NO CLEAN SINGING

MIGRATION FEST: DAY THREE

Aug 182016

This is a recap of the third and final day of the first edition of Migration Fest, organized by 20 Buck Spin and Gilead Media and conducted in Olympia, Washington, on August 12-14, 2016. My recap of the pre-fest show and Day One can be found here, and the Day Two write-up is here.

I’m not as prompt in concluding this review of the festival as I was with the first two parts, but other commitments to our putrid site plus inconsiderate intrusions by the routine of daily life have screwed with my time since I got back to Seattle on Monday. On the other hand, the delay enabled me to upload videos of Day Three performances to YouTube, and I’ve collected those at the end of this post. I still intend to add more videos to the other write-ups as well. Continue reading »

LIFE, STRUGGLE, AND INTENSITY — THE WORLD OF VRASUBATLAT

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Aug 182016

(We are happy to have Kaptain Carbon back with us. On this visit, he helps to commemorate the 10th release of a label called Vrasubatlat. Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser-known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community.)

It is no secret Vrasubatlat has recently become one of my recent favorite labels and collectives of bands. If you read my previous column on some of my favorite demos of 2016, you will see a glowing endorsement at the top of the page. It is only because this label keeps putting out music that I keep wanting to write about. Once they stop, I will stop as well. I do not know what to tell you. There is just something appealing about music when it feels like an open wound.

This article is to celebrate Vrasubatlat’s tenth release in two years, as well as introduce others to the wild and hellish world of black / death with social issues. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DARKTHRONE, ANAAL NATHRAKH, AUROCH, RUDRA, MARTRÖÐ, WOLF’S HUNGER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Aug 182016

This harried compiler of new music is especially harried today. I’m in the middle of a quick trip to Denver with not much free time on my hands. But the last 24 hours have brought so many good new songs that I want to throw them your way even at the cost of not getting to spill as many words about them as I would like.

And I’m concluding this collection with a somewhat older song debut that I’ve only just discovered.

DARKTHRONE

As we previously reported within an hour of the announcement, Norway’s Darkthrone will be releasing a new album entitled Arctic Thunder (named for an old Norwegian band of the same name). Based on comments by Fenriz about the album, as well as its cover art, I speculated that we might be on the verge of an enticing return to the sound of the band’s earlier days. Well, now we have more than speculation to go on, because at 11:00 Eastern time here in the U.S., Darkthrone debuted a song from the album — the name of which is “Tundra Leech“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASTROPHOBOS — “ENTHRONED IN FLESH”

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Aug 182016

Astrophobos are a Swedish black metal trio from Stockholm who released a debut EP in 2010 named Arcane Secrets and an excellent debut album in 2014 bearing the title Remnants of Forgotten Horrors. Now they have a new EP called Enthroned in Flesh that’s due for release on August 26 by Triumvirate Records. In June DECIBEL premiered an advance track named “Blood Libation” that we’ve already praised, and today we’re bringing you a stream of the EP’s title track.

For those who are only now discovering Astrophobos, the ranks of this three-man army consist of Micke Broman (vocals, bass), Martin Andersson (guitars), and Jonas Ehlin (guitars), and the new EP also features a session drummer you may have heard of — Marduk’s Fredrik Widigs. Continue reading »

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

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Aug 182016

(Andy Synn wrote this opinion piece that ends in some questions for you.)

So I was listening to the new Allegaeon album, Proponent for Sentience, this morning (spoiler: it’s really good) when a question suddenly struck me… what is the optimal length for an album?

It’s not a new question by any means, as it’s one I’ve discussed with friends and colleagues over a cold beverage several times before, but it’s definitely one I keep coming back to, particularly when – as happens upon occasion – some overly-angry, impulse-control deficient commenter rears their ugly head and lambasts a writer (whether here or on one of the many other sites I frequent) for daring to suggest that an album is “too long”.

There’s definitely a certain subset of people (I suppose we can call them “fans”) who get unnecessarily indignant at any such suggestion, and who insist in no uncertain terms that more is always better, and how dare anyone be so churlish and ungrateful about it.

In many ways they’re a polar opposite to those “fans” who consider themselves entitled to anything and everything a band puts out, the ones who constantly demand more, and feel like they deserve everything for free because “without us, you wouldn’t even have a career” (seems to me like they don’t have much of one with you… but I digress…).

But though I can’t stand so-called “fans” who act as if a band owes them something, I’m also not big on the idea that we should just blindly accept whatever they give us without criticism. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: END — “VIRGA”

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Aug 172016

On September 23, 2016, Baltimore’s Grimoire Records will release a split called Swallow Matewan (with Arcane Angels releasing it on vinyl in Europe). It features three tracks each by two black metal bands we’ve praised at this site before — Torrid Husk from West Virginia and End from Greece. One of Torrid Husk’s tracks (“Carminite”) got its debut at Stereogum last week, and today we bring you a track from the End side called, “Virga“.

This year will mark End’s 14th year of life. But although the band have released three full albums in that stretch of years, the last one coming in 2009, we first discovered their music through another split release that turned out to be one of the best albums released last year. Entitled Moerae (and reviewed here by our Norwegian friend Gorger), it included a long track by End named “Atropos”, as well as brilliant offerings by Awe and Vacantfield (the latter band shares two members with End). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: IMPERIUM DEKADENZ — “DIS MANIBVS”

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Aug 172016

After the elapse of three years since their last album, Meadows of Nostalgia, the German duo Imperium Dekadenz have returned with a powerful new one, Dis Manibvs. We are told that the Latin title, which means “To the Spirits of the Dead”, is a phrase originally found on antique Roman grave markers, signifying the remembrance of lives lost. It seems also to be a form of dedication for this new album, and a fitting one for the music it contains. Today we invite you to immerse yourself in this new record in advance of its August 26 release by Season of Mist. — and to read a track-by-track commentary by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Horaz.

This is the band’s fifth album since the group’s founding in 2004, and it achieves certain challenging objectives unusually well. Chief among them is this: The music is saturated with the powerful emotional resonance of loss, grief, and even wrenching abandonment, and yet at the same time the band have conveyed those deeply dark and dramatic emotional sensations with music of sweeping grandeur and majesty. Continue reading »

CITY: “ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Aug 172016

(Andy Synn reviews the debut album of City from Portland, Oregon.)

You either stand on the shoulders of giants, or else you languish in their shadow… is a phrase I’ve just made up and trademarked. So don’t try and steal it. Particularly because I need it to help give this review a sense of purpose and direction.

You see, when it comes to music it does often seem like your choices are reduced to a binary “yes/no”. You either innovate or you imitate. You follow or you lead. You simply copy your influences, or you create something new out of them.

But life, as always, isn’t really that black and white. Everything’s a spectrum, everything’s a scale, and very little in this world is really quite as absolute as it seems.

Case in point, while Portland-based Prog-Metal types City are undeniably still living in the shadows of their forefathers on their debut album On The Edge of Forever, it’s still a solidly rewarding listen in its own right, and displays more than enough promise and potential to suggest that this isn’t a state of affairs that’s going to last forever. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXCUSE

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Aug 162016

Exactly two months ago I came across the first advance track from a four-song EP entitled Goddess Injustice by some Finnish newcomers named Excuse, and it made such an immediately favorable impression that I frothed at the mouth about it in one of our new-music round-ups. Since then I’ve had the chance to listen to the other three tracks on the EP, and I’m still frothing, especially because I now get to bring you the premiere of another song. The name of this one is “Baphomet“.

Goddess Injustice is the band’s second release overall, following a 2013 demo, and the EP will be released jointly on 12″ vinyl by Hells Headbangers and Shadow Kingdom Records. The first song released for streaming from the EP — “Obsessed… With the Collapse of Civilization” — was a ripping burst of speed metal with a very unexpected and very cool two-part intro that proved Excuse have more tricks up their sleeves than the ability to make your brain mosh with your skull. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BEWITCHER — “BEWITCHER”

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Aug 162016

After releasing three really good demos starting in 2013, Portland, Oregon’s Bewitcher are now poised to release their self-titled debut album on August 18. It will be made available digitally via Bewitcher’s Bandcamp page and on LP through Diabolic Might Records, with a CD edition coming on September 9th from Divebomb Records — and today we give you the first chance to hear the entire album.

Bewitcher have been outspoken about their disdain for a lot of modern metal trends, and the fanatical zeal with which they embrace the hard-rocking, flame-throwing blasphemy of early ’80s devil music is on full display in this new album. Continue reading »

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