VIDEOGRAPHY: MANTAR, CHROME DIVISION, BARREN WOMB, BABYMETAL + CHTHONIC

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 112014
 

Culled here from the ever-flowing effluent of the interhole are four new ear- and eye-pleasing treats, with a bit of impressionistic verbiage. The songs have nothing in common, except my liking for them.

MANTAR

Mantar (above) are a new two-piece band, half German and half Turkish, whose debut album Death By Burning is scheduled for North American release by Svart Records on February 25. I previously wrote about one advance song, “Spit”. Today DECIBEL delivered the premiere of a music video for a second one, “White Nights”.

Men at work, wolves at work, strobes in the studio, shadows in the forest (and something else in the forest), amps and pines. The squeal of feedback, the squall of a fuzz-bombed guitar, riffs that open wounds, vocals that cauterize them, drum strikes that will bring you to your knees. Stripped-down and flesh-stripping, obliterating and head-nodding. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: RED FANG, CARCASS, CHROME DIVISION, COLISEUM, AWAKENING SUN, ACHERON

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 162013
 

For various reasons, including a long vacation, a buttload of work and work-related travel that confronted me in my day job upon returning from said vacation, and the dedication of space to our ongoing year-end LISTMANIA series, I’ve not been doing a very good job of spreading the word about new music and videos. Much new music and videos of interest have been accumulating. I’m collecting five of the recent videos and one new song in this post. Many of them lean more toward hard rocking that the kind of extreme metaling I usually feature in these round-ups, but it’s all good stuff.

RED FANG

Red Fang have consistently produced videos that are sure-fire chuckle fests. Their new one is no exception. Directed by Whitey McConnaughy, it’s for “Blood Like Cream”, one of the songs on the band’s latest album Whales and Leeches. It’s a twist on the zombie theme. These undead monsters want PBR instead of brains — but it is fuckin’ Portland, so that’s not a total shock.

Yeah, there’s clean singing in the song, but it’s crunchy, it rocks out, and it gets its hooks in your brain meat. Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug. Continue reading »

BLOOD MOON MUSIC: OCCULTATION, GUTTURAL SECRETE, CHROME DIVISION, AND WINTERFYLLETH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 292012
 

Early this morning, October 29, 2012, the moon was full. In certain older civilizations in the Northern Hemisphere, this full moon in what we know as October was a celebrated event. In olde England, it marked the beginning of winter and was known in the Anglo-Saxon tongue as “winterfylleth” — winter full moon (and yes, now you know where that wonderful English black metal band got their name).

Native American tribes in what is now the northern and eastern United States called it the Full Hunter’s Moon. It was a time when the leaves were falling from the trees and the deer were fattened for the winter — a good, well-lit time to hunt and store up meat for the bleak months ahead.

It has also been known as the Blood Moon, which of course makes it metal. This year it may really be a blood moon in the eastern U.S. With the moon in its full phase, high tides on Earth will rise about 20 percent higher than normal, and NASA experts say this will significantly amplify the storm surge that Hurricane Sandy will bring to the eastern part of the country, exacerbating what are already expected to be life-threatening floods that this super-storm will inflict on our shores.

To our brothers and sisters in metal who live in the vast swath of territory likely to be impacted by Sandy, and who probably can’t read this because their power is already out, be careful and stay safe. Looks like today will be ugly.

So, not so much in celebration of the Blood Moon as in commemoration of it and in respect for the power of nature, I’ve rounded up new music and a video, from these bands: Occultation, Guttural Secrete, and Chrome Division. Of course, there’s some Winterfylleth at the end, too. Continue reading »

IS THAT A GHOST RIDER ON THAT TRAPEZE?

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Jul 022011
 

We first posted about Chrome Division back in May (here), when they released their official video for the song “Bulldogs Unleashed” from their new album, 3rd Round Knockout on Nuclear Blast. This is a Norwegian band that features Dimmu Borgir frontman Shagrath on guitar, vocalist Shady Blue (a/k/a Athera from Susperia), Luna on bass, Ricky Doom on guitar, and Tony White on drums. They play some nasty, thrashy, shots-and-a-brew-back, metallicized rock ‘n’ roll — the kind of music that makes you check to see if a gang of Harley riders just busted down the door to your crib with their engines belching at full throttle.

As their latest music video confirms, these dudes also reliably deliver the T&A when the cameras start rolling. The song is a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky”, and it’s a cover that succeeds in spades. Chrome Division have ramped up the speed and dialed the nastiness quotient waaaaay up, and turned this song into a full-on romp. It will put a smile on your face and get your head to noddin’, I promise.

But, I don’t think that’s a ghost rider on that trapeze.  Check out the just-released video and the song after the jump. Continue reading »

FILLER: AJATTARA, DEGRADEAD, AND CHROME DIVISION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 072011
 

We’re all set to go with a milestone post for today, but we’re coordinating it with another metal blog, and we need to wait for them to give us the green light — which hasn’t arrived quite yet.

So, rather than leave you wondering whether we’re alive or dead while we wait, we’ve quickly compiled a few things to amuse you until the post we actually planned for today can be unleashed.

Most of the music we’re including comes from bands who we’ve planned to write about in more depth (and with luck, we’ll still do that): Ajattara and Degradead. Plus, we’ll throw in a brand new video from Chrome Division, a Norwegian band featuring Dimmu Borgir frontman Shagrath on guitar. It’s more of a hard rock song than the kind of metal we cover at NCS, but the video is a blazingly creative work of art, featuring imagery thats never been used in hard rock or metal videos before.

Okay, that last sentence isn’t accurate. Actually, we were totally bullshitting you. The video is full of voluptuous chicks flashing voluptuous amounts of tits and ass. But hey, who doesn’t like tits and ass?  (more after the jump . . .) 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 »