HALT! HERE BE THINGS OF YORE THAT PENETRATED MY EAR HOLES AND TO WHICH MY EYES PAID HEED

I’m still trying out reader suggestions for the title of these posts in which I collect recently discovered music and news items, but I’m thinking it still needs work. Anyway, here are things I saw and heard over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth passing along. Most of the music is brand new, and it’s all good.

There are six very diverse songs in here, with accompanying art, from Tyrant of Death, Destroyer 666, Early Graves, Death I Am, and Polarization. That’s a lot of music for a single post, but just think of this like a packaging together of three or four posts you’d read on any other metal blog. If you like, you could read and listen a little at a time over the rest of the day. I just don’t feel like chopping it up.

TYRANT OF DEATH: “FROM EARTH TO HELL”

I saw that Tyrant of Death have released a new song. This one is especially easy to pass along, because DGR wrote the following introduction.  Copy and paste . . .

“While not as ridiculous on the release scale so far this year, Tyrant Of Death is still putting out a mighty chunk of music for people to listen to. I reviewed (and introduced some of you to) his work earlier this year with the release of Re-Connect, and in between the time I started and finished that review he released two songs.

He’s released another one now, this time inspired by the new Ridley Scott ‘Not Alien but totally Alien’ movie Prometheus that just came out. Man, is it a doozy, clocking it at almost nine minutes of crushing industrial death. It’s a solo guitar work this time, with the only vocals being samples from the movie and distorted screams (although a couple do sound like T.o.D contributor Lucem Fero). It is, however, totally free and available on The Tyrant Of Death Bandcamp. Plus it does have an awesome song title in, “From Earth To Hell”.

With that intro, enjoy the song right after the jump, and feel free to share thoughts about Prometheus while we’re on that subject.
 

 

EPHEL DUATH: “ON DEATH AND COSMOS” IS STREAMING

About a week ago I went on and on about Ephel Duath’s fascinating and highly recommended new EP, On Death and Cosmos. And on and on.

Today, I saw that those lucky bastards our friends at Metal Sucks started streaming the entire thing. Now is a good chance to form your own opinions about the EP by following this link.
 

DESTRÖYER 666: “Phoenix Rising”

I saw this album cover, which I think is great. It’s for the re-issue by Season of Mist of this former Australia band’s 2000 album, Phoenix Rising. It’s scheduled to hit the stores on August 24 (August 28 in NorthAm) in remastered CD and LP editions with liner notes by the band, and that new cover art.

The same artist did the cover art for a another Destroyer 666 re-issue by Season of Mist earlier this year, Cold Steel…For An Iron Age:

This remastered album is available as a download on the band’s Bandcamp page here. Unfortunately, I can’t find out who did the artwork!  When labels issue press releases about new albums, they really should identify the cover artist.

Anyway, before seeing these reissues, I wasn’t familiar with this band’s music (at least so far as I can remember), but that Phoenix Rising album got an average rating of 97% from five reviews on Metal Archives and Cold Steel got an average rating of 96% based on the same number of reviews. That doesn’t necessarily mean these are great albums, since I didn’t read the reviews or pay attention to who wrote them, but the scores did cause me to go pick a song to hear.

I picked this one, from Phoenix Rising: “I Am the Wargod (Ode to the Battle Slain)”:

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/04-I-Am-The-Wargod-Ode-To-The-Battle-Slain.mp3|titles=Destroyer 666 – I Am The Wargod (Ode To The Battle Slain)]
 

HERE is the band’s FB page.

EARLY GRAVES: “DAYS GROW COLD”

I saw that Early Graves released a new song called “Days Grow Cold”, which will appear on a summer sampler 19-track compilation that the band’s new label, No Sleep Records, will be releasing on June 16 (more info about that can be found here). No Sleep says the comp will become available for a “pay what you want” price, which sounds like a Bandcamp offering. So, on or after the 16th, you might check out the No Sleep Bandcamp page here.

Now, back to Early Graves. My relationship with their music started back in May 2010, when I wrote about some tracks I heard from their second album, Goner, and I followed that with a review in the form of a fictional conversation outside a metal club.

And then, less than two months later, the band’s charismatic vocalist Makh Daniels died in a highway accident as the members of Early Graves and The Funeral Pyre were driving from Eugene, Oregon, to their next tour stop in Reno. That hit me hard, even though I’d never met Daniels, and I wound up writing a series of posts about his death.

Apart from feeling down over Daniels’ death, I also suspected that it would also be the end of Early Graves. Fortunately, the band have survived, with John Strachan of The Funeral Pyre taking his place as vocalist (though no one could really take his place). They’re planning on releasing a new album this fall.

In the meantime, we have that track which will appear on the No Sleep comp. It began streaming at Brooklyn Vegan a couple days ago, and it is hell on wheels — raw, thundering, brutally heavy, and on fire. Here it is:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/49566339″ iframe=”true” /]
 

DEATH I AM: “NANITE SWARM”

Yessir, I listened to this next song yesterday because of the artwork that accompanied it, which is by Yosuke Shiina of Shaman. This easily could have been the subject of an EYE-CATCHERS post. It’s the accompanying art for a two-song demo called Nanite Swarm, which was released in May by a predominantly Japanese band (guitarist Shogo Tsuruda and bassist Yusuke Ito) that includes a U.S. singer (Jacob Wilcox). Their name is Death I Am.

Both songs did a nice job staving in my skull. The music is full-bore, whirlwind death metal, with rapid-fire tech-riffing, manic drumming, and a fine sense of grooooove. It includes some really jolting pneumatic rhythms, some sci-fi-tuned guitar solo’s, and quite capable growling. Made me want to bust up the furniture.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/1600259″ height=”200″ iframe=”true” /]

These tracks used to be available for free download at SoundCloud, but now I’m not sure how to get them. If I find out, I’ll update this section of the post. More tracks from previous demos can be heard here. And this is the link to Death I Am’s Facebook page.
 

POLARIZATION: “PULSE”

Polarization is a three-man L.A. band who are now part of the Mediaskare roster of artists. Rightly or wrongly, my mental image of Mediaskare bands tends to have “hardcore-influenced” somewhere in the genre labeling, and so I was quite surprised by what I heard yesterday from this band.

The main man of the band is 8-string guitarist and songwriter Prashant Mathias, who organized this outfit a year and a half ago when he moved from his native India to attend the Musicians’ Institute in Los Angeles. The other members of the band are drummer and fellow Musicians Institute student Tom Asvold (a native of Sweden) and bassist Steve Hilson (who must be from the U.S. or the press release would have said otherwise).

Mediaskare is set to release the band’s debut album, Chasing the Light, on August 14. This appears to be a re-issue, because I found references to this album back in 2011, when it seems to have been originally released by something called The 521 Group.

What I heard yesterday was a track from the album called “Pulse”. As you might guess if you know anything about the Musicians Institute, the music is progressive metal, and it’s very accomplished. It’s hard to claim too much based on a single song, but fuck that, I’ll just say it: The day may come, and it may come soon, when you hear Prashant Mathias’ name bandied about along with those of people like Tosin Abasi. The other two dudes are no slouches either.

Polarization’s music is complex without being the least bit dull, technically extravagant without sacrificing the cohesiveness of the song, shrewdly dynamic, both ambient and invigorating, and built with a solid feel for memorable melody.

I really do think we’ll be hearing a lot more about this band in the months and to come.