GOROD: NEW ALBUM DETAILS, NEW SONG (“CELESTIAL NATURE”)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 292015
 

Gorod-A Maze of Recycled Creeds

 

What a welcome piece of news! Not long ago, Listenable Records announced that Gorod’s new album is named A Maze of Recycled Creeds, and they revealed the cover art (which, as you can see, is awesome) — and for people who live in countries where something called “Deezer” is available, they premiered a Gorod song named “Celestial Nature”.

Now, I have a bone to pick with the choice of this “Deezer” place as the location for an exclusive Gorod premiere. The bone I have to pick is that YOU CAN’T FUCKING LISTEN TO IT IN THE UNITED STATES. I’m so annoyed I’m almost tempted not to provide the link. And what kind of focus groups decided that “Deezer” was a good name for… anything? Made me cringe even before I realized that only some other people can use it.

However, I realize that the song will surely surface someplace where the miserable residents of my great land will be able to hear this new Gorod offering and become overjoyed by its undoubted awesomenessness. I also concede that a guitar play-through video of the song was released in January, so it’s not such an enormous loss that some of us can’t now hear the song as it was mixed for the album.

Anyway, I’ll be mature and give you the damned link for the stream: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KAMPFAR, ENTRAPMENT, GOROD, LANDSKAP

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 142014
 

You might think that having posted 23 very recent song and video premieres over the weekend (here and here), I’d be fresh out of new material to toss your way. But you would be wrong.  Here are four more that surfaced over the last 48 hours that I’ve been enjoying, and the music is so varied — including two exceptions to our Rule — that I’m betting you’ll find something to like as well.

KAMPFAR

As I previously reported, on May 27 in NorthAm (and May 23 in Euope) Season of Mist plans to release a special 2-disc compilation entitled One And All, Together, For Home. The project was initiated by Drudkh’s  Roman Sayenko and it will consist of 17 songs by eight excellent bands performing traditional song interpretations from their native countries, cover versions of folk songs, or the use of themes and melodies from their musical heritages in original compositions. All of the songs will appear exclusively on this release.

I’ve already streamed the track by Primodial (here) and today I bring you the song contributed by Norway’s Kampfar.

The song is called “En Hymne Til Urd” (A Hymn for Earth)”. Here’s the band’s explanation about the song: Continue reading »

MERRY AND BRIGHT

 Free Shit, Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  22 Responses »
Dec 252013
 

I have my own opinions about Christmas and the whole holiday season surrounding it, the kind of opinions that used to provoke an annual rant on this site (such as this one, which still receives new visits at this time of year despite its age). But there will be no rant this year.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t changed my opinions. However, it has dawned on me that spewing vitriol about the holiday is somewhat inconsistent with what we stand for at NCS. Life delivers more than enough frustration, aggravation, hurt feelings, pain, sorrow, loneliness, parking tickets, and bad food without us adding to the negativity. I like to think that what we’re about at NCS is delivering things that make life better, e.g., some daily metal and generally good-humored prose.

Despite its shortcomings, Christmas does make life better for some people (though certainly not all). Some people hold the holiday as a sacred occasion. It gives some people an occasion to enjoy the company of family and friends. For others, it evokes warm memories of years gone by. Some simply enjoy the pretty lights and the chance to stuff themselves with yummy eats. In general, I think it’s wrong to put down activities that make people happy, as long as they’re not hurting themselves or others in the process, even if such activities don’t do much for me. So, this year I won’t be complaining about Christmas. Continue reading »

A WEEK TO REMEMBER

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Jun 012013
 


(Bolt Thrower — photo credit Fred Pessaro and Invisible Oranges)

Live metal was all up in Seattle this past week. I can’t remember another week like it. I went to shows on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I could have seen Kylesa and Blood Ceremony on Tuesday night and Hate Eternal and Fear Factory, or Bell Witch and Usnea, on Thursday night if I’d wanted to. But in theory I had a day job I was supposed to tend to, so I tried to moderate things just a bit. The shows I did see were fantastic, ranging from killer sets by a group of local bands to the likes of Bolt Thrower, Benediction, and Gorod.

Old fart that I am, I’m exhausted from all those late nights and early mornings, suffering from a weeklong hangover/bangover, and black and blue from being caught in a couple of mosh pits, but this was definitely a week to remember. I didn’t take my camera to any of the shows I saw, so I’m using other images to pretty up this post. I’m mainly writing this to thank all the bands for killing it this week, and to introduce you to a few new names along the way.

MONDAY, May 27

On Monday night I went to the 2 Bit Saloon to catch the latest show by Seattle’s Carnotaurus (I’ve written about them before). Normally a three-man combine, they were missing their bass player due to a miscommunication about transportation to the venue, but that didn’t stop vocalist/guitarist Travis “The Virus” Helton and drummer Brad Navratil from tearing everyone a new asshole with a blast of vicious Mesozoic death metal. Travis gets so much low-end radioactivity out of his Jackson Kelly guitar and his riffing and soloing are so fast that the absence of the bass wasn’t a deal breaker. Carnotaurus are working on a new album that should be out this summer. Stoked for that. Continue reading »

GOROD HEADLINE BLOODLETTING NORTH AMERICA 9, POLYPHIA MAKE WAVES, AND BETHLEHEM PLAN THEIR NEXT ALBUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 082013
 

I just took a short break from the work grind, flitted around the interhole and the NCS e-mail inbox like a blowfly in search of a raw wound, and came across three items I wanted to pass along. Two are news items, one is new music.

TOURISM: BLOODLETTING NORTH AMERICA 9

I saw that a new North American tour has just been announced. It begins May 3 and runs through June 1. It made my already bulging eyes bulge further from their sockets, sort of like what happens to frogs when you inflate them with a bicycle pump.

The headliner is Gorod. I could stop there, but the rest of the line-up is cool, too: Inanimate Existence, Kamikabe, and Vale of Pnath.

But that’s not all.  On selected dates, the tour will also be joined by Fallujah, Pyrexia, Applaud, The Impaler, River of Nihil, The Kennedy Veil, Cognitive, and Archspire. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 11

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  6 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

After taking an extra day to collect my thoughts about what should come next on this list, which is sort of like trying to collect hummingbirds, I’m prepared to resume.

This is Part 11 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day (almost) until the list is finished, I’m posting at least two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

2012 was a banner year for what could be broadly termed technical death metal. I do think that’s a broad term, which could encompass everything from Hate Eternal or the ephemeral Necrophagist to Atheist, from the brutal and largely atonal to the melodic and experimental. But across that range, 2012 was a great year.

I will say that as much as I enjoy “tech death”, “infectious” isn’t a word I would often apply to the music. It can be galvanizing and even intellectually involving without being memorable. But the songs I’m adding today were both. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MATHIEU PASCAL OF GOROD

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Aug 282012
 

(A Perfect Absolution, the 2012 album by Gorod, has been one of the highlights of the year for us. Our brother groverXIII (a/k/a Professor D. Grover the XIII) reviewed that album for NCS here, calling it “the best tech-death album of a year that’s been very, very good for tech-death.” Today, we’re pleased to give you groverXIII’s e-mail interview with guitarist and principal Gorod songwriter Mathieu Pascal.)

Greetings. For the record, please state your name, rank, and serial number.

Mathieu PASCAL, guitar player and composer, 100% Heavy Cotton Made in France, no drywash.

 

With Neurotripsicks, Leading Vision, Process Of A New Decline, Transcendence, and now A Perfect Absolution, you’ve created five of the most memorable, catchy tech-death releases that I have ever heard. How do you guys manage to craft such intricate melodies without having the songs descend into mindless chaos?

Mat : Woow, thanks !! Actually, I usually try to focus on groove and melodies, because I think those are the things everyone can understand and record. I always try to make simple music, that you can headbang to easily. Intricacy comes in a second time. The music must be clear the first time you hear it, with rhythm and harmony. Then, when you come closer, you can hear details and layers and actual intricacy. Even with odd time signatures or overstrung harmony, there’s always a way to make the song consistent, clear and logical. You can’t just pick random notes and queue them on a time grid. Maybe it will sound new and original like « no one has ever made this before », but you’d lose energy and emotions. And people are mostly sensitive to these points in a first listen.

 

Was it a challenge to replace two band members and still maintain that distinctive Gorod sound?

Mat: It was a challenge for Nico [Alberny] and Julien [Deyres]. Julien had to replace Guillaume [Martinot] for the tour with Cattle Decapitation like two weeks after Guillaume decided to leave. We were looking for someone who could bring something new to our sound, and something that would serve the music. We didn’t want a clone of Guillaume, maybe it was just the right time for us to evolve. Julien has a really wide range of vocals and he’s able to enhance each ambiance in the music, to illustrate more closely the lyrics, etc… Continue reading »

SOLO INSTRUMETAL: CLOUDKICKER, ALEXANDER BATEMAN, YOU BIG OX, AND MAT PASCAL (GOROD)

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jul 312012
 

In case people have forgotten, instrumental metal works just fine at this site, because . . . if there is no singing in the metal, then there can be no clean singing in the metal. Get it?

Over the last few days, I’ve accumulated enough new discoveries to justify this post. The first one is just a news item (no music, unfortunately), but for the rest I have listenings — quite varied listenings, and quite good, and all by solo artists. The subjects are Cloudkicker (U.S.), Alexander Bateman (U.S.), You Big Ox (U.S.), and Gorod guitarist Mathieu Pascal (France).

CLOUDKICKER

Cloudkicker is Ohio denizen Ben Sharp. Cloudkicker was the first of the so-called “bedroom guitarist” projects to hit my radar screen, and I fell hard for the music. I was late to the party, of course. I found out about Cloudkicker in 2010 after one of this site’s original co-founders turned me on to Sharp’s 2008 debut album, The Discovery. His 2010 album, Beacons, made many of our 2010 lists of the year’s best albums, and I even picked one of the songs from the album for our list of 2010’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

I subsequently discovered many other then-solo guitar instrumentalists, including Tosin Abasi, Dan Dankmeyer, Keith Merrow, Tre Watson, and Chimp Spanner, but the memory of that first Cloudkicker discovery has stayed with me. So I was excited to see the report on Ben Sharp’s tumblr that he plans to release a new Cloudkicker album called Fade in August. It will go up on the Cloudkicker Bandcamp page, and we’ll report when that happens, as soon as we find out. Continue reading »

GOROD IN THEIR ELEMENT, WITH SPIRIT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 012012
 

Here at NCS, we are massive fans of Gorod’s 2012 album, A Perfect Absolution. Few tech-death bands in the world have such a flair for combining wonderfully intricate and heavy compositions with memorable melodies.

So it brought a smile to my face to see that Gorod today released a video of them performing “Elements and Spirit” at Rock School Barbey in Bordeaux, France a few weeks ago. Watching and listening to the video made my smile even bigger.

Watch, and smile, at Gorod in their element . . . right after the jump. Continue reading »

NEW GOROD VIDEO NOW STREAMING: “THE AXE OF GOD”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Apr 302012
 

May 8 is the official North American release date for the fantastic new album by Gorod, A Perfect Absolution. Our man groverXIII reviewed that album for NCS here, calling it “the best tech-death album of a year that’s been very, very good for tech-death.”

And because groverXIII is a full-service blogger, he also promptly alerted us to the fact that about an hour ago Gorod released an official video for “The Axe of God”, a song that features Michael Keene of The Faceless on the song’s second guitar solo.

The video is basically performance footage shot from different angles. The song comes close to epitomizing what makes Gorod special in the world of tech death: As grover noted in his review, they have a knack for writing and performing songs that are both amazingly intricate and amazingly catchy, with memorable melodies. Check out “The Axe of God” after the jump. Continue reading »

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