SEEN AND HEARD: ASHCLOUD, BABYMETAL, BAT, THE BODY AND FULL OF HELL, DARKEND, DEVILDRIVER, ENTROPIA, FALLUJAH, GLORIA MORTI, HAIL OF BULLETS, MANTAR, MODOK, MOONSORROW, OCTOBER TIDE, PURGATORY, VICTIMS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 192016
 

Ashcloud-Children of the Chainsaw

 

Last week was another one in which I noticed lots of new songs and videos but didn’t have time to round them up, in part because I was writing about a flood of new songs that we were premiering ourselves. So now I’m doing what I failed to do earlier — but because I waited, the round-up has become jumbo-sized. Consequently, I’ve kept my introductions to the music brief and haven’t taken the time to consistently add album art or links as I usually do. When I did something like this last weekend (except with even fewer words), I said I didn’t intend to make a habit of it. I still don’t.

For those who pay attention to such things, I also failed to post Part 3 of the Shades of Black series I began at the start of the week. But I will do that tomorrow. Now, presented in alphabetical order, here are new songs and videos from 17 bands.

ASHCLOUD

On May 1, Xtreem Music will release the new album by Sweden’s Ashcloud. The album’s title tells you a lot of what you need to know about the music: Children of the Chainsaw. Here’s the title track — smoking, tree-felling, crusty Swedish death metal that’s awfully damned sweet. Continue reading »

DEVILDRIVER: “WINTER KILLS” (AND A NEW TOUR)

 Album Reviews  13 Responses »
Jul 242013
 

(DGR has been a reviewing machine lately, and here’s another one. At the end of the review we’ll also give you details about a just-announced North American DevilDriver tour with Trivium, After the Burial, and Sylosis.)

Before we begin: A career retrospective and my own personal feelings on each disc to help explain why you’re seeing DevilDriver on this site.

I was one of the people who got into Devildriver with their debut release. I had been aware that they were the new project of the lead singer of Coal Chamber, but I wasn’t the type to begrudge him for having been in a band I didn’t quite enjoy. I was late to the party, one of the people who saw “I Could Care Less” pop up on Headbanger’s Ball. I thought their first disc was a pretty heavy release, trapped somewhere between a three-way pull of nu-, groove-, and -core metal.

2005’s The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand saw the band making a conscious effort to change things up and play with their sound, though it seemed to come by way of a million different guitar pedals and not much else.

Like clockwork, the group returned two years later with an album that I think they fucking nailed it on, with The Last Kind Words. The album went straight into groove territory, with flashes of death and speed for good measure. Many of the songs were highlighted by punishing drum performances, and they really stepped up the guitar game. This is also about the time when all the videos of massive circle pits at their shows found their way to YouTube. I guess we really do reward good stuff. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  8 Responses »
Jul 162013
 

(Andy Synn delivers another installment of his irregular series of album reviews in haiku. Two more reviews come after the jump. With music.)

DEVILDRIVER – WINTER KILLS

More brawn than Beast. More

vigour than Villains. Hamstrung

By some weaker tracks.

https://www.facebook.com/DevilDriverOfficial1 Continue reading »

THIS NEW “METAL ALLIANCE TOUR” SHOULD BE INTERESTING, TO SAY THE LEAST

 Metal News  23 Responses »
Dec 142011
 

Yeah, it’s kinda late in the day for another post, but I just saw a press release about a new tour running from March 15 through April 21 of next year that I thought was worth talking about. This tour had been forecast previously, but now we have a concrete schedule. Here’s the line-up:

DevilDriver
The Faceless
Dying Fetus
Job For A Cowboy
3 Inches of Blood
Impending Doom
Wretched

Why is this interesting? Well, first of all, it should be loaded with new music. The Faceless is currently putting the finishing touches on its third album for a tentative February release on Sumerian. Stands to reason that they’ll be performing songs from that album. I’ll be curious to hear it, because guitarist Michael Keene has described the CD as “the most musical and progressive record we’ve made” and says the songs will be more focused “on musicality and making an expressive, unique, moody and expansive record.”

On top of that, Dying Fetus is currently recording a new album. It’s not projected for release until the middle of next year on Relapse, but they will clearly be finished with the recording before hitting the road on this tour, and so we can expect new songs from them, too. And that’s not all. Continue reading »

NEWZ FROM ALL OVER (INCLUDING A MASSIVE INTERVIEW FAIL) AND ONE ACTUAL SONG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  28 Responses »
Jun 222011
 

I’ve never been entirely sure about the point of metal news releases about music you can’t yet hear, albums you can’t yet buy, and tours for which you can’t yet acquire tickets, but people still seem to be interested in this kind of shit. Not me, of course. I’m so fucking zen-like in my outlook that these kinds of pointless cock-teasers just flow over me like a soft summer breeze, barely ruffling my hair. My pulse rate doesn’t move a beat from its normal, slothlike resting state. I remain as steady and unmoving as a hummingbird.

Wait, that didn’t end right. Okay, well maybe it did. Truth is, I am metal-nerd enough to get excited about this stuff, though I can’t provide any rational reason why. In keeping with our unintentional Finn-centric theme of this week’s posts, several of these items focus on Finnish metal.

So, here’s the top-level summary of news for this post: Announcement of two new European tours — one featuring Gorgoroth and Vader and the other headlined by Machine Head; a progress report on Insomnium‘s new album; word of an all-star album (and the label “all-star” is no bullshit) in the planning stages from Finland’s Spinefarm Records; and perhaps the most glaring example I’ve seen in months of an interviewer failing to ask a follow-up question (in this case, about Opeth‘s new album).

While I’ve got your attention, I might as well also throw in some music you can actually hear right now — high-quality footage of Suicide Silence performing a song from their forthcoming new album.  (all that stuff after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

DEVILDRIVER: BEAST

 Album Reviews  43 Responses »
Feb 222011
 

(NCS contributor BadWolf weighs in with his review of the new album by DevilDriver — which debuts today in its official release.)

The American melodic metalcore wave was (can we say “was” now? I think we can) unstable. The bands that, to me at the time, seemed like the true spearheads of the genre, the artistic and energetic studs, fell off the map fast. Killswitch had two back-to-back classics, one after a lead vocalist swap, and then became lost in their own shtick. Trivium (whose Ascendancy record is the wave’s crest as far as I’m concerned) became lost in other people’s shtick. As far as I’m concerned, all As I Lay Dying had was shtick in the first place. Shtick and lots of frosting to cover up the sour Christian taste.

Half a decade later and on the same day, two bands I had pegged for second tier at best are releasing two consistent records. Slow and steady wins the race; both are solid. Andy Synn’s taking on Darkest Hour’s new record (here), so I’m going head to head with DevilDriver’s Beast.

It is one fun fight. Darkest Hour write breakup records, pure and simple. So what kind of records do DevilDriver write? Workout records. And the best thing I can say about and to describe Beast is that it makes me want to pump iron and hit things for its entire duration.  (more after the jump, including a track to hear . . .) Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 2)

 Forthcoming Albums  No Responses »
Feb 012011
 


The first month of the year has come and gone. January brought those of us in Seattle some typically ass-sucking winter weather, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the brutality dished out by the weather gods on our metal brothers and sisters in the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S. And of course, our readers ins places like Russia, and Finland, and Sweden are probably laughing their asses off reading our complaints about our winter weather. So, we’ll just shut up about that.

Besides, January brought all sorts of great new metal to our tender ears, so who gives a shit about the weather anyway? And you know what else January brought? It brought news of still more metal goodness on the way — great bursts of audio sunshine in our collective futures that will part these winter clouds and leave them whimpering in cloudy tatters.

Okay, maybe we should leave poetry to the poets and just get on with this next monthly installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, where we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like, or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we’ve cut and pasted the announcements and compiled them in alphabetical order. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones:

AJATARRA: “AJATTARA — the Finnish band featuring former AMORPHIS frontman Pasi Koskinen (a.k.a. Itse Ruoja Suruntuoj) — will release its seventh album, Murhat (“Murders”) on February 2 via Osasto-A Records. Murhat is available for streaming in its entirety on the AJATTARA Facebook page.”  (much more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

2011: MORE SICKNESS AHEAD

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania  7 Responses »
Jan 012011
 


HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Did you see what we did?  We had to change the logo for this edition of SICKNESS.  Because 2010 is behind us, and the new year lies ahead.

We spent the last 30 days, as we’ve been doing for the last year, collecting news blurbs and press releases about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like, or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we’ve cut and pasted the announcements and compiled them in alphabetical order.

All of our previous monthly updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages, and because we’re not keeping a cumulative list, you might want to check the last couple months of these posts if you want to get a full picture of what’s coming. The list that follows, in alphabetical order, are albums we didn’t know about at the time of our last installment when November ended, or updated info about albums we’d previously heard were on the way. And be forewarned: This is a really long list. There’s a massive slag of new metal coming our way, and man, does it look hot.

So, without further ado, let’s get started. See if there’s anything on the list that makes you moist, or tumescent, or just generally slobbery.

ABORTED: “Good news is that we are starting pre-productions for our upcoming record on January 4th. This means we will demo all the songs for the record, make sure everything sounds good and make the necessary adjustments to make sure they are all more lethal than a chainsaw in Mr. Leatherface’s hands. We’re all very excited about the material thus far and can’t wait to get this over with and proceed to the actual recordings later this year. Expect a fall 2011 release through our culprates in mayhem Century Media.”

AGNOSTIC FRONT: “The Godfathers of New York Hardcore, Agnostic Front, have just finished recording their highly anticipated follow up to their 2007 release, Warriors. The yet to be titled album features 13 new powerful and anthemic songs laid down by Erik Rutan (Madball, Goatwhore, Cannibal Corpse) at his Mana Recording Studio in Tampa, FL under the watchful guide of producer Freddy Cricien of Madball. The record was mastered by Alan Douches (Nile, Mastodon) and will be released in Europe of March 4, 2011 and in North America on March 22, 2011.”

(the list continues after the jump . . .)

Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 7)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Jul 312010
 

My, how time flies. Another month is in the history books. However much time you have on earth, you now have 31 days less of it since since the last installment of this post. Drink up!

But have no fear. You’re headed for a better place. That’s right, basically the same existence you had a month ago, but with more new metal ahead of you. Drink up!

And all those physical processes that are inexorably decaying your bodies on the rocky road to your demise, they’re still there and they’re still working on you like termites that have found a rotting log. But hey, you can still bang your head, so . . . Drink up!

Yes, we’re now a full seven months into 2010, and so it’s time for another monthly update to the list of forthcoming new albums we first posted on January 1. (All the other updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or updated info about some of the previously noted releases.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Perhaps needless to say, these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site — the kind that would like to tear your head off.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted items from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re like us, just stick post-it notes on your forehead. Of course, if your foreheads are the low, sloping kind, you may only have room for a few, so be choosy. Continue reading »

OZZFEST 2010

 Metal News  No Responses »
May 012010
 

The line-up, dates, and venues for the 2010 edition of Ozzfest have now been released. I don’t really know why I’m giving space to this announcement, which is still fairly hot off the presses. Maybe because some of you will care about it more than I do. Maybe because it’s nice to anticipate that Goatwhore and Skeletonwitch will pick up some new fans (which they certainly deserve). Other than that, I’m afraid it’s a big yawn for me, tinged with a little nausea.  First, the line-up (as recited in the official press release):

The main stage will feature full sets from Ozzy, Motley Crue and Rob Halford (who last appeared on Ozzfest in 2004 with Judas Priest), performing songs from his solo career along with material from Judas Priest and Fight. DevilDriver and Nonpoint will round out the main stage line-up.

Second stage headliners and six-time Ozzfest veterans Black Label Society will be joined by Drowning Pool, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch, Saviours, Kataklysm.

The second stage is far stronger than the first, that’s for sure. DevilDriver puts on a kick-ass live set, but the rest of the performers on Stage 1 look like nothing more than half-baked nostalgia. No question, Ozzy and Priest were hugely influential once upon a time, but Ozzy and Halford aren’t pushing metal in any new directions today, and they certainly don’t have the stage chops they used to have. Nonpoint is completely meh, and Motley Crue? Give me a fucking. Break.

Of course, feel free to telepathically tell me to fuck off if this news makes your day.  Ticket info and the predictably small list of dates and places follow after the jump . . . Continue reading »

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