OVERFLOWING STREAMS: DAWN, ELUVEITIE, EXTOL, GHOULGOTHA, LOUDBLAST, MAVETH-EMBRACE OF THORNS, NEOCAESAR, TYRANT OF DEATH

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jul 122014
 

It was a rare Friday night for your humble editor, in that your humble editor didn’t get completely shit-faced. This means that I was able to listen to music on this Saturday morning without experiencing severe brain pain and heaving waves of nausea. I made my way through a long list of new songs and videos I had collected over the last few days, from which I’ve sifted a still pretty long list of things I commend to your ears and eyes, presented in alphabetical order with a minimum of words. But before getting to those, here’s a piece of somewhat older news I only discovered recently.

DAWN

Over the years since I began getting into metal I’ve done a lot of deep diving back into music that was released before I wised up, but I didn’t know about Dawn until just a few days ago. They were formed circa 1990 by guitarist Fredrik Söderberg (Cranium) and recorded a smattering of demos plus two albums (1994’s Nær Sólen Gar Niþer For Evogher and 1998’s Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)) before disbanding for nearly a decade. They’ve reactivated, and the line-up now includes, in addition to Söderberg, original vocalist Henke Forss (Retaliation) plus drummer Tomas Asklund (Gorgoroth, ex-Dissection, ex-Dark Funeral) and bass player Philip von Segebaden (ex-Afflicted, ex-Cranium). That’s a hell of a line-up.

Beginning in April, Century Media has reissued the band’s discography from the 1990s on vinyl, and Dawn have also been working on a new album. A “semi-official rehearsal track” has been up on YouTube for a while, though the song title apparently isn’t correct. Here it is, followed by a full stream of Slaughtersun: Continue reading »

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO THIS YEAR — PART DEUX

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  26 Responses »
Jun 062014
 

(Back in February NCS contributor KevinP shared with us an early list of 2014 albums that were peaking his interest. More than three months have passed, and now Kevin brings us five more recommendations.)

2014 hasn’t slowed down with the new releases worthy of all our time. If you’re playing catch up, you can see Part 1 here.

Hexis – Abalam

I never liked straight-up hardcore and I’m not a huge fan of straight-up black metal either. Wasn’t in 1992, still not today. But when you mix the two together, it’s like “somebody put gasoline on my fuckin’ balls and lit it” (yes, I’m quoting Joey DeMaio, gotta problem with that?). Take the darkness and evil tint of black metal, mixed with the fury and bottom end of hardcore in a nice concise package of mainly 1-2 minute songs & nothing overstays its welcome.

http://hexisband.bandcamp.com/album/abalam Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LOUDBLAST, PACT, ARSAFES, SPECTRAL LORE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 022014
 

This is one of those days when the old fuckin’ day job is going to wipe out my blog time.  So this will likely be our last post of this Friday.  What I’ve done — hurriedly — is to feature a handful of things I heard last night that I think you should hear, too.

LOUDBLAST

Burial Ground — the new album by the long-running French band Loudblast — is one I’ve been anxiously awaiting. In late March I featured the album’s first advance track, “Ascending Straight In Circles”, and yesterday DECIBEL premiered an official video for the same song. As I’ve written before, the music is part thrash, part death, part doom — and as catchy as it is decimating (with thoroughly ravaging vocals).

It appears the album will now be released on June 10, by Listenable Records. It can be pre-ordered here. Check out the video next. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AUTOPSY, LOUDBLAST, BLACK ANVIL, AND ARCHSPIRE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 272014
 

I’ll spare you the why’s and wherefore’s, but your humble editor has fallen behind in monitoring developments in the world of metal.  As a result, the collection of new songs is even more random than usual. Nevertheless, I think all the music is very good, and it’s diverse enough that it should please a range of tastes.

AUTOPSY

Tourniquets, Hacksaws And Graves is the name of the seventh studio excrescence by the mighty Autopsy. Ever since the Wes Benscoter album art and April 21 release date were disclosed by the Peaceville label back in February, I’ve been waiting for a taste of the music, and we finally got it yesterday, with the premiere of “The Howling Dead” at Noisey.

I’m not surprised at how good this song is, but I’m surprised at how wretchedly good it is. That driving beat at the beginning, shrouded in dense distortion, is just killer. So is the thoroughly horrific doom slow-down that follows it. So is the lurching, rocking stomp that comes next. And so on… Chris Reifert’s vocals have never sounded more horrific, the riffs are as putrescent and grisly as they’ve ever been, and the closing guitar solo oozes decay. Fantastic! Continue reading »

FREE SHIT: A KLONOSPHERE SAMPLER — AND A NEW LOUDBLAST SONG

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 282013
 

Thanks to a tip from KevinP, I learned this morning that the French label Klonosphere has recently released a free sampler of music from 18 different bands. I’m an enthusiastic fan of many of the bands on this compilation, including Hacride, Klone, Lokurah, Magoa, and Otargos, all of whom we’ve written about at NCS. I’m not familiar with other bands, but the chance to discover new music is one of the reasons why samplers like this one are worth having. And just based on the music I do know, this is a really diverse collection of sounds.

Many of the songs previously appeared on recent albums or EPs, and some are being released for the first time on this sampler — including exclusive demo versions of tracks that will appear on albums projected for release later this year. One of those advance demo tracks comes from a long-running French band named Loudblast who we last visited at NCS all the way back in April 2011 (here). I liked what I heard of them then, and so I was especially interested in the chance to check what they’re up to now.

They’ve released six studio albums to date, and based on the description of this new demo track, it appears their seventh is on the way. The new song is entitled “The Abstract God”, and it’s a beefy, malicious death metal monster that stomps, rips, roars, and wails like a tormented spirit. It’s prime headbang material, so loosen up your neck muscles and stream it right after the jump. Continue reading »

LOUDBLAST REDUX

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 112011
 

Only six short days ago I used the “exclusive” streaming of a new song by a French band called Loudblast as an excuse to go off on a selfish, petulant rant about the use of “exclusives” in metal marketing (here). Kind of embarrassing actually, but “Embarrassing” is one of my middle names, so what do you expect?

The song was/is called “Emptiness Crushes My Soul”, and I liked it, which was one of the reasons I got frustrated at my inability to embed the song right here at NCS. In the post, I mentioned that Loudblast had filmed a video for the song that allegedly featured a former porn star named Nina Roberts, though I saw no evidence of that in a teaser for the video that the band had released. Not that I give a shit whether music videos include former, or current, porn stars. If you want porn, you really don’t need to troll for metal videos to get it.

Well, now the video for “Emptiness Crushes My Soul” has been released, and sure enough, it includes nudity and flashes of sexual activity between Ms. Roberts and something that may or may not be a man, that may or may not have been created by the woman, and that may or may not represent her fantasy about a horse. In other words, I don’t have a very good idea about what’s going on, or what it has to do with the song. But the song is still good. The video is NSFW so be mindful of who’s peering over your shoulder.  After the jump . . . Continue reading »

LOUDBLAST! (A MINDLESS MEDITATION ON THE MARKETING OF METAL)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  27 Responses »
Apr 052011
 

Can we talk? I hope so. I had an experience yesterday that made me think about the marketing of metal bands, the do’s and the don’ts. And I’d like to vent a bit. You can talk back to me if you like, either under your breath or in the comments.

I saw a blurb on Blabbermouth about a French band called Loudblast. I got interested immediately because of the band’s name. I thought, this band’s name sums up my interest in metal, in one word: I like music that’s loud and blasts. Maybe my taste is s a little more nuanced than that, but if I’m brutally honest with myself, those are two key ingredients. In fact, those are often the only ingredients I need. Plus, the band is from France, and these days French metal bands are coming damned close to the Finns — they almost do no wrong.

So, I continued reading that Blabbermouth blurb. I learned that this band called Loudblast has a new album called Frozen Moments Between Life And Death due for release on April 18 via XIII Bis Records. Plus, the album has a cool piece of cover art. Plus, the album was mixed by Peter Tägtgren. And all that piqued my interest even more.

The blurb said the CD will be released in Germany, Austria, “Benelux”, Switzerland, Spain, the U.K., and Ireland. Uh, what? No mention of the U.S. and Canada? Well, that sometimes happens with some European bands and their labels. It’s like they’re trying to send the message to metalnuts in NorthAm, “You’re ugly and you smell like my rectum, and fuck you with a rusty crowbar.”

But I’m not offended. I get insulted or ignored all the fucking time. So I continued reading and learned that there’s a song from this album called “Emptiness Crushes My Soul” that’s streaming “exclusively” at a web site called RadioMetal.com. And that’s where the shit really started to piss me off.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »