SEEN AND HEARD: DAYLIGHT DIES, ARES KINGDOM, SYSTEM DIVIDE, AND ULCERATE

Here are a few items of interest I saw between yesterday and today that I thought were worth throwing in your general direction. Catch!

DAYLIGHT DIES

A Frail Becoming, the new album by North Carolina’s Daylight Dies, is being officially released today by Candlelight Records. It’s very, very good. I hope we will have a review soon, because the album deserves whatever we can do to help spread the word.

The latest song to be released for streaming is the album’s fourth track, “Dreaming of Breathing”, which is the subject of a music video directed by Ramon Boutviseth that debuted yesterday. It’s a beautifully filmed video, and the narrative portion suits the moody, dreamlike ambience of the music, while the band footage suits all the thundering that Daylight Dies do so well in their doom-influenced brand of melodic death metal.

Check it out next . . .
 

DAYLIGHT DIES – Dreaming of Breathing from Daylight Dies on Vimeo.

 

The best way to get this album and help the band at the same time is to order it from their site here. It’s also available digitally via iTunes.

ARES KINGDOM

It’s been a while since I’ve written about this Kansas City band. In fact, you have to turn back the clock to May 2010 to find my review of their last album (which is fantastic), Incendiary. But I’ve been snooping on them ever since, waiting for new music . . . and today I finally got some

The band have put two new songs up on Bandcamp for streaming. Those songs are among the nine that will be on their forthcoming album, Veneration. They do not disappoint, but I knew they wouldn’t.

The music, as it always is from this band, is no-bullshit, no-gimmicks, viciously executed, old-school death/thrash decimation. The evil, grinding riffs are bare-knuckled bruisers, the organic drumming is a breath of fresh air, Alex Blume’s vocals are bestial, and Chuck Keller still turns out some of the best fire-breathing solo’s you’ll find anywhere in this kind of extreme music.

Veneration will be released on vinyl and CD by by NWN! Productions. I don’t have a release date yet, but you can bet we’ll be writing more about this album in the future.  (Follow them on Facebook here.)
 

 

SYSTEM DIVIDE

Schizophrenia can be a good or a bad thing in a metal band. Multiple-personality disorder runs rampant on the new single from System Divide. “Ephemera” premiered yesterday, as a kind of teaser for the band’s next album (projected for 2013). Today it has become the subject of a new lyric video.

I pay attention to this band because it includes vocalist Sven De Caluwe (Aborted), guitarist Mendel Bij De Leij (and if you’re not up on who he is, check this NCS post), and drummer Mike Heller (Fear Factory, Malignancy, World Under Blood). Of course, the current line-up also features vocalist Miri Milman, as well as bass player Andrei Aframov.

The new over-the-top song is stylistically all over the place — part melodic death metal, part death-grind, part Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Okay, that last crack was only half-serious, but when Miri Milman’s vocals come in, that’s honestly the first thing that popped into my head. But I also have to admit that after the initial “what the fuck?” reaction to the first listen, this song started growing on me by the second listen. Listen and please let me know what you think.
 

 

ULCERATE

I saw this note on the Facebook page of New Zealand’s Ulcerate, one of those bands whose music is in my personal must-hear category:

“Thanks to all who came out and who were involved in our last run of Australian shows, especially Départe and Odiusembowel for supporting on multiple dates. For those interested we have a small amount of leftover shirts from the tour, available via http://www.ulcerate-official.com/Store/

“These shows were our last for the year, and we now climb head-first into completing work on our fourth album. At this point we have been writing since March, and so far have completed 4 tracks, close to 35 minutes worth of music. We’re exploring a lot of new territory with this material and so far everything is sounding a lot violent/uglier than past releases, as well as more rhythmically involved than ‘The Destroyers of All’.

The lineup will of course be the same as the last 2 albums – Kelland/Hoggard/Saint Merat.”

Fuck yes.