I’ll make this quick:
First, within the last hour or so, Behemoth announced a North American tour (Ecclesia Diabolica America 2018) with support from At the Gates and Wolves in the Throne Room. It begins on October 20th in Phoenix and ends on November 24th in Los Angeles, and includes stops in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Edmonton, as well as 18 U.S. States. Here’s the current schedule: Continue reading »
A few of my NCS comrades have been nudging me to do a round-up that includes the latest songs revealed by At the Gates, Kataklysm, and Light This City. I didn’t have time to do this yesterday when I got that nudging, but decided to do it today even though Andy’s latest Waxing Lyrical post would have given me an excuse to check out from NCS writing for the day. And since I decided to pull those three songs together, I added one pick of my own.
AT THE GATES
I suppose you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that At the Gates have a new album headed our way. For you under-rock dwellers, To Drink From the Night Itself will be released by Century Media on May 18th. Yesterday brought another single from the album, packaged with a wonderful video created by Costin Chioreanu of Twilight 13 Media. Continue reading »
At the Gates
(DGR has prepared a collection of new songs and videos that appeared over the last couple of weeks, which we’ve divided into three parts, this one being the first.)
By the time you are all reading this it is highly likely that a small collective of the NCS editor (not me) and NCS cohorts (which also doesn’t include me) will have arrived in Iceland, traveling there to attend some bullshit with an excellent lineup known as Oration Festival and generally to have a good time in a foreign country — which I will not be doing, instead being overjoyed that there has been rain the past few days so my car has been getting a decent wash.
Of course, this has in no way left me saltier than the Dead Sea, nor have I turned into the living embodiment of this article at all. I am, instead wishing my compatriots an excellent time in a country (that I haven’t been to) where the weather changes on a dime and will only be slightly amused if they get caught up in a small rainstorm whilst standing outside; they should be used to that anyway.
Since this is happening, I will more than happily bear the yoke of having to deliver the much needed metal news to the world that we might’ve missed, given my general job title of news pelican here, in between whatever else the rest of us who couldn’t go to Iceland have on the docket – which is looking mighty packed – and the general scribblings of the crew in attendance at the show. Continue reading »
We’ve arrived at the middle of the work week and I find myself in the mood to round up and share with you a couple of news items and six new songs, two of which are accompanied by videos that are well above average. I’ll cut this introduction short and just dive right in…
AT THE GATES
Three years ago At the Gates returned with their first new studio album in 19 years. The reception seems to have stoked the fires even further, because they’ve written 11 new songs that they plan to begin recording soon. And according to their announcement from earlier this week, they are feeling “more inspired than perhaps ever before”. They also allege that the new record will be “by far the most comprehensive album of the band to date, and will span all the way across the different elements of the band’s sound”. Continue reading »
Riket (a Swedish word for “The Kingdom”) is the name of a new band, but its three members are metal veterans. The band was founded by vocalist Johan Nephente Fridell and guitarist/bassist Tobias Jakobsson, both of whom are members of the band Netherbird (whose last album we reviewed here), and they were joined in this enterprise by drummer Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, The Haunted), who was himself also a member of Netherbird at one time. Riket’s debut EP, Avarter, is being released today in digital form, and we bring you a first listen for all four songs.
There is a story behind the EP, as told by Nephente, that’s worth reading if you want to understand what inspired this project and how the songs were recorded, and so I’m including it here before spilling a few words of my own about the music. Of course, no one would blame you if you decided to start listening to the songs while you read — because they’re damned good. Continue reading »
photo by Ester Segarra
Today we have a two-part round-up of (mostly) new music for you. I put together this selection of new things I spotted over the last 24 hours. A bit later today we’ll bring you another compilation, assembled by Grant Skelton. Here we go:
AT THE GATES
“The Night Eternal” is one of my favorite tracks on At the Gates’ latest album At War With Reality. Honestly, it’s probably my favorite track on the album. So I was excited that the band released an official video for the song a couple of days ago, and even more excited when I realized that the video consisted of an animation by Romanian graphic artist and musician Costin Chioreanu. And it truly is a wonderful creation. Costin wrote this about the video: Continue reading »
(Andy Synn provides this report on the 2015 edition of Damnation Festival in the UK.)
It’s been a few years now since I last attended Damnation Festival, the annual celebration of all things dark and metallic hosted (as always) at Leeds University Student’s Union. But this year I knew I simply couldn’t miss it, as not only were a number of my favourite bands playing (hello Sólstafir, hi there Primordial) but also two bands I’ve been a fan of since their very first albums, but whom I’d never actually managed to see live before (The Ocean, Altar of Plagues).
Oh, and some band named At The Gates. Who are apparently pretty famous or something. Continue reading »
(BadWolf reviews the Seattle date of the Decibel Magazine 2015 Tour, accompanied by exclusive photos taken by Madison Leiren, except where noted.)
This is the third of four annual Decibel Magazine tours that I’ve reviewed for No Clean Singing (I missed the third installment, featuring Napalm Death headlining, due to Maryland Deathfest. I’m not sorry). At this point in time, the mechanics of the tour itself — the way it interacts with coverage in the magazine, the way that the lineup is formed over time, and the way it is presented artistically — are becoming apparent to me.
Rather than simply assess the show I saw itself, it’s important to discuss these deeper factors, because Decibel Magazine wields a lot of market power in the United States, and the US remains the biggest music market in the world even though metal remains relatively unpopular here. In that respect, however, the tour is operating in an easy middle ground between what I would call respect for profits and respect for the metal zeitgeist. They do that by locking in headliners that already have clout and draw, but aren’t going to pursue metal as a full-time activity, and slotting openers who intend to make a career out of music. At least that’s how it’s worked for the past two years.
It seems as though 2014 was a prototype and 2015 was the first successful rollout of a set Decibel Tour formula. The recipe is as follows: Continue reading »
Today we resume the rollout of our continuing list of 2014′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. For the other songs we’ve previously named to the list, go here.
The songs I’m adding to our list today come from the two most high-profile “comeback” albums of 2014. Both generated a lot of overheated discussion everywhere metalheads congregated to opine and pontificate. Both generated controversy, and in both cases the controversy stemmed from the inevitable comparisons with each band’s own previous landmark works. By now, everyone has chosen up sides. I’m on the side that thinks both albums are very good, and worthy additions to each band’s storied discography. And they both include some of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs.
AT THE GATES
Few bands have ever made as indelible a mark on the history of metal as this one. In four straight years they produced The Red In the Sky Is Ours, With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness, Terminal Spirit Disease, and of course Slaughter of the Soul. And then almost 20 years passed before At the Gates delivered their fifth album, At War With Reality (reviewed here). Many bands who have resurrected their careers after a long hiatus would have been better off leaving us only with memories. In this case, we are lucky that At the Gates have come back. Continue reading »
Photo credit: Dustin Rabin
I need to whine for a couple of minutes. Yes, even I, with my usually sunny disposition, need to whine every now and then.
First, I’ve been getting so little sleep lately that my eyes are as red as a baboon’s ass. Second, I inflamed a muscle in my arm from curling massive amounts of weight at the gym, the kind of crushing weight that’s comparable to a grocery bag loaded with a single loaf of bread. Third, and most egregious of all, my fucking day job has been making me run the gauntlet the last two days, with no end in sight, leaving me no time for my usual self-appointed NCS duty of scouring the web for news and new music.
I do know about a bunch of song and album premieres that appeared over the last 24 hours, but only because of messages received from my co-writers and some sharp-eyed readers. I’ve collected streams or links to them in this post, but don’t have time to write about them or even provide album art or helpful links. Shit, I haven’t even listened to all of them. How embarrassing. Continue reading »