OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 5): HIGH COMMAND AND IDLE HANDS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  4 Responses »
Jan 102020
 

 

I’m usually pretty deep into the rollout of these annual lists before I get to some actual (gasp!) clean singing. But I’m getting there much faster this year with one of these two songs, both of which were immediate ear-worms, and proved to be lasting ones as well.

HIGH COMMAND

Pretty often, people pat themselves on the back when they were listening to a band back when only a tiny sliver of their current audience knew anything about them. I’m giving myself a pat on the back. I’ve been a drooling fan of High Command from Worcester, Massachusetts since 2016 when I heard their debut EP, The Secartha Demos (reviewed here).

I did some further drooling in print when they released their next EP, The Primordial Void, in 2017. Last year, at last, High Command released a debut full-length entitled Beyond the Wall of Desolation, via Southern Lord. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HOUR OF PENANCE, EXHUMED, CREPUSCLE, XOTH, HIGH COMMAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Sep 122019
 


Hour of Penance

 

Much as I hate to do this, I’m going to resort to the format I used last Saturday when I was similarly pressed for time — just serve up some of the new songs and videos I’d like to recommend from what I’ve encountered this week, sans verbiage from me (except in one case). I’m probably going to do the same thing tomorrow, because I have a long list of recommendations.

My shortage of time is going to persist from now through the weekend, thanks to travel, meetings, and nose-to-the-grindstone efforts required by that thing that pays all the bills around here (my fucking day job). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD IN A SATURDAY: BLOOD RED THRONE, ASAGRAUM, HIGH COMMAND, HAUNTED BY SILHOUETTES, PINEWALKER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 102019
 

 

I hope your weekend is off to a good start. As you can see, I managed to start mine last night without allowing the demon alcohol to inflict obliterating damage on my brain, only moderate damage (it feels like there’s a tiny man, center-right in my skull, repeatedly jabbing with an ice pick). And so I decided to pull together four of the better songs I heard over the last 36 hours and one I discovered about a week ago. All of them are from forthcoming albums.

BLOOD RED THRONE

September doesn’t seem as far away as it did when I wrote about a new song from Blood Red Throne‘s new album back in June. That album, Fit To Kill, is the ninth full-length in a career that began in 1998, and it will be discharged by Mighty Music on the lucky 13th of September. Now there’s a second song from the album out in the world, a track named “Requiem Mass“, which premiered this week at DECIBEL. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GATECREEPER, IRON REAGAN, RITES OF THY DEGRINGOLADE, KNELT ROTE, IRON FLESH, EEVIOMORFIA, HIGH COMMAND, SCORN OF CREATION, MINORS, SCHIERMANN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 102018
 

 

There’s a megaton of explosive stuff in this mid-week round-up of recommended new sounds, so I’ll dispense with an introduction and just move right to the music.

GATECREEPER AND IRON REAGAN

Gatecreeper’s debut album Sonoran Depravaton was so damned good, a true highlight of 2016 and the source of a song (“Craving Flesh”) that I put on our list of that year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Their EP from last November, Sweltering Madness, was also damned good, a meshing together of dismal, stomping brutality and maniacal, earth-shaking obliteration. And so when I saw that Gatecreeper had released a new song yesterday I nearly soiled myself in my haste to listen to it. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): SCORCHED, DEATHCROWN, HIGH COMMAND

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  6 Responses »
Jan 052017
 

 

Welcome to Part 4 of our continuing list of 2016’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. To see the first three installments and an explanation of the criteria for making the selections, go here.

None of the three bands in this collection is a household name yet, even in the cramped, squalid households of metal, way out on the outskirts of town, across the railroad tracks and next to the cemetery. But this list isn’t limited to big names, as you probably would have guessed either from past annual installments or from looking at what we write about every week. But who knows? These names may be a lot bigger by this time next year.

SCORCHED

Last October we had the pleasure of premiering a full album stream of this Delaware band’s debut full-length, Echoes of Dismemberment. Allow me to quote from my review, which accompanied that premiere (because if I don’t, who will?): Continue reading »