WEEKEND ROUND-UP (Part 1): INCANTATION, HATE, DEIVOS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 102015
 

 

Whenever I let a day or two go by without checking the web or my NCS e-mails to see what’s new, I always miss a lot, because the ocean of metal is always at high tide. Because of my day job, I couldn’t pay much attention to metal happenings over the last two days. But I had a 6-hour flight back to Seattle from the east coast last night and a decent internet connection, so I tried to catch up. And goddamn….

The great and powerful Engine of Metal has awakened after dormancy during the holiday season and it’s now running in the red zone. (Yeah, I just mixed my metaphors, so sue me.) I found more than 20 new songs and videos during that plane flight that I thought were worth exploring.

The net connection wasn’t good enough to stream anything on the flight, so I just made a list, and now I’m going through it. There’s sooo much worth writing about that I’m breaking this round-up into multiple parts that I’ll spit out in pieces today and tomorrow. (I missed an installment of the Most Infectious Song list yesterday, but I’ll get back on track with that today, too.) Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SHED THE SKIN — “THE SKAPHE OF CHRIST / REBIRTH THROUGH BRIMSTONE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Dec 032014
 

 

You may not be familiar with the name Shed the Skin, but chances are you’ll recognize the names of some of its members.  This Ohio-based band is new, but the line-up includes drummer Kyle Severn (Incantation), guitarist Matt Sorg (Ringworm), vocalist/guitarist Ash Thomas (Vladimirs, Faithxtractor), bassist Ed Stephens (Ringworm), and Brian Boston (ex-From the Depths) on keyboards. Hells Headbangers will soon be releasing their debut two-song EP and today we’re bringing you a stream of the first track:  “The Skaphe of Christ / Rebirth Through Brimstone”.

Shed the Skin took shape when Sorg and Severn played together in a tribute to Cleveland’s Blood of Christ at a memorial show for their friend Tom Rojack (Blood of Christ’s 1993 promo EP included the song “Shed the Skin”), and then decided to forge ahead by recruiting the rest of the band’s impressive line-up. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEAD CONGREGATION, GOD MACABRE, INCANTATION, THE LION’S DAUGHTER, VAINAJA, YOB

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
May 202014
 

As a result of unusually pressing personal and job-related commitments, and making sure I have enough clean underwear for my MDF trip tomorrow, I haven’t had time for proper write-ups on all the good new songs I came across yesterday. But I have a sneaking suspicion you’ll be happy just listening anyway. So here goes — a big load of music streams (or links) in alphabetical order and damn few words from me.

DEAD CONGREGATION

Promulgation of the Fall, the new album I’ve written about before by the excellent Greek band Dead Congregation, is now streaming in full and available for acquisition on Bandcamp. Part of me thinks this moots the point of a review. Part of me wants to lavish my praise in print anyway. We’ll see — but you should damn sure listen below: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INCANTATION, DEMONIC RESURRECTION, MOONSORROW, INSOMNIUM, FORGOTTEN TOMB

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Apr 302014
 

Your humble editor has fallen down on the job. Due to a variety of personal and work-related interferences I haven’t been as diligent as I would like in spotting and writing about new developments in the wide world of metal over the last couple of days. With luck, I can do some catching up today, beginning with this collection of items that I thought were worth your attention.

INCANTATION

How many times have you seen Incantation’s name as a reference point for releases by new death metal bands? Dozens of times? Hundreds? I know I’ve used them many times myself in attempting to capture a certain kind of sound in writing about the music of more recent groups. And now we have new music from Incantation themselves.

But before getting to that, is that album artwork cool or what? It’s by the phenomenally talented Eliran Kantor, whose work we’ve praised frequently at this site. We’ve obtained a hi-res version of the cover, which you can see in all its glory by clicking on the image above.

The album’s name is Dirges of Elysium and it’s due for North American release by Listenable Records on June 24. The song that premiered yesterday is named “Carrion Prophecy”, and man, it’s a monster — monstrous pounding riffs that ooze radioactive sickness, monstrous abyssal growls, and an atmosphere of monstrous menace. When the song begins to gallop and race, heads will bang hard, and when it descends again into a pit of decay and depravity, you may feel tumors begin to thicken your organs. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: NEW FILM FROM INCANTATION, HANGING GARDEN, AND BYZANTINE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 142013
 

The last 24 hours brought three new music videos that I thought were worth throwing your way — three quite different forms of metal and three quite different uses of visual accompaniment, but all worth seeing and hearing. The bands are Incantation (U.S.), Hanging Garden (Finland), and Byzantine (U.S.).

INCANTATION

This seminal NYDM band’s new album Vanquish in Vengeance, their first in half a decade, was released last fall by Listenable Records.  It has been very well-received, and rightly so. It bears the hallmarks of Incantation’s well-defined morbid, crushing style, but with a crisper, more modernized sound, and it’s packed with varied, well-written songs. The album opener “Invoked Infinity” sets the tone for the album, summoning up atmospherics of the occult and the doomed while also ripping flesh with a storm of razor-edged guitar work.

This morning the band premiered a video for the song that captures the mortuary air of the track — because it was filmed in an actual, decaying, turn-of-the-century funeral home. Here you go: Continue reading »

STREAMS: INCANTATION, HELL MILITIA, UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS, AND AEON

 Metal News  1 Response »
Nov 192012
 

 

This is just a quick note to let you know that four albums are now streaming in full at various locations around the interhole. All four of them are definitely worth checking out.

INCANTATION

Incantation’s ninth album, Vanquish in Vengeance, will be released on November 27 by Listenable Records. It’s their first album since Primordial Domination was released in 2006. It was mixed and mastered Dan Swanö at Unisound. It sounds vicious. It’s streaming exclusively at DECIBEL’s online site, which you can find via this link.

HELL MILITIA

We featured these French marauders not long ago. Their new album, Jacob’s Ladder, is due for release on November 20 via Season of Mist. Today, Brooklyn Vegan began streaming the album in full.  It can be ordered here now. It’s really good. The SoundCloud player at Brooklyn vegan is also embeddable, and so you can check it out here right after the jump. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INCANTATION, SLIDHR, AND DEER CROSSINGS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 182012
 

I’m a little off my game at the moment, out of town and with not much time to call my own, so our posts will be a little more sporadic than usual this week. But I wanted to throw a few items your way before the day ended, and they are as follows:

A calamitous new track from Incantation (U.S.), two intriguing new songs from Slidhr (Ireland), and your wtf? moment for the day straight from Fargo, North Dakota.

INCANTATION

I assume this band need no introduction, and therefore none will be provided. Their ninth studio album, Vanquish In Vengeance, is due for release on November 26 by Listenable Records. About 10 days ago I found out that the band had recorded a song for DECIBEL’s Flexi-Disc series and included that exciting news in a post despite the fact that the song hadn’t yet been released for streaming. Well, as of today, we can now hear it.

The song is ”Degeneration,” which originally appeared on the self-titled 1989 demo of John McEntee’s pre-Incantation band, Revenant. Incantation’s dynamic version of the track is completely devastating — disemboweling guitar grinding, ghoulish vocals, skull-smashing percussion, and a couple of guitar solos that are the equivalent of throwing open the door to a blast furnace. In other words, everything a death metal fanatic could want. Continue reading »

SUMMER BREEZE 2012 – THE REVIEW (Part 2)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 072012
 

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn made the trek to Germany for this year’s edition of the SUMMER BREEZE festival, and provided us with a review of the bands whose performances he witnessed.  We’ve divided the review into two parts. Part 1 was yesterday, covering performances on the first two days of the festival. In this post, Andy covers the festival’s third and final day, and at the end we’ve again collected videos of some of the performances discussed in the review.)

DAY 3

Day 3 saw a late start (which may have had something to do with the amount of alcohol consumed the night before) with Naglfar over on the main stage, kicking out some lethal melodic black metal despite the blazing sunshine and clear blue skies. It’s really only in the live setting you can fully appreciate both the anthemic quality of the group’s material, as well as the technical skill behind it.

Over on the second stage Unleashed wasted little time getting into the swing of things, their brutish, occasionally melodic, Viking-obsessed death metal garnering a surprisingly loud reaction (at least for this early in the day). The only niggling problem is that where Amon Amarth are more obviously self-aware, using these tales of Viking lore to inspire and uplift their fans, Unleashed seem to treat their subject matter as a manifesto, and their uncomfortable “we should all be Vikings!” schtick is both extremely geeky and embarrassingly ill-informed.

Over in the third-stage tent Incantation were unleashing their own brand of filthy, blood-spitting aural horror, dropping some gut-clenching death metal grooves and breakdowns into the whirlwind death metal stew, even throwing in a few Possessed covers for good measure. Slightly breaking the atmosphere though was John McEntee’s use of an uber-gravelly Batman voice for his between-song banter, unintentionally hilarious in its own special way. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INCANTATION, SHINING, MEANKIND, AND EVIL ENTOURAGE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 252012
 

The ol’ fucking day job has had its claws in my viscera the last couple of days, and I haven’t been able to focus my bloodshot eyes on happenings in the metal world as keenly as I’d like. But that vice-like grip has eased somewhat, so it’s time to begin catching up. Here are some items of interest I saw and heard yesterday.

ITEM ONE: INCANTATION

I saw the news that Incantation (pictured above) is at work on their eighth album, to be entitled Vanquish in Vengeance, which is projected for a November release on Listenable Records. I saw this statement by John McAfee:

“The title track is about the massacre of Saxons in the town of Verdun in 782, called on by order of King Charlemagne. As an album title it has a different meaning to me. Vanquish in Vengeance symbolizes the long history of the band. We have fought many battles over the years to keep things going. We have always stayed true to our original vision and have never caved into trends. After a long wait between albums we are back with a vengeance with some of our darkest and heaviest material to date.” 

“Darkest and heaviest material to date”? That would take some doing.  “We have always stayed true to our original vision and have never caved into trends”? True dat. I’m ready for new Incantation.

ITEM TWO: SHINING

I like the music of Sweden’s Shining. I saw that Shining have a new album coming. Instead of persisting with the Roman numerals as on previous albums, this eighth one has a name: Redefining Darkness.

I also saw that Shining’s main man Niklas Kvarforth recorded two teaser videos for the album. In one, he’s having a rub-a-dub-in-the-tub using the favored lubricant of all trve black metallists. He’s also licking something that looks vaguely familiar. I’d say this one is not safe for work, but you’re not working now, are you? In the second video he multitasks, explaining Shining’s self-mutilating mission while taking a shit. Continue reading »

EMANCIPATE THESE RIFFS: ARGHOSLENT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  55 Responses »
Apr 062012
 

(After a little hiatus, BadWolf rejoins us with a thought-provoking piece and lots of sick music [double entendre intended].)

None of us are angels. In fact, most people commit evil on a daily basis (more often if you’re a politician in America). As Anaal Nathrakh said: hell is empty, and the devils are all here.

I’m willing to forgive most people their sins. In fact, most acts considered ‘wrong” or ‘immoral’ are deemed as such based on the value judgments of hypocritical organizations (what up, Catholic church? Yeah. I went to one of your middle schools. What about it!?). It’s value-judgments all the way down my friends, and as such I’m reluctant to cry (bad)wolf at most people.

Racists are an exception to that rule. I never understood judging people based on race when other factors like economic status factor so heavily into racially charged situations. I mean, which of these makes more sense:

A) some dude robbed you because he is starving, unemployed and addicted to hard drugs from birth

or

B) some dude robbed you because his skin cells produce more melanin.

…I know, right!? Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries