NO CLEAN SINGING

SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2012 – UPDATE

Mar 122012

This year’s edition of the North American SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour is shaping up to be a must-see event. All you really have to do is look at the name of the band at the top of the bill. When the tour organizers began announcing the line-up they decided to build enthusiasm and anticipation by rolling out the names of the starring bands one at a time, beginning with Cannibal Corpse. The idea was to unveil a new band’s name every Sunday until the line-up was complete. After the initial announcement, I decided to wait until the entire line-up had become public before writing about the tour again.

Well, the plan hasn’t unfolded quite as envisioned. After the announcements of Between the Buried and Me, The Faceless, Exhumed, Goatwhore, and Veil of Maya, there have been a few hiccups — like the kind you get that go on for an hour and leave you begging strangers to scare you. There was no announcement a week ago, and despite promises by the promoters that they’d catch up by giving us two new confirmed names yesterday, that didn’t happen. Instead, we got a promise that it would happen later this week. Who knows why?

To make up for the miss that happened a week ago, the organizers said they would also announce yesterday the candidates for fan voting for the opening act on the tour. You may remember that they did this in 2011, too — rolling out a list of 10 band candidates and allowing fans to vote for a winner. Eventually, the promoters took most of the bands who failed to win and packaged them in a separate SLAUGHTER SURVIVORS tour. Welp, the announcement of the 2012 candidates didn’t happen yesterday either. Instead, we got this cryptic explanation:

“As for the voting contest. FALLUJAH, CEREBRAL BORE and AEGAEON will all be contenders for the opening spot. Who else should be included? We are actually considering letting you guys vote for the 1st and 2nd spots on the tour! All the other 8 bands are confirmed.”

AUTHOR AND PUNISHER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Mar 122012

(BadWolf introduces us to Author and Punisher. Unlike most metal musicians, he engineers and builds his own instrumental devices. Prepare for massive nerdgasm.)

How would you like to be crushed by an army of giant robots? I’m afraid technology isn’t quite there yet, but the closest you could come is to jam on Author and Punisher.

Author and Punisher is the Industrial solo project of one Tristan Shone, and what an apt title it is. This is music that definitely follows a single creative vision (Author) and punishment is what he doles out. Shone’s new album, Ursus Americanus, will be released on April 24th through Seventh Rule records, the home of such sludgy marauders as: Indian, Harpoon, Lord Mantis, and the mighty Batillus.

Author and Punisher pulls influences from the more drone/groove oriented Industrial of Godflesh, as opposed to the thrashier (and poppier) Ministry school. Paradoxically, I find Author and Punisher heavier than those bands, but Tristan Shone does not use a guitar—and that’s precisely what is so metal about him.

He creates his own unique instruments—that resemble a Gundam cockpit. Check it out. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 42: BLASPHEMOPHAGHER, TEITANBLOOD, AND DIOCLETIAN

MISCELLANY 10 Responses »

Mar 112012

Almost a month ago I paid homage to the often disturbing but intensely magnetic “war metal” of Canada’s Mitochondrion. That led to a discussion in the Comments about what to call this kind of music. “Atmospheric death metal”? “Apocalyptic prog”? “Post-death metal?” Maybe “war metal” is as good a name as any.

The Comments also filled up with suggestions for other bands who have created similar kinds of soundtracks for Armageddon — not necessarily the exact same kind of music, but similar in the violent, apocalyptic atmospheres they conjure up. I picked three of those bands to feature in this post. This is a MISCELLANY post because I was unfamiliar with the music of each band (with one slight exception that I’ll mention later).

As per the self-imposed rules of MISCELLANY, I’ve randomly picked a song or two from each band, recorded my impressions, and then included the same songs for you to hear. The bands are: Blasphemophagher (Italy), Teitanblood (Spain), and Diocletian (New Zealand).

BLASPHEMOPHAGHER

This first band is the slight exception I mentioned. Blasphemophagher’s October 2011 album The III Command of the Absolute Chaos made Tr00 Nate’s list of his 30 favorite albums of 2011 that we published here, and I listened at that time to the sample song he picked, “Beyond Absolute Chaos”. So this time I decided to pick two different songs from the album. I chose “Chaostorm of Atomization” and “Abominable Nuclear Penetration”, because the names sounded so pleasant. Continue reading »

EL CACO: “HATRED”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 13 Responses »

Mar 102012

I remain short on blog time, but haven’t run out of the urge to headbang. “Hatred” feeds that need quite nicely. It’s a song by a Norwegian band called El Caco. It’s the first track released from a forthcoming album called Hatred, Love & Diagrams. It’s also the first El Caco song I’ve ever heard. I gather it’s different from what the band has done in the past, because they say so:

“On their new album, El Caco “push the envelope even further than they have done before,” according to a press release. “Having explored the melodic aspects of rock and metal for more than a decade, this album shows us yet another side of this multi layered band.”

I will say this: Based on this song I want to listen to more from that new album, which was released in January by Indie Recordings and is available from iTunes and Amazon mp3. The song has been turned into a music video, which appears after the jump. I’m afraid that’s all I have time to say, except . . . bang yo head. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: OBLIVIONIZED – “NULLIFY THE CYCLE”

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Mar 102012

Last August, I went nuts over Abhorrent Evolution, the debut EP by a London-based collective with the apt name of Oblivionized. I compared the listening experience to “being backed against a wall with a firehose spewing sulphuric acid at full force, straight at your unprotected self” and called the music “super-charged metal at a hyperdrive pace, a tech-grind portrait of the 7th Circle of Hell, music with the sensibilities of a ravenous demon horde set loose after a milennial imprisonment.” And there were more metaphors.

Now there are more songs. Oblivionized has just released a new three-song EP called Nullify the Cycle through Grindcore Karaoke, which has made the music available for free download on Bandcamp (in exchange for your e-mail address).

Oblivionized prove again that they are a band to watch very closely. Listening to “The Nullification of Philanthropy” and “Cycle of Deprivation” is like being dropped without warning into a war zone. Combining an array of corroded, swirling guitar leads and vicious chugs, the band vent their fury with megawatt power. But the music isn’t an explosion of chaos. It’s technically demanding and filled with sharp changes in rhythm; this mechanized assault is well-coordinated and impressively executed. Continue reading »

LIKE TEARS IN RAIN

Off Topic 12 Responses »

Mar 102012

Blade Runner is not a perfect movie. Among its flaws, Harrison Ford, playing the lead role of Deckard, was the weakest link in a cadre of actors who were otherwise everything you could have wanted. But it’s a movie that makes a deep impression, or at least it does if you’re at the right age, at the right time of your life when you see it. At the right time, it seems profound.

How long do we have? We don’t know. No one knows. It’s a shame we won’t live . . . but who does? A blade runner, a hunter of rogue replicants, of skinjobs, realizes too late that life is precious, even artificial life. He realizes, as we all will eventually, the ultimate tragedy in the loss of a lifetime of unique experiences as all those moments pass away and doves fly off in the rain. Maybe he realizes that he, too, is a replicant. But does it really matter? They’re only accelerated versions of us, their energy draining away to the vanishing point before they’re ready. And who is ever ready?

A video artist named Francois Vautier extracted 167,819 frames from Blade Runner‘s final-cut version and assembled them into a gigantic virtual wall of images — a square of approximately 60,000 pixels on one side alone. He then created a virtual camera as a roving observer of the mosaic, passing over the frames in a compressed version of the movie itself. If you’re a Blade Runner worshipper, as I am, it’s a cool thing to see. Continue reading »

BANG THAT HEAD

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Mar 092012

As you may have surmised from the relatively small number of posts the last few days (and perhaps the content of the last one), work and work-related things have interfered with your humble editor’s dedication to metalness. Unfortunately, it’s likely that I will continue to be fucked with by such interferences over the next few days. However, I did manage to squeeze in a quick listening expedition earlier today and I found some items that got my head rockin’.

That’s really about the only common theme running through the music in this post. The styles are divergent, but they all trigger that natural, in-born urge to bang the head. Or at least that’s what happened to me, and that’s really all that matters, right? So even if the music doesn’t make you bang your head, you can rejoice in the knowledge that I got the shit cranked up loud and got myself a good head banging, and that ought to make you blissfully happy.

The bands are these: 4ARM (Australia), Tukkanuotta (Finland), Iblis (Poland), and Cancer Bats (Canada).

4ARM

4ARM is a thrash band from Australia who released their third album (and their first for Rising Records) in February. It’s called Submission For Liberty. Also last month, the band released an official video for the title track, which I happened to come across today for the first time. Continue reading »

THE FBI FUCKS WITH NCS AND WE FUCK BACK WITH ATOMA

Exceptions to the Rule, IQ Subtraction, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 55 Responses »

Mar 092012

It was just a matter of time. You can’t write about the kind of vicious, seething, anarchic, soul-rending noise that we cover here at NCS — stuff like shamisen rock, Lacuna Coil, The BadPiper, and BabyMetal — without The Man coming down on your ass eventually. I got an e-mail from the fucking FBI yesterday! And they weren’t writing to wish me a happy World Kidney Day either.

But they picked on the wrong fucking people. I gave ’em a piece of my mind, and I’m not talking about the piece that loves kitties and sleeps a lot. That’s our motto here at NCS — you get fucked, you fuck back . . . hard. And I’m fucking back with a new music video by Sweden’s AtomA, the latest band to be joined by Christian Älvestam as the vocalist. I believe this is the 1,623rd such band.

We’re not going to let the FBI try to fuck with us in private either. You have to expose this kind of heavy-handed bullshit for everyone to see, so the masses can rise up in solidarity and strike back like a big fucken rattlesnake that’s been roused from its slumber — give The Man a big dose of lethal venom! So, after the jump . . . the piece-of-shit e-mail I got from the FBI, my courageous response, and the AtomA video. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TUOMAS SAUKKONEN (BEFORE THE DAWN)

Interviews 10 Responses »

Mar 092012

EDITOR’S NOTE: Finnish multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter Tuomas Saukkonen is the driving creative force behind two of this site’s favorite bands — Before the Dawn and Black Sun Aeon — along with about 1,000 other musical projects. BTD’s new album, Rise of the Phoenix, is scheduled for release by Nuclear Blast on April 27, and just yesterday we featured a killer song and official video for one of the new songs, “The Phoenix Rising”. If you haven’t seen it yet, make haste to this location, where you’ll also find a link to a free download of the song.

Today, we’re fortunate to feature this interview of Tuomas Saukkonen by guest writer KevinP, which includes insights into the new album, the band’s line-up changes, and the shift in musical style that we’ll be hearing on Rise of the Phoenix, along with much else.

********

This is your second album coming out on Nuclear Blast. What’s different this time around and why should people who didn’t care for you in the past now be interested?

The timing is a lot better than with the first album with NB. We signed the deal just before Christmas and the album came out in Europe 16.2. So there was not much time for promotion. With the new album we have totally 3 months, which is pretty big thing. Musically there has been a pretty big change in our scale, and there will surely be some changes in the fan base also. If you thought we were just one girlie metal band, you should really check out the new material.

Lars (bass/clean vocals) and Atte (drums) are out of the band and replaced with Pyry (bass) and Joonas (drums). What made you choose them as replacements?

Joonas and I have been friends for a looong time and we have been trying to find a band or project for a long time where we could be in the same line-up. I’ve been a fan of his playing for a long time. Also he has inspired my drum playing a lot. Pyry used to be my drum student a few years back but had been playing guitar since he was 10. Very cool and musically talented guy who started to play bass around the same time as drum, so he was an ideal choice. Continue reading »

BEFORE THE DAWN: THE “PHOENIX RISING” VIDEO

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Mar 082012

Read this:

“Enioy the official video clip for the first single “Phoenix Rising”, taken from BEFORE THE DAWN‘s upcoming melodic death metal sledgehammer Rise Of The Phoenix (OUT on April 27).

The song is also available as a free download at Nuclear Blast:http://bit.ly/ziaxYI

Pre-order “Rise Of The Phoenix” at the Nuclear Blast web shop:http://bit.ly/xQtGxu“

Now, watch and listen to this: Continue reading »

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