AN NCS INTERVIEW: TEXTURES

 Interviews  4 Responses »
Oct 142011
 

(Textures‘ new album Dualism has been making quite an impact. We sure as hell liked it here at NCS, as reflected in TheMadIsraeli’s review. Now TheMadIsraeli follows that up with this interview of the band.)

Hello there! First off, how are you all doing today? I’m honored to even be doing an email interview with you guys, you’ve been one of my favorite bands since Drawing Circles.

Hi! Very good! We just got back from the USA tour these days, so life is turning back to normal again, getting used to the European rhtyhm again, and we’re preparing for the upcoming release shows.

I’m curious to hear from you guys, how does it feel to be on your 4th album now?

It feels natural haha, it’s just what we like to do! Time flies when you are having fun! We are very proud when we look back at all the 4 albums, and if we had to do it again, we would have done it the same way i think.

So you’ve just wrapped up the Frak The Gods tour. In hindsight, how did you enjoy the tour and what were your favorite or favorites of the three other bands on the bill? I know you guys love The Contortionist for example.

Yeah that band has really amazed us, it’s a great live band, and their sound and set was ultra steady, each night! I must say i didn’t know them before this tour, so for me it was a double surprise, just awesome to watch, every night. And great guys as well! Periphery and the Human Abstract are fun to watch too, great musicians!

Continue reading »

HELP A BROTHER OUT

 Uncategorized  30 Responses »
Oct 142011
 


It’s that time of year again, and by that I mean it’s vacation time (almost)! Yes, your humble Nitwit-in-Chief will soon be embarking for sunnier climes, leaving behind the fucking day job and the Seattle dank in search of a little R&R. While I’m gone, my blogging time will be significantly restricted. My wife, Mrs. Nitwit (which I can say because she never reads NCS) remains adamant that when she and I are on vacation, hours spent blogging every day will NOT be tolerated. She can be a scary person when angry and she’s good with a knife, so I don’t plan to push my luck.

I know our regular staff members — Andy, BadWolf, and TheMadIsraeli — will step up their game while I’m gone, and I’m hoping for the same from some of our more or less regular guest writers (Phro and Trollfiend, I’m lookin’ at you). But, as I did last year, I’m also appealing for help from our loyal cadre of NCS readers to help keep the site from going dark while I’m away by sending me guest submissions.

If you’ve ever toyed with the idea of writing something for publication at NCS or some other metal blog, now’s a good time to give it a shot. Or maybe you’re already writing for another blog and you’d like to upgrade the content quality at NCS (good luck with that).  Regardless of your situation, we want your shit! Uh, I meant, we want the eloquence of your written expression! Details after the jump . . . Continue reading »

STOP FUCKIN WIT ME

 Uncategorized  64 Responses »
Oct 142011
 


What I know about rap and crunk music isn’t worth a popcorn fart. It’s not that I think it’s bad, on some objective scale of “blows” to “awesome”. It’s just that, in my current frame of mind, it’s like everything else that isn’t metal: 99% of it is just BORE. ING.

But there are exceptions to every rule, and Lil Jon’s song “Stop Fuckin Wit Me” is one of them. I just heard this yesterday. The only reason I even found out about it is because there’s a metal connection: The song includes samples from Slayer. Some will say this pollutes Slayer, Some will say this pollutes crunk. And some will say this is a crime against all music, and a crime against nature on top of that. But me? I just wanna get in my car, roll the windows down, and blast this shit at random strangers until my speakers plead for mercy, “give em some of my fuckin pain”.

It’s kind of like that Archgoat song we featured yesterday. Sometimes, you just get some irreplaceable pleasure out of annoying the shit out of other people. But beyond that, this song just speaks to me. It gives voice to that small, meek voice that wants to be a lot bigger than it is, the voice that just wants to say, almost every day, to one person or another, who may or may not have it coming to ’em but I’d like to give it to ’em anyway, STOP FUCKIN WIT ME!

Oh yeah, one more thing: Credit to Cormorant for turning me onto this via a FB post, and who would’ve guessed that quite awesome band would be paying attention to this song? It came out years ago, and so some of you may find this to be really old news, but from my perspective if it’s new to me, then it’s just fuckin NEW. (listen after the jump) Continue reading »

LISTEN UP!

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 132011
 

A reminder:

NO CLEAN SINGING was originally launched by three people almost two years ago. My two comrades have sort of fallen by the wayside as time has passed, though on rare occasions one of them surfaces to contribute a post. On this site, he goes by the name IntoTheDarkness. Beginning last month, he became the Metal Director at KSUB, the internet radio station of Seattle University. He’s responsible for the station’s metal playlist and he also personally hosts a two-hour metal show every Thursday night at 10:00 Pacific Time.

There’s not a lot of talking on that show, apart from IntoTheDarkness telling you what you’re going to hear, or have heard, but I can pretty much guarantee that the music will be killer — all extreme metal with no commercials. Now, I know there are 1,000 other ways you can find metal on the web for listening purposes, wholly apart from your own personal collection of music, but this is one way that I can’t help but promote, (a) because I know the dude pretty well (that’s an understatement), and (b) because I respect his taste. So, give this a shot.

To hear the show, you’ll need Winamp, iTunes, XMMS or an mp3 player capable of listening to shoutcast streams on your computer. You can listen by clicking this link. And for future reference, here’s the URL:

http://www.seattleu.edu/ksub/default.aspx?id=66045

And yeah, this is Thursday, so the show will be on in about 30 minutes from now.

A HILL TO DIE UPON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  55 Responses »
Oct 132011
 

I’ve been meaning to write something about this Illinois band since  NCS reader Austin sent me a link to one of their songs a couple weeks ago. Today seemed like a good day to do it, for reasons I’ll explain later.

Their most recent album, Omens, was released in June of this year and followed their 2009 debut album Infinite Titanic Immortal. The core of the band are two brothers, Adam Cook (guitar, bass, lead vocals) and Michael Cook (drums, backing vox). Even before listening to the music, I was struck by the eye-catching cover art for the two albums. The cover of the debut is above and you can see the cover of Omens after the jump.

The two-headed eagle can mean many things, but among others it connects (in my mind) to the imagery of Polish death-metal heavyweights Behemoth because AHTDU’s music reminds me of that band. So far, I’ve only listened to a handful of songs from the two albums, but from what I’ve heard, the music has a similar imperial weight and obsidian edge. The band deliver heavy, crushing rhythms with a controlled, martial drumbeat; fat, groaning riffs augmented by bursts of rapid-fire, blackened-thrash leads and slithering solo’s; and predatory, lionine vocals. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ARCHGOAT: “HEAVENLY VULVA (CHRIST’S LAST RITES)”

 Album Reviews  24 Responses »
Oct 132011
 

We get our fair share of e-mails every day from record label representatives and PR folks. The most intriguing ones are those offering promo’s of new albums for review purposes, especially albums from bands whose music I don’t know anything about. I wish I had time to download and listen to everything that comes our way, but I don’t. So I can’t help but be influenced by what the e-mails say about the music, and how they say it. There’s an art to doing it well.

Some of the most effective pitches we get come from Earsplit PR, an outfit run by Liz Ciavarella-Brenner and Dave Brenner. They represent an extraordinary range of metal bands and labels, and they seem to have a chameleon-like ability to adapt their prose to each band’s music. Liz, in particular, seems to have my number, maybe because the e-mails I get from her trend more toward the very nasty end of the metal spectrum that I like best (and yes, I know she’s not writing these messages for me alone, though sometimes it seems that way). Now, I don’t know who wrote this message I got yesterday, because this one wasn’t specifically signed by Liz or Dave, but shit . . . you have to read this:

“ARCHGOAT’s new mini-album Heavenly Vulva (Christ’s Last Rites) goes straight for the throat of the self-proclaimed messiah and his wretched mother. Featuring six trademark God-slaying tracks torn directly from the Virgin’s violated womb, this brand new EP is gloriously crude, divinely tumultuous and deliciously deviant, as we have come to expect from the filthy, fearless Finn black crusaders. Defiled, invasive unsanctified black/death delivered in a corrupt, vile and demonic fashion, these anti-epiphanies embed themselves in the sacred flesh, spilling blood from the demised dog’s quivering body, funeral bells chiming as paradise is ransacked and the deceptive lie of centuries is exposed. Pounding, ripping, gurgling and mocking, the truth reveals itself. Blood-soaked, battered and humiliated, the deposed former denizens of Heaven cower in a corner. A frantic, blasphemous onslaught on the blind, deluded fraud-worshippers and knee-bending whoremongers who follow the path of the Liar!
The band is not available for interviews.”

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

GRAVEWORM: SEE “SEE NO FUTURE” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 122011
 

Late last week in a post about free downloads I included a song by Italy’s Graveworm called “See No Future”, which will appear on their new album (the eighth), Fragments of Death, which Nuclear Blast will be releasing on October 21. In the same post I included a song from Immolation’s new free EP released by Scion A/V.

So, yesterday a video appeared for the Immolation song I featured, and by happenstance one has now appeared for the Graveworm song, too. So, playing that Graveworm video for you seemed like a fitting way to close our posting day, especially since we’ve been kind of death-metal focused in our music this Wednesday.

I gather from a few comments on last week’s post that this song may be something of a departure from Graveworm’s previous sound, perhaps too much goth/pop influence in the chorus melody in the eyes (ears) of some. But I still really like it. The video is decent, too, though I’m not sure I fully understand its meaning. The band has explained that the masks are connected to the view that the planet has no future, but what’s the significance of the schematics that flash on the screen? Comments are welcome, of course, whether about the video or the song — which is still available for download here. Video after the jump. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 37 (THE SURGICAL BRUTE EDITION) (Pt 2)

 MISCELLANY  64 Responses »
Oct 122011
 

NCS reader SurgicalBrute has turned me on to many excellent bands, and I’ve come to trust his tips. Recently he sent me a new batch of recommendations, and so I decided to just pick three of them for this edition of MISCELLANY. I may do the other three another time.

The way MISCELLANY usually works: We keep a growing list of bands whose music we haven’t heard but who look interesting. The list includes all the bands who contact NCS asking for a review (as it happens, one of SurgicalBrute’s recommendations is also a band who contacted us). Unfortunately, I’ll never be able to get through that list, but when I can, I grab a few names off of it at random, listen to a song or two, write up my impressions, and then stream the same music for you.

This time, of course, I’m using SB’s list instead of the NCS list, and the bands I picked are: Bones (US-Chicago), Embers (US-Oakland), and Undead Creep (Italy). To begin:

BONES

Here’s what SurgicalBrute had to say about this first band: “Crusty death metal, and one of my favorite releases this year. They get a lot of comparison to Chicago’s Usurper.” The Usurper comparisons are inevitable: The band is composed of three ex-Usurper members. They released their self-titled debut (on Planet Metal) in July, recording the album live in the studio with production help from Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium). SurgicalBrute sent me a YouTube link to a track called “Bloodlust”, and that’s the song I listened to first.  Continue reading »

BONUSES FROM THE BABOON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Oct 122011
 

It’s been too long since we last showed some love for our blog brethren at Death Metal Baboon, so we’re remedying that. If you haven’t discovered the delights of DMB, you should. Here at NCS, we pride ourselves on promoting underground metal by spotlighting not-so-well-known bands from around the world, as well as the bigger names that everyone has heard of — but in that department, DMB has got us beat. Especially for metal coming out of Europe, they do an excellent job ferreting out musical gems from bands who don’t get much exposure here in the States, and DMB writer (and frequent NCS commenter) byrd36 does the same for State-side music.

Apart from showing some love and appreciation for DMB, the purpose of this post is to alert you to two recent pieces of content at that site I thought might interest you. The first is an entertaining and informative interview that DMB head-honcho Niek Baboon conducted with Dutch folk-metal band Heidevolk. You remember Heidevolk, don’t you? They were included in one of our MISCELLANY posts in late August (here), and  that mention has led to increased attention to folk metal at NCS (thanks in large part to the energies of our guest contributor Trollfiend). Check out Niek’s recently expanded interview HERE. When it comes to the Dutch, it takes one to know one.

The second piece of DMB content concerns a 3-piece UK instrumental metal band called Bleaklow. Niek reviewed their latest EP (The Sunless Country) HERE. His review led me to listen to the album, and today he alerted me to the fact that it’s now available for download on Bandcamp at a “name your price” option. The EP is one, long, 24-minute song. Like Niek, I have some trouble describing it, except to say that I like it a lot. It’s more on the prog side of the spectrum than most of the music we cover here, but it’s definitely headbang-worthy. Gritty, compelling, stripped-down prog with heavy balls. And a sweet sax solo in Part IV of the song. I’m including the second part of the song after the jump, and you can stream the whole thing via that Bandcamp link. Continue reading »

DEATH FUCKING METAL FOR YOUR WEDNESDAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 122011
 


As I did my daily perusing on the interhole last night, two new videos caught my bloodshot eyes. They made me gnash my teeth and scowl. They made me want to bust up shit, but since I owned all the nearby shit and was too lazy to go next door and bust up my neighbor’s shit, I refrained. They made me want to drink blood and dine on fresh fetuses, but all I could find was a beer and a chicken breast. However, I scowled and growled while I ate and drank, because it is death fucking metal and it is black as rotten teeth.

Only five days ago we wrote about Scion A/V releasing a free EP of Immolation songs called Providence. In a bomb-burst of enthusiasm, I called it one of the best death metal releases of the year. I picked my favorite track from the EP to stream with that post, “Illumination”. In a testament to the wisdom of clean living and human sacrifice, I was rewarded last night by the release of an official video for that self-same track, financed by Scion A/V. I hope Scion A/V gets at least one new car sale out of this. I don’t know why they would, but they fucken deserve it. And you deserve to download the EP, which you can do HERE.

The other video is a French band called Svart Crown playing two songs at the Evening of Metal Festival at the Salle Aragon in Saint Dizier, France on October 8. I discovered this band almost exactly one year ago when I reviewed their second album, Witnessing the Fall. Coincidentally, I compared them to a joint venture between Immortal and . . . Immolation. I still fucking love that album, and finally, through this video, I now get to see Svart Crown put a skull-creasing beatdown on a live audience. Vidz after the jump. Death fucking metal. Fuck yeah, as they say in French. Continue reading »

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