SEEN AND HEARD: MESHUGGAH, AUROCH, ARSIS, ANICON, ANCIIENTS, BRAIN TENTACLES, BATTLE DAGORATH, FERAL LIGHT, HELEN MONEY, VANHELGA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Jul 292016
 

Meshuggah revolver ad-2

 

I mentioned in a post earlier this week that I’ve been distracted during nights this week by a televised political convention (because I am a political junkie with low willpower), and I also had to make a quick out-of-town trip. Metal didn’t wait for me while I was diverted, and so I have an immense list of new things from the last few days that I want to recommend. I’ve cut the list down to a mere 10 items, which I’ve collected here. Seriously, I’m aware that 10 is a lot, so I’ve choked back my usual desire to spill a lot of words.

I’m starting with two news items and then following those with 8 new songs or videos, presented in alphabetical order by the name of the artist.

MESHUGGAH

I no longer subscribe to Revolver magazine. If I still had the subscription, I might have seen the full-page ad at the top of this post, which so far seems to be the only disclosure that Meshuggah’s new album The Violent Sleep of Reason will be released by Nuclear Blast on October 7. Here’s another fan pic of the ad: Continue reading »

ANCIIENTS: “HEART OF OAK”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
May 232013
 

 (NCS contributor Tyler Lowery wrote this review of the new album by Vancouver’s Anciients.)

Sometimes happy accidents happen. There’s no rhyme in the chaos of the world at any given moment, but under the perfect circumstances, we sometimes happen to stumble upon things that are amazing. Such is the method by which I have come across Anciients. You see, this Vancouver troupe just happened to be added to a Lamb of God tour after Terror had to back out, and this tour just happened to be dropping by a city close enough to me to make attending worthwhile, and I happened to learn about the tour the day of the show. I won’t lie, I trucked it from Knoxville, TN to Chattanooga for Decapitated and Lamb of God, but when I got there and heard these guys rip into the crowd, I knew I was going to walk away with an album that night.

Anciients tread a fine middle ground between progressive metal and sludge / stoner rock. Now, when you first read that, the word progressive almost immediately makes you lose interest, right? Then you add messy riffing and stoner ramblings on top of that. What would you expect to come from that? It sounds like a cluster-fuck, right? However, these guys toe the line with expert measure. From album opener “Raise the Sun” to closer “For Lisa”, this band keep all the meandering intentional, in the way that Colombo would always act like a naïf until the suspects gave themselves away. By the way, if you got that reference, you, sir or madam, are old. Continue reading »