Don’t know about you, but I like music compilations, especially when they’re free. They’re a good way to discover new bands and new sounds in a flash. There are two great comps on the horizon — one we’ll talk about now and another one (which we’re actually co-sponsoring) that we’ll feature tomorrow.
Today’s news is about a comp of music by unsigned bands that’s been assembled by our friends at The Number of the Blog. It will include 18 tracks, many of which were previously unreleased, and it will be distributed through Bandcamp, which means the original song files were uploaded in high-quality, lossless format — and that means the shit will sound like crystal.
Today, TNOTB revealed the track listing, and it’s juicy, as in saliva-producing. I’m familiar with the music of 14 bands on the list, and am a fan of all of them. So I’m up for hearing not only the new stuff from those bands but also the tracks from the bands whose names are new.
To be brutally honest (the only kind of honest we know how to be at NCS), I’d be tempted to say nice things about this comp even if the band selections made me yawn, because, y’know, I like the people behind TNOTB. But I don’t have to wrestle with my morals over this comp, because it really does look like a winner, from start to finish. Check out the track list after the jump. You’ll be able to download the comp on Friday (we’ll put up a reminder then.)
THE SAMPLER OF THE BLOG: VOLUME 1
1 – Cormorant – ‘Scavengers Feast’
2 – Returning We Hear The Larks – ‘Uprising’
3 – Enditol – ‘Monoculture’
4 – Tre Watson – ‘Spack Jarrow’ (previously unreleased)
5 – Iron Thrones – ‘Against The Grain’
6 – Robots Pulling Levers – ‘Sumati II’ (previously unreleased) (featuring George Richman of Hypnorock)
7 – A Walk With The Wicked – ‘Architects Of Sadism’
8 – Cloudkicker – ‘We’re Goin’ In. We’re Going Down.’
9 – Shades Of Devastation – ‘Art Of Agony’ (previously unreleased)
10 – Amogh Symphony – ‘Osiris 1′
11 – Giant Of The Mountain – ‘Awakening’ (previously unreleased)
12 – Keith Merrow – ‘Heart Of The Sea Nymph’ (featuring Jeff Loomis of Nevermore)
13 – Shaidar Logoth – ‘Mashiara Shai’tan’
14 – I’ll Eat Your Face – ‘Dr. Pancake’s Luxurious Ratskin Housecoat’
15 – Soul Cycle – ‘Rising Defiant’
16 – Cut Your Teeth – ‘T.W.H.W.Y.T.B.’
17 – Assimilated Mind Phase – ‘Breeding Insanity 2.0′ (previously unreleased remix)
18 – Brent A. Petrie – ‘Collapse/Conquer’ (previously unreleased)
12 Responses to “COMPS ON THE WAY”
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Wow, this looks incredible!
I must be ‘sheltered’. I’ve never heard of a single one of those bands. A little bit of description on what they sound like would be awesome. Then again, I could always you know…downlaod the sampler and discard what i don’t like, since it is free. Is it Friday yet?
It’s really all over the map. Just a few explanations here, and maybe more later: A lot of the music is instrumental. Tre Watson, Cloudkicker, and Keith Merrow are super-talented one-man projects that most people would classify as “djent”. Soul Cycle is also guitar-driven instrumental metal. Amogh Symphony is a two-man instrumental operation from India whose music reminds me some of Animals As Leaders with some jazz stylings thrown in. Soul Cycle and Amogh Symphony also each contribute one member to Robots Pulling Levers, which they characterize as “shredjent”. Brent Petrie is also instrumental metal; I guess you could call the music prog, but there’s a lot of variation in the styles.
I guess I’d call Cormorant progressive black metal, but they’re tough to classify. Iron Thrones won the Scion No Label Needed contest last year and play prog metal reminiscent of Opeth and Cult of Luna. A Walk With the Wicked is a an excellent South African death-metal band we wrote about over this past weekend. Giant of the Mountain is an almost unclassifiable trio from Texas who we wrote about in January — raw, sludgy, raucous — really different and really good. More later . . .
Here’s a few more previews (TNOTB should be paying me for this): I’ll Eat Your Face (awesome name btw) is another instrumental band, from Ireland, and from what I’ve heard so far, it’s techy, proggy grind. To quote MetalSucks about Cut Your Teeth, they play a “blend of straight-up hardcore and ’80s glam blues riffing/shred”. They’ve got a great video for a song called “Stallion” too. Like a lot of the bands on this comp, they also offer free downloads at their Bandcamp page. Enditol is the solo project of a guitar whiz named Sacha Laskow who plays for a great Canadian prog-metal band called Divinity. To quote MetalSucks again: “Part SikTh, part Meshuggah, part Dream Theater, part NIN, part lots of other stuff.” That’s it for the 14 bands who I know something about.
Dude, I’m so anxious to hear a new Giant of the Mountain song! Those guys and gal have really captured my ear.
You and me both bro. Really anxious to hear what the new one sounds like.
NCS SAMPLER! I DEMAND IT!
Nice of you to say that bro, and I confess the thought has crossed my mind. On the other hand, it’s a lot of work to pull it off, and the thought of work gives me a severe allergic reaction. But I’m still thinking about it . . .
what all does it require? If I knew what to do, I’d do the leg work.
Wow! What a nice offer! I’m imagining most of this, since I’ve never done it — making a wish list of bands and then contacting them; trying to get new, unreleased songs when possible; getting high-quality formats for the song files; finding the right hosting/download platform (though I think I’ve already got that covered with our FileBurst account, Bandcamp may be the way to go); creating cover art and a digital booklet (if you want to do this up right); and then recruiting other sites to help publicize it. I’m sure there’s more, but I bet Quigs and groverXIII over at TNOTB would let me pick their brains, especially if I use a dull instrument. I assume that doing what they did — focusing on unsigned bands — makes the project somewhat less complicated since you wouldn’t have to deal with labels.
Well, if you’re really serious about it man, I will lend as much of my services as I can. I have a lot of free time on my days off.
Just say the word. I’m super cereal.
P.S. Not to brag but my friend dan gore [http://dangore.deviantart.com/] does artwork for a few bands (ALoL, Knights of the Abyss, and Arsonists get all the girls, and Tony Danza Tapdance to name a few) and him and I know a few band members from bands. So, maybe I could ask around?
You’re really motivating me! And I’ve seen Dan Gore’s art before, which I think is very cool. Let me think about this a bit more and I’ll e-mail you.