WITNESSED: SYNESIS ABSORPTION, A NEW SOILWORK SONG, AND MY DICK

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 182013
 

Wouldn’t you know it. After whining in the last post about how little blog/metal time my fucking day job has left me this week, I got enough of a break to make a quick sweep through the interhole in search of new things, and to write this little round-up about what I found.

SYNESIS ABSORPTION AND ELIRAN KANTOR

My roving eye came to a fast stop as soon as I saw the artwork featured above. It’s a painting by the great Eliran Kantor for a self-titled debut album by Synesis Absorption, which will be released sometime this year.

I’d never heard of this oddly named band, but man, check out the line-up: Steve Di Giorgio (ex-Death, Sadus) on bass; Mike Smith (Suffocation) on drums; Robbert Kok (Disavowed) providing vocals; and Miloš Batoćanin (Disdained) weaving guitar magic. After seeing the art and this line-up, I went in search of music — and I found some. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: DUBLIN DEATH PATROL

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 272012
 

I’m a big fan of Eliran Kantor’s artwork. The guy is just tremendously talented. And so I haunt his Facebook page to keep tabs on his new creations. This morning, I saw that he had uploaded the artwork above. It’s an homage to HP Lovecraft — a kind of Shoggoth / Shub-Niggurath/ Cthulhu hybrid. It’s the cover for an album by a band I’d never heard of called Dublin Death Patrol.

I assumed this was some new Irish metal band, but I was wrong. The “Dublin” in Dublin Death Patrol refers to the town of Dublin, California, population 46,000+, located about 25 miles east of Oakland. Many of the band’s 11 members are Dubliners. And yes, you read that right: 11 members.

But look who’s included in DPP’s membership: Chuck Billy (Testament), Steve “ZETRO” Souza (ex-Testament, ex-Exodus), Willy Lange (Rampage, Laaz Rockit), two of Chuck Billy’s brothers (Andy and Eddie), Steve Souza’s brother John, and a bunch of other East Bay ragers (Steve Robello, Greg Bustamante, Danny Cunningham, Troy Luccketta, and John Hartsinck). It’s definitely a “family and friends” kind of band. You get one guess as to what kind of metal they play.

All of these guys have apparently known each other since they were teenagers. They’ve recorded two albums. One of them, DDP4Life (2005), apparently had some kind of limited release on a label called Godfodder, but the second one — Death Sentence (2011) — has never been released. But as a result of some internet sleuthing after seeing that Eliran Kantor cover art, I discovered that Mascot Records will be releasing both of the DDP albums on August 13 (they’re taking pre-orders here). Continue reading »

SHIT SEEN AND HEARD: SONNE ADAM, ERUPTED, SILENT PATH, AND REIGN OF THE ARCHITECT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 182012
 

Collected in here are items I randomly happened upon last night while browsing the internest and checking out links sent in by our ever-vigilant readers.

ITEM ONE

Sonne Adam are an Israeli death/doom band whose 2011 Century Media debut, Transformation, garnered a lot of critical praise. It was also one heavy motherfucker. Yesterday, I saw the news that the band’s first two-song EP, The Sun Is Dead, has been released by Van Records as a 7″ vinyl with that new cover art you see above.

Sonne Adam are also now working on a new EP to be entitled Doctrines of Dark Devotion, and yesterday they started streaming (for a limited time) a rough mix of a new track called “Bestow the Crown of Death”. Shit sounds heavier than oceans, darker than your worst nightmares. Guitars grinding on HM-2 overdrive; awesome reverberating vocals, deep as trenches and cracked like the windows in an abandoned warehouse; eerie guitar instrumentals swirling above the massive grinding noises underneath.

This is a very cool song and makes me tumescent for the new EP. Stream it right after the jump. Continue reading »

THINGS I SAW THIS MORNING

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  24 Responses »
May 312012
 

I saw this album cover. It’s for the next album by Dysrhythmia, Test of Submission, which Profound Lore says they will be releasing on August 28. No test is needed . . . I am ready to submit.

I also saw that Be’lakor has just put HD versions of all the songs from their terrific new album Of Breath and Bone up on YouTube. Find those tracks here. Read Andy Synn’s review of the album here. (And thanks to NCS reader Daniel for the tip on this news.)

I also saw that Doris Yeh from Chthonic is on the cover of a fashion magazine called FHM.  I no longer have to wonder what she looks like naked. Continue reading »

SIGH: “IN SOMNIPHOBIA”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Feb 282012
 

(groverXIII reviews the new album from Japan’s Sigh, which will be released in North America on March 13 by Candlelight Records. The cover art is by Eliran Kantor.)

I don’t listen to a lot of black metal. That is, I don’t listen to a lot of straight-up black metal. I like my black metal to be experimented with, diluted, wrapped around electronic melodies (Thy Catafalque) or folky weirdness (old Finntroll) or prog (newer Enslaved). So, although I am a big fan of In Somniphobia, the newest release from Japanese black metal weirdos Sigh, my experience with them to date only goes back to their Gallows Gallery album.

I’ve been meaning to go back further, as I understand that they really started to experiment with their sound fairly early on, but I have too much music to listen to as it is. What I have heard, I have greatly enjoyed, and the three albums that I’ve listened to previously have all had their own interesting sounds, from the eclectic jazz-and-power-metal-influenced Gallows Gallery to the orchestral thrash of Hangman’s Hymn to the all-out orchestral insanity of Scenes From Hell.

Considering how different all of those albums are in relation to one another, I had no idea what to expect from In Somniphobia, but I suspected it was still going to be pretty fucking good. And I was not disappointed.

My biggest concern for In Somniphobia was the production. Scenes From Hell was a great album filled with real symphonic instrumentation, but it was hamstrung by an awful mix, where everything was compressed and flattened all to hell. It was still a well-written, interesting album, but what should have been an open, dynamic album instead felt somewhat lifeless. Thankfully, In Somniphobia does not suffer from the same problem. The mix isn’t perfect, sure, but it’s still a major improvement, and the album is that much the better for it. Continue reading »

COMMUNIC: “THE BOTTOM DEEP”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 082011
 

(Andy Synn follows his SYNN REPORT on the discography of Norway’s Communic (located here) with this review of the band’s brand new album.)

After several listens, my impression is that The Bottom Deep is an overall darker affair than we have seen before from Communic. The progression from Payment Of Existence has seen the group shift their focus slightly from their characteristically expressive melodic nuances to a pressurised, gloomier form of morose and self-absorbed introspection. The songs have a doom-laden vibe that matches the enigmatic concept which underpins the record. The ever-present and insidious synths have taken on a far darker tone, working for the band as yet another tool with which they can mine the rich seam of deep-seated personal tragedy which fits the conceptually-bound constraints of the album perfectly.

“Facing Tomorrow” begins the record in striking style, inflicting heavy damage with a wall of guitars that bears remorselessly down upon the listener from the off. Cryptic and convoluted, the song bulges at the seams with ferocious metallic power, the sheer meatiness of the guitar tone giving every power-house riff and nimble scattering of lead notes a sense of prodigious potency that, coupled with Tor Atle Andersen’s display of manic, multi-limbed drumming, provides each song with a dense, unshakeable foundation.

Singer Oddleif Stensland has altered his vocal style subtly, delivering his abstract lyrics with a more resonant croon, deeper and more constrained than before. His grittier delivery adds another string to his bow, not yet as strong as his traditional mode of singing, but showcasing the man attempting to grow and develop the use of his instrument further. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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