EARACHE AND OSMOSE CONTINUE TO KILL IT ON BANDCAMP: BOLT THROWER AND IMMORTAL ARE NOW UP

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Nov 142012
 

It was all of two days ago that we splashed the news across our site that two of metal’s genuine landmark labels — Earache Records and Osmose Productions — had established beachheads on Bandcamp for the first time. As of two days ago, Earache had uploaded high-quality digital files for albums from their catalogue by At the Gates, Napalm Death, Evile, and Rival Sons, while Osmose had delivered three classic albums by Norway’s Enslaved. But what they’ve each done since then has been equally mind-blowing.

We had gotten word that Earache was interested in suggestions about what albums they should prioritize for upload to Bandcamp, and I included my own short list in that previous post — a list that included Bolt Thrower’s legendary 1991 album War Master. And guess what! As of today, Earache has put War Master on Bandcamp HERE. Allow me to figuratively bow down in humble thanks. Actually, I think I’ll literally bow down, too. So stoked to see what they upload next . . . .

Not to be outdone, wait ’til you hear what Osmose has done: In just the last two days since we published that earlier post, Osmose has added to Bandcamp nine more albums — including the first six albums by the immortal Immortal — Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism (1992), Pure Holocaust (1993), Battles In the North (1995), Blizzard Beasts (1997), At the Heart of Winter (1999), and Damned In Black (2003).

In addition, Osmose has added three more Enslaved albums: Blodhemn (1998), Mardraum-Beyond the Within (2000), and Below the Lights (2003). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MESHUGGAH, ENSLAVED, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, ERIC CUTLER (AUTOPSY), MARK RIDDICK, MITOCHONDRION, AND DEIPHAGO

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 132012
 

Here’s a collection of items that came my way over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing — in addition to all of the awesome posts that already graced the site yesterday.  (I can use the words “awesome” and “graced” without tarnishing my well-known reputation for humility because I’m not directly responsible for any of ysterday’s posts, even though this post will also be awesome.)

TOURISM: MESHUGGAH AND ENSLAVED

I saw via Heavy Blog Is Heavy the rumor that Meshuggah will be touring the U.S. along with Animals As Leaders and Intronaut early next year. The rumor is based on a flyer for a date in Minneapolis that you can see above.Yes please.

That same photo up there also provides evidence of another tour that I read about previously. This one is official: Norway’s Enslaved will be returning to the U.S. and Canada in early 2013 for a headlining, 20-show “Winter Rite” tour joined by U.S. doom metallers Pallbearer and occult rockers Ancient VVisdom (and both of those bands are killers).

The tour begins January 30 in Philadelphia and ends February 22 in New York City. The full schedule can be seen after the jump. And in case you missed our earlier post yesterday, Osmose Productions has just uploaded three older Enslaved albums for streaming and download on Bandcamp for the first time. Continue reading »

EARACHE AND OSMOSE ON BANDCAMP

 Metal News  17 Responses »
Nov 122012
 

We’ve been singing the praises of Bandcamp since the early days of that platform. In a relatively short time, it has become a vital source for the streaming and distribution of metal, recently expanding its service to become a vehicle for the distribution of merch as well as digital music in a variety of high-quality formats. One sign of Bandcamp’s success is the increasing use of the site by metal labels to stream and distribute albums in their catalogues.

Thanks to MaxR at Metal Bandcamp — which remains THE best way to keep up with the appearance of new metal releases on Bandcamp — we’ve learned that two more labels have recently established Bandcamp beachheads: Earache Records and Osmose Productions.

EARACHE

As far as we’re concerned, this is really big news. Earache Records was founded in the late 80s and was one of the true pioneers in releasing extreme music. Of course, they’re still going strong today, but their back catalogue is like a museum for the history of hardcore and metal.

So far, Earache has added five albums from their catalogue to Bandcamp: Slaughter of the Soul by At the Gates (1995); Five Serpent’s Teeth by Evile (2011); Pressure and Time (Redux) by Rival Sons (2012); Scum (1987) [Full Dynamic Range 2012 Edition] by Napalm Death; and From Enslavement To Obliteration (1988) [Full Dynamic Range 2012 Edition], also by Napalm Death. Continue reading »

SUNDAY SAVAGERY, WITH ENSLAVED, XEHANORT, FISTULA, AND CATS MATING

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  15 Responses »
Oct 212012
 

The loris compound at NCS HQ has been in turmoil. They apparently expected me to leave grubs for them before I left town last week, and they resorted to cannibalism while I was gone. Must have been a ritualistic aspect to it, because I found them chanting over those big eyeballs of the dead, which had been collected like marbles in a shallow pit.

I thought they would just fast, and some of them had gotten pretty hefty so I figured that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Actually, to be brutally honest, I just fuckin’ forgot to leave food.

Anyway, they’re in a feisty mood, because I guess uncooked loris doesn’t taste as good as grubs. I don’t understand their language, but I’m pretty sure they were chanting something about impaling me on greased spikes. I’m glad I reinforced the fencing and electrified it last month. All my efforts to reason with them seem to have fallen on deaf ears, so I’ve had to resort to stern disciplinary measures.

I’ve been playing them some savage new music I discovered recently, using the compound’s megajoule PA system. It’s causing blood to come out of their ears, but instead of getting docile, it’s causing them to headbang. Very slowly. Because they’re lorises, aren’t they?

I thought I’d share the music with you, too. Not that you need disciplining, of course. Unless you do.

ENSLAVED

Thanks to a tip from MaxR (Metal Bandcamp), I started the lorises off with Enslaved providing a live cover of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Immigrant Song” on the Norwegian TV show Trygdekontoret on October 17 2012. It’s a goddamn glorious cover, with the band blackening the song and then ending it by dropping down into a doomy breakdown with Ice Dale spinning off a psychedelic guitar solo. I thought it was generous of me to give those slow creatures something to watch as well as hear. Continue reading »

ENSLAVED: “RIITIIR”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Sep 132012
 

(Our man Andy Synn wasted no time consuming the forthcoming album from Norway’s legendary Enslaved once we received it, and he turns in this typically detailed review.)

Hands up anyone who was at least a little concerned by the prospect of the new Enslaved album? I know I was. First, the band have their own stellar reputation to maintain, as well as a hefty task following up the near perfect Axioma Ethica Odini. Then there were the rumblings that this would be a more “experimental” and “progressive” effort – not bad words in themselves, but the last time a band went to such lengths to over-emphasise these words we were left with Heritage – a rather lifeless tribute to progressive rock, rather than a progressive (or particularly interesting) album in itself.

On top of this, the last time Enslaved put so much emphasis (at least in the press) on their “progressive” inclinations, they came out with Vertebrae, perhaps my least favourite album in their entire discography. So maybe you can see why I was worried?

Thankfully RIITIIR gets pretty much everything right from the start. This is the record Vertebrae should have been – epic and expansive, drawing colour from a wide sonic palette, but with an energy and vibrancy that was often missing before. It is in many ways a companion piece to Axioma Ethica Odini, albeit with a very different focus, serving as the other side of the same coin. Continue reading »

NEW FROM NORWAY: ENSLAVED’S “THOUGHTS LIKE HAMMERS” LYRIC VIDEO AND KVELERTAK LIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 292012
 

The new album by Norway’s Enslaved, RIITIIR, comes out Sept. 28 in Europe and Oct. 9 in North America on Nuclear Blast. It’s already available for pre-order in a variety of bundles at this location. The deluxe digi-pak edition comes with a bonus DVD that includes segments on the making of RIITIIR, the band, the recording studios, and the artwork. But the coolest looking bundle is the one with the bone-and-charcoal-splatter double-LP gatefold, which is limited to 1,000 copies.

About three weeks ago NPR debuted a long new song from  RIITIIR called “Thoughts Like Hammers”. Now the band have debuted a lyric video for the song, which you can watch after the jump. The song is such a trip. It’s part stoner metal, part indie rock, part prog, and the whole package is wrapped up in a blackened skin. It’s also an exception to the rule around here, because it includes clean vocals as well as scalding rasps, but man, the clean vocals are really good.

I usually find lyric videos to be distracting and annoying. Most of the time I’d rather just hear the music. But at least the words to “Thoughts Like Hammers” aren’t ridiculous. To the contrary, they’re interesting. So yes, I think the video is worth seeing, especially if you haven’t yet heard this song.

But the “Thoughts Like Hammers” video isn’t the only goodie from Norway we’ve got in this post. Last night I also watched a professionally filmed and edited video of Kvelertak’s live performance at the AREA4 festival in Germany on August 18. It’s about 22 minutes long, and I ate up every minute. To be fair, I’m already a Kvelertak fan, but I have a feeling that even people who haven’t yet gotten into their recorded music will rock out to this jam. Continue reading »

NEW ENSLAVED SONG! “THOUGHTS LIKE HAMMERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 082012
 

Well, I’m rushing again, with my day job pounding at the door, so to speak, so I will hold my own words to a handful: NPR has debuted a long new song by Enslaved — “Thoughts Like Hammers” — from their forthcoming album, RIITIIR. Here’s an excerpt from Lars Gotrich’s excellent NPR write-up about the band, the album, and this new music:

The intro to “Thoughts Like Hammers” comes out of nowhere — three seconds in and we’re bludgeoned by decibel-damaging feedback, chaotic chord voicings and stuttering blast beats. But then the song goes through several transformations: A mean groove turns into a pumping Angus Young riff, which then sneaks into a syncopated, King Crimson-y organ. That all happens in the first two minutes. There’s no telling where Bjørnson will take “Thoughts Like Hammers” next, but the patchwork pieces all come together at the soaring chorus, as vocalist and keyboardist Herbrand Larsen helps rein in Enslaved’s experiments. Surprisingly, the nine-and-a-half-minute “Thoughts Like Hammers” is instantly memorable for all its organic twists and turns.

And THIS is the link to the NPR page where the song is streaming. Seriously, go listen, and then think about coming back here to share your reactions in the Comments.

UPDATE: This song is now streaming on Soundcloud, which means we have it here now, after the jump: Continue reading »

“VIKING METAL”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  113 Responses »
Jul 172012
 

In one of yesterday’s posts I compared a song from Sweden’s King of Asgard to Naglfar and Immortal, and I got questioned about that comparison in one of the comments, suggesting that King of Asgard is a Viking metal band. That caused me to consider, certainly not for the first time, what “Viking metal” really means and whether there really is such a thing as a “Viking metal” genre.

These are questions that have been argued in many other places at many other times. For example, our brother Trollfiend devoted a post to the subject at ALSO, WOLVES last fall, insisting that, yes, it’s a genre and it’s defined by the band’s lyrical themes (though he also implied that, musically, it’s a subset of black metal). Other people contend it isn’t a genre at all, or that if it is, it begins and ends with Bathory and early Enslaved and everyone else can go fuck off. And still other people say it’s a pointless question — you either dig the music or you don’t, and who gives a rat’s ass what you call it.

The fact that there seems to be no consensus about how to define “Viking metal” weighs in favor of the argument that it isn’t a genre. That conclusion is bolstered by the significant diversity in the music of bands who different people classify as “Viking metal” (see, e.g., the bands included in the “Viking metal” tag at Last.fm or the Viking metal genre group at Metal Archives). Genre classifications are usually (though not always) defined by widely accepted hallmarks of the musical style, and if no such consensus exists, or if the sound of the music isn’t really the defining characteristic, can we really say that “Viking metal” is a genre?

Is the lyrical content really enough, especially when much of the time you can’t make out the words in the songs when you hear them? Continue reading »

5 OF MY FAVOURITE . . . GUITAR SOLOS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Jul 112012
 

(You can probably tell from the spelling in the post title that our UK-based writer Andy Synn is responsible for this post.  What do you think of Andy’s picks?  What are your favorite solos?  Leave comments!)

Greetings true-believers! Ok, so after the review-fest of “Unofficial UK Week” last week (which I swear, wasn’t intentionally timed to coincide with Independence Day) I’m easing up a bit this week. I should have a review of a truly badass new album by a certain Norwegian band for you in the next few days, and I’m slowly working on another Synn Report and a longer column or two for next week, but for now I thought I’d drop the inaugural column in what I hope to be a semi-regular series highlighting “5 of my Favourite…” things.

Today I’ve chosen to pick out 5 (ok, 6 actually, but I refuse to change the title) of my favourite guitar solos. Not of all time exactly, just five that came to mind when I was doing some random listening recently. Future iterations of the column, if it proves a success, will feature other random “5’s” in whatever order they happen to occur to me.

Enslaved – “Ground”

First off we have the defining solo in “Ground” by Enslaved. It’s a well-known fact that Ice Dale is a true guitar god, managing to rock both a killer solo and a series of iconic rock poses with a shirtless flourish. I’d swear he was the black metal reincarnation of Jimmy Page, if not for the fact that Page isn’t dead yet. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP (Part 1): ENSLAVED, DAN DANKMEYER, NAPALM DEATH, AND CONVERGE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 102012
 

So much happens so fast in the world of metal that even being out of touch for two days means that you miss a lot, and some of what you miss is actually worth knowing about. I was in a remote location over the last two days with no internet connection, and since returning last night I’ve made an admittedly incomplete effort to find out what I missed that was important/entertaining to me. Turns out, there was a lot — so much that I’m dividing what I found into two posts, of which this is the first. The second one will start off our postings tomorrow.

In no particular order, this post includes news, new music, or new videos from Enslaved, Dan Dankmeyer, Napalm Death, and Converge.

ENSLAVED

Enslaved made a few announcements about their twelfth studio album RIITIIR — including the name of the album, the disclosure of the cover art (above) by long-time collaborator Truls Espedal, and the release dates (via Nuclear Blast): September 28 in Europe and October 2 in North America.

“Riitiir” doesn’t appear to be a real word, even in Norwegian or ancient Norse. As the band explained today, it’s a version of the words for “rites” and “rituals” and is intended to mean “The Rites of Man”. How that concept or the artwork connects to the lyrics or the music hasn’t yet been revealed, but the band say they intend to “discuss some key concepts and potential interpretations in deeper song-by-song analysis” in the weeks and months ahead. Enslaved are so talented and so creative that I’m actually interested — though of course I’m most interested in hearing the music. Continue reading »

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