ASH BORER

 Album Reviews  19 Responses »
Dec 092011
 

(Music as sex.  BadWolf reviews the self-titled debut album by California’s Ash Borer, which has been making more than a few Best of 2011 lists.)

My favorite bands tend to write longer songs, and yet longform heavy metal intimidates me. The thought of going a full 20 minutes without changing a song terrifies me—I blame the iPod in my pocket, which might as well be part of my anatomy now. Perhaps I’m scared of commitment; some women in Toledo, Ohio, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, will attest to this, and in many ways loving music is like romance. There are plenty of fish in the sea and my time is valuable; I cannot date every good-looking metal record for a full six months before deciding whether or not I want it to stick around. It’s a risky game to play—lots of great records don’t make good first impressions (I hated …And Justice for All when I first heard it).

But let me be a typical man and reflect the blame back on my dates, for a moment. I’m scared of 20-minute songs because I do not trust them to stimulate me enough for the full duration of a single listen. Sprinting is hard enough, a Marathon is herculean. Twenty minutes is a long time, most people can’t handle writing a 20-minute long piece of music, and in general I do not recommend that artists undertake the task. Tom G. Warrior is the exception—I do love “The Prolonging” from the Triptykon record — but otherwise I don’t recall a 20-minute long metal song I’ve listened to on repeat.

But Ash Borer’s 20-minute opus “My Curse Was Raised in the Darkness Against a Doomsday Silence” held my undivided attention for its full duration. I listened to it twice in a row. I did not fetch more hot tea; I let that mug get frigid. I had to urinate, badly, but remained seated until the last strains of odd synthesizer at the end ebbed into silence. Until the amp hiss ceased. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: REVOLVER’S 20 BEST ALBUMS OF 2011

 Listmania  31 Responses »
Dec 092011
 

Yeah, I’m joking.  I don’t really intend to devote any of our precious space to Revolver magazine’s list of the 20 best albums of 2011.  Actually, our space isn’t precious. It’s unlimited, but still.

It just happens that although I haven’t renewed my subscription to Revolver, they continue to mail me the mag, and when I got the current issue a few days ago, I peaked at the list. It’s just as terrible as I thought it would be. Not 100% awful — there are a few good albums on the list — but overall it’s painful.

Album of the Year?  It’s the same title as the one that DECIBEL named Album of the Year, except instead of being Path of Totality by Tombs it’s The Path of Totality by . . . Korn.  Seriously.

Coming in at No. 3?  Megadeth.

Locking up the No. 4 spot?  Evanescence.

Do you really, truly want to see the rest of the list?  Alright then.  Suit yourself. Continue reading »

YAY! MORE CHRISTMAS SEASON CHEER!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

Yessirree, it’s that special time of year when our tender ears are bombarded not only by multi-media ads exhorting us to spend our money like there’s no tomorrow, but also by manifold forms of musical Christmas cheer, whether in the form of carols or other “standards” we’ve heard a jillion times before, or special seasonal items being released for the first time.

Take this new video by Ancient VVisdom, for example. Specially timed to help celebrate the Yuletide season with tidings of great joy and the harking of heralds, these Austin-based musical angels have chosen to bless us all, every one, with a very catchy tune from their well-received 2011 debut, A Godlike Inferno. It’s called “The Opposition”, and it’s guaranteed to be a hit wherever fine Christmas music is heard on a non-stop basis, such as shopping malls and elevators.

So go ahead, get in the Christmas spirit: fill up a glass with eggnog, light some votive candles, and sing along with Ancient VVisdom to these stirring lyrics:

“Hail to thee, Lord Lucifer/I sing praises to thee/and I suffer no longer” Continue reading »

ARTIFICIAL BRAIN IS STILL COMMUNICATING WITH MY ARTIFICIAL BRAIN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

“The name of this game is death fucking metal, the kind that rampages like a heartless, mechanized beast the size of a house. The music slams and hammers with advanced pneumatics, interwoven with snakelike guitar leads and bounding bass lines. It’s fast and technical, and the vocals are downright voracious. Very fucking impressive, and possibly originating from space.”

That’s what I wrote in our review of the new EP from a Long Island, NY band called Artificial Brain, which includes Revocation guitarist Dan Gargiulo, possibly may include ex-Biolich vocalist Will Smith, and others whose identities I haven’t yet discovered with certainty. I wrote other things, too, but I’m pretty sure I was under the influence of biomechanoid larva from space who Artificial Brain keep as pets and use to infiltrate the weak-minded.

Wait, that didn’t come out right.  Anyway, whatever the fucking things are that wormed into my brain stem when I listened to the EP, those things have returned and are acting as receptors of microwave transmissions from space. I feel like something is crawling under my skin and looking out through my eyes with multifaceted cornea. Milky white foam is coming out my nose and dropping onto my keyboard.

I also hear a massive mechanized noise that’s starting to crack the walls in my home. I think it’s the sound of the new Artificial Brain video for “Tongues”, the one song from the EP I didn’t stream with my review. The EP is still available for free download at the Artificial Brain Bandcamp page. The video is after the jump. The green slime is coming out of my ears again. My brain is in a mixer. Continue reading »

FUCK. IT’S ALREADY THURSDAY AND WE HAVEN’T POSTED ANY FINNISH METAL. TIME TO FIX THAT EGREGIOUS OVERSIGHT.

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

Bob Malmström. That’s a band name. They’re from someplace called Westend in Finland. They claim to have originated borgarcore, which seems to be an abbreviation for bourgeois-hardcore. They are politically incorrect, in that they celebrate the enjoyment of things like eating meat, wearing furs, drinking copious amounts of Dom, lap dances, and making big piles of money.

In October, Spinefarm Records released Bob Malmström’s debut album, Tala svenska eller dö, which means “Speak Swedish or Die”. This has something to do with a linguistic minority group in Finland consisting of Swedish-speaking Finns. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “they maintain a strong identity and are alternatively seen either as a distinct subgroup of the Finnish people or as a separate ethnic group or even as a distinct nationality,” and they represent about 5.5% of the total Finnish population.

There seems to be some kind of continuing controversy over various government protections of the right of Swedish-speaking Finns to speak Swedish. Problem is, I can’t quite tell which side of this debate Bob Malmström is on. I found this Bob Malmström interview in Finnish, but as we all know, Google Translate does an especially piss-poor job converting Finnish into English, and the translation I get is mostly gibberish. So, I can’t tell whether Bob Malmström is protesting prejudice against the finlandssvenskar/suomenruotsalaiset or fomenting it — or just putting everyone on. Any Finns out there care to help me out?

Anyway, although this is all kind of an interesting aspect of Finnish culture that I didn’t know existed, it’s not the reason for this post. The reason for this post is the recently released official music video for a Bob Malmström song called “Eliten”, which has been rocking my ass this morning. It’s kind of a searing, headbanging, thrash/hardcore/punk onslaught, as rendered by a bunch of dudes in suits sipping champagne. Fuckin good pancake. Check it after the jump. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: EXCLAIM.CA’S TOP 18 METAL ALBUMS OF 2011

 Listmania  14 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

We’re still in the mode of scoping out of Best of 2011 lists by “big-platform” web sites. So far, we’ve been U.S.-centric, featuring the lists compiled by Pitchfork, NPR, Noisecreep, and PopMatters. I thought for today I’d go north of the border and let you see the list published by Exclaim.ca.

Exclaim! is a Canadian national print magazine concentrating on music, with a monthly distribution of 100,000 copies. Exclaim.ca is the business’s web presence, with 300,000 unique visitors per month. Like the other big-platform sites whose lists we’ve re-published, Exclaim.ca covers a wide range of music, with metal being only one of the genres, and there’s also an emphasis on Canadian talent.

Of all the lists we’ve re-published to date, Exlaim.ca’s has the highest percentage of bands whose 2011 albums I haven’t heard. In fact, it has the highest percentage of bands whose names I’ve never heard. It also includes a high percentage of grind and noize. Also, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock that their album of the year is by a Canadian band (one of those albums I haven’t heard yet). But that same album has been on other lists, including the one that Corey Mitchell contributed to Metal Sucks, in which he said this about the album (which he ranked at No. 4):

“This Kurt Ballou (Converge) produced masterstroke brings to mind the best of Helmet (Strap It On, Meantime), Quicksand (Slip), and Poison the Well (You Come Before You). Alternative noise metalcore (not the bastardization the subgenre has evolved into over the past five years) that rumbles rafters and unsettles neighbors. Aggressive, precise, and one mean bitchin’ Camaro of an aural onslaught.”

The album placed at No. 1 isn’t the only one by a Canadian band. The pick for No. 3 is from Canada, too — but that’s it. Okay, two of the bands are from Washington State, and that’s not far away, but still, it’s not really a parochial list. Continue reading »

THE INAUGURAL METAL SUCKFEST, DAY 2 – 11.05.2011

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

(The METAL SUCKFEST that took place in NYC on Nov 4 and 5 was a milestone event — the first U.S. metal festival organized and co-sponsored by a metal blog, and Metal Sucks pulled together a fucktastic line-up to boot. So, NCS decided to document the event up-close and personal by sending two emissaries — NCS writer BadWolf and photographer Nicholas Vechery.  They returned intact, and this is BadWolf’s report of the festival’s second day, along with Nick’s photos. We’ll have interviews to come in the days ahead.)

Photographer Nicholas Vechery and I returned for the second day of Suckfest even more hung over and disgruntled than on November 4th—we wanted to look and feel our best.

I learned about the sad passing of GWAR’s Cory Smoot earlier that day, so I was all frowns… until we walked into the Grammercy and found it bustling. Tickets to the second day must have outsold the first two-to-one.

What’s more, people seemed excited. No one is very visibly excited about anything in New York except exiting a subway train (especially the Green line, ugh!). A mass of goat-throwers chit-chatted, drank, acted like an honest-to-god community—something rare for me, the Midwestern Metalhead.

Community, people coming together—that’s what makes festivals amazing. Continue reading »

THE GREAT KAT: THE MUSIC OF THE FUCKIN 21ST CENTURY

 IQ Subtraction  33 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

Classical music plus metal?  The music of the fuckin 21st Century!!  The most brilliant, vicious music ever heard!!!  Beethoven’s fuckin Fifth Symphony, speed version!

Do not listen to this album after listening to Metallica! You will not get it. You just will not understand it. The progression from the last album to this album? From total genius to impossibly amazing, powerful genius!!!!

You assholes are thinkin because I’m sitting here screaming in the middle of the rain in New York that I’m some kind of nutcase!  No, I just happen to be the only Fuckin Unrepressed Person in all of New York!

Why am I walking backwards? That’s your job!

And guess what? The Japanese are taking over the fuckin world!!!  You fuckin peons. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 1)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

This is a different spin on Listmania. For this post, we’re jumping outside North America and landing in Norway. Also, this isn’t really a “Best Album” list. Let me explain:

NRK is the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. It operates three main TV channels, three main radio channels, and several “niche” channels on radio and the internet. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners in the 15-30 age bracket, and of course, since this is Norway, it includes a healthy dose of metal. As far as I can figure out with help from Google Translate, “Pyro” is the name of the NRK P3 radio program that focuses mainly on metal and hard rock.

Last week, the Pyro web site rolled out its 2011 list of the most promising metal bands in Norway. I found out about this by seeing a Facebook post by a Norwegian band who showed up on the list. I got curious, and so I visited the site. Now, because this is radio programming, I figured the music wasn’t going to be quite as extreme as a lot of the metal that’s our bread and butter here at NCS. On the other hand, this is fucking Norway, and so I decided it would be worth spending some time exploring what they had to offer — and I guessed right.

I don’t speak Norwegian, of course. So, I used Google Translate. It rendered the Norwegian text on the web site into a kind of English . . . the kind spoken by people who’ve suffered some kind of severe trauma to the speech center in the brain. But I could get the gist of the text, and so I’ve tried my best to clean it up and make it mean what I think it means. But since this isn’t really a translation, I may have fucked it up. All errors are mine, not Pyro’s.

On the other hand, I’m not terribly worried about the text, because the site included music from each of the bands, so we’ve got music to hear, and the music is what counts, isn’t it? Continue reading »

FREE LISTENABLE SAMPLER IS LISTENABLE AND FREE

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

When I had my head in the clouds on vacation last month, the French label Listenable Records compiled a sampler of music for free download that I completely missed. Fortunately, it’s still available, and it’s quite a collection of music. There are some bands on the list whose names I don’t recognize and a few whose music doesn’t do anything for me, but on the other hand, it includes songs from some bands that are as strong as horseradish. Just to name a few:

GOJIRA

SVART CROWN

HATE

PANZERCHRIST

CAVUS

DARKANE

LIVARKAHIL

THE RED SHORE

There are 22 tracks in all. After the jump, you can check out the full track list and get the download link. Continue reading »

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