OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 2): VREDEHAMMER, DESTRÖYER 666, ROTTING CHRIST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  4 Responses »
Jan 032017
 

 

As you can see, this is the second installment of our Most Infectious Song rollout, following hot on the heels of yesterday’s launch. As was true yesterday, each of today’s picks came from albums that were home to more than one song that could easily be on this list, and I won’t be surprised if some of you think I made the wrong pick. Hell, if I made the picks tomorrow, they might be different.

There are a few other connections between this particular threesome, one of which is that all three albums came out in the first quarter of last year, long enough ago that, for me, revisiting these songs was like a reunion with some old friends. Other connections will become obvious.

VREDEHAMMER

We didn’t give enough attention to Vredehammer’s 2016 album Violator. I wrote about its first advance track (“Spawn Tyrant”), and we published Karina Cifuentes’ interview of Per Valla, though even that focused more on his time as a session guitarist with Abbath and his personal Valla project than it did on Vredehammer. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: WIL CIFER’S TOP 10 HARDCORE PUNK RELEASES OF 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  1 Response »
Jan 032017
 

 

(Wil CIfer’s series of year-end lists for 2016 continues with this selection of 10 favorite releases in the vein of hardcore punk.)

Yeah I know, we are talking metal on this site, but I think there is enough crossover here to appeal to the more open-minded readers. In some places the line between hardcore and metal is more clearly defined; many of these selections are heavier than most of the bands on your top metal lists.

This list will encompass anything that is a bastard son of punk, from grindcore to emo. This was an emotionally charged year, but none of these albums is really that political. And yet everyone tried to console themselves after the election by saying at least punk will get good. Well, the tried and true NOFX’s have gotten old and might not have been bad, they just are not as good as any of the bands on the top ten hardcore punk albums of 2016 list. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: A YEAR-END LIST FROM BRUTALITOPIA

 LISTMANIA 2016  9 Responses »
Jan 032017
 

 

(Our annual LISTMANIA series includes re-posts of lists from “big platform” music sites and selected print zines, but we usually don’t re-post lists from other metal blogs because that truly would make this long series virtually endless. But we’ve again made an exception for Brutalitopia, because through a variety of MDF hijinks over the years, the NCS crew has become fast friends with the Brutalitopia miscreants. Besides, how could I resist the opportunity to post that GIF that Mick made?)

Hello No Clean Singing!  We’re Brutalitopia, a Chicago/North New Jersey (not the swamp part tho) based metal blog.  We put up our individual Best of 2016 lists here, here, and here, and then Islander was kind enough to let us combine our lists through the power of math and share it here with all of you (personally, I think he’s trying to get Listmania to last the whole year).  Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: YEAR OF THE COBRA

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 032017
 

 

(Comrade Aleks returns to us in the new year with this interview of Amy Tung Barrysmith and Johannes Barrysmith, the members of Year of the Cobra.)

This Seattle-based duo started their practice in a vein of psychedelic doom metal / rock not so long ago. The Black Sun EP was released just about one year ago, but an active attitude toward this sort of music led Year of the Cobra to record a split-album with the famous Mos Generator, released on June 16, 2016. So it was just a question of time to finish their debut full-length killer-album and get the contract with STB Records.

Did you see the artwork? Nice one, isn’t it? I still believe that each album starts with the artwork, and that was the first reason why I took note of Year of the Cobra. But there are also a lot of groovy tunes besides this cool picture, so it was my sacred duty to spread the word further, and both Amy Tung Barrysmith (bass, vocals) and Johanes Barrysmith (drums) are here to help me with that. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SWAMPCULT — “CHAPTER III – AL-AZIF NECRONOMICON”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 032017
 

 

In August of last year we premiered a song from an album called The Festival by the Dutch duo SwampCult. The album was eventually released in October, and both before and after its release it earned substantial praise from metal writers scattered around the globe, excerpts of which appear in a long list at the album’s Bandcamp page. Today we have a reminder of the album for listeners who may not yet have explored it, and a terrifying companion to the music for those who already have: the premiere of a video for the same song we had the pleasure of premiering last August, “Chapter III – Al-Azif Necronomicon“.

For the newcomers, The Festival is based entirely on a story by H.P. Lovecraft that bears the same name, which was first published in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales magazine. The album traces that story from start to finish, with each song representing a different chapter in the unfolding narrative. In addition, the album is accompanied by a special story card for each song. Here’s the one for “Al-Azif Necronomicon”: Continue reading »

MMXVI LIST BY SEMJAZA OF THY DARKENED SHADE (PART 1)

 LISTMANIA 2016  8 Responses »
Jan 032017
 

 

(For the third year in a row we invited Semjaza, the main man behind the superb Greek black metal band Thy Darkened Shade, to share with us his lists of favorite releases, and he again agreed. This year, we’ve divided his year-end thoughts into four parts, and this is the first.)

As far as I am concerned, 2016 was a great year for music as a whole. However, too many people who have lost the will and the passion to discover new music (especially new metal music) are trying to convince others that only the ’80s or ’90s were striking periods. In fact, many releases of 2016 are going to remain classic in the years to come. With the flooding of the market, the non-artistic approach of many bands, the easy access to underground gems, and the short attention span of listeners, it requires more determination than before to discover and appreciate the worthy ones.

It is now crucial that we should all oppose the pseudo-elite disgusting ”YouTube” reviewers and their forged expertise. We should oppose the ordinary propaganda with their new trends and the new ”hot” names. We should oppose new releases from old, once great bands who used to produce masterpieces but corrupted their art and their vision and became nothing but caricatures of themselves. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY AND ANAAL NATHRAKH

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  7 Responses »
Jan 022017
 

 

And so it begins. Just as we’re approaching the end of most segments of our LISTMANIA 2016 series, we’re starting another segment — and it’s the only one for which your humble editor is personally responsible. I don’t have the decisionmaking capacity to make my own list of best albums and, as you’ll discover, I’m only barely more capable of making the list that begins today.

Once again, I’m starting the rollout of our Most Infectious Song list without having finished it — which means I don’t know how long it will be or when it will end. As in past years, I’m making it up as I go along. I’ll do my best to post 2 or 3 songs every day until I arbitrarily decide to stop, though my goal is to finish by the end of January.

If you think that’s a ridiculously inept way to make a list, you might consider that between the list of candidates I sporadically made for myself as 2016 rolled on, plus the lists provided (here) by our readers, and by my NCS colleagues, I have a master list that includes more than 900 songs. It’s a mix of big names and very obscure ones from across virtually every metal sub-genre you can think of. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: INSULTERS — “METAL STILL MEANS DANGER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 022017
 

 

The Spanish band Insulters named their new album Metal Still Means Danger. It includes songs named “Bang Your Fucking Skull”, “Here Falls the Hammer”, and of course “Metal Still Means Danger”. When you openly brandish so many over-the-top heavy metal tropes, you run some risks — and you’d better be able to back it up with something more than bullet belts, pentagrams, and even the right kind of spirit. Insulters definitely back it up, as you’re about to find out.

Metal Still Means Danger was officially released on January 1, 2017, by Unholy Prophecies and Equinox Discos, and we’re helping spread the word through the premiere of a full album stream. It’s a nasty nine-track hellride that will punch a lot of primal metalhead buttons, and yes, it is likely to cause an orgy of headbanging. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: WIL CIFER’S TOP 10 PROGRESSIVE METAL ALBUMS OF 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  No Responses »
Jan 022017
 

 

(Wil Cifer continues his series of year-end lists with a Top 10 ranking of progressive metal releases.)

Progressive means you allow your music to progress. If you are putting out the same album of indulgent noodling, I don’t care if it is under the guise of a rock opera or not, your sound is not evolving; you are not progressive.

So these are not albums serving as bookends to keyboard solos, and are all more focused on the songs rather than trying to just make musicale bukkake. Many genres are touched on within this list. Some are more black metal than others, some are death metal, some are hard rock, but they all break the mold and embody progressive metal even without operatic vocals and frilly shirts. Here are my choices for the top 10 progressive metal albums of 2016. Continue reading »

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