Jun 212012
 

 

(Last night . . . June 20, 2012 . . . Seattle . . .)

Met some old friends and some new ones at The Honey Hole after work (yeah, that’s the name of the place, no lie).  Shot the shit. Had some adult beverages.  Had half a samitch , made on a crusty French roll with sliced steak, goat cheese, peppers, pesto, and some other shit. Awesome.

The new friends urged me to try a soup with a name I can’t pronounce. Had a cup of that. Was made with hot curry, coconut, cream, veggies, chicken, and I don’t know what else. Extra awesome. Had a second cup, with more adult beverages. Told the pretty lady from the kitchen who made it that it gave me an orgasm. May not have actually used the word “orgasm”, but same concept. She brought me a cup of cheese soup with broccoli in it. And people say men can’t have multiple orgasms.

Reluctantly left the Honey Hole before trying the third kind of soup on offer.  Drove with the old friends to Studio Seven. Got there in time to have a beer and a shot before Revocation’s set. Fourth time I’ve heard them, never gets old.

Listened to a couple of songs from the balcony bar while taking pics, then went down to the floor and locked myself in about two feet from the stage in front of David Davidson. Whole band was firing on all cylinders, and then some. Realized again what a fuckin’ wizard Davidson is. Pretty sure I levitated. Pit would start up and then kind of stop, cuz people just couldn’t help but stare. The downside of being so damned brilliant.

Bought a Revocation shirt, so they can eat. Plus the shirt is awful fine. Went outside with the friends to smoke cigarettes and watch the beautiful people in all their black finery. More beer afterward. Then Dying Fetus began to crank it up. Continue reading »

Jun 182012
 

This is just a quick news flash:

Our friends at Metal Sucks today began exclusively streaming the entirety of Reign Supreme, the new album from Dying Fetus that will be officially released tomorrow. Follow this link to hear it. You’ll be glad you did.

Also today, AOL Music began streaming Eremita, the new album from Ihsahn. I found out about this from Metal Sucks as well. As Anso DF correctly notes in his brief notice, AOL Music really does have this legend appearing below the album cover for Eremita: “Sounds Like: Daughtry, Metallica”.  No shit. It would be fun to see the reactions of Daughtry and Metallica fans to this album.

On second thought, no it wouldn’t.

Anyway, you can (and should) hear the Eremita stream at this location.

That is all.

Jun 162012
 

Friday’s are often slow news days in the world of metal, but yesterday brought a bunch of goodies, and now we bring them to you for your amusement and edification. Stylistically, this metal is all over the fucking place, because so are my tastes.

DYING FETUS

The new Dying Fetus album, Reign Supreme, is so damned fine — one of the finest brutal death metal albums of 2012 in your humble editor’s opinion. It’s due for release on June 19. A few tracks have already premiered, including “From Womb To Waste”, which we featured here last month. It’s one of those songs that’s likely to remembered as much for the highly quotable audio sample at the beginning as for the rest of the song.

Yesterday Relapse released an official video for the song. It’s a splicing of live performance clips. It seems there is headbanging and moshing at Dying Fetus shows. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

May 232012
 

Come on now, you didn’t really think I was going to let a new Dying Fetus song pass by, did you? I’ve been a little slow on the draw lately, but I can still clear the holster. And yes, there’s a new Dying Fetus song that’s been released for public streaming. It’s called “From Womb To Waste”, and of course it appears on the Reign Supreme album that will be released on June 19. It’s really good.

In fact, I’ll just go ahead and be a douchebag and say that the whole damned album is really fuckin’ good. In fact, it’s definitely in the running for the best death metal album of the year. Speaking of which, because I have such a hard time comparing albums and ranking them, I’ve decided that I’m going to use a loris race to rank the best death metal albums of 2012. I’ll round up a bunch of them from the NCS loris compound, tie band names around their necks, and let them race for the finish line.

Of course, they’re really fuckin’ slow, so I’ll have to start the race in, like, August.  That will be hard on the bands who release albums in the last four months of the year, but I don’t feel too bad about that because it’s not like bands are waiting around holding their breaths to see if they make the NCS year-end list, especially since we’ve never had an NCS year-end list.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the new Dying Fetus song. It debuted at AltPress. I borrowed their little player to stream the song after the jump. There’s more new music after the jump, too — from Blacklodge and Panopticon. Continue reading »

May 102012
 

If you bothered to read the pathetic little piece of excuse-making that was my last post, which was made tolerable by the inclusion of a ripping new song from Miseration, then you’ll know I was up waaaaay past my bedtime last night. I’m awake now, bleary-eyed and not thinking at even my usual muddy level of mental clarity. However, one need not be clear-eyed and sharp-minded to appreciate the new song by Dying Fetus that Revolver mag premiered this morning at this location.

The song is called “Second Skin”. It is drawn from the band’s next album, Reign Supreme, which will be released on June 19. The song is primo ass-kicking material. It brings a suffusion of the brutalz. It performs brain surgery with blunt instruments. It has flashy, schizophrenic tech riffing and ugly slams. It includes irresistible chugs and pulverizing breakdowns. I likey very, very much. You will likey, too. Listen after the jump while I get some coffee. Continue reading »

Apr 262012
 

I’m commuting home from my fucking day job on a floating bus called a ferry boat and what do my bloodshot eyes spy but two items that I thought my NCS brethren and sistren might enjoy.

The first is a remix of “I Am Colossus”, which as any heathen knows is a Meshuggah track off Koloss. Now, remixing Meshuggah could be (and probably will be) considered a form of blasphemy punishable by castration, but this remix turns out to be good. Not as good as the original mind you, but I think it’s still worth hearing. And if you like what you hear, you can get it for free at this location, courtesy of those inexplicably generous metalheads at Scion A/V.

The remix was created by Engine-Earz & Foreign Beggars. I have no idea who they are, but they’ve made the song sound . . . both more and less evil. If you ain’t into electro even a little bit, you won’t like it. If you dabble some, then this might be your thing. I thought it was cool. Check it out following the jump. Continue reading »

Apr 032012
 

The next album from Dying FetusReign Supreme — will be released by Relapse Records on June 19. I would say that it’s on my “highly anticipated” list, except I don’t really talk like that in real life. I mean, if I were talking to a friend over a beer about this album, I wouldn’t say: “I highly anticipate the new Dying Fetus album, how about you?” So, I think it’s more accurate to say that Reign Supreme is on my “gimme that fucker NOW!” list.

June 19 seems far away, but at least we’ve now got a new song from the album to enjoy in the meantime. It’s called “Subjected To A Beating”, and it was released yesterday in a lyric video.

The lyrics are vicious, the bloody imaginings of revenge by an imprisoned man. The music is equally vicious. It features an immediately compelling opening riff, a grisly tremolo lead that appears like a slithering reptile, some meaty slams, and a spasming guitar solo that’s the musical equivalent of a tongue-swallowing seizure. Check it out after the jump. Continue reading »

Jan 062012
 

December and 2011 are both over, and with the end of the last month, it’s time to round up what we saw over the last 30 days about forthcoming albums.

We usually try to post these updates on the first of the month, but the first of this month was New year’s Day, and I was moving kinda slowly that day. Plus, I’ve been focusing on year-end lists from a variety of sources, and, well, I’m late with this. I have more excuses, if you’d like to hear them.  No?  Okay, I understand.  I’ll just shut up and get going with this list.

So, here’s the deal:  In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, I collect news blurbs and press releases I’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like at NCS (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 forthcoming album before December, we wrote about it 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. It includes some real eye-openers. In fact, it’s not too soon to say that 2012 is already looking like yet another royally skull-fucking year for metal. But as usual, this list is half-assed rather than comprehensive. I confess that in December I was even more half-assed than usual in keeping my eyes open for news about new albums. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what I missed when I put this list together. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about, even if you don’t see them here! Continue reading »

Dec 142011
 

Yeah, it’s kinda late in the day for another post, but I just saw a press release about a new tour running from March 15 through April 21 of next year that I thought was worth talking about. This tour had been forecast previously, but now we have a concrete schedule. Here’s the line-up:

DevilDriver
The Faceless
Dying Fetus
Job For A Cowboy
3 Inches of Blood
Impending Doom
Wretched

Why is this interesting? Well, first of all, it should be loaded with new music. The Faceless is currently putting the finishing touches on its third album for a tentative February release on Sumerian. Stands to reason that they’ll be performing songs from that album. I’ll be curious to hear it, because guitarist Michael Keene has described the CD as “the most musical and progressive record we’ve made” and says the songs will be more focused “on musicality and making an expressive, unique, moody and expansive record.”

On top of that, Dying Fetus is currently recording a new album. It’s not projected for release until the middle of next year on Relapse, but they will clearly be finished with the recording before hitting the road on this tour, and so we can expect new songs from them, too. And that’s not all. Continue reading »

Oct 012011
 

September is behind us. Here in Seattle, it was such a beautiful month that it seemed like nature’s compensation for how late the summer started. Unfortunately, with September’s end, we’re on a short track to the onset of winter, which means about six months of short, cold, grey, ceaselessly wet days. Ain’t that just fuckin’ great?

Well, bitchin’ about the winter ahead won’t change one fucking thing. I prefer to think instead about the deluge of new metal that’s headed our way and try (momentarily) to forget about the deluge of rain on the horizon. Which brings us to the latest monthly edition of METAL IN THE FORGE.

You know the drill:  In these posts, 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 before August, we wrote about it 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. As usual, also feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that you’re stoked about. Continue reading »