MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 9)

 Forthcoming Albums  20 Responses »
Sep 032011
 


It’s Labor Day Weekend, August is a thing of the past, and as some people count it, summer is over. School is on the verge of resuming for people still attempting to educate themselves, and a ton of new metal tours are looming on the horizon for the fall. And of course, the fall will be filled with new album releases, too. Which brings us to the latest monthly edition of METAL IN THE FORGE.

You know the drill:  In these posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album before August, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. And feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that you’re stoked about. Continue reading »

FUNNY SHIT (and we do mean that literally)

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  4 Responses »
May 122010
 

The May/June issue of Revolver magazine arrived in our mailbox over the weekend. What we enjoyed the most was not the cover story about the 2010 “Revolver Golden Gods” awards show (which was largely irrelevant to what we care about in the current extreme metal scene). What we enjoyed the most was Revolver’s verbatim report of a conversation that took place at a dive bar in New York City between Adam Dutkiewicz and Mike D’Antonio of Killswitch Engage and frontman Mikael Stanne of Sweden’s Dark Tranquillity.

As you may know, KSE and DT toured together earlier this year. When Dutkiewicz and D’Antonio formed KSE back in 1999, one thing that united them was their love of Swedish melodic death metal, and Dark Tranquillity in particular. As they got to know Stanne better while touring, they discovered they had more in common than elements of their music. Like a mutual attraction to the Travel Channel (?) and (wait for it) . . . eating competitions.

And green shit.

So after this threesome did some Jack Daniels shots at that dive bar, the conversation eventually turned to the subject of eating competitions, and Revolver was there to record what they said. We thought it was pretty fucking funny.

Granted, our standards of humor here at NCS are pretty low. For example, as you’ll see, we laugh at anything that involves shit. Still, we thought you might find the conversation funny, too. After all, if you’re reading this site, your standards are also pretty low, by definition. So, after the jump, we’ll give you the best excerpts of that Dutkiewicz-D’Antonio-Stanne dialogue from Revolver. Continue reading »

DARK TRANQUILLITY UPDATE

 Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 112010
 

Yesterday, those groundbreaking Swedish melodic death metallers Dark Tranquillity released a video of “Shadow In Our Blood,” one of the songs from the band’s forthcoming ninth album, We Are the Void. Your NCS Co-Authors are a little biased when it comes to Dark Tranquillity: Our presumption is they can do no wrong. So, with the warning that we’ve pretty much lost our objectivity, we gotta say this is a fucking good tune.

The video ain’t bad either (except for the fact that vocalist Mikael Stanne comes off way too much like one of the dozens of crazy homeless people we encounter on a weekly basis walking the streets of downtown Seattle). Here’s his own take on the video:

“If you guys are into torture, you might get a kick out of [our new video]. Imagine being strapped to a speeding motorized vehicle like one of those wooden maidens on pirate ships for 15 hours in the freezing cold forests of Finland and you might get an idea of what the video is all about.”

We Are the Void is due for a North American release on March 9. Dark Tranquillity is currently touring the U.S. with the-now-Howard-Jones-less Killswitch Engage and The Devil Wears Prada. We’ll be there when they hit Seattle on March 10.

DARK TRANQUILLITY UPDATE

 Metal News  No Responses »
Dec 142009
 

Dark+Tranquillity

Last week I saw a snippet on Lambgoat reporting that Killswitch Engage had announced national tour dates with support from The Devil Wears Prada.  The tour dates included a March 10 stop here in the Emerald City at Showbox-SoDo.  My reaction?  Meh.  There was a time when the chance to see KsE would have elevated my pulse rate.  Not so much any more.  Not even sure they still qualify as NCS Metal at all.

But KsE has now added a new blog entry on their MySpace page about the same tour, and guess what? That update says Swedish melodic death titans Dark Tranquillity will be opening all shows on the tour. Now that caused my pulse rate to go up! In an ideal world, a legendary, groundbreaking band like Dark Tranquillity wouldn’t be an opening act for the likes of Killswitch Engage and (worse still) The Devil Wears Prada. They’d be headlining.  But beggars like me can’t be choosers. At least DT will get back to the US and the fans will be assured of some decent venues.

Even more exciting is that DT has scheduled the US release of their ninth studio album, We Are the Void, for March 9 — the day before their Showbox performance in Seattle. Full tour dates available after the jump. Continue reading »

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