OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: “HONORABLE MENTION”

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  6 Responses »
Jan 142012
 

It seems like many “best of the year” lists include a category of “honorable mentions”. I don’t know how artists feel about being included in an “honorable mention” list. I would guess they feel pretty meh about it, or maybe even worse than that. The list-maker is sort of saying, “this was good, but not as good as the 10 or 20 albums that I thought were the best.” Thanks a fucking lot, you douchebag!

I have an honorable mention list to accompany our list of 2011’s “most infectious” extreme metal songs, which I finally finished rolling out yesterday. But this isn’t the typical “honorable mention” list. These aren’t songs that I omitted because I didn’t think they were quite as good as the ones on my list. They were on my “master list” of candidates, and I omitted them only because I decided I couldn’t honestly say they were “extreme metal songs”. Maybe some of you will think I already violated that rule with other songs on the list and I’m therefore acting inconsistently. Could be.

Anyway, consistent or not, here are four songs from the master candidate list that I thought were mighty infectious and mighty good, but not extreme enough to make the final cut.

SOLSTAFIR: “FJARA”

This band’s 2011 two-disc album Svartir Sandar has blown up their profile far beyond the shores of that place of ice and fire they call home. In a word, the album is amazing. It’s full of ice and fire, too, but it also includes slow, melancholy, emotionally powerful songs like “Fjara”. Continue reading »

OF ASSASSIN’S CREED, AYREON, ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS, AND AWESOME ALLITERATION

 Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  35 Responses »
Jan 132012
 

(DemiGodRaven (ex-TNOTB) looks at the similarities between the Assassin’s Creed games and the albums of Ayreon, and speculates about how the latter may shed light on how the former is going to end.)

Anyone who has been aware of my writing for a while knows pretty well that I’m a pretty huge nerd when it comes to video games. They’re my second love, with the first being music. They’re also the two most expensive hobbies in the world, but that is a whole other subject for some other time. Occasionally, there is an incredible crossover between some form of metal and video games, and I can’t help but give it a knowing wink and nod. Or, in this case it’s a confluence of all sorts of things that just happen to share the same archetypal concept.

The thought for this article began to cross my mind as I wrestled my way through the latest Assassin’s Creed game, which if you haven’t been following the series has basically gone from a sort of Lost-esque conspiracy science fiction to batshit fucking insane within the span of two yearly iterations as Ubisoft (the game’s developer and publisher) attempts to strange as much money out of the franchise as possible.

What is funny about the story of these games is that it has pretty much evolved into the same story told by the Ayreon discography, with its dream sequencer experiments and the end of mankind. Of course, you also have to acknowledge that even though the elements of each story are as fantastic as can be, the bare guts of each one are fairly basic and recognizable. I’ll be analyzing this to some extent while also pointing out the ridiculous similarities between the game series and the concept behind most of Ayreon’s work.

As always this deserves warning: I am going to be spoilery as fuck in the following article. Just a note though, it’s not like you should give a shit. Judging by the latest Assassin’s Creed game, the writing team doesn’t. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 19

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  2 Responses »
Jan 132012
 

This is Part 19 — the final Part — of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released in 2011. Each day since we started this list, I’ve been posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

All good things must come to an end, and today I’m ending this list with the final three songs. Yes, there are three songs today instead of the two per-day that appeared in every previous installment of this series. And that means the list is ending with 39 songs — an odd number for a list (in both senses of the word) — but wtf, I myself am odd.

In the next day or two, we’ll pull together every song we’ve named to this 2011 list in a single post where all of them can be streamed, and with links for each one back to the original features where we added them to the list. Tomorrow, we’ll also have an “Honorable Mention” list, though it’s not really a list of extreme metal songs that narrowly missed being included here. I’ll explain tomorrow. Now, let’s wrap this thing up.

KRODA

Schwarzpfad is probably my favorite 2011 black metal album of all the ones I heard last year. You could probably figure that out based on how often we wrote about Kroda last year. Our latest mention was in a post that included video of the band playing a live set on December 18 at the OSKOREI festival in Kiev, Ukraine. Before that, Schwarzpfad showed up on Andy Synn’s list of the year’s Critical Top 10 albums, as well as his list of 2011’s Great Albums. Continue reading »

KNIVES OUT!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  27 Responses »
Jan 132012
 

(Are you looking for some twisted, clawing music and some violent, gore-drenched imagery? Well, look no further!  groverXIII has got you covered.)
I used to love nu metal.

I know… that’s not the best way to start off a post. The very mention of nu metal is generally sufficient to earn the scorn of metalheads everywhere, even though a lot of them got started on nu metal just like I did. And to clarify, it’s not like I still listen to a lot of nu metal. I still listen to Incubus’ S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and Mudvayne’s L.D. 50 on occasion, but that’s about as far as I go. Still, I have some fond memories for bands that I discovered during nu metal’s heyday. I mean, System Of A Down (whom I refuse to classify as nu metal) are still personal favorites, and I’m still hoping for a reunion album.

Anyway, that brings me to Knives Out!, a band comprised mostly of former members of two now-defunct bands that I discovered in the nu metal era. Knives Out! features Todd Smith and Jasan Stepp, two guys from Dog Fashion Disco (whose Faith No More/Mr. Bungle worship took the style to a totally new level); Dave Cullen, who plays bass for Polkadot Cadaver, the spiritual successor to Dog Fashion Disco, which also features Smith and Stepp; and Tommy Sickles and Tom Maxwell, formerly of Nothingface, who I suppose played nu metal, but put such a psychotic, violent twist on the music that they seemed to transcend the label. (Maxwell is also a member of Hellyeah, in the interest of full disclosure, but I’m going to ignore that for this band’s purposes.) Nothingface’s Violence and Skeletons were personal favorites for quite sometime and still get a listen now and again, and Dog Fashion Disco’s entire discography still finds a place in my regular listening rotation. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 18

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  1 Response »
Jan 122012
 

This is Part 18 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

I am willing to confess here publicly that I do have certain primal urges. Just to be clear, those urges do not include tentacle porn or donkey dicks. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has urges for such things. Okay, to be brutally honest, which of course is the only kind of honest we know how to be here at NCS, I do know one person who has such urges. But we’re not talking about him, we’re talking about me, myself, and pay no attention to those who say I have a fractured personality.

No, my primal urges include the kind of base needs satisfied by today’s two additions to this list. Yes, I am base, and all your base belong to me, and I belong to Byfrost and Bury Your Dead. And this is my list, and therefore my will is yours. (goddamn, am I full of shit or what?)

BYFROST

When I first heard Byfrost’s 2010 debut album, Black Earth, I thought most of the tracks sounded like marching songs and battle music for orcs — the inexorable stomp, the headlong charge, the baring of oily teeth, the spiked maces held high. I included a song from that monster of an album on the MOST INFECTIOUS list last year — in fact it was the first song. And 2011 brought another Byfrost album, and it also brought another Byfrost song for this year’s list. Continue reading »

OTARGOS: “WORSHIP INDUSTRIALIZED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 122012
 

Season of Mist released the most recent album of French black metal band Otargos — No God No Satan — back in 2010. The band is working on new music now, but only within the last two weeks relased an official music video for a song called “Worship Industrialized” from No God No Satan. It’s definitely not something that uses the more traditional black metal motifs.

The music doesn’t start until about the 1:45 mark. Before that, you hear narration of a story, while watching pictures of a desolate, volcanic landscape (filmed in Sicily). The story is about Earth in a post-apocalyptic time when a new religious cult has arisen, one with ironic roots.

After the music begins, the members of Otargos eventually seem to represent forces of freedom capable of stripping away the delusions of the new cult, though they, too, appear to be survivors of the apocalypse that destroyed civilization. The visuals have an epileptic quality, which apparently was the result of a simultaneous multicam capture when the song performance was filmed.

Those visuals and the music go well together, because the music is blistering and vicious — but man, it’s also got a massive beat that’s catchy as fuck. This is the only song I’ve heard from No God No Satan, but it’s enough to send me exploring what else that album has to offer. And congrats to Federico Anastasi (Undeci | Decimi) and his team on a cool video. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

DIGGING UP FREE MUSIC AND THE FASTEST TRIP TO SEATTLE EVER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 122012
 

(Ex-TNOTB stalwart DemiGodRaven gifts us with another post, and this one brings news of free new music from The Neologist. Also, there’s something in here about Seattle. Personally, I love when people tell the rest of the world how grey and wet it is here.)

I have been to Seattle once before in my lifetime. Back in 2009 I was invited rather suddenly and without warning to join some friends on a pilgrimage to the Seattle Convention Center where the Penny Arcade Expo was being held, and so naturally that resulted in three other dudes and myself packed into a Ford Focus driving up I-5 for 11 1/2 hours so that we could arrive at seven in the morning, about an hour before the show started.

In a way it was everything I had imagined Seattle to be — it rained for two days and was pretty grey the rest of the time. Looking at it long enough, you can almost see how a movement like Grunge grew out of the Pacific Northwest. I personally didn’t find it that miserable, but you’re talking to a guy who enjoys Swallow The Sun, Katatonia, Before The Dawn, and Insomnium. If it’s the sort of beauty you’d find in a field completely blanketed with snow, a desolate city, or in Seattle’s case the sort of melodramatic grey that seems to permeate everything, then you’d better believe that I’m the first in line to enjoy every second of it. Of course, that doesn’t explain why I’m here now but then again there are a lot of things that need explaining.

Such as why this asshole does his job interviews in person. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 17

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  5 Responses »
Jan 112012
 

This is Part 17 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

We’re winding our way down to the end of this list. I’ve set a self-imposed deadline of Friday to finish this — not because I don’t have enough songs to keep going, but because you can’t really call something a list if it has no end. Can you?

The catch-phrase of today is “Welcome to K-mart!” Not because we’ve decided to ditch metal and open up one of those stores, but because the names of both bands whose songs we’re featuring begin with “K”. “K” as in “Kick-ass” or “Killer”.

KARTIKEYA

Kartikeya is a Russian band we’ve mentioned quite often at this site (use the search box on this page and you’ll see what I mean). They’re very popular among those of us on the NCS staff, and they seem to be popular among our readers and other contributors, too.They play an unusual (and unusually appealing) style of heavy-grooved melodic death metal that incorporates elements of black metal as well as traditional Indian music. Continue reading »

ABORTED: “THE ORIGIN OF DISEASE” VIDEO!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Jan 112012
 

Remember that Aborted song we premiered last month? That song called “The Origin of Disease”? The one that kicked your motherfucking ass over the hills and far away? The one from the Global Flatline album that Century Media will be releasing on January 24?

Well, today the band premiered an official music video for that very same ass-kicking song. Part of the video is Aborted doing their kicking-ass thing, just ripping all kinds of hell out of the song. And the other, interspersed part of the video is about a private communion that turns out not to go so well for the lecherous priest.

Kudos to Phil Berridge of Creative Junkie Media for a very nice job on the vid. Gaze upon it after the jump . . . and prepare for some gooooore! Continue reading »

DEGRADEAD: THE “HUMAN NATURE” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 112012
 

This is turning into a melodic death metal kind of day. We started off cranking a new song from Costa Rica’s Sight of Emptiness, and now we’re jumping the Atlantic to check out the latest video from Sweden’s Degradead.

The last time we wrote about this band was May 2011, when we featured two songs from a new Degradead album (their third) called A World Destroyer, which had been recorded at Peter Tägtgren‘s (Hypocrisy, Pain) Abyss studios in Sweden, with producer Jonas Kjellgren (Scar Symmetry,Centinex, World Below). Now we’re on the verge of a DVD release by the band.

On February 28, Metalville Records will release Live At Wacken and Beyond, which will include Degradead’s complete live set at Wacken Open Air in 2010 plus some other features, including a documentary tracing the band’s progress from their formation outside Stockholm through their tour of India last February.

The DVD also includes an official video of one of those songs we featured the last time we posted about this band — “Human Nature” — and Metal Injection premiered the video yesterday. Based on the video, I think it’s fair to say that Degradead doesn’t have a very rosy view of human nature. And as for the song — the song still fuckin’ rocks. Continue reading »

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