HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “COBRA VERDE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 162014
 

 

We’re pretty damned hyped about the new album from Italy’s Hideous Divinity. We’ve already written about the first track from the album that debuted last month (“Sinister and Demented”), and we helped premiere the second track (“The Alonest of the Alone”) — and now we’ve got one more advance song from the album to bring your way. This new one is the title song.

When we interviewed Hideous Divinity guitarist Enrico Schettino about a week ago (here), he emphasized the importance of writing actual songs, even in the arena of brutal death metal: “We care about the song. We care about its structure and hooks and mood.” You don’t have to look any further for proof of that than “Cobra Verde”.

The song is undeniably bludgeoning — explosively so. For most of its length it moves at the speed of a blast front following a megaton detonation, with a sonic power that’s just as destructive, driven by the off-the-hook percussive militarism and high-speed riff flurries. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ENRICO SCHETTINO (HIDEOUS DIVINITY)

 Interviews  4 Responses »
Oct 132014
 

 

(Our interviewer KevinP, a notoriously hard man to please, somehow convinced Enricho Schettino, guitarist for Italy’s Hideous Divinity, to speak with him. This is what followed.)

K:  The band was formed in 2007 when you left Hour of Penance and moved to Norway.  What caused you to move and would you have stayed in Hour of Penance if you hadn’t moved?

E:  I thought I was gonna drop death metal as soon as I’d start a new life in a foreign country… god I was wrong. About my moving reasons… a Norwegian friend of mine once told me that people move there either for love or to escape from a war conflict.  In my case it was the first one. Have no clue about how things would have been in the band if I stayed, I just remember that at the time for me it was really difficult to stand the company of many Hour of Penance members.

 

K:  Then you rejoined in 2009 for a short period of time?

E:  Yes. Got the proposal to re-join and I was extremely happy to play live again with them. I was not involved at all in their new album’s songwriting process but I thought it was fair.  I took it all extremely easy. Then we played in an Italian festival, apparently the sound was messy and I took all the blame. Asked if there was any problem, but everyone said “No no we’re fine 100%”… One week later, just before a fest in Switzerland, I got the call — with no face-to-face explanation to this date — saying, “We’re better off as 4 piece”. These are the facts, just want to stick to them, or at least I wanna try. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “THE ALONEST OF THE ALONE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Sep 242014
 

 

Earlier this month we featured the first advance track from Cobra Verde, the new album by Italy’s Hideous Divinity, and today we have the pleasure of featuring a second one, in the form of a lyric video. This track is named “The Alonest Of The Alone” and it features Dallas Toler-Wade from Nile and Narcotic Wasteland).

Cobra Verde will be released by Unique Leader on October 28 in the U.S. and on October 27 in the UK and October 31 in the EU. As we previously reported, it’s a concept record inspired by the 1987 German film of the same name directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski in his final collaboration with Herzog before his death. The album also includes a cover of “Last and Only Son” by Ripping Corpse (from their 1992 EP Industry).

“The Alonest of the Alone” is yet further proof that Cobra Verde will be an unusually accomplished rendering of sonic savagery, combining a lot of highly accelerated technical whiz-bang with a talent for pummeling grooves and seductive melody. It abundantly earns the appellation of “brutality” without falling into the cesspool of mindless wankery or commonplace brutishness. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “SINISTER AND DEMENTED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Sep 052014
 

The Font of All Human Knowledge tells us that the phrase “slash and burn” originated as the name for an ancient agricultural technique that involves cutting trees and other natural growth and then burning them to ash, once dried, in order to create fields for new growth. That phrase springs to mind immediately upon hearing “Sinister and Demented”, the new song by Italy’s Hideous Divinity that premiered not long ago. It appears on their forthcoming album Cobra Verde.

The song is an assault of high-speed sonic decimation. It threshes, it thrashes, and then it burns in a super-heated conflagration. But so complete is the devastation that it’s hard to imagine that anything will grow from the scorched ground it leaves behind.

Everything in the song is geared toward jolting the listener with galvanizing power — from the blazing fretwork to the jaw-dropping drumwork to the ravaging vocals (which sound more like a pack of wolves than a single human). Simply from the perspective of technical proficiency, this is technical death metal of a very high order. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (Part 1): DECAPITATED, SSSE (WITH INVERTIA AND TOMPA LINDBERG), HIDEOUS DIVINITY, MANES

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Aug 072014
 

Jet-setter that I am, I’m on the road again this week in my old hometown of Austin, Texas. Until last night I haven’t had as much time as usual to check out new music or write about it. I missed a lot, and am trying to catch up before having to leave the world of metal for the rest of today.

I discovered so many things I want to recommend that I’ve divided them into three parts, this being the first.

DECAPITATED

In advance of their new album Blood Mantra (scheduled for September 26 release by Nuclear Blast), Poland’s Decapitated have begun streaming a new song entitled “The Blasphemous Psalm To The Dummy God Creation”. It’s being released as a digital single via Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, or direct from Nuclear Blast (here). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ALBEZ DUZ, MORTALS, THRÄNENKIND, KHTHONIIK CERVIIKS, HIDEOUS DIVINITY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jul 242014
 

 

Yesterday’s round-up was a big one. So is this one — and it’s still not big enough to cover everything worth mentioning that I saw and heard yesterday. But it will have to do. Here we go…

ALBEZ DUZ

Albez Duz are a two-man German band whose name apparently consists of two words in a Germanic language used 800 years ago, with “Albez” meaning “swan” and “Duz” meaning “noisiness”, or “rush”. It is the side project of Impurus (aka Eugen H.), the drummer of the long-running German band Dies Ater.

At the time of their 2009 self-titled debut album, which drew comparisons to the early work of Paradise Lost, Tiamat, and My Dying Bride, the band’s vocalist was Lars Kaeding. Kaeding died in 2011, and was replaced early this year by Alfonso Brito Lopez (aka “Grifonso“). With this new line-up, Albez Duz have recorded a new album, The Coming of Mictlan, which will be released by Germany’s Iron Bonehead label later this year. Its fascinating cover is above.

Yesterday Iron Bonehead began streaming a song from the new album named “Mictlan”, and it’s very impressive. Continue reading »

APOPHYS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 232014
 

Good bands die, and sometimes other good ones rise up from their ashes like a Phoenix. A case in point: I’ve been in mourning over the death last year of God Dethroned, but that great band’s members are moving on to other things, including drummer Michiel van der Plicht (also ex-Prostitute Disfigurement, ex-Detonation) who is now a member of the new Dutch band Apophys. I also experienced pangs of grief a few days ago when I learned that Mondvollond had also disbanded — and lo and behold, Mondvolland’s Mickeal Schuurman turns out to be the bass player for Apophys. Apophys also includes talented guitarists Sanne van Dijk and Koen Romeijn (Detonation) and vocalist Kevin Quilligan (Toxocara, Erebus).

I’ve been investigating Apophys since discovering them for the first time this weekend, and I’ve included in this post a selection of what I found. Eventually I’ll come to their music, but I’m beginning with a medical procedure.

The subject of this procedure was Apophys vocalist Kevin Quilligan. He paid a visit to phoniatrician Enrico Di Lorenzo (who also happens to be the frontman of Rome’s Hideous Divinity) for a vocal assessment. I had never heard of phoniatrics before, and if its a new field for you as well, you can learn a small amount about it here. This consultation was videotaped, and fortunately it turns out to be more interesting than film of a colonoscopy, although both procedures involve the insertion of tubes with cameras into fleshy orifices. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY, “OBEISANCE RISING”: A GUEST REVIEW BY TED O’NEILL (OBLIVION)

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Oct 232012
 

(We’re stoked to present the following guest review by veteran guitarist Ted O’Neill of that most excellent California band Oblivion, whose new album we reviewed here.)

I was very pleased when the powers that be at NCS asked me to write a “guest” review for the site. I’m not a professional writer, which will become evident shortly, so let’s not get too excited about grammatical errors and the like.  Not being a writer by trade also frees me from the self-imposed burden of some of the pseudo-intellectual bloggers who try their best to pick apart and find flaws when they do get their hands on a stellar new release. Fortunately, I’m reviewing Hideous Divinity’s debut album Obeisance Rising, an album which leaves little room for criticism. Before I tell you why this is an album that is more than worthy of your money, let’s introduce the band.

Hideous Divinity is a band hailing from Italy, originally started in 2007 by Enrico Schettino, Mauro Mercurio (both ex-Hour of Penance), and Synder Mastantuono (Eyeconoclast). After composing and recording some material the band was silent until a new line-up took form in 2009 with Enrico H. DiLorenzo (vocals), Enrico Schettino and Fabio Bartoletti (guitars), Flavio Cardozo (bass), and Mizio Montagna (drums). At the time of this writing the band has parted ways with Flavio and Mizio, replacing them with Stefano Franceschini (bass) and Giulio Galati (drums).

For everyone who is not Italian, please re-read that paragraph as we are going to have a quiz here in a minute. OK, ready…go!

So why am I reviewing an album that came out 6 months ago? Well, simply put, this band needs more support. Somehow it seems that Obeisance Rising flew under almost everyone’s radar. This needs to be fixed and fixed NOW because in a sea of crappy generi-core modern metal, Hideous Divinity is an absolute juggernaut top-flight death metal band. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say these guys are a “real” death metal band, as this is death metal done the way it is supposed to be done. Continue reading »

MAGOA, SWALLOWED, AND HIDEOUS DIVINITY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
May 132012
 

In this post I’ve collected music from three bands I came across yesterday that I thought was worth sharing. I tried to think up some kind of Mother’s Day theme for this round-up. All I could come up with was the idea of calling all of you motherfuckers, but that doesn’t really work, does it? Anyway, for all of you whose moms didn’t kick you out of the house, don’t forget to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day. Even those of you who got kicked out might give it a try. They might let you back in.

MAGOA

This band is from France. These days, that means there’s about an 8 out of 10 chance they will be good. Magoa released a debut album last year called Swallow the Earth, which I haven’t heard. More recently, they’ve finished recording a 6-song EP that I presume will be released later this year. Last week, they released a single from the EP for free download, along with an accompanying video. The name of the song is “Animal”.

As their principal influences, Magoa cite Slipknot, Lamb of God, Pantera, and In Flames. Based on this song, I’d add Meshuggah to the list, which I suppose is a way of saying that it includes some djent stylings. I get the Slipknot reference, but based on this song I wouldn’t say the usual stylings of those other bands are much in the mix.

I do like the song — it’s groovy, it’s brash, it’s high-energy, it includes a catchy melody — but the main reason for posting about it is the video, which I couldn’t take my eyes off of. In the category of videos that exclusively depict the band performing the music, it’s one of the best I’ve seen this year. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 5)

 Forthcoming Albums  6 Responses »
May 022011
 


What the hell is that big yellow thing up in the sky? It looks vaguely familiar, but it’s appeared so rarely here in The Emerald City over the last six months that we’re having trouble placing the name. Well, maybe the name will come to us. The great wheel of the seasons surely must continue to turn someplace, but in Seattle it seems to have been stuck on Winter since, like, forever. In some parts of the world, April showers bring May flowers, but here, April showers will probably bring . . . May showers.

Okay, enough whining. At least we don’t get tornados dropping from the sky like atom bombs and wiping whole towns off the map. And even though the weather hasn’t been our friend, we have metal to make up for the cold shoulder — and there’s a bunch of new metal headed our way.

What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. Continue reading »

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