Panopticon Archives - Page 5 of 5

A PANOPTICON UPDATE: NEW ALBUM DETAILS

Oct 282013

I didn’t discover Panopticon until Kentucky, but that’s all it took to turn me into a big fan. I distinctly remember my mouth falling open in wonder more than once as I made my way through it the first time, hearing the movement of the songs between the metal and the bluegrass, recognizing the samples from Harlan County U.S.A., understanding what the album was about. It connected with me on many levels, some of them opening up distant memories of the music my grandparents used to play when I was growing up in central Texas.

I didn’t really need any more reasons to start following Panopticon’s doings, but I got more when I heard the three tracks that Panopticon contributed to a split with Vestiges earlier this year. At least I wrote about that split, even though I fell down on the job with Kentucky; that split is one of the best releases I’ve heard this year.

All of that is by way of background, to explain why I’m writing now about an announcement that appeared on Panopticon’s Facebook page last night. It provides a lot of information about the next Panopticon album, to which I’ll add a few other tidbits of information I’ve picked up. Here’s the announcement: Continue reading »

THE VESTIGES / PANOPTICON SPLIT: A REVIEW

May 262013

Two of the most interesting and musically original U.S. extreme metal bands now going, Vestiges and Panopticon, have teamed up for a split release that became available as a digital download two days ago, with vinyl to come. If you know anything about these bands, then chances are your expectations will be high — and you won’t be disappointed.

VESTIGES

This Washington, DC, band have dedicated themselves to a long-term musical narrative about man’s degradation of nature and the consequences that has brought, and will bring. The story began in their excellent 2010 album The Descent of Man, with songs named after chapter headings — “I” through “V”. The story continued with chapter VI in a 2011 split release with Ghaust, and then around the beginning of this year they began streaming the next two chapters, “VII” and “VIII”, on their web page and Bandcamp. Those most recent two songs are the Vestiges contributions to this current split with Panopticon.

The two songs flow seamlessly from one to the next, making them essentially one piece of music exceeding 18 minutes in length. It casts a dark, powerful spell. “VII” could be thought of as an extended overture. It’s almost entirely instrumental, beginning with droning ambient sounds and emphatic piano chords and then adding huge, prolonged bass notes and eventually the clash and march of cymbals and snare drum. It builds in volume and intensity until the music explodes at the beginning of “VIII”. Continue reading »

NEWNESS: DYING FETUS, BLACKLODGE, AND PANOPTICON

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

May 232012

Come on now, you didn’t really think I was going to let a new Dying Fetus song pass by, did you? I’ve been a little slow on the draw lately, but I can still clear the holster. And yes, there’s a new Dying Fetus song that’s been released for public streaming. It’s called “From Womb To Waste”, and of course it appears on the Reign Supreme album that will be released on June 19. It’s really good.

In fact, I’ll just go ahead and be a douchebag and say that the whole damned album is really fuckin’ good. In fact, it’s definitely in the running for the best death metal album of the year. Speaking of which, because I have such a hard time comparing albums and ranking them, I’ve decided that I’m going to use a loris race to rank the best death metal albums of 2012. I’ll round up a bunch of them from the NCS loris compound, tie band names around their necks, and let them race for the finish line.

Of course, they’re really fuckin’ slow, so I’ll have to start the race in, like, August. That will be hard on the bands who release albums in the last four months of the year, but I don’t feel too bad about that because it’s not like bands are waiting around holding their breaths to see if they make the NCS year-end list, especially since we’ve never had an NCS year-end list.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the new Dying Fetus song. It debuted at AltPress. I borrowed their little player to stream the song after the jump. There’s more new music after the jump, too — from Blacklodge and Panopticon. Continue reading »

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