SEEN BUT NOT HEARD: THE SPIRIT, HAUNTED SHORES, MESHUGGAH

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Jan 152022
 

 

I have a gigantic list of new songs and videos which appeared over the last week (or two) that I want to sift through. I had hoped to make selections for a round-up today, but got a very late start on the morning, and not long from now I’ve got to be at a virtual meeting for the job that pays the bills around here, which will further screw up those plans. I’m not sure if I’ll get to the round-up in time to share it today. But I wanted to do something through NCS before having to disappear, and so…

…I decided to just share some artwork for three forthcoming albums (and a little bonus at the end). As the title of the post implies, there’s no music available from for two of the albums, and although at the last minute I did discover one preview track that’s become available for the third one, I haven’t listened to it yet. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOJIRA, NIGHTRAGE, SHADE OF SORROW, AGELESS OBLIVION, [4672], VICTORY OVER THE SUN, URANIUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 272021
 

 

In yesterday’s round-up I burrowed deeply into the underground and surfaced with a collection of six songs that I thought were insane and unnerving in different ways. Today I’m on a different tack, leading off with some bigger names and then tunneling into underground depths again.

In addition, all of the following tracks were recommended to me by NCS colleagues and other friends. They didn’t let me down; hopefully you won’t feel let down either. There’s so much genre-spread here that you ought to find at least something that strikes a chord.

(I should mention that my friends didn’t just send me music. They also made me aware of the news that Meshuggah is recording a new album, and that it will feature the return of Fredrik Thordendal, trading places with Per Nilsson. They also passed along an announcement, accompanied by the photo of Peter Tägtgren above, that Hypocrisy’s new album has been completed.) Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH + THE HAUNTED – LIVE AT ROCK CITY, 14.01.17

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 182017
 

 

(The UK-Ireland Tour of Meshuggah and The Haunted rolled through Nottingham, England, on the night of January 14, 2017, and our man Andy Synn was there — and files this report, with video evidence.)

Why do we go see live music? That’s a question which I’ve been pondering, cogitating on, and generally wondering about for many, many years.

After all, in one sense all that’s going to happen is that we’re going to hear some songs we already know, played with (potentially) more mistakes, in a venue where the sound quality is always a question mark, whilst packed in cheek-to-jowl with a plethora of ne’er-do-wells of dubious morality and questionable personal hygiene.

But, often when we go to see a band and they play TOO perfectly… the reaction is generally just as bad as if they’d played terribly. So it’s clearly not just a case of going to see a band to watch them reproduce the music from their albums wholesale.

I don’t have an answer to that question above by the way, it’s just something that’s been on my mind for a while. If you think about it, the whole process of going to see live music is a little odd after all.

Though I suppose if you think about anything too much it starts to seem a little weird. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH — MY VIOLENT FIRST IMPRESSIONS (BY ANDY SYNN)

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Sep 202016
 

meshuggah-the-violent-sleep-of-reason-artwork

 

(Andy Synn delivers his first impressions of Meshuggah’s new album, The Violent Sleep of Reason, with thoughts on a track-by-track basis as well as overall.)

Despite what some of their detractors might say, every Meshuggah album is different. The basic ingredients might stay the same, but each album leans in a slightly different direction… Nothing brought the groove, Catch 33 went all experimental, obZen was the overtly “technical” album, and Koloss the more song-based, riff-based number… which is why every Meshuggah album is ultimately going to be someone’s favourite Meshuggah album.

So the big question really isn’t “how good is The Violent Sleep of Reason?”… no, what we should be asking is “what sort of album is it…?”

With that in mind I decided that, this time around, it would be more fun to eschew the traditional review format and instead just note down my first impressions and overall musings about the album as I listened to it. So, just as Meshuggah went for a more raw and “organic” approach this time (doing it all live in the studio for the first time in their career), so too am I going to produce a much more raw and unedited piece of writing while I listen to it.

Of course I reserve the right to change my position in the future, but for now… let’s just see what happens! Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH: “NOSTRUM”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 152016
 

Meshuggah-The Violent Sleep of Reason

 

While scrambling to get our second of four premieres ready to post today, I received an alert from my comrade DGR that Meshuggah had revealed a new lyric video for the song “Nostrum” off their new album The Violent Sleep of Reason. And so of course I dropped everything and scurried over to YouTube to give this thing a look and a listen.

It’s a 360-degree video that allows you to admire the artwork created by Keerych Luminokaya. As for the song, holy shit is it a heavy, hammering beast, an absolute crusher, highlighted by every other good thing else we’ve come to expect from this band — jaw-dropping drumwork, brilliant rhythmic interplay, raw, hair-raising vocals, and in this case some truly scintillating and frenzied lead guitar performances, coupled with glimpses of cosmic melody. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): MESHUGGAH AND ASPHYX

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Aug 252016
 

Meshuggah-The Violent Sleep of Reason

 

Earlier today I posted Part 1 of a planned two-part Seen and Heard round-up of new music, with the first Part prepared by my comrade DGR. What you’re looking at now isn’t the Part 2 that I had planned to write, because while I was toiling away on that, Meshuggah and Asphyx released songs from their new albums. Rather than tack them on to my original selection of cuts for Part 2, which is already pretty large, I decided to throw them at you now, and convert my original Part 2 into Part 3. Unless something else pops up and Part 3 becomes Part 4, because I haven’t yet figured out how to make time stand still.

MESHUGGAH

The title of Meshuggah’s eighth album is The Violent Sleep of Reason. Nuclear Blast plans to release it on October 7. That’s obviously a big deal, given how vastly influential Meshuggah has become over the years, not to mention the high quality of their music. The first single from the album, “Born In Dissonance” premiered not long ago at Rolling Stone, along with an interview of drummer Tomas Haake, who as usual wrote the lyrics for the song. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MESHUGGAH, AUROCH, ARSIS, ANICON, ANCIIENTS, BRAIN TENTACLES, BATTLE DAGORATH, FERAL LIGHT, HELEN MONEY, VANHELGA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Jul 292016
 

Meshuggah revolver ad-2

 

I mentioned in a post earlier this week that I’ve been distracted during nights this week by a televised political convention (because I am a political junkie with low willpower), and I also had to make a quick out-of-town trip. Metal didn’t wait for me while I was diverted, and so I have an immense list of new things from the last few days that I want to recommend. I’ve cut the list down to a mere 10 items, which I’ve collected here. Seriously, I’m aware that 10 is a lot, so I’ve choked back my usual desire to spill a lot of words.

I’m starting with two news items and then following those with 8 new songs or videos, presented in alphabetical order by the name of the artist.

MESHUGGAH

I no longer subscribe to Revolver magazine. If I still had the subscription, I might have seen the full-page ad at the top of this post, which so far seems to be the only disclosure that Meshuggah’s new album The Violent Sleep of Reason will be released by Nuclear Blast on October 7. Here’s another fan pic of the ad: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MARYLAND DEATHFEST XV, ASPHYX, OPETH, MEGADETH, AMON AMARTH, MESHUGGAH, HIGH ON FIRE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  22 Responses »
Jul 192016
 

MDF XV revised flyer

 

Ten days have passed since the last time I put together a round-up of news and recommended new music, which is an unusually long gap. Perhaps needless to say, trying to catch up is out of the question. What I’m going to do instead is just pull together some big news announcements from the last 24 hours in this post (plus one related recent song), and then collect a few more recent music streams in a second part that I’ll post a bit later today.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST ANNOUNCES SECOND ROUND OF CONFIRMED BANDS FOR 2017

On June 30, as we dutifully reported, the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced the first round of confirmed bands for the XVth edition of the festival, scheduled to take place on May 25-28, 2017, in Baltimore. Just minutes ago, MDF announced a second round of confirmed bands — plus some surprising news about where the festival will, and won’t, take place next year. Here are the new confirmed names: Continue reading »

NEW ALBUM NEWS: MESHUGGAH AND INQUISITION

 Metal News  6 Responses »
May 122016
 

Meshuggah recording

 

Here are a couple of breaking news items that I suspect will be of interest to our readership.

MESHUGGAH

Not long ago Meshuggah posted a 16-second snippet on YouTube, with the words: “Fall.2016. Watch this space!” On Facebook, they embellished slightly: “Fall 2016 – new album, new tours.”

And isn’t that exciting? Continue reading »

IN PRAISE OF… MESHUGGAH

 Concert Reviews  7 Responses »
Dec 222014
 

 

(This is more than a show review… this is Andy Synn’s analysis of why Meshuggah rise far above their legions of imitators.)

Two nights ago I was lucky enough to witness the sheer awe-inspiring power of Meshuggah lay waste to a packed Roundhouse in London, as part of their 25th (!) Anniversary tour.

As I’m reviewing the show for another publication (because I am, at heart, a whore for attention and approbation) it didn’t seem right to also review it here for NCS. However, the whole experience did stimulate more than a few different thoughts in my head, and so I wanted to at least take the opportunity to write a few of them down, and maybe go a little deeper into exactly why I think Meshuggah are such an important, vital band in today’s metal scene. Continue reading »

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