MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 2)

 Forthcoming Albums  No Responses »
Feb 012011
 


The first month of the year has come and gone. January brought those of us in Seattle some typically ass-sucking winter weather, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the brutality dished out by the weather gods on our metal brothers and sisters in the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S. And of course, our readers ins places like Russia, and Finland, and Sweden are probably laughing their asses off reading our complaints about our winter weather. So, we’ll just shut up about that.

Besides, January brought all sorts of great new metal to our tender ears, so who gives a shit about the weather anyway? And you know what else January brought? It brought news of still more metal goodness on the way — great bursts of audio sunshine in our collective futures that will part these winter clouds and leave them whimpering in cloudy tatters.

Okay, maybe we should leave poetry to the poets and just get on with this next monthly installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, where we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like, or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we’ve cut and pasted the announcements and compiled them in alphabetical order. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones:

AJATARRA: “AJATTARA — the Finnish band featuring former AMORPHIS frontman Pasi Koskinen (a.k.a. Itse Ruoja Suruntuoj) — will release its seventh album, Murhat (“Murders”) on February 2 via Osasto-A Records. Murhat is available for streaming in its entirety on the AJATTARA Facebook page.”  (much more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR SLAUGHTERS SEATTLE AND PORTLAND – PART 2

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Aug 242010
 

This is the second part of a two-part post about the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour’s performances in Seattle and Portland on August 20 and 21. In Part 1, we gave our impressions about the music and posted photos of about half the bands performing in Seattle.

Today, we have a random assortment of observations about our two days of metal in the Pacific Northwest, plus photos of all the bands at the show in Portland.

None of us here at NCS know what the fuck we’re doing with a camera. We like to justify our ineptitude by telling ourselves it’s just like the DIY ethic of underground metal. We also like to make excuses that divert attention from our complete lack of training, such as the constantly changing or almost non-existent light, the non-stop motion on stage, the distance from which we’re taking the photos, and — most important — the fact that we go to shows to listen to the fucking music, not to take photos, so there’s a limit to how much time we’re going to spend snapping away like a fucking tourist.

But, despite our manifold shortcomings as photojournalists, we think these pics are just barely good enough to share, so we’re sharing them — a lot of them, since 11 bands played in Portland and we didn’t miss out on any of them.  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR SLAUGHTERS SEATTLE AND PORTLAND – PART 1

 Concert Reviews  13 Responses »
Aug 232010
 

This year’s edition of THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour was a celebration of death metal in some of its more brutal and technical flavors — and one out-of-place wild card that stole the show. In this case, “stealing the show” is a relative term, because the line-up of bands was so strong.

In fact, with allowances for the extremity of our musical tastes here at NCS, this was as consistently solid a line-up, from start to finish, as any tour in recent memory: Vital Remains, Animals As Leaders, Carnifex, Decrepit Birth, Cephalic Carnage, Veil of Maya, The Red Chord, All Shall Perish, The Faceless, and Decapitated.

In fact, we were so stoked about this tour that we decided to see it both in Seattle last Friday and again in Portland the next day. The tour’s last show is in San Francisco tonight, so we were catching the bands near the end of a long summer haul that no doubt wore them out. But you couldn’t tell that from the way they played. If we didn’t have day jobs and were closer to SF, we’d be tempted to take in a third performance — it was that good.

As usual, we took a crapload of photos at both performances. And in fact, most of them are crap. But we’ve been painstakingly sorting through them to find the least crappy ones that we wouldn’t be too embarrassed to share.

So, today, we’ve got some high-level reactions to what we heard from all the bands, plus photos from the Seattle tour stop. Tomorrow (now at this location), we’ll have some random observations about the scene and the crowds and a few other thoughts that aren’t really in the nature of a review, plus the best photos from the Portland show (which are a bit better than the ones we’re posting today).  (continue after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NEWZ

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Jun 072010
 

We do our best to keep up with news in the world of extreme metal. We read a few web sites every day that collect news items, we get press releases via e-mail, and we get alerts about MySpace and Facebook posts by bands we’re following. Put it all together, and it’s a daily flood of words — almost all of which are just completely forgettable, or worse. Usually, we find items that are either intentionally or (more often) unintentionally funny. Rarely, we find something we think is worth writing about on this site.

We’re kinda behind on putting together reviews of new music we’ve been cranking, and that may have lowered our newsworthiness threshold today, but whatever. Today, we’re just gonna dump a bunch of news on you that we read over the weekend, including one of those funny items and one new video that put us in a party mood. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to our choices, but there’s not much rhyme or reason to anything we do, so what the fuck?

Our topics? They involve Heaven Shall Burn, Hour of Penance, French Bat-Shit Grindcore, All Shall Perish, and The Ghost Inside.

HEAVEN SHALL BURN

Last Friday, German death metal and hardcore fusionists Heaven Shall Burn announced that their new album Invictus, which has already been released in Europe and will be released in North America tomorrow, landed on the official chart in Germany at position No. 9. According to the announcement, this marks Heaven Shall Burn’s and Century Media Records‘ first-ever Top 10 release in Germany.

The press release included this comment from guitarist Maik Weichert: “Top Ten! This is insane! It is a dream come true and we thank everybody who had something to do with it! Everything will be awesome! However, when the police stopped my car yesterday they were still quite unpleasant to deal with, so I am assuming they hadn’t heard the news yet . . .”  (lots more after the jump — stay with us . . .) Continue reading »

SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR 2010

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 162010
 

The official line-up for the Summer Slaughter Tour 2010 has now been confirmed (by Metal Sucks).  Here it is:

DECAPITATED
THE FACELESS
ALL SHALL PERISH
THE RED CHORD
VEIL OF MAYA
CEPHALIC CARNAGE
DECREPIT BIRTH
CARNIFEX
ANIMALS AS LEADERS
VITAL REMAINS

That is one mouth-watering band list of extreme metal awesomeness, isn’t it?

But as you scan your greedy eyes over that list, which band doesn’t exactly fit with the rest? If you’re like us, your eyes probably came to a halt at Animals As Leaders. Wonder how they came to be included. Mind you, we’re not complaining at all. We saw Tobin Abasi and his mates play in Seattle last week (and wrote about it here, with photos), and they are gobsmackingly good. But it’s an interesting choice.

Tour dates and places aren’t available yet. You can be abso-fucking-lutely sure that if this tour comes anywhere near Seattle, we will be there.

THE TWENTY-ONE 2010 ALBUMS WE MOST WANT TO HEAR

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  8 Responses »
Jan 012010
 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW DECADE, AND A BRAVE NEW WORLD AWAITS!

So, why did you get so hammered last night? Is it really right to start off a new decade sleeping off a bender?  Well, I ain’t your mama, so my answer is:  Of course it is.

If you’re like me, today may not be the best day to pound your head with metal — unless of course you haven’t gone to sleep yet, in which case metal is exactly what you need. Because if you go to sleep now, that means you’ll wake up feeling like toad shit.  So, as your doctor, I advise you to listen to metal and don’t go to sleep.  Ever.  Be like that dude played by Christian Bale in The Machinist.  Except eat more.

Now, where was I?  Oh yeah, the new year.  As we gaze into the bright new future, we’re thinking about all the extreme music that’ll be coming our way in 2010.  We pulled together from various trade sources and internet prowling a list of extreme bands that have promised new releases in 2010, and then over the Christmas holiday your three NCS Co-Authors each picked the ones we’re most looking forward to hearing.

There were 21 bands that got at least 2 votes from the 3 of us, and that list is below.  Not that we think you really care deeply about what the three of us are stoked to hear, but our brains are too fogged today to do anything but post lists.  So here’s our list, and after the jump you can see the complete line-up we compiled of extreme bands who’ve promised new releases in 2010.  (If you know of bands we missed, let us know!)

A Life Once Lost
The Absence
Acacia Strain
All Shall Perish
Arsis
Carnifex
Dark Tranquillity
Decrepit Birth
Devin Townsend Project
Ion Dissonance
Living Sacrifice
Meshuggah
Necrophagist
Nervecell
Neuraxis
Rotting Christ
Soilwork
Through the Eyes of the Dead
Veil of Maya
Whitechapel
Wintersun

There’s one band that isn’t on this list that deserves special comment — PIG DESTROYER. They’re missing for only one reason: Although there have been widely circulated rumors (which seem to trace back to this report) that Pig Destroyer will be releasing a new album next fall, we haven’t seen any confirmation from the band or their label. But we definitely hope the reports are true.

And now, after the jump, you can see a complete list of NCS Metal bands that have announced 2010 releases. Continue reading »

IntoTheDarkness Sheds Some Light On The Metal World

 Welcome  6 Responses »
Nov 242009
 

[Editor’s Note: NO CLEAN SINGING was originally founded by three metalheads who go by the names of Islander, Alexis, and IntoTheDarkness. In this post, IntoTheDarkness tells you a little bit about himself, and below that, Alexis introduces herself. Islander hasn’t yet written anything about himself, other than what you can read into what he writes on this site — and this photo.]

Why is there such a separation within the metal scene? Why is it that if someone likes more than one distinct type of metal, he or she gets ridiculed? For example, if you’re someone who likes both death metal and deathcore, you are suddenly no longer a true metal fan. Continue reading »

 Newer Entries