SUNDAY SHARING

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  34 Responses »
Jul 242011
 

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 »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 2)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 232010
 

We’re now almost two months into 2010, and it’s already time for our second update to the list of forthcoming new albums we posted on January 1.  (See the original list here and the first update here.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases that we didn’t know about on January 1 or at the time of our last update about a month ago — and there’s a lot of them.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources over the last month about forthcoming new releases:

1349: “Prosthetic Records will release the brand new album from Norwegian black metal legends 1349 in North America via an agreement with Indie Recordings. The new CD, which promises ‘a return to the band’s more traditional, raw-yet-technical black metal sound,’ is due on April 13. In support of the yet-to-be-titled record, 1349 will embark on a North American tour in April and May as the support act for CANNIBAL CORPSE (alongside SKELETONWITCH and LECHEROUS NOCTURNE).”

ABACABB: “ABACABB are currently out on the road headlining the Hot Dice On Black Ice Tour featuring Upon A Burning Body!. The tour just hit Texas and will be in California this weekend. Following the tour ABACABB will enter the studio with producer Will Putney at Machine Shop in New Jersey and will have a new album to be released sometime this summer.”

AEON: “Swedish death metallers AEON have set Path Of Fire as the title of their third album, due later in the year via Metal Blade Records. The CD was recorded in September 2009 at Empire Studio in Östersund, Sweden and was mixed the following month at Mana Recording Studios in St, Petersburg, Florida by Erik Rutan (HATE ETERNAL, MORBID ANGEL, CANNIBAL CORPSE). The mastering was handled by Alan Douches at West West Side Music (CONVERGE, HATEBREED, THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN) in New Windsor, New York.”

AMORPHIS: “AMORPHIS will release its first-ever live DVD, Forging The Land Of Thousand Lakes, in early June via Nuclear Blast, in time for the band’s 20th anniversary. The filming took place on November 20, 2009 at Club Teatria in Oulu, Finland, where AMORPHIS was supported by STRATOVARIUS and BEFORE THE DAWN. In addition to the full-length live show, the anniversary DVD will include plenty of bonus material documenting the band’s impressive career.”   (much more after the jump . . . ) Continue reading »