SEEN AND HEARD: IHSAHN, SIGHT OF EMPTINESS, BYZANTINE, URNA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 112013
 

Here are a some things I’d like to recommend from my reading and listening last night.

IHSAHN

On Monday night of this week, a new song from Ihsahn premiered on BBC Radio 1’s “Rock Show” with Daniel P. Carter. The song is “Hilber” and it will appear on Ihsahn’s fifth solo album, Das Seelenbrechen, which will be released on October 21 in North America via Candlelight Records. Fortunately, the program will remain available for streaming for the next seven days at BBC.co.uk, and you can use that link to hear it (just skip to the 21:45 mark on the player you’ll find there).

Also, for now at least, it’s been uploaded to YouTube (I’m shocked, I tell you, simply shocked!) and so you can also listen right here, after the jump.

Man, I do like this song. It swirls and it stomps, it echoes and it pounds, the guitar spirals around complex rhythms, a string section takes wing, and Ihsahn claws with his voice (no clean singing on this one, thank you very much). It’s dark, disconcerting, and occasionally dissonant, but it will also stick with you. Imaginative music. You should hear it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLACK CAP MINER, EXHUMED, COFFINS, AND TWO AUTHOR & PUNISHER REMIXES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 022013
 

Here’s a collection of selected items your humble editor witnessed and heard while stumbling around the interhole yesterday. As usual, the stuff is all over the musical map.

BLACK CAP MINER

Black Cap Miner is the side project of West Virginia vocalist/guitarist Chris Ojeda of the mighty Byzantine (whose 2013 release ought to get some kind of award for comeback album of the year). The objective of the project is to get you to headbang like it’s 1988. To be more precise, OJ and friends are recording covers of some old school thrash songs. But not just any songs, and not just any friends. Check out his list of guest performers:

JAMES MALONE (Arsis)
GREG BURGESS (Allegaeon)
TONY ROHRBOUGH (Byzantine)
JAY HANNON (Gizmachi)
KYLE THOMAS (Exhorder, Trouble)
CHRIS POLAND (Megadeth)
CHUCK BILLY (Testament)

I think a robust HOLY SHIT! is in order, don’t you?  I mean, not to take even one little thing away from Chris Ojeda, but that’s a mighty fine group of comrades to assemble for the recording of some thrash. Continue reading »

FIVE OF MY FAVOURITE . . . BANDS WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN HUGE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  39 Responses »
Apr 112013
 

(Andy Synn is back with yet another of his five-item lists of favorite things.)

TheMadIsraeli’s review of the newest Killswitch album (which I still haven’t actually gotten around to listening to) got me thinking, mostly about missed chances and wasted potential. As a fan of KsE, even I have to acknowledge that, due to a variety of factors, some beyond their control, some due to their own decision-making, the band may have squandered some of their early potential.

That may sound rather harsh; it’s not meant to be but it may sound it. But I think it’s unfortunately an accurate assessment of things as they stand. Losing Jesse, the stalling of their initial momentum while they recruited Howard, the more simplistic, mainstream leanings that sanitised their most recent work… all these combined with the general state of the music industry and some unfortunate timing, have meant that the band never reached the “megastar” status which was, however fleetingly, hinted at by their early potential.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Killswitch Engage are pretty damn mainstream, at least by metal standards, right? Well that’s kind of my point… we often forget, we proud underground warriors, that for most bands, being part of the metal “mainstream” means fuck all to the “actual” mainstream. Bands with legitimate underground cred who get the merest sniff of wider exposure are immediately attacked for “selling-out” even when they’ve not changed a thing, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

But what I’m talking about here are five bands who had the possibility, however slight, of achieving real recognition (mainstream or otherwise), real status, without sacrificing their integrity or identity, but for whom it never quite “happened”. Continue reading »

“BYZANTINE”: OUR REVIEW AND A FULL STREAM OF THE NEW ALBUM

 Album Reviews, Premieres  27 Responses »
Feb 272013
 

(The long-awaited fourth album by West Virginia’s Byzantine is out now, and we’re delighted to provide a full stream of the new album along with TheMadIsraeli’s review.)

I wish I could find a way to adequately express how much I was absolutely frothing at the mouth in anticipation of this album.  You’ve got to understand, this is a band who I musically idolized but who I thought had called it quits for good, and while I wasn’t originally stoked on the reunion since it lacked an integral founding member, his rejoining the band soon after sealed the deal for me.  Byzantine were back in business and ass kicking was soon to follow.

I’ve sung the praises of this band to the high heavens on this site already, so if you are unfamiliar with these guys or have forgotten what they’re about, go read my Byzantine discography retrospective, which also included their three previous albums for download.  Get educated.

Anyone who thinks that this album is a mere sequel to Oblivion Beckons would be sorely mistaken.  These guys have been out of the band game for five years, but have still pursued music in a personal way and have thus evolved.  What we have here isn’t a different Byzantine, but definitely a wiser, more sophisticated and diverse Byzantine.  Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: NEW FILM FROM INCANTATION, HANGING GARDEN, AND BYZANTINE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 142013
 

The last 24 hours brought three new music videos that I thought were worth throwing your way — three quite different forms of metal and three quite different uses of visual accompaniment, but all worth seeing and hearing. The bands are Incantation (U.S.), Hanging Garden (Finland), and Byzantine (U.S.).

INCANTATION

This seminal NYDM band’s new album Vanquish in Vengeance, their first in half a decade, was released last fall by Listenable Records.  It has been very well-received, and rightly so. It bears the hallmarks of Incantation’s well-defined morbid, crushing style, but with a crisper, more modernized sound, and it’s packed with varied, well-written songs. The album opener “Invoked Infinity” sets the tone for the album, summoning up atmospherics of the occult and the doomed while also ripping flesh with a storm of razor-edged guitar work.

This morning the band premiered a video for the song that captures the mortuary air of the track — because it was filmed in an actual, decaying, turn-of-the-century funeral home. Here you go: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BYZANTINE’S “SOUL ERASER”

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Jan 112013
 

It was a very sad day when West Virginia’s Byzantine dissolved roughly five years ago following the release of Oblivion Beckons. But as everyone knows by now, Byzantine are back with a new, self-titled album that’s set for release on February 26. We’ve had the good fortune of hearing it in advance, and it’s going to blow people away.

We’ve already featured (here) a lyric video for the first track from the album that Byzantine released — “Signal Path” — and today we’re privileged to debut the band’s official music video for another song: “Soul Eraser”.

One of the hallmarks of the new album (in addition to massive grove) is its musical diversity, and “Soul Eraser” is a good example of that. In addition to bringing a truckload of stomping, jabbing, pummeling riffs and rhythms, it’s built around a melody that will get stuck in your head awful damned fast. The song also includes spiraling lead guitar work and a whole lot of vocal diversity. And when the song really cuts loose at about the 3:00 mark, hold on to your hats. Continue reading »

THIS AND THAT: SOILWORK, TOMAHAWK, BYZANTINE, SOM PLUIJMERS, AND FREDRIK WIDIGS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 012012
 

In here: A few things I noticed this morning.

SOILWORK

Soilwork’s ninth studio album The Living Infinite, which will be a two-disc release, is now scheduled for release by Nuclear Blast on March 1 in Europe, and March 5 in North America. Late yesterday, the cover art was unveiled. The artist is Mnemic’s Mircea Eftemie Gabriel. He also created the artwork for Soilwork’s Stabbing The Drama album seven years ago. It’s a change from the style of the band’s last few covers, and I’m liking it. It seems to have a nautical theme; I don’t know how that connects to the music, but we’ll find out.

Nuclear Blast also released the album’s track list: There are a total of 20 songs. I’m sure there will be some catchy melodic ones in there, but I’m hoping for some old-school Soilwork head-wreckers, too.

TOMAHAWK

This morning I also saw four new music videos. The first one isn’t metal. It’s for a song named “Stone Letter” by Tomahawk, who we last featured here. Tomahawk consists of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) plus a bunch of other interesting musicians: Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard, Unsemble), Trevor Dunn (Fantomas, Melvins Lite), and John Stanier (Battles, Helmet). Five years have passed since their last release, but they’ve got a new album coming in January called Oddfellows. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: BYZANTINE, PORTAL, AND KONGH

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Nov 282012
 

Time for another daily round-up of things I saw and heard this morning while snooping around the web that I thought were worth sharing. There’s one thing (and only one thing) that all three of the following items have in common: They all involve genuinely eye-catching cover art. The bands are Byzantine (U.S.), Portal (Australia), and KONGH (Sweden).

BYZANTINE

It was a very sad day when West Virginia’s Byzantine dissolved roughly five years ago following the release of Oblivion Beckons. The band broke a lot of ground while they were up and running, they had talent in spades, and they clearly weren’t the kind of outfit who were going to remain static in their musical approach as time passed. Much time did pass without new Byzantine music, but as we were thrilled to report much earlier this year, Byzantine have reunited.

They’ve completed recording a new album, self-titled, that’s currently scheduled for release on February 26 via Gravedancer Records. We’ve been tremendously fortunate to get an advance listen to the album, and all I can say at this point is that it more than makes up for those long years of silence. This is a mature band who have created something quite diverse and really special from end to end.

Today, they’ve unveiled a new song from the album by the name of “Signal Path”. I said the album is diverse, and so I don’t think any one song could really stand as representative of the whole, but “Signal Path” does display the kind of masterful integration of disparate elements that’s indicative of what the album brings — in this case, massive groove, infectious melody, soulful/gritty vocals, blazing guitar leads, and jazz-influenced soloing. Continue reading »

BYZANTINE UPDATE: THE “PATHOGEN” PLAYTHROUGH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 052012
 

I’m writing this post in the Seattle ferry terminal at 11:45 p.m. on a Monday night, waiting for the 12:15 a.m. sailing that will take me home. But being still awake in a place I’d rather not be, instead of fast asleep in my own bed, turns out to have its compensations. I turned on my laptop, because that seemed like a better idea than staring at the other bleary-eyed derelicts waiting for the same ferry boat, and what did I spy but a just-released play-through video of a new Byzantine song by Chris (“O.J.”) Ojeda.

We’ve been spreading the gospel of the reborn Byzantine since we first found out about their reunion in January. More than four years have passed since their last album, Oblivion Beckons, and it seemed for a long time than Oblivion Beckons was the band’s swan song. But they are back, with the original line-up in place, anchored by Chris Ojeda and Byzantine’s other masterful guitarist Tony Rohrbaugh.

Byzantine was way ahead of their time, and the passage of time has only proved just how far ahead of things they were, because their albums still sound fresh and immediate. I can still vividly remember my wide-eyed reaction at hearing their full-length debut, The Fundamental Component, and then watching with fascination as they progressed through …And They Shall Take Up Serpents and Oblivion Beckons. They’ve already staked their place in the evolution of metal, but they clearly haven’t lost the drive, the song-writing creativity, and the technical skill that produced those albums.

Last night, Chris Ojeda finished tracking the rhythm guitars for the band’s new album, at past 2 a.m., West Virginia time. And to celebrate the occasion, he ripped a play-through of a song called “Pathogen”, which he said nearly didn’t make the cut for the new album. And sitting in the un-cozy confines of the Seattle ferry terminal, I heard it soon after it went up on YouTube, and now you can, too. Continue reading »

GRAVEDANCER: BYZANTINE, CHROME WAVES, AND CONAN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 292012
 

Josh Eldridge used to be head of publicity at Century Media Records, and then later in business development and A&R. I remember him fondly because he was the first major label rep who gave NCS a shot at a song premiere for a big-name band (Deicide’s “How Can You Call Yourself A God”). Later still, he became the head of marketing for The MuseBox marketing company and founded his own business called ConspiracyPR.

Now, in partnership with MuseBox, he has formed a new metal label called Gravedancer Records and has made a deal for worldwide distribution of the label’s first three signings by EMI. And these aren’t just any three signings. The first bands signed to Gravedancer are Byzantine, Chrome Waves, and Conan. This shows extremely good taste (not that we hold ourselves out as arbiters of taste, of course), and a reason to pay attention to what Eldridge and Gravedancer do next. Allow me to elaborate:

BYZANTINE

The revival of this West Virginia band, with the reuniting of Chris Ojeda and Tony Rohrbaugh, was one of the real bright spots of news in 2011. TheMadIsraeli interviewed both of them for this post in February, and we’ve been following their progress closely. Small pieces of awesome music have surfaced now and then, enough to make us confident that Byzantine’s next album will be something special. The most recent taste of what’s to come is a Chris Ojeda playthrough that has now appeared on YouTube. That’s the first thing that will greet you after the jump. Continue reading »

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