“A New Journey Awaits You”

 Album Reviews  15 Responses »
Mar 172011
 

Okay, so I know I suck at contributing to this site. I haven’t written anything for NCS in quite some time. But, every so often, a piece of media comes along in some form, whether it be a movie, a TV show, or in this case, a piece of music, that changes your life. It has an effect on you that you can’t quite explain, but you can’t stop listening to it. It grabs you, holds on, and doesn’t let go, making you think and reflect on where you are in your life.

For me, Chicago metal band Born of Osiris‘ new album The Discovery, set to drop on March 22nd, did just that. I’ve now listened to it six times in less than 24 hours and I believe that it is not only the best album of the year, or the past two years, but I am not afraid to say that it is now my favorite album of all time.  (more after the jump, including a song . . .) Continue reading »

MOUTH WATERING: ANAAL NATHRAKH, ALTAR OF PLAGUES, AND CRUACHAN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 172011
 

Seeing as how this is St. Patrick’s Day (in addition to being the anniversary of the patent for the rubber band), we thought you might like to hear a bit more Irish metal. To be precise, a bit more new Irish metal. A couple of new songs from bands you might have heard of, as teasers for albums they have on the way: Altar of Plagues and Cruachan.

But first, we want to make sure you’re aware that Candlelight Records has made available a new song from yet another forthcoming album — this one by Anaal Nathrakh. They’re not Irish. They’re British. But they’re fecking awesome, and we just discovered this new song, and it’s fecking awesome, so even though it seems to have been drifting around the webz for a few weeks, we’re still leading off this post with it.

ANAAL NATHRAKH

The band’s new album, called Passion, will be released in Europe on the May 23. On some other day, the rest of the world will presumably get their official shot at it. The new song now available from the album is called “Volenti Non Fit Iniuria”. That Latin phrase literally means something like “no injury is done to a person who consents”, but it’s also the name of a legal doctrine.  (more after the jump, including these three songs . . .) Continue reading »

CELTACHOR

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 172011
 

You know what day this is, of course. Yes, it’s the anniversary of the day when the rubber band was patented in 1845. It’s also the birthday of wrestler Samoa Joe, and the first anniversary of Alex Chilton’s death. On this day in 1789, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington granted the Continental Army a holiday “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence.”

Okay, I’m forgetting something, I know I am. There’s something else about this day that I’m supposed to remember. Hmmmmm. I got it! It’s St. Patrick’s Day! At least here in the U.S., it’s the day when everyone pretends they’re Irish, and in celebration of Irishness, we all wear green and get totally shit-faced.

Getting shit-faced while wearing green is all well and good — I will be doing both. But while I’m here at NCS, I prefer to celebrate the grand day by focusing on Irish metal, and specifically on a Dublin band called Celtachor — a name which could loosely be translated as “the Celtic is everything”.

And for this band, so it is. Celtachor’s hybrid of black ‘n roll and folk music is inspired by Irish legends. It’s a re-telling in the language of extreme metal of stories that have been passed down for a long time. The music isn’t slick. It’s rough around the edges. Hell, it’s rough all the way through — but Celtachor’s music is honest, it has heart, it’s real, it will set your head to banging — and you can download their new demo for free. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

OUR WORLD

 Mosh Pit  38 Responses »
Mar 162011
 

Think of our world —  the human part of it. According to the most authoritative current estimates, Earth is populated by nearly seven billion souls.

Now think about the number of people in the world for whom music is a part of their daily lives. I have no idea of the number. But for whatever reason, music is part of what it means to be human. There is historical evidence of music dating back approximately 100,000 years (in the form of Neanderthal whistles made from animal bone), and it surely dates back far longer, before the time when Neanderthals or homo sapiens created any kind of record or artifact that would survive to the modern era.

Certainly, music is not a part of everyone’s life. Some people are literally comatose, and others lead lives that are duller than a pothole of muddy water after a rain. But I have to believe that some kind of music means something to the overwhelming majority of people in the world every day.

Now, think about the number of those people who listen to music they would call “metal”. Suddenly, the number plummets dramatically. Again, I have no idea about the actual count (and no one else does either), but it has to be a tiny percentage of the whole, on a global basis.

Now, let’s subtract the people who call their music “metal” when it really isn’t metal at all (but instead is just hard rock or worse) and the people whose definition of metal means music that hasn’t fundamentally changed since the 80s, or earlier. Let’s get down to the people who listen to the kind of music we cover on this site, and on sites like this one — the kind of music you can’t discuss or even explain to people who don’t already get it.

Again, I have no idea how to estimate the number on a global scale, and no one else knows either, but it has to be vanishingly small — an infinitesimal fraction of a percent of all human beings. (I do have a point, and will get to it . . . after the jump.) Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 8: THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  44 Responses »
Mar 162011
 

Yesterday we posted an interview with Michiel Dekker of The Monolith Deathcult. Today, our UK contributor Andy Synn, who apparently writes as fast as a peregrine falcon can fly, prepared this companion retrospective in his latest edition of THE SYNN REPORT.

In order to keep up a bit of consistency on the site, I’ve shuffled The Monolith Deathcult up a few notches in my list of bands, so as to best take advantage of Islander’s interview with band main-man Michiel Dekker. Rest assured that the next Synn Report will finally get me back on track with the band I have been wanting to address for several weeks now!

Stormtroopers of avant-garde death metal, The Monolith Deathcult originally formed in 2002 under the moniker “Monolith” before switching to the far more verbose and distinctive title they operate under today. Fusing brutal, technical death metal with grandiose symphonic sounds, industrial strength electronics and a historically focussed lyrical bent, the band have thus far crafted three albums of devastating yet artistically complex death metal.

Eschewing the “more for more’s sake” attitude of speed and technicality so prevalent in death metal, TMDC chose to step sideways, incorporating and exploring new ideas, more twisted song-structures and an array of extraneous instrumentation into their sonic sculptures. Less of a “progressive” band than they are an “experimental” one, TMDC’s main goal appears to be the stretching of traditional death metal boundaries to, and perhaps even beyond, their breaking point. (more after the jump, including music . . .) Continue reading »

MORE FREE SHIT – AND THIS ONE IS A DOOZIE

 Metal News  11 Responses »
Mar 152011
 

You may have already seen this, since the release date appears to have been February 25, but I just discovered it — Relapse Records has made a “winter sampler” available for free download on Amazon MP3. It features new music from several bands, including Obscura, and overall it’s a very strong compilation of music — 25 tracks in all. The track listing from Amazon is right after the jump (because it’s a long one), and HERE is the link for the page where you can download the sampler.  Again, our apologies to non-US residents if the download isn’t available to you. Continue reading »

THE ATTICUS METAL TOUR III: BORN OF OSIRIS, DARKEST HOUR, AS BLOOD RUNS BLACK, AND HUMAN ABSTRACT

 Concert Reviews  11 Responses »
Mar 152011
 

Your three NCS co-founders, plus friends, spent last night at Seattle’s Studio Seven having our eardrums shattered and our brains pulped by an amazingly good set of performances by four very talented bands. I’m not writing this in order to gloat about getting to see the show. You know how sometimes you get so enthusiastic about an experience that the first thing you want to do is call up or text a friend and tell them about it? Well, that’s sort of what I’m doing with this post, but I do want to report a couple of surprises (at least for me) that might be of interest.

I went to the show mainly to see Darkest Hour (despite the fact that I’ve seen them three times before), though I was also curious to see The Human Abstract. It turned out to be an eye-opening night — especially in the case of Born of Osiris and the music they played from their forthcoming third album. All four of these bands have new releases (the one from As Blood Runs Black debuts today), all four played songs from the new albums, and it was all . . . just . . . awesome.

Studio Seven has a simple layout: There’s a big concrete floor and there’s a balcony that includes a bar. The balcony hangs over much of the floor, with the leading edge not more than 30 feet from the front of the stage below. IntoTheDarkness and I got to the venue early and waited in line almost one hour in a cold wind in order to get a perch at the front of the balcony bar area, which gave us (literally) a bird’s eye view of the stage and what turned out to be a packed, roiling mass of humanity directly below us.

Of course, I forgot my fucking camera, but I’m not sure it would have done me any good since the stage was shrouded in smoke effects most of the night. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MICHIEL DEKKER (THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT)

 Interviews  11 Responses »
Mar 152011
 

On the last day of February, we included a brand new song from The Monolith Deathcult in one of our MISCELANNY posts. For us, it was a better-late-than-never introduction to the music of this Dutch band — and that new song continues to be obliteratingly good. You can read the post and hear the song at this location.

That post led to the chance for us to conduct an e-mail interview with Michiel Dekker, the band’s mastermind (and its vocalist/lyricist/guitarist). To prepare for the interview, we browsed TMDC’s Facebook page to get better educated about the band’s latest news, and discovered that it’s one of the more entertaining band pages we’ve yet come across, due to Michiel’s literate, sometimes cryptic, usually quite funny musings.

For example, we saw a poll he was conducting about whether the band’s next album should include any lyrics in Volapük (go here if you want to know what that language is). Other poll candidates included Esperanto and West Country English. There was also a comment about learning to play the saz.

TMDC is painstakingly preparing a new album, to be called Tetragrammaton (unless Michiel and his comrades change their minds). To get a few insights into that work and when it will be ready, and see Michiel deftly and amusingly handle my feeble attempts to ask some off-the-wall questions, follow along after the jump. (and we’ve got an eerily topical song for you, too . . .) Continue reading »

GOJIRA UPDATE

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Mar 142011
 

No, we don’t have any new Gojira music, but we do have an update from the band. We don’t usually post about band updates, but this is Gojira — pretty much the consensus NCS pick for best current metal band in the world, so we are running this update right here, right now (from Gojira’s Facebook page):

“Hello Everybody

We are currently working on a live DVD with important bonus section : “The Way Of All Flesh From The Inside”, the Sea Shepherd EP, (a non profit operation with a lot of people involved is a bit complicated to wrap, but we’re getting there and we promise to release these songs soon). We’re also composing a new album! We’ve written pretty much half of it, and we are very excited by this new material. It’s a big step for us. These songs are original and a good reflection of what we are today.

We are so focused on these things, that sometimes we forget to communicate with you guys, but we’ll try to post more updates from now on.

Big thanks to all of you for your patience and support.

Cheers from the practice room!!!

Gojira”

That is all.

CHILDREN OF BODOM: RELENTLESS, RECKLESS FOREVER

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 142011
 

It’s not a good sign when you begin to play a Children of Bodom album with trepidation, if not downright fear — fear that it would be as largely forgettable as Blooddrunk, fear that one of your personal gateways to the realms of extreme metal would begin to tumble further down the barren road toward formulaic pandering, fear that a band which used to have some real teeth to go along with all the flashy fretwork and power-metal keyboard riffing would begin to gum their food. That was me — fearful.

I am happy to say that, at least for now, those fears have subsided. The new COB disc, Relentless, Reckless Forever, is not as relentless or as reckless as I might have wished, but it’s a step up from the last album. The band genuinely bear their fangs and flex some claws more than they have in recent memory, the borderline-cheesy, pop-metal stylings have been dialed back, and on some songs the band take a few welcome steps outside their comfort zone.

Having said that, not all is completely well in the Land of Bodom. For me, the question posed by the first single, “Was It Worth It?”, is “not really” (despite the presence of an infectious chorus riff). The closer, “Northpole Throwdown”, is a song destined to be forgotten — an uninspired thrash-and-keyboard sandwich that just isn’t spicy enough. And then there’s a number called “Pussyfoot Miss Suicide”. It’s not nearly as embarrassing as the song title (how could it be?). In fact, it’s a heavy song musically, but I made the mistake of reading the lyrics. Embarrasing.

On the other hand, the album includes a collection of real standouts, some of which will make my personal “Best of COB” playlist. (more words after the jump, plus a song . . .) Continue reading »

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