May 072016
 

Denouncement Pyre-Black Sun Unbound

 

Some people may have noticed that I failed to compile even one round-up of new music all of this past week (unless you count that little Warriors in Forests thing). I’ve still been spending hours every afternoon or evening in a hospital ICU trying to help support my injured friend and her family.

For those of you who have been following my scattered references to this tragedy, my friend came out of her coma yesterday, though she still drifts in and out of consciousness and is now beset with other medical issues in addition to her injury.  It’s too soon to tell exactly how seriously impaired she will be as a result of the injury to her brain.  She can answer some simple yes or no questions by moving her fingers or foot, but she hasn’t attempted to speak and doesn’t move much. I’m trying to remain hopeful, but this is still heart-breaking.

Though I haven’t had time to do much for NCS this week besides write introductions to premieres, I have been keeping a list of new song and album streams and videos that I’ve noticed. As usual, there’s a shitload of them, far too many to write about in one post. I picked a handful to include in this post (and Austin Weber wrote an introduction to one of them as well). I’m also planning to prepare a Shades of Black post for tomorrow to collect others. Continue reading »

Sep 012015
 

Feared-Synder

 

(TheMadIsraeli wrote this review of the latest album by Sweden’s Feared.)

I am shamefully late on reviewing this, although for good reasons, both pertinent to the music itself and not. I’ve been pretty high on the Feared train since the band released Furor Incarnatus, and Synder is really no exception to the consistent roll they’ve been on. My problem has been both that my life has become a whirlwind of chaos (which has made finding the time for blogging pretty difficult lately), and that this album is very hard to detail and describe beyond saying that it’s really good.

But I feel like now I can write a review that sums up my thoughts — and oddly enough it was sparked by a negative review of this album. Brenocide of That’s Not Metal, a website that’s in our own sidebar of other blogs, did a post that was a carpet-bomb of mini-reviews of various releases back in May (here). He wrote this about Synder: Continue reading »

Apr 282015
 

 

Here are a few excellent new songs (and one superb video) that I spotted yesterday in my ramblings through the interhole, presented in the order in which I found them, plus one feature contributed by our guest Grant Skelton.

FEARED

Synder is the name of the new album by Sweden’s Feared and it’s due for release on May 25. I previously wrote about the excellent first single from the album, “My Grief, My Sorrow”, but I think the second one that premiered yesterday may be even better. Continue reading »

Mar 282015
 

 

I’m back at the NCS compound in the vicinity of Seattle after a month away from home, and it sure as hell was good to sleep in my own bed again last night, with the lice who know me instead of the strange ones inhabiting my hotel room mattress. I’d say they’ll miss me, but I probably brought a few of them home with me as hitchhikers.

Well, enough about me and my parasites. I found some videos that came out yesterday that I thought were cool. Without further ado, here they are, presented in alphabetical order; there’s also an exciting tour announcement in here:

APOPHYS

A couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of premiering a song named “Miscreants” by the Dutch death metal band Apophys (whose ranks include members of God Dethroned, Prostitute Disfigurement, Detonation, and Toxocara, among others). Their debut album Prime Incursion will be discharged by Metal Blade next month. And what I spied yesterday was the premiere on Gear Gods of a play-through video for another new song named “The Antidote”. According to the band,

“The song tells a story of humanity’s ultimate cure for itself, a final solution as people start to transform into beings that are focused on nothing other than consumption. This gives it a twist one could see relevant to our current society. Eventually the urge to consume backfires resulting in humanity consuming itself and thus, providing the answer to the final problem; us.” Continue reading »

Aug 262014
 

I haven’t written one of these round-ups since late last week, and much has happened on the metal front since then, so I’m cramming quite a few items into this post that I thought were worth sharing. It’s a jumbo-sized playlist that should appeal to many tastes (and I still didn’t include every good thing I found!).

SUMAC

In late July, the super-talented drummer of Vancouver’s Baptists, Nick Yacyshyn, gave an interview to CVLT Nation in which he mentioned that he had recently spent a week writing, rehearsing, and recording with Aaron Turner (Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer, and Isis [the BAND, ferchrissakes]. He also posted a photo of Aaron Turner’s drum kit on his Facebook page, and he further mentioned that Brian Cook of Russian Circles, These Arms Are Snakes, and Botch was also involved in the project.

This juicy piece of news wasn’t widely reported, but yesterday brought further details via a Facebook announcement by Profound Lore. According to that announcement, the project’s name is Sumac; its core members do indeed consist of Yacyshyn, Turner, and Cook; and Profound Lore will be releasing Sumac’s “monumentally heavy debut album” in early 2015.

I’d call that some hot shit news. Continue reading »

Nov 182013
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the forthcoming album by Sweden’s Feared, and we’re also stoked to bring you the premiere of a new Feared song: “Your God”.)

A lot of us music fans, especially metal fans, and even more especially music fans who are musicians, have a good idea (or know very well) what goes into writing an album. It’s something that takes time, commitment, and if you care about your music, a great deal of deliberation over what you’re crafting in order to make it the best and most compelling it can be. But creating music has never really been a process that you can just schedule, put in the time, and expect it to come out fine. Some bands have managed to prove that idea wrong, like The Black Dahlia Murder, who’ve released albums on a reliable schedule and haven’t taken a quality dip. Other bands haven’t fared so well.

Usually, we tend to think of the creation process for an album-length work as a long-term endeavor. As fans, we may bitch about how much time it takes for a band to write and record their next album, but we also tend to become leery when a band releases a new album soon after the one that preceded it. So it’s a surprise that Feared, after releasing a monster of an album earlier this year in Furor Incarnatus, announced they’d be releasing another album this year. Continue reading »

Nov 072013
 

Yesterday produced a lot of new excellent video and song premieres, and I also caught up with a few things that I missed when they first came out. In an earlier post today I collected three of the new videos, and in this post are five songs worth hearing.

LIVING SACRIFICE

Solid State Records will be releasing the eighth studio album by Living Sacrifice — Ghost Thief — on November 12, and I’ve been really eager to hear it. The first advance track from the album, “Screwtape”, didn’t grab me by the throat as hard as I hoped it would. But yesterday the title track debuted, and my first thought was, “that’s more like it!”

It was a good sign when the tremolo drilling and drum blasting started, and the jolting rhythms plus Bruce Fitzhugh’s bestial vox sealed the deal. This is neck-wrecking, riff-hammering Living Sacrifice in prime form. Listen next (via Rolling Stone). Continue reading »

Oct 012013
 

In February we had the privilege of premiering a full stream of Furor Incarnatus by Feared. Now the group are already storming back with a new album set for release on November 25 — Vinter — and today Revolver magazine premiered a lyric video for one of the new songs: “Erased”

Feared originated as the project of guitar wizard Ola Englund (The Haunted, Six Feet Under) and he’s now joined on Vinter by Demonoid vocalist Mario Ramos, bassist Jocke Skog (ex-Clawfinger), and drummer extraordinaire Kevin Talley (Battlecross). Revolver quotes Ola Englund as follows:

“After Furor Incarnatus, I quickly felt the need to show our fans that we are not resting, even though we are all working with our other bands. I’ve always felt that Feared is an ongoing experiment and with Vinter I feel like we’ve found our home. It’s a dark and beautiful album, and I think we’ve all matured a lot from making it.”

There is indeed a dark keyboard melody that comes and goes in “Erased”, but what will grab your attention first is a downright convulsing groove; you’ll want to loosen up your neck muscles before listening. Working with elements of hardcore, melodic death metal, and (yes, again) groove, Feared have delivered an attractive teaser for this new album. Continue reading »

Jun 182013
 

Oh, they make it look so easy.

Jeff Loomis and Keith Merrow (Demisery) were trying out their new signature amp packs for Jamup Pro. And they decided, why not throw together a new jam? And they spontaneously wrote and recorded an instrumental track in a couple of hours. And then they decided, what the hell, let’s invite Ola Englund (Feared) to come bust out a solo for this thing. And voila! They produced de-li-ciousness.

And they videotaped it, too, so that all of us can bask in all the delicious riff wizardry.

Watch these three guitar dynamos tear it up right after the jump. You’ll be glad you did. Continue reading »

Feb 252013
 

Maybe we should just re-name February “Ola Englund” month at NO CLEAN SINGING. Not long ago we launched a full-album stream of the new release by his band Feared (here), and today brought us a brand-new track that it appears he wrote for the band he joined last year, the formidable Six Feet Under.

The new song is “Prophecy” and it will appear on Six Feet Under’s new album Unborn, the “demented fraternal twin” of last year’s Undead, which will be released by Metal Blade on March 19.

The song stomps the holy hell out of the landscape with body-moving, chug-heavy riffs and an infernally catchy melody. It’s prime headbang candy, and of course it’s propelled by the distinctive growls of founder Chris Barnes. Eat this up (or let it eat you up) right after the jump. And after that, you can also check out the previously released lyric video for another new track, “Zombie Blood Curse”. Continue reading »