AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OF WOLVES — “MAKER”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 192022
 

Our old friends Of Wolves put out a hell of an album through Trepanation Recordings two years ago. Entitled Balance, it garnered a lot of well-deserved attention for its heaviness, its near-relentless intensity, its political stances, and its kaleidoscopic amalgamation of musical influences.

We devoted a fair amount of attention to the songs that emerged over a long period leading up to the album’s release, and now we’ve got a new reason to revisit the record, thanks to an unusual and likely controversial video for a punishing song from the album named “Maker“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SOL DE SANGRE, OF WOLVES, CEREBRAL ROT, HIRSI, THE CROOKED WHISPERS, SVNEATR, CAVEMAN CULT

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 082021
 

 

Even after yesterday’s humongous round-up of new music, I’m still playing catch-up with new songs and videos, and picked seven more entries to include here today. These are mostly individual songs, but I’ve mixed in a pair of new EPs. As usual, part of my goal in making this selection was to provide diverse experiences.

SOL DE SANGRE (Colombia)

On April 30th this killer Colombian band released a new EP named Despair Distiller, and I’m way late in crowing about how really fucking good it is. Better late than never, I hope! Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 1): AKVAN, OF WOLVES, MR. BUNGLE, NUG, CORPUS CHRISTII, DARKMOON WARRIOR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jun 072020
 

 

I’m way behind in putting together compilations of new music and videos that I want to recommend. Yesterday, after hours of listening, I assembled more than two dozen of them that I discovered just over the last week. I had the fantasy of presenting all of them in alphabetical order in this Overflowing Streams format (short on words and visual art but long on music).

This morning I realized that would be a herculean task, and I’m no Hercules. So I abandoned the alphabetical idea and have arranged the collection with different ideas in mind and divided the post into Parts — because I’m not sure how far I’ll get. There should be at least one or two more installments today.

By the way, I decided to do this instead of the usual SHADES OF BLACK post today, though I’ve made sure to include new black metal in the collection, beginning with…

AKVAN (Iran)

The Persian tar (a type of four-stringed lute) is the star of this first song, along with the mesmerizing, melancholy melody that it voices. It provides the beating heart of the song even after the music rises into a tumultuous storm of thundering drums, scathing riffs, and scorching vocals. Fascinating, fierce, otherworldly, and glorious, the song is a tremendous thrill to hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OF WOLVES — “BALANCE”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Dec 132019
 

 

When we first encountered Of Wolves in 2013, through their album Evolve, we wrote: “These three working men in Chicago are fed up, frustrated, and pissed off. They vent their fury at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and they don’t mince words about it. As they say, ‘Life has been rough, the music is therapy.’ Apparently, the therapy consists of taking a whole kitchen sink’s worth of musical influences and interests and letting them spill out in a flood of exuberant creativity.”

And now here we are, many years later. The world around us hasn’t gotten any better, only more fractured, delusional, hate-filled, and desperate. Needless to say, Of Wolves haven’t become any more sanguine about the direction of politics, culture, or life in general. They’ve had their own ups and downs as well. They started teasing a new album entitled Balance more than two years ago, projected for release by Cimmerian Shade, but the label owner’s illness ultimately doomed those plans. And so the band are looking again for a label, though they’re not going to allow that search to delay the album release for much longer (more on that later), and in the meantime are working on new music with plans to record it in the first quarter of 2020.

In January of this year the band released a three-part track from Balance (available here), after having rolled out each of those three parts individually, and now we’re presenting the title song, accompanied by footage of the band’s performance filmed by Mok Films at the Doomed & Stoned Festival. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: OF WOLVES, OLDD WVRMS, UNENDLICH, PERNICION, EWIGKEIT, LACERATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 072019
 

 

At the not-inconsiderable risk of overwhelming our visitors with new music, I’m following up yesterday’s two-part round-up of music from the black(ened) realms with another collection of new tracks. One of them is yet another example of black metal, but the songs that follow are much more wide-ranging in their styles — I made a conscious decision to compile a varied playlist that I hope will be appealing, but will at least keep you off-balance. All the songs are from forthcoming albums.

OF WOLVES

Beginning last October, Chicago’s Of Wolves began rolling out three songs that they had originally composed as separate pieces but then, after noticing the interesting flow among them when performed live, decided to combine into a single track on their new album, Balance. The first of those, “Clear Cutting”, premiered at DECIBEL; the second, “Bloodshed”, premiered at our own site in November; and the third, “Heart To Hand”, got its debut at Sludgelord last month.

Now the band have released a combined video for these combined tracks, and as of today have made it available for download on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AETHERIAN, BLOODSHOT DAWN, GATECREEPER, OF WOLVES, DECAYING, WASTEWALKER, VOIDCEREMONY, ULVER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 112017
 

 

You can go long or you can go short. You can pound your musical erogenous zones or you can shrivel up and go dry from something far outside the rim of your bullseye. You can fragment your mind or feel it coalescing in configurations that become receivers of new visions. Every day there are new opportunities.

I’m speaking of metal, of course. I got doses of all those experiences this week, but bit off almost more than I could chew with this week’s flood of premieres, and got squeezed by my fucking day job on top of that, so I failed to compile a round-up until now, and hence it’s a big one.

Catching up is an impossibility, of course, and this time it happens that my choices (all the way up to the last one) are mainly indulgences in a particular mood rather than my usual effort to throw darts all over the metal dartboard. The one thing I haven’t done is incorporate black metal, because I have tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column for that.

AETHERIAN

We’ve been writing about this Greek band for years, beginning with their first single in 2013 and including their second one in 2015, their debut EP released the same year (and reviewed by DGR here), their amazing single and video from last year, “The Rain”, the first single (“Seeds of Deception”0 from their debut album, The Untamed Wilderness, which will be released by Lifeforce Records on November 24th, and the second one (“Shade of the Sun”). And now there’s a third, accompanied by a video. Continue reading »

SEEN BUT (MOSTLY) NOT HEARD: TAU CROSS, GOATWHORE, OF WOLVES, F41.0, URN, ROTTEN SOUND, COSMIC REEF TEMPLE, SOLAR TEMPLE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 242017
 


Tau Cross

 

As I begin typing these words I’m on an airplane just entering the air space of Michigan, and if all goes well will be landing in Baltimore in 1 hour and 52 minutes. Maryland Deathfest awaits.

I spent the first part of the flight scrolling through the NCS in-box, adding to my very long list of music to check out. As you know, that’s a ridiculously long list. I don’t expect to get much blogging done while MDF is in progress, so I impulsively decided to write this thing.

Since the wi-fi on this jet isn’t good enough to permit streaming, I haven’t heard most of what I’m putting in this post, nearly all of which I found during that e-mail reconnaissance. I encourage you to leave a comment with reactions, since I have almost none (so far). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: OF WOLVES, DEATH LIKE MASS, MALIBLIS, LONGHOUSE, ANIMUS MORTIS, UNDERGANG

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Mar 102017
 

 

I meant to finish this post and launch it yesterday, but as you may have noticed, we had a flood of premieres (all of them worth checking out if you haven’t), and time ran out. So I’m not quite as fast in turning you onto these things as I’d like, and with the delay I’ve accumulated even more good things that I’ll need to throw at you this weekend.

OF WOLVES

To begin, I have a piece of news that perked me right up, from a fondly remembered band whom I haven’t had an excuse to write about in a few years. They are Of Wolves, and they are of wolves. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OF WOLVES — “DEAD WAIT”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Mar 012015
 

 

I discovered an album named Evolve by a Chicago band named Of Wolves in the summer of 2013, and it made a big impression, a lasting impression. As discussed in my recent interview of the band’s vocalist/guitarist Steve Sherwood, Of Wolves have been working on a new album that they’re hoping to complete and release before the end of this year, but in the meantime they have a brand new video for one of the songs from Evolve — “Dead Wait” — and we’re premiering it right here, right now.

As I attempted to explain in my review of Evolve, the album is an eclectic mix of music, but if there’s a unifying thread in the songs it’s the frustration and fury that drives them. Lyrically, Of Wolves have vented their anger at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and as you’ll see in a minute, they don’t mince words about it. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: STEVE SHERWOOD (OF WOLVES)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Jan 062015
 

 

In the summer of 2013 I came across an album named Evolve by a Chicago band named Of Wolves, and it spun my head clean around. I had more “what the fuck?” moments than I had experienced with any other album during the year up to that point. There was something unexpected lying in wait around every corner, and the album had more corners than a roller-coaster ride. As I wrote in my review:

These three working men in Chicago are fed up, frustrated, and pissed off. They vent their fury at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and they don’t mince words about it. As they say, “Life has been rough, the music is therapy.”

Apparently, the therapy consisted of taking a whole kitchen sink’s worth of musical influences and interests — from punk to crust to metal to garage rock to backwoods mandolin melodies —  and letting them spill out in a flood of exuberant creativity.

After I wrote the review, I talked with the band’s vocalist/guitarist Steve Sherwood about doing an interview. Almost eighteen months later, it happened, via e-mail. There’s a reason why the slow loris is the mascot of this site. All live photos accompanying this interview were taken by John Mourlas.

Continue reading »

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