AN NCS INTERVIEW: OCTOPLOID

 Interviews  No Responses »
Sep 202024
 


L-R: Mikko Pietinen (drums, percussion), Olli-Pekka Laine (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), Peter Salonen (guitars) – photo by Päivi Leino

(Below you will find Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Finnish musician Olli-Pekka Laine, with a focus on his band Octoploid‘s July 2024 debut album Beyond the Aeons, but touching upon other topics as well, incuding Amorphis and Barren Earth.)

Olli-Pekka Laine is a multitalented musician. He’s well-known, as he composed half of Amorphis’ legendary albums Tales from The Thousand Lakes (1994) and Elegy (1996), and later he practiced his progressive vision in the “dream-team” band Barren Earth.

The last one tended toward progressive and melodic death-doom metal too, a kind of direction which Olli always choses instinctively. But since Barren Earth is inactive, and Olli writes not too much for Amorphis, he naturally collected a good number of interesting ideas which ended in this solo-project, Octoploid.

Well, we say “solo”, but Octoploid’s lineup includes Olli’s buddy from Mannhai, Mikko Pietinen (drums), Kim Rantala (keyboards), who did an enormous input in Elegy, and young talent Peter Salonen (guitars).

And let’s not forget those honorable guests who took part in the recording of Octoploid’s debut Beyond the Aeons, released by Reigning Phoenix Music in July 2024. A few of Amorphis’ men can be found on this album, as well as Hamferð’s frontman Jón Aldará, Mikko Kotamäki from Swallow the Sun, Mannhai’s Ilkka Laaksomaa, and more. So if you’re ready for “70’s death metal”, let’s not waste any time before getting into this interview. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THE TROOPS OF DOOM, SOL DE SANGRE, WEREWOLVES, COLDCELL, NIHILO, LACABRA, KYBALION, BALWEZO WESTIJIZ, KŌYA, WHARFLURCH, AMORPHIS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
May 182024
 


Troops of Doom – photo by Cissa Flores

I wasn’t able to serve up a Saturday roundup last weekend due to working on Seattle’s Northwest Terror Fest, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll get one done next Saturday since I’ll be at Maryland Deathfest (if you’re there and spot someone who looks like a heavily tatted escapee from a nursing home, come say hi). So that makes this one kind of important, if only for me.

There’s gobs of new music to choose from, many more gobs than usual since I missed a week. And by the way, I’m using “gob” here as a word meaning “a large amount” and not its other meaning, i.e., “a lump or clot of a slimy or viscous substance”, though I have included a song off an album named Shittier/Slimier.

Ready, set, go! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INSOMNIUM, AMORPHIS, OMINOUS SCRIPTURES, TERRÖRHAMMER, MALLEUS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 042022
 

It’s another Bandcamp Friday, and thus a good day to spend money. If you’re going broke, it’s also just a good day to listen to new music, because a lot of new stuff has come out today and in the recent days leading up to it.

I’ve picked a few things to recommend, leading off with some big Finnish names — even though their albums aren’t on Bandcamp! — and then getting more obscure and a lot more extreme.

INSOMNIUM (Finland)

Insomnium decided to make another concept album, which will be their ninth full-length overall. Entitled Anno 1696, and based on a short story by Niilo Sevänen (bass/vocals), it focuses on a time of famine in northern Europe and a period when witch hunts were in full swing all across the continent. The press release says, “Anno 1696 is a tornado of tormented souls, set to a tragedy of Greek proportions”. Sevänen comments: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MESHUGGAH, AMORPHIS, CENTINEX, DAWN OF SOLACE, THE SPIRIT, BEASTIALITY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 292022
 

 

I spent the first part of this morning pulling together the second-to-last installment of our Most Infectious Song list, which hasn’t left a lot of time for me to make my way through the typically giant list of songs and videos which surfaced over the last week that I thought might be worth recommending. I jumped around that list like a hummingbird (if hummingbirds moved at the pace of sloths). Here’s what I came up with:

MESHUGGAH (Sweden)

Even a blind hummingbird would know to stop and taste the nectar of a new Meshuggah song, and I’m not blind. Nor are the 150,000 people who’ve listened to the song’s YouTube stream in the last two days. But what to make of “The Abysmal Eye“? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: INSOMNIUM, AMORPHIS, GATEWAY, SJUK AV ORO, THROAT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 202021
 


The last week didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped. The crunch at my day job eased up, but not as much as I wanted, and assorted other nuisances and diversions reared their ugly heads. So, some things I’d hope to accomplish at NCS besides the usual premieres fell by the wayside.

I also managed to fuck up my opportunity to catch up with new music today by (a) drinking heavily last night during a couple of Zoom get-togethers, and (b) sleeping for 10 hours. As a result of (a), (b) didn’t really leave me feeling rested — more like death warmed over instead. Maybe I’ll do more catching up later, but for now wanted to get a few things out there for your eyes and ears without further delay.

INSOMNIUM (Finland)

I confess that nostalgia led me to choose the first two songs and videos in this collection, both by Finnish bands that long ago played a role in leading me toward extreme metal, and along the way became very big names. But don’t worry, we’ll get into more underground sounds before we’re done today. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 24): KHEMMIS AND AMORPHIS

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Feb 112019
 

 

With the weekend now behind us we’re resuming the rollout of this list, beginning the 6th week of the trek, with a self-imposed stopping point looming closer (by the end of this month, and possibly earlier — not sure which, since I haven’t finished compiling the list).

Almost every year I’ve shoe-horned music into this annual escapade that doesn’t really fit the label of “extreme metal”, and I’m doing it again today (and might do it yet again before I’m finished this year). Among other things, these two songs have plenty of (very good) clean singing. But although they may not be as extreme as almost everything else, they’re heavy enough — and they’re also damned memorable

KHEMMIS

I’m very happy to say that we’ve been backing this Colorado band since long before they became household names — and if they’re not yet at household name status, they can’t be far away, after three such exceptional and broadly appealing albums — Absolution, Hunted, and now Desolation. Among the core group of NCS writers, Andy Synn was the last to tumble to how good Khemmis‘ music is, though he tumbled pretty hard once he gave it a chance following the band’s performance last year at Maryland Deathfest. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AMORPHIS, YOB, GRAVE SUPERIOR, ZARRAZA, INTERNAL SUFFERING (AND MORE)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 252018
 


photo credit: Lars Johnson

 

For this mid-week round-up I was again up to my eye-brows in worthy new music to choose from. I decided to do something a little different from usual, combining the formats of these SEEN AND HEARD collections and the occasional OVERFLOWING STREAMS columns. In other words, I’ll begin with some new songs and videos that I’ve introduced with my own descriptive verbiage (beginning with a couple of “exceptions to the rule”), and then followed that with a few more music streams that will somehow have to represent themselves through sound alone, difficult as that may be to imagine. (I also intend to present a rare week-day edition of SHADES OF BLACK later today or tomorrow in order to foist some more recent music on you.)

By the way, did you see that on July 6 Nuclear Blast will be releasing the first new Immortal album (Northern Chaos Gods) since All Shall Fall? It’s just Demonaz and Horgh, of course, but with Peter Tägtgren as session bassist. Even without Abbath in the line-up, I’m kind of excited.

AMORPHIS

I was also kind of excited about the prospect of a new Amorphis album when I first learned of it. That band has been the source of many joyous moments for yours truly in the past, and they put on a hell of an exciting show the only time I’ve seen them live (at Maryland Deathfest). Of course they and I have evolved to the point where their music isn’t as “extreme” as most of what I listen to these days, but when they’re on their game, even in these later days they still produce a thrill. Continue reading »

METAL FOR MIXED COMPANY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Aug 262017
 

 

I’ve been in this situation more than once, and maybe you have too: I’m hanging out listening to music with people who don’t have much interest in metal and don’t know much about it (though everyone seems to have heard of Metallica), but they’re trying to be polite, so they ask if you’d like to pick something for everyone to listen to, in between whatever they’re playing.

I was in this situation last weekend, which is why I’m thinking about it. It wasn’t the first time, it won’t be the last. I don’t always come up with the same answers. It’s usually whatever pops into my head first. But either consciously or subconsciously, I’m usually thinking about catchy riffs, infectious rhythms, and melodies that people can latch onto fast. It’s usually tempting to steer clear of harsh vocals, but sometimes I just don’t give a fuck about that. Depends on the company I’m keeping and my own mood. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: OCTOBER TIDE, AMORPHIS, REBAELLIUN, VAMPILLIA, DEATHKINGS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 292016
 

October Tide - Winged Waltz

 

It looks like it’s going to be yet another one of those crazy weeks where if we snooze for about 5 minutes we’ll miss the debut of at least 5 new things worth getting excited about. For example, everything in this post appeared in just the last few hours of this Monday morning, except the penultimate one, which erupted like a volcano of dementia last night.

These are all videos. Because I really hadn’t planned on trying to inject a round-up into an already full schedule of posts at our site this morning, I don’t have time to write much about them. Of course, I do recommend you give them your time.

OCTOBER TIDE

Winged Waltz is the name of the fifth album by these beautifully gloomy Swedes, and it will be released by Agonia Records on April 22. Here is the brand new lyric video for the first advance track from the album — “Sleepless Sun”: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 24)

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015  6 Responses »
Feb 122016
 

Amorphis-Under the Red Cloud

 

Welcome to the 24th Part of our roll-out of 2015’s Most Infectious Songs, as chosen by me and me alone. I have a constricting feeling around my throat as I bear down on my self-imposed Sunday deadline for finishing this list, when in fact I’m not really close to exhausting all the songs I want to write about. I have some terrible decisions to make this weekend.

The rest of the songs on the list can be inspected via this link.

AMORPHIS

I don’t suppose Amorphis really needed to make a “comeback” album. They haven’t really gone away, and the massive core of their fan base has never left them. But I still think of Under the Red Cloud as a comeback album. Continue reading »

 Older Entries