Jul 082011
 

I’ve never been a fan of Dir En Grey, even after seeing them live in Seattle, but I forced myself to watch their new video for a song called “Different Sense” when I peeped it at TheNumberOfTheBlog yesterday. The song is a schizophrenic mix of death-grind, proggy instrumentalism, and overly dramatic clean singing. I almost found myself getting into it at the beginning — but failed by the time it ended. Just not my thing.

So, I’m not adding this post because of the music. It’s the video. And all the tentacles. What is the fucking attraction that Japanese pop culture (or is it underground culture?) has for tentacles? Gore + tentacles! Sex + tentacles! Food + tentacles! Tentacles + tentacles! All the time tentacles!

I first discovered this Japanese tentacle fetish courtesy of NCS reader/commenter/occasional-blogger Phro, who is imprisoned in Japan for undisclosed past sins. So Phro, buddy, how ’bout some cultural analysis here? What da fuck is up wit dis?

Jul 012011
 


June is behind us, July lies ahead. Here in the U.S., we’re about to start the long weekend leading up to Independence Day, when Americans celebrate the birth of the nation by buying explosive ordinance wherever fine explosive ordinance is sold and lighting up the night sky (in addition to blowing the shit out of objects and sometimes themselves). People will also be exposing unsightly parts of their bodies wherever sun can be found and eating large quantities of health food prepared on outdoor grills. Our Founding Fathers would be proud of what they wrought!

Because the last month has ended, that means it’s time for another installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, in which we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album during May or preceding months, we wrote about them in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. And feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that we overlooked. Continue reading »