Here’s a collection of items I saw and heard yesterday while surveilling the interhole. The featured bands are Ulcerate (New Zealand), Twilight of the Gods (multinational), Craven Idol (UK), Cryptopsy (Canada), and Evoken (US), .
ULCERATE
The new album from New Zealand’s Ulcerate has been high on our “most anticipated” list for this year, and yesterday finally brought a lot of fresh news. The title of the album is Vermis, it includes 9 tracks, it’s nearly 55 minutes long — and it will be released by Relapse on September 17 in North America (September 13 in Germany and the Benelux countries and September 16 in the rest of the world). Pre-orders for the album and related merch are being fielded at this location. You can see the newly unveiled album cover above.
Yesterday also brought a video teaser for Vermis. It includes just an itty-bitty, teenie-weensie snippet of music, but it was enough to rattle my teeth. I think, just to be safe, I’ll make a dental appointment for the day after I get my hands on this album. The teaser is next.
http://www.ulcerate-official.com
http://www.facebook.com/ulcerate
http://www.relapse.com
TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
Okay, here’s something you won’t often see at this site — some old-school, classic heavy metal. It comes from a band named Twilight of the Gods, whose members are drawn from other well-known groups. Unusual to find such music here, but damn, I can’t help it: this shit rocks very hard.
Twilight of the Gods consists of Alan “Nemtheanga” Averill (Primordial)(vocals), Rune Eriksen (Aura Noir, ex-Mayhem)(guitar), Patrick Lindgren (Thyrfing)(guitar), Frode Glesnes (Einherjer)(bass), and Nick Barker (Lock Up, ex-Dimmu Borgir, ex-Cradle of Filth)(drums). They began playing Bathory covers years ago and have now written their own original songs, in which pagan spirits still live despite the change in style. They’ve signed with Season of Mist for release of a debut album entitled Fire on the Mountain (due for release in NorthAm on October 1).
Today the band premiered a lyric video for the album’s title track, and it’s the real deal. Killer riffs and killer vocals = killer song. Here you go:
https://www.facebook.com/totgofficial/
CRAVEN IDOL
Craven Idol are a London-based band who have recorded a debut album that will be released on October 15 by Dark Descent. It features cover art by one of my favorite metal artists, Paolo “Madman” Girardi. Today I listened to one of the new tracks which premiered earlier this week — a song called “To Summon Mayrion”, and it has blown me away.
The music is thundering, epic, crushingly heavy, melodic black metal that moves from passages of choir-assisted majesty to eruptions of black thrashing hellfire, and that heavy low end infuses the music with an undercurrent of death metal might, too. Listen below.
(I found this song through a link by NCS supporter Vonlughlio — thanks again dude.)
http://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/towards-eschaton
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Craven-Idol/158945044134965
OBSCENE EXTREME VIDEOS
The 15th edition of the Obscene Extreme festival took place at Trutnov in the Czech Republic on July 3-7. A helpful dude named Rudolf Sadke appears to have filmed most of it, and he has been uploading full sets of band performances to his YouTube channel — including performances by Napalm Death, Anaal Nathrakh, Aborted, Grave, Exhumed, Krisiun, Haemorrhage, Mumakil, Antigama, Horsebastard, and the two bands whose videos I’m embedding in this post — Cryptopsy and Evoken.
I could have picked any two videos — both the video and the audio quality of the ones I’ve sampled are good — but these two I randomly watched at some length. These two (like some of the others) are also slightly marred by the fact that some people at this festival obviously had NO FUCKING IDEA about the etiquette of stage diving. People get up on stage and parade around endlessly as if they’d been invited to join the bands, and security did virtually nothing about it. One fucked-up dude reached the stage and promptly fell flat on his face.
Anyway, check out these performances; Evoken is absolutely crushing, and Crytopsy is eviscerating. Unless you enjoy sound checks and pre-recorded intro music, you’ll want to skip to 2:00 for the Cryptopsy set. To see the rest of Rudolf Sadke’s videos, go HERE.
19 Responses to “SEEN AND HEARD: ULCERATE, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, CRAVEN IDOL, EVOKEN, CRYPTOPSY”
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Im a bit of a Primordial fanboy, so i might be a bit biased, but i really enjoyed “Fire on the montain” Both the riffs and the vocals are great, and i can’t help but smile when i listen to those high screams!
Can’t wait for the new Ulcerate to come out. They’re one of the few bands who managed to bring some kind of innovation in the death metal scene, imho.
Agree with you there. I’m so curious to hear what they’re going to do this time around, though I’m betting it will involve the kind of destruction that levels cities.
Ulcerate AND Gorguts in the same month?!?!?!?! The stars have truly aligned this year!!!
Craven Idol sounds like Emperor with a healthy dose of old Death Metal mixed in. I like it! The guitar at around 2:00 gave me a serious Emperor flashback.
Definitely. The good kind of flashback.
I’ve seen Twilight of the Gods live on a cruise ship. Suck on that Seattle!!!!!!
Okay, you think that’s cool, but you probably had to endure a lot of icky sunshine.
I never enjoy crowdsurfing or moshing at DM shows. I was reacently at a festival with Kreator, Tankard, Satan and Heathen. I had good friendly violent fun, moshing and running with other thrashers. Everyone was really enjoying themselves, acting like primal idiots. Sure there were a few bloody noses and lips, and alot of bruises, but everyone knew to help out the guys(and girls) who fall, etc. Simply put, they know pit etiquette.
I saw Vader at the same festival, and was very nearly murdered just standing near “the pit” it wass full of “karate kids” and people who thought it was about beating up random people. The one guy i saw who fell didnt get helped up, nono, some asshole actually jumped on his ribs.
It has been like that every time i have seen Vader, and other Death metal shows (excluding Behemoh and Deicide..) Now i do my best to stay away from the pits at DM shows 😛
At least with a pit, you’ve usually got a choice to be in or out. People who get on stage and don’t dive off right away seem to forget that everyone else probably wants to be watching the band instead of them.
That is very true. One thing that always annoys me is when people on stage start to bug the musicians/band. They are on stage to perform, not to wrestle with drunk people.
Exactly. Lots of bands welcome stage diving, but just fucking around in front of or next to band members while they’re trying to play is, among other things, disrespectful.
How many bands is Nemtheanga in?! Primordial, Twilight of the Gods, and also Dread Sovereign this year as well! Man do I love his vocals though!
Have you heard Blood Revolt – Indoctrine from 2011? It’s AA with the guys from Axis of Advance. Good shit.
I have not yet! Sounds enticing though, shall definitely look into it
An Ulcerate new record, what a delicious news!
This was in the Czech Republic?
…Fine, I’ll say it…security probably didnt want to risk getting hauled into a courthouse because they were near some dumbass drunk who fell off the stage and broke his damn neck.
Damn, I fucking hate sloppy drunks…either learn to hold your shit, or have the common courtesy to pass out in the port-a-john so no one else has to deal with your stupidity
Girardi is so freaking amazing, i could stare at his artwork for days
Hmm… The new Ulcerate album is to be titled “Worm” in Latin. Quite concise compared to the previous album titles. One is not really sure what to expect now.