AN NCS PREMIERE: BARBARIAN — “HOPE ANNIHILATOR”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
May 202019
 

 

For a song named “Hope Annihilator“, it kindles hope — actually it provides more of an assurance than a hope — that heavy metal will live forever. It’s such a damned good song, in part because it so seamlessly interlocks so many classic sounds, and because it’s delivered with such authentic spirit. And, to be fair, it’s also an annihilator.

The song comes from the new fourth album by the Italian band Barbarian, which has a timeless name in addition to a brilliant amalgam of classic sounds: To No God Shall I Kneel. The album will be released on June 7th by Hells Headbangers, with suitably barbaric cover art by Acid Witch’s Shagrat. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ARES KINGDOM, SOL SISTERE, BARBARIAN, THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, NEKROÍ THEOÍ, ABRAHMA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 042019
 

 

I did listen to these songs on a Saturday, but it wasn’t this Saturday. It was a week ago while I was in Houston, but for reasons I explained last weekend I didn’t have either the time or a clear enough head to write anything. And then, as forecast, my day job prevented me from doing anything more than write premieres last week.

So here we are, 10 days since the last round-up of new music I posted. Do I try to catch up with all the new stuff that’s come out over the last week, or just go with what I would have done last weekend if I’d had the time? I decided on the latter plan, because it will probably take me the rest of the day just to figure out what I missed. Maybe some of what’s below will be new to you anyway.

ARES KINGDOM

There are some old favorites among the bands I chose for this round-up, beginning with the veteran Kansas City collective, Ares Kingdom — Chuck Keller (guitar), Mike Miller (drums), and Alex Blume (bass, vocals). Their fourth album, By the Light of Their Destruction, will be released on May 15th (CD and vinyl) by Nuclear War Now! Productions, and the song below is a track named “Eighteen Degrees Beneath“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): INTEGRITY, KOLLAPSE, NECROHERESY, BARBARIAN, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 182017
 

 

Part 1 of this late-week round-up can be found here. I’m still not finished throwing recommendations your way, but Part 3 will have to wait until tomorrow. They’re closing the door on my airplane now.

INTEGRITY

Yesterday Integrity released an official video for “I Am The Spell“, a track off their new (12th) album Howling, For The Nightmare Shall Consume, which is described as “a conceptual foretelling of the final days of Armageddon”. It will be released by Relapse on July 14th. The lyrics tell you a lot about the sound of this new track: Continue reading »

SUNDAY SLAUGHTERING: BARBARIAN, AURORA BOREALIS, HELLCANNON, ADRAMELECH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  24 Responses »
Feb 162014
 

For yours truly, it has been a great weekend for the discovery of song debuts from new and forthcoming metal releases. In this post I’ve collected five of them. With luck, I’ll write another post today with more of what I’ve found since Friday. Get ready for some old school slaughtering.

BARBARIAN

I have a tip from our brutish friend SurgicalBrute to thank for this first discovery. The band is Barbarian. They are located in Italy and they released their self-titled debut album in 2011. In late January, Doomentia released the band’s second album, Faith Extinguisher, with a kickass piece of cover art by Shagrat of Acid Witch. It’s available on CD now (at this location), with vinyl coming soon. Looks like it will be available digitally on Amazon mp3 later this month, and perhaps Doomentia will offer it on Bandcamp, too.

Two songs are now streaming on Bandcamp — “Inhale the Dead” and “We Are the Profane” — and they are sooooo damned good. It’s a glorious kickback to the primordial spawning ground of all sorts of extreme metal genres, binding together the undead spirits of bands like Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, and Motörhead. Vomit-spewing vocals, tremendous drumming, and black, thrashing riffs to kill for. Continue reading »