FALLUJAH, HACRIDE, TORMENTED

Starting Day 10 of my day-job death march. It’s looking like after today I’ll get a bit of a break — still can’t go back to Seattle, but I’ll have more time off that I can spend catching up on metal. But yesterday was another day-and-night clusterfuck and I had no time to pay attention to music. So this will be another very quick round-up of just a few things I saw that interested me early this morning.

FALLUJAH

This Bay Area band have a new EP on the way, called Nomadic. Yesterday TheMadIsraeli notified me that they premiered a new song from the EP named “The Dead Sea”. I listened to it.

Here’s the message I got from TheMadIsraeli: “I think the term for this is all consuming”. I can understand that reaction. The dramatic introductory music is a great build-up to an explosive start to the song proper. And as the song proceeds it proves to be a galvanizing experience, masterfully interweaving head-smashing death metal aggressiveness and head-swirling prog extravagance.

To me this sounds like a big step forward from the band’s debut album (which in itself was good) — I’m really impressed.

The EP will include guest vocals by Byanca Munoz, formerly of the band Whirr. Nomadic can be pre-ordered here, and it appears that the EP will be available for digital download through Bandcamp and iTunes on April 2. That kickass cover art is by Alex Hofmann of Cypher Visual.

http://www.facebook.com/fallujahofficial

HACRIDE

So swamped have I been with work that I somehow missed this news, but it’s such exciting news to me that I want to mention it even if it’s now old news to many of you.

If you’ve never listened to the music of this French band, I really recommend you do. If you have, then I’m guessing you’re already a fan, as I am. Their forthcoming album has been on my “highly anticipated” list since I first learned it was on the way. It’s going to include the contributions of two new band members — drummer Florent Marcadet of NCS favorites Klone, and Luiss Roux on vocals.

Now the name of the album has been revealed (Back To Where You’ve Never Been), along with the artwork, and the release dates: April 19th in Norway, Germany and Austria, and April 22nd in the rest of Europe.

Wait a minute. Indie Recordings didn’t announce a North American release date? No, they didn’t. I’m experienced mixed feelings of weepiness and anger.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hacride/6875867967

TORMENTED

I don’t think I knew anything about this Swedish band until about 30 minutes ago. In a completely random decision, I listened to a new song from their forthcoming album that was the subject of an e-mail I came across from Clawhammer PR buried in my overflowing, largely ignored email inbox. And shit, it’s just what I needed to hear.

The song is “Death Awaits”, and it’s just a superbly crafted piece of Entombed/Dismember worship, but with some unexpected lead guitar melodies mixed into the chainsaw sound (you’ll hear them right away in the intro to the song). I also totally dig the strangulated vocals, which do bring to mind LG Petrov.

Death Awaits will be out in Europe on March 25th via Listenable Records. The North American release date will be announced soon. Yeah, weepiness and anger again. But digging the song . . .

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tormented/161161300563301