ABIGAIL WILLIAMS UPDATE: GOOD NEWS (“BECOMING” IS NOW STREAMING IN FULL) AND NOT SO GOOD NEWS (DARK FUNERAL TOUR WILL BE CANCELED)

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Jan 172012
 

We’ve got good news and not so good news on the Abigail Williams front. The good news is that the band’s forthcoming album, Becoming, is now streaming in full at Hails & Horns, accompanied by an interview with AW’s Ken Sorceron. We got a very early listen to this album back in November, and published what (as far as we know) is the first review of Becoming, written by NCS scribe Andy Synn. (here).

In a nutshell, this is an unusually compelling album, one that should vault this band into the upper echelons of American black metal, one we expect will be on many people’s Best of 2012 lists when this new year draws to a close. We’re not the only people who feel that way — Becoming is already racking up a slew of advance rave reviews. But you don’t have to take anyone else’s word for it any more. GO HERE to listen to the entire album while the stream lasts. Becoming will be released by Candlelight Records on January 24, and pre-orders are being accepted at this location, as well as on iTunes.

Now for the not-so-good news: Although no official statement has yet been released, word is already out that Dark Funeral is canceling its headlining North American tour, which was scheduled to begin on January 29 in Springfield, Virginia. Plans for the tour were already impacted by Belphegor’s exit from the line-up due to frontman Helmuth Lehner’s surgery last fall, which caused the band to cancel all performances through this May. Now, it appears the tour will be shelved altogether.

However, we’ve learned that Abigail Williams — who were to be part of that tour along with Inquisition and Gigan — are doing their best to schedule replacement dates. They need help from interested venues and local bands. More about that after the jump. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DEFORMITY: “DEFOULMENT OF HUMAN PURITY”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 172012
 

(NCS contributor The Baby Killer returns to our site with a review of the 2010 Sevared Records release by Norway’s Hideous Deformity.)

When people think of metal from Norway, more often than not they automatically think of black metal. After all, corpse paint and arson do seem to be the country’s biggest exports. But as hard as it might be for some to wrap their heads around it, there is also at least one really talented tech death band from the frozen wastelands, and they go by the name of Hideous Deformity.

They may not have reinvented the wheel with their full-length Defoulment of Human Purity, but what they did do was find a good balance of technicality and accessibility. The riffs and songwriting in general are very fast-paced and spastic, but not to the point of self-indulgent wankery a la Brain Drill or early Origin. No sleight against them or bands like them, I love that shit as much as the next guy, but there is a point where it gets just plain exhausting. Instead, HD’s songs fall into that tech death grey area where they’re way too tech to be considered groovy, but are undeniably intriguing and catchy at the same time. Think Visceral Bleeding or Cabinet-era Spawn of Possession and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re dealing with.

As you may have gathered by now, the musicianship is top-notch, easily on par with any other relevant tech death band, and with a session lineup including Darren Cesca (Arsis, Goratory, Vile, etc.) and Erlend Caspersen (Blood Red Throne, Spawn of Possession), how could it not? These two make their presence known right off the bat, too, since the first two tracks, “Awaiting Decomposition” and “Deviant Manifestation”, begin with a drum solo from Cesca and a bass solo from Caspersen respectively. Guitarist Robin Larsen and vocalist Jorgen Nilssen (quite possibly the single most Norwegian-sounding name I’ve ever heard) round out the lineup, and thus the riff machine that is Hideous Deformity is born. Continue reading »

TWO TITANS TIP TITLES (CANNIBAL CORPSE AND MESHUGGAH)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

What a feature-packed Monday this has turned out to be!  The latest thing to catch my bloodshot eye is that gnarly Vincent Locke album cover up there, from one of the gnarliest-ever, ever-gnarly death metal bands ever: Cannibal Corpse.

Yes, the next Cannibal Corpse album is fast approaching (with the Metal Blade release scheduled for March 13) and it will be called Torture. More from today’s press release: “While Torture marks the latest progression in the band’s sound, it also witnesses a return to what drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz accurately terms ‘the frenzied attack of Butchered At Birth (1991) or Tomb Of The Mutilated (1992),’ infusing the band’s advanced musicianship with the raw savagery that haunted their earlier releases, and in the process conceiving the definitive CANNIBAL CORPSE record.” Can I get a throaty FUCK YEAH!?  Thank you.

Also, you may remember that one week ago we zapped up on this site a YouTube leak of the first track from Torture called “Demented Aggression”. Unauthorized thing that it was, it got yanked from YouTube fairly quickly. But now, we have an authorized stream of the song for those who missed it. That’s right after the jump (and yes, it lives up to that “raw savagery” billing), along with pre-order info for the album. Also after the jump: more news about Meshuggah’s next album. Continue reading »

MORE FREE DELICIOUS HEAD FUCKAGE FROM SCION A/V METAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I’m almost to the point of buying a Scion car just to express my gratitude to Scion A/V.  Almost.  Unless you’ve been living in a cave (or the loris compound at the NCS Island), you probably know that Scion A/V has been releasing free EPs and videos from badass metal bands.  But they’re doing more than that.

What I just discovered is that Scion A/V has been enlisting certain metal labels to round up a selection of their artists for performances in Los Angeles before live audiences, professionally recording the shows, and then prepping audio of the performances for free download.

The first team-up was with Nuclear Blast, who helped arrange appearances of Exodus, All Shall Perish, Origin, and Decrepit Birth at The Roxy in West Hollywood on November 12 of last year. As of today, the digital album of those live performances has become available for free download. Here’s the track list, which happens to include many of my favorite songs from each band:

1.  Decrepit Birth: “Metatron”
2.  Decrepit Birth: “The Resonance”
3.  Decrepit Birth: “Polarity”
4.  Origin: “Banishing Illusion”
5.  Origin: “Evolution of Extinction”
6.  Origin: “Swarm”
7.  All Shall Perish: “Wage Slaves”
8.  All Shall Perish: “Procession of Ashes”
9.  All Shall Perish: “Gagged, Bound, Shelved and Forgotten”
10. Exodus: “Beyond the Pale”
11. Exodus: “Blacklist”
12. Exodus: “Metal Command”
Continue reading »

SATURNALIA TEMPLE: “AION OF DRAKON”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

(Gaia [ex-TNOTB] returns to our site with a review of the new album by Saturnalia Temple.)

Aion of Drakon
Saturnalia Temple
[AJNA Offensive]

1. God is Two
2. Black Magic Metal
3. Aion of Drakon
4. Ancient Sorceries
5. Sitra Ahra Ruled Solitary Before Creation
6. Fall

48 minutes

Have you ever had that dream where it’s really urgent and really important to get somewhere, but things are holding you back? Cobwebs, mud, vines, family members, waves crashing down on you; you spend your strength fighting off and fighting through it all to get to do this really important thing. Desperation sets in, and you feel hopelessly lost, the ground elevates around you, and you fall. Then there’s that stomach-plunge feeling, and you literally jerk awake in a moment of absolute terror.

Saturnalia Temple are the deluge of mud that surrounds your knees and forces you into a crawl. They tap into that feeling of desperation and play on your astral paranoia; they channel the occult, raise their altars and pillars, and summon the beasts in the forests. They tether you down, they plunge their knife, then you wake in terror. Continue reading »

MOVING PICTURES! (from ABIOTIC, PRAY FOR LOCUST, and THE KOREA)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I just returned home last night from 4 days on the road that cut into my web-surfing, music-listening, and NCS-blogging time. So now I’m playing catch-up. Last night I saw new music videos from three bands that I thought were worth sharing — as much for the videos as for the music. I’m guessing all of these bands probably get slapped with the deathcore label, but although the songs include some of the musical tropes from that genre, other trippy things are in the mix, too.

Here are the videos, in the order in which I saw them: from Abiotic (Miami), Pray For Locust (Stockholm), and The Korea (Moscow).

ABIOTIC

I first heard about this South Florida band a couple weeks ago from NCS co-founder IntoTheDarkness. They self-released a seven-song EP last year called A Universal Plague, which is selling on iTunes and Amazon mp3. When ITD recommended them to me, I picked up the EP and listened to two songs, which is all I had time to do at that moment. I liked what I heard, and then by coincidence one of those two songs (“Vermosapien”) turned out to be the one featured in the official video that Abiotic released last night. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: STEALING AXION

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the 2010 EP of a Tacoma, Washington, band called Stealing Axion — whose debut album is on the way — and we’re offering a free NCS download of the EP, too.)

Some of you may recall that not long ago I engaged in a bit of a fueled rant about djent in which I suggested (among other things) that the term should be replaced with “progressive groove metal”.  A lot of the best bands who have come out of this so-called djent scene often REALLY have nothing to do with “djent”.  Sure, they might incorporate a Meshuggah-like moment here and there, but when it comes to bands like Textures, Hacride, or in this case Stealing Axion, they simply do not fit into the djent mold as most people understand it.

This self-titled EP came out in 2010, perhaps a bit outdated for some who read this site for the newest and coolest in metal badassery, but Stealing Axion is no band to scoff at.  I’m mainly reviewing this EP as a prelude to the band’s debut full-length, Moments, due this year, which I also plan to review.  So, consider this review a primer and a sampler of what’s to come.

Stealing Axion is an unusual band indeed.  A band who borrow from Tool and Sevendust just as much as they do Meshuggah or Lamb Of God, Stealing Axion is ramping up to become a new leading force in the progressive groove metal movement, delivering a diverse sound that remains monstrously heavy at every corner, with a stunningly crushing mix brought by Acle Kahney of TesseracT fame (who is also  mixing and mastering Moments). Continue reading »

“WE SUCK COCKS FOR A LIKE”

 IQ Subtraction, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  42 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I was afraid it would come to this eventually.

Metal bands try all sorts of come-on’s in an effort to increase their Facebook “likes”. They ask politely. They plead and beg pathetically. They get their friends in other bands to solicit “likes” on their behalf. They dangle the carrot of a new song, or album art, or a track list, if their total “likes” reach a certain magic number.

These kind of inducements are too fuckin’ lame (or too tame) for Greek math-metal band Tardive Dyskinesia, who we’ve written about a lot at NCS. A few months back, they posted this status on their FB wall: “The next 38 guys who like us on facebook will win a lollipop licked from all the band members! What are you waiting for…!!” I’d already liked their page or I definitely would have gone for that. Just what I’ve always wanted.

But that was just a warm-up for a status they posted last week. I think you can guess what they offered. As “like” solicitations go, “we suck cocks for a like” was short, to-the-point, and very friendly. It was also the logical next level in “like” solicitations.

I’ve had fun watching the NCS “like” total increasing on our Facebook page. We crossed 1,000 “likes” last week, and that was definitely a good time, but it will probably take a while to reach 2,000 or even 1,500, because there’s a limited number of geniuses in the world. I’d like to get there faster. Taking inspiration from Tardive Dyskinesia, I’m now thinking about NCS offering blowjobs for “likes”. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THE COMPLETE LIST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  23 Responses »
Jan 152012
 

On Friday, I finished rolling out the list of 2011’s MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS. A few readers suggested that I pull all the songs together so they can be streamed in one place. So, working my fingers to the bone, that’s what I’ve done.

Here are all 39 of the songs from this year’s list, in the order of their appearance. Clicking on the track names will send you to the post feature where the addition of the song to the list was originally announced. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link.

NOMAD: “Identity With Personification”

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/NOMAD-IDENTITY_WITH_PERSONIFICATION.mp3|titles=NOMAD-IDENTITY WITH PERSONIFICATION]
Continue reading »

ROULETTE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 142012
 

That’s what this post is — just a spin of the metal roulette wheel. The tiny ball (otherwise known as my brain) skitters and bounces around and eventually comes to rest in a slot, and then we spin again. Four slots, four bands, new and old, picked at random based on newly available music, but recommended by my tiny, ball-like brain.

BREACH

I first heard mention of this band in the list of albums recommended by Mika Andre (Eryn Non Dae.) as part of our 2011 year-end Listmania. Mika’s list included an album called The Tunnels by a band called Terra Tenebrosa (which, by the way, has been wrecking my sanity ever since). Mika mentioned that Terra Tenebrosa was a projected started by some guys from a Swedish band called Breach.

Then, last night, I saw that a 2002 EP by Breach called Godbox was being re-released in re-mastered form on vinyl by Apocaplexy Records. Apocaplexy gave this description of the music:

“It starts with weird noises and woman screaming. The drums kick in, this gnarly bass, this groove, these melodies. Audible darkness, 98% darker than most Black Metal bands claim to be. The important thing: This is unique, untouched by cliches, timeless . . .This swedish band which lacked brighter attention in their days because everybody rather focused on Refused. This band people compared with Neurosis because yet again it just lacks comparison. It’s more than hardcore, more than metal, more than any other box you want to put this in.” Continue reading »

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