OUR LIST OF 2016’s MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): GOJIRA AND YLIASTER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  5 Responses »
Jan 072017
 

 

Here’s Part 6 of this evolving list, in which I’m adding two more songs, one that I would guess will be well-known to most readers and one that may have been overlooked by most, or possibly forgotten because it appeared relatively early in 2016. Apart from the fun of running back through lots of good music over the last year, I entertain myself in putting this list together by deciding how to group songs for each of its Parts. I discovered some interesting similarities in these two songs that I thought would make them a good pairing.

To see the other selections for the list so far, as well as an explanation of what criteria were used in making it, go here.

GOJIRA

We received hundreds upon hundreds of reader suggestions for this list. I aggregated and alphabetized all of them, and that master list revealed that Gojira’s album Magma was the source of more reader recommendations than anything else released last year (narrowly edging Anaal Nathrakh).  But the recommendations were split almost evenly between two songs:  “Silvera” and “Stranded”, with one vote cast in favor of combining “Magma” and “Pray” into a single selection. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ADE, GOJIRA, INTO ORBIT, KILL, PAIN, VALBORG, BLOODWAY, WITHDRAWAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 092016
 

ADE-Carthago

 

If you’re reading this, it means you survived another week. Congratulations. That seems like good cause for celebration, since about 155,000 people die every day on average.

To help you celebrate, here’s a collection of new music I sifted from the never-ending torrent of new metal over the last 48 hours, presented in alphabetical order by band name.

ADE

The Italian death metal band ADE, whom we last mentioned in these pages almost four years ago, have a new album headed our way on July 15 via Spain’s Xtreem Music. Like its predecessors, Carthago Delenda Est again draws upon themes from ancient Roman history, and the title suggests that its focus is on Rome’s efforts to destroy the North African city-state of Carthage in the Punic Wars. The Font of All Human Knowledge tells us: Continue reading »

GOJIRA: “MAGMA”

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Jun 032016
 

Gojira-Magma

(Andy Synn reviews the hotly anticipated new album by Gojira.)

Although we often don’t bother with some of the “big” releases here at NCS (mainly because these artists will be getting more than enough coverage and promotion as it is), there are certain albums like Magma that it’s just impossible for us to ignore.

As you will probably have gathered by now, this album presents a very different side of the band than you might be used to. Oh, they’ve always had their proggy and more melodic inclinations, but they’ve never before expressed them as boldly and prominently as they do on their sixth album.

Make no mistake about it, this is the French foursome’s own Crack The Skye moment, a full-on embracing and shameless expression of their progressive proclivities which also just happens to be their most streamlined, emotional, and, yes, accessible album yet.

You needn’t fear that the band have gone soft on you, of course, or “sold out” (though I can already hear those cries of consternation emanating from certain corners of the Metal world), as there are still multiple moments of the quartet’s signature biomechanical bombardment to be found across the length and breadth of the album’s ten tracks.

However, Magma is definitely a step outside of the band’s established comfort zone (which was in danger of becoming a rut at times on L’Enfant Sauvage) and sees them plying some unfamiliar, though ultimately very rewarding, waters. Continue reading »

GOJIRA: “SILVERA”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 202016
 

Gojira-Magma

 

I haven’t heard Gojira’s new album Magma, but my comrade Andy Synn has. And last night he alerted me to the fact that Gojira would begin streaming a new song today — a song he described as “one of the really good ones” on Magma. And so they have. And so it is — really good, I mean.

The name of the song is “Silvera”, and it’s presented through a video directed by Drew Cox. The music is powerful and jolting, with a swirling Eastern-influenced melody that’s urgent and intense. It’s unmistakably a Gojira song, bursting with passion and displaying many of the band’s hallmark ingredients — yet it also differs from their past output, featuring more clean vocals (which will evidently be a hallmark of this new album) and coming to a close in a way that might seem premature in comparison with the band’s older work. Continue reading »

A NEW GOJIRA SONG: “STRANDED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Apr 212016
 

Gojira-Magma

 

In late March, when I read Rolling Stone’s interview/listening-session (here) with the Duplantier brothers about Gojira’s new album Magma, I became increasingly uneasy. Reading Kory Grow’s descriptions of some of the songs that he heard while talking with the brothers in their New York City studio made me fear that Gojira had morphed into a French variant of Mastodon, making a big sweeping turn into radio-friendly rock.

He wrote that “the band has taken a different route with the album compared to past riff-fests”, and referred to “almost-industrial rhythm[s]”, “brittle guitar line[s]”, “almost gothier riff[s]”, “Joe singing a monk-like chant”,  “sorrowful, gothy vocals”, flutes and cowbells, and lots of four-minute songs because “people’s attentions are shorter now” (Joe’s words). In the final paragraph, Grow wrote, “they’re eager to show a different side of themselves on the new record and see how their fans react to it”.

Well, now we have some actual music, because within the last two hours, the band debuted a music video for the new album’s first advance track, “Stranded”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GOJIRA, KATATONIA, GOATCHRIST

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Mar 312016
 

Gojira 2016-photo by Travis Shinn
photo credit: Travis Shinn

When names as big as Gojira and Katatonia both release new music on the same day, if you wait more than a few hours to write about it, the odds are that almost everyone who cares about those bands has already been clued in by someone else. But I’m writing about these developments anyway because “Half-Assed” is my middle name and I feel compelled to live up to it. And I’ll throw in a few other new developments that have been somewhat less pervasively recognized across the web.

GOJIRA

As I read Rolling Stone’s interview/listening-session (here) with the Duplantier brothers that appeared yesterday, I became increasingly uneasy. Reading Kory Grow’s descriptions of some of the songs from Gojira’s forthcoming new album that he heard while talking with the brothers in their New York City studio made me fear that Gojira have become a French variant of Mastodon, making a big sweeping turn into radio-friendly rock. Will their first video for the album include twerking? Continue reading »

TOURISM: MASTODON-GOJIRA-KVELERTAK and PALLBEARER-TOMBS-VATTNET VISKAR

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Jul 072014
 

Here are two North American tours announced this morning that are worth mentioning.

MASTODON-GOJIRA-KVELERTAK

In our first post this morning I included a report from Metal Hammer based on an interview with Gojira’s frontman Joe Duplantier that the Gojira would be touring with Mastodon this October. There were no further details then, but there are now.

In addition to the pairing of Mastodon and Gojira, the tour will also include Norway’s Kvelertak and it will include dates in both the U.S. and Canada. A pre-sale for tickets and a limited number of VIP packages will become available this Wednesday, July 9, at 10 a.m. local venue time. General sales will begin on July 11.

Here’s the schedule (sadly for me, they’re skipping Seattle this time): Continue reading »

NEWS FROM FRANCE: GOJIRA, BLUT AUS NORD, FALL OF SUMMER, MONARCH

 Metal News  5 Responses »
Jul 072014
 

I spotted some news items over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing, and the following four happened to all come from France, so I’m bundling them together here. There’s some new music at the end, too.

GOJIRA

According to a brief interview with Joe Duplantier backstage at the Sonisphere festival reported by Metal Hammer yesterday, Gojira will be embarking on a tour with Mastodon in October and will then be going straight into the studio to begin recording their sixth album for release in 2015. To listen to the audio of the brief interview, go here.

UPDATE: The Mastodon-Gojira North American tour has now been confirmed. Norway’s Kvelertak will also be on the tour, and the schedule can be found here.

And then, about an hour ago, Gojira began streaming a video on YouTube called “Summer Fest Part 1” with clips from some of their European festival appearances so far this summer, set to some slow, quasi-psychedelic instrumental music. Watch that next.

https://www.facebook.com/GojiraMusic Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IMPALED NAZARENE, DIOCLETIAN, GOJIRA, THE BODY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Apr 062014
 

I’ve collected here some things that made a big impression on me when I discovered them over the last 24 hours. Perhaps they will make an impression on you, too.

IMPALED NAZARENE

2014 will see the release of the TWELFTH (!!) album by Finland’s Impaled Nazarene. Although I haven’t listened to even half of those dozen, I’ve listened enough to know that although their sound might not be entirely predictable from album to album (not a bad thing), it’s always likely to be a skull-hammering good time. From what I’ve heard of the new album, that will hold true yet again.

The new one’s name is Vigorous and Liberating Death, and the album cover was painted by Taneli Jarva. It’s scheduled for release by Osmose Productions on April 14. It includes 13 songs, almost all in sub-three-minute territory. You can get a sense of what’s coming via a track named “Kuoleman Varjot” that recently appeared on SoundCloud. Plus, the band have released a lyric video for the album’s title track. You can check out both below. Continue reading »

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