AL-NAMROOD: “AL AQRAB”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 062024
 

(Below you will find Didrik Mešiček‘s review of a new album by the Saudi Arabian band Al-Namrood, which will be released in just a few days from now.)

There are many of us for whom metal is an essential part of our lives and some might say, rather dramatically, that it’s a matter of life and death. For Al-Namrood, however, that statement is quite literal.

The band’s name translates to “non-believer” and that’s the exact essence the Saudis convey with their music and exactly what could get them potentially executed, which is why they’ve never been able to play a live show as the risk is simply too great. Despite that, the band has been going strong since 2008, and Al Aqrab – to be released on June 9th by Shaytan Productions – will now be their 10th full-length album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AL-NAMROOD, AORTES, BLACK SORCERY, COGNITIVE, CRYPT SERMON, DARKNESS EVERYWHERE, GRAND CADAVER, HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY, REZN, VÁSTÍGR, WARDRUNA, BATHORY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 062024
 

Saturdays after Bandcamp Fridays should be named just like hurricanes. I’m left staring hopelessly at the wreckage of the NCS in-box and the high-water marks left by the musical flood, which still hasn’t really receded.

In case you were wondering, an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization maintains and updates the annually rotating list of hurricane names, with one name for each letter of the alphabet, except for Q, U, X, Y, and Z. This year the list begins with Alberto. However, I see no reason not to use the letters omitted by the WMO, so let’s call this Saturday Quorthon.

Let’s listen to these 12 songs, all but the last of which breached the surface of the flood during the last week, while we wait (hopelessly) for the carpet to dry out. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AL-NAMROOD, BLACK TUSK, DEAD FLESH, DVNE, GATECREEPER, HALNY, JORDSJUK, KULT IKON, RIITASOINTU, SIX FEET UNDER, SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI, WARM GADGET

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 142024
 

What I’ve assembled for visitors today is an even dozen songs and videos from bands spread across six countries and a variety of genres (and at least one that’s not really metal), including death metal, black metal, sludge, doom, post-metal, progressive metal, deathcore, folk-metal, and some things that are harder to pin down. If you don’t find something to like, it must be because you searched for “no spring cleaning”.

One thing you’ll figure out fairly soon is that a lot of today’s songs rock out, providing some very catchy head-movers. There’s also singing (or close to it) in some of them (gasp!). But of course I’ve sprinkled in some ravagers too, and because I’ve arranged these songs and videos in alphabetical order by band name, one of those comes first.

AL-NAMROOD (Saudi Arabia)

The first song is “Lisan Al Nar” (Tongue of Fire) from AlNamrood‘s new album Al Aqrab, to be released by Shaytan Productions on June 9th. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: COSMIC PUTREFACTION, EGREGORE, HÄXENZIJRKELL, AL-NAMROOD, SUNCZAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 082022
 

 

I had a premiere scheduled for today that unexpectedly fell through, so I decided to scurry around and grab some new songs and videos for a round-up. The scurrying didn’t allow much time for writing, so you won’t find much of that here. I did try to create a genre-spread, because unlike me not everyone likes every formulation of metallic extremity. Have a listen, and pick your poison. (Some very good artwork in this collection too.)

COSMIC PUTREFACTION (Italy)

You’d know if someone slipped this poison into your drink, because it doesn’t go down easy. Prepare for churning, gut-punching, fret-leaping, brain-broiling death metal mayhem by a virtuoso practitioner (Gabriele Gramaglia, with help this time from drummer Giulio Galati). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VONLAUS, AUÐN, HENOSIS, AL-NAMROOD, ESKAPISM, DYSTOPIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Aug 232020
 

 

We’ve made it to another Sunday, and I had enough time over the last 36 hours to find new blackened music to recommend. I found more than you’ll discover in this post, but I’m staring down the barrel of a fully loaded gun (every chamber loaded with day-job work I need to tackle today), so the odds are against working up a Part 2. Let’s get to it:

VONLAUS

Even after the warm reception given to their 2018 self-titled demo (reviewed here), Iceland’s Vonlaus still prefer to remain anonymous, though I see that Metal-Archives has identified two of them as members of Above Aurora (whose new album we premiered and reviewed at great length here). They now have a debut album headed our way next month, and its first single is the song I’ve chosen to lead off today’s collection. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AL-NAMROOD, ARSAFES WITH ANILA RAJEEV, PERCHTA, GHOSTS IN GOLD, ÄKTH GÁNAHËTH

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 012020
 

 

I was gearing up to do another one of those gigantic Overflowing Streams posts for today, but then something unexpected and serendipitous happened. I had an enormous list of possibilities to check out, assembled  from an hour and a half spent crawling through our e-mail and other sources. And as I began checking out that stuff it happened that I listened to music from five bands right in a row that just seemed to fit together really well — mainly because all the music struck me as exotic, albeit in different ways (and some are justifiable exceptions to our rule about singing).

I thought the unusual effect of listening to them together would be lost if I scattered them among a dozen (or more) other music streams, and so I decided to just stop and put them together here, and leave a larger round-up for another day (hopefully tomorrow).

Al-NAMROOD

Al-Namrood is an anti-religious Saudi Arabian black metal band, which no doubt continues to be a dangerous way for its understandably anonymous members to spend their time in that Kingdom. Their music, insofar as I’m familiar with it (and I’m mainly familiar with their more recent releases), has always been remarkably distinctive, and remarkably good. In the past I have been moved, in fact, to call their music “pitch-black magnificence”. And therefore I felt a thrill when I saw that Shaytan Productions will be releasing their 8th album on June 22nd. Continue reading »

FIVE FOR THE FOURTH: AL-NAMROOD, DECLINE OF THE I, VANHÄVD, PANZER SQUAD, WOLFBASTARD

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 042018
 

 

Today is the Independence Day holiday here in the U.S. The first thing I saw upon scanning the local Seattle paper after waking up was a fascinating story that included the photo above, and this headline:

 

Puget Sound explorers partied so hard for July 4, 1841, a sailor blew up his hand with a howitzer

 

We’ve come so far since that event, marked by the monument above near Puget Sound, which was reportedly the first official Fourth of July celebration held west of the Mississippi: Now we can blow off our hands without using military armament; inexpensive fireworks will do the job just as well. And what better way to commemorate the birth of the nation than by an orgy of drunkenness and self-inflicted wounds? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): AL-NAMROOD, GODS, DIAMANDA GALÁS, PHLEFONYAAR, PIMEYDENTUOJA, INSIDIOUS REIGN, CRACKHOUSE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 252017
 

 

This completes a new-music round-up I started early yesterday with Part 1 and a big Part 2. This concluding installment is pretty big, too.

AL-NAMROOD

Al-Namrood is an anti-religious Saudi Arabian black metal band, which has to be a dangerous way for them to spend their time. The first and last time I wrote about them was in 2012 when their third album Kitab Al-Awthan was on the brink of release. Now their sixth album is due for release on CD and vinyl by Shaytan Production on May 16. Its name is Enkar. Continue reading »

FUCK. IT’S MONDAY AGAIN. BUT LET’S CHEER OURSELVES UP WITH NEW CANNIBAL CORPSE, AL-NAMROOD, AND NAPOLEON SKULLFUKK.

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jan 092012
 

I’d like to pretend I have a good attitude about Monday’s, but the truth is I’d rather go through childbirth and then be forced to eat my own placenta than start another fucking work week. I have a feeling I’m not alone in that feeling. I’ve been cheering myself up by listening to new tunes, and therefore I would like to cheer you up with them, too, in case you’re having that feeling that I’m having, y’know, the one about childbirth and the placenta.

CANNIBAL CORPSE

Florida’s Cannibal Corpse are officially the best-selling death metal band of all time. Longevity accounts for some of that success — they released their Eaten Back To Life debut in 1990. More than 20 years later, they’ve completed work on a new album that will crawl forth from the grave this year. We don’t have an album title or artwork yet, but a new song called “Demented Aggression” has just surfaced on YouTube.

This isn’t an official release, so I’m not 100% sure this is real — though it sure as hell sounds like Cannibal Corpse — and because it’s not official, it may get yanked by the Tube at any moment. But until that happens, you can go get your earholes violated right after the jump. (And thanks to Aaron for the hot tip on this baby.) Continue reading »