THE SERPENT SERMON TOUR: MARDUK, 1349, WITHERED, WEAPON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Mar 142012
 

I somehow missed this announcement when it first appeared, but by waiting, I have a few more details to add.

The news is that Sweden’s Marduk is headlining a North American tour that begins on June 2 at The Sonar in Baltimore and concludes on June 20 in San Diego. Along for the ride will be Norway’s 1349, Withered from Georgia, and a Canadian band called Weapon. All of these bands are excellent — that is, if you enjoy being sonically assaulted without mercy. And who doesn’t?

Weapon is the least well-known of this foursome, but we included them in a MISCELLANY post back in December 2010. Their frontman Vetis Monarch is from Bangladesh and the band’s blend of melodic black metal and death metal is influenced by his origins. There’s an official video of a live Weapon performance after the jump for those of you who haven’t discovered them. (Their Facebook page is here.)

Withered is another band worth getting to know if you don’t know them yet. I’ve also included one of their tracks after the break. From some quick web snooping, it seems that both Weapon and Withered are at work on new albums.

I’m presuming that Marduk and 1349 need no introduction. This will be 1349’s first visit to the continent since 2010. All the dates and locations are also after the jump. Continue reading »

INTERLUDE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 142012
 

There will be more posts today, but not for a while, because I have to do some paying work for the next 4 or 5 hours. So, allow me to leave you with these things, about which there will be more later:

ALTERCATION: “RED ALERT”
 

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/39719951″ iframe=”true” /]
 

IMPIETY: “WEAPONIZED”

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/39177361″ iframe=”true” /]
 

(more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

BLUE HERPS: “NODUL”

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Mar 142012
 

I get gratification from this post in so many ways. First, the band is called Blue Herps. If you don’t dig that name, then your sphincter may be too tight. I don’t know for sure what it means, but it sounds like a new strain of STD that causes the bits that do all the thinking to turn blue, before they then turn black and fall off like chunks of rotten meat.

Second, the band is obscure by most standards, and one of our long-standing missions at this site is to shine some light on bands who aren’t very well known. Blue Herps, for example, has a grand total of 17 Facebook likes, and I was No. 17. Granted, it looks like they only created a FB page in February, but still.

Third, the cover of their new album, Nodul, is sick. It uses pretty colors and a nice close-up of some teeth badly in need of dental work that by sheer coincidence happen to spell the album’s title. Man, I wonder how long it took Blue Herps to find someone whose bad teeth spelled the name of their album? This band is either really persistent in looking in people’s mouths or they’re very lucky. Also, I find their unreadable band logo strangely appealing. It’s spiky but kind of graceful.

Fourth, they have song names like “Leucoplasie”, “Flow Beat”, “Tumor”, “Hyperdontie”, and “Blurps”. Some of the song titles seem to be the French or German words for disgusting diseases of the mouth and gums.  Nodul actually has 20 song names, because that’s how many songs are on the album. But most of the songs are only about a minute long or less.

So, let’s see . . . I know there’s something else about this post that’s gratifying. It will come to me . . . Oh fuck yeah, the music! Continue reading »

CANNIBAL CORPSE: THE “ENCASED IN CONCRETE” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  28 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

And our Cannibal Corpse watch continues . . .

Not long ago we featured a song from the band’s Torture album (which is out in official release today) that DECIBEL had premiered on-line. Today, the same song — “Encased In Concrete” — has become the subject of a new official video that debuted on Bloody Disgusting.

Like the song, the video doesn’t hold still. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single frame that’s on screen for even one second. Epileptics beware. Also, yes, it features a dude being encased in concrete.

This song riiiiiiiiiips. The whole album riiiiiiiiiiips. The video does, too. Go HERE to watch it (it’s not yet embeddable or I’d just stick it up on our site).

WRAITHCULT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

Thulcandra is a German band whose 2010 album Fallen Angels Dominion (reviewed here) was an utterly faithful and beautifully rendered homage to Dissection. The band’s 2011 follow-up, Under A Frozen Sun, was also very good and proved that Thulcandra’s talents exceed even what was achieved on the debut, though it was one of many deserving releases I didn’t find time to write about last year.

Thanks to Thulcandra, I recently discovered a new band called Wraithcult. Its members include two Thulcandra participants, the “evil twins”, Sebastian and Tobias Ludwig (guitarist/vocalist and bassist, respectively). Both Sebastian and Tobias were also active for five years in yet a third band, the now-defunct Helfahrt, and two other former Helfahrt members have joined them to complete the line-up in Wraithcult: guitarist Markus Klüpfel and drummer Andreas Mecker.

Wraithcult have recorded a debut album called Gestalt (with Dark Fortress guitarist V. Santura at the helm). When I wrote the original version of this post, two of the album’s songs were available for streaming, and those were the two that convinced me this band is worth following. In doing a quick check for possible updates to this post, I discovered that the entire album is now available for streaming.

I tried listening to the album stream while working my fucking day job (which has become a fucking day-and-night job), because at the moment that’s the only way I have any chance of listening to music, but it didn’t work out very well. Continue reading »

ENTHRONED: “OBSIDIUM”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

(In this post, NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the superb new album by Belgium’s Enthroned.)

I can’t quite tell you exactly why, with the advent of Obisdium, Enthroned have produced their magnum opus, a defining statement of their sound and purpose. It’s a combination of lots of little things, and a culmination of years of work and progression from a band who have always teetered on the edge of producing something great. The songs stand proudly alone, yet united as a furious horde of channelled barbarism, every instrument given prominence and power in a combination both compelling and devastating.

The lethal focus and razor-sharp intent of each and every track is like a scalpel cutting into fragile flesh, clean, quick and precise. Yet this impressive concision and precision does not preclude variety. For all its panzerfaust blasting assault on the senses, the album manages to intelligently vary its pacing and style, from a blizzard of icy tremolo picking to a more death metal stomp and grind, through to rusted, doomy funeral marches of ghastly, shrouded chords. At its fastest, the album absolutely scorches, leaving behind only blackened and gnarled bones, licked by ebon flames. At its slowest, it churns a hideous maelstrom of dragging rip-tides and claustrophobic, choking undercurrents.

For all that Obisidum represents as another salvo in the Satanic war of dominion, it does so with disarming cleverness and subtlety, easing its way under the listeners’ skins to possess them wholly and entirely. Though it never sacrifices sheer, obliterating power, it is the hidden complexities and predatory intelligence of the material’s construction that makes it the most devastating weapon of damnation in Enthroned’s 9-album strong arsenal.

The devil truly is in the details. Continue reading »

SUMMER SLAUGHTER OPENING BAND CANDIDATES ANNOUNCED

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

Uh, let’s see now, I posted an update about this tour yesterday and concluded with these words: “I may or may not write about this tour again before the final line-up becomes public. Probably will. Sticking to resolutions isn’t my strong suit.” Well, I may not know much, but I do seem to have a good understanding of myself.

As of yesterday, the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour organizers had disclosed the names of three of the 10 bands who will be eligible for fan voting to select the opening act on the tour — though they also suggested they might let fans pick two opening acts. I wondered why they just didn’t go ahead and reveal all 10 names, but I wonder about a lot of things. Anyway, late last night they gave us the whole list, which you can see above.

To vote for who you think should be the opening band, go HERE. On that page, you’ll also see a link which says “Results”. Along with annoying pop-up ads, clicking on that link will give you the latest voting tally. As I’m writing this (at approximately 11 p.m. Pacific time on Monday night), less than 3,000 votes have been cast so far, and Fallujah is in the lead with 19% of the vote, followed by Vildhjarta with 16% and I Declare War with 15%. I’m sure by the time you read this, the vote totals will have changed.

Now, the marketing theory behind this voting thing is pretty transparent, and I have to say that at least in my case, it’s working. I’m actually curious about who will win because I happen to like every single band on the list! (As I wrote that, I could imagine KevinP beginning to type his comment — “What a shock. You like everything. All these bands blow.”) In fact, we have written about and praised every one of the bands at one time or another here at NCS.

If I didn’t give a fuck about any of the bands, I wouldn’t care about the vote outcome. But now I’m curious. Continue reading »

TERRORIZER UNLEASHES THE ZOMBIE HORDES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 122012
 

To be brutally honest, I’m not my usual cheery self today. My fucking day job continues to interfere severely with the vastly more important job of entertaining the vast numbers of people (vast, I tell you) who count on NCS each day to give them a reason for living. But my spirits improved dramatically (albeit briefly) when I saw the new video from Terrorizer for the title track of their new album, Hordes of Zombies.

The band’s 1989 debut, World Downfall, is credited by lots of folks as being a landmark in the development of grindcore, but the band folded not long after, with its members going on to join little known acts such as Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, and Nausea.

There was a brief reunion of sorts, with Jesse Pintado and Pete Sandoval from the original band recruiting vocalist Anthony Rezhawk (Resistant Culture) and Tony Norman (Morbid Angel) to add guitars and bass, producing the 2006 album Darker Days Ahead. In the week following its release, Pintado died of complications from liver failure.

Now, Terrorizer has risen again, with David Vincent (Morbid Angel) on bass and guitarist Katina Culture (Resistant Cuture) filling out the line-up. So far, I’ve only heard the title track, courtesy of this new video, but I . . . fucking  . . . love it! Continue reading »

ANOTHER NEW GOROD SONG: “CARVED IN THE WIND”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  20 Responses »
Mar 122012
 

No, that’s not the cover to Gorod’s new album. It’s part of the artwork for a forthcoming 7″ by New Zealand’s Heresiarch. We’ve posted the Gorod cover many times already, and I thought the Heresiarch art was so sick that it should be shared.

Okay, that didn’t make a lot of sense, did it? Gorod and Heresiarch have nothing in common except they’re both metal. But my brain is kinda scrambled at the moment because I just listened to a new Gorod song. It’s called “Carved In the Wind” and it features a jazzy guitar solo by Christian Muenzner (Obscura). I presume the song will eventually begin streaming on YouTube or some other more frequently visited location, but for now it’s in a tiny player that you’ll have to squint to find at Vs-webzine (HERE). Look for the cover art for Violent Absolution and you’ll see the player to the left of it.

I haven’t yet listened to the Gorod album, but I have it on good authority from a respected blogger friend (who has heard the album) that it may be the tech-death album of the year. Those are strong words, given that 2012 has produced Incurso by Spawn of Possession., in addition to a new one from Psycroptic and one to come from Cryptopsy. I may have to shove aside other albums I’m supposed to be spinning and jump right to the Gorod. Actually, there’s no maybe about it.

“Carved In the Wind” is delicious. I love the swirling guitar lead and the pulsing keyboard tones. I love the funky bass line. I love that jazzy guitar solo. I love that Gorod have pulled together in a single song so many different stylistic elements in a way that seems natural and have produced music that’s not only head-twisting but also melodic, memorable, and a headbanger to boot. Go check it out and then come back here and write something that makes no sense in the Comments.

Speaking of making no sense, there’s more Heresiarch artwork after the jump, from their last EP, Hammer of Intransigence, plus a live Heresiarch song clip. Continue reading »

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