Apr 012020
 

 

We have SO MUCH planned for your enjoyment at NCS today, but I made a last-minute decision to begin with this interactive post (at least I hope it will become interactive).

Last night a metalhead friend sent me a Facebook message asking: “If you happen to have some scuzzy, vile, positively abrasive new music that you can put up or recommend my way, I’d certainly appreciate the fuck out of it.” I have my own plentiful stockpile of such stuff, but I thought I’d reach out for other ideas. So I posted his request on FB and asked for recommendations. I mentioned that I didn’t think my friend was a big black metal fan, so suggested that BM should probably be filtered out of the suggestions. Other than that, I asked people to open up the sewers on me.

And I did get suggestions, which I decided to leave below. And I further decided this morning to make an open call to anyone reading this post to leave your own recommendations in the Comments for our mutual benefit (but here there’s no need for you to filter out black metal). So go ahead, open up the sewers on me — and remember that the subject of the request is for scuzzy, vile, positively abrasive that’s NEW (or at least new-ish). Continue reading »

Mar 192020
 

 

This is not a scam. It is Skam, a one-man Swedish band whose name (we’re told) means “great dishonor, shame, or humiliation”. It is (we’re further told) “an act of catharsis through music” whose “main purpose is the releasing of stress while lamenting the world’s declining mental health and the obscene amount of suicides caused by it”.

This is not idle talk, because the band and their label Redefining Darkness Records are making digital copies of Skam‘s album Sounds Of A Disease available for $1.00 “as a means of therapy for those who may benefit from it”. And upon the album’s April 3rd release date the digital version will be free.

The characterization of the music as “an act of catharsis” isn’t idle talk either. As a means of exorcising your own demons, this amalgamation of grindcore and death metal (with influences from d-beat punk) is absolutely explosive, as you’ll discover through today’s premiere of a track called “Shit Out of Luck“. Continue reading »