THE 2011 FINNISH METAL AWARDS — JUST ANNOUNCED

Feb 182012

It’s nearly mid-day here in Seattle, but it’s after 9 p.m. on Saturday night in Finland, which means the seventh annual FINNISH METAL AWARDS (for 2011) have just been announced — which we learned through a timely e-mail from our friend fireangel at the Finland-centric Night Elves blog. Lots of countries host annual music awards of various kinds, but since Finland is arguably the most metal country on Earth, these annual metal awards definitely merit an announcement here at NCS.

The awards were presented at a gala event as part of this weekend’s Helsinki Metal Meeting at a place called The Cable Factory. Voting was open to the public through the Imperiumi.net web site, and more than 20,000 votes were cast. There were no nominees, which meant that the voting was open to whoever voters wished to honor. The big winner was Turisas, which is why their comely visages are at the top of this post. Without further ado, here are all the results (continuing after the jump):

BAND OF THE YEAR 2011:
01. Turisas
02. Insomnium
03. Nightwish
04. Amorphis
05. Amoral
06. Turmion Kätilöt
07. Before The Dawn
08. Stratovarius
09. Omnium Gatherum
10. Medeia
Continue reading »

JUMP!

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Feb 182012

The roar is down there. Time to stop staring and thinking and just take the fuckin’ plunge. Could be a catastrophic finish after a long fall, or a real rush, but in either case I felt the irresistible pull of the . . . breakdowns.

What am I jumping into? New music from Point Below Zero, Bermuda, Float Face Down, and Blood of the Broken. Not what we usually cover around here, which is why I stood and stared into the abyss for a while before launching into this swan dive. Kvltists and kvrmvdgeons may want to go back to their knitting (bags made of human skin, of course) rather than taking this plunge. Those who like to get a breakdown fix every now and then, with some decent music surrounding the bass-drop detonations, prepare to get wet.

I listened to one song from each band, and what follows are some reactions. This is not exactly a MISCELLANY post, because I already knew something about the middle two bands, though I haven’t listened to what they’re doing in a while. But the first and last bands were going to be surprises. After I heard their music, I decided they would fit with the other two in this post.

POINT BELOW ZERO

I found out about this band through an enthusiastic status by a Facebook friend. I don’t always stop and check out enthusiastic status updates from Facebook friends, but the cover art on this album caught my eye, so I jumped. Continue reading »

SATURDAY START: NEW MUSIC FROM TORTURE KILLER AND BLOOD AND THUNDER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Feb 182012

This was supposed to be the third part of yesterday’s Friday round-up of new music and videos. Unfortunately, your humble editor’s fucking day job decided to interfere with the vastly more important task of keeping the NSC railroad running, and I didn’t finish it. So instead of being Part 3 of the Friday Finish, it’s now the opening salvo of a Saturday Start.

If you haven’t already checked out the music in the first two parts of Friday’s series, here are the links: Part 1; Part 2. In this delayed part, we’ve got tunes from Torture Killer (Finland) and Blood and Thunder (Seattle).

TORTURE KILLER

To date, this band have released three full-length albums, the most recent of which was 2009’s Sewers, on Dynamic Arts Record. That one followed Metal Blade’s release of their second effort, Swarm! (2006). As seems to be common in Finnish metal, all the band members have spent time (or still spend time) in other projects, including Demigod, Hateform, and Archgoat. Nevertheless, the current line-up have been together since the band’s inception in 2002, with the exception of new vocalist Pessi Haltsonen (Retaliatory Measures).

Dynamic Arts is now planning to release a new three-song Torture Killer EP titled I Chose Death. It will include two new tracks plus a cover of Demigod’s “Succumb To Dark” from the Unholy Domain demo tape. The distinctive cover art was created by Mark Riddick. What I’ve heard so far is the title track, which went up for streaming two days ago. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH DEBUT SECOND SONG FROM “KOLOSS”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 14 Responses »

Feb 172012

“Do Not Look Down,” a second track off the upcoming new album KOLOSS by the almighty Meshuggah, is now available for streaming in the Nuclear Blast USA Web Shop. If you click on any pre-order bundle item, it will take you to the SoundCloud player for the song.

Everyone will undoubtedly be comparing this song to the first one released from KOLOSS — “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion”. Here’s my reaction: This song brings the funk, Meshuggah-style. The distinctive pneumatics are still present in abundance, but the song dances to a less coldly mechanical beat (not that I have anything against the frigid mechanics of the first song — I like it quite a bit, too). Plus, this song includes a guitar solo that will singe your eyebrows. Scorching vocals, too, but that’s to be expected.

Verdict: big win.

You should definitely go check out the album bundles at that Nuclear Blast shop — and listen to this song. For posterity, I’m leaving the SoundCloud player after the jump for the day when Nuclear Blast allows the embed to work on other sites. I believe this direct link will work, too:

http://soundcloud.com/nuclearblastrecords/meshuggah-do-not-look-down/s-hlFcg

NCS PROUDLY ANNOUNCES THE FIRST ANNUAL NCS FUCKING GOOD PANCAKE AWARDS™

IQ Subtraction, Phro's Posts 22 Responses »

Feb 172012

(Not to be out-done by those putrid Revolver “Golden Gods” Award nominations we whinged about yesterday, we turned to NCS Product Placement Vice-President, Phro, to line up our own lucrative awards show. The dude works fast, and the cashola is already rolling in. ~~Those disgusting corporate fucks~~ the sponsors we’re proud to call partners have really stepped up and are helping us make this NCS awards show an event that will leave “Golden Gods” in our dust. How can you help? Read on at the end of the nominations list.)

Welcome to the first annual “NO CLEAN SINGING Fucking Good Pancake Awards™”!

Each of the winners in the following categories was democratically and fairly picked by the company paying the largest amount of money to have its name announced live over the Internet! We’re super excited to have so many awesome sponsors who are giving us so much money we can buy enough spray paint to kill the shame-cells in our brains! Haha! Beat that, REVOLVER! You guys can’t even huff spray paint right! I bet you dumb fuckers think The Used are grindcore and Kelly Clarkson is power metal! I’m gonna rub my nuts on an envelope of chow shit and mail you my bloody, stinking nutsack! PISSSHITFUCKCUNTCOCKSUCKERMOTHERFUCKERTITS!!!!

BEST VIDEO TO JERK OFF TO WHILE SILENTLY WEEPING
Presented by KY Jelly™ (Slip ‘n’ slide it in!)

GREATEST REUNION TOUR THAT CAME ABOUT DUE TO AWKWARD MAKE UP SEX
Presented by Trojan’s Perforate Condoms™ (Twice the pleasure; None of the protection!) Continue reading »

THE FRIDAY FINISH (Part 2): BRAND NEW CEREBRAL BORE SONG!

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 21 Responses »

Feb 172012

I’m not claiming that we were the first metal blog to climb up on the Cerebral Bore bandwagon before it was a bandwagon, but we were pretty fucking early. Thanks to a hot tip from our buddy Phro, we published a lengthy feature about them back in November 2010, when certain people were still doubting whether Som Pluijmers really recorded the vocals on the band’s Maniacal Miscreation album.

In that first post about the band (the first of many), we included a video from another early Cerebral Bore adopter — Amsterdam’s THE INFIDEL (Ed Veter) — as proof that Som really did record the vocals. All those early suspicions have of course fully evaporated by now, and Som has become known far and wide, helping to rocket Cerebral Bore to international popularity (at least in certain carnivorous circles).

THE INFIDEL remains an ardent supporter, and today he was given the privilege of debuting a brand new Cerebral Bore song — “Horrendous Acts of Iniquity”. It went up on the Tube of You about a half hour ago, and it will be available for download from iTunes beginning on Monday. Check it out after the jump. Oh, the grindy slamming blistering blowtorch death metal brutality! Oh, the gurgling gutturality of the Som! Get some!

(Thanks to NCS reader Utmu for tipping me that this song debut was coming and how to find it.) Continue reading »

THE FRIDAY FINISH (Part 1): NEW VIDEOS FROM ASPHYX, THE INIQUITY DESCENT, AND SOULFLY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Feb 172012

Except for those of you who must man your posts over the weekend, this work week is winding down — but the metal is winding up. So much worthy new music and so many watchable new videos have surfaced over the last day or two that I’m breaking this round-up into pieces, much as the music will break pieces off of you.

In this first post I’m including three new videos. Two of them are songs that I’ve already added to the new 2012 “master list” of candidates for the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. (Yes, although long-term planning isn’t your humble editor’s strong suit, I’m making an effort to keep track of these things as the year goes along instead of frantically searching my memory at the end of the year.)

The third one I haven’t quite made up my mind about yet. As much as anything, I’m including it because it’s newsworthy. Here we go:

ASPHYX

In the hellish pantheon of death-doom progenitors, this Dutch band sits on a throne. Dormant after almost a decade, they came roaring back with 2009’s Death . . . The Brutal Way. The follow-up, Deathhammer, will be released via Century Media on February 27, 2012, in Europe and on February 28, 2012, in North America. Undeserving fuck that I am, I’ve heard Deathhammer, and it’s even better. Continue reading »

MORE WRONGNESS: THE REVOLVER “GOLDEN RODS” AWARD

Metal News 45 Responses »

Feb 162012

Can you guess that I’m still feeling bitchy? Those posts about Whitney and Quorthon and the mis-constructed festival line-ups didn’t succeed in exorcising the bitterness I feel, so I just decided, fuckitall — I’m gonna wallow in it for the rest of the day!

I guess there’s a common thread to those first two posts and this one. To quote a comment from our own Andy Synn, about the Whitney/Quorthon meme (surely, he wasn’t talking about moi):

“It epitomises one of the inherent contradictions present in a lot of metal-fandom: look how much better our musical heroes are, they’re REAL artists, you should be praising them . . .except don’t, because we don’t need YOUR approval” . . . So, what is the point? Lots of self-righteous huffing and puffing that only serves little purpose except self-aggrandisement of one’s own “superior” elite music tastes.”

I plead guilty on almost all counts. I am not afraid or ashamed to admit that my musical tastes ARE superior, that my dead heroes ARE better than their dead heroes (and death does not make them equal), that extreme metal doesn’t need or care about the approval of the unwashed and tasteless masses, that the Golden Rod award nominations ARE (with very few exceptions) a WTF laughing stock of a joke, and that I DO feel better by huffing and puffing than by seething in silence.

As I said in answering Andy’s comment, this isn’t about being consistent or interesting or insightful, it’s about VENTING!!

After the jump, there is the complete, unedited, unexpurgated list of the nominees for this year’s edition of the Revolver Golden Rods award. Read it and feel superior. Oh, and I also have a new video after the jump from one of the nominees for Best International Band. Continue reading »

THIS ENDING: “SYSTEMATIC WORSHIP”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Feb 162012

(DemiGodRaven reviews the new EP by Sweden’s This Ending.)

Man, the artwork makes me uncomfortable. There’s just something about anything being done to the eye that really tends to get under my skin. I don’t know what it is. I can watch some of the goriest stuff ever made, but seeing things happen to either the eye or the fingernails really gives me the willies (penis!), even in artwork form. I shredded about four thousand different zombies to pieces in Dead Space 2, but that scene where you need to put a needle in the protagonist’s eye was the part that got to me. It is hard to tell whether the fact that the artwork for This Ending’s new EP Systematic Worship reminds me of this is a good thing, but the art is definitely evocative.

This Ending are a Sweden-based melo-death group who have been going for a while now, but recently seem to have been reactivated. You’re probably familiar with their name from seeing it on sites such as Blabbermouth alongside the headline “Amon Amarth Drummer’s Band, This Ending…” Fredrik Andersson is indeed the most famous member, but the band have been going strong without a lineup change since 2005, managing at least to release some form of new material about every three years.

They’ve actually had many names and an even longer history prior to that (which you can read about on their facebook page), but I’m focusing on the group’s most recent slate of material: 2012 has brought this self-released three-song EP instead of a full blown album. Also, as a bonus, I have found that you can download two of three songs for free on both their Reverbnation and Soundcloud pages.

One of the luxuries of reviewing such a small EP is that it allows the writer to really drill down and discuss each song. I don’t feel that Systematic Worship necessarily demands or warrants that kind of detailed treatment, especially since two of the songs are available for free, but it might still be useful to give you at least a description of where you’re headed and thoughts about whether any of this is worth your time. Continue reading »