CANCER CULTURE OVER NORTH AMERICA TOUR

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 242024
 

(Our friend Ben Manzella made sure not to miss one of the California dates of the ongoing Cancer Culture Over North America Tour, featuring Decapitated, Septicflesh, Kataklysm, and Allegaeon, and he brought us the following report on the show and lots of his photos.)

After going to shows consistently for close to twenty years, I find some venues hold a nostalgic place in my memory. The Observatory in Santa Ana, formerly known as the Galaxy Theater, is one such place. I rarely attend shows there due to the distance from where I live in southern California; but when I heard Decapitated’s tour would be starting there and I knew I’d be out of town for their other date in the area, I knew I had to figure out a way to be there.

As other US/North American fans of Decapitated will be well aware, the band has not been back to this region of the world since an incident that happened 7 years ago. It was pretty well documented and I don’t think it needs to be further mentioned out of respect for the band in moving forward. If anything, it felt sort of celebratory that their tour started at The Observatory because it was also the last venue they played 7 years ago.

So, with a new album released in 2022 and a strong/eclectic lineup featuring Septicflesh, Kataklysm, and Allegaeon, the Cancer Culture Over North America tour started on a high note. Continue reading »

DECAPITATED / DYSCARNATE / BÆST – LIVE IN SHEFFIELD 16/02/19

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 182019
 

 

(Andy Synn has hit a marvelous run of shows in quick succession over the last few weeks, and this is his summation of the most recent one, with his videos of the performances.)

Being in a band myself I know what it’s like to have your set cut short due to technical difficulties and/or time constraints. It’s never a good thing, but it’s just something you have to deal with as best you can.

Which is why my heart went out to Bloodshot Dawn last night when, just as it seemed they were about to start their set, which had been delayed due to unavoidable technical issues, they were instead forced to cut their entire show from the line-up. We’ve had to cut songs, or had shows cancelled on us before, but never after we’d already set up our gear, and I honestly can’t imagine how utterly gutting that must have been. I can only hope that the rest of the shows (and the previous ones) somehow make up for it.

Still, all disappointments and dissatisfaction regarding that situation aside, that still left three other bands to get the evening going, beginning with… Continue reading »

IRRELEVANT LISTENING (VOL. 3)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 082017
 

 

(Last year TheMadIsraeli posted the first two installments in this irregular series, and now brings us a third one.)

Another installment of irrelevant listening where I share albums in my rotation lately that aren’t current. Let’s get started.

Killswitch Engage – Alive Or Just Breathing: Top-Shelf Edition

Alive Or Just Breathing is the melodic metalcore album that in my mind has never been topped. Even the band themselves admitted in an interview, I think it was this year, that this is STILL their best album. I’ve written about this album before on the site and stumbled upon the so-called “Top Shelf” expanded edition (released in 2005) some time ago. Continue reading »

DECAPITATED: “ANTICULT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Poland’s Decapitated, which will be released on July 7th by Nuclear Blast.)

I find, when a review has the potential to be contentious, that it’s always best to lay your cards out on the table right from the start.

So let’s be clear about one thing straight away – Decapitated are never going to go back to being a “pure” Death Metal band.

It’s just not going to happen.

In fact Vogg has been very clear, in numerous interviews, that as long as his hand is on the tiller (and seeing as how it’s very much his band, I can’t see that ever changing) the good ship Decapitated will keep on moving forwards, not backwards, upwards not forwards… Continue reading »

A DGR SEEN AND HEARD: ABHORRENT DECIMATION, DECAPITATED, OCCVLT HAND, BROKEN HOPE, DECREPIT BIRTH, SCHAMMASCH, QUASARBORN, LEPROUS, THE ZENITH PASSAGE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 212017
 

 

(DGR once again takes over round-up duty, compiling a selection of nine items for your listening and viewing pleasure, culled from the last week.)

 

Clearly nobody got the email that we sent out announcing that we would be incredibly busy late last week Northwest Terror Festing, and therefore decided that it would be a good time to flood the heavy metal world with news. You wouldn’t know that by visiting NCS, because we slowed to a crawl, with writers Gorger and Andy Synn coming through as the heroes keeping the fortress guarded whilst the rest of us rotated between drunk and exhausted.

Now, though, DGR has come to collect his dues, so I have compiled a round-up with every single thing that I kept notes on from Thursday of last week ’til now, and I guarantee you that I’ve still missed a handful of things. Still, though, this collection of music videos, lyric videos, and live performance(s) is gigantic in its own right and it is certified NCS “Fresh”, which means it should only mildly smell like rotting beef carcasses.

Abhorrent Decimation – Conspire

When I first saw the artwork by Karmazid for the upcoming Abhorrent Decimation album The Pardoner, I declared that if the music on that disc could be half as cool as the artwork it bore or the concept behind it, then I would be a happy camper. Well, with “Conspire“, Abhorrent Decimation have shown that they are in good standing on that front — releasing a monstrous six-minute brutalizer. Continue reading »

DECAPITATED (“NEVER”) AND GODS FORSAKEN (“BORN OF BLASPHEMY”)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 282017
 

 

I left Seattle on Monday for my job and arrived home again near midnight last night. I woke up four hours later because there is very little justice or fairness in the world. Before my eyes would focus properly, I saw messages from friends on Facebook that alerted me to the two new tracks I’ve collected here. I have a fuckton of other new music to sift through since I didn’t have time to assemble a SEEN AND HEARD round-up while I was out of town, but I decided to get these two tracks up on the site without delay, even before the coffee kicks in.

DECAPITATED

Three years after Blood Mantra, Poland’s mighty Decapitated are returning with a new album named Anticult, which will be released by Nuclear Blast on July 7th. Last night the album’s memorable cover art appeared on the web, and this morning, before the sun rose out here on the U.S. west coast, Decapitated detonated a video for a new song named “Never“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD FOR A SATURDAY: RAGNAROK, DECAPITATED, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, SKÁPHE, ENNUI

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 232016
 

Ragnarok-Psychopathology

 

I’m still catching up on the flood of new music and videos that appeared this week, in part because I spent so much time on the flood of new tracks we ourselves premiered since Monday. Because I’m short on time this Saturday, I’m mainly going to let the music speak for itself. Unless I damage myself too badly tonight at a big party I’m attending, I’ll have another collection of recommended new streams tomorrow. But before we get to the music, I have one news item.

RAGNAROK

In mid-December I posted the news that Norway’s Ragnarok would at long last be releasing a new album named Psychopathology. This week, further details were disclosed, as well as the cover art (above) by Marcelo Vasco (Slayer, Machine Head, Dimmu Borgir). The album will include 11 tracks and will be released by Agonia Records on March 25 in a variety of formats, including a limited-edition CD box set that will include a bonus compilation CD entitled Chaos and Insanity between 1994-2004, which features all of the band’s early demos and EP’s (the compilation will also separately be released on vinyl).

No music to share with you yet, but you can be sure we will as soon as something becomes available for streaming. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ROTTING CHRIST, RAGNAROK, CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST, DECAPITATED, CHARM DESIGNER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

Rotting Christ-Rituals

 

The end of the year is fast approaching, but the freight train of metal isn’t slowing down. Here are just a few of the things that caught my eyes and ears over the last 24 hours, sifted from my scanning of the NCS in-box and my daily dive into the interhole.

ROTTING CHRIST

I’ve probably mentioned somewhere in the dim mists of the past that Rotting Christ were the band whose music first convinced me that I needed to learn more about black metal — my first step along a musical left hand path from which I’ve never turned back. The following announcement, received yesterday, was thus an especially exciting piece of news:

On February 12, Season of Mist will release Rotting Christ’s twelfth studio album, Rituals. In addition, Stereokiller premiered the album’s first advance track, “Elthes Kyrie“, in the U.S. (it also appeared at many other sites around the world). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 10

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014  12 Responses »
Jan 032015
 

 

The rollout of our list of 2014′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs continues today with three more tracks. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. For the other songs we’ve previously named to the list, go here.

BEHEMOTH

I’ve seen some quibbling here and there, because metalheads do love to quibble, but The Satanist has nevertheless been one of the best-received albums of 2014, by both fans and critics alike. It’s nothing quite like anything Behemoth have done before, though it is still recognizably a Behemoth album — and I can say that because this band have become one of those select groups who have a distinctive sound all their own. Yet on The Satanist, to quote from BadWolf’s NCS review, “It’s less interested in battering the listener over the head than it is in getting inside your head.” Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: DECAPITATED AND BLOODSHOT DAWN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Oct 022014
 

 

I’m relenting briefly from my self-imposed round-up hiatus to bring you two music videos that appeared today.

The first is from Poland’s Decapitated, for the song “Instinct” from the Blood Mantra album, which is out now from Nuclear Blast.

The second is from the UK’s Bloodshot Dawn. The song is “Smoke and Mirrors” and it will appear on the band’s next album, Demons.

Both videos are after the jump, preceded by a bunch of links. Continue reading »

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