SEEN AND HEARD: CHTHONIC, AMORPHIS, REPTILIAN DEATH, WASTED LAND, AND REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER

I didn’t have time to compile a daily round-up yesterday, so there’s a lot of shit to cram into this one. I’ll try to keep words to a minimum and let the music, the videos, and the imagery speak for themselves.

ITEM ONE: CHTHONIC

2011’s Takasago Army marked the time when I finally got into Taiwan’s Chthonic. It was interesting and multi-textured, in addition to kicking large amounts of ass. So I’m now quite interested in their next album, Bú-Tik, which will be released by Spinefarm this summer. Today, the sexy cover art was revealed. Apparently, nearly 100 people volunteered to be the model for it.

The album cover is eye-catching for sure, though it doesn’t exactly suggest that the new album will be devoted to history and tradition. Yet in this new interview the band’s eye-catching bassist Doris Yeh suggests that it will. I’m up for it.

ITEM TWO: AMORPHIS

Yesterday Nuclear Blast released a lyric video for “Shades of Gray”, the second single from the forthcoming album Circle by Finland’s Amorphis. The album, which was produced by Hypocrisy’s Peter Tägtgren, is set for release on April 19 in Europe and April 30 in NorthAm and can be pre-ordered here.

I much prefer “Shades of Gray” to the first single released from the album. It does include a very Amorphis-like melody with clean singing in the chorus, but the verse parts . . . they bludgeon and roar. I’m happy with the balance (and also happy with the folk-tinged, head banging instrumental break in the song’s mid-section).

 

ITEM THREE: REPTILIAN DEATH

Just a few days ago I wrote about the plans of this Indian band for the first release of new music in about 7 years. It’s the side project of Demonic Resurrection’s main man Demonstealer, but it’s now a full-fledged band, as you can see from the following live video filmed at the band’s surprise appearance at “Domination: The Deathfest 2013″ in Mumbai on March 10.

In my most humble opinion the new songs featured in this live performance are the best Reptilian Death music created to date. They’re eviscerating, melodic, and technically interesting all at once. Racing, evil death metal . . . and the video is fun to watch, too (I vote yes for continuing with the hoods, the masks, and Vinay’s face paint).

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ReptilianDeath
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/reptiliandeath

 

ITEM FOUR: WASTED LAND

Thanks to Metality.net, yesterday I saw the eye-catching album art you see above. The artist is Niklas Sundin, and the band is Saudi Arabia’s Wasted Land. They plan to release their debut album on April 3 via digital outlets such as iTunes and Amazon mp3.

The album art led me to hunt for some music, and I found the following promo video for the album, which sounds like some promising death/thrash:

http://www.facebook.com/wasted.land.official

 

REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER

I first heard about this French band via a message from NCS supporter deckard cain a few days ago. Regarde Les Hommes Tomber (“watch men fall”, according to Google Translate, but more likely “see how they fall”) recently released a self-titled debut album, which is available now from Les Acteurs De L’Ombre Productions.

Today, Terrorizer began exclusively streaming the entire album at this location. Terrorizer writes: “RLHT merge sludge’s heaviness, black metal’s darkness and hardcore’s groove with post-rock’s atmospheres”. That’s a good summation of the sound, which I’m digging quite a lot. The album art is also quite cool.

Although you’ll have to go to the Terrorizer site for the full album stream, I did find that the album’s first three tracks are up on Bandcamp for streaming, and here they are:

http://www.facebook.com/rlhtband