The pace of metal is molten, as in the pace of a pyroclastic flow. So much news and noteworthy new music erupts each day that I can barely keep up with it even when I’m paying attention. And over the last two weeks while on vacation, I wasn’t paying attention, or at least not much. Trying to catch up with everything that happened while I was away would be foolhardy — because while digging back through even two weeks’ worth of events I’d be missing a lot of what will happen over the next two weeks.

Having said that, I do want to make at least a partial stab at catching up, based in part on messages I received from my NCS co-writers and in part on a few random forays of my own while on vacation. There’s a high likelihood that many of you already know about what I’ve chosen to feature in this multi-part “Catching Up” series, but some may not, so I’m forging ahead. In this first part of the series I’m collecting release information plus new songs or videos by three excellent bands, in alphabetical order.

BEHEMOTH

These Polish titans have a new album entitled The Satanist that will be released by Nuclear Blast on February 3 in the UK, February 4 in North America and Poland, February 5 in Japan, and February 7 in the rest of Europe and the world; it’s now available for pre-order in Europe here. While I was gone, the talented artist Denis Forkas Kostromitin revealed the album’s cover art, which you can see above. It’s a piece entitled “Chalice of Severance” and is described as “acrylics, gilding and blood on linen” — the blood being that of Behemoth’s frontman Nergal. Continue reading »