RUMOR MILL: TODAY IS THE DAY AND MAGRUDERGIND AT SUCKFEST?

 Metal News  28 Responses »
Aug 292011
 

The two-day NYC metal festival called SUCKFEST that’s being sponsored by our friends at Metal Sucks has caused an emotional war among my schizophrenic selves. On the one hand, the ugly green-eyed monster part of me is jealous that they’re pulling this off when the only tour we’ve sponsored to date is a figment of my imagination. On the other hand, my metal-blogger self is really proud that MS is able to pull of something like this. And on the third hand, the fanboy part of me is genuinely excited by the line-up that’s been announced so far — Municipal Waste and Cynic as the two headline acts, with The Red Chord, Obscura, and Rosetta on the bill as well — and 15 more bands yet to be announced.

Now, I’m having yet another internal warring conflict over this festival. Compared to the bad old days, when about 20 people read our site (most of whom were our institutionalized relatives), we’ve become more responsible. Usually (usually), we no longer try to steal other people’s thunder by “premiering” songs from unreleased albums without permission or tossing up unauthorized song downloads, and we try to maintain standards of high journalistic integrity, which means we now only make up about 50% of the news stories we report here.

But we’re not completely house-broken yet, and so I can’t resist the impulse to report a rumor that Today Is the Day and Magrudergrind are also going to be playing at the SUCKFEST on the first day (Nov. 4), headlined by Municipal Waste. I sure as fuck hope this is true, because those two bands are among my favorites. Today Is the Day is nothing short of legendary, and Magrudergrind may well be the heir-apparents to Pig Destroyer.

All wishful thinking aside, I do consider my source of this info to be reliable, or I wouldn’t be sticking my neck out to report this. So, with apologies to Metal Sucks, Today Is the Day, and Magrudergrind for a bit of thunder-stealing leakage, I’m goin’ with it. And if I’m wrong, well fuckit, it won’t be the first time.

MELODEATH WEEK: ALLEGAEON

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
Aug 292011
 

(TheMadIsraeli has cooked up a week-long series devoted to modern melodic death metal, featuring one band each day, beginning with Colorado’s Allegaeon.)

If you were alive, and in your early teens, in the 90’s, you more than likely found your entrance into metal via melodeath or melodic death metal.  Like I or Islander did, you probably heard bands like In Flames, At The Gates, or Soilwork, and were absolutely floored by the musicianship on display and the idea that something could be both melodic and a total steamroller at the same time.  This stuff was THE SHIT if you were a 90’s kid, or even an early 2000’s kid. I don’t think there is any disputing this one.

Melodeath, though, is now seen by many as the stagnant and lazy metal genre of choice.  Thousands upon thousands of poor At The Gates and In Flames imitators and the advent of melodic metalcore have given melodeath a bad rap from which, quite frankly, it still doesn’t seem to have recovered.  This is a real shame, because there have been some killer melodeath albums released, particularly in the last 5 years.

So it’s now melodeath week.  I will review a recent/modern melodeath album for every day of the week if Islander can keep up that pace of editing.  The criteria are as follows…

1: Must have been made in the last 10 years

2: I will TRY TO AVOID well known acts, although I am pre-emptively saying The Absence is getting an exception.

So with that said, let’s get started shall we? Continue reading »

VALLENFYRE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  20 Responses »
Aug 282011
 

Yesterday I spent some time on Blabbermouth catching up with metal news I’d missed over the last week. One of the reports caught my eye. It was about Century Media’s signing of a UK death metal band called Vallenfyre. Here’s what I read:

Just like SONNE ADAM from Israel, VALLENFYRE debuted with a seven-inch single on the underground label Imperium Productions and also shares a similar approach of mixing classic death metal with doom and in case of VALLENFYRE some British crust on top.

Commented Jens Prueter, head of A&R, Century Media Records Europe: “I was already blown away by VALLENFYRE’s old-school orgy of doomy and crusty death metal riffs when I heard the first demo last winter and the new seven-inch sounds even better. So I couldn’t hesitate to offer them a deal straight away. That’s how we signed GRAVE and ASPHYX over 20 years ago — and we all know that it was a good decision. So welcome to another chapter of Century Media’s death metal legacy.

“VALLENFYRE’s debut album, A Fragile King, is already recorded and will be released in late October 2011.

“If you like a mix of early ENTOMBED, CELTIC FROST, AUTOPSY and AMEBIX, you should hurry up to buy the last few copies of the ‘Desecration’ seven-inch single, which was limited to only 500 copies by Imperium Productions.”

All that peaked my curiosity, even making allowances for the well-tuned PR hype. So, I poked around to learn more about this band — and found almost nothing. But what I did find has gotten me extremely interested in this album. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HATESPHERE

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Aug 282011
 

Is this a badass album cover or what? Yes, I’m still catching up on last week’s news, and when I saw this, I damn well came to a full stop. Not only because of the artwork, but because Denmark’s HateSphere is one of those bands whose new music I think is always worth checking out (and this comes from someone who’s not a huge thrash fan).

Their next album may be especially worth our time, for three reasons. First, how can you go wrong with an album called The Great Bludgeoning? Second, the band’s line-up has changed since their last release in 2009 (To the Nines). Esben “Esse” Hansen (who also sings in As We Fight) joined the band as vocalist in June 2010, and a bass player with a punk background named Jimmy Nedergaard (Gob Squad) joined more recently for the recording of the new album. I’m curious about how those changes may affect the band’s sound. (Actually, we already have evidence, as you’ll hear.)

Third, the band claims that for the new album, they’ve taken a “more old-school direction” than they did on the last release, with a lyrical focus on “aggressions, drinking and hate”. So in other words, it will be an upbeat, family-friendly affair. Yay!

Oh yeah, one more thing: There’s a teaser clip available now, which will musically tease you. It’s after the jump, along with info about the album artist, the release dates, and a few other factual morsels. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 34: EYECONOCLAST, UNDER EDEN, AND HEIDEVOLK

 MISCELLANY  30 Responses »
Aug 282011
 


To recap the rules of this MISCELLANY game for NCS newcomers: When bands or labels write us, or we get reader recommendations, or we see news blurbs about bands who look interesting, we put the band names on a list. We limit this list to bands whose music we’ve never heard, and the majority of the listed bands are unsigned. At irregular intervals, when I’ve got time, I randomly pick a few names from the list and listen to one or two of their songs, and then I write my impressions for this MISCELLANY series. Plus, I make it possible for you to hear what I heard (or saw, if it’s a video).

This exercise is different from our reviews, which we almost always limit to music we want to recommend. For this exercise, like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, we don’t know what we’re going to get. It may or may not taste delicious. But the surprise factor is part of the fun (at least for me). For today’s post, the bands I picked were Eyeconoclast (Italy), Under Eden (US), and Heidevolk (The Netherlands). I actually picked a fourth band, too, but I’m discussing them separately, to keep this thing from growing even longer than it already is.

I’ll go ahead and confess right up front: I cheated on the MISCELLANY rules for all three bands, because their music turned out to be too interesting to assess with just one song. Yes, I even cheated on the last one, too, though it’s not the kind of music I typically embrace. All that cheating means there’s a lot of music coming your way after the jump, but none of you has a real life, do you? Of course not, so you have plenty of time to listen. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MEANKIND

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  29 Responses »
Aug 272011
 

(In sympathy with our brothers and sisters on the East Coast who are enduring Hurricane Irene, our second post of this Saturday is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the free EP from a Hungarian musical hurricane called Meankind.)

Who exactly is this dynamic duo who dare to call themselves Meankind?

That’s right.  The most boss of metal duo’s ever.  Extreme high-speed death metal offered in short doses on this band’s debut EP 22.Zero is what you get.  Meankind can do melodic, atonal, brutal, grooving — you name it, and Meankind will write a riff that will suit your needs. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: OBLIVIONIZED

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Aug 272011
 

Oblivionized could hardly have chosen a better name for themselves, because that’s how you’ll feel after listening to their debut EP, Abhorrent Evolution. It’s music made for those times when you’re in the mood for head-whipping self-destruction. Fair warning: it’s also the kind of song collection that causes me involuntarily to spew forth a froth of mixed metaphors. So, the English majors in the audience may want to take a sedative before reading further.

This is demonic deathgrind. I listen, and I think about being backed against a wall with a firehose spewing sulphuric acid at full force, straight at my unprotected self. Massively distorted guitars that shriek and crush. Cleaner guitar leads that slither like fat white worms that haven’t had their fill of coring yet. Gut-rumbling bass picking that’s faster than a famished cheetah on the trail of a doomed antelope with blood in the wind.

Bullet-paced drumming that may possibly be the most riveting sound on the whole fuckin’ album. Vocals that sound utterly deranged — a cacophony of shrieking and roaring, the sound of people being torn apart mixed with the gory growls of whatever supernatural things are doing the tearing, and the eating. Abhorrent Evolution is super-charged metal at a hyperdrive pace, a tech-grind portrait of the 7th Circle of Hell, music with the sensibilities of a ravenous demon horde set loose after a milennial imprisonent. And more metaphors. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FRIDAY VIDEO ROUNDUP

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 262011
 

This post will be atypically short on words and long on audio-visual content. I saw three brand new videos this morning that I thought were worth sharing. I’m going to arrange these in ascending order of length, from shortest to longest.

On the short end of this stick, we’ve got the new video from Toxic Holocaust for a song called “Judgment Awaits You”. It’s from their new Relapse records release, Conjure and Command. Short, brutish, punk-thrash from a PNW band who have grown on me more and more as time passes.  Thanks to BlankTV for premiering this baby.

In the middle of this line-up is a new live video from Arch Enemy for the song “Bloodstained Cross”. The song is from their 2011 Century Media release, Khaos Legions. Yes, I confess: I have always had a crush on Angela Gossow. Does that make me weak? The video intersperses cuts of live shows from all over, with the audio from the album track. It was premiered by Revolver earlier today at this location.

The last and longest piece of vid is an August 24 live performance by Krallice of the song “Telluric Rings” from the band’s 2011 Profound Lore album Diotima, which our bro BadWolf eloquently reviewed for us here. If after all of our harping about Krallice here at NCS you still haven’t taken the plunge, now’s a good time to get wet. One of the best American black metal albums of the year, in my halfwitted opinion. The vocals are sort of drowned out on this vid, but otherwise the audio quality is decent, and the video is pro-shot.

So, that’s it for the words. All three videos are lined up for you after the jump. Enjoy the rest of your fucking day. Continue reading »

ENOCHIAN THEORY – “EVOLUTION: CREATIO EX NIHILO”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  4 Responses »
Aug 262011
 

(Andy Synn takes us into the weekend with his review of the first album from the UK’s Enochian Theory.)

Hello again ladies and gents, here’s another taste of something a little different that barely comes under the site’s remit, yet I feel will appeal to the more expressive and open-minded of you all the same.

Enochian Theory are a UK prog band of expansive ambition and mesmerising melody where majestic cleans rule the roost and growled vocals are definitely the exception, rather than the rule. Very much art for art’s sake, the enigmatic complexity of each song’s serpentine structuring is offset by the soaring, infectiously melodic vocals of frontman Ben Harris-Hayes, whose emotive delivery and harmonious, scintillating lyrical expositions contribute to making the album that rarest of things, both an immediate pleasure and a long-term investment of impressive quality and intriguing depth. The candid, at times even painfully raw, nature of the singing gives the whole expansive, captivating affair a recognisably human element which serves as an anchor point no matter how convoluted or complex the music may become.

When absorbed in the album itself, I actually struggled to compare it directly to any external influence, so distinctive is its sound, although links can be drawn, very favourably, to fellow British prog luminaries Anathema and Porcupine Tree, along with the solo works of PT’s own Steven Wilson. Yet of greatest interest to the readers of this site will be the sonic connections to the emotionally complex solo work of Devin Townsend, the raging ambience of latter-day Isis, and the mind-bending instrumental excursions more commonly attributed to Tool. Yet Enochian Theory themselves are very much a singular entity, these comparisons barely scratching the surface of what the three-piece actual sound like in full-flight.   (more after the jump .. . .) Continue reading »

REVISITING THE CLASSICS: “FORBIDDEN EVIL”

 Album Reviews, Revisiting the Classics  18 Responses »
Aug 262011
 

(TheMadIsraeli, who originated our now-continuing series of look-backs at metal classics, provides this latest installment, focusing on the 1988 debut by California’s Forbidden.)

Thrash metal in a lot of ways IS metal to me.  It’s the genre that, when I think about metal, I gravitate to automatically.  The energy, the frantic rage and desperation, THE FUCKING SPEED AND THE RIFFS!  It’s always astonishing to me when I meet a metalhead who doesn’t like thrash.  That’s like not liking pizza, or beer, or the combination thereof.

Forbidden was a thrash band I’d always heard about but never bothered to check out, dismissing them as a cult band who were viewed as being more legitimate than the more popular thrashers because they simply weren’t mainstream.  Boy was I wrong, and it took one unexpected circumstance to open my eyes: My girlfriend at the time made me check out Forbidden’s music.  Yes people, my girlfriend at the time had better music than I did, AND was hotter than I was, AND was more talented.  Hopefully, I’m on my way to catching up, at least on the quality of music I have.

Forbidden Evil is the typical fan favorite, as well as mine, but for good reason.  Consisting of a badass set of pipes by the name of Russ Anderson, a fierce guitar duo in Craig Locicero (one of my fav guitarists of all time mind you) and Glen Alvelais, Paul Bostaph on drums, and Matt Camacho on bass, Forbidden were poised to take the thrash circuit by storm with the release of this album. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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