OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY AND AILS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Jan 152019
 

 

For this installment of the list there’s again no particular reason why I paired these two songs together, so I don’t have much to say by way of overarching introduction. On the other hand, it may be that I just haven’t done a very good job interrogating my subconscious to determine the reason. If you can help me, please speak up.

(To check out the previous installments, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.)

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY

This Austrian band is another one in which the Ven diagrams of musical interest by the longest-running writers at our site intersect. Our first post about them was in 2014, where I premiered a track from their second album, Aokigahara. That was a wonderful album, but in retrospect was only the tip of the iceberg that was building beneath the surface. Continue reading »

NORTHWEST TERROR FEST 2018: A PHOTO RECORD (DAY 1)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 112018
 

 

For the second year in a row, NCS was proud to co-present Northwest Terror Fest, which took place this year on May 31 – June 2 in Seattle, Washington. Several of us in the NCS family helped organize and present the fest, and I guess that makes us a bit biased, but we’re not the only ones who thought it was a fantastic event. The feedback from bands, fans, and the venues has been uniformly very, very positive — so much so that we and our co-conspirators are already at work planning the third installment of NWTF for 2019.

We will of course be bringing you news about next year’s fest when the time is right, but we now want to take one more look back at NWTF 2018. And to do that, we’re fortunate to be able to present some of the amazing photos that New Orleans-based photographer Teddie Taylor took while the festival was in progress. Today we’ve got a selection of pics from the first day — and Teddie managed to shoot every band that performed; that’s one good thing about the rotation of bands between two stages, with no overlap. You can see every minute of every show as long as your energy holds out (and that hasn’t been a problem, given the caliber of the bands who’ve thrown themselves into their NWTF performances).

So, without further ado, here are Teddie Taylor’s photos from Day 1 at NWTF 2018. Continue reading »

VARIED VOICES: AILS, SARASVATI, CAGE OF CREATION, MYKRAVERK

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 212018
 

 

I don’t know if I’ll manage to follow through, but my plan for today is to post two round-ups of new music, this one being the first. As the post title suggests, I carved these songs away from the others and pulled them in here because the vocals in each of them aren’t solely of the kind that would suit the (demonstrably porous) rule in our site’s title. That’s right (gasp), there are some clean-sung melodies in these tracks… combined in each song with harsh ones.

Of course, to my ears the tracks have many other things to recommend them or I wouldn’t have asked you to listen. But the varied voices in these tracks are part of what made them stand out to me.

AILS

In April of last year I came across and wrote about a song from a two-track demo by a Bay-area band named Ails, whose line-up included two former members of the sorely missed Ludicra — vocalist Laurie Sue Shanaman and guitarist/vocalist Christy Cather — as well as guitarist Sam Abend (Desolation, Abrubt, Scurvy Dogs), drummer Colby Byrn (One In The Chamber, 2084, Aequorea), and bassist Jason Miller (Apocryphon, Cretaceous, Phantom Limbs). At the time, Ails was in the process of mastering their full-length debut and were seeking label support — and they got it, to no surprise of mine or anyone else who heard that demo. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LO-RUHAMAH, AILS, PLOUGHSHARE, NECROT, ASHES FOR THE MUTE, IGORRR

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  8 Responses »
Apr 132017
 

 

This collection of new music is perhaps more eclectic and quirky than usual. Certainly, some of the tracks collected here are difficult to categorize, and in some cases almost impossible to describe. As a playlist, I found it appealing in part because it threw me off-balance. As usual, I also tried to include under-the-radar names, as well as (somewhat) better known ones, though I doubt any of these names have reached beyond the crevices of the underground.

LO-RUHAMAH

This makes the third time I’ve emblazoned our site with that wonderful piece of artwork by Elijah Gwhedhú Tamu at the top of this post, but the first time I’ve been able to share any music from the album it adorns. I’ve been eager to find out what kind of music would be wrapped within this imagery, and now I know that it’s as interesting and as attention-grabbing as the visual art. Continue reading »