WORMFOOD, ANT NOISE, AND THE CALL OF THE WILD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Aug 102012
 

The weekend is nearly upon us. Almost time for the revels to begin. In addition to reveling in my own preferred way after a tough week (i.e., sleeping like a dead man), I hope to catch up on my metal listening. But before diving into a big batch of album-length goodies that are high on my list, I thought I’d close out the week with one more grab-bag of song-length sounds.

Two fresh tracks caught my ears this morning, one from a French band named Wormfood and one from a Brooklyn outfit, Call of the Wild. I also have ant noise. I also have this photo from Mars, beamed back to the mother ship by the Curiosity rover. What look like hills in the distance are the rim of the Gale Crater, where Curiosity is now located.

There’s a better photo of the crater rim after the jump, though it’s in black and white. Continue reading »

RELINQUISHED: “ONWARD ANGUISHES”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 102012
 

(In this review, TheMadIsraeli introduces us to the music of an Austrian band named Relinquished — and there’s a full-album stream at the end, too.)

Alright, time to get off the anticipated and major releases and get back to the more under-the-radar shit.

Relinquished are a quite potent progressive melodic death metal band hailing from Austria. Honestly, I foresaw this as being some kind of shitty-ass deathcore judging from the cover, but was quite surprised.  Influences ranging from Into Eternity to Bloodbath, from The Faceless to even Daylight Dies are all here.  The guitar work is technical, intricate, and layered, and the songwriting does a  stellar job of integrating dynamics and drama.  The music also features a lot of harsh/clean vocal interplay, evoking memories of Opeth, Ihsahn, and the afore-mentioned Daylight Dies.  This is good stuff.

Today I’m reviewing the band’s sophomore album Onward Anguishes, released on April 8.  They have a debut entitled Susanna Lies in Ashes (an album I intend to hunt down now) and an EP by the name of Rehearsal Doom for those who like the music enough to check them out further. Continue reading »

NEW VIDEO FROM EX DEO AND NEW SONGS FROM HOODED MENACE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 102012
 

Ex Deo — the “other band” of Kataklysm frontman Mauriozio Iacono — has completed a new album entitled CALIGVLA, the thematic focus of which is Rome under the unhinged rule of Emperor Caligula.

You remember Caligula, don’t you? The emperor who demanded that he be worshipped as a living god, threatened to make his horse a consul (and actually did make him a priest), slaughtered innocent people for amusement, prostituted his sisters to other men (and allegedly engaged in incestuous relations with them), and indulged all manner of sexual perversity, turning his palace into a brothel? The first Roman emperor to be assassinated? The subject of an infamous 1979 movie starring Malcolm McDowell and financed by Penthouse?   Yeah, that guy.

The album is scheduled for release by Napalm Records on August 31, and a couple days ago Napalm began streaming the first official video for the album, for a track called “I, Caligvla”. Two things jumped out at me about the song: First, it’s a real headbanger. Second, it includes a lot of bombastic orchestral music in conjunction with the thundering riffage — more so than I remember from Ex Deo’s last release.

As for the video, if you’re getting your hopes up about scenes of bestiality and fisting, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. About as deviant as it gets are a few swats at a shapely female butt and some gladiatorial combat for the emperor’s amusement. Still, I thought it was worth sharing. And after that . . . I’ll come to two new songs from Finland’s Hooded Menace. Continue reading »

EVOCATION: “ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR” ON THE WAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 102012
 

I really can’t get enough of Sweden’s Evocation. They combine old-school death metal with some newer-school learning in a way that just really hits my sweet spot. Their music is raw, it’s heavy, it’s galvanizing, it’s groove-filled, and it’s memorable. Their last album of new material, Apocalyptic, was released in 2010, and after that Century Media signed ’em up. Century then compiled a collection of demo, unreleased, and rehearsal material from the band — whose roots go back to the early 90’s — and unleashed it in June as Evoked From Demonic Depths – The Early Years.

Today, we got the news that Century will release Evocation’s fourth studio album, Illusions Of Grandeur, on September 24 in Europe and October 23 in the US. It will include guest vocals by Amon Amarth’s Johan Hegg on a song called “Into Submission”, as well as three studio bonus tracks on a limited-edition digipak. And it features the eye-catching artwork of Michal “Xaay” Loranc — about whom more in a minute.

I wish I had a new song from the new album to play for you (and for myself), but we’ll have to wait a bit longer for that. But I do have a handful of videos as well as a track from the Evoked From Demonic Depths compilation as a reminder of why the new album should be eagerly anticipated. All of that is after the jump (we’ve streamed some of this stuff at various places and times in the past, but some of you might be new to this band).

Xaay is a Polish artist whose work we’ve featured before at NCS. He’s been a professional designer and digital artist since 1999 and has created album covers and/or merch designs for the likes of Nile, Behemoth, Kamelot, Vader, Necrophagist, and Decapitated. He also created the cover art for both Evocation’s Apocalyptic and for the 2012 compilation. Check those out here: Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 28: ANATA

 THE SYNN REPORT  9 Responses »
Aug 102012
 

(In this latest edition of the Synn Report, Andy Synn reviews the four-album discography of an amazing technical death metal band from Sweden — Anata.)

Recommended for fans of: Gorod, Nile, Necrophagist

 

I told you I wanted to break up the more black metal-y trend of the column, didn’t I? Well feast your eyes, ears, and whatever other senses you feel inclined to use, on the blistering technical death metal of Anata!

Hailing from Varberg, Sweden, the band (currently a three-piece, but historically performing and recording as a quartet) have produced four albums since the release of their debut in 1998, each one getting steadily more complex and refined, more intense and blistering, as the years have unfolded, striving to achieve a perfect balance between progressive complexity, technical wizardry, and shocking brutality.

With tech-death, what primarily differentiates the bands from each other is the roots they draw from. Obscura draw more obviously from Morbid Angel/Death than many others. Gorod owe a large debt to Cynic/Atheist. Beneath The Massacre pull mostly from the Cryptopsy/Dying Fetus school. What I hear most strongly from Anata, though, is the undercurrent of early Nile/Decapitated that runs through a lot of their material (particularly on the first two records) – the sort of blistering, sand-blasting technicality that focusses more on harsh tempo shifts and syncopated discordance over unerring blasting or whirlwind fretwork.

Granted, there’s more than a hint of Suffocation to their sound as well, coupled with a hefty dose of capital-M morbid melody, but the group’s delivery is less about extroverted extremity and more focussed on expressing their introverted neuroses and contradictions. Indeed, this sets them another step apart from the more extreme of their technical brethren, as the difficulty and complexity of Anata’s songs comes from more than just outrageous technicality or brutality, but also from the off-kilter, unsettling arrangements and unquantifiable methods the band employ! Continue reading »

QUICK AND DIRTY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Aug 092012
 

Due to a combination of morning-long work commitments and another 5-hour flight home without wi-fi, this will likely be the last NCS post of the day.  Things should be more (ab)normal tomorrow.

In this post, I’ve quickly collected a variety of items that caught my eyes (and ears) last night.

CATTLE DECAPITATION

Cattle Decap posted this status on their FB page last night: “We sodomized the city of Budapest, Hungary tonight. On Thursday we spill our seed upon the citizens of Czech Republic at Brutal Assault. Bye, bye fuckers”  At times like these, it’s fun to imagine the reaction of people outside metal if they knew how our bands showered gratitude on their fans. We, of course, only laugh.

CONQUERORS OF THE WORLD

I included news of this tour in a post on July 10 when only 13 dates had been announced. Now, a more complete schedule is available. I’m so fucking pleased to see a Seattle stop on the list. Septic Flesh . . . Krisiun . . . Melechesh . . . Ex Deo . . . Inquisition . . . wow . . . Continue reading »

“THAT’S MUSIC!” – BUT IT AIN’T METAL: SOEN – “COGNITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  7 Responses »
Aug 092012
 

(In this post, DGR reviews the 2012 album by Soen.)

Talk about a disc about which it has taken forever to compose my thoughts. It’s been floating around since mid-February as a Spinefarm release in Europe but only saw digital release here in the States much later. Soen are a conflicting-as-hell band to discuss because one of the first things everyone does is drop a comparison to Tool. Given that I am a Tool fan and very familiar with their work, I can confirm that the comparison is definitely warranted, but you know what? Soen deserve to stand as their own band.

Yes, they have some elements of the aforementioned band’s spacey prog-rock tone attached to them, but very few bands do it as well; even those who are influenced by it and try to mimic it to a T usually fail. Soen have somehow managed to get close enough to that band’s sound without becoming them or even adopting the Philosophy-101-styled thinking buried in new age mysticism that I’m perfectly okay with Soen.

Yes, getting David Bottrill involved (famed producer, worked with a ton of groups, including Tool) feels like an incredibly shrewd maneuver, and he does his damnedest to give them the exact same mix, but so what, it sounds great. They’re really not mimics. Believe me, Soen are something of an all-star group who manage to do enough things on their own that they feel like a new thing. Cognitive is a really good bit of prog-rock with quite a lot of individuality buried in between echo-heavy bass lines and singalong-worthy choruses, much of which, surprisingly enough, is provided by the drumming work of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez.

I know it’s impossible to analyze this album in a vacuum, as if I had never heard some of what’s being done here before, but now that I have gotten that rant out of the way, let’s talk about Cognitive. Continue reading »

NO, WE DIDN’T OVERLOOK THAT SECOND NEW SYLOSIS SONG: “A DYING VINE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 082012
 

We watched the social media pages for Sylosis like hawks over the last couple of weeks, waiting for the new songs that the band had promised, and pounced immediately once the first one (“Born Anew”) debuted early yesterday (see this).

And then I got on an airplane yesterday morning to fly across the country, with no wi-fi onboard, cut off from the bubbling world of metal for 5+ hours, feeling like an abandoned brat with no blankie and nothing on which to nurse. By the time I got where I was going and plugged back in to the ether of metal, I had an in-box for of mail with links to the second Sylosis track — “A Dying Vine” — which had emerged while I was confined at 35,000 feet.

I hate being late with news, and thought about just moving on because so many other metal sites had been spreading the news already. BUT, the damned song is so sweet that, tardy or not, I have to post about it.

The song is streaming now on the band’s recently activated web site, Sylosis.com, where pre-orders from the new album (Monolith) are also being fielded, but of course it’s up on YouTube now as well, which means we have it here, too. Continue reading »

NEW ENSLAVED SONG! “THOUGHTS LIKE HAMMERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 082012
 

Well, I’m rushing again, with my day job pounding at the door, so to speak, so I will hold my own words to a handful: NPR has debuted a long new song by Enslaved — “Thoughts Like Hammers” — from their forthcoming album, RIITIIR. Here’s an excerpt from Lars Gotrich’s excellent NPR write-up about the band, the album, and this new music:

The intro to “Thoughts Like Hammers” comes out of nowhere — three seconds in and we’re bludgeoned by decibel-damaging feedback, chaotic chord voicings and stuttering blast beats. But then the song goes through several transformations: A mean groove turns into a pumping Angus Young riff, which then sneaks into a syncopated, King Crimson-y organ. That all happens in the first two minutes. There’s no telling where Bjørnson will take “Thoughts Like Hammers” next, but the patchwork pieces all come together at the soaring chorus, as vocalist and keyboardist Herbrand Larsen helps rein in Enslaved’s experiments. Surprisingly, the nine-and-a-half-minute “Thoughts Like Hammers” is instantly memorable for all its organic twists and turns.

And THIS is the link to the NPR page where the song is streaming. Seriously, go listen, and then think about coming back here to share your reactions in the Comments.

UPDATE: This song is now streaming on Soundcloud, which means we have it here now, after the jump: Continue reading »

JOB FOR A COWBOY’S NEW VIDEO FOR “TARNISHED GLUTTONY” MAY NOT HAVE BOOBS, BUT IT’S STILL BRILLIANT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Aug 082012
 

Job For A Cowboy’s 2012 album Demonocracy got high marks from our Andy Synn, who called it this band’s best album yet: “Preconceptions be damned, this is a fine slab of dark, meaty death metal.”

The album’s closing track, “Tarnished Gluttony”, is a dynamic turn from much of the rest of the album — a long, slow, crushing piece that exudes a sensation of apocalyptic doom. Today, Blood Disgusting premiered a nearly nine-and-a-half minute official video for that song (the music in the video adds a dirge-like instrumental segment to the album’s song, as accompaniment for part of the story until the music on the album track resumes again).

The video puts an imaginative Lovecraftian spin on the song that isn’t present in the lyrics, yet there is still a thematic linkage, as the band’s frontman Jonny Davey explained in a statement that we’ll quote after the jump. Much of the video moves in slow motion, matching the slow pacing of the song, and the integration of the visual story and the terrifying music is beautifully done.

Actually, the whole thing is just brilliant, though there’s a graphically gory sequence that may affect where you choose to watch this. Credit goes to director  Michael Panduro (the man who direct Cephalic Carnage‘s “Ohrwurm” video) and actor Morten Klode. Panduro is quoted as saying: “As a commercial director, I’m a complete failure. The band asked for just one thing and I couldn’t deliver. Indeed, this video has no boobs.” No, it doesn’t, but it’s a riveting thing to watch nonetheless. Continue reading »

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