NO CLEAN SINGING

GOREPOT: EXTREME BONGFEST

Aug 302011

“Love” is not strong enough a word to convey the depths of feeling I have for this music. Its sweet, subtle notes are seductive, awakening long-dormant passions, transporting the listener to realms inhabited perhaps by angels, but certainly not by mere mortals.

Listening to the album, like a walk through peaceful woods in the early fall, captures the lush sensations of surrounding nature — the soft caress of a breeze just beginning to carry a chill, the dulcet tones of a whippoorwill calling to its mate, the gentle rustle of leaves shifting against each other before the life departs them and they fall to blanket the forest floor, the glistening shards of light piercing here and there through the canopy overhead.

A sense of peace and tranquility suffuses the soul, inspiring thoughts of the sublime beauty of creation and the care of a mothering earth for her children. No, even that is inadequate; my poor words fail me.

Think instead of being lent the wings of a dove and soaring among the clouds for moments all too brief, the corporeal magnificence of the earth below, and above, the unfathomable mysteries of the universe receding into the limitless distance. Your heart bursts with elation, your mind fills with wisdom, but alas, the ethereal beauty of the album reaches its end, and so too does your tranquil journey through the skies. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

REVISITING THE CLASSICS: “KILLING ON ADRENALINE”

Aug 292011

(TheMadIsraeli delivers another installment of Revisiting the Classics, focusing on a personal favorite of mine.)

Shit is on now.

If you don’t know who this band is, you shouldn’t even be reading a site called No Clean Singing. Dying Fetus are the kind of elite, prestige-incarnate band whose achievements you wish you were capable of achieving with your sorry lives. [EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m sure TheMadIsraeli wasn’t really talking about you — just some other poor schmucks who, unlike you, and your close friends, are incapable of grand achievements.]

This is one of those bands whose every album I possess. Love every album, every song, every riff, every breakdown, you name it. Dying Fetus, Suffocation, and Vader are my elite of death metal, and so far no one else has earned admission to their company. Killing On Adrenaline (1998) is the album when the band (or maybe, in the end, more specifically, guitar-brutalizer and guttural-barker John Gallagher) found their sound. After a couple of VERY prototype-sounding releases, the formula found on Killing On Adrenaline became the solidified sound that would continue to mark the music of the band and its various incarnations up to this very minute.

I know that most people, when talking about the classic Dying Fetus album, would go to the band’s release after this one, Destroy The Opposition. While that album is great, there is a rawness and energy on Killing that it doesn’t have, most likely a product of the band’s excitement in discovering who they were. This album also features most of the so-called classic Dying Fetus lineup — vocalist/bassist Jason Netherton, guitarist and mastermind John Gallagher, rhythm guitarist Brian Latta, and drummer Kevin Talley. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

GHOST BRIGADE: “UNTIL FEAR NO LONGER DEFINES US”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Aug 292011

(Andy Synn reviews the latest album from Finland’s Ghost Brigade, and after that we’ve got the new official video for “Clawmaster”.)

Finnish gloom-merchants Ghost Brigade return with their third album, Until Fear No Longer Defines Us. Befitting its beautiful artwork, the album has a full and evocative sound; lush, melancholy melodies shimmering like starlight atop mountains of heaving, Neurosis-esque riffage, while subtle keyboard embellishments (provided once again by Swallow The Sun’s Aleksi Munter) provide unobtrusive, yet unashamedly progressive undercurrents.

Compared to its predecessors, this record is more exposed and more wide-open, less claustrophobic and confined, yet in many ways just as oppressive in its heavy, dark atmosphere. Colder and more sombre than the albums that came before it, it is as if, stepping outside of their self-imposed isolation, the architects have become aware of the vastness of the sky above them and of the oppressive, stupefying insignificance of themselves in the grander scheme of things.

Opening with the acoustic ode to woe that is “In The Woods”, the album throws a curveball right from the off, skilfully adept fingers plucking out elegant melodies from weeping nylon strings as vocalist Manne Ikonen breathes life into a tale of sorrow and broken dreams with his clear and sophisticated vocals. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

INSOMNIUM: “UNSUNG”

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 17 Responses »

Aug 292011

Thanks to a post on MetalSucks, which I saw before getting the news from Century Media, I learned that Insomnium has released a new song from their next album, One For Sorrow, which is scheduled to hit the streets on October 12 in Finland, October 17 in the rest of Europe, and October 18 in the U.S. The song is called “Unsung”, and Century Media is offering it for free download in exchange for your e-mail address (use a real one, because they’ll be sending you an activation code to get the song). HERE is the link for that.

I was wondering in a post at the end of last week whether there is any band that all metalheads like, no matter how divergent their principal tastes might be. I couldn’t think of one then. But MS may be right — Insomnium may be that band (or one of them). I know I like them immensely.

And I like this song immensely, too. It’s dramatic, powerful, sweeping — an archetypal example of what melodic death metal has to offer, that combination of galloping riffs, voracious vocals, and immensely affecting melodic atmosphere. (It has clean vocals, too, but they’re brief and they work beautifully.) The song has already made its way to YouTube, and so we’ll embed it after the jump. But once you hear it, I have a feeling you’ll want to go download it for yourself. (Cool album art, too.) Continue reading »

GUILTY AS SIN: “PSYCHOTRONIC”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Aug 292011

Guilty As Sin is a three-man band from the Boston area who were nice enough to send me a digipack CD of their latest album, 2011’s Psychotronic. This album is the band’s fourth, and I discovered that I already had on my iPod their last release, III, which came out in 2010. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get around to hearing that one, because I think I’d remember the band’s sound, now having listened to all of Psychotronic.

I originally picked this band as one of the listening experiments for yesterday’s MISCELLANY post, but instead of stopping at one or two songs, per the rules of that game, I got sucked into the whole album. If I’d included my impressions in that MISCELLANY post, it would have turned out even gargantuanly longer than it already was. So, I decided to include my thoughts about Psychotronic in this separate piece.

When I started into Psychotronic, I thought I’d just pick the first song on the album and have that be the basis for my MISCELLANY impression. That first track turned out to be a Moog-ish synthesizer piece that sounded like two scary electronic beings having a conversation. So, of course, I couldn’t stop with that. The next four songs flew by in a blaze of punk rhythms spliced with thrash mayhem and hardcore vocals. I liked that shit quite a bit, so I continued to listen — and then I hit a total surprise at the sixth track, “Addicted To Cyanide”. It’s a long instrumental propelled by chug-heavy riffage, thrash-guitar chords, and weaving/soaring solos that got my addled head whipping. It’s a guitar lover’s head-trip.

Well, fuck, I really couldn’t stop with that. What would come next? (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

RUMOR MILL: TODAY IS THE DAY AND MAGRUDERGIND AT SUCKFEST?

Metal News 28 Responses »

Aug 292011

The two-day NYC metal festival called SUCKFEST that’s being sponsored by our friends at Metal Sucks has caused an emotional war among my schizophrenic selves. On the one hand, the ugly green-eyed monster part of me is jealous that they’re pulling this off when the only tour we’ve sponsored to date is a figment of my imagination. On the other hand, my metal-blogger self is really proud that MS is able to pull of something like this. And on the third hand, the fanboy part of me is genuinely excited by the line-up that’s been announced so far — Municipal Waste and Cynic as the two headline acts, with The Red Chord, Obscura, and Rosetta on the bill as well — and 15 more bands yet to be announced.

Now, I’m having yet another internal warring conflict over this festival. Compared to the bad old days, when about 20 people read our site (most of whom were our institutionalized relatives), we’ve become more responsible. Usually (usually), we no longer try to steal other people’s thunder by “premiering” songs from unreleased albums without permission or tossing up unauthorized song downloads, and we try to maintain standards of high journalistic integrity, which means we now only make up about 50% of the news stories we report here.

But we’re not completely house-broken yet, and so I can’t resist the impulse to report a rumor that Today Is the Day and Magrudergrind are also going to be playing at the SUCKFEST on the first day (Nov. 4), headlined by Municipal Waste. I sure as fuck hope this is true, because those two bands are among my favorites. Today Is the Day is nothing short of legendary, and Magrudergrind may well be the heir-apparents to Pig Destroyer.

All wishful thinking aside, I do consider my source of this info to be reliable, or I wouldn’t be sticking my neck out to report this. So, with apologies to Metal Sucks, Today Is the Day, and Magrudergrind for a bit of thunder-stealing leakage, I’m goin’ with it. And if I’m wrong, well fuckit, it won’t be the first time.

MELODEATH WEEK: ALLEGAEON

Album Reviews 18 Responses »

Aug 292011

(TheMadIsraeli has cooked up a week-long series devoted to modern melodic death metal, featuring one band each day, beginning with Colorado’s Allegaeon.)

If you were alive, and in your early teens, in the 90’s, you more than likely found your entrance into metal via melodeath or melodic death metal. Like I or Islander did, you probably heard bands like In Flames, At The Gates, or Soilwork, and were absolutely floored by the musicianship on display and the idea that something could be both melodic and a total steamroller at the same time. This stuff was THE SHIT if you were a 90’s kid, or even an early 2000’s kid. I don’t think there is any disputing this one.

Melodeath, though, is now seen by many as the stagnant and lazy metal genre of choice. Thousands upon thousands of poor At The Gates and In Flames imitators and the advent of melodic metalcore have given melodeath a bad rap from which, quite frankly, it still doesn’t seem to have recovered. This is a real shame, because there have been some killer melodeath albums released, particularly in the last 5 years.

So it’s now melodeath week. I will review a recent/modern melodeath album for every day of the week if Islander can keep up that pace of editing. The criteria are as follows…

1: Must have been made in the last 10 years

2: I will TRY TO AVOID well known acts, although I am pre-emptively saying The Absence is getting an exception.

So with that said, let’s get started shall we? Continue reading »

VALLENFYRE

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 20 Responses »

Aug 282011

Yesterday I spent some time on Blabbermouth catching up with metal news I’d missed over the last week. One of the reports caught my eye. It was about Century Media’s signing of a UK death metal band called Vallenfyre. Here’s what I read:

Just like SONNE ADAM from Israel, VALLENFYRE debuted with a seven-inch single on the underground label Imperium Productions and also shares a similar approach of mixing classic death metal with doom and in case of VALLENFYRE some British crust on top.

Commented Jens Prueter, head of A&R, Century Media Records Europe: “I was already blown away by VALLENFYRE’s old-school orgy of doomy and crusty death metal riffs when I heard the first demo last winter and the new seven-inch sounds even better. So I couldn’t hesitate to offer them a deal straight away. That’s how we signed GRAVE and ASPHYX over 20 years ago — and we all know that it was a good decision. So welcome to another chapter of Century Media’s death metal legacy.

“VALLENFYRE’s debut album, A Fragile King, is already recorded and will be released in late October 2011.

“If you like a mix of early ENTOMBED, CELTIC FROST, AUTOPSY and AMEBIX, you should hurry up to buy the last few copies of the ‘Desecration’ seven-inch single, which was limited to only 500 copies by Imperium Productions.”

All that peaked my curiosity, even making allowances for the well-tuned PR hype. So, I poked around to learn more about this band — and found almost nothing. But what I did find has gotten me extremely interested in this album. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HATESPHERE

Metal News 2 Responses »

Aug 282011

Is this a badass album cover or what? Yes, I’m still catching up on last week’s news, and when I saw this, I damn well came to a full stop. Not only because of the artwork, but because Denmark’s HateSphere is one of those bands whose new music I think is always worth checking out (and this comes from someone who’s not a huge thrash fan).

Their next album may be especially worth our time, for three reasons. First, how can you go wrong with an album called The Great Bludgeoning? Second, the band’s line-up has changed since their last release in 2009 (To the Nines). Esben “Esse” Hansen (who also sings in As We Fight) joined the band as vocalist in June 2010, and a bass player with a punk background named Jimmy Nedergaard (Gob Squad) joined more recently for the recording of the new album. I’m curious about how those changes may affect the band’s sound. (Actually, we already have evidence, as you’ll hear.)

Third, the band claims that for the new album, they’ve taken a “more old-school direction” than they did on the last release, with a lyrical focus on “aggressions, drinking and hate”. So in other words, it will be an upbeat, family-friendly affair. Yay!

Oh yeah, one more thing: There’s a teaser clip available now, which will musically tease you. It’s after the jump, along with info about the album artist, the release dates, and a few other factual morsels. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 34: EYECONOCLAST, UNDER EDEN, AND HEIDEVOLK

MISCELLANY 30 Responses »

Aug 282011

To recap the rules of this MISCELLANY game for NCS newcomers: When bands or labels write us, or we get reader recommendations, or we see news blurbs about bands who look interesting, we put the band names on a list. We limit this list to bands whose music we’ve never heard, and the majority of the listed bands are unsigned. At irregular intervals, when I’ve got time, I randomly pick a few names from the list and listen to one or two of their songs, and then I write my impressions for this MISCELLANY series. Plus, I make it possible for you to hear what I heard (or saw, if it’s a video).

This exercise is different from our reviews, which we almost always limit to music we want to recommend. For this exercise, like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, we don’t know what we’re going to get. It may or may not taste delicious. But the surprise factor is part of the fun (at least for me). For today’s post, the bands I picked were Eyeconoclast (Italy), Under Eden (US), and Heidevolk (The Netherlands). I actually picked a fourth band, too, but I’m discussing them separately, to keep this thing from growing even longer than it already is.

I’ll go ahead and confess right up front: I cheated on the MISCELLANY rules for all three bands, because their music turned out to be too interesting to assess with just one song. Yes, I even cheated on the last one, too, though it’s not the kind of music I typically embrace. All that cheating means there’s a lot of music coming your way after the jump, but none of you has a real life, do you? Of course not, so you have plenty of time to listen. Continue reading »

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