SEEN AND HEARD: VASTUM, AMBASSADOR GUN, HAM AND SKÁLMÖLD, AND FULL ALBUM STREAMS FROM WINTERFYLLETH AND BEASTWARS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 082012
 

Here are a randomly noticed assortment of art, news, new music, and a video I saw and heard yesterday that I thought were well worth sharing.

VASTUM

Vastum are a Bay Area band who began under the name Corpus as a side project of vocalist Dan Butler and guitarist Kyle House from the amazing Acephalix, whose titanic 2012 album Deathless Master I reviewed here. They were eventually joined by guitarist Leila Abdul-Rauf (Hammers of Misfortune, ex-Saros), bass-player Luca Indrio from Acephalix, and drummer  Adam Perry. Their five-song debut, Carnal Law, which was originally released as a demo, made quite the splash in 2011, delivering a filthy, crusty, punk-influenced take on death metal.

Yesterday I happened to see the artwork at the top of this post. It’s one of the latest creations by the uber-talented Paolo Girardi, whose work I follow closely (and have featured at NCS many times before). When he posted it on his Facebook page, it came with this notation: “VASTUM – PATRICIDAL LUST (2012)”.

I’ve seen no other news that Vastum are planning on a new release this year, but that’s sure what Paolo Girardi’s artwork and explanatory note suggest. I really hope that’s what it means. If you’re unfamiliar with Vastum, Carnal Law can be streamed and purchased at Bandcamp (here), and you might want to give it a listen after the jump. Continue reading »

AN NCS SONG PREMIERE: ACRANIA – “SUSCEPTIBLE TO RETINAL BASED REPROGRAMMABILITY”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Sep 082012
 

Introducing people to new music from the underground and eye-catching cover art are two of the things we enjoy most at this site, and today we get to do both. Acrania are a band from southeast UK who are on the verge of releasing a split (Galactic Infections) with California’s Blue Waffle, and today we give you the exclusive premiere of Acrania’s contribution to the split: “Susceptible To Retinal Based Reprogrammability”.

Yes, that song title is a mouthful. The music is also a brutish slug in the mouth — and a flurry of heavy-booted kicks to the head. Acrania inflict severe bodily damage with slamming rhythms, a seething hive of buzzing riffage, rapid-fire percussion, and vocals that span the range from grisly gurgling to unhinged shrieking. It’s brutal, but it’s also groovy. You may feel inclined to bust up your abode while you listen, but you can bang your head while you take the sledgehammer to your walls.

As you can see, Acrania and Blue Waffle also have good taste in art. The cover for their new split is graced by the grisly renderings of Ken Sarafin of Sarafin Concepts, whose work we’ve featured at NCS more than once (check out these posts, for example). Acrania also have a debut EP in the works that will feature cover art by NCS favorite Pär Olofsson, and you can take a look at that after the jump.

But first, get some demolition tools ready and check out “Susceptible To Retinal Based Reprogrammability” . . . Continue reading »

GOJIRA: AN “EXPLOSIA” LYRIC VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 072012
 

Gojira have now released a lyric video for “Explosia”, the first track on L’Enfant Sauvage. The visuals are not fancy. In fact, you’re looking at them right now (except for the words).

The photography, which is beautiful, is by some guy named Mario Duplantier.

Any excuse to listen to “Explosia” again, right? That’s my attitude. Watch/listen after the jump. Continue reading »

AN NCS SONG PREMIERE: NYLITHIA – “HYPERTHRASH”

 Premieres  11 Responses »
Sep 072012
 

What do you get when you combine blazing speed, mind-blowing intricacy, head-slapping grooves, and creative song construction? You get Hyperthrash. More specifically, you get the latest single from the thoroughly entertaining Nylithia, which we are delighted to premiere for you today.

We first came across this Vancouver/Langley-based band through a recommendation from an NCS reader back in March and included a feature on them in one of our MISCELLANY posts. They are in the midst of a project that’s somewhat unusual in the current scene: They’ve been periodically releasing one song at a time, beginning with a premiere of the song (Metal Sucks debuted the last one) and following that with a month-long free download of the track on Bandcamp, after which it becomes available as a “pay what you want” download.

Each song comes with its own distinctive hand-drawn artwork by Ryan “Humanburger” Jones. And on top of all that, the band have been releasing sweet music videos for each track — and those have been racking up a slug of hits on YouTube.

Eventually, all of the singles will be combined into an album — Hyperthrash — and we hear that when all of the singles have been released and the album is thus complete, it will be made available on vinyl with a booklet containing all the artwork, as well as released in CD format.

But that’s all in the future, because the single we’re premiering today is only the fourth track to be released so far, and more are coming. However, the song we have for you today is nothing less than the album’s title track — and man, fair warning: “Hyperthrash” will blow out your circuits. All of them. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KARL SANDERS OF NILE

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Sep 072012
 

(Our man BadWolf interviewed Karl Sanders of Nile by phone earlier this summer, and they discussed . . . well, I’ll let BadWolf give you the preview.  I’ll just say that I had so much fun reading this that I wish it had gone on a whole lot longer. We reviewed the band’s latest album, At the Gates of Sethu, here.)

 

What hasn’t been said about Karl Sanders? The man plays some of the best guitar in all of technical death metal, and in a scene ripe with imitators and mindless noodling, Nile stands out. In other hands an Egyptian motif would be a mere gimmick, but Sanders turns Nile’s aesthetic and musical choices into an original and compelling statement. Most death metal sounds like muck, Nile sounds like a grand adventure.

And his secret, as divulged to the BadWolf, is unstoppable work ethic. We chatted on the merits of hard work, ancient wisdom, and the Arab Spring. Oh, and codeine cough syrup. Tech death goes Crunk after the jump. Continue reading »

SUMMER BREEZE 2012 – THE REVIEW (Part 2)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 072012
 

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn made the trek to Germany for this year’s edition of the SUMMER BREEZE festival, and provided us with a review of the bands whose performances he witnessed.  We’ve divided the review into two parts. Part 1 was yesterday, covering performances on the first two days of the festival. In this post, Andy covers the festival’s third and final day, and at the end we’ve again collected videos of some of the performances discussed in the review.)

DAY 3

Day 3 saw a late start (which may have had something to do with the amount of alcohol consumed the night before) with Naglfar over on the main stage, kicking out some lethal melodic black metal despite the blazing sunshine and clear blue skies. It’s really only in the live setting you can fully appreciate both the anthemic quality of the group’s material, as well as the technical skill behind it.

Over on the second stage Unleashed wasted little time getting into the swing of things, their brutish, occasionally melodic, Viking-obsessed death metal garnering a surprisingly loud reaction (at least for this early in the day). The only niggling problem is that where Amon Amarth are more obviously self-aware, using these tales of Viking lore to inspire and uplift their fans, Unleashed seem to treat their subject matter as a manifesto, and their uncomfortable “we should all be Vikings!” schtick is both extremely geeky and embarrassingly ill-informed.

Over in the third-stage tent Incantation were unleashing their own brand of filthy, blood-spitting aural horror, dropping some gut-clenching death metal grooves and breakdowns into the whirlwind death metal stew, even throwing in a few Possessed covers for good measure. Slightly breaking the atmosphere though was John McEntee’s use of an uber-gravelly Batman voice for his between-song banter, unintentionally hilarious in its own special way. Continue reading »

“TREAT INSPIRATION LIKE THE BITCH IT IS”!!!

 Mosh Pit  5 Responses »
Sep 062012
 

I hadn’t planned to post anything else today, but I just read something that’s so wise and so vividly expressed that I just have to pimp it.

It’s an article that just appeared at Metal Sucks by Eyal Levi, guitarist and co-writer of Dååth, co-creator of the wonderful Avalanche of Worms by Levi/Werstler, and a talented record producer with Audiohammer Studios (founded by Jason Suecof). The subject of the piece is creativity and inspiration, and how to deal with the unfortunate reality that inspiration can’t be summoned on demand.

In a nutshell, his messages are as follows: Understand and accept that no one can be creatively inspired 100% of the time — and don’t let the low points throw you; but also understand that creativity behaves like a muscle, and the more you work at it, the more natural it will become to achieve a creative state. This requires you to work hard, to force yourself to create even when the inspiration has deserted you, rather than to sit around and wait for that “elusive fucker” to show up again in its own good time. He writes:

“Treat inspiration like the bitch that it is. Move forward with or without it and you will find that it will tag along more often than not.  If you are in the habit of flexing that creative muscle as often as possible your ruts will be of shorter duration. Your next great idea will be that much closer.”

Levi writes primarily (though not exclusively) from the perspective of a songwriter and musician. I am neither, but I think his observations are just as valid when it comes to writing, or for that matter any other form of creative endeavor. What he says certainly fits my own experiences and my own observations of successful creative people I’ve known in my life. They are messages worth taking to heart. Continue reading »

INTENSITY: NEW VIDEOS FROM WORLD UNDER BLOOD AND MURDER CONSTRUCT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 062012
 

The subjects of this post are two official videos released today by two California bands, World Under Blood and Murder Construct. The musical styles are of course quite different, but the music (and the videos) have this much in common: They’re intense experiences to hear and to see.

WORLD UNDER BLOOD

Despite the fact that we failed to review this band’s 2011 Nuclear Blast debut album Tactical, we sort of made up for that by naming one of the album’s tracks (“Dead and Still In Pain”) to our list of 2011’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

We could have just as easily picked another song from that album, “Into the Arms of Cruelty”. It really showcases the talents of this band’s top-flight members: vocalist/guitarist Deron Miller (CKY), drummer Tim Yeung (Divine Heresy, Morbid Angel), guitrist Luke Jaeger (Sleep Terror), and bassist Risha Eryavec (ex-Decrepit Birth). It’s a plenty extreme song, but it has an undeniable groove and melodic hooks that really set themselves firmly in the mind.

Today, Nuclear Blast debuted an official video for the song, and it’s very well made (by director Shan Dan Horan). It matches the intensity of the music with a mix of animation and live action storytelling that focuses on violence directed against children. Definitely worth seeing and hearing . . . right now. Continue reading »

SUMMER BREEZE 2012 – THE REVIEW (Part 1)

 Concert Reviews  7 Responses »
Sep 062012
 

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn made the trek to Germany for this year’s edition of the SUMMER BREEZE festival, and provided us with a review of the bands whose performances he witnessed.  We’ve divided the review into two parts. In this post, Andy covers the festival’s first two days, and tomorrow we’ll have his impressions of Day 3. We’ve also collected videos of many of the performances at the end of the post.)

So… German festivals go Thursday – Saturday, not Friday – Sunday… who knew? Well apparently everyone else in the world except for us, when we booked an overnight stay in Cologne on the Wednesday night! Still, Cologne was awesome, and only a mere four hours drive away…

Anyway, on reaching the site (after a desperate last minute rush to the petrol station – seriously, make sure you fill up before you reach the Dinkelsbuhl exit guys and gals!) we joined a surprising, infuriating, queue of cars, followed by an interminable security check… time was ticking away and Be’lakor (one of my primary reasons for going to the festival) would soon be taking the stage! So with some slightly rushed stunt driving (I’m pretty certain I went down that grass verge as much sideways as I did forwards) and a breathless scramble… we made it. Just.

DAY 1

Justifying our desperate, occasionally slightly risky, efforts to get to the festival on time, Be’lakor were undeniably awesome. Live, the Agallochian overtones of the music come through a lot more, a melding of misty melancholy with swells of oceanic heaviness giving the band a more distinctive and individual live presence. The group’s image is a little difficult to reconcile with the music though, encompassing a host of short haircuts, laid-back Australian accents, and inappropriate t-shirts! Shame on you guys!

The next band I was dying to see also happened to be one of my favourites, my loyalty to Darkest Hour forcing me to choose them in an unfortunate clash with Glorior Belli. And though it pained me to do so, I’m glad I did. Darkest Hour never disappoint, their punky, hyper-energetic take on melodic death metal fitting perfectly with the blazing sunshine and free-wheeling atmosphere of the festival. Plus, I was still yet to see them live with either the new material or the new line-up, and both absolutely killed it live. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EYEHATEGOD, KLONE, DE PROFUNDIS, SLASH DEMENTIA

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 062012
 

Here we are, still rounding up new music (and a new video) that debuted yesterday or early this morning. If you missed the last post because you were doing something unimportant by comparison, like performing open heart surgery, there are killer new songs from other bands in that one, too. In this one we have new music from Eyehategod (New Orleans), Klone (Poitiers), and Slash Dementia (Äänekoski), plus a new video from De Profundis (London).

EYEHATEGOD

NOLA sludge legends Eyehategod have released a new 7″ single via A389 Recordings, who will sell it to you here on laser-etched green vinyl. Its title is “New Orleans Is the New Vietnam”, and it’s apparently the first new track the band have released since the demo tracks on 2005’s Preaching The End Time Message.

The song is now streaming on the A389 Bandcamp page. It’s a cool song, and by “cool” I mean it will punch you in the spleen. Fat stoner riffs duke it out with pachydermal stomps and Mike Williams somehow rises up in the middle of all that heaving weight spewing pure pissed-off punk invective. Give it a listen after the jump, and begin preparing yourselves for the band’s next album, which is in the works. Continue reading »

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