Slowed down by two weeks of work-related travel, I’m now in the middle of a bunch of catch-up projects for NCS, none of which are finished. So what have I been doing this morning? In typically ass-backwards fashion, I’ve been listening to a bunch of random tracks thrown my way by NCS contributors and readers.

I have no idea whether this goes on in other genres of music, but one of the great things about metal is how people pass around tracks they’ve discovered (thank you, YouTube). We’ve all got bands we love and follow, and the bands we like are collectively cranking out music at a torrential pace, almost beyond our ability to consume, but we still want to find new music from new bands. Of course, that’s a big part of our mission here — to pass around what we’re hearing and liking.

So, this is a really random collection of stuff I heard just this morning, courtesy of the people whose names I’ll credit as we get to each song. And the line-up is . . . Jamey Jasta (U.S.), M.A.N. (Sweden), Barghest (U.S.), Haemorrhage (Spain), and Sifar (India). Lots of music all across the map of metal genres (actually, Sifar is right off the map), so I’ll keep the verbiage short.

JAMEY JASTA

Yes, that Jamey Jasta — Hatebreed, Kingdom of Sorrow, Icepick, and who knows what else. To be honest, I lost interest in Hatebreed a while back (though I used to be a big fan in their early days), and I didn’t find much to like in Kingdom of Sorrow’s albums, so I was going to take a pass on Jasta’s solo album, which is scheduled for release this week. But NCS writer Israel Flanders told me I really needed to give this solo album a chance.

I’ve listened to three songs that Israel recommended, and I gotta say I’m very pleasantly surprised. There’s some quasi-clean singing on the songs that’s quite good, though that wouldn’t be a big attraction for me. The big attraction is that the songs are HEAVY AS FUCK, and include some seriously headbangable riffs. So, I’ll tell you what Israel told me — give this shit a chance. The song I liked the most follows right after the jump. Continue reading »