FREE SHIT FROM HELLS HEADBANGERS (INCLUDING NEW SONGS FROM MIDNIGHT, WITCH CROSS, PROFANATICA, AND IMPIETY)

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  24 Responses »
May 042013
 

Many of our readers are intimately familiar with Hells Headbangers, but for those who aren’t, it’s an online distro and record label specializing in death, black, thrash, grind, doom, and heavy metal. As a label, Hells Headbangers is home to a tremendous line-up of slaughtering bands, many of whom we’ve featured here at NCS. This morning I discovered that HH has made available a free summer comp of music from many of those bands. The comp consists of 20 tracks and includes brand new songs from forthcoming albums by Midnight, Witch Cross, Profanatica, and Impiety.

The comp also comes with artwork drawn by Antichrist Kramer as an homage to Slayer’s debut album Show No Mercy. The timing is coincidental, but it now seems like a fitting tribute to the late Jeff Hanneman. (There’s a track on the comp listed as a Slayer song . . . but it’s really Vomitor.)

The comp is available as a free digital download on Bandcamp, and HH says a double-LP and a CD version will be coming soon.

I’ve been blasting this shit this morning, and it’s awful strong. Links are after the jump, along with the new tracks and the complete album stream. Continue reading »

DISINTERRED: “DEMO MMXIII”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
May 042013
 

In April of this year a Belgian band named Disinterred released their first demo. They wrote us to see if NCS might review it. I made a mental note to check out the music. Unfortunately, it was a mental note instead of a real note. You see, mental notes depend on my mind, so at least half the time that means they’re fucked. Fortunately, yesterday a friend independently suggested that I check out Disinterred. This time I did it before I had time to forget.

How does this music work? The basics seem pretty simple. You figure out how to tune the guitars and apply the right distortion pedal (an HM-2 will do nicely), so the chords sound radioactive. This is a matter of technology and ear. I presume it helps to be possessed by an undead spirit. I’m pretty sure Disinterred are possessed.

You figure out that you want to go with up-tempo pacing, and you get a drummer who can hit that simple, old-school, d-beat, two-step kind of Swedeath drum thing . . . no blasting or double-bass needed. You find a vocalist who can get down really low but sound like he’s barking with a throat full of phlegm, or possibly blood. In the case of Disinterred, I’m pretty sure it’s blood. Is that it? Nope, it’s not.

You also need a guitarist who can deliver bursts of pure shred, like a welder’s torch that’s been opened wide and then dropped on the concrete and left to skitter around like a demented snake. You also want that vocalist to be able to elevate, get up into some ghastly shrieks, and hold them for  long time. Check.

Will that do it? Unh unh, not yet. Continue reading »

NERVECIDE: “IMPERMANENCE”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit  1 Response »
Apr 182013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by Nervecide.)

The ever-growing reputation of the Italians to craft perfectly shaped caskets of technical evisceration is really starting to hit a fucking high point.  So many bands are coming out of there who can really shred that it’s almost like there is something in the water.  Nervecide is not a band, but a solo project by Giorgio Benedetti, a very talented multi-instrumentalist who’s put together an album that brings forth the non-stop, relentless, over-the-top assault of the likes of Behemoth, Cryptopsy, or Hate Eternal along with other elements such as Meshuggah’s ambience (particularly what was found on their first albums) and an overall harsh industrial character.  This first album by Benedetti, Impermanence, has made a staggeringly overpowering impression on me.  This is brutal, chaotic, technical death metal with a definitive character.  It’s kind of like the impact force of a steamroller at 100 MPH.

Giorgio has a voice with a perfect fit for his music, emulating the harsh, forceful, guttural style of vocalists like Corpsegrinder, Erik Rutan, and Glen Benton.  This is on top of his guitar acrobatics, which gracefully leap between bits of plague-rat-infested sludge, fret-board-blazing knife stabs, and Middle Eastern melody. Continue reading »

NEW FREE AMON AMARTH SONG: “DECEIVER OF THE GODS”

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Apr 132013
 

Yesterday Amon Amarth unveiled the cover art, title, and release date for their new album Deceiver of the Gods, which I duly reported here. I seem to have stirred up some shit on our site with a less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the album art. I still maintain that it’s a mixed bag, but I try not to judge a book (or an album) by its cover. More important is what lies within.

With this band, here in 2013, you know with a high degree of certainty what will lie within. Both thematically and musically, the band have settled on a formula that has made them exceedingly popular. It’s a formula that happens to appeal to me, though I must admit that I would love it if the band broke their own mold every now and then and fired something different in the kiln.

Today brought us a stream — and a free download — of the new album’s title track. It’s a thrashier attack than much of what was to be found on 2011’s Surtur Rising, but no less catchy than what you would expect from this band, and with an appealing dual-guitar melody in the mid-part. As my NCS colleagues have pointed out, it also includes a key change!

Have Amon Amarth broken the mold with this song? Nope — it will not throw the Amon Amarth faithful for a loop, nor will it change the minds of those listeners who aren’t impressed with this brand of Viking-themed melodic death metal. But it’s only one song. We may still hear something we aren’t expecting. In the meantime, listen to this one after the jump. Continue reading »

IMMOLATION INDOCTRINATES, DAMNED CREED INHALES THE HATE, AND PAOLO GIRARDI DELIVERS THE EYE CANDY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 082013
 

Continuing what has turned into a content-packed Monday, we’re packaging in this post features on the latest track premiere by Immolation, a new discovery from Greece (Damned Creed), and mysterious new artwork by Paolo Girardi.

IMMOLATION

No one with any sense really needs to be teased further about Immolation’s new album, because all sensible metalheads have already resolved to lay hands on it as soon as possible. But we’re getting teased again anyway.

Not long ago MetalSucks exclusively debuted yet another song from the forthcoming Kingdom of Conspiracy release — and it’s available for free download via the widget on their site. The song is a titanic bruiser powered by tremolo’d grinding, bullet-spitting drumfire, wraithlike soloing, and enough tempo shifts to keep you off balance while your head bangs merrily away. Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: THE DOGS . . . WHO LET THEM OUT? (Part 2)

 Album Reviews, Free Shit  No Responses »
Apr 052013
 

(This is the second part of a feature by NCS contributor Austin Weber that we began yesterday (here). Today he reviews new releases by Okular (Norway) and Teramobil (Canada), and one older one from  Diascorium (UK).) 

It was me, I let the dogs out.

Here are a few more reviews and music not only from two groups not previously featured at NCS, but also one (Okular) whose debut album Probiotic was reviewed by Islander way back in the olden days of 2011.

Okular – SexForce

For those unfamiliar, Okular are a Melodic Death Metal band from Oslo, Norway who make elegant yet aggressive death metal with a blend of acoustic playing and folk-styled clean singing.  SexForce is a continuation and evolution of the technical progressive mold Okular created for themselves on their debut, Probiotic. This time around they have reached further, going as far as black metal on some tracks, most notably the opener “House Full of Colors”, which is a terrifying introduction that offers a riff-packed taste of what lays ahead. Another pissed-off-as-hell track follows in “No Separation”, which packs a feral punch similar to getting struck by lightning. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ARTIFICIAL BRAIN — “BUTCHERING COSMIC GIANTS”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 032013
 

On most days at this site I try to pull together a round-up of new music, album art, and/or news that most interested me over the preceding 24 hours. It’s usually in the range of 3-5 items, packaged together in one long post. Today, just for the hell of it, I’m spreading what interested me over the course of the whole day, one item at a time.

You remember Artificial Brain don’t you? I don’t mean my artificial brain, I mean that unhinged space-death-metal band from Long Island (more or less) that I wrote about in September 2011, which includes Revocation guitarist Dan Gargiulo, vocalist Will Smith (Buckshot Facelift, ex-Biolich), and some other bastards who wish to remain nameless.

Okay, that was a long time ago and you may have forgotten. So it’s time for a reminder, and to remind you, Artificial Brain have released a new two-song offering named Butchering Cosmic Giants, recorded with Eliot Bayless, which is available for free download on Bandcamp (here). A little bird told me that Artificial Brain are also recording a full-length album with Colin Marston that will include additional manifestations of sonic dementia.

What the new music sounds like: imagine an alien stew consisting of cutting/blasting black metal, pummeling death metal, cosmic guitar digressions, rubbery bass-lines, roaring grisly bears, and shrieking ice giants. Also, gang vocals and a bit of Gorguts-like tech frenzy. And unstable tempos. Continue reading »

FOLLOWING UP: BEASTWARS GIVES AWAY A NEW SONG

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 272013
 

For the second time today I realized I was a day early with a couple of yesterday’s posts. Yesterday I posted a review of the forthcoming second album by New Zealand’s Beastwars — Blood Becomes Fire — which in my opinion will stand as one of the best albums of 2013 when this year draws to a close. And then today Beastwars began giving away a song from the album.

As it happens, that song is one of the two I like best out of a collection that’s very strong from start to finish. Its name is “Caul of Time”, and it’s a good example of the power and the passion that runs throughout the album. It’s also heavy as hell.

Go HERE to stream and download the track on Bandcamp. I also want to stitch it into the fabric of NO CLEAN SINGING, so it’s also streaming at this site right after the jump. Continue reading »

FOLLOWING UP: TARDIVE DYSKINESIA – “CRAWLING IN THE MUD”

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 272013
 

Yesterday, in a post devoted to recent metal art, I included the piece you see above (created by Manster Designs). It mysteriously appeared, without explanation, on the FB page of a Greek band I admire named Tardive Dyskinesia. If I’d only waited a day . . . because now the band have revealed what it’s all about.

The artwork was created for a “new” single named (of course) “Crawling In the Mud”. The song was originally recorded during the 2008 studio sessions that produced the band’s 2009 debut album, the terrific The Sea of See Through Skins, but it was not included on the official release of that album by Coroner Records. As of today, the band have made the song available for free download in a package that also includes two live tracks — “We, the Cancer” (from the band’s latest album Static Apathy In Fast Forward) and “Complicity” (from The Sea of See Through Skins) — plus a high-res version of the above artwork and a band photo and logo.

I’m just going to focus on that “ghost” song “Crawling In the Mud” because I hadn’t heard it before today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELPHEGOR, BLOOD RED THRONE, AND BLACK FUCKING CANCER

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 232013
 

I’m making a slow start on the blog today. I was putting the finishing touches on a pocket-sized fusion reactor that runs on spit, produces beer as a by-product, and will supply the power (and beer) needs of an entire neighborhood for a century. I’ve been working on the idea for a few days and figured I’d just go ahead and get er done.

Also, I stayed up late last night partying with my co-workers after completing that month-long day-job project I’ve been whining about, and I got obliterated.

Anyways, here are a few things I saw and heard this morning after finishing the reactor and waiting for those skull trolls in my head to stop hammering on shit with lead mallets. I hate skull trolls.

BELPHEGOR

According to a press release I got, Austria’s Belphegor have finished tracking drums, bass, and guitar for their new album, working with producer Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal). That’s the good news. The bad news is that the release of the new album has been pushed back to early 2014. Frontman Helmuth Lehner,  who nearly died last year as a result of complications from a typhus infection he contracted on tour in Brazil, is scheduled to record vocals in June and July, with mixing and mastering to be done in September. Continue reading »

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