REV. WILL’S TOP 20 LITANIES OF 2011

 Listmania  12 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

Hah! I Am Not Real, I Stare At Choo From A Painting

(Here we have a best-album list from a prolific writer who seems to have a nom de plume for every site he frequents. In his posts at NCS he’s “Willard Shrapnelspear”. At The Number of the Blog, he’s “Rev. Will”. At PopMatters and Pure Grain Audio, he’s Dane Prokofiev. I’m probably leaving out some . . .)

For the sake of those curious to know, the guy in the painting above was Frédéric François Chopin.

The flaw of any personal “Best of” list is as much its strength as it is a quirk, however oxymoronic this may sound. As the legendary Cosmo Lee once said on Invisible Oranges before he left our blogosphere for good, “the only list that matters anymore is your own”. It’s one of those common sense conclusions we all know and arrived at in our heads long ago, but we were all just waiting for some prominent Internet blogger to type it out.

With that said, some groundwork has been laid for what to expect from this list. As personal “Best of” lists are shaped by individual experiences from many aspects of everyday life such as work, exercise, play, dating, sleep, philosophical moments and such, every list has its own unique taste that gives you a little hint of how the list-maker has been living his life for the past year. Hence, it is quite an intimate affair for metal writers/bloggers to be showing our lists to the world; it’s kind of like letting everyone know our darkest secrets, but hidden behind the indirectness of lyrics and the subjective nature of the music’s sound.

One exception to this observation, however, would be some of the paid metal writers/bloggers who mainly roll such lists out annually like a toy factory conveyor belt, simply because it is their job to do so. In my opinion, unpaid metal writers/bloggers still make the most intimate lists around. Continue reading »

PHRO HELPS ABORTED REVISE THEIR TRACK LIST

 IQ Subtraction, Phro's Posts  26 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

Like gutted fish left waiting on a sunny river bank before a fry-up, we’re still basking in the glow of premiering a song from Global Flatline, the forthcoming album by those multinational gore-spatterers in Aborted. As is true of all Aborted albums, the track list for this one just gets your mouth watering:

01. Omega Mortis
02. Global Flatline
03. Источник Болезни (The Origin Of Disease)
04. Coronary Reconstruction
05. Fecal Forgery
06. Of Scabs And Boils
07. Vermicular, Obscene, Obese
08. Expurgation Euphoria
09. From A Tepid Whiff
10. The Kallinger Theory
11. Our Father, Who Art Of Feces
12. Grime
13. Endstille
Bonus track: “Nailed Through Her Cunt”

However, as delectable as this track list is, it could be improved. For example, that song we premiered — “The Origin of Disease”: Don’t you think it would have sounded better if it had been called “The Origin of My Penis”? I think so, even though I didn’t come up with that name (and he who did shall remain anonymous for now).

In an effort to enhance the appeal of the track list, we turned to Phro, our resident expert on branding (and I’m not talkin’ about coming up with names and slogans). Phro’s proposed revisions to Aborted’s album title and track list appear after the jump. Continue reading »

AN EXCLUSIVE NCS PREMIERE: ABORTED’S “THE ORIGIN OF DISEASE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

Instead of being institutionalized for long-term treatment, the psychopaths in Aborted are about to release their seventh full-length album, Global Flatline. This monstrosity will be vomited forth on the unprotected public by Century Media on January 24. Today, we’re as happy as zombies feasting on a putrid corpse to premiere the album’s third track, “The Origin of Disease”.

Over the course of their storied career, Aborted have churned out a grisly body of work that has stood the test of time and amassed a global following of fans who are now hungry for more. From what we’ve heard of the album so far, they won’t be disappointed.

“The Origin of Disease” is on the bleeding forward-edge of speed, propelled by a relentless drum barrage and scalpel-sharp riffing. It’s caustic and crushing, but it’s also loaded with powerful grooves and spiced up with infectious bursts of lead guitar and a solo near the end that spins out in unexpected directions. It features titanic bass lines, explosive bass drops, irresistible chugging, and dual vocals — Sven De Caluwé’s hair-raising shrieks and sink-hole gutturals courtesy of guest vocalist Julien Truchan (Benighted) — which carve quite viciously.

In short, it’s a fully loaded, jet-fueled, razor-sharp head-fucker of a song: a blast of modern death metal from a band who definitely aren’t just regurgitating the gory glories of the past, but who haven’t pulled up their roots from it either. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DANIEL BERGSTRÖM (VILDHJARTA)

 Interviews  9 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

(In what must have been one of the high points of his year, NCS writer TheMadIsraeli got the chance to do an e-mail interview of Daniel Bergström, the guitarist and principal song-writer for Sweden’s Vildhjarta and the producer of the band’s massively popular debut album, Måsstaden (reviewed here). In what follows, a discussion about chick-slaying and chainsaws, personal shittiness, gear, and the meaning of That Word. Here you go.)

TMI:  So, here we are: I and you guys, the mighty Vildhjarta, the gods of thallism, the magicians of massive, gravity-intensifying groove. How does it feel to release your first album?

DB:  feels pretty sweet, wasnt sure if anyone was gonna understand it but the reception’s been sehr gut.

TMI:  Is thall truly indeed thall?

DB:  thall

TMI:  Obscure word aside, if we go back and look at your catalogue of songs it’s obvious that your sound underwent a major overhaul for Måsstaden, so much so that it seems intentional. Was this the case or was it truly a natural progression? If intentional, why did you set out to undergo such a change? If natural, do you feel you’ve found your sound, or that this is merely a stepping stone in achieving sonic enlightenment of your identity as one cohesive thall?

DB:  i always want to try new things and see where it goes. i often get bored pretty quickly with the stuff i write so it’s pretty unintentional in that sense i think, everything has to sound new and crazy to my ears. Continue reading »

BADWOLF’S BEST ALBUMS OF 2011 – THE FINAL NINE

 Listmania  3 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

(In this two-part post, NCS and Invisible Oranges writer BadWolf reveals his picks for the Best Albums of 2011. Part 2 comes tomorrow, with the best album selection and a companion interview.)

2011 was such a strange year in metal for me that I’m not sure how to describe it. For years I’ve been all about odd, off-genre switches and progressive mentality, along with high-concept artistic edifice, and all those elements are present in my top 10 albums of the year… in force.

But 2011, to me, was mostly about shifting to minimalism and immediacy. I found myself guided to shorter albums full of straightforward, punchy material. I think the bumper-crop of technical death metal and djent this year has spoiled me, and great artists as well, on showoff guitar work. This was the year for singer-songwriters in metal and great musicians focusing on rock-solid iPod jams.

Without further ado, 9 of my top 10 albums of 2011, in alphabetical order. (#1 to follow later):

Cynic – Carbon Based Anatomy

Yes, this is technically an EP, but there’s more great music in this little gem than most metal bands crank out in the course of a career. My review of this record at InvisibleOranges [here] outlines most of my love for Carbon Based Anatomy. Continue reading »

A PREVIEW (JUST IN CASE YOU THINK WE’RE FUCKING OFF)

 Uncategorized  7 Responses »
Dec 202011
 

Most people are starting to take a break from their usual daily grind this time of year. School is out for most studious types, working stiffs are about to get some days off, and those who are independently wealthy are continuing to do independently wealthy things, but more so. But not your friends at NO CLEAN SINGING. We are not — I repeat, not — fucking off. There will be no breaks, no dead days, no holiday filler at NCS.

To the contrary, we’re drowning in good content at the moment. Here’s a taste of what’s to come between now and the end of the year:

We will have more year-in-review posts, including more best-album lists from musicians you’ve heard of and guest posts from our more avid readers, plus BadWolf’s Best of 2011 list (in two parts) and a continuation of TheMadIsraeli’s reviews (or re-reviews) of the best albums he heard in 2011.

We will have some interesting interviews, including one tomorrow of the mastermind behind that Swedish band who coined That Word, which I’m trying not to over-use becauth it doeth thomething funny to my mouth, and a BadWolf interview coming your way on Thursday of the driving force behind a band whose recent release has been popping up on a shit-ton of Year’s Best lists.

Andy Synn has promised us a special SYNN REPORT to close out 2011 plus (with luck) two more album reviews. We’ll have some opinion pieces that we expect will provoke discussion. We’ll continue to report on new music we find interesting. And beginning next week, I’ll start rolling out my list of 2011’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

And last but not least, we will have an exclusive song premiere that we’re very excited about. In fact, we will be unveiling that particular piece of psychopathic viciousness tomorrow. So, stay tuned. Like your creepy uncle who shows up uninvited for holiday dinners, we’re not going anywhere.

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC (NEKROMANTHEON, KRODA, AND INTERVALS)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 202011
 

Here are a few things I saw and heard last night and this morning that I thought were worth your time.

Of course, I don’t know exactly what you do with your time, or how valuable your time is, or what potentially horrible consequences might result if you spent time listening to this music instead of doing what you would be doing if you weren’t listening to this music.  So, I guess you could say I’m being presumptuous.  I prefer to believe that I’m enriching your miserable lives with the beauty and joy of good metal, compared to which most things are drab and stultifying, including your lives.

ITEM ONE: NEKROMANTHEON

This item came my way from KevinP, who believes that I do not need erectile dysfunction drugs because I pop wood over almost every metal band on the planet. He sent me a link about a band named Nekromantheon. The fact that I like their music in no way validates his own opinion about it, because my own standards are so low. Perhaps sending me links such as this is KevinP’s subtle way of trying to raise my standards. If so, that’s a mission doomed to failure. I like what I like, and if you don’t like it, fuck you. (I’m not talking about YOU when I say that; I’m referring to that one person who stopped reading NCS because he thought my standards were too low. Of course, there’s only one such person, ever, or ever will be.)

Nekromantheon is from Norway and the style of their music is a certain kind of thrash. But it’s not let’s-get-drunk-and-fuck thrash. It’s more like let’s-find-innocent-children-and-sacrifice-them-to-Cthulhu thrash. Continue reading »

THE 2011 TOP 10 of VAN666 (ARCHITECTURE OF AGGRESSION)

 Listmania  4 Responses »
Dec 202011
 

(Architecture of Aggression is a South African band who’ve been creating massive, bone-grinding, head-spinning, technically inventive, progressive death metal for more than 16 years (check out this post if they’re a name you don’t recognize). I asked one of the band’s co-founders, Van Zyl Alberts (aka Van666) to contribute to our year-end series of posts on 2011’s best metal, and here’s his list of recommendations.)

1. Pestilence – Doctrine

Brilliant, epic, powerful, technical, and catchy, with great crushing riffs, and jazzy bass lines and guitar solos. A modern Classic. Like a slow cancer that consumes your body, Pestilence reminds everybody that playing as fast as humanly possible, which is the modern trend, doesn’t necessarily make you more heavy. For fans of Old School Death Metal. Continue reading »

KENNETH PARKER (ARKHUM) AND IZEDIS (ENBILULUGUGAL) DISCUSS THE MYSTERIES OF THE GOATSERPENT

 Interviews  7 Responses »
Dec 202011
 

EDITOR’S FORWARD: Beloved readers, allow me to make a few introductions. Kenneth Parker is the vocalist for Arkhum, a Portland-based metal band we’ve written about frequently (most recently, here). Izedis is the vocalist and bass player for Enbililigugal, a self-described apokalyptic black noise band from the nether regions of California with “an insane vision of Frostfucked Black Metal Goatsodomy.” His bandmates are known as KumSlinger and Alcoholonomicon. Recently, Kenneth Parker interviewed Izedis for NCS, because, to be brutally honest, I was too fucken scared to do it myself.

Kenneth: It’s been quite a length of time since the release of your full-length, Noizemongers for GoatSerpent. Any plans, immedidate or otherwise, to unleash a second album?

Izedis: When the GoatSerpent commands, there is a feeling in which you get where you spontainiously combust in orgasmic fecaltude. The Full Length is called “The Day After” and in which it shows the destruction of this thing in the world called human beings, there is a sense of calm in the deaths. This is why there are many ways to interperate this blank expression of cunt noise. To tell you the truth, there is nothing that can be done to passify the trends from within the scenes of the mules known as consumers, so we just give it to the public the way they see it, no sense of hope. After this, the full length has no name but is in the works with Alcoholonomicon. KumSlinger made “The Day After” into a. And within this the senses will tell you to pull away and take the high road with The GoatSerpent. Run for the mountains now. Continue reading »

DYSCARNATE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Dec 192011
 

I decided I couldn’t leave that last post sitting at the top of this page for the next 15 hours until we start tomorrow’s postings. Someone might get the wrong idea about what this blog is all about or, worse yet, about my sexual prowess. Someone might come away with the impression that I need ED drugs. Ha ha! That would be, like, a total misimpression, 180 degrees off course, really wrong-headed, and just a dumb idea. Wrong.  And dumb.

But still, I decided to put something up here for overnight, and what I picked was a song called “A Drone In the Hive” by a three-piece UK death metal band called Dyscarnate. Their second album, And So It Came To Pass, will be released on Feb 27 by Siege of Amida Records, and this song is from that album. It debuted on their Facebook page.

The album art is very cool. It’s by Valnoir Mortasonge of Metastazis, who has done covers for the likes of The Black Dahlia Murder, Morbid Angel, and Watain. The band recorded the album with Chris Fielding at Foel Studio in Wales, and it was mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen (Aborted, Xerath) in Denmark.

So after the jump, check out the song and let us know what you think. Continue reading »

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