Jun 082011
 

I randomly watched three brand new videos this morning for three very different kinds of songs. If I were a baseball player, I’d say I went three for three at the plate — three chances, three hits. Three good songs, and as for the videos, I’d call them a triple, a double, and a single.

The triple comes from a UK underground band called Amebix, who haven’t released any new material in almost 24 years — until June 3, when they released a new single called “Knights of the Black Sun” on their own label, Amebix Records. The song includes much more clean singing than we usually tolerate around here, but I’ve fallen for it pretty hard. It soars like an anthem, with ringing guitars and passionate vocals and a memorable melody. The video is a dark, mesmerizing animation created by Andy Lefton and Fin McAteer. It’s beautiful to watch.

The double is the video for a new song by Taiwan’s Chthonic called “Takao”. It has been digitally released today (in Finland) as a single and will appear on the band’s next album, Takasago Army, to be released by Spinefarm Records. Stylistically, the song is very much in the vein of Finnish-brand melodic death metal, and naturally, I’m liking it a lot. Not surprisingly, there’s a “B-side” version of this same song on the single, with the choruses sung by members of Finland’s Ensiferum. To fully appreciate the beautifully made video, it helps to understand that the song is about a group of Taiwanese men recruited by the Japanese army from the Takao harbor to fight in the Pacific during World War II. According to Chthonic’s Doris Yeh, “they became the most revered and most feared combat unit in the Japanese Imperial Army.”

The single is a video for the title track to the new album from Florida’s Catalepsy — Bleed. The song is just a fucking crusher. The subject matter of the video isn’t nearly as interesting as the first two featured in this post, but it’s well made. As for the subject matter, let’s just say that you should remind me not to piss off Catalepsy, should I forget. Watch the videos after the jump. I think you’ll be glad you did. Continue reading »

Apr 022011
 


Technically, we should have posted this yesterday, but yesterday was April Fool’s Day, and people might have thought we were making up some of this shit. But it’s all true, and nothing happens on April 2 to plant doubt about truth. Except for what causes doubt to be planted about truth on any other day of the year.

Here we are at the beginning of the second quarter of 2011 — the time when for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is supposed to spring.  Where I live, spring has apparently been victimized by a brutal street mugging and is hospitalized at the moment.  A few plants have been deluded into thinking it’s spring, but for the rest of our local world, it’s still fucking winter.

Fortunately, the change of the seasons have fuck all to do with the release of metal. What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days (or in this case, the last 31 days) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming New Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. There’s some awesome shit on the way. Dive in after the jump. Continue reading »