A MASTODON FANBOY UNPACKS THE HUNTER – It’s Not What You Think

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

(NCS writer BadWolf provides his take on Mastodon’s new album, The Hunter.)

A whole lot of misconceptions are flying around about Mastodon’s The Hunter. There is so much bullshit coming from so many remote corners of the metalliverse that conversation about The Hunter matches the album—scattershot.

People, including Mastodon themselves, would have you think The Hunter is some sort of radical departure from their past. It’s not. It doesn’t even break the ‘element’ theme Mastodon has been using—the cover art is a wooden structure, and many songs mention plants, wood, or the woods in general.

The press has called it a pseudo-successor to Remission, but those people have got to be on the brown acid. The Hunter resembles Blood Mountain more than anything. Both records take their predecessors as templates and run them through a million experiments. Traditional rock structures save these various experiments, otherwise they would spiral into incomprehension.

And the greatest insanity—people are calling this a bid for radio success. Yes, it’s an album of singles, especially “Curl of the Burl,” but there is a distinct schizophrenia to Mastodon that mainstream America just won’t accept. The album is an insane jumble of mellowness and aggression, electronic and organic. EG: “Thickening,” where delicate melodies play over turgid downbeat sludge. The choruses have gotten more decipherable and feel-good, but the verses are still abstract. Without an overarching storyline to anchor them, individual songs flicker from genius to batshit and back. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NIGHTRAGE: “INSIDIOUS”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

(NCS writer TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album from Nightrage.)

Marios Iliopoulos’ pet project and melodeath beast Nightrage have been one of melodic death metal’s best more recent bands. Managing to bring in the old school sounds of greats such as In Flames and Dark Tranquility, the band have created an undeniably classic sound that destroys the modern metal landscape, rendering their genre niche far more than relevant. I’ve loved this band since their classic debut Sweet Vengeance and it really doesn’t seem like that will change, because Insidious is like a bringer of flame, leaving large swathes of ground scorched into dead flatlands of smoldering menace. As a bonus, the band’s original vocalist and legend of the mic Tomas Lindberg contributes vocals to more then one song.

The meditative clean drones of intro track “So Far Away” almost invoke a sense of inner peace until fierce opener “Delirium Of The Fallen” kicks in with high-gear thrashing and tasteful melodic leads in the classic Nightrage style. The music has taken a step back to the feel and style of their sophomore album Descent Into Chaos, with plenty of songs based on Marios’s graceful leads and capability for writing great themes. The majesty of the chorus alone demonstrates the man’s ability for guitar layering; it washes over you and you drown in it, smiling. Apollo Papathanasio of Firewind also provides the clean vocals of the bridge.

“Insidious” is the first song on which Tomas Lindberg appears, and it immediately destroys you in what can only be described as a melodic death metal napalm run, igniting pure hell fire and obliterating everything in sight. The riffs are sharp and the drums charge forward while regular vocalist Anthony Hämäläinen and Lindgren engage in absolutely fast and ferocious vocal interplay. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HUMPPA ‘TIL IT HURTS! TROLL BENDS FIR + JONNE JARVELA (KORPIKLAANI)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Oct 092011
 

If you don’t know what humppa is, you could check out this post from our Finland Tribute Week series last December, which featured Finntroll and Korpiklaani. Or, you could listen to the song that follows the jump in this post.

The players are twofold: First is Troll Bends Fir, a folk metal (or maybe folk rock) band from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Actually, the band call their music “beer metal”. They contacted NCS about their music a loooong time ago (how could you forget a name like that?), but at the time I wasn’t convinced the music was in the target area for this site. But our horizons have broadened some since then, especially since Trollfiend moved into the NCS neighborhood and started introducing us to his folk-metal relatives.

Troll Bends Fir’s latest release is a compilation released on September 16 called Братья Во Хмелю (Brothers in Drinks). It includes a song called “Хумппа По Соседству” (“Humppa Is My Neighbor”), which features guest vocals by none other than Jonne Järvelä of Korpiklaani — and he’s the second player in this post. The song is just too much fuckin’ fun not to share. So, you can hear it after the jump. There’s also a tender video about the making of the song, too. Go on, humppa ’til it hurts.  (credit to Trollfiend — who else? — for this tip.) Continue reading »

GOJIRA. “BACKBONE”. LIVE. NEED WE SAY MORE?

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 092011
 

Gojira – Backbone – Sonisphère 2011 from KLIKON on Vimeo.

On July 8, 2011, Gojira played the Sonisphere festival at Snowhall Parc, Amnéville, France. A new video of the band performing “Backbone” (which is probably my favorite Gojira song) has just surfaced. It starts with the French version of the running of the bulls, and then the neck-snapping starts.

Prepare to BANG YO’ FUCKEN HEADS.

UPDATE: Jan Lavadome e-mailed me a link to another Gojira video that I’d never seen. It’s the band performing “Remembrance” in 2003 and comes off their Link Alive DVD (released in 2007). It kills. Especially the super-tight rhythmic assault from 3:26 to the end. Watch after the jump. Continue reading »

BOX O’POOPS! (No. 2)

 IQ Subtraction, Phro's Posts  25 Responses »
Oct 092011
 

(Phro’s first Box O’Poops installment met with such an enthusiastic response that he decided to do another one for us. Actually, to be brutally honest, I don’t think anyone read it but him and me, and I didn’t have any choice in the matter. But we goin’ with it anyway!)

Well, hello there, my scat-covered-in-cum-munching friend. How’s the poop today? Did you enjoy the way I lightly browned it in your mom’s cooker? I wouldn’t recommend eating at home for a while.

Well, I decided to do another installment of Box O’ Poops! Why? Because I love you and your pure, unbridled happiness is all I desire in this world. And, because, ya’ know…POOP!!!

Seriously, you know how monkeys like to throw their poop? Y’all are like poop-throwing-monkey groupies who hang around outside the monkey cage at the zoo waiting for the monkeys to fling their poop at dumb jocks wearing too much Axe buddy spray (yah, that’s right, buddy spray). Then, you jump on the shit-covered assholes who smell like shit (but not because of the monkey shit (Axe body spray smells horrific, is my point (I just really hate Axe body spray, I’m not even sure why… (In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever even smelled it. But the commercials sure are stupid. (And I am all for hating products based on their commercials. (That’s kind of why I hate Taco Bell. (Seriously, Fourth Meal?? What the fuck?? (I got’cher fourth meal right here in my ass cannon, buddy! (And now we’re full-circle back to poop-throwing!))))))))

Paranthetic clauses are awesome! So is munching on scat from a necroplushiphilia orgy! And then washing it down with a shot of santorum. (Google it? Don’t Google it? Either way, you’re worse of for knowing it exists.)

To the POOOOOOOOOOPS!!! (uh, yeah, more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 45)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  16 Responses »
Oct 092011
 

Sheesh, it’s been almost a solid month since I found time for one of these posts. That’s what I call falling down on the job! In an effort to make up for all the slacking off, I’ve rounded up five items that caught my eye. For any new readers who joined us in the last month, this series of posts collects videos, news items, and/or photos that I think are metal, even though they’re not music. All of today’s items are visual in nature, and credit goes to the incomparable TYWKIWDBI blog for all of them. Ready, set, go!

ITEM ONE

The first item is the image you see at the top of this post. Look at the squares labeled A and B. They are exactly the same color. No shit. The proof of that can be seen in the image to the right, in which cross-bars have been laid over the original image. You can see how the bars blend equally with the two squares. I see this and I still don’t quite believe it, and I don’t know the explanation for why my eyes see the squares as having different colors. As illusions go, I think it’s metal.

If you’re still skeptical, there’s video of this same illusion right after the jump. I suppose the highly skeptical among you might think there’s some kind of trickery going on in the video, but the creator insists there isn’t. Continue reading »

“THE NEW YORKER” FEATURES BLACK METAL

 Metal News  30 Responses »
Oct 082011
 

I’m the only metalhead I know who subscribes to The New Yorker magazine, though I’m sure there are other metalhead subscribers out there. But probably not many. I usually read the movie and book reviews because the writing is so good, even though I almost never get around to reading the books or seeing the movies themselves. Most weeks, that’s all I can manage to do, usually because I don’t have the time to read more.

Sasha Frere-Jones is the magazine’s pop-music critic (though what he writes about is really more eclectic than the term “pop” might lead you to believe). He’s also a member of bands called Calvinist and Piñata. I usually read his stuff, too, but not because I have much interest in the music he covers; again, I admire the writing.

Today, the on-line version of The New Yorker published a Frere-Jones piece that I read because, for a change, I was interested in the subject matter as much as the writing. The subject is American black metal, with a particular focus on Wolves in the Throne Room and Liturgy. I found it amusing because it’s being written for an audience that probably knows nothing, or next-to-nothing, about black metal, and reading it is like seeing our tiny, extreme genre of music through someone else’s eyes.

Also, remarkably, it doesn’t use the words “fuck”, “fucking”, “brutal”, “pummeling”, or other words most of us are used to seeing (or in my case, using) in descriptions of metal. You can read the article via this link, or you can go past the jump, because I’ve pasted it into this post. Continue reading »

HULL: “BEYOND THE LIGHTLESS SKY”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 082011
 

There’s a point at which the vector lines of blackened sludge, doom, stoner metal, and psychedelia intersect, and at that point sits Hull. That realization is evident from the opening track of this remarkable Brooklyn band’s new album, Beyond the Lightless Sky. “Earth From Water” has it all: lurching, catastrophically distorted, cavernously tuned guitar and bass, crushing all in their path; tripping psych-blues guitar leads designed to give you a 1,000-yard stare and solos that would make Jimi Hendrix smile if he were still with us; skull-fracturing drum progressions; vocalizations that mimic the sound of a man with his intestines being pulled out with hot pincers — all of it dense and dark and hopeless, and yet utterly enthralling.

And then I came to the second track, “Just A Trace of Early Dawn”, and I changed my mind. Thematically, the music hasn’t changed. It is still a lesson in the emotional fallout of despair, but the sound of it! Very different, like an Appalachian take on the blackened blues, deep in the hills at night, acoustic guitars strumming an indigo meditation, long and slow, like mournful sex with someone you’ve known forever and will never see again. The light and the delight have gone, and what remains is the sorrow of your maturity.

So off-balanced was I at this point, I wondered what would come next. After a few, brief transitional seconds linking up with the end of the song before, “Beyond the Lightless Sky” returns to the riveting mix of the opener: A segment of rushing cacophony which then zooms off a cliff and falls and falls into a black pit with deep tar at the bottom, all gripping sludge filled with THC, a thick covering of doom, pierced by hallucinatory guitar leads.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS: A STUDIO UPDATE

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Oct 072011
 

(Here’s an update from Andy Synn about Abigail Williams’ work on their next album.)

Some of you may know (or may not, hell, I don’t know how much any of you pay attention) that I’m a big fan of Abigail Williams. You might also know that since we opened for them a few months back I’ve been in pretty regular contact with Ken “Sorceron”, keeping tabs on their various tours and the writing and recording of their upcoming third album.

The band recently completed drum-recording at Keene Machine Studios in LA, with the irrepressible Michael Keene (of The Faceless fame) engineering. The rest of the record is being recorded at the group’s own home studio, with frontman Ken Sorceron acting as producer (as, contrary to popular belief, he has done on both the group’s previous records). With that in mind, I thought it the perfect time to issue a bit of an update on how things are going and collect together the various hints and bits of info that I’ve managed to glean so far . . .

First things first, as you may have seen, the band are collaborating with drummer Zach Gibson, who originally appeared with them way back on the Legend EP (btw – if you can track down “Watchtower: Revisited”, the re-recording of one of the debut EP’s best tracks, I recommend you do). Mr Gibson has been appearing of late with “Phobia” and “Gutrot”, delivering short spasming blasts of grindcore devastation. As he says in the video you’ll see at the end of this post, he’s had to adapt his style a bit to the new AW material… (more after the jump) Continue reading »

TUKAARIA: “RAW TO THE RAPINE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Oct 072011
 

NCS writer Andy Synn was bored by my last post about Iced Earth and all the discussion in the comments about power metal. Boring Andy is the last thing I want to do. Well, actually, the last thing I want to do is mutilate my genitals with a blowtorch, but boring Andy is certainly high on the list of things to avoid.

So, I decided I would go to Facebook and pick the very first piece of nasty music I saw in the recent stories on my wall and throw it up here. And the very first status I saw on my wall was a post by Profound Lore with a link to a song on Soundcloud by a one-man Los Angeles black metal band called Tukaaria. It turns out that Profound Lore has plans to release a CD later this year that will include Tukaaria’s sole full-length, 2011’s Raw to the Rapine (released on tape by Rhinocervs), plus material from a cassette split that Tukaaria did with a band called Odz Manouk. The song on Soundcloud is the title track from Raw to the Rapine.

Finding this song was piece of luck. It just seems right for several reasons. One, Tuukaria is a Yaqui word meaning “night”. If you don’t know about the Yaqui, stay with me past the jump. Two, “Raw to the Rapine” is an awesomely metal song name. And three, the song name is apt, because the music is raw as road-burn and senses-raping. It also got my head bobbing. It could have been a big piece of shit and I would have posted it here anyway because I promised myself I’d go with the first thing I saw. But it’s damned good.

Also, there’s a fourth thing: the song is available for free download. Listen, get the download link, and read about the Yaqui, after the jump. Continue reading »

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