SEEN AND HEARD: ENSLAVED, DEMONICAL, DOWN

I’m finally finished with the project for my fucking day job that has kept me on the U.S. east coast for the last three weeks. Tomorrow I return to Seattle and some semblance of normalcy, both for life in general and for NCS.

I still feel like I’ve been put through a goddamn meat-grinder, and it will take some time to get over being exhausted (and to finish posting what other writers sent me over the last week), but I did spend an hour this morning trying to figure out what I missed in the way of new music over the last couple of days. As usual, given the persistent flood of new metal that’s been coming our way since this new year began, I found A LOT. I’m going to include three new videos in this post. I hope I can get another round-up done tomorrow before heading to the airport.

ENSLAVED

Enslaved’s new album In Times is one of my “most anticipated” 2015 releases, so it’s been frustrating that I haven’t had time to listen to it since our advance copy arrived about a week ago. But this morning I did listen to the first advance track, “Thurisaz Dreaming”, which began streaming as a lyric video at Noisey yesterday along with an excellent interview of Ivar Bjørnson.

 

 

This new song is really two songs in one. The beginning, which is a scathing assault on the senses, is a potent reminder that Enslaved are still a black metal band. And the strange, mystical, cosmic, almost hypnotic, mid-paced rocker that follows and drives the song the rest of the way, is a reminder that Enslaved are not just a black metal band.

There’s a lot to take in, but for some reason what’s grabbing me about the second part of this song after two listens is that bass line…

In Times will be released by Nuclear Blast in early March and is available for pre-order here.

https://www.facebook.com/enslaved

 

 

 

 

 

DEMONICAL

Another one of my highly anticipated 2015 releases is the forthcoming new EP by Demonical, because Swedish fucking death metal. This will be a four-track affair, and the recording of it only began recently. It will be released sometime this spring by Agonia Records.

To tide us over until the EP hits, earlier this week the band released a music video for “Through Hellfire”, a song that appeared on their third album, 2011’s Death Infernal. This is a multi-cam recording of a performance at the Obscene Extreme Festival in The Czech Republic last July.

Man, I do dearly love the guitar tone. And when the band collapse into a corpse-crawl, you can almost smell the stench of decay and putrescence. Such a lovely scent.

https://www.facebook.com/Demonicalofficial

 

 

 

 

 

DOWN

Last week Revolver premiered a music video for a song by Down named “Conjure”, which appeared on 2014’s Down IV, Part II. I found out about it through a tip from our supporter eiterorm.

I’ve always liked this song, a really evil, slow Sabbathian crusher that briefly accelerates like a steamroller in an overdrive gear. The video is really well made, and very bloody, a diabolical horror show. Nasty piece of work.

https://www.facebook.com/down/