SHORT BUT SWEET: DOOMSDAY S/T

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 102012
 

Chicago guitarist Jeff Wilson is a busy dude. In addition to his bands Chrome Waves and Wolvhammer, both of which we’ve praised here at NCS in the past, he’s also a driving force in a new collective called Doomsday. He’s got some heavyweight talent along for the Doomsday ride, too:

Bassist Bob Fouts (The Gates of Slumber, Chrome Waves, Apostle Of Solitude)
Guitarist/vocalist Jon Woodring (Bones)
Drummer Zack Simmons (Goatwhore)
Vocalist Zion Meagher (Anti-Human Thesis).

In some ways this group is like a Nachtmystium alumni reunion, since Wilson, Woodring, Simmons, and Meagher were all previously involved with that band — and Doomsday’s self-titled, six-song EP was engineered by Nachtmystium’s Sanford Parker, along with Carl Byers (Coffinworm). It will be released on November 6 by Wilson’s newly founded label Disorder Recordings, and it features brilliantly occult cover art by Christina Caperson.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten the details out of the way and nearly sunk this review under the weight of all those links, I do have a few words to say about the music: It’s really fuckin’ good. Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN: THE ROTTED AND CHROME WAVES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 132012
 

Two more quick items to pass along, and I hope my day job will allow time for one more post like this one before this day is over. Fucking day job.

The items in this post are both videos. The first one comes from a UK band called The Rotted, whose most recent album Ad Nauseum was released by Candlelight last fall. We never got around to reviewing it, but I’ll tell you what, it’s a fuckin’ blast!

The new video is for a song from that album called “Surrounded By Skulls”. Can you guess why the mere title of that song appeals to me? But it’s not merely the title that’s appealing. The song itself is virally infectious. It’s a combo of crusty hardcore punk, d-beat, and death metal that’s irresistibly catchy, with a real shout-along chorus. The video is a kick to watch, too. Looks like a live show by these dudes would be some head-busting fun. Also, there are a lot of skulls.

The second video is from Chrome Waves, a band I’ve written about twice before. The last time (here), I was raving about a song from their debut EP called “Light Behind A Shadow”, and lo and behold that’s the subject of the band’s first official video, which Metal Injection premiered today. By the way, the album was released earlier this month by Gravedancer Records and it can now be ordered as a CD from this location, as well as downloaded from iTunes and Amazon mp3. 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 »

CHROME WAVES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 042011
 

Unless I miss my bet (and I would bet a lot on this), the day will come when you will be reading and hearing about this band far and wide, and you can tell your friends that you heard them first at NO CLEAN SINGING. Your friends may then look at you like a slug just crawled out of your nose, but pay them no mind. Who cares if they’ve never heard of NCS? What matters is the music of Chrome Waves.

First, here’s the line-up of this band:

Vocals: Stavros Giannopolous (vocalist and guitarist for The Atlas Moth), whose current album is popping up on “Best of 2011” lists far and wide)

Guitars: Jeff Wilson (guitarist of Wolvhammer, whose 2011 album The Obsidian Plains is superb and is also appearing on lots of year-end best-lists; formerly of Nachtmystium and Bringers of Disease)

Drums and bass: Bob Fouts (bassist for doom-metal band Apostle of Solitude; formerly with The Gates of Slumber)

I saw those names, and that was all the inducement I needed to spend some time with the first track they’ve released — a song that publicly debuted only last night called “”Height of the Rifles”. After the jump, we’ll be streaming it for you, but first, a little more intelligence about Chrome Waves from this interview of Bob Fouts. Continue reading »