ONE HANDED SKULL CRUSHING

 Album Reviews, IQ Subtraction  39 Responses »
Aug 162011
 

My body is a temple. I keep it clean, well-toned, and free of toxic pollutants. I smoke no more than one pack of cigarettes a day, except when I smoke two. I don’t drink enough to float an aircraft carrier, only enough to float a battleship. I eat only free-range pizza and I make sure to include plenty of fruits and vegetables in my daily diet; I make sure to get my bacon double-cheeseburgers with the lettuce and tomato, and Red Vines have fruit in them, right? Someone told me that once.

And as for the body-toning, I lift weights. I’m like the epitome of an addicted gym rat. I lift on a regular schedule, pumping iron like a boss once every six months. And you know what I listen to when I’m bending the bars with massive stacks of iron? Sure you do — evil fucking death metal. I don’t know about you, but I like to make the lifting sessions even more brutal by stacking the bars with the eviscerated corpses of emo scenesters.

And now I’ve found the perfect musical accompaniment for those days in the gym when I make even semi-pro weightlifters gasp in awe at my clean-and-jerk: A four-song EP called The Dumbell Murders by a project fittingly called One Handed Skull Crushing — three metalheads who met at the gym and were united in their anger toward all posers who lift weights to MCR.

One of the dudes behind the skull-crushing is an NCS reader from Gothenburg, Sweden, who finally decided to share with me the year-old fruits of this brutal side project. And it’s such a perfect accompaniment for brutal, emo-hating, iron-pumping gym sessions that I talked him into letting us host a free download of this mutha, with the lyrics included in the download file — because the eloquent lyrics are really what make this musical extravaganza so captivating.  Like these inspirational words from the song “Corpse Lifting”:  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

CHIMAIRA: “THE AGE OF HELL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 162011
 

(Today marks the official release of the new album from Chimaira — The Age of Hell — and Andy Synn provides this review.)

Brothers and sisters, the time is at hand, The Age Of Hell is here… but what, precisely, does this mean, both for fans of the band and the group themselves as they enter this “new age”?

For a long time Chimaira have been a band in search of an identity, from their early days as a semi-industrialised scrappy contender, through their more epic aspirations, their stripped down thrash-based years, their expansive and ambitious resurrection and their darker, more death-tinged recent days of darkness. Perhaps then both the greatest strength, and the greatest weakness, of the band remains their occasionally amorphous style?

No one sounds quite like Chimaira, this is true, yet by the same token it’s often difficult to describe what exactly the Chimaira sound is. Though the crushing, powerhouse core of the band always remains intact, the accentuating sonic characteristics of the band are often diverse to the point of diffusion.

I can see this being a particularly polarising record for Chimaira fans, and would be interested to see how it divides the fan-base along certain lines. This is due to the band’s conscious choice to reach back into their own past to recall certain older styles and influences into service. Different tracks recall moments from each of their albums, from the electro-stomp of Pass Out Of Existence right up to the monolithic lumbering death-metal the band toyed with recently on The Infection. True to their mythical namesake, this record is a chimaera of all the styles the group have employed thus far, serving almost as a “best of” collection, updating and improving on all aspects of their sound, yet without ever really defining itself definitively. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

A METAL MILESTONE IN INDIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 152011
 

Kryptos is a band from Bangalore, India, whose music I heard for the first time today. They’ve set October 29 as the release date for their third album, The Coils of Apollyon. Thanks to a tip from Siddharth Darbha, I also learned that Kryptos has scheduled a nationwide tour of India to begin in Bangalore on that same date.

It appears this will be a history-making tour in India. It’s scheduled to cover 30 cities in 40 days, making it the longest and largest tour of India by any metal band in the history of the Indian metal scene. They’re also doing this in style, traveling in a fully customized bus along with a complete sound and lighting rig as well as a 14-man crew.

As we’ve been discovering here at NCS over the last year and a half, India has a vibrant and talented metal scene, but only recently (thanks to bands such as Demonic Resurrection) has that scene begun to draw the attention of metalheads outside the sub-continent. Undoubtedly, there are also corners within that vast and ancient country itself that haven’t yet been enlightened about the wonders of metal; this tour will help remedy that by including stops in cities and towns that rarely, if ever, get exposed to this kind of live show.

According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, India is a nation of 1.2 billion people (second only to China in population); it’s the 7th largest country on earth by geographic size; and it’s an extraordinarily diverse and complex amalgamation of cultures (to pick but one example, there are 29 different languages spoken by at least 1 million people each). So, the idea of a metal tour that will attempt to span the country is worth some attention. As it turns out, the music of Kryptos is worth some attention, too. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NEW XERATH VIDEO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Aug 152011
 

Are you like me? Do you often fantasize about scaling the fence at a commercial airport, dashing out onto the tarmac, leaping up behind a big plane, and sticking your head in the back end of a jet engine just as the aircraft takes off? Yeah, you’re right: Everyone dreams about that, so why am I talking about something so commonplace?

Well, listening to “Reform III”, one of the songs from Xerath’s 2011 album, II, helps make the dream more vivid. You can almost feel the skin being peeled back from your face and all your hair being ripped out by the roots from the blast effect. Awesome.

Xerath have just released an official music video to accompany “Reform III”, which I watched this morning. My biggest problem with the video is that it doesn’t involve full-head-immersion at the backwash end of a jet engine. What was the director thinking? Instead, we have a tale about trusting your instincts and not trusting your co-workers, at least if your co-workers are killers. Who wear eye-liner. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

METAL FROM SOUTH AFRICA: PART 3

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Aug 152011
 

When it comes to NCS, I have trouble making plans and sticking with them, because I have an impulse-control problem. I get distracted easily, which is a serious weakness for someone like me who enjoys a broad swath of metal. Every day, new music appears, often from unexpected sources, and I’m easily carried off in some unintended and uncharted direction. I offer this confession as a feeble excuse for allowing almost three months to pass since Part 2 of our series on metal from South Africa. I’ll go ahead and say right now that there WILL be a Part 4 — and I have no fucking clue when it will appear.

Now that I have that out of the way, let’s move forward with Part 3 before I lose my concentration and fly off again. As many of you longer-term readers know, we didn’t intend to create a series on SA metal. It just happened. We ran a post in April about three SA metal bands. That led to lots of recommendations about other bands, so we added a second post about three more bands, and that led to more recommendations, and so here we are.

In this installment, we’re focusing (in no particular order) on Riddare av Koden, Warthane, and Architecture of Aggression. I picked these bands in part because I got very enthusiastic recommendations about them from SA metalheads and partly because they’ve got songs that you can go get for yourself instead of being stuck solely with YouTube clips or other music players that keep you tethered to your computer if you want to listen. I also happen to really like what I’ve heard from all three bands. So, here we go . . . after the jump. Continue reading »

A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, A LITTLE BIT OF THAT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 142011
 

Just catching up on news here. But I’ll throw in some new music I heard this morning, too. The bands featured in this post: Thy Catafalque (again), Gire, Threat Signal, Solace, RedScream, and Deicide.

THY CATAFALQUE / GIRE

Just a few days ago, we posted a short feature that included this two-person band named Thy Catalfalque as a result of my first serious effort to get into their music — and man, have I gotten into it. I get more out of it the more I listen, like peeling back the proverbial onion, except without the watering eyes. To my good fortune, this led to a few e-mail exchanges with the band’s principle creative force, Tamás Kátai.

To date, Thy Catafalque have produced four albums and a demo, with a new album to be released in the future by Season of Mist. The last two albums (the ones I’ve been listening to) were released by Epidemie Records and have become a bit hard to find, at least if you want physical copies, though Epidemie will be re-releasing Róka Hasa Rádió on November 30, but this time in a jewel-case edition with an 8-page booklet (versus the original, nearly sold-out digipack version).

Thy Catafalque isn’t Tamás Kátai’s only musical project. He also handles keyboards, programming, lyrics, and more for another long-running Hungarian band called Gire, who have six demos to their credit plus a 2007 self-titled debut album (which features that eye-catching album cover above). The Gire debut album is also hard to find, but Tamás helpfully pointed out that it can be downloaded from this location — so, of course, I did that.

I’ve only just started listening, and I have a feeling that, as on the albums from Thy Catafalque, no one song on this album is going to tell you very much about the rest of them. But of the tracks I’ve heard so far,this is a mixture of eviscerating death metal, catastrophic sludge, industrial red-lining, and meteoric, experimental guitar extravaganza. I’m deadly serious. This is a stupendous head-check. (more after the jump . . . .) Continue reading »

REVISITING THE CLASSICS: “SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL”

 Revisiting the Classics  20 Responses »
Aug 132011
 

(TheMadIsraeli (the artist formerly known as Israel Flanders) steps into the WayBack machine to revisit an At the Gates classic.)

I think it’s time to take a few steps back away from the current metal scene and revisit a timeless classic in the metal landscape. I’ve decided that from here on, I’ll be doing not only current reviews, but also reviews of albums from the past I absolutely adore. Without further ado…

Anyone worth his weight in metal should know this album, this band, and the MASSIVE influence they have had on metal since the album’s release. This is, by all accounts, THE melodic death metal standard. Never did a band of the Gothenburg elite craft an album this aggressive, this vicious, all while retaining pure melodic content throughout. This is also a controversial album, of course, often slandered for its initiation of tens of thousands of At The Gates imitators. But don’t hate the masters, hate the weak imitators.

This is one of my top 10 albums of all time, ever, in metal, period. To me, this is a perfect, absolutely flawless, 10/10, 100% all-killer-no-filler, sonic assault. Those riffs, those vicious vocals, that fucking guitar tone that no one to this day seems to know how to dial in as well, the jarring tempo changes, all contained in very concise, to-the-point songs that don’t wander or play around in any way.

Slaughter Of The Soul (or “SOTS”, as we’ll refer to it from here on) is the final album from this Swedish five-piece before their unexpected decision to quit, preferring to stop while they were ahead and not risk becoming self-parodying ass-hats (*coughArchEnemycough*). A very respectable move indeed. Even to this day, even after re-forming, the band claims they shall not write a single new song for the rest of their lives. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“I LOVE NOCLEANSINGING.COM!”

 IQ Subtraction  45 Responses »
Aug 132011
 

The title of this post, in addition to being the thought that I know is uppermost in all your minds right now, was the subject line of an e-mail that arrived in my e-mail in-box at 3:14 p.m. PDT yesterday afternoon. Just looking at that subject line brightened me up instantly. It was from Clara Stevenson, a name I didn’t recognize, but because it was a female name, I got doubly brightened up. I opened the e-mail with eager anticipation. And read this:

Hi!

I really enjoyed reading through your collection of resources on https://www.nocleansinging.com/2011/08/04/thats-metal-but-its-not-music-no-43-the-blue-fucking-angels/. I became interested in chef careers after I was assigned to do research on the field, specifically about the average compensation range for chefs and pastry chefs.

After my research was finished, I ended up producing a graph to better visualize the average chef’s salary: http://www.pastryschools.net/career-and-salary. I thought I might pass along the graph, as it would fit in well with your resources. Adding a link to your website would greatly benefit both your readers and your site.

Best,

Clara Stevenson clara@pastryschools.net

Uh huh. I immediately replied to Clara, as follows:  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

BEAR METAL?

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  23 Responses »
Aug 122011
 

Until today, I’d never heard of Svölk. They’re from Norway. They just announced the signing of a record deal with Austria-based Napalm Records. They label their music as “bear metal” — “the perfect blend of stoner, metal, and Nordic redneck attitude.”

I didn’t know Norway had rednecks. But I was curious to see what Norwegian redneckdom might be like, not to mention discovering just exactly what “bear metal” sounds like, so I watched a brand new video of a song from Svölk called “52”. The song definitely has a dirty-south, stoner vibe, though to me it’s more of a sludgy, liquored-up, rock-with-your-cock-out tune than metal. And it’s got nuthin but clean singin’ goin’ on.

Having said that, it’s a damn catchy song with meaty riffs and a cool chorus. As for the video, I don’t understand what holds together the various scenes — it’s hard to pick out any kind of story line that makes sense. But I would guess some serious money went into its production. There are parts that are NSFW, so keep that in mind. Hang in there until the end, because it’s got a . . . bang-up . . .  finish. I still don’t know what “bear metal” is. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 32: DEUS OTIOSUS, SHANGREN, AND FOREVER REVENGE

 MISCELLANY  18 Responses »
Aug 122011
 

At the risk of boring our longer-term readers, here’s a reminder about how this MISCELLANY game works:

We keep a constantly evolving list of new bands whose music we’ve not yet heard, based on various sources, including band e-mails we get, reader recommendations, press releases, and stickers left on urinals at metal clubs we frequent. Whenever I can manage, I pick a few names off the list, I listen to at least one of their songs, I write about what I heard, and then I stream the same track(s) so you can make up your own mind about whether to explore the bands further.

It’s a good way to discover new music, and I wish I could do it more often. But it’s a bit risky for readers, because even if I hear something I wouldn’t normally recommend to you, it still goes in these MISCELLANY posts. For today’s edition of this dice-roll, I listened to Deus Otiosus (Denmark), Shangren (Australia, I think), and Forever Revenge (China). Here we go . . .

DEUS OTIOSUS

This Danish band e-mailed us late last month and gave us the chance to check out their 2010 debut studio album, Murderer (the band also released a live album in 2010, preceded by a split and a demo). According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, the band’s name is Latin for “idle god” and refers to a “theological concept used to describe the belief in a creator god who largely retires from the world and is no longer involved in its daily operation.”

I’ve always thought this was an interesting concept, and it does provide an answer (if you’re a Deist at least) as to why the human world has been such a brutally fucked up place for thousands of years: The creator had some kind of inexplicable fun creating the earth, and then checked out.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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