Fallujah Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PESTILENT HEX, BAT MAGIC, FALLUJAH, BLACKLIST

Apr 302022

I’ve had a fuckin’ rough week, a classic example of the old adage that when it rains it pours. On top of continuing to help an injured loved one recover from physical trauma followed by surgery, I was slammed hard and repeatedly by my day job. Woe is me, indeed.

I largely ignored the thousand emails that poured into NCS since last weekend, and barely noticed the other places where I get suggestions of new music to write about. Blessed by a bit of peace this morning, I began going through the emails — and gave up after 15 minutes, overwhelmed by the scale of the task. I picked just a few things rather than completely abandon my roundup duties.

The first couple of selections probably reflect my current moods, which then got elevated by the third song. Of course I had to throw you a bit of a curveball at the end.

PESTILENT HEX (Finland)

I thought about saving this first track for tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column, but the way things have gone over the past week I don’t know if there will be one. And besides, this song really grabbed me this morning, so striking while the iron is hot seemed like the right decision. Continue reading »

FALLUJAH: “UNDYING LIGHT”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Mar 132019

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Fallujah, which will be released on March 15th by Nuclear Blast.)

Addressing the obvious elephant in the room up-front, what most people will immediately notice about this album is the higher-pitched, more emotive snarl of new vocalist Antonio Palermo, which straight-away presents quite a contrast to his predecessor’s guttural grumble.

But while I’m sure that Palermo’s sharper, more Hardcore-inflected bark (and, even more controversially, occasional use of clean vocals) will have certain reactionary-types screaming “METALCORE!!!” like poor Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (google it), once you get past the vocal switcheroo you’ll find that Undying Light isn’t a major departure for the group (despite the actual departure of long-time guitarist Brian James).

At the same time, however, that doesn’t mean it’s a simple carbon-copy of what’s gone before either. Continue reading »

OBSCURA / FALLUJAH / ALLEGAEON / FIRST FRAGMENT – LIVE IN LONDON 08/02/19

Concert Reviews 6 Responses »

Feb 112019

(Andy Synn wants you to know that he took in another show. This time, Obscura, Fallujah, Allegaeon, and First Fragment drew him to the environs of London on February 8th, yielding this report plus video of the event.)

For whatever reason, possibly known only to the gods themselves, tonight’s show was one of three big package-tours plying their metallic wares in the capital all on the same evening, with Behemoth/At The Gates/Wolves In The Throne Room on at Kentish Town Forum and Psycroptic/Aversion’s Crown/Within Destruction/Hadal Maw/Hollow World making The Dome in Tufnell Park their home for the evening.

Thankfully, as I’d caught the latter tour a few days earlier in Manchester, my choice between the remaining two options was an easy one to make, as while I’m a fan of practically all the bands on both bills (to a greater or lesser extent), I wasn’t hugely taken with either of the most recent Behemoth and At The Gates albums, whereas I was very high on the most recent Obscura album (and, spoiler alert, the upcoming new Fallujah too).

So it was off to the O2 in Islington for me! Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 19): FALLUJAH, VEILBURNER, DAHACA, COLDWORLD

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016 3 Responses »

Jan 292017

Welcome to the 19th installment of my list of 2016’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. I’m beginning to feel stressed about this list, because I swore to myself (and may have promised you) that I would bring this to an end on January 31, and yet I still have dozens of worthy candidates. That means there’s going to be an arbitrary cut-off, with a lot of worthy tracks being neglected. But I figured that would happen when I started this list… I’ve never been very good at list-making.

Anyway, here are four more songs. You’ll never guess why I chose to group these four songs together. It will just have to be my little secret.

FALLUJAH

In his NCS review, my colleague Andy Synn called Dreamless the finest of Fallujah’s three albums so far — a creation that “could very well be a game-changing, life-altering release for these Tech-Death titans-in-waiting.” He praised the songwriting, which gave each track its own distinctive personality despite the presence of common ingredients — “nuanced, technical drums, strobing, rapid-fire riffs, dreamy synth waves, and soaring, extravagant lead guitar work” — and the positive direction of the band’s continuing evolution. Continue reading »

FALLUJAH: “DREAMLESS”

Album Reviews 10 Responses »

May 052016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by California’s Fallujah.)

Depending on who you speak to, Fallujah are either the future of the Technical/Progressive Death Metal genre(s), or simply the latest in a long line of interchangeable faces to front the modern edge of the movement.

Coming off the back of a sophomore album (The Flesh Prevails) which also divided opinions over whether it was a potential masterpiece, or simply a solid enough album which caught the crest of an unexpected wave of hype (my own opinion falls somewhere in between those two extremes), the Californian quintet certainly have a lot to prove and, as a result, there’s a lot riding on both the critical and commercial success of Dreamless, their third… and finest… full-length release. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SHADOW WOODS 2016, PLAGUE RIDER, VAINAJA, EINAR SELVIK AND FRIENDS, PHOBOCOSM, AND TEN VIDEOS

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Apr 112016

As we begin the new week, I have some unfortunate news (at least it’s unfortunate for me). Beginning today and continuing through Thursday morning, I have to bury myself in my fucking day job for one of those day-and-night projects that periodically descends upon me. I’ll make time to post what other writers have sent me, as well as a few premieres I’ve agreed to do, but aside from this round-up and one “Short But Sweet” review I wrote over the weekend, I will be missing in action until sometime Thursday.

Before saying good-bye, I’ve collected a few items that I wanted to share — including, at the end of this post, streams of ten recent videos without commentary (because I’ve run out of time for commentary).

SHADOW WOODS METAL FESTIVAL

I’m late sharing this news, but the news is so exciting that I’m following the “better late than never” mantra. Last year’s Shadow Woods Metal Festival was a marvelous event by all accounts — including this account by our guest Captain Karbon. As I reported in February, organizer Mary Spiro and her team (who are joined by Baltimore’s Grimoire Records as co-producers this year) have been planning the second installment of this open-air camping metal party, which will run for three days in central Maryland: from Thursday, September 15th through Sunday, September 18th at Camp Hidden Valley, in White Hall, Maryland. They’ve been announcing performers since January, and now the complete line-up has been revealed — and it’s an eye-popper: Continue reading »

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

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 »

SEEN AND HEARD: TOO DAMNED MANY NAMES TO PUT IN THIS TITLE

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 50 Responses »

Jan 212015

Brothers of the Sonic Cloth

I’ve commented before about the enormous flood of stream premieres, new album announcements, label signings, and other metal news that has been unleashed since the beginning of the year. But yesterday may have reached new heights of ridiculousness in terms of the number of noteworthy things I saw in a single day.

In fact, yesterday brought so damned much cool stuff that I’d either have to write a half-dozen posts or do what I’m doing here instead — just funneling streams, links, artwork, and news blurbs your way with a minimum of commentary. The bands are presented in alphabetical order — all 18 of them. In most cases, you can enlarge the cover art and photos by clicking on the images in this post. Continue reading »

THE BEAUTY REPRESENTING THE BEAST (PART 2)

Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Aug 182014

(Guest writer Ty Lowery has assembled a personal list of favorite metal album covers for 2014 to date, divided into two parts. Part 1 appeared here. Once again, Ty asked his wife Heather (who he says isn’t very big on metal music as a whole) and his friend Adam (who is) to look at the album art and provide guesses about the music. Once again, please feel free to add your own favorites in the Comments.)

Alright, so the first round went pretty well for my two assistants. Where we left off, they were neck-and-neck in our little guessing game. So, time to finish this thing up and see if the trend continues. Lets get right to it, shall we?

Schammasch – Contradiction

There’s just something about the color red with me, for some reason. I really like how while the majority of this artwork is solid red, yet there’s enough variation that you can divine the angel, the demon, the symbols, and the serpents. With that knowledge, Heather was able to correctly suggest that this album was steeped in religious undertones, probably in the vein of black metal, as did Adam. He suggested that it might have something to do with atheism, but changed his mind after seeing the symbols along the bottom.

The cover art is by Valnoir of Metastazis Studio in Paris. NCS reviewed the album here.
http://www.graphic-noise.com/valnoir Continue reading »

FALLUJAH: “THE FLESH PREVAILS”

Album Reviews 18 Responses »

Jul 222014

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Fallujah.)

One of the things that consistently surprises me about music, in general, is how much some artists can change in their evolution yet still remain fundamentally the same. Fallujah released a pretty killer debut with The Harvest Wombs, a blitzkrieg of melodic technical death metal madness with a seasoning of Allan Holdsworth fusion thrown on top of it; the sound was the essence of ethereal yet feral. It was their way of achieving a sort of space-death sound, and it worked.

Of course, the other elements in the music helped, too. Fallujah pulls from a strange bag of tricks and smashes them together. The combination of death metal with a lot of post-y elements, including some borrowed from that end of the Black Metal spectrum, has cemented a sound I would argue is recognizably Fallujah, signature in nature.

The Flesh Prevails is a logical step forward, an attempt to bridge the technical showmanship of The Harvest Wombs with the spaced-out fusion atmosphere of the Nomadic EP. The end result is death metal that is equal parts brutal and Zen. Depending on your mood, you could windmill to this until you get whiplash, or sit around stoically contemplating the meaning of your life. It’s an odd paradox of sound that’s hypnotic. Continue reading »

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