AUSTIN TERROR FEST 2018: A PHOTO RECORD (DAY 2)

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 202018
 

 

The second annual installment of Austin Terror Fest took place in the heart of Texas on June 15-17, 2018, proudly co-sponsored by NCS. It featured performances by 30 bands from around the U.S. (and outside it). It was a great event, and we’re already anxious for ATF 2019 (and yes, work is already under way to present the third edition of the festival next year). We were very fortunate that New Orleans-based photographer Teddie Taylor was there to document the fest through her lenses, and to share her photos with us so that we, in turn, can share them with you.

On Wednesday we presented photos from the first day of the festival, and today the focus is on the performances that took place on the second day, with sets by a dozen bands alternating between indoor and outdoor stages at Barracuda in Austin. And without further ado, here’s our selection from the many great images that Teddie captured during these performances: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE KONSORTIUM, VARATHRON, DEATHWARDS, FISTULA, HOMEWRECKER, THE EVER LIVING, MUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 292018
 

 

Here we are just past hump day for this week, and I have a big mountainous hump of music to choose from for this round-up. Much has been left on the cutting room floor, but this particular collection of recent songs and videos by seven bands felt like a good musical trip, one with changing moods and varied forms of intensity, and of course I quite enjoyed all of it. If you find just one thing that gets you excited, then my time here will have been well spent.

THE KONSORTIUM

“Who Is The Konsortium?” That was the title of a post I wrote back in May of 2011 after coming across a striking track named “Lik Ulven” by a mysterious Norwegian group whose line-up included guitarist Teloch (from Mayhem and Nigingr) but was otherwise masked and shrouded in secrecy. I still didn’t know who was in the band when I reviewed their self-titled debut album the following month, but the music spoke for itself in quite charismatic tones.

Roughly a year later, still masked, The Konsortium played Inferno Fest in Oslo, and yesterday I enjoyed re-reading Andy Synn’s comments about their performance: Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: NEWLY DISCOVERED SPLITS (HORNA, PURE, SPECTRAL LORE, JUTE GYTE, FISTULA, COME TO GRIEF, -(16)-, VOLAHN, XAXAMATZA, BHL, KALATHON, HAUNTER, SOVEREIGN, II, LIHHAMON)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 082018
 

 

In an effort to catch up with new music that appeared last week (or in some cases that I only discovered last week), I’ve resorted to a two-part OVERFLOWING STREAMS post. And for those who haven’t noticed the format of these posts, they’re a form of personal surrender to the flood of new music. I enjoy writing thoughts about what I want to recommend, but in posts such as this one I just let the music speak for itself because there’s so much to recommend that I don’t have time to blurt out my own reactions.

In the first part of this post I decided to collect only new split releases that I’ve recently found. To be sure, these aren’t the only splits that I’ve discovered recently — some I intend to listen to but haven’t heard yet. These, I’ve at least listened to once and have had positive reactions, and perhaps you will too. The first one is really hot off the presses, since it just appeared over the weekend. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: FISTULA, GATEWAY, CORPORAL RAID, I’M IN A COFFIN, DEATH COURIER, ALTAR OF OBLIVION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 262016
 

Fistula-Longing For Infection

 

I enjoy hosting premieres of music here, but when those commitments accumulate in large numbers as they did over the last three days, they tend to restrict my ability to assemble round-ups of music appearing elsewhere. And so once again I find myself awash in new discoveries with not enough time to roll them all out for you. Hard choices must be made, and I’ve made them.

I confess that my decisions may have been influenced by the bleak feelings of dismay that I’ve been experiencing over the results of a certain referendum across the Atlantic coupled with the celebratory gasbaggery of a certain apricot-faced hellbeast hoping to capitalize on similarly ignorant, bigoted, and self-destructive impulses among the electorate on this side of the ocean. But I’ve also attempted to express my foul emotional state in a musically diverse way. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FISTULA, REVENGE, SHEVILS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 082014
 

I thought I’d pass along a few more recently discovered items before calling it quits for the day. Obviously, I think everything in here is worth your time.

FISTULA

I’m about as peace-loving a soul as you could ever meet, yet much of the music I enjoy is violent. Maybe listening to violent music helps me keep cool most of the rest of the time. But I really don’t listen to violent music for therapeutic purposes — I listen to it because I get off on the power and the energy.

Violence in metal takes many forms. Fistula’s new album Vermin Prolificus (released by To Live A Lie Records) is the kind that just wants to beat you senseless with grotesque sludgy riffs and tear your throat out with raw, shrieking vocal extremity. Continue reading »

SUNDAY SAVAGERY, WITH ENSLAVED, XEHANORT, FISTULA, AND CATS MATING

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  15 Responses »
Oct 212012
 

The loris compound at NCS HQ has been in turmoil. They apparently expected me to leave grubs for them before I left town last week, and they resorted to cannibalism while I was gone. Must have been a ritualistic aspect to it, because I found them chanting over those big eyeballs of the dead, which had been collected like marbles in a shallow pit.

I thought they would just fast, and some of them had gotten pretty hefty so I figured that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Actually, to be brutally honest, I just fuckin’ forgot to leave food.

Anyway, they’re in a feisty mood, because I guess uncooked loris doesn’t taste as good as grubs. I don’t understand their language, but I’m pretty sure they were chanting something about impaling me on greased spikes. I’m glad I reinforced the fencing and electrified it last month. All my efforts to reason with them seem to have fallen on deaf ears, so I’ve had to resort to stern disciplinary measures.

I’ve been playing them some savage new music I discovered recently, using the compound’s megajoule PA system. It’s causing blood to come out of their ears, but instead of getting docile, it’s causing them to headbang. Very slowly. Because they’re lorises, aren’t they?

I thought I’d share the music with you, too. Not that you need disciplining, of course. Unless you do.

ENSLAVED

Thanks to a tip from MaxR (Metal Bandcamp), I started the lorises off with Enslaved providing a live cover of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Immigrant Song” on the Norwegian TV show Trygdekontoret on October 17 2012. It’s a goddamn glorious cover, with the band blackening the song and then ending it by dropping down into a doomy breakdown with Ice Dale spinning off a psychedelic guitar solo. I thought it was generous of me to give those slow creatures something to watch as well as hear. Continue reading »