EYE-CATCHERS: SÓLSTAFIR AND KIM HOLM

 Eye-Catchers  No Responses »
Oct 292011
 

Over the last two weeks we’ve had a couple of posts about an Icelandic band called Sólstafir and their new album on Season of Mist, Svartir Sandar. The most recent post (here) included a great video of the band performing a song from the album called “Fjara” on Icelandic television. Sólstafir has also nearly finished filming an official music video for the same song. I have no doubt we’ll be posting that at NCS as soon as it premieres. But for today, we’re focusing on album art instead of Sólstafir’s music.

Svartir Sandar is a two-CD album. The first disc is called “Andvari” and the second is titled “Gola”, and each of them includes six songs — 12 in total. I don’t yet have a physical copy of the album, but it apparently includes a booklet with artwork for each of the 12 songs. One at a time, Sólstafir has been adding the art for each song to their Facebook albums, and today they uploaded the last one.

I’ve been watching as these pieces of art have gone up on Facebook, and now that they’re all there, I’ve collected them in this post. For reasons I doubt I could articulate, they suit the music. Even standing alone without the amazing music, they’re very cool. All the art is by a Norwegian cartoonist named Kim Holm. Take a look at all 12 creations after the jump (and listen to a Sólstafir song while you’re doing that). Continue reading »

KILL ME NOW

 IQ Subtraction  66 Responses »
Oct 282011
 

Video Day here at NCS continues . . .

So far, in order, we’ve featured Metachaos, Vaulting, and Vallenfyre, and that trajectory leads naturally to . . . Baby Metal? Or is it Babymetal?

Seriously, the only reason I’m doing this is to see what kind of commentary it provokes from Phro when he emerges from his lair over in The Land of the Rising Sun. Because my reaction upon seeing this at MetalSucks was pretty much captured by Axl’s comments: “OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS DID SOMEONE PUT ACID IN MY COFFEE THIS MORNING BEC I CAN’T EVEN – WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT”

My brain is too scrambled to even come up with a sufficiently effective palate-cleanser. So instead, I’ll just show you this (after the jump) . . . Continue reading »

VALLENFYRE: “CATHEDRALS OF DREAD” VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 282011
 

A short time ago this morning, Vallenfyre released their first official music video for music from their forthcoming debut, A Fragile King (hitting the streets via Century Media on November 1). The video features the song “Cathedrals of Dread”, which Vallenfyre frontman and songwriter Greg Mackintosh has described as a condemnation of religion: “I am a staunch atheist, and I think that all religions are quite strange—and the people who control them are very sinister. This quote by Edward Gibbon says it all: ‘Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.'”

Musically, the song itself is an interplay between crawling, crushing, distortion-heavy doom and a more up-tempo barrage of old-school death metal — a raw, stomping buzz of chainsaw riffing and thundering rhythms. It’s grim without being the least bit ponderous.

As for what’s depicted in the video, Greg Mackintosh described it this way in our recent interview of him (posted here): “It is taking the sheep mentality of religion a step further. Kind of a more black and white and more visceral version of the lyrical content of the song.” You can watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

VAULTING: “NUCLEUS”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 282011
 

About a month ago we discovered a German band called Vaulting through one of our MISCELLANY forays into the vast world of unexplored metal. What we heard back then was a five-track EP the band released in 2009 called Modus Humanis. It was damned sweet (read our babbling about it here). We discovered at the time of that post that Vaulting planned to release their debut album Nucleus on October 28. And so they have.

We’re pleased not only to announce that enticing news, but also to help Vaulting premiere a music video for a song from the new album called “Biorobot”. It’s extremely cool to watch, and the music is killer. “Biorobot” is the shortest song on the album — just long enough to tease us into wanting more. We’ve just received the rest of the album, and you’ll be reading more about it at NCS soon. For now, go past the jump and check out the new vid. Continue reading »

FLAYED DISCIPLE: “EJACULATE WHILE KILLING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Oct 282011
 

We got the yin and we got the yang. We finished yesterday’s postings with TesseracT and we start today’s with Flayed Disciple. We may not be good, but we’re sure as hell not monotonous.

Can you understand why I couldn’t resist listening to the new EP by Flayed Disciple?

Well, in my defense, allow me to say that although I have a strong impulsive desire to shock people when they least expect it and a personal taste for horrifyingly brutal death metal, I have never actually ejaculated while killing anyone or anything, and the idea of doing that does NOT appeal to me. I also get disgusted by metal bands who sell themselves with lyrics and album art that exploit the vicious degradation of women.

However, I do appreciate a good turn of phrase, and “ejaculate while killing” is just so over-the-top that I couldn’t resist. But as much fun as I have throwing big wet curveballs at all of you from time to time, I still wouldn’t be writing about this band if the music weren’t surprisingly VERY GOOD.

Flayed Disciple are from the UK and their latest EP apparently includes two older songs and two new ones. I say “apparently” because the Ejaculate EP as it’s available for purchase here in the U.S. (on iTunes and Amazon mp3) only includes the two new songs. Those two songs spun my head around so hard I had to check the mirror to make sure it wasn’t stuck in an ass-wards direction. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

TESSERACT: THE “EDEN” VIDEO

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 272011
 

TesseracT isn’t the kind of band we typically feature at NCS. Y’know, because of all that clean singing. BUT, I do like the band and their music. The songwriting is creative, the instrumental work is sharp, the mix of heavy, Meshuggah-style rhythms and penetrating melodies works well, and I tolerate the clean vocals because I like the instrumental work so much.

A few hours ago, a new music video appeared for the song “Eden”. The music on the video is is a revision of the song that appeared on the band’s album, One. It’s shorter than the original, and it includes the band’s new vocalist Elliot Coleman instead of the now-departed Dan Tompkins. I know there’s been a mountain of shit-talking controversy among the band’s fans about Elliot Coleman joining the band — not that I really care all that much about the issue — but I don’t hear a huge difference between the two performances of this song.

As for the video, it’s well-made and interesting to watch. Coincidentally, it’s the second video we’ve featured today that involves mermaids. Granted, the sea creatures in this video don’t have tails, and they seem to have glowing boxes in place of hearts, but it’s close enough. The video is after the jump. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: METSATÖLL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 272011
 

Metsatöll is a band from Estonia who released their first demo in 1999. Four albums plus assorted splits, EPs, and singles have followed that first effort, and the fifth album — Ulg — is due for release via Spinefarm Records on November 1. Until today, I had never heard their music. I’m not even positive I had heard their name. Just to display my ignorance even further, I wasn’t even sure where Estonia was, other than having a vague recollection of a Central European location (which turns out to be wrong)..

And then today I saw the album cover for Ulg, which is above, in conjunction with a notice that the album is streaming in full on yet another Finnish web site, Imperiumi (that Lantlôs album we discussed earlier today is streaming on Finland-based Inferno). There’s something about that cover that really hooked me, even though it’s not as “metal” as most cover art for the albums we feature around here. So, I decided this would be a fitting test subject for our continuing investigation of the hypothesis that cool album art correlates with cool music.

So, I cranked up that full album stream and started listening. Now, I warn you that because of interference from my fucking day job, I haven’t yet finished listening, which of course hasn’t stopped me from posting about this anyway. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NEW LANTLOS: FULL ALBUM STREAM

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Oct 272011
 

Lantlôs is a two-man German band consisting of Herbst, who writes the music and plays all the instruments (other than session drums), and Alcest’s Neige, who supplies scarifying vocals. Their 2010 album, .neon, made several of the “best of the year” lists we published last December. Even after seeing the name on those lists, I never listened to it. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. However, the band have already finished a new album titled Agape — five songs totaling about 35 minutes of music. It’s scheduled for release on October 28 and it’s available for pre-order in a variety of formats from Prophecy Productions at this web store.

Thanks to a tip from BadWolf, I can report that the album is also now streaming — for one week only — at the Finnish web site Inferno, which also hosted a stream of the new Solstafir album that we featured not long ago. Accompanying the album stream is a track-by-track commentary (appearing in Finnish on the Inferno site) by Herbst. This offers two attractive opportunities:

First, you get to hear the new Lantlôs album. Second, English speakers get another chance to see what kind of new hilarity will be produced by running the text through Google Translate. I sure hope whoever’s working on the Finnish-to-English algorithm for Google Translate stops trying to improve it, because it’s perfect just the way it is. For example, Inferno’s description of the Lantlôs music comes out this way: “post-called black metaliksikin”.

Me-tal-ik-sik-in. Beautiful word. It has dueling connotations — it sounds like either “sick metal” (a good thing) or metal that makes you sick-up your breakfast (not so good). I’ve only just started listening to the Lantlôs album stream, and so far I’d say it’s sick metal.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GREG MACKINTOSH OF VALLENFYRE AND PARADISE LOST

 Interviews  20 Responses »
Oct 272011
 

Anyone who’s been reading NO CLEAN SINGING over the last two months knows how pumped we are for the release of the debut album, A Fragile King, by Vallenfyre. Hell, we got very excited before we knew who was in this band or how they came together, just based on hearing pieces of two songs the band had released on a 7-inch single — which apparently was sufficient to land them a record contract with Century Media. Sharp ears, those Century Media folks have.

Once we found out who was in Vallenfyre, our excitement grew. The band was started by Greg Mackintosh, whose name you will recognize as the long-standing guitarist and a co-founding member of Paradise Lost. He wrote Vallenfyre’s music and the lyrics and called together a group of friends to fill out this band — and they happen to be top-shelf musicians too:   Hamish Glencross (My Dying Bride) – Rhythm and Lead Guitars; Mully – Rhythm Guitars;  Scoot (Doom, Extinction of Mankind) – Bass; and Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, Paradise Lost) – Drums.

Many albums are inspired by the songwriter’s personal experiences, but A Fragile King is a more personal creation than most. The music and the lyrics were largely the result of Greg Mackintosh’s effort to work through the grief he experienced over the death of his father John from cancer. It’s an album that’s in part a reflection of the anguish and the anger he felt, in part a tribute to his dad, and in part a re-connecting to the kind of metal he loved in younger and happier days — a voyage back in time to a place of refuge and comfort. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries