AN NCS INTERVIEW: JONNY PETTERSSON (MASSACRE, WOMBBATH)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 242021
 

 

(It seems that Swedish songwriter, musician, and vocalist Jonny Pettersson is always extremely busy. This year he participated in a new album by Massacre recently released by Nuclear Blast, a new album by Wombbath that’s coming out in late December via Transcending Obscurity, and a lot more. In this new interview NCS contributor Karina Noctum caught up with him to discuss these events.)

Massacre has always been one of my preferred bands when it comes to American DM, so when I heard that a new album was finally in the making, it was pretty awesome news. It became even more interesting upon learning that there were talented and experienced Swedish and Norwegian musicians participating in on the album. So I took the opportunity to talk with Jonny Pettersson, not only about Massacre’s Resurgence, but also about Wombbath’s upcoming release, Agma, which is definitely a must for fans of Swedish DM. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOMBBATH — “THE SEVENTH SEAL”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Nov 012021
 

What do you do if you have mastered a particular art form? Some artists would just happily continue doing what they had mastered, on the theory that success breeds more success and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Others might retire and rest on their laurels. But some might create new challenges for themselves by focusing their energies on how to make what they had mastered sound different and new. And that’s what the Swedish death metal band Wombbath have done on their new album, Agma.

It should go without saying by now that Wombbath have mastered the art form of old-school HM-2-powered Swedish-style death metal. They got an early start on their mastery in the mid-’90s, went away for about 20 years, and then resumed work with 2015’s Downfall Rising. Since then founding guitarist Håkan Stuvemark and a new group of very talented comrades have pumped out three more albums which collectively proved, in increasingly convincing ways, that they were on very sure footing.

But now we have Agma, which is brimming with new ideas, so many of them that it’s a double-album, encompassing 16 tracks and more than an hour and 12 minutes of music. We are revealing one of those today in advance of Agma‘s December 31st release by Transcending Obscurity Records, a late date that we hope won’t cause Agma to be overlooked on EOY lists, because it can certainly lay just claim to be included. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): LOCK UP, MASSACRE, MASTODON, MIRE, ORANSSI PAZUZU, SARKE, SELBST, WOMBBATH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 032021
 

 

And now to conclude the big round-up of new songs and videos I started here earlier today. I’m continuing to arrange everything in alphabetical order by band name, picking up where Part 1 ended, and continuing to add only scattered comments instead of more effusive verbiage.

LOCK UP (Sweden)

Last weekend I started a round-up with the same cover art you see above, though at that time there was no music. Now there is, along with a video made by Chariot of Black Moth. The song is from Lock Up‘s new album The Dregs of Hades (November 26, Listenable Records), and includes vocals from Kevin Sharp (Venomous Concept, ex-Brutal Truth) was well as Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates). Prepare for screaming, scathing, hammering death/grind madness. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AT THE GATES, BEFORE THE DAWN, WOMBBATH, FRACTAL UNIVERSE, SEEMING EMPTINESS, IMPURE WILHELMINA, HESPER PAYNE, CULTES DES GHOULES, GRAVE MIASMA, VILDHJARTA, PERTURBATOR, MAGGOT CROWN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 012021
 

 

It’s been a long time since I resorted to this Overflowing Streams format for spreading the word about new music I’ve enjoyed, but last week seemed more even more insane than usual — just a ton of new tracks were revealed by old gods, new gods, and assorted minor demons. As bloated as the following collection may seem, it’s still far from complete — I’ll include a few more in tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column.

Without further ado, here we go with lots of sights sounds and not many words, though I do encourage you to add your own in the Comments.

AT THE GATES

Speaking of old gods, I might have included the news about Darkthrone album No. 19 (Eternal Hails), but there’s no music yet, so I’ll wait. You can peep the cover art here. But among the old gods, At the Gates did give us a new song, and I had to lead with it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOMBBATH — “THE FLESHLY EXISTENCE OF MAN”

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Oct 142020
 

 

Few bands this year, or in any year, can celebrate the 30th anniversary of their inception. Sweden’s Wombbath is one of those rarities, having come into being in the ancient year of 1990. Like many bands, including the few extreme metal bands who still survive from that era, Wombbath did not have an unbroken path to the present. But following an extended hiatus that began not long after the release of their 1993 debut album Internal Caustic Torments, they made a tremendous return with 2015’s Downfall Rising and have been on a tear ever since then. The Great Desolation followed in 2018, and on December 18th of this waning year Transcending Obscurity Records will release a new Wombbath full-length entitled Tales of Madness. The band announced the new record with these words:

“We are proud to announce this very special release. 2020 marks 30 years since the birth of the band, and with this release we cement those 30 years with a retrospective look at our history, all dressed in what makes up Wombbath right now. Through pauses and style changes the core of Wombbath has always been death metal, and this release marks both the past and the future of our legacy!”

We could not be happier to premiere the first single fro the new album today, a seductive sonic slaughterer named “The Fleshly Existence of Man“. Continue reading »

A DOUBLE REVIEW (PART 2): WOMBBATH — “CHOIRS OF THE FALLEN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 202020
 

 

(Yesterday DGR turned in a double-review, but in his own inimitable fashion he wrote so many words about each of the two albums — one by Berzerker Legion and one by Wombbath — that your humble editor decided to split it in two, and now we present the second one. It may make some sense to read the other review first (here), since these were originally packaged together.)

Over the many years that we’ve spent in our comfortable little corner of the internet, one of the things we’ve learned how to get real good at is identifying genre-fare: the sort of musical red meat where it is clear the crew behind them just want to add to the overall cauldron that is their music of choice. Not necessarily the most ambitious or ‘paradigm changing’ — though the times where a group lands on that sort of lightning-in-a-bottle formula is always great — but music that is enjoyable for what it is, well-executed within the blueprint of its chosen genre.

One of the examples of this which practically fuels this website is the sort of rock-stupid, pulsating thud of death metal that gets by purely by appealing to the early cave-dweller parts of our brain, and another is the type of music that is so predisposed to headbanging guitar work that you can’t help but want to tag along, whether or not you have the long hair for it.

In this case it’s weird that these two albums feel like catching up a bit, since these two projects share a vocalist whom we’ve written about numerous times before and both of them are right in that wheelhouse described above. One is more modern and melody-focused despite its overall insistence on how world-ending it paints its protagonists in the songs, and the other is flavored with apocalyptic flair but with the chainsaw guitar aimed at a more old-school crowd. And thus we find ourselves catching up with Berzerker Legion and a crew more familiar to our site’s readers, Wombbath. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): HECATE, WOMBBATH, SUTRAH, PUTRASCENSION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 182020
 

 

This is the second part of a new-music round-up that I started here yesterday.

HECATE

Back in 2018, the first recommendation our supporter Speelie made to me, in a comment, was for Hecate’s Une voix venue d’ailleurs. That turned out to be a valuable recommendation, as I attempted to explain in my too-brief review of that superb album (here). Many other valuable recommendations by Speelie have followed, most recently his message to me about a new song by Hecate that debuted on January 12th, and a new album from them that’s set for release by Mourning Light Records (on CD) in March of this year. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ROTTING CHRIST, WOMBBATH, MORTUOUS, DIABOLIC OATH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 012018
 

 

We have a couple of premieres coming later today (what a shock), but I found myself with a little extra time on my hands before we get to those, so I thought I’d package up a few new things that I heard yesterday. The first two come from established bands who are always dependably good. The second two come from new names that should become better known once the songs below get spread around.

ROTTING CHRIST

First up is a pro-shot live video of Rotting Christ performing the title track from their 2013 album Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού. It was filmed on June 30, 2017, during the band’s headlining anniversary concert in Athens. From the looks of this (and of course the sounds), I really wish I’d been able to astrally project myself into that venue. And I think that’s all the introduction this video needs. Enjoy: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AT THE GATES, KATAKLYSM, LIGHT THIS CITY, WOMBBATH

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Mar 312018
 

 

A few of my NCS comrades have been nudging me to do a round-up that includes the latest songs revealed by At the Gates, Kataklysm, and Light This City. I didn’t have time to do this yesterday when I got that nudging, but decided to do it today even though Andy’s latest Waxing Lyrical post would have given me an excuse to check out from NCS writing for the day. And since I decided to pull those three songs together, I added one pick of my own.

AT THE GATES

I suppose you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that At the Gates have a new album headed our way. For you under-rock dwellers, To Drink From the Night Itself will be released by Century Media on May 18th. Yesterday brought another single from the album, packaged with a wonderful video created by Costin Chioreanu of Twilight 13 Media. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JONNY PETTERSSON ON LYRICS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Mar 162018
 


Photo by Mattias Nilsson/Madcap Piktures

(Not long ago Andy Synn launched a regular Saturday series at our site called Waxing Lyrical, devoted to discussions with metal musicians about the lyrics of their songs and the process of creating them. That inspired Norway-based NCS contributor Karina Noctum to pose similar questions to Swedish musician Johnny Pettersson, and you’ll find his answers below, following Karina’s introduction.)

 

Musician Jonny Pettersson from Sweden has been prominently featured here on NCS with many of his bands. He is pretty active and some of his most-known bands are Syn:drom and Wombbath. Other projects of his are Just Before Dawn, Ashcloud, Gods Forsaken, Henry Kane, and Ursinne, to name a few.

With such a vast discography this article will focus primarily on his Swedish DM band Wombbath, whose latest release was a split with Germany’s Obscure Infinity called Upward On A Thousand Lies (Wombbath’s side was premiered here), but with attention also given to Henry Kane, which soundwise is in the same vein but tending more toward grind, and last but not least to Gods Forsaken, a DM project with a mix of mid- and fast-paced parts. It is definitely recommended for fans of Bloodbath, Dismember, and old At the Gates. An interview about Gods Forsaken conducted by Decibel Magazine can be found here. Continue reading »

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