ARSIS INVITES YOU INTO THE SHADOWS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
May 232011
 

With increasing frequency, we’re seeing bands inviting their fans inside the creative process before their songs are all fully mixed, mastered and packaged into an album’s worth of music. I think that’s smart marketing, in addition to satisfying the impatience of hungry fans like me who hate waiting around for new music from bands we like.

We had one example yesterday when The Monolith Deathcult put up on SoundCloud a preliminary version of a new song called “H.W.A.” (Human Wave Attack). And today we have yet another example: Arsis has posted a brand-new song for streaming via SoundCloud called “Since the Shadows”. Yes, that does indeed mean that Arsis is writing a new album.

Early days yet, but based on this demo version of the new song, it’s not too soon to start panting for that album to come. At least if you’re a panter like me. If you just breathe normally, like a human instead of a beagle, then you may just want to smile when you hear this song. As they say in the field of professional music journalism, it fucken rawks.

ARSIS – Since the Shadows (Demo) by NuclearBlastRecords

SHORT BUT SWEET: SUNLESS RISE AND BLACK MONOLITH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
May 232011
 

We’re in a never-ending chase, trying to catch up with EP’s and demo’s from unsigned bands who’ve contacted us, or who we’ve found out about through recommendations. I suppose it would be easier, now that we’ve grown a bit, simply to pay attention to well-known bands or full-length label debuts. But we’re trying to remain faithful to one of the founding principles of this site — to show some support to talented unsigned bands from around the world, and in doing that, to provide what we hope will be some entertaining discoveries for NCS readers.

Today, we’ve got two discoveries to share with you: SunLess Rise (Russia) and Black Monolith (San Francisco). Both bands are definitely under the radar — so far — but to the extent merit counts for anything, you should be hearing more about them in the future. About the only thing they have in common (apart from being good) is speed. Otherwise, the styles of music are utterly different.

SunLess Rise should appeal mightily to fans of Children of Bodom, Norther, and Ensiferum. I have more trouble picking out better-known references for Black Monolith — it’s a raw amalgam of black metal, punk, crust, grind, and a really pissed off junkyard dog.

Oh wait, these bands do have one more thing in common — their debut EP’s are available for download at no charge. So, let’s get to it . . . Continue reading »

OH FUCK! THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT PUT UP A NEW TRACK!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
May 222011
 

If I’d just waited five more minutes before putting up that last post I’d have seen the news leak that one of our favorite modern metal bands — The Monolith Deathcult — has an in-process song that can be snooped on SoundCloud. The title (or at least the working title) is “HWA”.

There’s a note beneath the SoundCloud player which says this: “not finished, need some serious finetuning and extra lyrics.” Fair enough, but goddamn, this is sounding damned sweet.

The song may not be up there for much longer, so TMDC fans, check out this shit without delay. And for anyone new to TMDC, you can read more in Andy Synn’s SYNN REPORT about the band or our interview of TMDC mastermind Michiel Dekker (here).

HWA by TMDCHQ

SPUR OF THE MINUTE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 222011
 

Sunday’s usually aren’t big days for news about the release of new metal. But this morning brought my bleary eyes a few revelations (and no, I haven’t foreseen Armageddon). One discovery concerns a Norwegian band called Hellish Outcast who we’ve featured here before. The other came via an e-mail recommendation from ElvisShotJFK – a reader who’s been with us since early days at NCS. It’s a slice of instrumental metal from a German band called Nimbatus, whose entire discography happens to be available at no charge.

This music is all really good, despite being on nearly opposite poles of the metal sphere. So, I thought I’d throw this post together on the spur of the minute. For those of you who couldn’t be bothered to wade through that book-length post we put up a bit earlier today, all you’ve got to do with this one is just close your eyes and listen.

HELLISH OUTCAST

The last time we checked in with this band (about a month ago), they’d just released an official music video for a song called “Face Forced Down”, which appears on their debut album, Your God Will Bleed. (Go here to check out that video.) We thought that song was a crushing aural onslaught by some dudes who know what the fuck they’re doing: Thebon (Keep of Kalessin‘s vocalist), Mads Lillevedt (a/k/a Alkolust, the drummer for Byfrost), bassist Max Morbid (BREED), and guitarist Martin Legreid (66Crusher). As of this morning, we’ve got two more new songs from the album to set our heads on fire. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” – BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 36): THE PISS CHRIST EDITION

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  19 Responses »
May 222011
 

Today we have a special edition of THAT’S METAL! It seemed like an appropriate day for this, since yesterday has passed, the world has not ended, and so fas as I know, there haven’t been any documented instances of anyone taken up into the clouds by The Rapture. But this edition of THAT’S METAL! isn’t going to be what you probably think it will be.

Having some vicious fun at the expense of one goofball evangelical minister or his delusional goofball followers would be too easy, and it wouldn’t cause anyone to do any actual thinking. And while it’s true that provoking serious thought isn’t part of the official NCS mission statement, on rare occasions we do make a stab at it. Today will be one of those days.

So, if you read the title of this post and were expecting cynical mockery of self-styled prophets of Judgment Day, or Christianity, or even religion generally, you won’t find that here (at least not today). There is a connection between the fallacious May 21 Rapture prediction and the point(s) of this post, but it may not be obvious.

And as for the point(s) of this post, well, I don’t intend to make that explicit either, mainly because I don’t really get off on preaching, or listening to preaching, for that matter. Besides, this post has as much to do with what makes good and bad art (including metal music) as it does with anything else. So, draw your own conclusions — and if you start to get bored, you can just skip to the bottom of the post and listen to some actual metal. Continue reading »

METAL FROM SOUTH AFRICA: PART 2

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  87 Responses »
May 212011
 

About five weeks ago we posted a feature on three South African metal bands whose music we’d recently discovered and liked quite a lot: All Forlorn, A Walk With the Wicked, and Bile of Man. Amazingly, it seems that U.S. metal blogs have been neglecting the scene in that country, because our post generated a lot of hits and a bunch of thank-you’s from SouthAfrican metalheads for, y’know, just paying attention. It also generated an avalanche of recommendations, via e-mail as well as comments on that post, about other South African bands that we ought to check out.

So, we decided to do a follow-up post — and we received so many recommendations that we’ll probably make this into a trilogy as soon as I can get my lazy ass in gear to do the next one. How did we pick the next group of bands for Part 2 of this feature? Well, we pretty much let the enthusiasm of our recommenders make the decision for us, because it’s not like we’re experts on the SA scene. Let’s be real — we live in fucking Seattle, which is approximately 10,200 miles from Cape Town (the country’s legislative capital). There must be cities farther away from SA than Seattle, but there sure aren’t many.

Based on the enthusiasm quotient of our recommendations, we’re focusing today on Theatre Runs Red, Contrast the Water, and Pledge Defiance. We picked those names without having heard the music, which is what we do for our MISCELLANY posts, and just as we do for those posts, I listened to a song or two from each band and then recorded my first impressions, while giving you a chance to listen for yourselves and make up your own minds. So dive in with us after the jump and give yourself a chance to make some new discoveries from the world of SA Metal. As it happens, all three of these bands are working on albums that should see release sometime later this year. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS: OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR “YOU I NEED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 202011
 


Today Amorphis released their official video for the first song they debuted from their next album, The Beginning Of Times, which is scheduled for release on May 27 via Nuclear Blast Records. We already wrote a post about that song when it was first released and don’t really have anything new to say about it. We weren’t blown away, but it’s still Amorphis, and as we warned you then, we’re going to continue covering developments about this album like a wet blanket between now and May 27.

So, without further fucking around — go watch the video after the jump. That is all. Continue reading »

VARIOUS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 202011
 

To supplement Andy’s review of the recent show in Leicester by The Faceless, Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, and Gorod (here), I threw together some breaking news of interest to me (and perhaps you), plus some new music and videos (also of interest to me, and possibly to you, too). The subjects of this post: Bewilderbiest, Nekrogoblikon, Fit For An Autopsy, Adam Gray (Texas in July), and Your Chance To Die.

BEWILDERBIEST

NCS co-founder IntoTheDarkness doesn’t write for NCS much any more, but at unpredictable times he texts me in bursts of enthusiasm about new music or new developments in the scene. Yesterday was one of those days. So, credit to him for this first piece of intriguing news.

Bewilderbiest is a new band, a “super group”, if you will. Somehow, IntoTheDarkness became aware of the recent, unheralded appearance of this band on Facebook. So far, I haven’t seen any fanfare about this, but it sure does command interest. Check out the line-up of band members:

Sacha Dunable – guitar (Intronaut, Graviton)
Derek Donley – drums (National Sunday Law, Graviton)
Charles Elliott – vocals, guitar (Abysmal Dawn)
Derek Rydquist – bass (The Faceless)

I think this makes the 5,231st band that the super-talented Sacha Dunable is involved in. No music is yet available, but based on some internet sleuthing, I did discover that the band are finishing up work on their debut effort and that the genre focus will be doom. When we have more to report, we’ll clue you in.  That Facebook page is here, though the content is pretty spare at the moment. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE FACELESS / BORN OF OSIRIS / VEIL OF MAYA / GOROD – Leicester, Sub91, May 17, 2011

 Concert Reviews  3 Responses »
May 202011
 

(NCS writer Andy Synn has been burning up his keyboard this week. Today we’re featuring Andy’s review of live performances by The Faceless, Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, and Gorod in Leicester, England, on May 17, 2011.)

Leicester’s Sub91 is a nice venue. It was my first time there and I was definitely impressed. The layout is spacious but focussed, with a well-positioned sound-desk, a nice-sized bar at the rear of the venue and a large, open stage which provides a good space for the band as well as a clear viewing area for the audience to watch. A perfect venue for tonight’s tech-tacular spectacular.

First up were French Jazz-Tech-Metallers Gorod, who quickly get down to business with a bruising, thrashy assault of complicated riffs and complex song structures. New singer Julien Deyres supplemented the more traditional death growls with an additional hardcore/thrash bark thrown in for good measure, whilst drummer Samuel Santiago performed as an obscenely tight machine on the drums, potentially the best drummer on the entire bill, handling the multitude of timing and tempo changes with ease, while maintaining an unrelenting pace throughout.

Guitarists Mathieu Pascal and Nicolas Alberny were reasonably static presences throughout, capably delivering impressively technical trade-offs and hook-filled tech-riffs with aplomb, while occasionally dropping down for a good old-fashioned headbang, which only served to reinforce the old-school 80’s thrash vibe of their performance. Think Atheist, Sadus, Martyr, but with a more modern, tech-ed up and souped out extreme metal edge.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“DELIVER US” FROM IN FLAMES: THE VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 192011
 

We’ve already featured the first song — “Deliver Us” — from the new album by In Flames, Sounds of A Playground Fading, and pronounced it a noticeable step up from the disappointments on A Sense of Purpose (that post is here).  It’s a damned catchy song with better vocals by Anders than he delivered on AOP. No, it’s not a return to the glory days of Clayman, but this band has been there, done that, and have moved on, whether diehard fans like us approve or not. At least “Deliver Us” provides some hope for a better version of the current In Flames than ASOP.

This morning we saw the official video for “Deliver Us” and it’s a very tasty piece of eye candy — beautifully filmed, with striking images of a shining ferris wheel at night and fireworks blazing in the sky — and the band members blazing away on their instruments inside the ferris wheel cars. I’ll leave the connection between the imagery and the song’s lyrics to other cinematics. I’ll just say it’s fun to watch (and that song continues to grow on us).  See it after the jump (you might want to take this one to full-screen if you can) . . . Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries