DGR Archives - Page 54 of 62 - NO CLEAN SINGING

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (WOLFHEART)

Jul 312016

(DGR takes over The Rearview Mirror again, with a look back at the Finnish band Wolfheart — and it’s not the one you’re probably thinking of.)

When prolific Finnish musician Tuomas Saukkonen launched a new solo project entitled Wolfheart in 2013, there was a small part of my brain that fired and said there had been a Wolfheart before — which was true; there have actually been a couple of them. But I quickly wrote off the hunch as a misfiring neuron, which has pretty much been shown to be the basis of this site.

Why it mattered to me that there had been a Wolfheart prior to the formation of the current excellent Wolfheart is a question that would go unanswered for some time, until I remembered that the other Wolfheart had been a project launched by a couple of the members in Charon — and then it all made sense, as I am a fan of Charon, albeit in an ass-backwards sense because I didn’t really check them out until an eternity after Poisonblack had launched in the mid 2000s, it being the project of one of the main guys behind Sentenced, who hung it up in 2005. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (CIRCLE OF DEAD CHILDREN)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 5 Responses »

Jul 242016

(DGR steps in to write this Sunday’s edition of The Rearview Mirror, in which we revisit releases from metal’s past.)

Sometimes I find myself shooting awake with ideas for Rearviewmirrors, lots of which remain half-written. I love this column because it allows me to basically post what I wake up thinking, which is usually along the lines of ‘Holy shit, remember _______?!’ I did that recently with Circle Of Dead Children, a band whose music was not only an ugly reflection of the time in which it was written, but also years later is still able to turn a mirror and announce with utter disdain that absolutely fucking nothing changes.

Of all the bands that would eventually find their way into my early-going CD collection, Pennsylvania’s Circle Of Dead Children were always one of the most extreme ones. I came around to the group late-ish in their career, a few years after Zero Comfort Margin — the group’s 2005 EP that is today’s subject — was released. I actually discovered this EP in early 2008, after reading the lyrics to one of their songs, “Android (120 Ampere Opiate)”, and it closed with the line “Your sound bite slogans can burn with your flags”. Continue reading »

CENTINEX: “DOOMSDAY RITUALS”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jul 132016

(DGR embarks upon a review of the new album by Sweden’s Centinex.)

One of the interesting things about the recent wave of death metal revivalism that has been slowly worming its way through the metal scene over the last few years has been the resurgence of bands who had disbanded years ago. Centinex are one such group, having been on hold for the better part of eight years before returning with 2014’s Redeeming Filth — an about as red-meat-as-they-come, Swedish death metal disc.

It was a throwback in a sense, as Centinex have made no qualms about the fact that they aren’t exactly aiming to be innovators, just playing something that they know the in’s and out’s of and had been doing for a long time, and playing it well enough to dish out good music in that genre.

Centinex are one of those groups who are proudly a genre-fare band, which is actually something of a rarity these days. They’re happy to make meatheaded and Cro-Magnon-level death metal, comprised of huge chugging grooves and thick-sounding drums that sound like piston hammers. In an odd way, they are a throwback to a sound that has never really gone away, but has mutated into a variety of different and faster forms. Centinex choose to be the slow-moving grinder of the mix, albeit with better production.

July 8th, 2016, saw the group release the follow-up disc to Redeeming Filth — one that the band have said they weren’t going to wait around to record – entitled Doomsday Rituals. It’s as good a sign as any that Centinex are making zero attempts to slow themselves down and, if you’ll forgive the pun, have finally fallen into their groove. Interestingly enough, though, despite the hallmark mid-tempo grinders Centinex built Redeeming Filth out of in their proud honoring of the traditions of yore, Doomsday Rituals actually steps on the accelerator a bit — and that is where things get fun. Continue reading »

DGR SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): BE’LAKOR, THE VISION BLEAK, CENTAURUS-A, OBSCURA, THE SHADELESS EMPEROR, WITHERSCAPE, SOILWORK, SOLUTION .45

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Jul 052016

(DGR presents this round-up of new music, which completes a two-part post that he began here.)

I joked in the previous collection that I wrote that the flood of music which hit in June was a little hilarious. There’s been so much that it feels like I’ve become a giant net in which news lands and then I dump the whole thing upon this site for users to romp around in, and guess what? The comedic flood of music continues unabated with Round Two of our roundup.

We posted Round One last week, and the dredging of the internet continues as we dig for more music videos/song streams/full album streams to talk about. This time around the collection is actually pretty Europe-heavy, with our one huge divergence being a trip out to Australia — which happens to be our lead-off as well. The collection of bands this time around also features one newer discovery and also a check-in with a band who haven’t had some stuff out in some time.

Be’lakor – Smoke Of Many Fires and Vessels Album Stream

We’ve reviewed Be’lakor’s Vessels already, and I share Andy’s opinion that Vessels is a really good album, but recent weeks have brought even more news — though I can now keep this a little more truncated. One is that the band premiered a lyric video for the song “Smoke Of Many Fires” over at Horror Society, and two, if you prefer your music streams less lyric-video-heavy, Bloody-Disgusting grabbed a whole album stream here. Continue reading »

DGR SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): CENTINEX, RINGWORM, OCCVLT HAND, WINTERHORDE, INORGANIC, REVOCATION, GIANT OF THE MOUNTAIN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Jun 282016

(DGR takes over round-up duties today, with a selection of new songs and videos that caught his attention over the last week or two.)

The torrent of music that has hit within the past month or so has been absolutely insane. It’s the summer festival season over in Europe, so I imagine that might have a large bit to do with it, but we’ve also hit the halfway point of the year and now it feels like everyone is dumping out as much as they can in order to get into the news before the year is out.

In the past two weeks or so, I’ve been completely derailed on reviews/various other forms of procrastination in an effort to try and catch as much as possible. I was only joking about being a news trash barge in my last two round-ups, but wow, this time around I’m serious. I’m actually making an effort to split these round-ups into two parts, because between them I have about twelve different news items — song streams, album streams, music videos, lyric videos, album discoveries, and the like — to share. Strap in folks, these next two are going to get real silly.

Centinex – Generation of Flies

One of my hidden joys of being able to attend Maryland Deathfest this year was actually being able to see Centinex — who play a very simple form of death metal. It’s incredibly traditionalist and about as steak-and-potatoes as they come, but somehow the guys in Centinex have locked into how to make a damned good song out of some often overused ingredients. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): HANNES GROSSMANN, SKELETONWITCH, GHOUL, COUNTLESS SKIES, MALEVOLENT

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Jun 212016

(DGR had so much fun stepping up for round-up duty last week that he’s already back with more new songs to recommend. And later today you’re humble editor will throw in Parts 2 and 3 of today’s round-up.)

Just as we managed to post our last series of huge collections of music, even more delicious goodies came to our attention span over the past week whilst we lay on rocks under the sun attempting to capture flies. This time around, music that leaked out within the past few weeks is what we’re hoping to cover — with one notable exception that is a bit more of an anthropology act waiting at the bottom.

Last week saw a handful of huge premieres — including one day at our very site that saw seven pretty huge ones — and we’re hoping to help spread the news. This installment is, again, pretty death-metal-heavy but moreso stuff that has been on the fringes of the genre than stuff that is straightforward blasts and sewage growls. We’re going to cover the tech realm, the thrashier side, the melodic side, and then into one band who covered a vast amount of ground before they went into hibernation. There should also be some pretty hefty names for you all to recognize as well, which made last week fairly exciting to say the least. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VOLTURYON, DECREPIT MONOLITH, PSYCHOTIC PULSE, BLACK CROWN INITIATE, REVOCATION, NAILS, DEATH I AM, THE LUNA SEQUENCE, WITHERSCAPE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 9 Responses »

Jun 172016

(DGR takes over round-up duties today, featuring commentary and a wide array of recent song, video, and album streams. This would have been posted much earlier in the week if our editor weren’t so lame.)

If you’ve been reading the site recently you’ve no doubt noticed that quite a few of us shirked work and decided instead to go out to Maryland for the Maryland Deathfest shindig that the internet likes to talk so much about. However, the internet doesn’t take time off like we do and quite a bit of stuff came out during that period that despite our best efforts slipped right by us.

On top of that, since we’ve been playing catch-up for the last two weeks, a veritable pile of new music landed on top of us as well. And so I find myself opening my great maw wide in order to capture as much of it as possible — as well as using this as an opportunity to share some stuff that flew right past us long before we had MDF as an excuse for being terrible people.

Contained in this here news roundup is a veritable smorgasboard of new music, some of which came to us by the bands themselves and other times was discovered whilst I was spinning in circles on the internet. Either way, there’s a ton of stuff what floated down the river here — only to be captured by my net/boat/if only there was some sort of metaphor or object I could compare my news capturing ability to… ah well, maybe next time. Let’s get on with it. Continue reading »

WINTERHORDE: “MAESTRO”

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Jun 012016

(DGR reviews the new album by the Israeli band Winterhorde.)

In what has become a calling card, Winterhorde are a band for whom significant time has passed between the last two releases. Three years plus tends to be the point at which questions start arising about the band’s status, and when you start coming up on the front-end of six years as in the case of Winterhorde, you start to worry whether the band even still exist. The gap between the releases prior to the six-year breather was closer to four, so even by their standards the length of time between discs was reaching an extreme.

Maestro, the group’s most recent release, follows the group’s 2010 album Underwatermoon — a densely packed album that, while it had some faults in terms of running a little long in the tooth, had its fair share of interesting ideas and regional melodies that gave the whole album an air of maddening ritual. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (BIOMECHANICAL)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 5 Responses »

May 292016

(DGR presents this Sunday’s Rearview Mirror installment, reflecting upon the metal of yesteryear.)

I have to confess that there was a moment in writing this when it occurred to me that I was going to have to justify enjoying Biomechanical’s last album. It was an oddly sobering thought, especially in the face of discs like Eight Moons and The Empire Of The Worlds, which are albums it feels like history looks upon more kindly.

The last time I sat down and took over the Rearview Mirror column for a bit, I found myself vouching for the idea of an album that is “half-good” — one of those discs that isn’t the strongest, but half of it really seems to be on to something and for that reason always sticks out in your mind. Since then, I’ve played with a couple of other ideas for Rearview Mirror posts in order to alleviate some of the burden on our glorious editor-person, but the half-good album idea has continued to gnaw at me, at least for another edition. Continue reading »

MURDER MADE GOD: “ENSLAVED”

Reviews No Responses »

May 282016

(DGR reviews the new album by the Greek band Murder Made God.)

There is a part of me that always becomes excited when I feel I’ve somehow gone on an archeological dig and made an incredible world-shifting discovery. Recently, I feel like I’ve found 2016’s brutal death metal common ancestor, or for lack of a better term, that with Murder Made God’s recent April release Enslaved, I have found brutal death metal’s median — the throughline casting its way through the whole genre.

Enslaved marks the Greek brutal death metal horde’s second release of their career, with its predecessor Irreverance having hit in late June of 2013. Enslaved, which is out via Comatose Music, sounds like it took a look at the brutal death genre, saw the various directions in which it has been splitting off recently — from the hyperblasting sect to the gorier subsections — and decided instead to shoot directly down the center. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries