IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T BANGED YOUR HEAD YET TODAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

I discovered a French band called Svart Crown more than a year ago when I reviewed their second album, Witnessing the Fall. I compared them to a joint venture between Immortal and Immolation. Since then, the band signed with Listenable Records, which put the album into wider distribution. It’s still a damned strong listen.

This morning I saw that the band have released an official video for “Into A Demential Sea”, one of the songs from Witnessing the Fall. To crib from my review (since I’m too fucking lazy to come up with any new phraseology), it’s “almost experimental in its combination of raging guitars, complex drumming, and sharp rhythm breaks that cause the song to trudge with death-doom chord progressions.”

But more importantly, it will trigger the old headbang reflex, which is a reflex that needs to be triggered often, so that you don’t get fixed-neck syndrome, which is a precursor to tight-sphincter complex and stick-up-the-ass disease.

And in other welcome news, an Ulcerate-Svart Crown European tour has been announced for February 2012. I say “welcome” because I’m trying to be happy for our European readers. I myself do not find this news welcome, because, since I can’t go to any of these shows, the news simply makes me jealous and slightly miserable because of my loss. I’m going to console myself by watching this video again. It’s after the big goddamn tour poster which immediately follows the jump. I hope all you Euro motherfuckers are happy. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 20: AVERSE SEFIRA

 THE SYNN REPORT  6 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

(In this latest edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of Austin, Texas-based black metal band Averse Sefira, with musical accompaniment, of course.)

Recommended for fans of: Belphegor, Secrets Of The Moon, 1349

So here it is, my final Synn Report of 2011. This year’s epitaph belongs to the anti-cosmic chaos legion Averse Sefira.

Agents of corruption and occult warfare, Averse Sefira formed many moons ago in order to create something antithetical to the soulless and vapid musical landscape around them. Casting themselves as fallen angels, rejecting the questionable graces of an unthinking order, they exist as agents of change, sounding the battle hymn of a war against creation. Each album chronicles their bloody and abhorrent rebirth, the womb of abomination spewing forth a black winged angel which spreads its pinions with ominous intent, flexing its claws and baring its teeth in a display of vampiric hunger.

Channelling the forces of elemental chaos through the sacramental nature of their music, they bring forth fire and brimstone through their instruments, twisting and hammering upon tormented strings and tortured skins with savage abandon and merciless precision. Drawing upon the collaborative efforts of their blackened cabal, the band are graced by the presence of “The Lady Of The Evening Faces”, who utilises her arcane knowledge to craft a series of unsettling atmospheric interludes and to layer each track with a haunting, inhuman ambience. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: THE WORST METAL OF 2011

 Listmania  41 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

As I assume everyone knows, part of this site’s philosophy is not to crap on metal bands whose music sucks. Instead, we pretty much just ignore those bands. About the only exceptions are big, famous, wealthy, arrogant bands who just won’t shut the fuck up. If you think a minute, you can figure out who those bands are. But when it comes to just about everyone else, our philosophy is to stay positive and spend our time talking about music we feel we can honestly recommend. There are plenty of other sites that will tell you in amusing ways which music you should avoid like genital herpes.

BUT, since we’re here in December and Listmania is rampant, other sites are making lists of the worst metal albums of 2011, and I thought I’d feature one of those lists in this post to go along with all the “Best of 2011” lists we’ve been posting — just to get the conversation started, because I know all of you have heard some music this year that disappointed you, or worse yet, made you want to stick your finger down your gullet to relieve the nausea.

So, the list I’ve picked as a conversation-starter is one put together by Adrien Begrand for MSN Entertainment. MSN Entertainment is another one of what I’ve been calling “big platform” sites, i.e., websites that have huge amounts of traffic but cover metal as only one of dozens of interests. As in the case of other big-platform sites whose Best of 2011 lists I’ve been featuring, I’d be surprised if any of you visit MSN Entertainment to get guidance about good and bad metal. But Adrien Begrand writes for lots of sites and publications and I certainly respect his opinions.

So, after the jump, we’ll take a look at his list of the 10 Worst Metal Albums of 2011, and then we’ll open up the Comments for discussion. And yes, you will be able to guess which albums are in the No. 1 and No. 2 positions. Continue reading »

THE FIRST INAUGURAL METAL SUCKFEST – DAY 1, 11.04.2011

 Concert Reviews  8 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

(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 first day, along with Nick’s photos. BadWolf’s Day Two report will be tomorrow, and we’ll have interviews to come after that.)

Blogs will control the entertainment industry within our lifetimes (if the industry lasts our lifetimes). TMZ will overtake Entertainment Tonight. In some ways, Pitchfork has already taken Rolling Stone’s place.  Case in point: MetalSucks just threw the first (to my knowledge) blog-driven extreme music festival on US soil, Suckfest, and NCS was there to cover it.

On November 4, 2011, suckalos—yours truly included—flocked to the Grammercy Theater in Manhattan for seven hours of thrash. NCS photographer Nicholas Vechery and I rolled in sleep-deprived and sore after a 20+ hour bus trip from Ohio. The venue –the Grammercy Theater—was indeed a theater once and remains dark and sparse.

Initially, I thought the Grammercy would be too small to fit a decent crowd, but the first day was poorly attended.  Attendees shouted “Occupy Grammercy!” between songs, but otherwise behaved themselves too well by my standards. New York headbangers seem more reluctant to mosh than when I lived in the Big Apple. I smelled a division between lineup and audience—the first day’s bands all shared a background in hardcore punk, but in general MetalSucks caters to a more technical/progressive metal loving audience. The lineup was strong, but perhaps suited for a more intimate venue. After all, who wants to see Magrudergrind behind a security barrier?

Audience aside, the first day’s bands exploded over the lower-east side with white-knuckle intensity. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: THE POPMATTERS TOP 20

 Listmania  20 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

PopMatters is a popular culture web site with broad coverage of music, film, television, books, comics, software and video games — you name it. It distributes a syndicated newspaper column, its articles get picked up regularly by the mainstream media, and it claims a readership of more than 1 million unique visitors per month. In other words, it fits the profile of “big platform” web sites whose lists of 2011’s best metal we’ve been re-publishing here at NCS over the last few weeks — not because these lists are necessarily ones we’d recommend as reliable arbiters of extreme music, but because we’re curious about what metal is being touted to big segments of the reading public (many of whom aren’t likely to be metalheads).

Recently, PopMatters published its list of “The Best Metal of 2011”, ranking the chosen albums from #20 to #1. The list was compiled by Adrien Begrand, Chris Colgan, Brice Ezell, Craig Hayes, and Dane Prokofiev (who has contributed to NCS under a different pseudonym). To see the list with accompanying descriptions and explanations of the choices along with sample tracks from the listed albums, use this link.

You will see some names that have appeared on every list we’ve published so far. You’ll also see some new entries, including — finally – Amon Amarth, as well as Dir En Grey, Leviathan, and (gasp) Liturgy. I predict that many of you readers who dwell deep in the underground of metal will find too much hipster in this list, and I suspect most of you are going to disagree about the placement of the Top 5 albums. Anyway, the PopMatters list is right after the jump. Continue reading »

AND OUR TWO MOST POPULAR POSTS ARE . . .

 Uncategorized  9 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

Yesterday, in a post called “Humbled”, I expressed dismay and confusion over the fact that a post I wrote nearly two years ago as a joke — an insignificant piece of news about Elize Ryd, Amaranthe, and Kamelot — has turned out to be the third most popular post we’ve ever run at NCS, measured by page hits on that post, proving that completely lame-ass bullshit sometimes drives traffic.

This prompted some of you to ask which posts hold the No. 1 and No. 2 ranking in popularity at this site since we started the thing. Here’s the answer:

The most popular post — with nearly 11,000 page views, and counting — is Andy Synn’s review of Deconstruction by The Devin Townsend Project. In fact, if you google “devin townsend deconstruction review” today, you’ll see Andy’s post as the No. 6 search result.

A few things about this are interesting. First, this piece only appeared less than seven months ago, so it’s built up quite a following in a relatively short amount of time. Second, it’s one of the longest posts we’ve ever published, but that hasn’t seemed to deter readers from checking it out (though, to be brutally honest, I have no good way of knowing how many people have actually read the whole thing). Third, the hits on Andy’s review continue to roll in. I remember there was a big surge shortly after the review appeared, because Devin Townsend posted about it on his Twitter feed and on Facebook, but even over the last 30 days it ranks No. 20 in terms of page views at NCS. And fourth, this tends to prove that not only does completely lame-ass bullshit drive traffic, quality drives traffic, too.

Ironically, although Deconstruction is one of the year’s best albums in the estimation of nearly all of us who write regularly for NCS, I haven’t yet seen it appear on a single “Best of 2011” list published by the bigger blogs that cover metal.

Now, on to our second most popular post ever . . . Continue reading »

LAMB OF GOD: THE “GHOST WALKING” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

As we reported yesterday, Lamb of God premiered the first track from their new album, Resolution, on Metal Sucks. Today, they’ve unveiled the official music video for the same song (“Ghost Walking”).

It’s one of those “lyric videos”, but with a creative visual twist. Gaze upon it after the jump.

Resolution will be released on Jan. 24 and is available for pre-order at this link. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: THE NOISECREEP TOP 11

 Listmania  28 Responses »
Dec 062011
 

While trying to do other things that we actually create ourselves here at NCS, I’m still keeping one eye out for the “Best of 2011” lists being generated by heavily-trafficked web sites and zines. Yesterday I spotted the “Best Metal Albums of 2011” published by Noisecreep, which is the hard rock and metal web site of AOL.

You may not be a daily Noisecreep visitor, but a fuckload of other people are, so I was curious about what they’re touting. AOL may seem like last century to most metalheads, but the Noisecreep demographic must still have something going for it, because they premiere a lot of songs by a lot of good metal bands, and even though I’m too fuckin lazy to research the quantitative achievements of their site traffic, metal labels sure as hell do.

Looking at their list, after looking at the lists by other big-platform sites like Pitchfork and NPR, I’m beginning to notice a trend:  Whoever is putting these lists together has got at least one finger on the pulse of the underground, even if their other fingers are lovingly wrapped around the genitalia of their readers. In other words, the Noisecreep list includes some surprisingly “fuck yeah!” albums, as well as some “what the fuck, are you serious?” albums. Check out the list after the jump, along with some editorial comments by me. Continue reading »

GIRL GROWLERS – PART 4

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Here’s the last feature in today’s impromptu mini-series on female-fronted metal bands who are not Amaranthe.

When I started collecting bands for this series, this last post was originally going to be about a Vancouver band called Without Mercy (pictured above). About six weeks ago, I got an e-mail from an NCS reader (David) pointing me to them, and more specifically to the YouTube channel for their female vocalist, Alxs Ness.

But today, when I got the idea of pulling together a handful of female-fronted bands as compensation for that Amaranthe thing and started doing a little homework about Alxs, I found out that at some point over the last six weeks she had become the vocalist for yet another Vancouver band called Abriosis. So, if I’m understanding things correctly, she will be the vocalist for both bands. [CORRECTION: Since posting this piece originally, I’ve learned that Alxs did leave Without Mercy, but Without Mercy is moving ahead with a new vocalist and working on new music.]

Abriosis put out a self-titled EP in 2008 and a debut album earlier this year called Tattered and Bound. Both of those collections were pre-Alxs Ness, so that sort of disqualifies them for discussion in this post. Instead, what I have for you after the jump is an amusing video (complete with some toaster-ball near the end) depicting how Abriosis met their new vocalist, and a second video of the band jamming one of their songs with Alxs behind the mic. Not surprisingly, Abriosis plans to record a new EP next year with the new line-up. Abriosis has a Facebook page here.

Without Mercy released an EP in 2007 called All Else Fails and then a self-titled debut album in 2009, which is available for streaming and purchase via Bandcamp. I like the heady dose of death-thrash brutality I’ve heard so far from the album, and I’m putting up an album stream for you to hear after the jump. But, first things first — the YouTube clip that David sent me featuring Alxs’ vocal cover of “Eaten” by Bloodbath. Elize Ryd, eat your heart out. Continue reading »

HIT ME UP YO

 Uncategorized  14 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

(We interrupt our girl-growler programming with this message and invitation from TheMadIsraeli.)

I greatly apologize to all of you NCS readers for the lack of content I’ve been providing.  School is the enemy of everything that is metal.  Of this I’m convinced.  I realize that Islander keeps up a constant influx of good stuff, but I mean, it’s okay to admit the truth.  We both know it.  This site would die without me.

After the 15th, I intend to provide you all with a slew of content — content that I’m not exactly against changing to suit your whims. In fact, I’d like to give you the chance to dictate what I will finish out this year with in terms of content.  Let me know what might be of interest, whether it be reviews, topical articles, or me trying my hand at random-ass shit.

The only officially planned things I have at this point are my year-end list of best albums and a review of Ever Forthright’s full-length debut.  This shit isn’t enough.  I need more!  So please suggest content ideas, either via the comments or my email at TheMadIsraeli@nocleansinging.com so I can make good use of my downtime from school which begins in the next coming week.  I’ll have two and a half weeks of time off to take advantage of.  Help me use it wisely.

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