THE SYNN REPORT, PART 26: CROCELL

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  5 Responses »
Jul 272012
 

(In this latest edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the two bloodthirsty albums by Denmark’s Crocell.)

Recommended for fans of: Amon Amarth, God Dethroned, Bloodbath

So here’s the thing. Well, two things actually. Firstly, I noticed that a good number of the recent Synn Reports have been of a black metal – type, as are many of the ones I have planned for the future. Secondly, my original plan for this edition was not only another black metal – based band, but was also taking me a lot longer to write-up than I intended. So bearing these two things in mind, I decided to re-shuffle things a bit and bash out a different Report than the one I had originally planned, just to give you a bit of variety.

There you go, preamble over. Here’s some death metal.

Formed in Aarhus in 2007, the Danish quintet Crocell deal in concrete-heavy slabs of prime melodic death metal beef. Heavy on the groove and spiced up with darkly melodic lead lines, they’ve produced two albums so far, 2008’s The God We Drowned and last year’s follow-up The Wretched Eidola, while also maintaining a remarkably stable core line-up throughout.

Towing a fine-line between crushing death metal extremity and surprising accessibility, one can find similarities with perennial NCS-faves A Hill To Die Upon in their mix of earth-shaking death metal groove and dark, subtle melody, while their aggressive, blasphemous lyrical outlook should suit fans of Deicide perfectly. Even fans of The Crown will get their goods here, as the relentless, jet-propelled drumming work-out of each song meshes seamlessly with their precise, yet powerful volleys of lethal riffage. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: DUBLIN DEATH PATROL

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 272012
 

I’m a big fan of Eliran Kantor’s artwork. The guy is just tremendously talented. And so I haunt his Facebook page to keep tabs on his new creations. This morning, I saw that he had uploaded the artwork above. It’s an homage to HP Lovecraft — a kind of Shoggoth / Shub-Niggurath/ Cthulhu hybrid. It’s the cover for an album by a band I’d never heard of called Dublin Death Patrol.

I assumed this was some new Irish metal band, but I was wrong. The “Dublin” in Dublin Death Patrol refers to the town of Dublin, California, population 46,000+, located about 25 miles east of Oakland. Many of the band’s 11 members are Dubliners. And yes, you read that right: 11 members.

But look who’s included in DPP’s membership: Chuck Billy (Testament), Steve “ZETRO” Souza (ex-Testament, ex-Exodus), Willy Lange (Rampage, Laaz Rockit), two of Chuck Billy’s brothers (Andy and Eddie), Steve Souza’s brother John, and a bunch of other East Bay ragers (Steve Robello, Greg Bustamante, Danny Cunningham, Troy Luccketta, and John Hartsinck). It’s definitely a “family and friends” kind of band. You get one guess as to what kind of metal they play.

All of these guys have apparently known each other since they were teenagers. They’ve recorded two albums. One of them, DDP4Life (2005), apparently had some kind of limited release on a label called Godfodder, but the second one — Death Sentence (2011) — has never been released. But as a result of some internet sleuthing after seeing that Eliran Kantor cover art, I discovered that Mascot Records will be releasing both of the DDP albums on August 13 (they’re taking pre-orders here). Continue reading »

THE POETRY OF CANNIBAL CORPSE (AND A NEW UPLOAD OF AN OLD DYING FETUS FAVORITE)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Jul 272012
 

Good morning class. Our subject for today is that well-known romantic ballad by Cannibal Corpse, “I Cum Blood”.

Of course, many of you know this gentle ode like the palm of your hand. But please raise those hands — how many of you have ever read the lyrics?

I thought so. This is the problem with our instant-gratification society. You consume music so quickly and superficially. You get the quick headbang and then move on, without delving more deeply into the philosophical underpinnings of the artist’s inspiration and the nuances of the lyrical message. You miss the opportunity for personal growth that comes from a thoughtful exegesis of the words. You hear the noise and miss the poetry. This will not do.

To correct your shortcomings in music appreciation, we are privileged to have with us today Professor Big C, who will deliver for us a spoken-word recital of the lyrics to “I Cum Blood”.

It goes without saying that you have also neglected the heart-felt lyrical message in that classic Dying Fetus song, “Homicidal Retribution”, with its passionate protest against a justice system that allows killers to escape their just deserts. This tune, which appears on War of Attrition (2007), is one of your instructor’s favorite Dying Fetus ballads, and we are fortunate that the Relapse Records label has uploaded to YouTube for the first time a high-quality version of the official video for this masterwork. It was filmed at Philadelphia’s historic Eastern State Penitentiary. You will wish to familiarize yourself with its environs, because many of you are undoubtedly headed for similar accommodations.

After you have reflected upon Professor Big C’s rendition of “I Cum Blood”, your next assignment will be to absorb the “Homicidal Retribution” video and write a 2,000-word essay on what it means to you. You may not use the words “fuck”, “fucking”, “awesome”, “shit”, “cum”, or “splooge” in your essay. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: THEDOWNGOING – “ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS”

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
Jul 272012
 

thedowngoing are a two-man band from Sydney, Australia. Their new EP is entitled ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS. Obviously, they have no patience or use for spaces. Spaces would only interrupt the run-on pile-up of letters. There are also few spaces in the band’s music. Spaces would only interrupt the run-on pile-up of noize and unhinged vocalization that erupts from the album like sulfuric acid and brimstone spewing from a high-pressure firehose.

I first heard about this band as a result of a 2011 year-end list by Alex Layzell (Grind To Death) that we posted last December (here). In that article, Alex was singing the praises of thedowngoing’s Untitled EP. More recently, he’s been singing the praises of ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS, so I decided I should check it out.

It doesn’t take long — 12 songs run roughshod through your skull in almost exactly 10 minutes, leaving a smoking wreckage of pulp in place of what used to be your brain.

The stringed instruments are so distorted that they sound like a combination of industrial-strength sandblasters and the ongoing explosion of an overloaded transformer. The drumming bolts from recognizable rhythms to sheer off-the-hook mayhem, one freaked-out detonation of percussion after another. The vocals are as utterly and completely deranged as any I’ve ever heard, with high-pitched shrieking that could not possibly leave any normal set of vocal chords intact and gruesome growls that would frighten bears. Continue reading »

“CLOUD ATLAS”: THE MOVIE

 Off Topic  12 Responses »
Jul 262012
 

We’re going off topic with this post, but for a good reason: because your humble editor just watched a movie trailer that caused a few thousand micro-strokes, leading to one big fuckin’ head explosion.

Cloud Atlas is the name of a novel by David Mitchell that was published in 2004 to considerable critical acclaim. It seemed like it would be a fascinating read, so I bought the book. I’m pretty sure it’s lying around here somewhere, probably underneath some animal pelts or unread magazines from 2005. Anyway, I didn’t read the book and forgot all about it, until today.

And today a friend sent me a link to the trailer for a movie that has been made from the Cloud Atlas novel. It stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D’Arcy, Zhou Xun, Keith David, David Gyasi, and Susan Sarandon. It was co-written for the screen and co-directed by the people who made the The Matrix trilogy (Andy and Lana Wachowski)  and Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer).

Trying to describe the plot is difficult, but from what I’ve read, it involves interlinked stories spanning centuries (and extending into the future) about six characters, including a voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer struggling in Belgium between the wars; a journalist in 1970s California; a vanity publisher fleeing gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and a young Pacific Islander witnessing the downfall of science and civilization.

I have no idea how these stories connect, though some time travel seems to be involved. Maybe it will turn out to be a confusing mess — some people who’ve read the book are fearful about that. But I can tell you that based on this long trailer, the movie LOOKS fucking awesome. Continue reading »

SYMPHONIC EXTREMITY: NEW MUSIC FROM DIABOLICAL AND WELICORUSS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 262012
 

While browsing the interhole this morning in an effort to find something that would cheer me up in the wake of learning about the cancellation of the Gojira-LambOfGod-Dethklok tour, I happened upon two new videos that helped considerably. By coincidence, both involve bands whose new music carries an air of dark symphonic grandeur, while inflicting vicious body blows at the same time: Diabolical (Sweden) and Welicoruss (Russia).

DIABOLICAL

Diabolical are a Swedish death metal band with three studio albums and a live recording (2011’s Ars Vitae) to their credit. They’re now in the process of recording a new album entitled Neogenesis. Today, they released a video that includes pre-production excerpts from a few of the new songs, and the music is sounding really fucken good.

The music is a dark kind of melodic death metal, frequently with a black metal sheen. Whether galloping at a furious pace or stomping with imperial might, it’s infernally majestic. The vocals are deep and bestial and the riffing is titanic. But the band also spin sweeping melodies, and they leaven the blasting with soft spaces that include the mournful sound of violins. Through the guitars, subtle keyboard additions, and even choral clean voices, they also create a symphonic aura around this very ominous and apocalyptic metal.

The new video teaser also features a dude who looks like he took in a few too many roentgens somewhere. Continue reading »

WELL, FUCKITALL: GOJIRA’S TOUR WITH LAMB OF GOD AND DETHKLOK IS KAPUT

 Metal News  11 Responses »
Jul 262012
 

I guess this could be predicted, but I was hoping against hope that it wouldn’t happen: Gojira’s North American tour with Lamb of God and Dethklok that was scheduled to begin right here in the Emerald City on August 1 has been canceled. I just saw this morbid news on Heavy Blog Is Heavy, and “borrowed” their modification of the tour poster as well. HBIH also included the following statements by Lamb of God and Dethklok:

LAMB OF GOD:

“Due to the continued incarceration of LAMB OF GOD singer Randy Blythe in the Czech Republic, the band’s co-headline tour with Dethklok scheduled to begin August 1st in Seattle is being cancelled.  The band regrets the decision but the uncertainty of Randy’s release makes it impossible to carry on with the tour.  Upon Randy’s release, it is the band’s intention to rebook a tour in the fall and at this time the band fully intends to participate in the Mayhem Cruise in December.

LAMB OF GOD wishes to thank Dethklok, Adult Swim and Gojira for their support and patience as well as all of the promoters who had dates on the tour.  Last but certainly not least, the band thanks all of the fans who bought tickets for the tour and who have been supportive of Randy and the band over the last month that Randy has been held in Prague.  Without the fans, there is no LAMB OF GOD.”

DETHKLOK:

“In light of circumstances beyond our control, the upcoming Dethklok and Lamb of God with Gojira summer tour has been canceled. Refunds will be available to customers who already purchased tickets through their point of purchase. We thank Dethklok fans for their continued support and look forward to releasing information about the band’s upcoming third album and a planned fall tour in the coming weeks.”

Okay, fine, so maybe LoG will organize a new tour whenever Randy Blythe is allowed to leave the Czech Republic and maybe Dethklok will find another way to hit the road soon, but honestly, what I really want to know is what Gojira are going to do. Continue reading »

SWALLOW THE SUN: “EMERALD FOREST AND THE BLACKBIRD”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jul 262012
 

(In this post, DGR reviews the latest album from Finland’s Swallow the Sun.)

Considering the amount of hype that we at NCS generated for Emerald Forest And The Blackbird in advance of its release, it’s difficult to fathom why it’s taken as long as it has to finally get some proper thoughts up about the full disc. That was, until I read Islander’s post earlier this month about the best albums of 2012 so far and noticed that my list was one of the few that included Swallow The Sun’s new album.

I’ve also been in a pretty goth/death/doom-heavy mode as of late. I think I currently have eight different reviews going at the moment, and three of them belong to bands whose music includes dirge elements (the other two being the great Inborn Suffering and Barren Earth releases), so that’s probably another factor.

And finally, Swallow The Sun seem to be one of those bands who are constantly overlooked, especially for a group whose past four releases (counting Plague Of Butterflies, since I started with Hope) have been consistently great if you’re in the mood for trying to find some beauty in utter misery and desolation.

Swallow the Sun have slowly been morphing their sound, so it isn’t as overtly oppressive and miserable, instead becoming something more cold and hopeless. The group’s previous disc, New Moon, was one of my favorites when it came out, and I still think people owe it to themselves at least to give the track Lights On The Lake (Horror Part III) a listen, because it is one of the best examples of an excellent song just lifting a whole album far beyond its initial first impression of, “This is pretty good”.

Emerald Forest And The Blackbird feels like a continuation of what the band were doing on New Moon. They’ve slowly shifted away from their initial style of slow, crawling, funeral-esque doom and started working in elements that are more melancholic and more melodic in nature. Emerald Forest includes a hefty amount of clean vocals, as well as significant usage of acoustic guitar. There’s even one song in this disc’s expanse of music that is a somewhat straightforward acoustic ballad, no matter how depressing the subject matter is. Continue reading »

“HEART OF GOLD”: THE WOODS OF YPRES TRIBUTE ALBUM HITS OUR FRACTURED RADAR SCREEN

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jul 252012
 

On December 22, 2011, David Gold died in an automobile collision near Barrie, Ontario, at the age of 31. With his death, so died Woods of Ypres — the doom/black metal band that he co-founded and of which he was the sole consistent member over the course of five albums and assorted other releases. But of course the music of Woods lives on in the lives of the band’s passionate fanbase.

Given my own tastes in metal, I was never a die-hard follower of Woods, though I did appreciate the music, I was really high on certain songs, and I certainly understand why the band had such a powerful effect on many listeners. And I wasn’t surprised to learn earlier this year that a musical tribute to David Gold and to Woods was being planned under the title Heart of Gold. I’ve been casually (and irregularly) monitoring the project’s progress, and so, for example, I saw today that the project’s organizer, Steph LeDrew, had unveiled the very cool album cover that you can see above, created by artist Jason Hicks.

But what really put this album on my personal radar screen was the recent discovery that Sweden’s Canopy has contributed a cover of “Falling Apart”, which was one of two tracks that appeared on the Home 7″ single released in 2011. Long-time readers of NCS know that we’re huge fans of Canopy, and we’ve been starved for new music from the band since the release of Menhir (their third album) in 2010. Now we’ll have something to tide us over until the band finish work on their next album (which is in progress). Continue reading »

DAYLIGHT DIES: “A FRAIL BECOMING” IS ON THE WAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jul 252012
 

All of your friends here at NCS are immensely anxious for the release of the next album by North Carolina’s Daylight Dies. Three years have passed since the release of the band’s third album, Lost To the Living. But yesterday Candlelight Records announced a release date for the new album, entitled A Frail Becoming: October 9. In addition, the label put up a brief video teaser for the album, which is . . . way too fucking brief.

The new record was mixed by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia, Devin Townsend, and many more) at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden, and the album will feature photography from award-winning Jonathan Mehring.

I’m going to embed the teaser video after the jump, but I’m also including a more effective reminder of why this is one of our most anticipated releases for 2012 — the official video for “Lies That Bind”, a track from the band’s second album, Dismanting Devotion (2006). It vividly displays the band’s talent for moving from dark ethereal beauty to a crushingly heavy assault, without warning, and the video is cool to watch, too.

Speaking of videos, the press release we received states that the band are currently working on a video for the song “Dreaming of Breathing” from the new record. The clip is being filmed by Ramon Boutviseth, who also directed the video for “Lies That Bind”. For more updates, watch this space or visit Daylight Dies on Facebook. Continue reading »

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