AND OUR TWO MOST POPULAR POSTS ARE . . .

 Uncategorized  9 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

Yesterday, in a post called “Humbled”, I expressed dismay and confusion over the fact that a post I wrote nearly two years ago as a joke — an insignificant piece of news about Elize Ryd, Amaranthe, and Kamelot — has turned out to be the third most popular post we’ve ever run at NCS, measured by page hits on that post, proving that completely lame-ass bullshit sometimes drives traffic.

This prompted some of you to ask which posts hold the No. 1 and No. 2 ranking in popularity at this site since we started the thing. Here’s the answer:

The most popular post — with nearly 11,000 page views, and counting — is Andy Synn’s review of Deconstruction by The Devin Townsend Project. In fact, if you google “devin townsend deconstruction review” today, you’ll see Andy’s post as the No. 6 search result.

A few things about this are interesting. First, this piece only appeared less than seven months ago, so it’s built up quite a following in a relatively short amount of time. Second, it’s one of the longest posts we’ve ever published, but that hasn’t seemed to deter readers from checking it out (though, to be brutally honest, I have no good way of knowing how many people have actually read the whole thing). Third, the hits on Andy’s review continue to roll in. I remember there was a big surge shortly after the review appeared, because Devin Townsend posted about it on his Twitter feed and on Facebook, but even over the last 30 days it ranks No. 20 in terms of page views at NCS. And fourth, this tends to prove that not only does completely lame-ass bullshit drive traffic, quality drives traffic, too.

Ironically, although Deconstruction is one of the year’s best albums in the estimation of nearly all of us who write regularly for NCS, I haven’t yet seen it appear on a single “Best of 2011” list published by the bigger blogs that cover metal.

Now, on to our second most popular post ever . . . Continue reading »

LAMB OF GOD: THE “GHOST WALKING” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

As we reported yesterday, Lamb of God premiered the first track from their new album, Resolution, on Metal Sucks. Today, they’ve unveiled the official music video for the same song (“Ghost Walking”).

It’s one of those “lyric videos”, but with a creative visual twist. Gaze upon it after the jump.

Resolution will be released on Jan. 24 and is available for pre-order at this link. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: THE NOISECREEP TOP 11

 Listmania  28 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

While trying to do other things that we actually create ourselves here at NCS, I’m still keeping one eye out for the “Best of 2011” lists being generated by heavily-trafficked web sites and zines. Yesterday I spotted the “Best Metal Albums of 2011” published by Noisecreep, which is the hard rock and metal web site of AOL.

You may not be a daily Noisecreep visitor, but a fuckload of other people are, so I was curious about what they’re touting. AOL may seem like last century to most metalheads, but the Noisecreep demographic must still have something going for it, because they premiere a lot of songs by a lot of good metal bands, and even though I’m too fuckin lazy to research the quantitative achievements of their site traffic, metal labels sure as hell do.

Looking at their list, after looking at the lists by other big-platform sites like Pitchfork and NPR, I’m beginning to notice a trend:  Whoever is putting these lists together has got at least one finger on the pulse of the underground, even if their other fingers are lovingly wrapped around the genitalia of their readers. In other words, the Noisecreep list includes some surprisingly “fuck yeah!” albums, as well as some “what the fuck, are you serious?” albums. Check out the list after the jump, along with some editorial comments by me. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 4

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Here’s the last feature in today’s impromptu mini-series on female-fronted metal bands who are not Amaranthe.

When I started collecting bands for this series, this last post was originally going to be about a Vancouver band called Without Mercy (pictured above). About six weeks ago, I got an e-mail from an NCS reader (David) pointing me to them, and more specifically to the YouTube channel for their female vocalist, Alxs Ness.

But today, when I got the idea of pulling together a handful of female-fronted bands as compensation for that Amaranthe thing and started doing a little homework about Alxs, I found out that at some point over the last six weeks she had become the vocalist for yet another Vancouver band called Abriosis. So, if I’m understanding things correctly, she will be the vocalist for both bands. [CORRECTION: Since posting this piece originally, I’ve learned that Alxs did leave Without Mercy, but Without Mercy is moving ahead with a new vocalist and working on new music.]

Abriosis put out a self-titled EP in 2008 and a debut album earlier this year called Tattered and Bound. Both of those collections were pre-Alxs Ness, so that sort of disqualifies them for discussion in this post. Instead, what I have for you after the jump is an amusing video (complete with some toaster-ball near the end) depicting how Abriosis met their new vocalist, and a second video of the band jamming one of their songs with Alxs behind the mic. Not surprisingly, Abriosis plans to record a new EP next year with the new line-up. Abriosis has a Facebook page here.

Without Mercy released an EP in 2007 called All Else Fails and then a self-titled debut album in 2009, which is available for streaming and purchase via Bandcamp. I like the heady dose of death-thrash brutality I’ve heard so far from the album, and I’m putting up an album stream for you to hear after the jump. But, first things first — the YouTube clip that David sent me featuring Alxs’ vocal cover of “Eaten” by Bloodbath. Elize Ryd, eat your heart out. Continue reading »

HIT ME UP YO

 Uncategorized  14 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

(We interrupt our girl-growler programming with this message and invitation from TheMadIsraeli.)

I greatly apologize to all of you NCS readers for the lack of content I’ve been providing.  School is the enemy of everything that is metal.  Of this I’m convinced.  I realize that Islander keeps up a constant influx of good stuff, but I mean, it’s okay to admit the truth.  We both know it.  This site would die without me.

After the 15th, I intend to provide you all with a slew of content — content that I’m not exactly against changing to suit your whims. In fact, I’d like to give you the chance to dictate what I will finish out this year with in terms of content.  Let me know what might be of interest, whether it be reviews, topical articles, or me trying my hand at random-ass shit.

The only officially planned things I have at this point are my year-end list of best albums and a review of Ever Forthright’s full-length debut.  This shit isn’t enough.  I need more!  So please suggest content ideas, either via the comments or my email at TheMadIsraeli@nocleansinging.com so I can make good use of my downtime from school which begins in the next coming week.  I’ll have two and a half weeks of time off to take advantage of.  Help me use it wisely.

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 3

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

In this third part of our impromptu mini-series on female fronted metal bands we’ve recently discovered, the subject is Winds of Genocide. This band is based in Durham City, in the northeast of England and are fronted by a woman named Kat “Shevil” Gillham. Their debut effort is an EP released in 2010 called The Arrival of Apokalyptic Armageddon. I heard about them recently via a message from occasional NCS contributor “Willard Shrapnelspear”. He may not have been a patron of NCS for very long, but he has already figured out the kind of rank, disgusting musical assaults I often prefer in metal.

Just a few days ago, the reliable, Singapore-based Pulverised Records (home of bands such as Desultory, Interment, Impiety, Bastard Priest, and Morbus Chron) announced the signing of Winds of Genocide for the release of their debut album sometime in 2012. The music is described in a press release as “an offensive d-beat onslaught” and “a bastardized fusion of Cianide, Amebix, Unleashed and Bolt Thrower.” That all sounded pretty fuckin good to me.

The most recent song released by the band is a tune from an upcoming split with Abigail (Japan), and it’s called “Into the Darkness of Eternal Nuclear Winter”. The band describes it as “kinda like Unanimated, Naglfar, early Unleashed thrown into a blender with old school Svensk Käng/ Crust Punk”. Check it out on the Soundcloud player right after the jump. It’s also the first song streaming on the ReverbNation player that I’m also including after the jump. It includes songs from that 2010 EP, too. Check it out. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 2

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Still making up for the infliction of Amaranthe on your ears earlier today . . .

Part 2 of this day-long mini-series focuses on an L.A. band called My Ruin. As in the case of Wykked Wytch, this band is a new discovery for me despite the fact that they’ve previously release six albums, and a seventh one is about to debut. The core of the band is a husband and wife team consisting of vocalist Tairrie B and multi-instrumentalist Mick Murphy. The new album is called A Southern Revelation, and fittingly it was recorded in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Although the band has had label support in the past (and apparently an ugly falling out with their last label), the new album is 100% DIY and will be made available on December 7 as a free digital download on My Ruin’s Bandcamp page HERE.

To promote the album, My Ruin recently premiered an official music video for the album’s opening track, a song called “Tennessee Elegy”. The video was made by the band themselves and friends on a low budget, but it looks pretty good to me. As for the music on the new album, I’ve seen it referred to as Black Sabbath meets Black Label Society, and that’s a decent description, based on this one song. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 1

 Uncategorized  7 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

In an effort to make up for inflicting Amaranthe on you in today’s first post, I’m going to spend the rest of the day serving up female-fronted metal that’s more in line with our tastes here at NCS. We’ve run features on female growlers in the past, and I’m not going to repeat any of that. Instead, today’s mini-series will focus on bands who we’ve never mentioned before on this site. Coincidentally, I’ve learned about all of them over just the last 30 days. At least musically, I’d honeymoon with any of them over Amaranthe.

This first one I discovered only this morning. This South Florida band is called Wykked Wytch, and their vocalist is a chick who calls herself Ipek. Wykked Wytch has recently signed with Goomba Music for the release of their fifth full-length album (scheduled to hit the streets on February 14) called The Ultimate Deception. A press release describes the music as “a unique mixture of black, death, thrash metal with melody, technicality, and aggression.”

The album was recorded at Lambesis Studios in San Diego, it was mastered by Alan Douches, and it features Kevin Talley (Daath) as a session drummer. The album art is by Marcelo Vasco, who’s done work for lots of name bands including Dimmu Borgir and The Faceless — and it’s a fucken eye-catcher. In fact, it’s the first thing you’ll see after the jump. Continue reading »

LAMB OF GOD: “GHOST WALKING”

 Metal News  1 Response »
Dec 052011
 

For those of you who subscribe to DECIBEL magazine or happened to see our post about DECIBEL’s “Best of 2011” list, you know that Lamb of God is on the cover, right above this headline: “INSIDE 2012’S BIGGEST METAL RECORD”. That’s a pretty big claim, especially since the album isn’t out yet — but it’s coming. And today, Metal Sucks premiered the first song from the album, “Ghost Walking”.

The long feature story in DECIBEL about the band and the making of the album (which is titled Resolution) includes this quote from Randy Blythe: “This is the first Lamb of God record that I actually like listening to.” Nick Green, who wrote the piece, calls it “the most diverse-sounding Lamb of God offering to date, mostly because guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler each contributed about half the songs, and there’s a wild contrast between their songwriting styles” — with Morton providing the more hook-driven, straightforward songs and Adler writing songs that sound like journeys (“the weird and unconventional stuff”, as Chris Adler puts it in the article).

Based on the article, it appears the album will include “true bookends and an instrumental interlude”, and one of those bookends — a closer called “King Me” – begins with Blythe’s “hushed vocals draped in eerie echo effects” and then volleys back and forth between his harsh vocals and an operatic female vocalist, with lyrics in Latin adapted from Mozart’s Requiem. There’s also reportedly “an arty and angular” song called “The Number Six” and “a bona-fide punk rock song” called “Cheated”. Yeah, that all sounds pretty diverse. Continue reading »

HUMBLED

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  30 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Believe it or not, I try hard each day to concoct something interesting to post on this site. I try to avoid posting completely lame-ass bullshit (hereafter, “C-LAB”). Some days, avoiding C-LAB is difficult. I run out of time, or I party too hard and too late, and I do something that basically just feels like I’m showing my ass. And then some days, I feel like I’ve written something really good.

But how do I really know whether I’ve done a C-LAB post or instead something better than that, i.e.,  something that’s mainly lame-ass bullshit (“M-LAB”) but not C-LAB? Well, one way to find out is to check Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a service that gives web sites a shitload of data about their traffic. It’s mainly used by people who are trying to make money off their sites. Since we don’t advertise, and therefore don’t make shit off what we do here, I only use it to satisfy my curiosity about whether we’re dishing up C-LAB or M-LAB.

I don’t check our Google Analytics account that often, but since we’re nearing the end of the year, I thought I’d explore the data more deeply than usual. What I found really boggled my already boggled mind. I found that the third most popular post we’ve ever done since starting NCS is THIS ONE about Elize Ryd, the vocalist for a band called Amaranthe, which I posted in January 2010. Continue reading »

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