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 »

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 »