WHERE DO SONGS COME FROM?

 Metal News  11 Responses »
Jul 182011
 

I’m pretty pumped up about Machine Head’s new album, Unto the Locust (due in September on Roadrunner). The first single, “Locust”, sounds good, and — well — it’s fuckin’ Machine Head. But in addition to being excited, now I’m also curious.

Thanks to Blabbermouth, I watched an interview that Machine Head vocalist/guitarist Rob Flynn gave to Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco, California radio station 107.7 “The Bone” at the second show of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival on July 10 in Mountain View, California. At one point, Blakk asks Flynn what song on the new album is his favorite. There’s a pause, and then he tells a story about the creation of a song called “The Darkness Within”.

He calls the song “pretty left-field for us” and says “it’s gonna be a song that just flips people on their heads.” Flynn continues: “it’s a very dark song, and it’s a really good song. I think it’s maybe one of the best songs we’ve ever written, and I’m really proud of it.” There’s also a hint that it may have some “mainstream” appeal.

Okay, so I was intrigued by that.  I got more intrigued when he explained how the song came to life. Each song has its own story, no doubt. Each songs comes from someplace in the mind and experiences of a musician and a lyricist. This song seems to have had part of its genesis in a Jeff Bridges performance in the movie Crazy Heart.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CARCINOGEN’S “HUMAN ATROPHY”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Jul 182011
 

When last we checked in with New York-based Carcinogen, they were building up to the release of their debut EP, Unholy Aggression. That was last October, and now they’ve released a follow-up EP with four new songs called Human Atrophy. For the cover art, they’ve turned once again to that Indonesian underground artist who calls herself Oikwasfuk (of Nothing Sacred Artwerks). Nice to see that she hasn’t toned down the grisliness.

Carcinogen haven’t toned anything down either (thank goodness). When we wrote about the band in October (here), we praised their “stripped-down, fuzzed-out, palm-muted, drop-tuned, guttural-voiced, percussive approach” to old-school, thrash-paced death metal. On the new EP, Carcinogen continue to perfect their daunting assault on the senses, enhancing the technicality of their playing and jazzing up the pyrotechnics with even more pronounced tempo dynamics.

What Carcinogen haven’t done is turn down the temperature in their blast furnace. Pressing play on this EP is like sticking your unprotected head into that furnace. You’ll come out at the end with all your hair burned off and your face converted into a charred ruin — but your crispy, senseless head will still be bangin’. (more after the jump, including a stream of the whole EP . . .) Continue reading »

IF YOU LIVED IN WESTERN CANADA AND COULD ASK ROB ZOMBIE AND SLAYER WHATEVER CAME TO YOUR PUTRID MIND, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

 Metal News  50 Responses »
Jul 172011
 

This is not an entirely hypothetical question. It could happen. Our brothers in blog at Heavy Blog Is Heavy are giving away two tickets to the Vancouver stop of the Hell On Earth Tour on August 3, plus a chance for a meet-and-greet session with tour headliners Rob Zombie and Slayer (Exodus is also on this tour, but to ask them questions, you’ll have to get up stage in the middle of their set and see if you can get their attention).

Those tickets and passes are the grand prize in a contest HBIH is currently running, with the second prize being two more tickets (but no meet-and-greet). To enter, you just have to answer this imminently practical question: If all hell were to break loose and zombies came out of the woodwork, how would you slay them?

I keep answers to questions like this on a little notepad in an emergency kit, which includes such other potentially useful items as a can of catfood, a block of C-4 explosive, two packs of Ding-Dongs, and a used-only-once band-aid. My notepad also includes words of greeting in seven known extraterrestrial languages. In other words, I’m fuckin’ ready for anything.

I know how to kill zombies, too. Kill ’em so they won’t be coming back — ever. Unfortunately, since I’m within the secret, monolithic brotherhood of blogdom with the HBIH people, I’m ineligible to enter this contest. Probably for the best; it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. I also know what to ask Rob Zombie and Slayer, but if I told you, I’d have to kill you.

To get more details about the HBIH contest, go here. Contest ends on July 26.

LOUCIFER SPEAKS AND VOICE OF THE SOUL ANSWERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 172011
 

Loucifer Speaks is a U.K.-based metal/rock webzine and forum. Earlier this week, I saw the news that they had released a music comp for free download called The Louciferian Gathering. What really caught my eye was the fact that the comp includes a brand new song from Voice of the Soul called “Cast Away in Betrayal”.

I got into Voice of the Soul last October through one of our MISCELLANY excursions and wrote about them here. Back then, I listened to a four-song EP called Eyes of Deceit and was really impressed. The band is a mini-United Nations, consisting of a Lebanese, an Iraqi, an Indian, and a Persian, who are currently living either in the United States or various locations in the Middle East, and guitarist/vocalist Kareem Chehayeb is an NCS reader.

Despite their geographic separation, the members are still collborating on the cretion of new music. They’ve got yet another EP in the works (their third) and now, courtesy of The Louciferian Gathering, we’ve got that new track, “Cast Away in Betrayal”. Stick with us past the jump, and you can hear the song — which is most certainly worth hearing. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 41)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  14 Responses »
Jul 172011
 

Yessir, it’s time for another installment in this series where we collect miscellaneous items that aren’t music but still make us think, “Fuck, that’s some metal shit right there!” Once again, we had help from a few of our readers, who will be duly credited by us (and perhaps blamed by you) for their contributions. We have quite a lot of killer items today, so let’s just just dive right in.

ITEM ONE

Our first item is really a series of items, all of which appeared in a feature at Cracked.com called “8 Real Photographs That Prove Hell Exists On Earth” (credit/blame to our reader Black Shuck who pointed us to this feature). Not only are all the photos metal as fuck, but the accompanying descriptions are also funny as shit. For example, here’s the narrative accompanying the photo at the top of this post:

“If doves are the messengers of the Lord, then the Satanic Leaf Tailed Gecko is probably Old Scratch’s preferred postal carrier. Though you should know that these guys are utterly harmless. They’re tiny — usually two to five inches long — and are endemic to the little island of Madagascar. So you’re not likely to stumble across one in the first place, and it certainly won’t hurt you if you do.

“It won’t hurt you at all. It needs you.

“It might ask you to hurt others, though. Oh, softly enough at first, in half-heard whispers borne on the wind, but they will grow louder, more frequent and more insistent — until one day you wake up to find yourself in a bathtub filled with liquid that used to be your family. And what will the Satanic Leaf Tailed Gecko do? Why, just take a gander at that picture again: It will smile, friends. It will smile.”

(more after the jump)

Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: SENTINEL’S “E.P.”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jul 162011
 

Back in mid-February we wrote about a hellaciously good Massachusetts metal band called Sentinel, who we’d come across in one of our MISCELLANY posts. Back then, the band had only produced two songs for public consumption, but they were really impressive — a fusion (as we wrote then) of “no-holds-barred speed, technical complexity, ass-on-fire vocal delivery, djent-style bass execution, and a successful combination of deep groove and head-exploding mayhem.”

Early last week, we found out that Sentinel had released a new five-song EP. I’d intended to put up a quick post about it on Wednesday, but as I got into the songs I realized that I’d need more time to do it justice. But before getting to the music, is that cover art an eye-puncturing bit of awesomeness or what? It’s by Wes Benscoter (Slayer, Dio, Sabbath, Hypocrisy, Cattle Decapitation, Mortician, etc.), courtesy of a contest selection by Revolver magazine’s editor-in-chief based on those first two Sentinel songs.

With artwork like that plus the hugely promising debut songs, I had high expectations for the new EP — and guess what? It does not disappoint. The music is a genre-bending avalanche of technically impressive metal extremity that will rivet your attention from start to finish. And to add icing to the cake, Sentinel have made the EP available for download at Bandcamp with a “name your price” option.

After the jump, we’ve got a few more words about the EP, plus a stream of one of the five songs, plus the Bandcamp link. Continue reading »

AGALLOCH AND ANAAL NATHRAKH LIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Jul 162011
 

I’ve seen Oregon-based Agalloch perform live only once, but it was one of the best metal shows I’ve ever seen. I felt like the music was a living thing and it had completely swallowed me up. I was literally in a daze for a long time after the show ended at something like 1:30 am, and I hadn’t been using any intoxicants (except the music).

I’ve never seen Britain’s Anaal Nathrakh in a live show, but I hope that’s not too far off in my future. Their catastrophic, vitriolic style of black grind is another kind of all-consuming music, though quite different from Agalloch’s brand of melodic black metal.

Both bands performed at the Scion Rock Fest in Pomona, California, in March, and Scion released professionally filmed videos of the performances late last week. We’ve got a handful of them for you after the jump. Is it the next best thing to being there? No — the next best thing would be walking out of the venue having heard the whole show. But it’s pretty damned sweet.

After the jump, probably my favorite Agalloch song, “Not Unlike the Waves”, plus “Into The Painted Grey”, and then Anaal Nathrakh performing “When the Lion Devours Both Dragon and Child” and “Don Not Speak”. There’s one very weird thing about the AN videos. Continue reading »

A LITTLE SOMETHING WHILE YOU WAIT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jul 162011
 

This is about the time when we usually post our first something-or-other for the day, but work and life got in the way this time and it won’t be ready for another hour or two. In the meantime, here’s a mystery song for your listening pleasure. It’s from a new album, and the band is from Canada, and that’s all I’ll give away for now. I’ll also promise that this song will make your head move.

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Mystery-song.mp3|titles=Mystery song]

What do you think of that song? Does it remind you of anyone? There’s more coming . . .

CONTRAST THE WATER (UPDATE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jul 152011
 

We’ve run a couple of features in the past about Metal From South Africa and have made some awesome discoveries. We’re waaaaaay late running the third installment of that series, but I’m still on the road in work-drone mode for my day job, and that’s slowing down everything I’d planned to do, including that next installment on SA metal.

But, I do have an update about one of the bands featured previously: Durban’s Contrast the Water. When we wrote about them before (at this location), they were working on completion of their sophomore album and had posted two songs from it for free download. Now, the album (Perseverance) is complete and scheduled for release in August — and the band has decided to put all the songs from the album up on YouTube.

As a selfish fan, I like that strategy — making it easy for people to listen to the album and share individual songs, which is exactly what I’m about to do.  I haven’t yet listened to the entire album. What I did was jump to the last track first, because I’m used to doing things ass-backwards at least half the time (and the rest of the time, I’m ass-forwards).

Track 10 is called “Fallen”, and man, it surprised the hell out of me. It pulls you in right from the start with a hell of a groove and an explosion of jittery riffage — and then it starts changing in some unexpected and fantastic ways. I fucken love the song. Check it out after the jump, and then we’ll give you a link for the rest of the songs. When I get a bit more time, I’m diving into the rest of Perseverance. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CULT OF ENDTIME

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jul 152011
 

Cult of Endtime is a five-man death-metal machine from Joensuu, Finland, who came to our attention via a Facebook post by the excellent South African band A Walk With the Wicked. Cult of Endtime created a 2010 demo with three songs, which we haven’t yet heard, and then more recently a three-song EP with the most excellent title of Nuclear Witch. Those three songs are what made our playlist.

The world seems to be filled with death metal bands — new, old, and ancient. By our lights, this is good. The more death metal, the better. But with so many choices, how is a poor, confused soul to judge what’s worth hearing? What separates the good from the so-so?

As always, separating the death metal wheat from the chaff comes down to mature songcraft, superb execution, and the right kind of soul — all of which Cult of Endtime have. You listen to these three recent songs, and you would never guess they’re only the fourth, fifth, and sixth songs this band has yet produced for public consumption.

Dense, tarry riffs and a titanic drum beat drown you in a vat of sweet filth. Razor-edged guitar leads carve and decimate. At times, the songs attack relentlessly, at times they roll like a mid-paced phalanx of volcanic magma, but the songwriters didn’t lose sight of the magnetic effect of a convulsive groove. It’s disgustingly evil, and at the same time, the music’s morbid threads of reanimator melody and ghoulish rhythms sink their hooks firmly in your head. (more after the jump, including all three songs . . .) Continue reading »

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