Jul 192012
 

We’re all toiling away here at NCS on various projects, none of which are quite yet finished for this morning. Actually, to be brutally honest, I was sleeping instead of toiling away, and before that I was fucking off. I have no idea what the other idiots who work here have been doing, and I use the term “work” loosely, since nobody gets paid shit for scribbling about metal at NCS. Actually, I do have an idea what they’ve been doing, and it’s called “life”, which is bullshit because having no life is one of the key qualifications for “working” at NCS, and they all checked the “has no life” box on the NCS “employment” application, so what’s up with that?

Anyway, I haz nothing at the moment, so I’m doing this: I’m playing for you two excellent old songs plus some covers of them that I found this morning. I love these songs, and so it goes without saying that you love them, too. So we will all feel the love this morning, and then we can all do what we do when we feel the strong love, which in most cases will involve some kind of autoerotic satisfaction (and yes, you may take photos, but you may not send them to me because I don’t want to spoil my appetite before breakfast).

The first song is “Slave New World” by Sepultura, and I’m talking old-school Sepultura, from 1993’s Chaos A.D. You, of course, know this song and love it as much as I do, because it is such a great fuckin’ metal song. I think you will also like the cover of the song that Norway’s Dead Trooper did back in 2010, because I like it a bunch. I like it better than the cover Trivium did (also in 2010), though their cover still sounds good, because the riffs in this song are so damned compelling. I just like the original Max Cavalera vocals and the Dead Trooper vocals better.

The second song is “Forhekset” by Satyricon, from their 1996 Nemesis Divina album. It’s another great song, though I’m guessing many people would pick “Mother North” as the best song on that album. But anyway, today I saw a new video by a Québec band named Haeres performing a cover of “Forhekset” live back in March. I really like the cover — it’s not a carbon copy of the original, and it sounds really good. Continue reading »

Feb 102012
 

Thanks to Black Shuck for the tip on this news item. I’d seen the news about this tour last week before any details were available, but now we’ve got the schedule.

Three-quarters of this line-up get me hot and bothered — the quarters that consist of Death Angel, Krisiun, and Havok. I’ve been lucky enough to see Death Angel before, and I can testify that they are a blast to hear and watch. Krisiun is, well, Krisiun — some death metal heroes of mine that I’ve been hoping to see for years (and who ought to be at the top of this tour instead of a “support” act). And Havok is one of the few new thrash bands whose music doesn’t make me yawn after a while.

And that leaves Krisiun’s countrymen in Sepultura. If this were the Sepultura of the Cavalera brothers at their peak, the band that created albums like Arise, that would be one thing. But it’s not. I was so underwhelmed by A-Lex (2009) that I didn’t even listen to last year’s Kairos. Maybe that was a mistake, because I’ve since heard that it was a big step up (was it?). So, while I may not yet be hot and bothered by the idea of seeing Sepultura, I’m at least interested, and this tour will give me an excuse to see what Kairos is all about before it hits Seattle.

Yes, it’s coming to Seattle, and to 18 more cities in the U.S. and Canada (though it seems to be spurning the entire southern half of the U.S.). The schedule is after the jump. Continue reading »

Apr 022011
 


Technically, we should have posted this yesterday, but yesterday was April Fool’s Day, and people might have thought we were making up some of this shit. But it’s all true, and nothing happens on April 2 to plant doubt about truth. Except for what causes doubt to be planted about truth on any other day of the year.

Here we are at the beginning of the second quarter of 2011 — the time when for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is supposed to spring.  Where I live, spring has apparently been victimized by a brutal street mugging and is hospitalized at the moment.  A few plants have been deluded into thinking it’s spring, but for the rest of our local world, it’s still fucking winter.

Fortunately, the change of the seasons have fuck all to do with the release of metal. What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days (or in this case, the last 31 days) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming New Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. There’s some awesome shit on the way. Dive in after the jump. Continue reading »

Dec 012010
 

November is now in our rear-view mirror. December lies ahead of us: A perfectly good stretch of road marred by the speed bumps of the cataclysm that is Christmas. And on the other side of those speed bumps is the end of the year – the roadkill that is New Year’s Eve. And you know what the run-up to year-end brings — year-end lists. It’s already started, but the coming weeks will bring us a slew of Best of 2010 album lists. We’ll probably do our own Best of 2010 list — not the best albums of the year, but, as we did last year, the most infectious extreme metal songs of the year.

But we’re not quite ready to launch that list. Instead, we’re looking off into the future, not backward at the music that’s rattled our skulls over the past year. Yes, it’s time for another monthly installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, in which we cobble together a list of forthcoming new albums, cribbing like rag-gatherers and lint-pickers from PR releases and metal news sites like Blabbermouth in order to construct a line-up of new music that we’re interested in hearing.

All of our previous monthly updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages, and because we’re not keeping a cumulative list, you might want to check the last couple months of these posts if you want to get a full picture of what’s coming. The list that follows, in alphabetical order, are albums we didn’t know about at the time of our last installment, or updated info about albums we’d previously heard were on the way. After the jump, of course . . .

Continue reading »

May 242010
 

Musica Diablo is a relatively new band based in São Paulo, Brazil, with a self-titled debut album due for release on May 28. Three things grabbed our attention. First, the band’s vocalist is Derrick Green, who’s been the frontman for Sepultura since 1997.  Second, the band describes its music as “extreme fast thrash metal, with with the characteristic Brazilian style and a strong root into the 80’s veteran veterans.” Third, the forthcoming album features a cool cover (above) by Gustavo Sazes, who has also done album art for Arch Enemy, God Forbid, and Old Man’s Child.

That was enough to draw our attention to the music. We’ve been listening, and let’s just say it will kick your ass all the way up to your shoulder-blades. The music is blistering in its intensity and speed and features some cool dueling guitar solos — and Derrick Green’s raspy howls and guttural growls are skull-scrapingly vicious.

Musica Diablo was started by guitarist Andre NM (of Brazilian hardcore band Nitrominds) in early 2008, and the rest of the line-up consists of drummer Edu Nicollini (also of Nitrominds),  second guitarist André Curci (KorzusThreat), and bassist Ricardo Brigas.  The band’s new album is currently streaming in its entirety at a Brazilian internet site called Radio UOL, which you can find at this location.

But you don’t have to go there just yet, because after the jump, we’ve got a widget that will allow you to listen to five of the album’s 11 songs right here at the NCS site. Seriously, you owe it to yourself to check this shit out.  (more after the jump .  .  .) Continue reading »

May 182010
 

We haven’t been huge fans of the music produced in the past by Soulfly, the band that Max Cavalera started after leaving Sepultura in 1996. But Soulfly’s new album Omen (due for a May 25 release on Roadrunner) is currently streaming in its entirety, and we’ve been listening.  Rather than try to describe it today, let’s just say it’s sick — and let you hear it for yourselves, for as long as this stream lasts (to get to the music player, which starts playing automatically, move on after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

May 012010
 

We’re now a full four months into 2010, and it’s time for our fourth update to the list of forthcoming new albums we posted on January 1. (See the original list here, the first update here, the second update here, and the third update here.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases that we didn’t know about on January 1 or at the time of our last three updates (or that we’ve found updated information about) — and the new sickness is still spreading in epidemic proportions.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re old school like us, just get em tattooed someplace you can see without a mirror (because reading stuff backwards is hard).

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS: “Abigail Williams have completed recording of individual performances for their still untitled second full-length. Captured at Conquistador Studios in Cleveland, Ohio, eight new songs were laid down with vocalist/guitarist Ken Sorceron and engineer Cole Martinez controlling the audio takes. The songs are currently being mixed by Peter Tagtgren (Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, Celtic Frost) and are expected to be completed later this month.”

ABYSMAL DAWN: “Los Angeles-based metallers ABYSMAL DAWN will enter Trench Studio in Corona, California in May with producer John Haddad (PHOBIA, INTRONAUT, HIRAX) to begin recording their new album for a tentative fall release via Relapse Records. The follow-up to Programmed To Consume will be mixed by Erik Rutan (HATE ETERNAL, VITAL REMAINS, CANNIBAL CORPSE) at his Mana Recording Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida.”  (the list continues after the jump .  .) Continue reading »