BLOTTED SCIENCE: “THE ANIMATION OF ENTOMOLOGY”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Oct 112011
 

(We welcome to the site an NCS guest contributor who calls himself The Baby Killer, and he makes his debut with a review of the new EP from supergroup Blotted Science.)

Have you ever listened to an album and thought to yourself, “Wow, I never thought these guys would outdo the last one, but they just did”? Some albums, at the time of their release, such as Anaal Nathrakh’s In the Constellation of the Black Widow or Nile’s Annihilation of the Wicked, and more relevantly Blotted Science’s debut effort The Machinations of Dementia, seem like they just can’t be topped.

The technicality, atmosphere, or even just the sheer level of brutality seem so daunting when the albums come out, and when word later surfaces that the band is working on the follow-up, people tend to get polarized about the subject. Some say they can’t wait to hear what’s next, some say either it’s not going to be as good or it will just be the same album recycled for the fans, and the rest usually fall somewhere in the middle. And then when the next release does come out, everyone puts aside their differences to help pick up each other’s jaws off the ground. Such is the case with Blotted Science’s new EP, The Animation of Entomology.

Ron Jarzombek & co. don’t seem to have lost any of their momentum from their last full length, and instead have only gotten tighter.  The addition of tech-death drum veteran Hannes Grossmann (ex-Necrophagist, Obscura) has given the band just the right shot of adrenaline they needed to really stand head and shoulders above their peers, worthy opponents of Animals As Leaders, Fleshwrought and Sleep Terror.

The Animation of Entomology‘s backbone is still the fluid combination of jazzy drums and rhythms over Jarzombek’s signature free-form weedily-weedilies, but the songwriting and structures are much more varied and diverse this time around, with the tempos ranging from slow and eerie to holy-fuck-my-arms-are-gonna-fall-off. I even found certain parts comparable to djent, but much heavier of course. It’s a veritable musical roller coaster, and the guy who designed it was probably on shrooms. Continue reading »

SOLSTAFIR STREAMING

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  22 Responses »
Oct 112011
 

Sólstafir is an Icelandic band whose fourth album — a double CD — will be released by Season of Mist on October 14. Andy Synn has made passing reference to them in a positive way in a few of his NCS reviews of other bands’ music, but until this morning I’d never heard what they have to offer. But we now have the promo of the new album, Svartir Sandar, and at the same time I discovered that the Finnish web site Inferno began streaming the album in full today (and for one week hereafter).

So, while doing something else I went to Inferno and began streaming the music. The first song on the stream is called “Ljós í Stormi”. It’s more than 11 minutes long. It stopped me dead in my tracks, almost immediately. I ceased what I was doing and just drank in the riveting music. I suppose one could call it post-black-metal, for lack of a better short-hand, but that seems so vague and, frankly, kind of dull — and the music is anything but dull.

After an almost two-minute instrumental intro that’s slow, cold, and hypnotic, the song explodes in rush of crashing chords and convulsive rhythms, supercharged by Aðalbjörn Tryggvason’s vein-bursting vocals. The pacing eases back, with echoing guitars introducing a dark, melancholy melody, accented by strange pieces of electronica, and those slow passages trade off with a distorted rolling gait. It’s both icy and fiery, otherworldly and passionate, as much prog-rock as metal, and worth your time.

GO HERE to stream this album on Inferno, and if I can’t persuade you to do that, at least go past the jump and check out “Ljós í Stormi”. We’ll have a review of this album in the future. Continue reading »

INSOMNIUM: “ONE FOR SORROW”

 Album Reviews  15 Responses »
Oct 112011
 

(NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the new album from Finland’s Insomnium.)

Expectations are funny things. Sometimes they set us up for a fall. Sometimes they serve to prepare us for disappointment. Sometimes they serve only to disappoint us further. But sometimes the simple fulfilment of your expectations can be a wonderful thing.

With their fifth album, Insomnium once again offer you everything you’ve been expecting. Cleanly and powerfully. Proudly and confidently. Consider yourselves satisfied. Consider your expectations not simply fulfilled but effortlessly surpassed. And do not for a moment imagine that you know everything about this album already. Not this time.

The traditional introductory track “Inertia” commences the album in a wholly untraditional manner, its floating, ethereal style and omnipresent keyboard ambience initially bringing to mind their Finnish brethren in Ghost Brigade as it slowly builds in intensity, growing from a tiny seed of melody into a forest of stars and wind-swept harmonies.

From its rolling gait the song transitions naturally into “Through The Shadows”, a powerful number whose thunderous metallic might and grandiose melody is buoyed up by an ocean of shimmering keyboard orchestration. The riffs and vocals strike a potent balance between overwhelming power and restraint, never knowingly aggressive yet effortlessly confident and assured, leading right up to a strident chorus where the clean vocals of guitarist Ville Friman are offset against the familiar, rumbling growl of Niilo Sevänen, offering a tantalising glimpse of a band who have still yet to unfurl all the facets of their glorious wings. A transcendent solo and some magnificent duelling guitar leads crown the second half of the song in majestic grandeur, leading seamlessly into the lengthy and epic vibe of “Song Of The Blackest Bird”. Continue reading »

ELDRITCH FLAMETHROWER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

Isn’t that just the most fucken rad name for a metal band? Actually, Eldritch Flamethrower isn’t exactly a full-fledged metal band just yet, but they’re on their way. I know about them because of their connection to Oregon’s Arkhum, a band to whom we’ve paid a fair bit of attention at NCS (because they are also fuckin rad), most recently here. Specifically, Arkhum’s bassist Matt Edwards is on lead vocals, Arkhum’s vocalist Kenneth Parker is on bass and backing vocals (sounds like a game of musical chairs), and Arkhum’s guitarist Stephen Parker is doing the production work plus yelling along on gang vocals.

But this isn’t an all-Arkhum side project. It also includes Sean Corkum from another (recently deceased) Eugene-based outfit called Rocket Propelled Chainsaws (there’s another fucking rad band name for you) and Nathan Kelley from the sludge band Boneblossom (yep, there’s another one). All I’ve heard from Eldritch Flamethrower so far is a track called “Human Barbeque”, which is a f*cking rad song title. The final mix on the song isn’t even finished, but it’s more than enough to get me up and stomping around the room, scaring the piss out of my cat and disturbing the termites who’ve started a home-sweet-home in the baseboards.

It’s raw, primal, punk-y thrash, but without the classic vocal style that I often find annoying about thrash. It’s party music for a cannibal feast. Sean Corkum has cooked up some nasty headbanging riffs, and he executes a charcoal-fired solo that’s so smokin’ you can almost smell the human flesh on the grill. Yum!

Speaking of which, I really want to yell “Human Barbeque!” along with the gang vocals on this track. In fact, I think I will do that right now, especially because I’m running out of variant spellings for the word FUCKING. You can sing along, too, because I decided to stream the song right after the jump.  (also, the photo I lifted for this post is copyrighted by Tristan Savatier) Continue reading »

CIPHER SYSTEM: “COMMUNICATE THE STORMS”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

(TheMadIsraeli has been a busy metalhead. Here’s his second album review for this Monday.)

Cipher System from Gothenburg, Sweden, were something of an adored cult band in the early 2000’s with their debut Central Tunnel 8. Loved for its complex melodic layers with sci-fi synths, intricate guitar interplay, and excellent changes in tempo, the album delivered a sound and feel all its own. Now Cipher System are back with a new album after 7 years of hiatus. How does it hold up? I’m happy to tell you that it brings back the classic formula of Central Tunnel 8 with some very welcome improvements. This is Communicate The Storms.

Cipher System definitely know how to deliver the melodeath sledgehammer to the face. Opener “7 Inch Cut” is a slow choice for an album starter (I seem to be reviewing albums with non-conventional opening tracks lately), with staccato’d chugs conveying stoic solitude, while Blade Runner-styled synths hang overhead. It conveys a mood of deep sorrow, a theme that persists throughout the song in its musical approach. The anguished vocals of new vocalist Karl Obbel tear away at your soul, like a hungry abyss waiting to consume you. The waltz-like cadence of “7 Inch Cut” makes the song feel like an extended intro, like the opening credits-roll of a movie, and THAT is really cool to me.

“Forget To Forgive” is where the album really “starts”, as it were. A thrashy riff in very Soilwork-ish fashion blows up in your face and ignites the stage. The verse is a badass, full-steam-ahead, machine-gun chug-fest, complemented by totally awesome synth work, which changes in tone every time the verse rolls around. The chorus on this song is one of my favorites, with clean vocals and anguished screams delivered exactly in unison. Continue reading »

INSOMNIUM: FULL-ALBUM STREAM

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

The new album by Insomnium, One For Sorrow, has been making the rounds here among the NCS staff, and it’s been uniformly drawing praise. Despite a fair amount of clean singing, even I am digging it. In the near future we will have at least one review, from Andy Synn, but the point of this post is to alert you to the news that the entire album is now streaming at a Finnish web site called Inferno. And to get there and start eating up the goodness, follow THIS LINK.

Over and out. Whatever that means.

BLACK METAL: A STUDY IN CONTRAST (RAGNAROK AND AGALLOCH)

 Concert Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

Over the weekend, I added a post about an article by Sasha Frere-Jones on black metal in the most recent edition of that bible of all things metal, The New Yorker magazine. The article has drawn scorn in certain quarters of the underground metal empire and provoked a nice, protracted discussion in the Comment section of that NCS post. One thing Mr. Frere-Jones did was to contrast (in a way some think was condescending) the original Norwegian BM scene and sound with American black metal bands such as Wolves in the Throne Room and Liturgy.

By sheer chance, I experienced a similar black metal contrast of my own this weekend after adding that post. On Saturday night (Oct 8 at El Corazon) I witnessed a live performance by Portland’s Agalloch. They played a show in their home town on Friday night and then made the trip north to Seattle for a second show, and that’s where I caught them. If there were a heaven as well as an earth, I would have moved both to see that, because I have such vividly awesome memories of the first (and only other) time I got swallowed up by Agalloch performing live.

In Seattle, the band closed a very long set with two songs, “In the Shadow Of Our Pale Companion” from The Mantle (2002) and an instrumental called “The Lodge (Dismantled)” from The Grey EP (2004). More about those songs, plus a live video of the latter from the Portland show after the jump.

The Norwegian half of my contrasting BM experience came via Ragnarok — not the “death of the gods” cataclysm from Norse mythology, but the cataclysmic black metal band who borrowed that name for themselves back in 1994. I’d never spent time with their music until getting an e-mail from Patricia Thomas, who seems to manage about half the black metal bands in Norway. She reported that Ragnarok was finishing a 14-date tour of Brazil and Mexico and would be returning home to continue work on their seventh full-length album. She included a link to a Soundcloud player that includes all the songs from the band’s live set list, plus another link to an official video of the band performing the title track to their 2004 album, Blackdoor Miracle, with frontman Hoest from Taake providing the vocals. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

A MASTODON FANBOY UNPACKS THE HUNTER – It’s Not What You Think

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

(NCS writer BadWolf provides his take on Mastodon’s new album, The Hunter.)

A whole lot of misconceptions are flying around about Mastodon’s The Hunter. There is so much bullshit coming from so many remote corners of the metalliverse that conversation about The Hunter matches the album—scattershot.

People, including Mastodon themselves, would have you think The Hunter is some sort of radical departure from their past. It’s not. It doesn’t even break the ‘element’ theme Mastodon has been using—the cover art is a wooden structure, and many songs mention plants, wood, or the woods in general.

The press has called it a pseudo-successor to Remission, but those people have got to be on the brown acid. The Hunter resembles Blood Mountain more than anything. Both records take their predecessors as templates and run them through a million experiments. Traditional rock structures save these various experiments, otherwise they would spiral into incomprehension.

And the greatest insanity—people are calling this a bid for radio success. Yes, it’s an album of singles, especially “Curl of the Burl,” but there is a distinct schizophrenia to Mastodon that mainstream America just won’t accept. The album is an insane jumble of mellowness and aggression, electronic and organic. EG: “Thickening,” where delicate melodies play over turgid downbeat sludge. The choruses have gotten more decipherable and feel-good, but the verses are still abstract. Without an overarching storyline to anchor them, individual songs flicker from genius to batshit and back. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NIGHTRAGE: “INSIDIOUS”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

(NCS writer TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album from Nightrage.)

Marios Iliopoulos’ pet project and melodeath beast Nightrage have been one of melodic death metal’s best more recent bands. Managing to bring in the old school sounds of greats such as In Flames and Dark Tranquility, the band have created an undeniably classic sound that destroys the modern metal landscape, rendering their genre niche far more than relevant. I’ve loved this band since their classic debut Sweet Vengeance and it really doesn’t seem like that will change, because Insidious is like a bringer of flame, leaving large swathes of ground scorched into dead flatlands of smoldering menace. As a bonus, the band’s original vocalist and legend of the mic Tomas Lindberg contributes vocals to more then one song.

The meditative clean drones of intro track “So Far Away” almost invoke a sense of inner peace until fierce opener “Delirium Of The Fallen” kicks in with high-gear thrashing and tasteful melodic leads in the classic Nightrage style. The music has taken a step back to the feel and style of their sophomore album Descent Into Chaos, with plenty of songs based on Marios’s graceful leads and capability for writing great themes. The majesty of the chorus alone demonstrates the man’s ability for guitar layering; it washes over you and you drown in it, smiling. Apollo Papathanasio of Firewind also provides the clean vocals of the bridge.

“Insidious” is the first song on which Tomas Lindberg appears, and it immediately destroys you in what can only be described as a melodic death metal napalm run, igniting pure hell fire and obliterating everything in sight. The riffs are sharp and the drums charge forward while regular vocalist Anthony Hämäläinen and Lindgren engage in absolutely fast and ferocious vocal interplay. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HUMPPA ‘TIL IT HURTS! TROLL BENDS FIR + JONNE JARVELA (KORPIKLAANI)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Oct 092011
 

If you don’t know what humppa is, you could check out this post from our Finland Tribute Week series last December, which featured Finntroll and Korpiklaani. Or, you could listen to the song that follows the jump in this post.

The players are twofold: First is Troll Bends Fir, a folk metal (or maybe folk rock) band from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Actually, the band call their music “beer metal”. They contacted NCS about their music a loooong time ago (how could you forget a name like that?), but at the time I wasn’t convinced the music was in the target area for this site. But our horizons have broadened some since then, especially since Trollfiend moved into the NCS neighborhood and started introducing us to his folk-metal relatives.

Troll Bends Fir’s latest release is a compilation released on September 16 called Братья Во Хмелю (Brothers in Drinks). It includes a song called “Хумппа По Соседству” (“Humppa Is My Neighbor”), which features guest vocals by none other than Jonne Järvelä of Korpiklaani — and he’s the second player in this post. The song is just too much fuckin’ fun not to share. So, you can hear it after the jump. There’s also a tender video about the making of the song, too. Go on, humppa ’til it hurts.  (credit to Trollfiend — who else? — for this tip.) Continue reading »

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