SHOW REVIEW: SWALLOW THE SUN, HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, GHOST BATH, SNAKES OF RUSSIA – FEB. 28, 2025, ORLANDO FL

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 212025
 

(Daniel Barkasi provided us the following wonderful report on the February 28 Orlando stop of Swallow the Sun‘s recently completed U.S. tour with Harakiri for the Sky, Ghost Bath, and Snakes of Russia, accompanied by the wonderful photos of Brittany Barkasi @Turn off the Thunder.)

Personally, Swallow the Sun is a band that has meant quite a bit over the years, both to myself and many friends – memories that will never fade. A good friend even made merch in the form of necklaces and keychains for this very tour, which are super high quality and wholly unique. For yours truly, ever since having my blackened heart soothed by The Morning Never Came in 2003, these Finns have been a constant in the listening rotation.

I first caught them live in September of 2007 (17-½ years ago – time is damn cruel) on what now has to be described as a dream tour, with Katatonia headlining, and Insomnium, Scar Symmetry, and Swallow the Sun supporting. Hard to imagine that tour was real, but for me and a bunch of others in the old Peabody’s (miss that place) in Cleveland, it was quite an affirming event. Since then, we’ve managed to see them a bunch of times, and when the opportunity arises, it’s one that we can’t turn down.

Adding to the allure of the melodic death/doom legends were Harakiri for the Sky, the post-black stalwarts who have eluded me for quite some time. Add to that the pummeling sounds of Ghost Bath and the dark electronics of Snakes of Russia, and we had a varied collection of fantastic acts to take in.

So off to Orlando we trekked to a usual landing spot in central Florida – the incredible Conduit – for a memorable evening of heart-wrenching musicality. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: YATRA, FURNACE, REPUKED, HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, OLD MOTHER HELL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 092020
 

 

(NCS contributor Gonzo returns with another Friday round-up of new music, this time featuring recent tracks and videos by five bands from albums that are being released today, or will be forthcoming.)

I took a road trip down to Fayetteville, Arkansas, last week. Driving to the Deep South from my Colorado home is a study in culture shock, and not in a positive or constructive way. The entire length of Kansas is a desolate hellscape full of Trump flags and locals casting a weary gaze towards anyone wearing a mask in public. Missouri isn’t much better.

Fortunately, so much time in the car allowed for plenty of time to listen to all the new metal I’ve been meaning to get around to. It was also nice to roll down the windows and blast some of this shit at offensively high volumes in conservative rural towns. (It’s the little things.) Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY AND AILS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Jan 152019
 

 

For this installment of the list there’s again no particular reason why I paired these two songs together, so I don’t have much to say by way of overarching introduction. On the other hand, it may be that I just haven’t done a very good job interrogating my subconscious to determine the reason. If you can help me, please speak up.

(To check out the previous installments, you’ll find them behind this link, and to learn what this series is all about, go here.)

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY

This Austrian band is another one in which the Ven diagrams of musical interest by the longest-running writers at our site intersect. Our first post about them was in 2014, where I premiered a track from their second album, Aokigahara. That was a wonderful album, but in retrospect was only the tip of the iceberg that was building beneath the surface. Continue reading »

DGR’S QUEST TO TURN 2018 INTO A COFFEE TABLE BOOK – ISSUE FOUR: 20-11

 LISTMANIA 2018  12 Responses »
Jan 032019
 

 

(Here’s the fourth installment of DGR’s 5-part year-end effort to sink our site beneath an avalanche of words and a deluge of music. The concluding Top 10 will appear tomorrow.)

A confession: For a long time the only words in this whole writeup prior to me breaking the whole thing into five parts and actually listing the bands was just a whole bunch of swear words. Even though I’ve been doing this for nine years now I still will occasionally try things I learned in writing classes over the years or even some things I’ve read about since then. Stream-of-consciousness writing is one of those, but the only thing I’ve learned from doing that in the context of talking about albums of the year is that I’ve assembled a pretty neat collection of permutations of the word ‘fuck’ that I’ve gathered from popular culture over the years.

It was at this point that I began going back through our review archives so that I could even remember what came out this year. Metal-Archives is also a tremendous help in that regard, since I often can’t remember what I talked about in January unless I’ve listened to it since then. It’s also one of my favorite things to do because I get to have a laugh at how far back I have to go in the segment tagged ‘Reviews’ on the site. I know that we’ve missed more than a few albums, but as it stands now,  our first review of something from 2018 is about forty pages back. And there can be anywhere between five to fifteen albums per page of results — depending on how we grouped them for each article.

I know that’s just reflective of the ‘relentless march of hashtag content’ that the internet has become, but it still makes me smile. If I ever need a reminder that heavy metal is — somehow, despite all the odds and all the editorials about rock music dying — a lively as all hell genre, that’s enough for me. I guess there will always be room for cathartic release via loud instruments, or the various experimentations outside of the tradional music sphere to which this genre loans itself. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): ROTTING CHRIST, HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, PSYCHOTIC PULSE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 292018
 

 

(DGR presents the following round-up of new music.)

 

My last appearance with a news roundup was, admittedly, a little ridiculous. I will say, however, that I was not initially aware it had gotten so huge as I just kept adding things that I had noticed we had missed in my vain effort to cover everything I thought the NCS crowd might be interested in.

The nice thing about that method, though, is that the act of doing so with such a large dragnet, combined with the massive three-part Shades Of Black post that went up shortly after, means that we’re able to keep this roundup small, covering just three groups that barely missed the bus when those posts went up. One in particular was released right after the post that was perfect for it went up.

So, we return once again to do a little globe-trotting, skirting around the edges of heavy metal and talking about three more newly released songs that have popped up over the past week and a half. Continue reading »

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY: “ARSON”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jan 192018
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the Austrian band Harakiri For the Sky, which will be released by AOP Records on February 16th.)

If you’re a long-time follower of the site you may have picked up on an ongoing war of words between some of our writers about how to properly categorise the music of the Austrian duo Harakiri for the Sky.

And while I agree that how you choose to describe their sound doesn’t directly affect the quality of their material one iota, I still think it’s important that we use the right terms and the right language when writing about the band (or any band), as it can definitely have an effect on how people judge and perceive them.

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that Arson is one damn fine slab of punchy, pulse-quickening Melodeath… and I won’t hear a single word to the contrary! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): AFGRUND, ALTERBEAST, SHINING, HELLISH GOD, HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, LONG DISTANCE CALLING

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 122017
 


Afgrund

 

(Like the good cowboy he is, DGR has stepped forward to handle round-up duty today.)

We at NCS are big fans of posts full of genre whiplash, and this roundup of things that caught our eyes and ears last week will likely be one of those. We try to always keep our giant fish net of news-and-music catching open for stuff to fall in and we like to clean it out whenever we get the chance, even though you would’ve figured that last week things should have slowed down just a bit…you would think.

However, just because it’s close to the end of the year and time for everyone to begin writing up summaries of their favorite albums of 2017, and just because our editor managed to escape from the loris horde encircling the NCS compound for a vacation, does not mean heavy metal got the hint and decided to slow down for a bit. We did here in our little comfortable corner of the ‘net, but that doesn’t mean everyone did. And so we go outside to clean off the radar dish and see what landed in the net over the past week. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, MENDACIUM, CAVEMASTER, FUNERAL BAPTISM

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Nov 062017
 

 

This is the second part of this week’s SHADES OF BLACK collection. You can find Part 1 here.

This post begins with one advance track and follows with three complete releases, which a shortage of time prevents me from discussing in full. I’ll give you a smattering of garbled thoughts about them, and then hope you’ll give them the time they deserve.

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY

Last Thursday Stereogum premiered “Tomb Omnia“, the first excerpt from the new album by Austria’s Harakiri For the Sky, the name of which is Arson. To say that we’re excited about this album is like the martyr on the stake whispering “it’s a bit warm here” as the flames begin to lick his legs. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, MONOLITHE, ALMYRKVI, ONE TAIL ONE HEAD, HEIR, OVNEV

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 222017
 

 

I took a break from NCS yesterday… sort of. Instead of writing something to post on Saturday, I used the time to get a head-start on a two-part SHADES OF BLACK for today. Both parts are long ones, and could have been even longer. But the first four items in this Part 1 mainly consist of album announcements and artwork rather than any new music. And yes, we’re now getting into announcements of new albums that will be released in 2018.

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY

In the first week of this month the German label AOP Records announced that it would be releasing a new album by Harakiri For the Sky early next year, and then on Thursday of last week it revealed further details, including the cover art (by Striga) that you can see above. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 1): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY AND ANAAL NATHRAKH

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  7 Responses »
Jan 022017
 

 

And so it begins. Just as we’re approaching the end of most segments of our LISTMANIA 2016 series, we’re starting another segment — and it’s the only one for which your humble editor is personally responsible. I don’t have the decisionmaking capacity to make my own list of best albums and, as you’ll discover, I’m only barely more capable of making the list that begins today.

Once again, I’m starting the rollout of our Most Infectious Song list without having finished it — which means I don’t know how long it will be or when it will end. As in past years, I’m making it up as I go along. I’ll do my best to post 2 or 3 songs every day until I arbitrarily decide to stop, though my goal is to finish by the end of January.

If you think that’s a ridiculously inept way to make a list, you might consider that between the list of candidates I sporadically made for myself as 2016 rolled on, plus the lists provided (here) by our readers, and by my NCS colleagues, I have a master list that includes more than 900 songs. It’s a mix of big names and very obscure ones from across virtually every metal sub-genre you can think of. Continue reading »

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