THE SYNN REPORT: OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

 THE SYNN REPORT  15 Responses »
Dec 292011
 

(Andy Synn provides an unexpected SYNN REPORT, seizing upon the imminent calendar change to discuss the re-recording of 12 songs by 12 tremendous bands — and of course we’re including the music, which means 24 tracks. Fuck, this would be a mixtape that KILLS.)

So here it is, a surprise Synn Report to finish off the year. Arbitrary though the distinction may well be, the end of the year provides a perfect excuse to attend to a similar theme, the transition from the old to the new – re-workings and re-recordings.

Are they better? That’s an argument for the ages? Are they necessary? Hell, that’s probably an even worse argument to start up…

Primarily, re-recordings serve a twofold purpose – 1. to reinvigorate songs that might otherwise not be getting the set-time they deserve, and 2. – to royally piss off a band’s fan-base. Although there’s a chance that the second isn’t entirely intentional. Still, the re-recorded album courts controversy like almost no other, whether it’s a varied collection of songs that are chosen to receive the treatment, or a full re-recording of an entire album.

The full re-recording of an entire album is clearly the most contentious option, while single track re-recordings are often a much more successful and welcome proposition, most often appearing as b-sides and bonus tracks for the avid collector. The full-album re-recording, however, remains exceptionally and unequivocally divisive, alienating as many old fans as it attracts new ones.

So here’s a list of some of those renewed tracks that I think definitely have something to offer the listener, both old and new. I’m sure I’ll have to turn in my kvlt card after this, for promoting something so new and shiny, but ah well… Continue reading »

AMORPHIS DEATHMATCH Round 2: “TALES FROM THE THOUSAND LAKES”

 Album Reviews  24 Responses »
Dec 232011
 

(Here’s Round Two of Trollfiend’s head-to-head, no-holes-barred cage fight with Amorphis, and the blood is starting to flow in rivers. To catch up on what’s going on here, read this post.)

It is with heavy heart that I don my armoured codpiece today, knowing that the beast I face in the ring will rip off my head and shit down my neck.  Still, none shall be satisfied until my blood stains the sands and my genitals are thrown to the crowd as a token of my defeat, so… onward to battle.

Ah…we open with an instrumental track.  The arena master has called for lions; being thrown to starving lions is a gimme.  I just have to run fast and hope I can get….Into Hiding.

Shit.  It’s lions with bears strapped to their backs wielding axes made of flint and sodomy.  I’m doomed! Doomed I say! Wait, what’s with the weird clean vocals? Ha ha! Once more I escape death!

Unfortunately the ass-fucking flint-axe lion-bears were just a distraction so I wouldn’t notice the next entrant into the ring: The Castaway.  Metal-plated to the tits, it comes lumbering out of the gate to crush me flat with stomping boots of stompery. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS DEATHMATCH – Rules and Round One

 Album Reviews  19 Responses »
Dec 192011
 

(We now haz our own version of MMA: Trollfiend and Amorphis going head-to-head in a cage match from which only one will walk away. Ladies and germs, place your bets!)

There’s been a lot of talk around the NCS chambers lately about whether or not an artist has the right to radically change everything about their music (they do) and whether or not we as fans should support them or heap massive amounts of hatred and ridicule upon them (we should – ideally, both). This kind of talk inevitably leads (in my tiny, pea-sized Trollbrain) to the band Amorphis.

I fucking loved Amorphis when they first came on the scene way back in 1992 (that’s 19 years for those of you keeping track) with their wacky, zany, combination of folk-scented melodeath. In that nearly two decades they have released 2 demos, 3 EPs, 10 studio albums, 11 singles, 11 videos, 3 compilation albums and a DVD. But somewhere around the third album the love affair ended, and I felt betrayed and abused because they went off in a completely different direction than I was expecting. They grew and changed and went through a dozen lineups and did some weird jazz fusion thing and lost their growled vocals and kind of came back halfway and then… I don’t know. All I do know is that I was left at the prom in my robin’s-egg-blue silk tux holding a bouquet of wilted roses and a used condom while they roared off in their Trans Am and never called me again.

But I’m starting to think that maybe I didn’t give them a fair shake. In my defense, this was right around the time I was getting into black metal, so their artistic meanderings were that much more jarring in contrast. And several NCS contributors have lately made me question my rigid stance on just how much the artists owe to their audience. So there is really only one solution, which is how I solve all major and minor conflicts in my daily life: gladiatorial bloodsport.

That’s right. I, Trollfiend, will go head-to head with Amorphis’ complete studio discography in a bloody, no holds (or holes) barred, teeth-and-nails combat that will only end when one of us is lying bleeding on the sand frantically trying to stuff our intestines back into a gaping gut-wound. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS: OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR “YOU I NEED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 202011
 


Today Amorphis released their official video for the first song they debuted from their next album, The Beginning Of Times, which is scheduled for release on May 27 via Nuclear Blast Records. We already wrote a post about that song when it was first released and don’t really have anything new to say about it. We weren’t blown away, but it’s still Amorphis, and as we warned you then, we’re going to continue covering developments about this album like a wet blanket between now and May 27.

So, without further fucking around — go watch the video after the jump. That is all. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS DEBUTS SECOND NEW SONG FROM NEXT ALBUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 022011
 

Today Amorphis began streaming a second song from their next album, The Beginning Of Times, which is scheduled for release on May 27 via Nuclear Blast Records. This one is called “My Enemy”.

Now, we already warned you in our post about the first song released from this album (“You I Need”) that although we weren’t blown away by that song, we were going to continue covering developments about this album like a wet blanket. Actually, what we said was this: “. . . we’re probably going to run a feature every time anyone in the band belches or farts between now and May 27.” So far, we haven’t been tested on that boast. Fortunately, what we have today is an actual song rather than an expulsion of nether-wind.

So what about this song? Well, you can tell it’s an Amorphis melody from about the first 2 seconds — and then the first vocals you hear are GROWLY (yes!). The song includes some heavy riffing too go along with those gruff vocals, and the chorus melody is just fine. I’m calling this a step up from “You I Need”). Speaking of that first song, Amorphis is filming a video for it, which will be available in the coming weeks — and I’m sure we’ll stick it up here at NCS pronto.

Now go past the jump and listen to the new song. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 5)

 Forthcoming Albums  6 Responses »
May 022011
 


What the hell is that big yellow thing up in the sky? It looks vaguely familiar, but it’s appeared so rarely here in The Emerald City over the last six months that we’re having trouble placing the name. Well, maybe the name will come to us. The great wheel of the seasons surely must continue to turn someplace, but in Seattle it seems to have been stuck on Winter since, like, forever. In some parts of the world, April showers bring May flowers, but here, April showers will probably bring . . . May showers.

Okay, enough whining. At least we don’t get tornados dropping from the sky like atom bombs and wiping whole towns off the map. And even though the weather hasn’t been our friend, we have metal to make up for the cold shoulder — and there’s a bunch of new metal headed our way.

What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. Continue reading »

WE ALMOST MISSED THIS NEW AMORPHIS SONG . . . ALMOST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Apr 122011
 

I knew Amorphis would be debuting a new song from their next album yesterday. I meant to keep my eyes peeled for it so I could feed it straight onto NCS without delay. I fucked up. But I’m not beating myself up over that, because it’s the first time that I’ve ever fucked up. Ever.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement. To be more accurate, it’s the first time I ever fucked up . . . since the last time I fucked up. Which happened about a half dozen times yesterday before the missing-the-new-Amorphis-song fuck-up.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the new Amorphis song. It’s called “You I Need”. It’s going to be released digitally in Finland on April 20 and in other countries on April 22. It comes off the band’s new album, The Beginning Of Times, which is scheduled for release on May 27 via Nuclear Blast Records.

We already featured the album art (you remember the big egg hanging over the earth, on the verge of hatching something?), now we’re featuring this song, and because it’s Amorphis — one of our principal Exceptions to the Rule of no clean singing around here — we’re probably going to run a feature every time anyone in the band belches or farts between now and May 27. After the jump, we have the song and a few thoughts about it. Continue reading »

AMORPHIS: THE EGG IS ABOUT TO HATCH!

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Feb 282011
 

It takes very damned little provocation for me to post about Amorphis. I’ve got no new music for you to hear. All I have is the just-released cover for the band’s next album and a few morsels of additional information about it: It will be called The Beginning of Times, it will include 12 songs, it will be released by Nuclear Blast at the end of May, and a single called “You I Need” will be released in April.

Yes, the giant egg suspended above our metallic world is about to hatch, ushering forth the awe-inspiring, Phoenix-like Amorphis bird, fully formed and shrieking its heavenly cries to the skies, and before the glorious hatching a few drops of golden Phoenix-like albumen will be allowed to escape and bathe our anxious, upturned faces in its golden elixir, comforting us in the message from the firebird inside, “You I Need!”

Actually, it’s not really the egg of a Phoenix pictured in Travis Smith‘s album art, which is intended to interpret the mythological birth of the world from the egg of a goldeneye (for more details about the creation myth in the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, go here), but I’m not being graded on this thing. Am I?

Hey, sorry about all the egg metaphors. I promise, I’m finn-ished with them. My Monday work-day has turned my brain to uncooked yolk. Oops! Well, anyway, since I’ve now got Amorphis on my yolk-like mind, I might as well play a couple of videos.  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

HEY MOTHERFUCKERS, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

 Off Topic  18 Responses »
Feb 142011
 

Nice photo, huh? And so appropriate for this day, particularly as adornment for a metal site. It’s the flower-crowned skull of St. Valentine exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin (Rome, Italy). And with that intro, we’re going to provide a little history lesson which convinced us (and maybe it will convince you), that Valentine’s Day is metal, despite what we used to think. We will also have music, of course, as a Valentine from us to you.

Now, back to that skull. Who did it really belong to, back when it was covered with warm flesh? What we now call Valentine’s Day was originally established in honor of an early Christian martyr, Saint Valentine. But according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, there were at least three martyrs by the name of Valentine: they were from Rome, Terni, and Africa. Each was said to have died on February 14.

It’s probable that Pope Gelasius I, who established St. Valentine’s Day in 496 AD, had in mind the Valentine who was beaten with clubs and stones and then beheaded in Rome in 269, 270, or 273 AD, supposedly for performing marriages. Now, that’s a metal way to meet your end.

To elaborate, some historical accounts report that Emperor Claudius II (“Claudius the Cruel”) banned marriages when Roman men began refusing to go to war in order to stay home with their wives. Valentine allegedly chose death over renouncing his religion and his performance of weddings. Legend has it that on his last day he wrote a message for his guard’s daughter (whose blindness he allegedly cured) signed, “From Your Valentine” — though there appears to be no historical basis in fact for the story about the girl, the blindness cure, or the note.

Like many Christian celebrations, what we do on Valentine’s Day has its origins in ancient Rome. Lupercalia was a Roman festival held on February 13-15, at least partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. That’s why it was called Lupercalia — the “Wolf Festival”. That’s a metal name, for sure, but wait ‘to you see what the Romans did during that festival.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

 Exceptions to the Rule  24 Responses »
Dec 012010
 

We have a low tolerance for clean singing in metal — hence, the name of this site. With the absence of clean singing tends to come all sorts of other extremity in the music, which is what we like, and which is why we thought “NO CLEAN SINGING” would be a good short-hand way to define the kind of music on which we intended to focus when we started this blog. But from day one, we acknowledged that there would be Exceptions to the Rule, i.e., metal we think is hot shit despite the clean singing, or even sometimes because of it.

In fact, last year, when we compiled our inaugural list of the Ten Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of the year, that list included a song with almost exclusively clean vocals. We’ve been thinking about that list recently, because if we’re going to do a 2010 list, we’ve got to get our lazy asses in gear pretty fucking soon.

And then, in an episode of synchronicity or serendipity (we can never remember the difference between those words and we’re too fucking lazy to look it up in an actual dictionary), yesterday we saw a fan-filmed video of that same band playing that same song live on November 23 in Munich, Germany. Problem was, the video quality sucked. But it still reminded us how fucking great the song is. So, we hunted for a better-quality live performance of the song, and we found one.

It’s from a televised Finnish music award show called Emma-gala, which is an annual event (comparable to the U.S. Grammy awards) produced by the Finland chapter of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). This particular installment of the awards show took place on February 4, 2010, and the band in question won the award for the year’s Best Metal Album. The band performed live at the event and played the song that made our Most Infectious list last year, and that’s the video we found. Stunningly, it only has 9,580 views on YouTube.  Maybe it’s because the tail-end of the video shows the band accepting the award, and if you don’t speak Finnish, it ain’t that interesting.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries