SEEN AND HEARD: ALCEST, IN MOURNING, THE GREAT OLD ONES, SELENITE, JADE, SVPREMACIST

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 232019
 

 

I’m posting this Friday round-up on my way to Sea-Tac airport, where I hope to depart the area for a mini-vacation in Wyoming with a bunch of other miscreants, returning Monday night. I’m not sure how much else I’ll be able to write for NCS between now and then, and I’ve been scurrying even to get this round-up completed before I disappear into the wild blue yonder.

A ton of new music has appeared over the last 24 hours, much of it from bigger names in the metal cosmos. I’ve included some of that here, but not all of it. There is, for example, a video released today for a new Insomnium song called “Valediction” (here) from the album Heart Like A Grave, out on October 4th, that I haven’t included. I assume it’s proving to be a crowd-pleaser. I’ve only listened to it once, and it did get its hooks in my noggin, but I also have some mixed feelings about it. And anyway, I wanted to make room for a couple of more obscure names in addition to the big ones below.

ALCEST

I’m beginning with a video for a new song by Alcest named “Protection“, from their new album Spiritual Instinct. Here’s what vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Neige had to say about it: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 10): IN MOURNING, MISTUR, MOONSORROW

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  2 Responses »
Jan 132017
 

 

We have arrived at Part 10 of our growing list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. After the three songs I’m adding to the list today, we’ll be up to a total of 27, with about two and a half weeks left to go before my self-imposed deadline for finishing this thing. To check out the songs preceding these three, click this link.

I probably have some kind of twisted reason for grouping these three songs together, but if I do, it has eluded my conscious mind, and at the moment I don’t have time to plumb the murky depths of my subconscious to determine what it is.

IN MOURNING

On the 20th of last May, In Mourning released the fourth album of their career with Afterglow. My NCS comrade DGR wrote one of his typically lengthy reviews (here), which included a discussion of how the album fits within the band’s evolving discography. I’m going to excerpt his words about the song from Afterglow that I’m adding to our list — “Below Rise To Above“: Continue reading »

IN MOURNING: “AFTERGLOW”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 242016
 

In Mourning-Afterglow

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Sweden’s In Mourning, with a full album stream at the end.)

On May 20th, In Mourning released the fourth album of their career with Afterglow. To lay all of our cards on the table up front, Afterglow is a great disc — but to really understand how and why Afterglow is great, you need to take a deep dive into In Mourning’s history so you can see what led the band to this point, because the album feels like the most natural evolution of their sound yet.

In Mourning are one of those bands for whom each album has sounded different from the others. A few genres have combined over the years to define their sound, and one of those key tenets has been a large swath of Euro-doom. The album that sowed the seeds of that was their first release, 2008’s Shrouded Divine. Shrouded Divine is also the disc where the group’s reputation as something of a critical darling was launched, drawing comparisons to bands such as Opeth — likely due to the occasional clean-sung break the group snuck in and the prevelant melo-death sound that wormed its way throughout Shrouded Divine’s run. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IN MOURNING, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, SINISTROUS DIABOLUS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 232016
 

In Mourning-Afterglow

 

Here are a trio of selected songs that caught our eyes and ears over the last 24 hours.

IN MOURNING

As previously reported, Sweden’s In Mourning have a new album on the way named Afterglow, which features wonderful cover art by Kristian “Necrolord” Wåhlin and also marks the first appearance of the band’s new drummer, Daniel Liljekvist (ex-Katatonia). This morning the band debuted a lyric video for the first advance track from the album, a song named “Below Rise To the Above”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IN MOURNING, HOWLS OF EBB, LASCAILLE’S SHROUD, DESOLATOR

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 022016
 

In Mourning-Afterglow

 

I wasn’t able to compile a round-up of new things for yesterday, which means that I’m now up to my eyebrows in news and music that I’d like to share, or I would be if I had a head. But figuratively speaking, I do have more items worth spreading around than I have time or space to compile. Therefore, I’ve chosen somewhat randomly. But the first two choices were compelled not only because I’m a big fan of both bands but also because the artwork for both is stupendous.

IN MOURNING

Today Sweden’s In Mourning revealed details about their new album, including the magnificent cover art that you see above, which was created by the magnificent Kristian “Necrolord” Wåhlin. The name of the album is Afterglow and it will be released by Agonia Records on May 20. Continue reading »

MAJALIS: “CATHODIC BLACK”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Jul 262013
 

Majalis is one of those “after work” side-projects whose debut release leaves such a powerful impression that one can only hope, fervently, that it continues. It began years ago as a songwriting collaboration between two of In Mourning’s guitarists, Tobias Netzell (ex-October Tide) and Björn Pettersson. Eventually, they enlisted vocalist/bassist Daniel Jansson and drummer Jonas Martinsson and recorded Cathodic Black, an EP released earlier this month by Pulverised Records. And together, they’ve created something wonderful.

If you’re familiar with In Mourning, you know that Netzell and Pettersson are experienced in dropping the weight of oceans upon listeners while interweaving melodies that have a way of sticking fast in the memory. They do something similar in the three long songs that make up Cathodic Black, but have stepped outside the realm of dark melodic death metal to do it. This time they’ve moved into the territories of post rock, sludge, and doom.

The weight of the mid-paced music comes via massive, fuzzed-out, doom-drenched riffs and a drum-and-bass duo that can really bring the heavy lumber when they put their minds to it. But the music is also a study in contrasts, and the power and intensity of the passages when Majalis starts to crush is magnified by the softer measures that often precede them — the beautifully somber piano piece that begins the EP, the isolated guitar strumming and echoing percussive sounds within “Rusting Sun”, the contemplative guitar duet in the middle of “Tooth and Bone”, and other similar moments when the band dial back the intensity. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 3

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  9 Responses »
Dec 302012
 

This is Part 3 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting 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 we’re announcing today, click here.

2012 was a great year for melancholy, doom-influenced melodic death metal, and both Finland’s Before the Dawn and Sweden’s In Mourning can claim two of the best releases in that genre. Both of their albums supplied multiple candidates for this list, and it seemed like a natural fit to pair the two that I ultimately selected.

BEFORE THE DAWN

The dulcet clean vocals of Lars Eikind may be gone, but Tuomas Saukkonen is still at the helm of Before the Dawn, and on Rise of the Phoenix he masterfully charted a new post-Eikind course that proved to be tremendously satisfying. As Andy Synn wrote in our review of the album, “at its best this album marries melodic power and precision in a way few others can match.”

My initial temptation was to put the song “Phoenix Rising” on this list, but ultimately I couldn’t resist the siren’s call of “Throne of Ice”. Continue reading »

ROUNDING UP THE RIFF-RAFF (Part 1): MURDER CONSTRUCT, ASH BORER, IN MOURNING, AND A MASTODON/OPETH/IN FLAMES COLLABORATION?

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  17 Responses »
Jun 292012
 

Yes, I’m still trying out titles for these posts in which I collect metal news, new videos, and new music that I’ve seen recently. I mean no disrespect to any of the bands featured in this post. In my lexicon, “riff-raff” is a compliment, plus I really wanted some alliteration; otherwise I probably would have called this “Rounding Up the Motherfuckers”.

Yesterday I saw and heard a lot of things worth passing on, so I’m dividing this collection into two parts, with the second part to follow a little later this morning. In this Part 1 are observations involving new albums from two excellent bands —Results by Murder Construct and Cold of Ages by Ash Borer — plus a recent live performance by In Mourning caught on film, plus a from-the-horse’s-mouth report on a potential Mastodon collaboration with Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt and In Flames’ Björn Gelotte.

MURDER CONSTRUCT

This band is a super-group of sorts, featuring Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan on vocals, Exhumed/Phobia/Impaled’s Leon del Muerte on guitar and vocals, Intronaut/Uphill Battle’s Danny Walker on drums, Bad Acid Trip’s Caleb Schneider on bass, and Fetus Eaters/Watch Me Burn’s Kevin Fetus also on guitar. The name of their game is death-grind, and I fuckin’ loved their 2010 self-titled debut (described here). Continue reading »

CARNIVOROUS MUSIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 192012
 

This photo seemed appropriate for this post. (Thanks to Alfonso for sharing it on FB.) It’s a pic of what two fishermen pulled up in their net from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez on Sunday. Fortunately for them, it was already dead. This Great White shark measured almost 20 feet long and weighed an estimate 2,000 pounds. It took 50 people to help pull the carcass ashore. More details can be found here.

And that’s about all the introduction I can afford for this post, except to say that I’ve rounded up a bunch of new flesh-eating music and am throwing it at your head. Here’s what I caught in my net, in no particular order:

New videos from Cryptopsy (Canada), Fester (Norway), Mordbrand (Sweden), and In Mourning (Sweden), plus new songs from Carach Angren (The Netherlands) and Antigama (Poland). That ought to hold you . . . and eat you. (To learn more about each band, click on their names.) Continue reading »

IN MOURNING: “THE WEIGHT OF OCEANS”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Apr 122012
 

(Yesterday, Sweden’s In Mourning began a limited-time streaming of their new album. Today, TheMadIsraeli has a review.)

Fuck me for forgetting about this.

It seems even when sick, there is to be no rest for me.  I completely forgot that the new opus of melodic death doom metal masters In Mourning, The Weight Of Oceans, was to be out soon.  As you can imagine, when they started streaming this album yesterday I immediately had to get on that shit.  It’s a vital part of the new movement of melodic death metal that mixes powerful melodies, pedal-point riffing, and drama with doom metal’s macabre melancholy and profound slower tempos.

In Mourning made quite a splash with their debut, Shrouded Divine, an album I love to this day.  Their second release, Monolith, was a good album, but they tried to go for a more energetic approach that, both in tempo and in melody, had fewer connections to doom.  Something about it just didn’t sit right with me; it just didn’t feel like In Mourning to me.  Thankfully, The Weight Of Oceans is a return to In Mourning’s doom-intertwined roots.

In Mourning, for the uninitiated, incorporates the typical influences of this new style of melodic death metal at their core, essentially combining the slow tempos and proggy song structuring of old school Opeth with Insomnium’s poignant, to-the-point melancholic melodies and sense of melodrama and dignity.  The band are also obviously influenced by the spearheads of this new style of melodeath, Daylight Dies.

In Mourning definitely have their own sound though.  Their attack is precise and intricate, and their sense of melody focuses less on complex transitions and more on straight-forward, mournful melodic progressions.  The complexity of the composition is more in the realm of how the guitars play with one another, creating some quite dazzling walls of melody.  Björn Pettersson and Tim Nedergård are one of my favorite current guitar duos in metal right now.  Their sense of compositional teamwork is absolutely astounding, acting as one in generating an intricately woven overcast of despair and agony that just consumes the listener. Continue reading »

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