Jun 182013
 

Boston’s phenomenally good Revocation have a new, self-titled album scheduled for release by Relapse Records on August 6. (It’s available for pre-order here.) Within the last hour the first advance track from the album exploded on YouTube. The song’s name is “The Hive” and damned if it doesn’t sound like a hive full of thrashed-up hornets swarming in a syncopated dance, bursting with venom and slightly delirious. A couple of those hornets bust out a sweet guitar solo, too.

Damned fine song, which you can hear next: Continue reading »

May 232013
 

Last night I was talking with my NCS comrade DGR about the fact that we never just copy and paste PR announcements, and about how uninteresting we find most announcements about new music that don’t include actual music. But of course there are exceptions, such as the two featured in this post, where the artwork alone is enough to catch my interest. Also, I’m more inclined to make exceptions when I’ve been out carousing late the night before and have awakened with a hammering hangover and all of today’s posts in various stages of incompletion. Hypothetically speaking, of course. I’m not saying I did that last night. But would you please speak very, very softly for the next few hours?

REVOCATION

I have no new music from Revocation to share with you, unless you count the few song fragments that appear in the studio videos I’m going to stick in this post. What I do have is the artwork (above) for their fourth album, which I really like. It’s by Orion Landau, who has created album covers for the likes of Dying Fetus, Obscura, and Nile.

I also have a release date: August 6 (via Relapse). I have the track list, but I don’t know who really cares about song titles. There are ten of them. I also have the album title: its name is Revocation.

And then I have those two studio videos that have been released so far, plus I have tour dates. Most of these dates are for the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour. Come to think of it, I don’t think we’ve yet posted the SUMMER SLAUGHTER schedule, so that might be interesting to some of you. Mainly I’m writing about Revocation because I’m a big fan. Also, could you please try whispering? Continue reading »

Oct 112012
 

 

The engineers at Scion have apparently figured out how to make time machines as well as cars. I know this because yesterday Scion A/V released video footage of a reunion show by Boston’s Revocation from the year 2055. The clip shows them performing “The Grip Tightens” from the band’s new EP Teratogenesis. The song seems to have stood the test of time, because all the geezers in the nursing home where Revocation crank up the song seem to be diggin’ it.

It’s really good to see that the guys have stayed together over the course of many decades, and that they can still cause women to throw their panties during shows. They’re still pretty spry, too, for a bunch of old fuckers. Sure, they need some oxygen supplementation and added dietary fiber, along with the occasional helping hand from the nursing staff, but fuck, they can still really bring the shred.

“The Grip Tightens” is a mind-blowing song. The video, directed by David Brodsky, is a really big smile, too — one of the year’s best. Don’t miss the cameo performance by guitarist Evan Duplessis from Sexcrement as Dr. PeePaw. Watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

Oct 082012
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli reviews the Scion A/V release of a new EP by one of our favorite bands, Boston’s Revocation.)

I’m just gonna put this out there: Scion A/V are my heroes.

So we’ve got a new FREE EP from hybrid deathrash hoplites Revocation titled Teratogenesis.  I don’t even know what the fuck that title means, but I love the album art and this EP contains some of the best music Revocation have written so far.  The assault of Teratogenesis is definitely more brutal and more focused as compared to the band’s last opus, Chaos of Forms, which I reviewed last year.

It seems that when a band does an EP, especially if it consists of material meant only for that EP, the result tends to be more intense.  I like this situation, because it’s here when a band just goes completely balls-deep with the more brutal aspects of their sound.  As such, don’t expect to find anything on Teratogenesis comparable to the more experimental numbers found on Chaos of Forms.

Teratogenesis is nothing but an adrenaline rush of hyper-speed fusion metal that definitely brings more of Revocation’s thrash influences to the forefront.  Everything else Revocation are known for is still here, it’s just that apparently they wanted to write something fast as fuck, which this EP definitely is.  Continue reading »

Sep 212012
 

Sifting through what the interhole brung me this morning, here are things I saw and heard that I thought were worth sharing with you. Fair warning: musically, this shit is all over the place, including places outside of metal (gasp!).

NEUROSIS

This band have a new album set for release in Germany on October 26, in the rest of Europe on October 29, and in North America on October 30, just in time to scare the shit out of small and adult-sized children on Halloween. The album is named Honor Found In Decay. The band themselves are calling it “their pinnacle studio effort”, which scares me. I witnessed a live Neurosis performance last year for the first time, and for the first time in my life I wanted to kill myself by the end of it. Do I want that feeling again?

That was a rhetorical question. Though I’d rather not have that feeling again, I can’t help but be drawn to this new album, especially after hearing the track that NPR premiered this morning. Its name is “At the Well” and it’s mesmerizing. It falls down on your head with cataclysmic impact and it shimmers with ethereal light and it rumbles and rolls like an avalanche. It’s agonizing and it grooves and it’s loaded with interesting synthesized sounds. It did not make me feel suicidal.

It’s very much worth hearing. Go to THIS PLACE to do that. Continue reading »

Sep 202012
 

(Andy Synn journeyed to Birmingham, UK, to take in The Womb To Waste Tour and wrote this review of the experience. Andy has also provided us with video of each band’s performance.)

So here’s the thing. Myself and my good buddy Tim (also of Bloodguard fame) decided, kind of at the last minute, to head to this show over in Birmingham (those who pussied out know who they are, but I won’t shame them by naming them…). Now Birmingham isn’t all that far from where we live, except in rush-hour, which pretty much doubles your travelling time. I’m telling you this to explain why we missed Cerebral Bore, who I know have a fair few fans on this site. As it stands, we got there just as they were starting their last song, so I took the chance to hit the empty bar and check out the merch stand, before finding a good spot to watch Revocation.

 

REVOCATION

Revocation being the only band I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing live before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, particularly as the band’s insane fusion of day-glo techno thrash, proggy song-structures, and black/death hybrid heaviness is the sort of foolhardy mixing and matching that often leaves me cold in the live arena. Thank god then for the band’s boundless confidence and enthusiasm, which certainly helped each song come across as more than just a series of good ideas thrown together, every track delivering an array of heavy, head-banging riffs, wild, madcap drumming, and sizzling solo work, while jumping around all over the metal map. Continue reading »

Sep 142012
 

One last post for this Friday, with a focus on recently announced U.S./Canada tours.

First, it was announced today that Nachtmystium will be headlining the Dawn Over the Ruins of America tour, which also includes Jarboe (featuring Baleyyg) and Canada’s Weapon. All of the dates have not yet been released, but the ones that have are after the jump. Also, although I know Jarboe used to be in Swans, that’s about the extent of my knowledge about her work, and I know zip about Baleyyg. So if anyone has any insights, leave a comment. Nachtmystium and Weapon, of course, are must-see bands for yours truly. (Thanks to Utmu and Vonlughlio for the tip about this one.)

Second, Boston’s mighty Revocation will be headlining a tour, and A Life Once Lost and KEN Mode will be along for that ride. I’ve almost lost count of how many times I’ve seen Revocation, because they tour like there’s no tomorrow, and every damned show has been killer. And if you saw tomorrow’s earlier post about ALOL, well, you know how I feel about them. KEN Mode is another band I am very interested in seeing. Those dates are also after the jump.

Third, Lambgoat is reporting that Dying Fetus will be touring late this year with Cattle Decapitation and Cerebral Bore in tow. There’s been no official announcement, but Lambgoat has ferreted out three venues where this line-up has been announced so far. I’ll just sum up my thoughts about this tour as follows: HELLS FUCKING YEAH! Continue reading »

Jun 212012
 

 

(Last night . . . June 20, 2012 . . . Seattle . . .)

Met some old friends and some new ones at The Honey Hole after work (yeah, that’s the name of the place, no lie).  Shot the shit. Had some adult beverages.  Had half a samitch , made on a crusty French roll with sliced steak, goat cheese, peppers, pesto, and some other shit. Awesome.

The new friends urged me to try a soup with a name I can’t pronounce. Had a cup of that. Was made with hot curry, coconut, cream, veggies, chicken, and I don’t know what else. Extra awesome. Had a second cup, with more adult beverages. Told the pretty lady from the kitchen who made it that it gave me an orgasm. May not have actually used the word “orgasm”, but same concept. She brought me a cup of cheese soup with broccoli in it. And people say men can’t have multiple orgasms.

Reluctantly left the Honey Hole before trying the third kind of soup on offer.  Drove with the old friends to Studio Seven. Got there in time to have a beer and a shot before Revocation’s set. Fourth time I’ve heard them, never gets old.

Listened to a couple of songs from the balcony bar while taking pics, then went down to the floor and locked myself in about two feet from the stage in front of David Davidson. Whole band was firing on all cylinders, and then some. Realized again what a fuckin’ wizard Davidson is. Pretty sure I levitated. Pit would start up and then kind of stop, cuz people just couldn’t help but stare. The downside of being so damned brilliant.

Bought a Revocation shirt, so they can eat. Plus the shirt is awful fine. Went outside with the friends to smoke cigarettes and watch the beautiful people in all their black finery. More beer afterward. Then Dying Fetus began to crank it up. Continue reading »

Dec 082011
 

“The name of this game is death fucking metal, the kind that rampages like a heartless, mechanized beast the size of a house. The music slams and hammers with advanced pneumatics, interwoven with snakelike guitar leads and bounding bass lines. It’s fast and technical, and the vocals are downright voracious. Very fucking impressive, and possibly originating from space.”

That’s what I wrote in our review of the new EP from a Long Island, NY band called Artificial Brain, which includes Revocation guitarist Dan Gargiulo, possibly may include ex-Biolich vocalist Will Smith, and others whose identities I haven’t yet discovered with certainty. I wrote other things, too, but I’m pretty sure I was under the influence of biomechanoid larva from space who Artificial Brain keep as pets and use to infiltrate the weak-minded.

Wait, that didn’t come out right.  Anyway, whatever the fucking things are that wormed into my brain stem when I listened to the EP, those things have returned and are acting as receptors of microwave transmissions from space. I feel like something is crawling under my skin and looking out through my eyes with multifaceted cornea. Milky white foam is coming out my nose and dropping onto my keyboard.

I also hear a massive mechanized noise that’s starting to crack the walls in my home. I think it’s the sound of the new Artificial Brain video for “Tongues”, the one song from the EP I didn’t stream with my review. The EP is still available for free download at the Artificial Brain Bandcamp page. The video is after the jump. The green slime is coming out of my ears again. My brain is in a mixer. Continue reading »

Oct 212011
 

I just wanted to use my favorite word in a post title today. Actually, that’s only part of the reason for this. The other part is that I saw Chimaira last night, headlining a show in Seattle that included Impending Doom and Revocation. Chimaira played “Power Trip” and about 10 other songs.

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/04-Power-Trip-Album-Version.mp3|titles=Chimaira – Power Trip (Album Version)]

After full audio immersion in the music of those three bands, my neck muscles were so destroyed when I woke up this morning that I had to strap on the custom-designed NCS neck brace, the one with the heated gel packs on the inside and the drinking straw attached to a pouch of chilled Stoli.

Chimaira had the strobe lights flashing and the smoke machine pumping and Sean Z (Daath) on keyboards, carpet-bombing the crowd with more bass drops than I’ve ever heard before and growling backing vox, and it was fucking glorious. A packed crowd on the floor was in non-stop mosh mode, and the Chimaira dudes looked like they were having the time of their lives on stage. And speaking of glorious . . . Continue reading »