar work, and the ever-shifting tempos juxtapose the softer prog with the classic thrash to maximum effect. In fact, much of the interest derived from Monolith is due to the frequent tempo changes and stylistic shifts that keep the listener on edge for the nearly hour and half of play time. Continue reading »

A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT: DEVOURMENT, WEAPON THE FACTORY?, SYSTEM DIVIDE, ABIGAIL WILLIAMS, AND CLOAK OF ALTERING

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Nov 082012
 

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, wherever you are.  It’s morning for me, three time zones east of where I usually am. I’m pressed for time today because of my day job. I’ll be spending several hours trying to extricate those coke-filled balloons from my ass so I can make my delivery and get back on a plane to Seattle. I got them way to far up in there this time, I’m afraid.

But although I’m pressed for time, I did have time to make a quick review of my usual sources and have a few things to pass along to you, in no particular order: Devourment are releasing a new album; System Divide are going home; Weapon the Factory? are disrobing; Abigail Williams are reuniting; and Cloak of Altering is killing me.  Details to follow.

DEVOURMENT

I saw that these grand-daddies of brutal slamming death metal will have a new album out next year on the Relapse label. Relapse released a teaser video for the thing. I’m ready. I’m more than ready. Check it out following the jump. Continue reading »

MY DYING BRIDE: “A MAP OF ALL OUR FAILURES”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Nov 082012
 

(I’m actually kind of stunned. We’ve published so many posts about the new album by My Dying Bride — including an interview of guitarist Hamish Glencross — that I thought we had actually reviewed the album, too. But no!  We hadn’t!  Until today.  And now we’re publishing as the next in our series of guest submissions a potentially controversial review of A Map of All Our Failures by a writer who calls himself madchoons.)

This is where I get to yell at the top of my lungs a variety of contemplative pronouncements which will, in all likelihood, polarize people away from or possibly closer to my side of the fence. I’m not fully convinced the latter is a good idea, but on we go…

To start off, as much as it really does hurt me to say this, My Dying Bride have become the epitome of cheese.

This is a term I quite commonly use for bands/music that, although well put together and obviously derived from talented musicians, has the consistency and flavour of that aforementioned dairy product. You may have guessed I am not a fan of cheese. I enjoy it liberally with my pasta and salad, but by itself it is bland, hard to chew, and sits very heavily on my stomach.

In this case, the same can be said for My Dying Bride’s latest maudlin opus A Map Of All Our Failures, and it really does hurt to even think that one of my all-time favourites of the doom/death/goth genre has sunk to the very place I never thought they could end up. Continue reading »

KRAKOW: “DINN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  2 Responses »
Nov 072012
 

(In this post, NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the sophomore album by Norway’s Krakow, which was released in September.)

Hands up: Who remembers the last time this band were featured (albeit briefly) on this site…?

Ok, so I’m going to guess that very few hands were raised. Partly because none of you remember the band, and partly because raising your hand over the internet would be pretty stupid.

Back when I had my little Black Metal Weekender™ there was a killer little show featuring Kampfar, Vreid, and Secrets of the Moon. And opening that show (and indeed, sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb) were the as-then-unknown-to-me band Krakow, playing a form of dragging, weighty stoner-metal, shot through with some distinctly Scandinavian influences. It was certainly an interesting sound, and their performance prompted me to keep an eye on the band.

Which brings us to Diin, their recently released second album. To describe it succinctly, I’d say imagine Enslaved with a more depressive, less bombastic vibe, channelling the spirit of latter-day Isis. Add a splash of Mastodonian psychedelia to that, stir, and serve over ice. Continue reading »

GENRE POLICING: A PSA

 Mosh Pit  39 Responses »
Nov 072012
 

(Tyler Lowery has taken maximum advantage of our open invitation for guest posts. This is his latest, and more lie ahead.) 

We as a society have become obsessed with the concept of order. Speaking solely for Americans here, we have countless laws for some of the dumbest things imaginable. We have applications on our phones to tell us when to eat and sleep, and how many calories we’ve burned in the interim. We sort our lives into tidy boxes, always pushing to label and categorize what we like and dislike. It was only a matter of time before this obsession seeped its way into our interest in music as well.

First it started with dividing music into genres. At first they were usually loosely defined and were really a catch-all net that was akin to sorting colors from whites in the wash. Then slowly we began splitting our genres into neater categories, taking common techniques and delivery styles and grouping them into arching subgenres.

Then the net became a cupboard drawer. There was a place for big forks, salad forks, meat forks, serving forks, you get the picture. But even still, there seemed to be a need for continual sub-classification, making the pigeon holes smaller and smaller. Now we are stuck with subgenres and offshoots that sometimes only include one or two bands in each. Continue reading »

ROUND-UP: BOSSE-DE-NAGE, ZUBROWSKA, OBSCENE ENTITY, HELL MILITIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 062012
 

This post is about as lame a post as any post I’ve ever posted, except for the post on Saturday that was actually entitled LAME. (My ankle is now black and blue, but improving, and thank you for asking). To be clear, this post is not lame because the music I’m recommending is lame. Far from it! It’s lame because I don’t have the time or the mental clarity to add much to the recommendations, such as an explanation.

My day job is imposing on me at the moment (and this will continue over the next two days), and to be brutally honest, I’m also experiencing some anxiety over the outcome of state and national elections. Between those two things, this is all I can manage at the moment:

BOSSE-DE-NAGE

A few weeks ago I reviewed a new split release by deafheaven and Bosse-De-Nage. Both of the two songs on the split are long — 10:37 and 9:02, respectively — and I expressed the opinion that together they made up one of the best short releases of 2012. When I wrote the review, only the deafheaven track was available for streaming. Now, so is the Bosse-De-Nage track.

The split will be released by The Flenser Records on November 20, both on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl can be pre-ordered from The Flenser here, and it’s also available at deafheaven’s store at this location. Watch The Flenser Facebook or Bandcamp pages for news about the digital release. The BDN song is streaming at Stereogum as well as on YouTube, and it’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

UNCLE ACID AND THE DEADBEATS: “BLOOD LUST”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
Nov 062012
 

I guess we’re really going to confuse people today. We started with a guest review of Kamelot’s new album. To provide balance, I should be reviewing something that mimics the sound of your guts being clawed out by a pack of rabid wolverines. Instead, I’m writing about a UK band named Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats.

If I were more deeply ensconced in the world of stoner doom, and even more precisely, the world of throwback, acid-dropping, occult, garage-band horror/rock, I would have known about this band before yesterday. But I’m not and I didn’t.

I didn’t even intend to review this album. I simply intended to listen to a song or two out of curiosity, because Metal Blade is giving the band’s 2011 album Blood Lust its first big-scale release in advance of a new album due next spring. But a song or two was all it took to fall for the album like a bag of bricks.

Listeners of a certain advanced age, such as yours truly, will think they’ve entered a time warp and surfaced in the era when Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Neil Young were changing the face of rock. But where those bands were singing about climbing stairways to heaven, strange brew, and Southern men, Uncle Acid steep themselves in witchery, murder, and the ritual of sin. Continue reading »

KAMELOT: “SILVERTHORN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
Nov 062012
 

(Today we continue our series of guest posts with a review by “Andrew Jackson” of the new album from Kamelot, which was released on October 30 by SPV/Steamhammer.)

Kamelot are a Power Metal band who I had overlooked for quite a while, though I had known about them for at least a year before I first heard Silverthorn. I had intended to buy one of their albums eventually, but when you’re broke and live in a town that thrives off of Country, Modern Pop, and other garbage that is guaranteed to reduce your already dwindling number of brain cells, it becomes difficult.

Anyways, so after some time I finally got my hands on Kamelot’s new album. To be honest, I didn’t really expect much. The band had just lost their singer of ten years, one of the hardest things for a band to recover from. Their previous singer, Roy Kahn, was well known in the Metal community and loved by fans. So after some time they filled in the gap with a singer named Tommy Karevik.

Hell if I know who he is, I just focus on the important shit here; and what’s most important is that he kicks ass. It seems like Kamelot decided to give him free range to explore his own vocal abilities and pump out some incredibly infectious melodies, while still bringing in the classic Kamelot feel to each song. In fact, he sounds very similar to Roy Kahn.

Silverthorn is a concept album about some chick named Jolee (I’m guessing that’s her picture on the cover) who dies at the hands of her brothers. Each individual track continues the storyline and focuses on the emotions that each character in the story feels, along with their individual regret for their actions. Along with the lyrics, the music also changes from moments of power to moments of reflection, such as the track “Song for Jolee”. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: INTERVALS — “IN TIME”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 052012
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the latest EP by Toronto’s Intervals.)

Aaron Marshall is really quite something.  A guy just sitting in his bedroom fucking around with a love for all the elements modern metal contains, including the dreaded D-word, puts up a couple YouTube videos of himself playing his songs and he takes off after showing that he’s an instrumental metal tour de force.

Last year I reviewed his last EP under the Intervals moniker, The Space Between, and that EP is still a badass listening experience.  Now he’s back with a new EP, the same killer line-up from the first EP, and his sound taken to the next level.  This EP is instrumental technical groove metal of the best sort.  I would try to pinpoint the influences but I really think Intervals have their own sound.

Here you’re going to find lots of low-tuned riffs with a propulsive, almost funk-like groove to them, soulful solos, and syncopation out the ass.  The emphasis is definitely on modern djenty/tech-metal style riffing.  There is a risk this EP would have fallen flat on its face if it weren’t for the fact Marshall knows how to write some delicious, catchy, dazzling guitar parts.  Continue reading »

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