The next time your grandma asks you, “honey, what does black ‘n roll, NOLA-style, sound like?”, you can tell her it sounds like this:
(and this is Goatwhore, in a high-quality video of the band performing “In the Narrow Confines of Defilement”, live in Denver on November 10; more videos from this show are available here)
UK’s Telegraph reports this morning about an article written by the Rev. Rachel Mann, an Anglican priest at St. Nicholas church in Burnage, England, in a publication called Church Times. It’s about metal, and it’s probably not what you would expect from a priest. Granted, our impression is that the Anglican church is somewhat more tolerant and somewhat less judgmental than many institutional forms of religion, but still, Rev Rachel’s article is a refreshing change of pace.
It’s also humorous, in a guileless, probably unintentional way. It’s also a tad condescending. And it doesn’t go far enough.
Nevertheless, we thought it was worth re-printing the Telegraph piece, along with our own running commentary, and of course some musical accompaniment. We also invite you to comment, because we have a feeling this will inspire some thoughts — so don’t keep ’em to yourselves.
Christians could learn a lot about life from heavy metal, says cleric
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 31 Aug 2010The Rev Rachel Mann claims that the much-maligned form of music demonstrates the “liberative theology of darkness”, allowing its tattooed and pierced fans to be more “relaxed and fun” by acknowledging the worst in human nature. She says that by contrast, churchgoers can appear too sincere and take themselves too seriously.
This is a defense of metal from an unusual quarter — not that we feel metal needs to be defended, by anyone, especially priests. Sure, sometimes it’s frustrating to hear people who don’t know the first thing about metal condemn it, but usually that frustrated feeling passes quickly, because, basically, we don’t give a fuck what non-metalheads think about our music. On the other hand, we’re not sure we agree with Rev Rachel’s defense. (more of the Rev’s thoughts, and ours, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »
Saturday mornings have to be the least memorable mornings of the week. If you remember anything about Saturday mornings, it’s usually just the fallout of whatever you did on Friday night, and the fallout usually isn’t worth remembering. In fact, sometimes all you want to do is forget.
If you’re like me on a Saturday morning, your ass is dragging and your brain feels like it’s swimming through a pool of rapidly cooling tar. All you want is to be left alone until you recover your senses in the fullness of time.
Well, fuck that shit. You may think that’s what you need, but your friends here at NCS are trained medical professionals, and we know better. We have a prescription for what ails you on this Saturday morning. We think what you need is the aural equivalent of a stun gun to the back of the head. Y’know, something that will jolt you into the world of the living.
Of course, if you really outdid yourself partying last night, this prescription could seriously fuck you up. That’s why we’re taking a page from the playbook of the pharmaceutical companies that run those obnoxious TV ads for drugs you don’t need: We’re giving you a warning:
In rare cases, people who listen to the music you’re about to hear on a Saturday morning will bleed from the ears and nose, develop uncontrollable convulsions, experience explosive diarrhea, and/or fall into irreversible comas. If you’re pregnant, listening to this music may lead to spontaneous abortions or cause your child to come into the world with its eyes permanently crossed. Do not listen to this music while driving, or while sitting, standing up, or laying down. If you are in the middle of a vicious hangover, you should induce vomiting now, in the privacy of your own bathroom, instead of risking a spew down the front of your shirt once the music begins.
By clicking past the jump to listen to the music that follows, you and your heirs and assigns agree to irrevocably release and hold harmless NO CLEAN SINGING from all resulting claims of damage, past, present, or future, whether currently known or unknown, anticipated or unanticipated, minor or fatal, and you assume all risk of paralysis, impotence, rectal bleeding, facial boils, hair loss, necrotizing fasciitis, seeping mouth ulcers, and chronic ventricular dysrhythmia.
The line-up, dates, and venues for the 2010 edition of Ozzfest have now been released. I don’t really know why I’m giving space to this announcement, which is still fairly hot off the presses. Maybe because some of you will care about it more than I do. Maybe because it’s nice to anticipate that Goatwhore and Skeletonwitch will pick up some new fans (which they certainly deserve). Other than that, I’m afraid it’s a big yawn for me, tinged with a little nausea. First, the line-up (as recited in the official press release):
The main stage will feature full sets from Ozzy, Motley Crue and Rob Halford (who last appeared on Ozzfest in 2004 with Judas Priest), performing songs from his solo career along with material from Judas Priest and Fight. DevilDriver and Nonpoint will round out the main stage line-up.
Second stage headliners and six-time Ozzfest veterans Black Label Society will be joined by Drowning Pool, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch, Saviours, Kataklysm.
The second stage is far stronger than the first, that’s for sure. DevilDriver puts on a kick-ass live set, but the rest of the performers on Stage 1 look like nothing more than half-baked nostalgia. No question, Ozzy and Priest were hugely influential once upon a time, but Ozzy and Halford aren’t pushing metal in any new directions today, and they certainly don’t have the stage chops they used to have. Nonpoint is completely meh, and Motley Crue? Give me a fucking. Break.
Of course, feel free to telepathically tell me to fuck off if this news makes your day. Ticket info and the predictably small list of dates and places follow after the jump . . . Continue reading »
No, you didn’t come to the wrong site by mistake. This isn’t a sports blog, no way no how. But we gotta make one tiny exception today, not just because today is Super Bowl Sunday — because that alone wouldn’t be enough to cause a departure from our usual subject matter — but because it’s Super Bowl Sunday AND THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS ARE PLAYING!
Why do we care? Has a little something to do with a few generations on my father’s side of the family coming from Southern Louisiana, a little something to do with New Orleans being an awesome town that has weathered one shitstorm of bad luck after another, a little something to do with the town and the people who live there being about as far outside the mainstream as extreme metal, and a little something to do with our instinctive affinity for the underdog in just about any circumstance.
Besides, if the Saints lose there will still be a bigger party in NOLA than there will be in Indianapolis if the Colts win.
So, we gotta show the Saints some love today, and in honor of the occasion, who better to bring you some parting thoughts before gametime than Ben Falgoust and Sammy Duet from Goatwhore — one of the best extreme metal bands in creation (and certainly the best from New Orleans).
So watch it. It will bring a big smile to your face, and you’ll also see where the title to this post came from.
Goatwhore’s Pre-Super Bowl thoughts
Metal Blade Records | MySpace Music Videos
Every now and then we’ve told you about a word or phrase we’ve stumbled upon that has nothing to do with metal, but sounds exactly like it oughta be the name of an extreme metal band. We’ve stuck those posts under the category of “Band Name Fodder.” Now we’ve stumbled across something new: words and phrases that have nothing to do with metal but sound like they could be the names of brutal songs.
You know the kind of song titles we’re talking about — the kind that at first blush (and sometimes second and third blushes) make no sense, but just sound really evil, uncompromising, and vicious. Songs like:
“Carrion Sculpted Entity” (Cannibal Corpse), “Megacosm of the Aquaphobics” (Cephalic Carnage), “Postmortal Coprophagia” (Devourment), “Prosthetic Erection” (Annotations of An Autopsy), “Diaboloical Submergence of Rebirth” (Goatwhore), “Intestinal Putrefaction” (Abominable Putridity), “Pestiferous Subterfuge” (Aborted), “Gestation of Malevolence” (Abysmal Torment), “Cyclopian Scape” (High On Fire), “Ceremonian Disembowelment” (Impetuous Ritual), “Gestated Human Slurry” (Infected Disarray), “Damnation Pentastrike” (Lightning Swords of Death), “Into the Qliphot of Golachab” (Malfeitor), “Fermented Offal Discharge” (Necrophagist), “Postmortem Dissection” (The Pathology), “Cataclysmic Purification” (Suffocation), “Contemporary Perception Narcotics” (Trigger the Bloodshed), “Cranial Media Parasite” (Magrudergrind). And so on.
Well, just in case the well runs dry for bands like these (or they lose their thesaurus), we’ve found a gold mine of source material. (see what we’ve discovered after the jump . . .) Continue reading »
It’s 2010, and last night two of your NCS Co-Authors made it to our first metal show of the new year as the “Bound By the Road Tour” barreled its way through Seattle. We emerged unscathed (barely) with a few decent photos, which we hope to put up a bit later today, and this report. [Editor’s note: we’ve now got photos from NCS Author Alexis up in this post for all the bands but DevilDriver.]
In a nutshell, experiencing a night with the likes of Thy Will Be Done, Goatwhore, Suffocation, and DevilDriver was the sonic equivalent of being suspended by your ankles over a blast furnace. It was an intense, blistering, full-bore onslaught by four bands who are superb live musicians and know how to whip a crowd into a frenzy.
And for the cherry on top, we got to see three of the most charismatic frontmen in the business on one bill: Dez Fafara, Frank Mullen, and Ben Falgoust (and J. Costa is no slouch either). What a truly ass-kicking way to start a new year of live metal in the Emerald City! Now, for a few details about each band’s performance (after the jump). Continue reading »
This past weekend we finished dribbling out our list of the Ten Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of 2010. Here’s the final line-up:
1. Asphyx: Scorbutics
2. Mastodon: Crack the Skye
3. Amorphis: Silver Bride
4. Goatwhore: Apocalyptic Havoc
5. August Burns Red: Meridian
6. Pelican: Ephemeral
7. Scale the Summit: Age of the Tide
8. Daath: Wilting On the Vine
9. Molotov Solution: The Harbinger
10. Revocation: Dismantling the Dictator
Yes, the list is finished — and for your listening pleasure, we’ve added a playlist of the listed songs to our MySpace page — with one slight alteration: we couldn’t find Scale the Summit‘s “Age of the Tide” on MySpace, so our playlist includes another of our favorites tracks off Carving Desert Canyons.
Even though we finished the list, your NCS Co-Authors had some infectious favorites that didn’t survive our final negotiations — but they just missed by a nose. So we’re going to roll those out later this week. It’s the next best thing to just reneging on our commitment to make this a list of the Top Ten and instead renaming it the Top Fourteen.
Here at NCS, we’re putting a different spin on year-end listmania. Ours isn’t a list of the best metal full-lengths of the year. It’s not even necessarily our list of the best individual extreme metal songs of the year. Ours is a list of the most infectious extreme metal songs we’ve heard this year. We’re talking about songs that produce involuntary physical movement and worm their way into your brain to such an extent you can’t get ’em out (and wouldn’t want to).
We’re not ranking our list from #10 to #1 because that would be too much fucking work (and your co-Authors would still be arguing about it this time next year). So, our list is in no particular order. We’re also dribbling the songs out one at a time because your lazy Authors are still debating what belongs in the remaining slots. Our list heretofore:
1. Asphyx: Sorbutics
2. Mastodon: Crack the Skye
3. Amorphis: Silver Bride
4. Goatwhore: Apocalyptic Havoc
And for our fifth entry on the list, continue reading after the jump. Continue reading »
Here at NCS, we’re putting a different spin on year-end listmania. Ours isn’t a list of the best metal full-lengths of the year. It’s not even our list of the best individual extreme metal songs of the year. Ours is a list of the most infectious extreme metal songs we’ve heard this year. We’re talking about songs that produce involuntary physical movement and worm their way into your brain to such an extent you can’t get ’em out (and wouldn’t want to) — you mentally replay them at unexpected times and revisit them for repeat listening. You know, when the shit is sick. When it infects you like a disease that you don’t want to cure.
We’re not ranking our list from #10 to #1 because that would be too much fucking work (and your co-Authors would still be arguing about it this time next year). So, our list is in no particular order. We’re also dribbling the songs out one at a time because your lazy Authors still haven’t yet figured out the whole list. We’re making it up as we go along. And we could still use help, so feel free to chime in. Our list heretofore:
1. Asphyx: Sorbutics
2. Mastodon: Crack the Skye
3. Amorphis: Silver Bride
And for our fourth entry on the list, continue reading after the jump. Continue reading »