SUNDAY SINGLES: THE 11TH HOUR, SEAR BLISS, AND MORDAX

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 082012
 

The last couple of days brought new singles from three bands that made an impression on my ear holes, so I’m collecting them here for your ear holes.

THE 11TH HOUR

I’m new to this band, but warming up to them quickly. The 11th Hour began as a Dutch/Swedish doom-metal collaboration between two dudes who were better known for their work in death metal: Ed Warby, the drummer for Gorefest, Hail of Bullets, and Ayreon/Star One, and Rogga Johansson, the man behind bands such as Paganizer, Ribspreader, The Grotesquery, and Demiurg (another Johansson/Warby collaboration). Their 2009 debut album, Burden of Grief, was a concept album about the last days of a man dying from a lung disease.

The 11th Hour now have a second album due for release by Napalm Records on January 27 (February 7 in the U.S.). It’s called Lacrima Mortis. As with Burden of Grief, Ed Warby played all the instruments on the recording and also provided the soaring clean vocals. Unfortunately, Rogga Johansson had to pull out of the recording work on this album due to a prolonged illness, but the band’s live vocalist Pim Blankenstein stepped in. Rogga is a tough act to replace, but based on what I’ve heard of the album so far, Blankenstein’s roars are fucking bottomless.

A day or two ago, Napalm released a single from Lacrima Mortis called “Bury Me”, and even better, they’ve made it available for free download at this location. It’s a fucken great song (and an Exception to the Rule around here, because it’s a mix of clean and un-clean vocals). Have a listen right after the jump (and thanks to KevinP for the tip on this one). Continue reading »

PRESENTS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 082012
 

One of our Canadian readers, Ben, periodically sends me presents. I’ve shared some of these with you in the past. I got two more from him yesterday “from the filthy bowels of the internet.” Once again, these are too cool to keep to myself.

The first is a Pingu. I didn’t know what a Pingu was. Now I know. Pingu was a British-Swiss stop-motion claymated television series created by Otmar Gutmann. The show was about a family of anthropomorphic penguins at the South Pole. The series ran from 1986 to 1998, and then again from 2004 to 2005. But Pingu is not dead. A dude named Lee Hardcastle continues to make Pingu’s for his YouTube channel.

Last week, Hardcastle uploaded a Pingu re-make of John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece, The Thing. This was Ben’s first present to me yesterday. If you’re a fan of that movie, as I am, it’s a blast to watch, because Hardcastle succeeds in boiling down the plot of the movie into about two minutes, and the claymation effects he uses are ingenious. It won’t mean nearly as much if you’re not familiar with The Thing, but you might still like it.

And speaking of The Thing, there was a “prequel” movie that came out late last year (also called The Thing) telling the story of what happened at the Norwegian base in Antarctica leading up to the events that began the Carpenter movie. Did anyone see that prequel? Is it any good? As for the second present . . . Continue reading »

ERRA: “IMPULSE”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Jan 082012
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by Alabama’s ERRA.)

It should be noted that when I typed this band’s name into Google Images, I was greeted by a myriad of pictures of scorching-hot bodacious Indian babes. This band has already won brownie points.

But in all earnestness, this is the first of my request posts. At the request of Joey Harrel of Substructure (whose debut EP we review here), I checked out this band. ERRA come from odd territory for heavy music of any sort, hailing from ALA-FUCKING-BAMA. One would automatically expect this to suck, the band coming from a place I associate with rotten teeth and the stench of teen pregnancy, but in fact this shit is pretty cool, boasting an assault of energetic, progressive metalcore composed of huge melodies, big riffs, and titanic breakdowns.

This is their debut, Impulse.

“White Noise”, both the single and opener for this album, is a hard-hitting, precision-driven stage-setter of bendy riffs, huge melodic chords, and polyrhythmic attacks. It’s quite obvious that ERRA isn’t trying to be the most brutal, the most technical, or the most outstanding; they just want to play some good-ass, heavy melodic metal, brimming with energy. Continue reading »

SHINING: THE “FISHEYE” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jan 072012
 

I’ve been waiting for this for weeks, ever since Norway’s Shining began dribbling out the news that it was coming. It’s the band’s official video for the song “Fisheye” off their remarkable 2010 album, Blackjazz, and it just appeared.

“Blackjazz is wild in every sense of the word – feral, uninhibited, unpredictable, deranged, vicious. Ah, hell, wild is too tame an adjective — it’s just bug-eyed, batshit crazy. Not headbanging music. Not music you can have on background as you do something else. If you’re going to listen, that’s what you’ve got to do — listen with single-minded focus.” That’s what I wrote in a February 2010 review. I still pretty much feel that way, except I’ve decided there are parts of “Fisheye” that you can headbang to.

But mainly, it’s wild. It thunders, it squeals, it hammers, it howls. It’s creepy and it’s exhilarating. I was really curious whether Shining could put together a music video that would mesh with the aura of the music. Well, they did. Or rather, director Kyrre H. Larsen did. From the lighting, to the color scheme, to the editing, to the flashes of grotesque masks, the video provides fitting visual accompaniment to the music. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 13

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  3 Responses »
Jan 072012
 

This is Part 13 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

I guess maybe my trolling earlier today on a phony Part 13 of this list was a bit too subtle.  IT. WAS. A. FUCKING. JOKE.  A joke!  Not serious!  (and apparently not very funny either)  So, onward to the real Part 13 of this list . . .

The inclusion of today’s two bands will come as no surprise to regular readers — you could see this coming from a mile off, because they’re particular favorites of most of us who write here regularly. They also released very strong albums in 2011 — albums that included multiple candidates for this list.

DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT

Apart from the fact that Andy Synn’s review of Deconstruction is the most popular piece we’ve ever run at NCS (due in no small part to Devin Townsend’s posting about the review on his Facebook page), we would love this album anyway. It made many of the Best of 2011 lists we published over the last month, including those from Gaia, groverXIII, Stephen Parker, and of course Andy Synn. I shared the sentiments expressed by both groverXIII and Andy:

“Just when I think we’ve plumbed the depths of Devin Townsend’s demented mind, he reaches down and pulls out something else that is completely unexpected. Deconstruction was not the return to Strapping Young Lad that people may have been hoping for, but it was still a massive, chaotic album in its own way. Even now, having heard the album numerous times, I still discover something new every time I listen to it. Staggering.” – groverXIII

“At its heart this record is an expression of one man’s humanity in all its beauty and ugliness. Though its flaws are writ large, in bold, colourful writing, it’s hard to name another artist out there truly willing to go this far and be this open.” – Andy Synn

Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 13

 IQ Subtraction  22 Responses »
Jan 072012
 

This is Part 13 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

MORBID ANGEL

Successful, immensely influential artists of long standing often find their creative freedom restricted by the shackles of their own success. What has worked in the past will likely work again, and that’s an insidious inducement to just repeat the pattern again and again. That’s the carrot, but there’s also a stick: Striking out onto a new path risks alienation of a dedicated fan base. Loyal adherents of an artist’s well-defined style may be too close-minded, too wedded to the past, to be receptive to experimentation.

Fortunately, not all successful artists fall prey to these carrot-and-stick inducements to stand pat. Some are brave enough and creative enough to throw off the shackles of their own success and strike out in brilliant new directions, to boldly go where others are too timid to tread. So it was with Morbid Angel’s 2011 album, Illud Divinum Insanus, which translates to “fuck you, we doin’ this thang anyway.” Continue reading »

VICIOUS BASTARD: “POST ABORTION LUST”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 072012
 

(TheMadIsraeli emerges from his holiday cocoon with his first review of 2012. He’s not exactly easing into things.)

Alright NCSer’s, I’ve decided my work on year end-content has been putting off my output for too long, so, while you will see those things from me eventually, I got tired of not being able to stroke my own ego by reading my own sexually stimulating prose on our glorious website.

Speaking of sexually stimulating shit…

This is Vicious Bastard and their debut Post Abortion Lust. You’re probably thinking, “Oh great, this is another grind/pornogrind/deathgrind album from among the billions that are out there. Why should I give two fucks?” Here is a small excerpt off of Vicious Bastard’s Facebook page.

“5 Piece brutal grind assault featuring members of MALEVOLENT CREATION, VENOMOUS CONCEPT, WAR OF THE SECOND DRAGON and live member of ANAAL NATHRAKH”

Interested now? Thought so. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 12

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  1 Response »
Jan 062012
 

This is Part 12 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

Once I’d decided to include today’s two songs on this list, combining them in a single post was an obvious call: Both bands are from Finland (if you get tired of hearing about Finnish metal, you’re obviously at the wrong place); both songs have almost exactly the same name; and of course both songs are awfully catchy.

MORS SUBITA

Human Waste Compression, the 2011 album by this band (whose names means “sudden death”) was one I reviewed in October (here), but that wasn’t our first mention of the band last year. In May,  I saw an official video for a song from the album called “The Sermon”, and it really got me all fired up with enthusiasm and the words spilled out in a post. At that point, Mors Subita was unsigned and holding up release of the album while they sought label backing.

In August, Violent Journey Records announced that they had signed Mors Subita, and it was cool to see some of my gushing words from May quoted in the Violent Journey press release. At the same time, the band released their second video for Human Waste Compression, and of course I had to write about all that here. Continue reading »

NEW NAPALM DEATH: “FUCK ME WITH A BUZZ SAW”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

At the moment, I’m not able to stream the new Napalm Death song that just premiered. I’m currently moving stealthily among the many secret locations I use to avoid detection by paparazzi who are hoping for something like a candid shot of me sunbathing in a thong.

Actually, I’m just commuting right now and my internet connection is too slow for streaming. I have more sympathy for the tender sensibilities of the human race than to be caught dead in a thong. Plus, it seems like it would impair my already impaired ability to concentrate to have a line of fabric up my butt crack. I’m afraid the next time the cops pull me over and ask if I know how fast I was going, I’d blurt out: “Fuck no! All I can think about is what’s trying to cut through my butt crack like razor wire!” I don’t know how chicks do it, wearing thongs, not that I’m complaining about that, mind you.

Where was I?  Oh yeah — there’s a new Napalm Death song streaming from their next album, Utilitarian, which will be released on February 27 in Europe and February 28 in North America via Century Media Records. I can’t stream it right now, but when I got an e-mail from TheMadIsraeli alerting me to the stream, he added this pithy message: “All I can say is fuck me with a buzz saw.” That seemed like a positive review, so I’m posting this alert.

The song isn’t called “Fuck Me With A Buzz Saw”. It’s called “Leper Colony”, and it premiered earlier today at Brooklyn Vegan. So go over there and give it a listen, and then please come back here and let me know if it fucked you like a buzz saw. Thank you in advance.

DYSCARNATE: “THE PROMETHEAN”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

I’m sure that eye-catching cover art up there looks familiar to you — less than a month ago I splashed it across this site in a post that featured the first single from this UK band’s forthcoming album, And So It Came To Pass, which will be released on Feb 27 by Siege of Amida Records. Well, now Dyscarnate have not only premiered a second track from the album, they’ve also given us an official music video to go with it.

The new song is called “The Promethean”, and it’s a killer explosion of technically oriented, groove-heavy death metal, with great vocals, jolting rhythms, galvanizing guitar work — and even a breakdown that works.

By the way, I’ve now got this album in my greedy clutches, and I’m very fucking sold on Dyscarnate. Whenever I can kick my ass into higher gear, there will be a review . . . But for now, headbang to “The Promethean” video after the jump. Continue reading »

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