MISCELLANY NO. 21

 MISCELLANY  6 Responses »
Jan 312011
 

I’m way behind with these MISCELLANY posts. Of course, “Way Behind” is one of my middle names (or two of them), so I guess this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone. It’s still unfortunate, because the longer I wait to do one of these, the more impossible it becomes to get through all the undiscovered music I’d like to hear. Actually, there’s no such thing as “more impossible”. A task is either possible or it’s not.

Anyway, there are rules to performing this particular impossible task: Here at NCS we keep a running list of bands whose music we’ve never heard, but who look interesting for one reason or another; usually, they’re bands who are fairly new to the scene. When time permits, I pick a handful of names off the list and listen to a song or two from each band and then write about my reactions in these MISCELLANY posts. Sometimes, I’ve got reason to think I’ll like the music, but usually I have no idea. And because I’m realistic about the worth of my own opinions, I give you a chance to hear what I heard so you can make up your own minds.

In this installment of the series, I checked out the following bands from the following places: Red Descending (Australia), Death Comes Pale (Denmark), and PLAAG (Belgium).  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 20

 Album Reviews, MISCELLANY  8 Responses »
Jan 222011
 

A month has passed since we ran our last MISCELLANY post. A month between these posts is way too long. With that kind of lag, we’re even more behind in checking out new bands. We may have to run a bunch of these posts next week in an effort to catch up.

For any new readers out there, here’s the drill: NCS keeps a running list of bands who look interesting based on band e-mails or MySpace friend requests, reader recommendations, press releases, or news blurbs, and then every so often I pick a few names off the list and go listen to a song (or sometimes two). In these MISCELLANY posts, I write about what I heard and give you a chance to listen, too.

Because we don’t know the music in advance, there’s no guarantee about the results, but we’ve had good luck in the past.  For today’s installment in this series, I listened to music from Achren (Scotland) and Giant of the Mountain (The Republic of Texas) — and was blown away by both. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 19

 MISCELLANY  10 Responses »
Dec 192010
 

Finland Tribute Week took its toll on our exploration of new bands, or at least new bands from outside Finland. Our list of bands whose music we’re interested in checking out continued to grow while we were preoccupied with All Things Finnish, but we did nothing to reduce the list. So now we’re playing catch-up, beginning with today’s MISCELLANY post.

The rules of this game haven’t changed: I randomly pick names off our running list of bands who look interesting (for completely random reasons); I check out a song or two from the bands I pick, not knowing whether the music will be good, bad, or indifferent; and I write about what I heard — plus I let you hear the music, too, so you can make up your own minds. It’s like a pot-luck dinner, but with people you don’t know, who may or may not be good cooks.

Because I’m playing catch-up, I picked six bands off the MISCELLANY list and listened to them in this order: Weapon (Canada), Archspire (Canada), The Fevered (Australia), Unstable (NY), Seven Nines and Tens (Canada), and Bouq (Jordan). Yes, that makes this post almost as long as War and Peace. But by complete chance, it turns out that the music spans a very broad spectrum of metal, so I’m hoping all the following verbiage will prove to be worth your time.

WEAPON

I’ve admitted before that I’ve got the attention span of a hummingbird, and here’s more proof: Our MISCELLANY list is as long as my arm — so what did I do? I listened first to a band that I found out about just yesterday, instead of bands that have been lingering on the list for months. But being unable to concentrate for more than a few seconds does have its advantages, because this was a super-fine find — and I must thank NCS reader SurgicalBrute for the tip on this one. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: MISCELLANY

 MISCELLANY, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 122010
 

If you’ve been keeping count, we’ve done Finland Tribute Week posts for 10 days in a row (including today) — and that’s not counting the two posts about Amorphis and Before the Dawn that started this tribute rolling before we decided to formalize it with a name. Either way, whether it’s been 10 days or 12, we’ve moved beyond the normal dictionary definition of “week”, at least if you live on Earth. There’s just too much awesome Finnish metal that we feel compelled to write about — and we’re still not done.

We’re not quite sure how much longer we’ll roll with this. We’re not even sure what day it is. But based on what we’ve got up our sleeves at the moment, it will last about three more days (interspersed with a couple of guest contributions). Even then, we’re positive we’ll have left out bands that are near and dear to the hearts of many of you.

Yes, Finland’s a small country, but it’s still a fucking country, and there’s just no way we can do complete justice to all the metal it’s producing, even if we continued this series into the New Year. Plus, lots of things have been happening in the wider world of metal while we’ve been tunnel-visioned with Finland, and we need to get back to that wider world.

But not today. Today, we’re going to play our MISCELLANY game with Finnish metal. As regular readers know, in our usual MISCELLANY posts, I randomly pick bands I’ve never heard before, I listen to a song (or two) of their music, and I make a log of the journey for this site — usually not knowing in advance what the music will sound like or whether it will be appealing or disappointing.

For this Finnish edition of MISCELLANY, I’ve randomly picked five — yes, five — bands from the list of reader suggestions we’ve gotten since this Tribute began. These are bands whose music I’d never heard before. In fact, these are bands whose names I’d never heard before: Ikuinen Kaamos, Hateform, Flame, Crystalic, and Cause For Effect.

And, sure enough, the music tends to validate our hypothesis that there’s some mutating substance in the Finnish water supply that turns a high percentage of Finnish children into hot-shit musicians, because this was one wild ride, from start to finn-ish. (for reactions to the music, and the tracks I heard, read on after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 18

 MISCELLANY  12 Responses »
Nov 272010
 

It’s been almost three weeks since I put up a MISCELLANY post, which is way too long. My vacation had something to do with that delay, but still — too long. My list of bands to check out has grown to gargantuan proportions, which means the selection for today is even more random than usual — and this post is also really long. But it’s a fucking holiday weekend, and what else have you got to do?

You know the rules of this game by now: I keep a running list of bands I’ve never heard but who look interesting for one reason or another, and when I have time, I randomly pick a few names off the list and listen to one song from each band — not knowing in advance whether the music will be worth a damn. And then I record impressions in these MISCELLANY blogs, and provide you the songs I heard so you can form your own opinions.

For today’s way-late installment, I checked out four bands from distant countries. In fact, distance was sort of the criterion I used for picking names off the list this time. Of course, all countries are distant from Seattle, except Canada, which is more or less spitting distance away.

Not that I would ever spit on Canada. In fact, when I get nauseous about the state of political discourse in the U.S. (which happens about every other day), I fantasize about moving to Canada — until it dawns on me that I don’t know anything about the state of Canadian political discourse, plus the national sport seems to be hockey, which always looks to me like someone dropped a big pile of ants onto a piece of ice and stirred ’em into a state of frothing anger with a big stick. In other words, I have no fucking idea what’s happening.

Where was I? Oh yeah — metal bands from distant countries. For today’s post I checked out Heathen Beast (India), Skrypt (India), Bilocate (Jordan), and (in a late addition to the post) Ektomorf (Hungary). See what I found (and listen to the songs), after the jump. And just to spare you the suspense — I was pretty well blown away by what I heard from the first three bands, and the fourth was at least fun. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY (NO. 17)

 MISCELLANY  14 Responses »
Nov 072010
 

I’ve been accumulating the names of more and more bands whose music I don’t know but who look interesting for one reason or another. Yesterday, I decided it was again time to pick a few names at random off the list and see what I might find. That, of course, is what this MISCELLANY series is all about. With the internet at my fingertips, I go exploring and I record in this post who and what I heard, not really knowing in advance whether the music will be worthwhile.

For each of the bands whose names I pick, I listen to one song, and only one song — those are the rules I set for myself when we started this series. Yes, it’s pretty random and runs the risk of not giving the music a fair chance, but I think it’s better than nothing, and over time it has proven to be a useful vehicle for exposing myself (and you) to bands we might not have discovered in any other way.

In this particular installment of MISCELLANY, I checked out three bands: Fejd (Sweden), Praetorian (U.S.), and Forsaken (U.S.)

FEJD

My first stop in this edition of the MISCELLANY tour was to watch a new video from a Swedish folk-metal band called Fejd. I saw a press item on Blabbermouth about them, which picqued my interest (though I can’t really explain why). Fejd was formed in 2001 by two brothers, Patrik Rimmerfors and Niklas Rimmerfors, who had been playing in a folk music band called — fittingly — Rimmerfors. To create Feyd, they joined together with some childhood friends from a metal band called Pathos. As they explain, the resulting music features “the weight of heavy metal in symbiosis with the typical melodic language and sadness of the Nordic folk music.”  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 16

 MISCELLANY  23 Responses »
Oct 232010
 

Time again to brachiate out into the arboreal ether of metalness, swinging randomly from limb to limb in search of new music we’ve not heard before, and hoping we don’t face-plant into the edged bark of an ugly tree.

Yes, it’s another edition of MISCELLANY, in which we randomly check out music from bands we’ve not heard before. We go, we listen, we record our thoughts, we lay it out for you as we heard it, regardless of the outcome. It’s a tour into the unknown, a somewhat reckless exploration, swinging from vine to vine, venturing deeper into the metallic jungle, sometimes throwing our feces at unsuspecting ground-dwellers below.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, MISCELLANY. So, we keep our running list of bands that look interesting, and then we see if the music pans out. Yesterday, I checked out three diverse bands from distant shores: Evocation (Sweden), Amberian Dawn (Finland), and Metal Safari (Japan). And here’s what I found:

EVOCATION

We recorded the name of this Gothenburg band (pictured above) on our list based on a Blabbermouth report about the impending release of their third album, Apocalyptic, on Cyclone Empire Records (it will issue in Europe on October 29 and in North America on November 9).

To be brutally honest, we put them on our MISCELLANY list mainly because of the album cover, by an artist named Xaay, who has created covers for Behemoth, Nile, and Vader. If you know those bands, you’ll recognize the style of the art . . . which you can see after the jump. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY (NO. 15)

 MISCELLANY  12 Responses »
Oct 142010
 

Yes, as promised, we have back-to-back MISCELLANY posts, still trying to catch up on bands we haven’t heard that for different reasons we put on our running list of music to check out. But it appears that even after running faster, we’re still pretty much in the same place. Between yesterday’s post and this one, we’ve cleared six names off the list. But since last weekend we’ve also added six more.

But do we care? Fuck no! Because taking pot luck with the music of new bands isn’t a chore, it’s an adventure! We have little or no idea what the music will sound like before we embark on a listening excursion, so it’s almost always a surprise to find out. Doesn’t mean it will be a happy surprise. It could be the kind of surprise you get when you find out your cat has thrown up in your bed (as happened to me last weekend).

And that’s the way MISCELLANY works: What we hear, we write about, even if it turns out to be cat throw-up.

Yesterday’s post and this one were based on a random selection of six bands we plucked off our list. I listened to a song from each band, in the order described in these two posts. Yesterday, we covered the first three listening experiences — all of them bands from the U.S. Today, we have a more international flavor. The subjects of today’s post are:

Vomit the Soul (Kuwait/U.S.), Deathember (Sweden), and Excrementory Grindfuckers (Germany).  (listening notes, and the songs we heard, follow after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY (NO. 14)

 MISCELLANY  13 Responses »
Oct 132010
 

I’m still trying to recover from the insanity of the comments on yesterday’s post. It’s apparent that all I need to do to open Pandora’s box is write some shit about band names. It’s like ringing the dinner bell for Pavlov’s dog — it apparently triggers a reflex of saliva and barking and the expulsion of bodily waste. Of course, that’s just what we hope for here at NCS, so it’s all good!

But I now tremble in fear, realizing that I hold the keys to a great convulsion of dementia. I’m concerned that all I have to do now is use the word “Jambalaya” or another word that shall not be mentioned but begins with “Va” and ends in “goo”, and the earth will open up beneath my feet and spill forth all manner of skittering, black-winged, red-eyed things that will jibber and vomit out terrible, terrible imaginings that involve ElvisShotJFK‘s mom. Fortunately, I know that with great power comes great responsibility, and so I shall keep these keys hidden away in a carved, ebony box with the numerals “666” carved in the lid, to be used only when I’m bored shitless.

But I am not yet bored today. Today is a new day, and I am content to do something more mundane, like write about actual music. So, it’s time for a little MISCELLANY.

I’m still playing catch-up with a growing list of bands who look interesting but whose music is unknown to us. We compile that list here at NCS based on press releases that come to our in-box, Blabbermouth blurbs, MySpace friend requests, and demos that arrive via the ether or in the mail from all over the world. If we had nothing but time, and an endless supply of your attention, we could run a MISCELLANY column every day. Alas, we can’t do that, but to help with the catching-up, we’re running two installments back-to-back, one today and one tomorrow.

The rules of the game: I pick names off the list at random and listen to the band’s music, usually only one song per band, and record my impressions in an installment of this series. More often than not, I find good music that’s worth sharing. But the way this game works, I share exactly what I hear, even if I wish I hadn’t heard it.

The MISCELLANY installments today and tomorrow are based on listening I did last weekend. I checked out six bands, and today we have the results of the first three. All three of these bands are from the U.S., and they each occupy very different locations on the metal spectrum: Quarter the Villain (U.S.), Winterus (U.S.), and The Browning (U.S.). Continue reading »

MISCELLANY (NO. 13)

 MISCELLANY  5 Responses »
Oct 072010
 

I didn’t have time last weekend to make my usual weekly exploration of new music for our MISCELLANY series, and so my list of un-heard bands grew. I’m now trying to catch up a bit with a mid-week installment, and with any luck, I’ll do another one this weekend.

I’m sure our previous readers are sick of me explaining what they already know, but our audience still seems to be growing, and so just in case someone’s reading this MISCELLANY thing for the first time, I feel like it’s only fair to give them the usual warning:

MISCELLANY is an unfiltered stumbling around in search of new music (and by “new”, I mean bands I haven’t previously heard, even if the rest of the fucking world knows them like the back of their hand). I keep a running list of bands that look interesting for some reason — sometimes for no better reason than they have an interesting name or cool album art — and then I randomly choose names off the list and go listen to what they’ve got to offer on MySpace or elsewhere.

What I hear, I stick into these MISCELLANY posts, regardless of whether I thought the music was worth a shit. More often than not, we’ve had good luck with the choices, but you never know. That’s part of the cringing fun of doing this.

For today’s installment, I listened to The Burning (Denmark), Caliber 666 (Sweden), and Sacred Oath (U.S.). And here’s a hint — I unintentionally hit a trifecta: All killer, and no filler. And although the styles of music are different, all three have returned to the earthy roots of older genres in a very appealing way.   (more after the jump, including your chance to stream the same songs I heard . . .) Continue reading »

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