THE POWER OF THE RIFF (AND THE SKINS): DUKATALON (again) AND JUCIFER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 162012
 

I wasn’t planning to write any more posts for our site today, but then I had one of those synchronicity/serendipity moments that often make me think cosmic forces are trying to send me a message (and I’m not talking about the alien microwave transmissions, because all the foil I’ve used to cover the walls blocks those).

While taking a break from the work I’m supposed to be doing in order to justify my salary, I saw a a link from a friend on Facebook to a Jucifer video I hadn’t seen before. And then soon after that, I got word that Dukatalon had posted another video in their “Zimmer” sessions series. Both videos and both performances exploded my eggshell skull, wadded up the remains, and tossed them into a dimension where happy riff addicts go to smile away the hours.

But in addition to both of them being happily skull-rending, these two videos share another trait: They demonstrate that a massive amount of metal might can be created by (almost) nothing more than one talented guitarist and one talented drummer (and a fuckload of distortion). The fireball shred is icing on the cake.

JUCIFER

I’ll wager that those of you who ever have seen a live show by Gazelle Amber Valentine and her husband Edgar Livengood have become Jucifer fans for life. It only took me the one time. Oddly, it spoiled me so bad that I don’t listen to their recordings that much, because they fall so far short of capturing the live experience. It was, with no exceptions I can think of at the moment, the LOUDEST metal show I’ve ever attended, and it was also one of the most riveting/crushing/satisfying shows I’ve seen; at the same time as they’re inflicting a gigaton of sonic trauma, they have a magnetic stage presence that rivets your attention. Continue reading »

DEATH WORSHIP FROM ICELAND: SVARTIDAUÐI AND VANSKÖPUN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 162012
 

How things have changed. In April 2010 I wrote a THAT’S METAL! post mainly for the purpose of displaying photos of the magnificent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) volcano, which you may recall wrecked havoc on air transportation as far away as the UK and the European continent. But because this is a metal blog, I thought I ought to find some Icelandic metal as musical accompaniment for the rad pics.

I hunted and hunted across the interhole as it then existed, and I remember I didn’t find much. Of what I found, the best music was by a band called Changer, so I went with that. I’m sure there were many more Icelandic metal bands creating music back then than I was able to find, but it still struck me that the scene had a pretty low profile internationally.

It’s certainly much easier today to find music by a broad array of excellent Icelandic bands, and two of them in particular have become favorites at NCS — Atrum and Sólstafir. Hell, just last weekend I discovered another one — Severed Crotch (discussed in this post). Over the last few days I’ve been exploring two other Icelandic bands whose music is even more extreme than what I’ve heard from Iceland previously. Theirs is the kind of black/death metal that invokes the word “ritual” when performed live, or the term “apocalyptic metal”, or perhaps the phrase “death worship”. For English speakers, their names are also not nearly as easy to pronounce as those other bands’: Svartidauði and Vansköpun.

SVARTIDAUÐI

Svartidauði’s name means “Black Death”. That weird letter near the end is an “eth”, with a “th” sound. Between 2006 and 2010 they produced three demos and they contributed a song to a split in January 2012 with a Chilean band called Perdition (the eye-catching artwork for that split is up above), which was released by a German black metal label called the World Terror Committee.  They are now planning for the release of an album under the name Flesh Cathedral, which will be distributed in Europe by Terratvr Possessions and in the U.S. by Daemon Worship Productions. The artwork for that monstrosity is right after the jump. Continue reading »

LISTENABLE TEASERS: LIVARKAHIL, DEW-SCENTED, SYBREED, AND ZONARIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 162012
 

Over the last 24 hours I saw different kinds of web teasers about new music from four bands whose past material I’ve really liked, and by coincidence I found out about all of them through Facebook posts by the French label, Listenable Records (even though Listenable is not currently the label for all the bands).  So it made sense to collect all those teasers in one post, right?

LIVARKAHIL

Last September I featured (here) the new official video from this French band for a song called “Above All Hatred”, which was then due to appear on their second album, Signs of Decay. The music reminded me of Behemoth-style blackened death metal with some DevilDriver groove in the mix, and man, did it have one motherfuckin’ head-smasher of an opening riff. Actually, the whole song was a sweet head-smasher. Signs of Decay was a wonderful album, too — one of many I just never got around to reviewing last year.

Livarkahil are following up Signs of Decay with a free digital EP named Wrath of God, which will be released later this month. I like that strategy of following a full-album release with a free EP.  Today, Listenable and the band started streaming a track from the EP called “Through Hatred and Devotion” — and yes, hatred is a consistent theme for Liverkahil. The song proves once again that Livarkahil know how to start a song strong — and how to follow the intro with pummeling rhythms, blistering vocals, and catchy melodies. Have a listen to this brutal beast right after the jump. Continue reading »

FREE SHIT FROM A389

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 162012
 

A389 is a new discovery for me.  A389 is a DIY record label and distro based in Baltimore, Maryland.  I found out about them through a FB post by Masakari, a Cleveland band whose music you should get to know if you don’t already.

Truth is, I’m not familiar with the majority of the bands whose music A389 distributes, because the music tends to be in genres that I don’t follow closely. But I do know about some of them, and the ones I know about are adept at using music to split skulls and ignite the bloodstream.

A389 have just compiled a digital mixtape for free download. There are . . . wait for it . . . 52 tracks on this thing. It includes a mix of previously unreleased or forthcoming songs plus material from recordings that are already in circulation. As before, I didn’t recognize most of the bands on this comp, but the ones I did recognize are strong:

Ilsa
Ringworm
Young And In the Way
Gravehill
Full of Hell
Trapped Under Ice
Masakari

Now a comp this big will take up some room — 211MB on your hard drive. Fortunately, you don’t have to take the plunge blindly, because A389 is streaming every song on the comp. And after the jump, I’ve picked out a few songs to stream here — yeah, I downloaded this comp already, and I’m glad I did. It’s a mix of styles — death/doom, hardcore, crust-punk, d-beat, grind, and more — and it will beat the holy hell out of you. Continue reading »

ANOTHER EXTOL TEASER — LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE A DOCUMENTARY

 Metal News  5 Responses »
May 152012
 

Andy Synn posted on NCS not long ago about a brief video teaser that suggested something is in the works concerning Norway’s Extol — a beloved metal band who have been on indefinite hiatus, with their last album released in 2005. The first teaser appeared on a Norwegian-registered web site called extolfilm.com.

This afternoon, “extolfilm” left a comment on Andy’s post tipping us to the fact that a second teaser has now appeared on the extolfilm.com site. Based on the latest teaser clip, it’s looking increasingly likely that what’s in the works is a documentary about the band, or at least a DVD compendium of live performances and commentary by others, because the clip features people talking about Extol. We don’t know who’s talking, because their heads aren’t shown in the clip (you can imagine why this was attractive to me).

Now, of course, even if this is a documentary or performance DVD, there might still be new music — or there might not be.  We shall continue to snoop around, because “nosy” is our middle name, and to report anything more concrete that may eventually surface. You can watch the latest piece of video titillation after the jump.

And for the hell of it, we’ll have some Extol music after the jump, too. Continue reading »

CHILDREN OF BODOM COVER THE DROPKICK MURPHYS: “SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
May 152012
 

As everyone who hangs around here knows, I’ve listened to almost nothing but metal for years. But every now and then I do dabble in other things, and The Dropkick Murphys are one of my non-metal pleasures. And among their many boot-to-the-ass songs, “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” is one of the best. If you’re not a fan, you may nevertheless remember it from the opening sequence in Martin Scorcese’s 2006 masterwork, The Departed.

Well, today I saw the news that Children of Bodom have recorded a cover of the song. It will be included on Holiday at Lake Bodom (15 Years of Wasted Youth), a COB CD/DVD that will be released on May 15. “Shipping Up To Boston” will be one of only two newly recorded songs on the CD, the other being a cover of  Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” (I’m cringing at the thought of that one).

A web site called CraveOnline premiered the “Shipping Up To Boston” cover today. Now, a song that good is very difficult to ruin, especially for a band as talented as COB (we’ll leave aside whether they’ve been coasting on that talent) — but it’s also very difficult to improve on a song that good, especially given the authentic sound of the original.

So, I guess with that preamble, it won’t surprise you to learn that I think COB neither ruin nor improve on the song, they just make it a bit moar metal. It’s worth a listen (after the jump), though I have to say I’ll stick with the original (which is also after the jump). Continue reading »

ALLEGAEON: “FORMSHIFTER”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
May 152012
 

(We’ve been following (and reporting) the news about Allegaeon’s new album very closely, and now we have TheMadIsraeli’s review of Formshifter.)

Melodic death metal has not really flourished in the U.S despite its popularity (which led to the metalcore movement) and ultimately hasn’t seen much action within its territories.  By my lights, only two melodic death metal bands have started in America who have ever been worth a shit — The Absence and Allegaeon.

The Absence have always been decidedly about blatant old-school worship (really fucking good worship) of past heroes, while Allegaeon sought to combine Swedish majesty with American grit, netting them a killer debut EP and an even more musically accomplished album debut, Fragments of Form and Function, which had titanic grooves, ferocious serpentine riffs, and epic melodies all about.  An debut as staggeringly strong as that puts a lot of pressure on a band to succeed the next time around.

Though it’s a cliche to say so, the sophomore release really is the most dreaded album of a band’s career. It is where a band either cement their status as a legitimate musical force or torch their progress to date, then and there.  Fortunately for Allegaeon and their fans, Formshifter is a bewilderingly powerful album that is an essential of the year.

A couple things are different this time around.  The band have switched to 8-string guitars, which often results not only in riffing that’s extremely technical and varied, but also in some of Allegaeon’s most brutal, fat, and consuming moments when the time arrives to throw down in a song.  This particular change has been really positive — with the switch to 8 strings, Allegaeon have written riffs that have quite a bit more majesty, pomp, and circumstance than ANYTHING they wrote on Fragments of Form and Function. Continue reading »

SEXCREMENT: “SLOPPY SECONDS”

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
May 152012
 

Sexcrement.  Now THAT’S a motherfucking band name!  From the name alone I was drawn to the music, like a bee to honey, like a moth to flame, like a fly to . . . uh . . . wait . . . forget about that last metaphor, because this band’s second album Sloppy Seconds is really good.  And it wasn’t just the band’s name that suggested the kind of deviant intelligence I felt pretty sure would produce music to my liking. Get a load of the song titles:

“Heard It Through the Rape Vine”
“Chemical Handcuffs”
“Well Hungover”
“Heels Up”
“Trucker Bombed”
“Assisted Living Lapdance”
“Obestiality”
“Ride Johnny Ride”

You see what I mean? Deviant and clever, perverted and politically incorrect. I figured the odds were pretty high that I’d get some jollies from the music — though that wouldn’t necessarily mean I’d write about it here. No, dear brethren and sistren, believe it or not, I don’t write about everything I like. I do try to apply a quality filter, because even my rudimentary intelligence tells me that provoking spontaneous regurgitation isn’t a winning formula for holding on to readers. But in this case, I not only got some jollies, I also heard some fine metal worthy of your refined attention. Continue reading »

DUAL DESTRUCTION TOUR CONTEST: WE HAZ A WINNER

 Metal News  3 Responses »
May 152012
 

Through the good graces of Century Media, we sponsored a free ticket give-away for the DUAL DESTRUCTION TOUR of two of our favorite up-and-coming bands, 7 Horns 7 Eyes and Stealing Axion. The contest is now closed, and we had a random drawing for the winning entry.  Congratulations to Nicole B!  Nicole, we will be e-mailing you shortly with info about your ticket.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  Even though we aren’t getting you a free ticket, this will be a tour well-worth paying to see anyway. Check out the tour dates here.

PHOTOSHOPPING (AND ILSA) FTW

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
May 152012
 

I saw this on a friend’s FB status. Too damn good not to share.

That isn’t the original photo, however.  This appears to be the original photo:

Hell, for all I know, the second one was Photoshopped, too.  Regardless, it’s also awesome.  I’m all in favor of reasoned, dispassionate, intelligent discourse about the issues of the day.  But sometimes you just gotta say Fuck This Guy, which is a sentiment I’ve been having a lot since seeing some of the predictable right-wing reactions to President Obama’s coming out in support of gay marriage. Continue reading »

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