NEWZ FROM ALL OVER (INCLUDING A MASSIVE INTERVIEW FAIL) AND ONE ACTUAL SONG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  28 Responses »
Jun 222011
 

I’ve never been entirely sure about the point of metal news releases about music you can’t yet hear, albums you can’t yet buy, and tours for which you can’t yet acquire tickets, but people still seem to be interested in this kind of shit. Not me, of course. I’m so fucking zen-like in my outlook that these kinds of pointless cock-teasers just flow over me like a soft summer breeze, barely ruffling my hair. My pulse rate doesn’t move a beat from its normal, slothlike resting state. I remain as steady and unmoving as a hummingbird.

Wait, that didn’t end right. Okay, well maybe it did. Truth is, I am metal-nerd enough to get excited about this stuff, though I can’t provide any rational reason why. In keeping with our unintentional Finn-centric theme of this week’s posts, several of these items focus on Finnish metal.

So, here’s the top-level summary of news for this post: Announcement of two new European tours — one featuring Gorgoroth and Vader and the other headlined by Machine Head; a progress report on Insomnium‘s new album; word of an all-star album (and the label “all-star” is no bullshit) in the planning stages from Finland’s Spinefarm Records; and perhaps the most glaring example I’ve seen in months of an interviewer failing to ask a follow-up question (in this case, about Opeth‘s new album).

While I’ve got your attention, I might as well also throw in some music you can actually hear right now — high-quality footage of Suicide Silence performing a song from their forthcoming new album.  (all that stuff after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE ATTICUS METAL TOUR III: BORN OF OSIRIS, DARKEST HOUR, AS BLOOD RUNS BLACK, AND HUMAN ABSTRACT

 Concert Reviews  11 Responses »
Mar 152011
 

Your three NCS co-founders, plus friends, spent last night at Seattle’s Studio Seven having our eardrums shattered and our brains pulped by an amazingly good set of performances by four very talented bands. I’m not writing this in order to gloat about getting to see the show. You know how sometimes you get so enthusiastic about an experience that the first thing you want to do is call up or text a friend and tell them about it? Well, that’s sort of what I’m doing with this post, but I do want to report a couple of surprises (at least for me) that might be of interest.

I went to the show mainly to see Darkest Hour (despite the fact that I’ve seen them three times before), though I was also curious to see The Human Abstract. It turned out to be an eye-opening night — especially in the case of Born of Osiris and the music they played from their forthcoming third album. All four of these bands have new releases (the one from As Blood Runs Black debuts today), all four played songs from the new albums, and it was all . . . just . . . awesome.

Studio Seven has a simple layout: There’s a big concrete floor and there’s a balcony that includes a bar. The balcony hangs over much of the floor, with the leading edge not more than 30 feet from the front of the stage below. IntoTheDarkness and I got to the venue early and waited in line almost one hour in a cold wind in order to get a perch at the front of the balcony bar area, which gave us (literally) a bird’s eye view of the stage and what turned out to be a packed, roiling mass of humanity directly below us.

Of course, I forgot my fucking camera, but I’m not sure it would have done me any good since the stage was shrouded in smoke effects most of the night. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

DARKEST HOUR: THE HUMAN ROMANCE

 Album Reviews  21 Responses »
Feb 222011
 

Our UK contributor Andy Synn checks in for the second day in a row — this time with a review of Darkest Hour‘s latest album, The Human Romance, which is being released today.

Seven albums. Seven full-length albums of original songs. That’s a lot of material, stemming from Darkest Hour’s punky early origins to the more streamlined and expansive sound of modern times, touching base with hardcore, thrash and death metal along the way. After all this time, however, it wouldn’t be blasphemous to wonder if the band still have anything left to offer that is in any way better or different.

Thankfully, the answer to that question is yes, with perhaps a greater emphasis on the “better” rather than the “different”. Although definitely more aggressive than any of their post-Hidden Hands… albums (although this was hinted at by The Eternal Return), The Human Romance also sees the band using the means and methods of their traditional sound and song-writing style to explore different melodic textures.

Despite some initial reservations about the band potentially repeating song structures and styles from their previous releases, I have found the album to be a more intelligent, refined variation on their core sounds. Some sophisticated new elements are utilised in an unobtrusive manner, so that the album, whilst fiery and heavy, is most rewarding after repeat listens. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NEW DARKEST HOUR VIDEO

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 162011
 

One of our favorite metal bands, Darkest Hour, has a new album set for official release next week. It’s called The Human Romance. From the songs we’ve heard so far, it’s going to be very strong.

Earlier today, ARTISTdirect.com premiered the first official music video for the new album, for the song “Savor the Kill”. ARTISTdirect introduced the video this way (saving our lazy selves the time of doing it for you):

“Against the backdrop of bone liquefying music, the video features a hot chick in a white dress and another hot chick in a magenta dress. Both are in the woods. There are wolves, and footage of the band performing. There is also some blood. It’s almost like a dark, twisted, perverted fairytale, set to metallic riffage that will force you to bang your head involuntarily. That’s all the detail we’ll share – it’s up to you to watch it now and piece together your own perception of what’s going on in the video for ‘Savor the Kill'”.

If you would like to see the video, continue past the jump and check it out. It’s good — and so is the song. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 2)

 Forthcoming Albums  No Responses »
Feb 012011
 


The first month of the year has come and gone. January brought those of us in Seattle some typically ass-sucking winter weather, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the brutality dished out by the weather gods on our metal brothers and sisters in the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S. And of course, our readers ins places like Russia, and Finland, and Sweden are probably laughing their asses off reading our complaints about our winter weather. So, we’ll just shut up about that.

Besides, January brought all sorts of great new metal to our tender ears, so who gives a shit about the weather anyway? And you know what else January brought? It brought news of still more metal goodness on the way — great bursts of audio sunshine in our collective futures that will part these winter clouds and leave them whimpering in cloudy tatters.

Okay, maybe we should leave poetry to the poets and just get on with this next monthly installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, where we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like, or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we’ve cut and pasted the announcements and compiled them in alphabetical order. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones:

AJATARRA: “AJATTARA — the Finnish band featuring former AMORPHIS frontman Pasi Koskinen (a.k.a. Itse Ruoja Suruntuoj) — will release its seventh album, Murhat (“Murders”) on February 2 via Osasto-A Records. Murhat is available for streaming in its entirety on the AJATTARA Facebook page.”  (much more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MUSIC TO xxxxx TO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Nov 172010
 

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Our temporarily Australian correspondent The Artist Formerly Known As Dan has another list for you today. He left out a few activities. We sure hope the comments fill in the holes . . .]

If you are like me (read: a nerd) then you tend to categorize everything, especially music.  Whenever I hear something new, I’m very quick to make a judgement about the overall sound and what type of music it is. Only, I’m not filtering it into one of those sub-genres that are constantly argued about on the internet. I’m thinking about if I like the music enough to listen to it again. If the answer is yes, then I think about when I would listen to the music again, and what the associated activity might be (don’t ask me how or why I do this – I probably have a problem).

Anyway, the point is, I think about music as something to augment my life and its associated activities, like some kind of bizarre “soundtrack to life.” For example, I really really enjoy gaming to Dagoba. I’m not positive how it started, but I think I was playing Guild Wars and I played the entirety of Face the Colossus and it was just fucking awesome.

This post is mostly meant to stimulate discussion, so what is your favorite music to xxxxx to?  I’ll list some examples below of some activities and what I like to hear while doing them.  (after the jump . . . including music to hear) Continue reading »

“DOIN’ IT LIVE ‘TIL WE’RE DEAD” IN SEATTLE

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 112010
 

“Doin’ It Live ‘Til We’re Dead” appears to be the motto of The Dillinger Escape Plan for 2010. They passed through Seattle and stopped for a show at El Corazon on the night of April 10, with support from Darkest Hour, Animals As Leaders, and local favorites 7 Horns 7 Eyes. Two of your three NCS Co-Authors were on hand for the fun, and we file this report. In a word, the show was just amazing from start to finish. And for a change, we got some decent photos. You can see a lot more of them at the end of the write-up.

7HORNS 7 EYES

We last saw this local quintet (featuring two pairs of brothers) on January 26 as support for the Metal As Art tour. We hadn’t seen or heard them before that show, but they made a huge impression. We wrote then: “‘Epic” is an overused word in our community, but it truly suits the music that 7H7E delivers. The music is atmospheric but technical . . . It’s some mesmerizing shit!”

And it was more of the same last night: Complex, mid-tempo rhythms, sweeping melodies, a mix of growly and high-pitched vocals, tight instrumental interludes — and their own light show, with the fog machine pumping out the smoke. This is some mighty tasty progressive/death-metal fusion. And based on some mid-set comments from the stage, it appears we will finally have a debut album in the next couple of months. An awesome way to start the night!

(lots more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

UNEARTH UPDATE

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jan 072010
 

Just saw some bittersweet news. First, the good part. The line-up, dates, and places have just been released for the Atticus Metal Tour II — with NCS favorite UNEARTH as the headline act. And it gets better. Check out the line-up of other bands on the bill:  Stick To Your Guns, Veil of Maya, The Ghost Inside, and Carnifex — with Darkest Hour, Stray From The Path, and, Your Demise joining the party on select dates.  (Those dates and other details will be released here as they become available.)

Now for the bittersweet news (selfishly speaking): the closest the tour gets to the Pacific Northwest is Utah. Life ain’t fucking fair!  What else is new. Anyway, check out the full list of dates and places after the jump. Continue reading »

TEXAS IN JULY

 Album Reviews, Metal News  No Responses »
Dec 082009
 

Texas+in+July+texas

My co-Author IntoTheDarkness turned me on to Texas in July this past summer not long after they released their full-length CD I Am. I liked it immediately and have found myself going back to it periodically since then (and I’ll eventually explain why). When I first started listening to I Am, I knew nothing about the band and there wasn’t a lot to learn on the netz, though I did discover that despite their band name the guys were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (As a native Texan, I was a little disappointed by that discovery, but managed to get over it.)

Recently, after one of my periodic returns to I Am, I decided to hunt the web again for more info and found a lot more than when I looked the first time 6 months ago. For one thing, the band’s MySpace page now shows more than 1 million song plays, which is a shit-load. And I found that the band had released an EP called Salt of the Earth in October 2008 (both releases are now available on iTunes).  I also found all sorts of on-the-surface reasons why the odds would be against me liking this band.

First, they’re really young (ages 16-18, and two of them still in high school) and I’m really not.  I’ve found very few metal bands that young who have enough song-writing sophistication and playing chops to be worth more than a brisk once-over. Second, look at that photo above: kind of screams “Emo!” doesn’t it? Third, their label (CI Records) bills them  as a Christian metalcore band. Now don’t get me wrong — they’re some bands stuck in that same genre pigeon-hole that I really like (e.g., August Burns Red) — but it’s not a long list. My tastes these days tend to run toward the more brutal end of the extreme metal spectrum.

But against all these odds, I’m still addicted to Texas in July. Call it a guilty pleasure. And the source of the appeal, as it should be, is the music. To explain . . . Continue reading »

DECIBEL’S TOP 40

 Listmania  No Responses »
Nov 232009
 

Top 40 Hits

A couple days ago, we reported on Decibel magazine’s (premature) publication of its “Top 40 Extreme Albums of 2009” and gave you the list of 40.  Many more “Best of 2009” metal lists will soon be appearing on the netz and the newsstands.  Why do people create these kinds of lists and why do we read them?  Music is a matter of personal taste.  These lists represent the personal tastes of particular critics and fans, no more or less valid than my favorites or yours.  So what’s the fucking point?  I’m not sure there is a fucking point, but I’ll make a stab at it. Continue reading »

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