TOURISM

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

I’ve been catching up on metal news today and came across news of three upcoming U.S. tours that are . . . newsworthy, to say the least.

I’m guessing this first one will be old news to many of you, since it surfaced on Friday, but it has sure produced some tumescence in your humble editor’s loins today. Behemoth, Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude will be hitting the road for The Decibel Magazine Tour, a 26-date trail of wreckage across the U.S. starting in April. It will be the first Behemoth tour for Nergal since being diagnosed with and beating leukemia. That’s a cool tour flyer by Justin Bartlett up there, too.

More details, including tour dates, venues and ticket info, will be announced at www.decibelmagazinetour.com on January 24th.

But that’s just for starters. Mastodon’s Troy Sanders recently confirmed that his band plus Opeth and Ghost will be embarking on a North American tour of their own. During a recent interview at a Belgian radio station, Sanders stated: “We go to Australia to take part in the Soundwave Festival, which is going to be lovely, take a short break. Do a North American tour with Opeth and Ghost. And then take another break and come back over here for the European festival season.”

I have a feeling a few people will buy tickets for that tour. No further details are available at this time. (found this news via Loudwire)

And that’s not all. Would you believe a 30-date tour of the U.S. this summer by Agalloch?!? Continue reading »

MORE GORE: GENERAL SURGERY UPDATE

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

General Surgery is a name that all properly educated death metal and goregrind fiends will know quite well. Originally formed in 1988, this group of Swedish butchers released an influential EP on Relapse Records in 1991 called Necrology. Then they sort of dropped out of sight until returning in 2002 with numerous splits, EPs, and two full-length albums.

Today I read the news that General Surgery has rejoined Relapse. To celebrate the joyous reunion, Relapse is going to release a compilation of 30 General Surgery tracks on March 27 under the name A Collection of Depravation. This thing, which can be pre-ordered here, will include cuts from General Surgery’s previous split releases, and they’re being digitally remastered by none other than Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer fame. It will also include a 24-page booklet with liner notes from the surgeons. (Hey Scott, where my goddamn new PD album?) More details about those 30 tracks are after the jump.

But hey, that’s not all. General Surgery has already recorded a five-track EP of new songs. I love the title of this new EP (and I think Dismember would be proud): Like An Ever Flying Limb. There’s no release date yet for the EP.

Oh, and guess what? The band is also working on their third full-length album for release “in the near future”.

And guess what? It looks like General Surgery just recently established an official facebook page HERE. If you hurry, you can be the 25th person to like them.

And, guess what? Since General Surgery is now on my mind, which is kind of like having leeches in your nose, I’m gonna include some General Surgery tunes after the jump. Fuck yes. Continue reading »

KEYBOARD WARRIORS: ADRIEN BEGRAND

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

 

 

(Shortly before The Number of the Blog met its sad demise, TNOTB began publishing an interview series called “Keyboard Warriors” written by a relatively new TNOTB staffer who called himself Rev. Will. Because the archive of TNOTB posts seems to have exploded in a spatter of bits, never to be seen again, we agreed to give these interviews a home here at NCS, mainly because one of the interviewees was me. So, beginning today we’re republishing the five interviews that appeared before TNOTB went down. We’ll follow those on Friday with an interview that didn’t appear before TNOTB shut down . . . and we understand more will be coming after that.)

TNOTB INTRO: Many of us have read, heard, and watched countless interviews with our favourite musicians/bands involved and gained a better understanding of their art and the difficulties that come packaged with it. How often do we do the same with the people who slog behind the limelight and come up with the very words you are taking in now though? Rev. Will speaks to veteran metal writer, Adrien Begrand, to shed some light on the overly underrated and underappreciated art of metal music journalism.

THE GREAT THING ABOUT INTERVIEWING A FELLOW METAL WRITER (AND A PROFESSIONAL ONE AT THAT) IS that I don’t have to spend a lot of time scrutinising the interview response for spelling and grammatical errors. Heck, I don’t even have to worry about the punctuation. Conversely, I’m pretty sure that if I were to interview infamous troll bands like Anal Cunt or IWRESTLEDABEARONCE via e-mail, I would probably be spending most of my working time on the piece heavily correcting their responses to inject more coherence and sense into whatever they might be trying to bring across to you readers. Or whatever it is they are trying to troll, once again.

Well, since we are on to the subject of trolls, has anyone ever heard any of your metalhead homies diss metal writers as mostly a bunch of nonsense-spewing and “they-just-don’t-get-it” people? The existence of such ungrateful apes has always intrigued me; it really just doesn’t make sense to me that anyone who reads metal-related articles online or offline to help aid in their purchasing or downloading decisions can make such audacious and uncalled for remarks. Sure, metal writers tend to get overly-excited or drunk at times and end up writing the occasional stuff that they will regret ever churning out later on, but alas, they are only human at the end of the day, too. On the other happier hand, metal writers do get some pretty juicy benefits over the everyday metal fan, and that is not including the joy they get out of writing passionately for their beloved Metal. Needless to say, the business of metal music journalism is not a walk in the park. Just like most other jobs out there, it has its fair share of dull and exhilirating moments. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 49)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  31 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

What a long time it’s been since the last post in this series — more than a month. And I’ve collected so many items to choose from — many of them from the NCS faithful. One of them I’ve been sitting on for a really long time, because it involves a massive amount of pus. I’m still not sure I can bring myself to use it, since I’m pretty sure it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I think I’ll just start going with this post and see how I feel when I get to the end.

What this series is about, for newcomers: Some things are metal even though they’re not music — photos, art, videos, reports of human behavior. Some things are metal because they’re fuckin amazing. Some things are metal because they’re brutal. And some things are metal because they’re unbelievably ridiculous — just like your average metalhead (me included). In these posts, I pick out things I see that I think are metal, for one or more of these reasons. Today, I’ve got six items for your entertainment.

ITEM ONE

The first item is right up there at the top of this post, and it came our way from my friend Quigs. I poked around the interhole to see if I could find more about this awesome piece of construction. It appears to have been created by a dude in Bangkok from recycled auto and bicycle parts. More details about it can be found here. And a couple more pics of this thing are right after the jump. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS DEATHMATCH Round 4: “TUONELA”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jan 222012
 

(Here’s Round Four of Trollfiend’s head-to-head, no-holes-barred cage fight with Amorphis. In this match, there are charges and counter-charges of Betrayal, and eventually a killing blow. To catch up on what’s going on here, read this post. Also, be sure to check out Trollfiend’s own blog, ALSO, WOLVES.)

The crowd is oddly silent as I step into the arena for this, my fourth battle against the music of Amorphis. I look up from the blood-soaked sand to see that the crowd is not merely silent; the arena is empty. Why was I summoned to do battle with no audience to witness?

Foreboding sets in…something is not right.

I sense….doom.

And then I see her, stepping from the shadows: the serpent assassin herself, Tuonela. So this is how it is to be. My victory has frightened Amorphis, and so they send their silent killers in the darkness.

I have fought the ancient and deadly Order of the Clean-Sung before. I know their dirty tricks. I know how they can fool the mind with raspy hooks and beguile the soul with the lament of sirens. I am prepared…but still this sense of doom pervades. My victory over Elegy still boils in my blood, but it was a victory hard-won, and I am not sure I have the stamina or the wits for this battle.

I have to remind myself why I am here. The Betrayal. Yes, in capitals, because it was an event so profound that it deserved a name. Amorphis won my confidence with their folk-tinged melodic death metal. I pledged my fealty to them, unto death. And they turned on me. Even then I could not believe they would consort with the Order…I was blinded by my pain and rage. But Tuonela stands now before me, as damning a piece of evidence as you could want. Continue reading »

KARTIKEYA AND RXYZYXR BRINGING DAT MASSIVE WALL OF PENIS

 Metal News  21 Responses »
Jan 212012
 

This is so massively cool I just had to share. That pic up there is Arsafes (on the left) and Anton of the most excellent Kartikeya sporting the NCS “Fucking Good Pancake” tour shirt in Moscow. How did this come to pass? Therein lies a story . . .

The story begins with RXYZYXR, a band we’ve featured multiple times at NCS, most recently here. They started out as an instrumental band whose members were based somewhere in Russia. But then they later decided to add vocals, and hooked up with Florida-based Thomas Wills. His mix of clean and harsh vocals has been a positive addition to what was already some pretty fuckin’ amazing music.

Fearless dude that he is, Thomas was an early requester of the now-infamous “Fucking Good Pancake” tour shirt that we gave away starting back in August of last year. For latecomers to NCS, the Fucking Good Pancake tour was total fiction and featured bands who don’t exist but should exist — bands such as Massive Wall of Penis, Thor’s Uterus, and Trollcock Fetish. Also, Cephalopodic Sperm Packets. (These names were created by NCS readers in a series of demented comments that kind of took on a life of their own.) But the shirt — created free of charge by the awesome Dan Arena — is completely real.

Thomas went to Russia not long ago to do RXYZYXR-related things, including performing live shows in St. Petersburg and Moscow on January 18 and 19 with none other than Sweden’s  Vildhjarta [thall]. Guess what Thomas took with him, somehow smuggling it past the vigilant Russian security apparatus, which has been on a state of high alert to prevent this shirt from infecting Russian culture? Continue reading »

THE MEGAUPLOAD SHUT-DOWN: FACT AND FICTION

 Off Topic  45 Responses »
Jan 212012
 

Kim Dotcom and his pink cadillac.

Lots of people I know, including some of the people who write for NCS, are up in arms over the U.S. government’s shutdown of the Megaupload file-sharing site earlier this week. It’s being condemned by lots of metalheads as a clampdown on the freedom of the internet, a violation of free speech, a virulent form of censorship, and a sign of worse things to come. I’m sure part of the reason why the reaction has been so intense is because of simultaneous efforts by fuckheads in Congress to pass those SOPA and PIPA bills we wrote about a few days ago.

Does it suck that Megaupload has been shut down? If you’re a downloader, hell yes it sucks. If you’re an artist who uses the site as a convenient way to freely spread your art to reviewers and fans, hell yes it sucks. If you’re someone who is doing legitimate file sharing, and your uploaded files on Megaupload are now in limbo, fucken-A, it blows.

But is the shutdown really some kind of tyrannical trampling on freedom of speech? Nah, I don’t think so. But before we get to opinions, let’s start with some facts. I could be wrong, but it seems like it’s better to develop opinions after you have some facts instead of just taking someone else’s word for it. At the end of this post, I’ll give you the sources of the facts as I understand them, along with a copy of the government’s indictment of Megaupload so you can see exactly the basis of this prosecution. Continue reading »

ABORTED’S “GLOBAL FLATLINE”: THE FULL-ALBUM STREAM

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 202012
 

To flense the flesh from the bones with scalpels and with teeth.  To pulverize and grind the bones into powder.  To mix the powder with spraying arterial blood and force the mangled body to drink deep while the masters of its doom howl with maniacal glee.

To do all this and leave the victim smiling and begging for more. This is the trick.  Many have tried to master it, few have succeeded. On their new album, Global Flatline, Aborted show us how it’s done.

Rising above all else they’ve achieved before, this multinational collective have produced a head-whipping, face-shredding album that will cleave its way into your cranium and take up residence there — and you’ll be begging them not to leave. Scalpel-sharp riffing, obliterating drumbeats, explosive bass drops, tempos that flip upside-down on a dime, solo’s that jet like an acetylene torch, wonderfully bestial vocals — it’s all there.

And that would be enough, but mother of fuck, there’s still more — melodies swimming through the maelstrom of each song that sink them fast into your memory, and thunderous grooves that are irresistibly convulsive. You want the first skyrocket of the 2012 death metal season? Look no further than Global Flatline.

We’ve got two reviews of the album at this site (here and here), but as good as those are, there’s really nothing like hearing the music for yourselves. We’re SO fucking pleased to premiere a full stream of this fine album, which you can hear right after the jump. Continue reading »

ABORTED: “GLOBAL FLATLINE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 202012
 

(This is the second of two reviews we’re publishing today of the new album by Aborted. Andy Synn is the author of this one. And if you haven’t yet listened to our premiere of the full album stream, make haste to this location.)

“What is today’s agenda? Ah yes, evisceration!”

Rejoice brethren, for the scions of sickness have returned. Sven De Caluwe and his band of morbid misfits, now featuring ex-Abigail Williams men Ken Bedene (drums) and Michael Wilson (guitar; also in System Divide) have produced a record that picks up where the stunning return to form of Coronary Reconstruction left off.

The new blood has definitely helped re-animate this fetid corpse, as the band bring a renewed bloodlust to the table, delivering  all the grinding intensity and raging death metal ferocity one might hope for, carrying over the undercurrent of malignant melody from Slaughter & Apparatus and Strychnine.213 whilst deftly sidestepping those records’ weaker elements.

Sven’s blast-furnance roars and morbid screams cut through the grime like a buzz-saw through rotting flesh, his always distinctive delivery showcasing the versatility of his vocals as an instrument, those vomitous Tardy-esque gutturals and rabid, Jeff Walker-style screeches accented by an Anselmo-level of belligerence, delivered in a gravelly mid-ranged bellow. Continue reading »

ABORTED: GLOBAL HARD-ON

 Album Reviews, Phro's Posts  15 Responses »
Jan 202012
 

(This is the first of two reviews we’re publishing today of the new album by Aborted. Phro, a displaced American forced to take refuge in Japan, is the author of this one. He also made suggestions to Aborted about how they might re-word the album and song titles. Shockingly, they didn’t change any of the titles. But they did let us premiere the full album stream of the new album, which you can find at this location.)

So when Islander sent me the album for review, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I’ve experienced the hallucinogenic side effects of great death metal and grindcore albums before…but even so I was hardly prepared for this soul rampage.  It’s not because it’s the most br00t41 thing this side of cutting tin with a chain saw—no, there’s melody woven into this chainmail blanket of angry hatefuckery.

In fact, it is precisely this use of melody that makes the reptile beast, jerking off and eye-fucking saggy-titted old ladies on the train, need to kill.  The melody homes in like a laser sight on that dull lizard lolling about in your lower brain and then drops about fifty billion metric shit-tons of grrarrrfuckshitpissraaaaawrrdetroyyourfuckingfacerrrrr brutality right on that stupid tongue flicking motherfucker.  Pure, goddamn obliteration.  Total fucking wasteland.

Unfortunately, not all brain-lizards really care much for the brains within which they dwell.  Mine hates me more than those stupid fucking worthless pieces of shit the Westboro Baptist Nuttybars hate Bert and Ernie.  And, apparently, so does Aborted. Continue reading »

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