ARSIS, NE OBLIVISCARIS, THE BINARY CODE, SADISTIC BUTCHERING, ANION

I know you didn’t ask what I’ve been watching and listening to on this gray Pacific Northwest morning, but I’m telling you anyway, because that’s how blogging works.

ARSIS

A new Arsis video premiered yesterday. The song is “Scornstar” from their 2013 album Unwelcome. It was directed by Scott Hansen. It’s footage of the usual kind of thing that happens at an Arsis show. You know, people foaming at the mouth, chicks showing their tits, dudes ripping their hearts out of their chests, people’s guts exploding, bodily fluids and intestines spraying every which way. For people who’ve seen them play live before, it’s kind of old hat. But if you’re new to the band I guess it might be interesting.

I don’t really understand why this kind of regular occurrence was newsworthy. Must have been a slow news night at the TV station that broadcast the report. You can watch it next if you want.

https://www.facebook.com/arsis/

 

NE OBLIVISCARIS

After I watched that Arsis video I watched one from this amazing Australian band. It was filmed during a live show at a venue called The Bald Faced Stag in Sydney last month. The song is “Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise” from the 2012 Ne Obliviscaris album, Portal of I. The performance was filmed in high quality from multiple camera angles, including Go-Pro cams on the instruments, and the sound and light show are excellent, too.

I didn’t see any fans exploding in this one, but the beautiful blackened prog of the song is its own reward, and man, I do love Tim Charles’ violin performance, especially when joined with Xenoyr’s acid vocals.

I’ll go ahead and anticipate the inevitable question we’ll otherwise get from some first-time visitor: the site is called NO CLEAN SINGING, but we make exceptions because rules are made to be broken, including our own.

https://www.facebook.com/NeObliviscarisBand/

 

 

THE BINARY CODE

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with New Jersey-based The Binary Code here at NCS, but I haven’t forgotten about them. They’ve been working on a new album, which they recently recorded at Audiohammer Studios with producer Eyal Levi (of Dååth and Levi/Werstler). Recently they uploaded an instrumental pre-production track from the album named “Immersion”, which they recorded themselves before entering the studio, and I checked it out after watching that NeO video.

It turned out to be a made-to-order follow-on, as if through a subliminal suggestion by some DJ in the dimension next door. Very chill progressive music that got my head bobbing, and it also turned out to be cranial velcro — the song has gotten stuck in my mind. Cool artwork for the song, too.

If you dig this, you can download it for free at this spot:

https://soundcloud.com/binarycodeofficial/immersion-2013-pre-production

The band’s FB page is here. And this is “Immersion”:

 

SADISTIC BUTCHERING

The next thing I did, via a tip from TheMadIsraeli, was listen to a new song by a one-man band from my old hometown of Houston, Texas named Sadistic Butchering. I felt pretty sure based on the band name alone that it was going to be a U-turn from the previous two songs I heard.  Yup.  A sharp U-turn.

The song is “The End of the Christian” and it will appear on Sadistic Butchering’s upcoming full-length, Sculptor of Flesh, due for release this fall on Anopsys Records. The music is brutal, slam-minded death metal loaded with vomitous gutturals, sharp snare tone, and meat-grinding, battering-ram riffs that will punch holes in your torso and leave you like a human-sized Swiss cheese with all the gooey stuff leaking onto the floor. Prepare for skull-cleaving trauma courtesy of John Hull.

https://www.facebook.com/JohnTheButcherT.X.D.M/info

 

ANION

I decided to take in one more song before starting to pull together this post. Yielding to a completely random impulse I listened to a track by a Vancouver band named Anion who recently contacted us by e-mail. They have a new full-length LP on the way entitled Without Solace that they recorded with producer Matt Bayles (Botch, Mastodon, Isis) at Red Room studios in Seattle. It’s scheduled for release on September 17 on gatefold vinyl and digitally via Winnipeg’s No List Records.

The song I heard is “Parathion Cocktail”. I didn’t know what Parathion was, so I looked it up at The Font of All Human Knowledge and learned that it’s a potent insecticide originally developed in Germany during World War II. It’s highly toxic to humans and “can result in headaches, convulsions, poor vision, vomiting, abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, unconsciousness, tremor, dyspnea, and finally lung-edema as well as respiratory arrest.” It’s apparently been used as a chemical weapon. Nice.

The song is very fuckin’ destructive, too. Sludgy sledgehammer riffs combine with really creative drumwork and bleeding-raw vocals to inflict a severe beatdown. But the dynamic rhythms and the squalling melodies will get their hooks in you, even with the band’s heavy boots stomping right on your neck. A really well-performed, really bleak combo of hardcore, sludge, and raucous noise/rock. Check it out.

https://www.facebook.com/anionbc/
http://anion.bandcamp.com/album/without-solace#