Meshuggah Archives - Page 2 of 7

SEEN AND HEARD: MESHUGGAH, AUROCH, ARSIS, ANICON, ANCIIENTS, BRAIN TENTACLES, BATTLE DAGORATH, FERAL LIGHT, HELEN MONEY, VANHELGA

Jul 292016

I mentioned in a post earlier this week that I’ve been distracted during nights this week by a televised political convention (because I am a political junkie with low willpower), and I also had to make a quick out-of-town trip. Metal didn’t wait for me while I was diverted, and so I have an immense list of new things from the last few days that I want to recommend. I’ve cut the list down to a mere 10 items, which I’ve collected here. Seriously, I’m aware that 10 is a lot, so I’ve choked back my usual desire to spill a lot of words.

I’m starting with two news items and then following those with 8 new songs or videos, presented in alphabetical order by the name of the artist.

MESHUGGAH

I no longer subscribe to Revolver magazine. If I still had the subscription, I might have seen the full-page ad at the top of this post, which so far seems to be the only disclosure that Meshuggah’s new album The Violent Sleep of Reason will be released by Nuclear Blast on October 7. Here’s another fan pic of the ad: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MARYLAND DEATHFEST XV, ASPHYX, OPETH, MEGADETH, AMON AMARTH, MESHUGGAH, HIGH ON FIRE

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 22 Responses »

Jul 192016

Ten days have passed since the last time I put together a round-up of news and recommended new music, which is an unusually long gap. Perhaps needless to say, trying to catch up is out of the question. What I’m going to do instead is just pull together some big news announcements from the last 24 hours in this post (plus one related recent song), and then collect a few more recent music streams in a second part that I’ll post a bit later today.

MARYLAND DEATHFEST ANNOUNCES SECOND ROUND OF CONFIRMED BANDS FOR 2017

On June 30, as we dutifully reported, the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced the first round of confirmed bands for the XVth edition of the festival, scheduled to take place on May 25-28, 2017, in Baltimore. Just minutes ago, MDF announced a second round of confirmed bands — plus some surprising news about where the festival will, and won’t, take place next year. Here are the new confirmed names: Continue reading »

NEW ALBUM NEWS: MESHUGGAH AND INQUISITION

Metal News 6 Responses »

May 122016

Here are a couple of breaking news items that I suspect will be of interest to our readership.

MESHUGGAH

Not long ago Meshuggah posted a 16-second snippet on YouTube, with the words: “Fall.2016. Watch this space!” On Facebook, they embellished slightly: “Fall 2016 – new album, new tours.”

And isn’t that exciting? Continue reading »

IN PRAISE OF… MESHUGGAH

Concert Reviews 7 Responses »

Dec 222014

(This is more than a show review… this is Andy Synn’s analysis of why Meshuggah rise far above their legions of imitators.)

Two nights ago I was lucky enough to witness the sheer awe-inspiring power of Meshuggah lay waste to a packed Roundhouse in London, as part of their 25th (!) Anniversary tour.

As I’m reviewing the show for another publication (because I am, at heart, a whore for attention and approbation) it didn’t seem right to also review it here for NCS. However, the whole experience did stimulate more than a few different thoughts in my head, and so I wanted to at least take the opportunity to write a few of them down, and maybe go a little deeper into exactly why I think Meshuggah are such an important, vital band in today’s metal scene. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLOODBATH, MESHUGGAH, FUCK THE FACTS, KAUAN

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 10 Responses »

Sep 162014

I’ve arranged the following new video and song premieres in a way that spurs imaginings of you trapped on the upper floor of a building being demolished by jackhammers of an alien design, plummeting toward the ground while shrieking in terror, and then being buried in a drizzling rain. Well, I don’t mean you in particular, I mean listeners and viewers in general. You’ll see.

But first, Sweden’s Bloodbath have finally revealed the identity of their new vocalist — a subject about which I and many others have been speculating since much earlier this year.

BLOODBATH

Yes, that’s right — just a couple hours ago Metal Hammer officially revealed that Bloodbath’s new vocalist is none other than Nick Holmes, the vocalist of Paradise Lost. He was indeed born in 1971, which was the first clue that Bloodbath offered way back in February. He was not the person I guessed then (I guessed Jörgen Sandström). I didn’t even seriously contemplate Mr. Holmes, given his predominant vocal style — but Metal Hammer reports that the new album (Grand Morbid Funeral) “will see the return of the ravenous and cavernous growl that marked Paradise Lost’s debut album, Lost Paradise.”

Metal Hammer further reports that the album will include guest appearances by Chris Reifert and Eric Cutler of Autopsy.

Surely you have some thoughts about this revelation, so feel free to sound off in the Comments. Continue reading »

NEW DATES ADDED TO MESHUGGAH’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

Metal News 13 Responses »

Apr 012014

Yesterday Nuclear Blast announced that Sweden’s hugely popular and hugely influential Meshuggah would be returning to North America this summer for a tour celebrating their “25 Years of Musical Deviance”, with support from Between the Buried and Me. As originally announced, the tour consisted of only 12 dates, two of which were festival appearances. But today the band announced a significantly expanded schedule of tour dates, going well beyond the original 12 cities.

Inconsistent explanations have been offered for the change. In today’s official announcement frontman Jens Kidman is quoted as follows:

“This is our 25th anniversary tour of the North American market, which has been an enormous factor in the success of our band — probably the single biggest factor. Of course, we always planned to make this the biggest tour we’ve ever mounted. To do anything else would have been churlish.

“That miserably tiny run of dates our label announced yesterday was supposed to have been an April Fool’s joke, but as we like to say in Umeå, someone at Nuclear Blast “screwed the pooch” by releasing it a day early. We sincerely apologize to our North American fans for the confusion. The expanded schedule we’re rolling out today will make all the butthurt go away like a big tube of Preparation H.”

TOURISM: MESHUGGAH ANNOUNCE A 25TH ANNIVERSARY NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

Metal News 4 Responses »

Mar 312014

I’ve been unable to check the NCS in-box for a few hours. In more plain-spoken English, what this means is that the intrepid NCS pigeon aeronauts who deliver our metal-oriented mail were distracted by some old dude with popcorn on a park bench. I’ve tried to reason with them about the importance of prompt deliveries, but if you’ve ever tried to reason with a pigeon, you know it’s a daunting task.

Anyway, they finally made it to the NCS HQ, and one of the missives caught my eye immediately: The mighty Meshuggah have announced that they will be returning to NorthAm this summer “to celebrate their 25th year of musical deviance with festival appearances, Canadian dates, and clubs that will fill to capacity.” Opening for them (on all but the two festival dates) will be North Carolina’s Between the Buried and Me.

For people lucking enough to reside within striking distance of any of the following 12 cities, this is strikingly good news: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENTHRONED (“SOVEREIGN”), DIRGE (“HYPERION”), MESHUGGAH (“WALL STREET”)

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Feb 182014

I’m working on a couple of posts for today but didn’t finish either of them last night and I’m getting a slow start this morning. But I wanted to get something up here on the site for your entertainment while I continue to dither around on those other posts. So here are three entertaining somethings.

ENTHRONED

The first thing I saw in my e-mail inbox this morning was a press release announcing the news that Agonia Records will be releasing the 10th studio album by Belgium’s Enthroned on April 15. The title is Sovereigns, and the eye-catching artwork can be viewed above. It’s now available for pre-order at this location. Enthroned’s Facebook page can be accessed through this link.

And other than expressing my figurative tumescence over this news, that’s about all I have to say on this subject. I will let this stream of music from Enthroned’s fantastic last album, 2012’s Obsidium, say the rest. Continue reading »

KATZENJAMMER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 18 Responses »

Dec 142013

Bear with me — there’s some metal at the end of this.

This post is about two things that happened to me yesterday as a result of my day job. The first thing happened during a work-related lunch I had with someone we do business with. I was meeting with him for only the second time. At some point, making small talk, I told him that the place where I work was having its annual office holiday party last night at a restaurant and bar named Radiator Whiskey. It features one whole wall of nothing but the brown stuff — bourbon, rye, and scotch — all of which I like. After I told him that, he said, “I hope you don’t have major katzenjammer on Saturday morning”.

He pronounced “katzenjammer” in the German way (something like “kah-tsahn-yah-ma”), instead of the way a monolingual American like me would say it. After I asked him to spell the word, I realized I’d heard it before, oddly enough because somewhere I came across a stray bit of trivia that stuck in my head, about an old comic strip called The Katzenjammer Kids (I’ll come back to that). But I didn’t know what the word meant, so I asked him. Here’s what The Font of All Human Knowledge says about the word, which is pretty close to what the guy told me at lunch: Continue reading »

SWEDISH METAL: A NORTHERN PERSPECTIVE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 27 Responses »

Dec 062013

(In this guest post, Johan Paulin features an eye-popping list of metal bands, all of whom hail from the same relatively small town in northern Sweden. Tons of music in here, too.)

As most metalheads with more than a fleeting interest in extreme metal know, Sweden has been a forerunner ever since Quorthon struck his first minor chord back in the 80’s. The explanations for how a population the size of Sweden’s could spawn so many good metal bands have varied, and I won’t get into them now, but it’s safe to say that the great band / population ratio is over the top. Still, for all the bands you do know, dozens more toil in more or less obscurity and deserve a better fate. Thus, when Islander called upon us readers to contribute while he took a well-earned vacation full of cloudgazing and Krokodil [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desomorphine], I decided to take the opportunity to champion some of the great bands that originate from my hometown of Umeå, Sweden.

Umeå is located in the northern part of Sweden and has a population of about 120,000 in the whole municipality, making it the 12th largest city in Sweden according to The Font of All Human Knowledge. If that may seem laughable to many of you, you’ll be rolling on the floor when I tell you that the population of London is equal to the population of my whole country! So, fuck demographics and let’s get on with the metal. Continue reading »

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