TASTES OF THINGS TO COME: KRAMPUS, CYTOTOXIN, AND PROJECT:ABOMINATION

This is a fairly random collection of new music I heard over the last two days from forthcoming albums. Of course, it’s wildly divergent, because that’s the nature of metal. The bands are Krampus (Italy), Cytotoxin (Germany), and Project:Abomination (U.S.)

KRAMPUS

Krampus are an Italian horde (eight members!) whose last EP was reviewed for us by Trollfiend (here), and he followed that with a band interview (here). They’ve now completed a full-length album, Survival of the Fittest, which is slated for release on August 24 by Noise Art Records, and yesterday brought us a new song: “Unspoken”. Previously, the band started streaming another track, “Kronos’ Heritage”, which  if I’m not mistaken also appeared on the last EP.

Krampus bill themselves as a folk metal band, but “Unspoken is much more straight-ahead, Scandinavian-styled melodic death metal, with a metalcore flavoring of both bestial and clean vocals. The bestial vox are indeed beastly (and excellent), and although you know what I think of clean vocals, I admit that they do have a fitting place in this song. The music is an infectious gallop — not ground-breaking by any stretch, but a lot of fun to hear.

A stream of the new song is right after the jump, and I’m also including “Kronos’ Heritage”, a song in which folk influences are more pronounced. Like “Unspoken”, it’s very catchy. 

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/55747147″ iframe=”true” /]
 

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52592854″ iframe=”true” /]
 

And here also is the official video for “Kronos’ Heritage”:
 

 

You can see a track-by-track breakdown of the album and hear snippets of the remaining songs at this location on YouTube. Krampus’ Facebook page is here.

CYTOTOXIN

Cytotoxin play radioactive music. They play about radiation, too. Their new sophomore album, Radiophobia, is about the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. It’s scheduled for release by Unique Leader Records on November 6, 2012.

I’m only just discovering this band, and my listening (so far) is limited to a new teaser clip that includes a montage of music from the new album’s tracks and one song from the band’s first, self-released album, Plutonium Heaven. Based on what I’ve heard, I’m thinking I may need a personal Geiger-counter on hand before I listen to an entire album’s worth of Cytotoxin music, just to make sure I don’t get a lethal dose.

Holy shit, this is sonic insanity — vicious, pulverizing, technically off-the-hook, and thoroughly body-slamming. Also, radioactive. Here’s what I’ve heard so far:

 

 

Here are Cytotoxin links:

http://www.facebook.com/Cytotoxinmetal
http://www.cytotoxin.de/

PROJECT: ABOMINATION

From what I can tell, this really is more of a project than a band, with a cast of California musicians that will change from song to song. The album’s title is Interesting Days Lie Ahead, and the first song from it was released in recent days both on Bandcamp and through a lyric video.

What caught my eye was the cast of participants on this first track. It includes members from a host of bands, several of whom we’ve covered at NCS (principally through posts by DGR about the Sacramento-area scene): Soma Ras, Bispora, The Kennedy Veil, Psyopus, Bad Acid Trip, Beyond All Ends, and Nightmare In the Twilight.

The debut song is “Thesis”. The lyrics are forward-looking and unusually optimistic — and as such they contrast with the savagery of the music (though there is eventually an acknowledgment that for some, the future will not be bright). Five different vocalists contribute to this song, so you get a high-low range of voices, all of them harsh, and there’s an attention grabbing solo from Eloy Montes of Beyond All Ends. Makes me interested in what else this project will have to offer.