Here are a few things I spotted last night and this morning that I thought were worth passing along.
SYLOSIS
October 9 is the North American release date for Monolith, the new album by Sylosis (Oct 5 in Europe). We’ve previously featured two of the songs from the album — “Dying Vine” and “Born Anew” — and “Born Anew” is being offered as a free download by Nuclear Blast at this site.
Now, someone has posted a teaser reel on YouTube that includes minute-long samples from each of the album’s 11 tracks. I can’t tell if this was an authorized compilation and upload or not. I guess we’ll find out. But for as long as it lasts, it provides a pretty good tasting of an album that a couple of us here at NCS have been spinning and enjoying quite a bit. You can find that teaser reel right after the jump.
As you may know, Sylosis are also opening for Lamb of God, In Flames, and Hatebreed on their North American tour beginning in October. I’ve put the tour schedule after the jump, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd6Er3J8to
Lamb of God, In Flames, Hatebreed, Sylosis Tour
10/30/12 Comerica Theater – Phoenix, AZ
10/31/12 TBA – Los Angeles, CA
11/01/12 House of Blues – Las Vegas, NV
11/03/12 Lonestar Pavilion – Lubbock, TX
11/04/12 Sunken Garden – San Antonio, TX
11/05/12 Diamond Ballroom – Oklahoma City, OK
11/07/12 Pageant – St. Louis, MO
11/08/12 Egyptian Room – Indianapolis, IN
11/09/12 Eagles Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI
11/10/12 Myth – St. Paul, MN
11/12/12 Expo Five – Louisville, KY
11/14/12 Sherman Theater – Stroudsburg, PA
11/15/12 TBA
11/16/12 Roseland – New York, NY
11/17/12 Fillmore – Silver Spring, MD
11/19/12 House of Blues – Orlando, FL
11/20/12 Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA
11/21/12 Fillmore – Charlotte, NC
11/23/12 Oakdale Theater – Wallingford, CT
11/24/12 Electric Factory – Philadelphia, PA
11/25/12 House of Blues – Boston, MA
11/26/12 Rapids Theater – Niagara Falls, NY
11/27/12 Stage AE – Pittsburgh, PA
11/28/12 The National – Richmond, VA
11/30/12 Congress Ballroom – Chicago, IL
12/01/12 State Theater – Detroit, MI
12/02/12 LC Pavilion – Columbus, OH
12/03/12 Orbit Room – Grand Rapids, MI
12/04/12 Val Air Ballroom – Des Moines, IA
12/06/12 Bayou Music Center – Houston, TX
12/07/12 Palladium Ballroom – Dallas, TX
12/08/12 Uptown Theater – Kansas City, MO
12/10/12 Fillmore – Denver, CO
12/11/12 McGhee Park – Farmington, NM
12/13/12 Warfield – San Francisco, CA
12/14/12 Medford Armory – Medford, OR
12/15/12 Knitting Factory – Spokane, WA
12/16/12 Showbox SODO – Seattle, WA
PIG DESTROYER
Book Burner, the highly anticipated new album from Pig Destroyer, is scheduled for release by Relapse on Oct 22. On Thursday, Relapse put out a lyric video for a track called “Burning Palm”. I’ve been meaning to include it in one of these “Seen and Heard” features ever since, but it rapidly got so much air play around the net that I stalled, figuring that everyone who cared about Pig Destroyer had already seen it.
Sometimes I over-think things. I love the damned song, the damned video is fascinating to watch, the lyrics are searing . . . and in the context of the animation for the video, ironic. So here it is:
HAIDUK
This morning my fellow blogger and sometimes NCS contributor Dane Prokofiev recommended that I check out a band from Calgary, Canada, named Haiduk. Haiduk is a solo project by guitarist Luka Milojica, and the name really rings bells with me. I have a feeling that Haiduk reached out to us at some point in the past (I checked my e-mail and also found a recommendation from an NCS reader going back to March 2011), but if that happened, I must have fucked up and failed to follow through in listening to the music.
At any rate, Haiduk released a concept album this past July named Spellbook, and it features a very cool cover, which you can see above. The album is available for purchase in CD format on Haiduk’s web site, and it’s also available on iTunes and Amazon mp3. I’ve listened to four of the songs this morning (the ones streaming on that Haiduk web site), and the music is very good.
It’s a thrashing fusion of black and death metal that’s lit up like fireworks by ravaging, swarming riffs and compelling rhythms. The fretwork is blazing, and the drums, though programmed, really supercharge the already jet-fueled music. Luka’s harsh hoarse vocals are also suitably wolflike. Here are two of the four tracks I heard:
“Maelstrom”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/04-Maelstrom.mp3|titles=Haiduk – Maelstrom]
“Lich”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/01-Lich.mp3|titles=Haiduk – Lich]
KAWAK IJEN BY NIGHT
On the island of East Java in Indonesia, there is a volcano called Kawak Ijen that’s more than 8,600 feet tall. Inside the crater is a lake of sulfuric acid. On the shores of the lake is a sulfur mine. During the day and at night, miners hike up to the top of the volcano and then down to the shores of the acid lake to mine the sulfur.
The miners carve up chunks of solid sulfur to take out of the crater, but there are flows of molten sulfur as well, and sometimes drippings from the torches carried by the miners ignite the liquid sulfur.
I can’t imagine working this kind of job, which seems something very close to toiling in hell. But it is nevertheless beautiful, and at least by its appearance, very fucking metal. Here’s one more photo, and I’ll have more in another post.
