AN NCS INTERVIEW: DANIEL BERGSTRÖM (VILDHJARTA)

 Interviews  9 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

(In what must have been one of the high points of his year, NCS writer TheMadIsraeli got the chance to do an e-mail interview of Daniel Bergström, the guitarist and principal song-writer for Sweden’s Vildhjarta and the producer of the band’s massively popular debut album, Måsstaden (reviewed here). In what follows, a discussion about chick-slaying and chainsaws, personal shittiness, gear, and the meaning of That Word. Here you go.)

TMI:  So, here we are: I and you guys, the mighty Vildhjarta, the gods of thallism, the magicians of massive, gravity-intensifying groove. How does it feel to release your first album?

DB:  feels pretty sweet, wasnt sure if anyone was gonna understand it but the reception’s been sehr gut.

TMI:  Is thall truly indeed thall?

DB:  thall

TMI:  Obscure word aside, if we go back and look at your catalogue of songs it’s obvious that your sound underwent a major overhaul for Måsstaden, so much so that it seems intentional. Was this the case or was it truly a natural progression? If intentional, why did you set out to undergo such a change? If natural, do you feel you’ve found your sound, or that this is merely a stepping stone in achieving sonic enlightenment of your identity as one cohesive thall?

DB:  i always want to try new things and see where it goes. i often get bored pretty quickly with the stuff i write so it’s pretty unintentional in that sense i think, everything has to sound new and crazy to my ears. Continue reading »

DAT GRUVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  35 Responses »
Dec 112011
 

Nature or nurture?  Present from birth or learned behavior?  When it comes to the impulse to move to a groove, it’s pretty clear that human beings are hard-wired to do it.  The following video is further evidence of that.

But the following video is evidence of other things, too:  that if exposed to metal at an early age, before their psyches are corrupted by pop music, children will get it immediately; that in addition to the impulse to move to a groove, the impulse to headbang is also hard-wired; and that Vildhjarta’s master plan to take over the world within the space of a single generation is proceeding successfully.

We’ve all seen other examples of this kind of “metal kids” video before, but this is the best one I’ve seen, because this young dude has definitely got some moves . . . and because of the headbang thing.

According to the description below the video clip, the guy who made it had some friends over to his place and decided to play some of his tunes for one of their kids. Watch what happens. Continue reading »

VILDHJARTA: “MÅSSTADEN”

 Album Reviews  20 Responses »
Dec 022011
 

(The Madithraeli . . . uh, TheMadIsraeli . . . hath entered a thtate of thalldom to write thith enthuthiathtic review of the debut album by Sweden’s Vildhjarta. I feel compelled by unknown fortheth to thay: THALL!)

MASSIVE


FUCKING


BRUTHALLITY!


Alright, so we have a band here who have named themselves after a Swedish Dungeons & Dragons expansion about an ancient magical forest, have invented a word that has no veri-fucking-fiable definition that makes ANY SENSE and insert it into everything, and have pulled off one of the most notable changes in sound in the last five years.  But let’s get a refresher on what really matters… Continue reading »

THE THALL MEME

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  21 Responses »
Dec 012011
 

Definitions of the words in the title to this post from The Oxford English Dictionary (online):

MEME

noun
an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.

Origin:

1970s: from Greek mimēma ‘that which is imitated’, on the pattern of gene

Word trends:

When Richard Dawkins coined the word meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he wanted a word like gene that conveyed the way in which ideas and behaviour spread within society by non-genetic means. Since then the word has been picked up to describe a piece of information spread by email or via blogs and social networking sites. A meme can be almost anything—a joke, a video clip, a cartoon, a news story—and can also evolve as it spreads, with users editing the content or adding comments. Common collocates in the Oxford English Corpus are spread, pass, and transmit: as with the Internet sense of  viral, meme uses the metaphor of disease and infection

THALL

Ask Vildhjarta, because I have no fucking idea. Continue reading »

V-DAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 242011
 

I bet all of the non-U.S. readers of NCS and other U.S.-based metal blogs are getting sick of reading about Thanksgiving and turkey. Don’t worry, because by nightfall, many of your U.S. compatriots will be sick, too, having stuffed themselves with too much traditional grub and fallen into tryptophan comas, unable to rouse themselves even to go to the bathroom, and therefore wallowing in their own waste. Wallowing in my own waste is actually one of the highlights of Thanksgiving Day for me, but I realize that it’s uncomfortable for other people.

Where was I? Oh yeah. V-Day. “V” is for Vektor and Vildhjarta. “V” is also for “Vhat the vuck? Vhy did I eat so much vucking turkey? Vould someone kill me now?”

Vektor and Vildhjarta have new albums. They are both veddy good. Ve vill have re-Views soonish. But for now, ve have streams of both albums. So, U.S. readers will have good music to ease the pain emanating from their distended abdomens. And non-U.S. readers will have good music to ease their other pains, because life is inherently painful, and therefore we all have pain of one kind or another (except for me, because I will soon be happily wallowing in my own waste). This is actually the true meaning of Thanksgiving: what Americans are really doing today is expressing thanks for not being in more pain than they are already in.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Vektor and Vildhjarta. Go HERE to stream Vektor’s Outer Isolation and go HERE to stream Vildhjarta’s Måsstaden. And in other news, someone finally uploaded Vildhjarta’s “Dagger” video to YouTube so we no longer have to experience frustration trying to play the thing from Metal Hammer’s wonky player. That video is after the jump.

Also after the jump: two Vektor songs from Outer Isolation that you can stream right here in case you missed them earlier, and a collection of older Vildhjarta stuff for streaming right here, too. Continue reading »

I SAW YOU NAKED THIS WEEKEND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  38 Responses »
Nov 202011
 

Nah, just kidding. I didn’t really see you naked this weekend. I just wanted to get your attention. And by the way, those of you who felt a little thrill at the idea of me seeing you naked, please don’t send me photos of you in the nude; I’m pretty sure you’re the ones I do NOT want to see naked.

What I did see were new videos that I thought were worth sharing. Still catching up on what I missed while on vacation, I found:

  • A new official video from Chthonic for the song “Quell the Souls in Sing Ling Temple” from the band’s latest album, the excellent Takasago Army (reviewed at NCS here); it was posted to YouTube on November 17 (thanks to TNOTB for this one)
  • A video of Textures performing “Consonant Hemispheres” on Dutch television on November 18; the song is from the band’s 2011 album Dualism (reviewed at NCS here)
  • A video of Vader performing “I Am Who Feasts Upon Your Soul” at a club in Liverpool, England, on November 10; the song is from Vader’s latest album Welcome To the Morbid Reich (reviewed at NCS here)
  • “A new fan-filmed video of Italy’s Hour of Penance performing a scorching new song called “Sedition Through Scorn” (posted on November 15)
  • “A new video for the song “Dagger” from Vildhjarta’s new album Masstaden, which hasn’t yet been reviewed at NCS — but will be soon; I’m putting this one last because the site that’s streaming it hasn’t devoted enough bandwidth to make this thing play reliably

All these videos are available after the jump. Get naked and watch them. Continue reading »

A BRUTAL ASS MORNING (Part 2)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Nov 062011
 


(I had a few hiccups with yesterday’s posts because I was hurrying to get them formatted and scheduled for appearance while at the same time trying to bolt from my abode for the vacation I am now enjoying. One of my hiccups was to post only half of a piece that TheMadIsraeli had sent me called “A Brutal Ass Morning”. So, pretending that I did that on purpose, today we’re running “Part 2” of that two-part post.)

I featured Rooks in a little EP download package I posted a long-ass time ago (here) which included their debut EP Infinite. I completely forgot they were coming out with a second EP Infinite II, and it completely passed me by. It’s more of the same brutally-pissed-off-as-all-consuming-fuck djeathcore that attracted me to them in the first place. How anyone can deny the power behind this music is beyond me. I also enjoy the fact that the lyrics of the tune I’m including — “Bounce” — are basically a vehement mission statement against black metal bands. You can check out Rooks on Facebook here. And there are more bands and music to come after this clip:

(moar after the jump . . .)
Continue reading »

ADIOS MOTHERFUCKERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  21 Responses »
Nov 042011
 

I like vacations. First, there is very little working. Very little working is a good thing. I would be very happy with very little working from now until the end of time as I know it. Second, there is very much eating, drinking, and sleeping. These are also good things. I could do them until the end of time as I know it, until I become one of those people who gets so enormously fat and atrophied that emergency workers have to bust down the wall of the house and use a crane just to remove the corpse after the last filthy breath of life has passed the lips.

Third, if I am a good boy and play my cards right, there may be carnal activity with Mrs. Islander in between bouts of eating, drinking, and sleeping. Fourth, there will be beautiful clouds, of which I will take many photos during the few hours when I am awake, some of which I will share with you, because having your head in the clouds is a good thing and should be experienced more frequently.

Fifth, vacations are an excuse for me to solicit guest posts for NCS, of which I have received many already. You’ve seen some of them already this week, even though I have not yet left on vacation but instead have been working like a fucking orc under the heavy whip hand of the Dark Lord of Mordor. But what you’ve seen this week is just the tip of the iceberg — there are some juicy ones coming your way in the weeks ahead (in addition to new material from Andy Synn, BadWolf, and TheMadIsraeli). And by the way, there is still time to send me guest posts, so don’t be bashful.

Yes, I will still have some limited time for blogging activity, such as the time necessary to format and post guest pieces and maybe even to write some quick things myself. However, I am not going to push my luck with blogging time between now and my return to the NCS metallic island on Nov 18 (see note above re being a good boy, in hopes of carnal activity with Mrs. Islander).

So, with this post I bid you all a fond farewell.  Before this day is out, I will be winging my way to a distant land where life is sloooooow and there will be eating, drinking, sleeping, clouds, and perhaps carnal activity. I leave you with a random collection of music I missed while working like an orc over the past week: After the jump, new/newish videos from Vildhjarta (Sweden), Bury Your Dead (U.S.), and Exhumed (U.S.), and a new song from GoreGazm (South Africa). Continue reading »

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