HOW ABOUT A FREE MESHUGGAH REMIX AND A DYING FETUS ALBUM PREVIEW? WELL, FUCK YES, DON’T MIND IF I DO

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 262012
 

I’m commuting home from my fucking day job on a floating bus called a ferry boat and what do my bloodshot eyes spy but two items that I thought my NCS brethren and sistren might enjoy.

The first is a remix of “I Am Colossus”, which as any heathen knows is a Meshuggah track off Koloss. Now, remixing Meshuggah could be (and probably will be) considered a form of blasphemy punishable by castration, but this remix turns out to be good. Not as good as the original mind you, but I think it’s still worth hearing. And if you like what you hear, you can get it for free at this location, courtesy of those inexplicably generous metalheads at Scion A/V.

The remix was created by Engine-Earz & Foreign Beggars. I have no idea who they are, but they’ve made the song sound . . . both more and less evil. If you ain’t into electro even a little bit, you won’t like it. If you dabble some, then this might be your thing. I thought it was cool. Check it out following the jump. Continue reading »

NEW MESHUGGAH VIDEO: WATCH “BREAK THOSE BONES WHOSE SINEWS GAVE IT MOTION”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Mar 302012
 

Well, well, what a happy coincidence. We just posted TheMadIsraeli’s review of Meshuggah’s Koloss album, and minutes later I see that the band have released an official video for “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion”.

My sweet fuck, this really is a heavy song, and the video is so damned much fun to watch. I don’t really need anything more than what it delivers — watching Tomas Haake methodically murder the drums, slo-mo headbanging by the rest of the band, Jens Kidman being . . . Jens Kidman, all against a black backdrop.

Do watch it after the jump. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH: “KOLOSS” (TAKE TWO)

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 302012
 

(In February, we published BadWolf’s early review of KOLOSS (here) — he got his greedy hands on it before his NCS comrades did. Now that the rest of us have had a chance to enjoy Meshuggah’s latest output, TheMadIsraeli weighs in with his own review.)

It’s time for me to put in my two cents on this beast.  I realize BadWolf already did a stellar review of this album, but I really want to get my take out there as well.  Meshuggah is one of my favorite bands of all time.  I mean, not only in the top 10 favorites, but definitely in the top 3 on that list.  Their sound is unmistakable, undeniable, and most of all, ever-moving.

But Meshuggah haven’t been moving forward in a straight line. Instead, they have often chosen to move sideways, contorting their signature sound since Nothing in whatever way they can while still maintaining its identity.  Now Meshuggah are back with their much anticipated opus Koloss.  Does it live up to the hype?  Does it solidify Meshuggah’s legacy as renovators and innovators of the ways of brutality?

Yes, but not in the way that you might have expected.

In significant ways, you will hear a different Meshuggah on this album, a Meshuggah who have become comfortable with their position and esteem, choosing now to play with their sound in less limit-pushing ways and to pursue instead an interesting idea: Evolution through regression. Continue reading »

FULL ALBUM STREAM: MESHUGGAH’S “KOLOSS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 242012
 

Meshuggah and Nuclear Blast did a cool thing. They created this massive widget that allows you to stream the entire album and allows people like us to embed it in our web sites. If you hover your mouse over the center of the image, you will see a semi-circle of circles. If you then hover your mouse over each circle, you’ll see a song title and then you can play it. Magic!

You can also read BadWolf’s early review of KOLOSS, which Meshuggah themselves featured on their Facebook page, by going here. KOLOSS was released by Nuclear Blast in Europe yesterday and will be released in North America on Monday.

GOJIRA, DEVIN TOWNSEND, AND FREDRIK THORDENDAL LIVE: “OF BLOOD AND SALT”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 062012
 

I bet the title of that post got your fuckin attention. The news sure as hell got mine.

Last May, Gojira released a song called “Of Blood and Salt” from the still-missing-in-action Sea Shepherd EP. It included guest vocals by that Renaissance man of metal Devin Townsend and a guest appearance on guitar by Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal. At the time, it produced a worldwide mass ejaculation not seen since . . . uh . . . some other mass ejaculatory event (my metaphor machine failed me there, sorry).

Yesterday (March 5), at the Soundwave Festival in Perth, Australia, Gojira performed the song live in what I think was the world premiere live performance of the song. And wonder of wonders, guess who joined them on stage for the song? Yep — Devin Townsend on vocals and Fredrik Thordendal on guitar.

I’ve found two different fan-filmed clips of this thing on YouTube. Neither of them are great, unfortunately, but given what was being filmed, I’m sure as fuck going to put them up here on NCS — right after the jump. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH: “KOLOSS”

 Album Reviews  30 Responses »
Feb 292012
 

(BadWolf reviews KOLOSS. Need I say more?)

Meshuggah’s career boggles the mind. Now 30-plus years into their tenure, their ubiquitous style of polyrhythmic metal has crossed as many genre boundaries as it has informed — death, thrash, groove, industrial, ‘post-‘. . . Meshuggah fits all of these containers, but never completely.

If you never have, I dare you to listen to their discography front-to-back. Witness their awkward beginning in And Justice For All... worship; the solidifying identity of Destroy Erase Improve and Chaosphere; the cryogenic sound of Nothing (itself as far ahead of its time as AJFA was); the cybernetic experiments of I and Catch Thirtythree; and finally the culmination of all that experimenting with even tighter songwriting in ObZen.

ObZen. There’s the rub — or rather the rub lies in its tour. Meshuggah toured behind that album with Cynic and The Faceless. I predicted [here] just weeks after seeing it that the ObZen tour would spawn a new era of metal. As far as I’m concerned, I was right: Djent started its ascent shortly thereafter. Sure, Tesseract, Textures, and Periphery existed before, but their major breaks and endless legion of imitators followed after.

What was Meshuggah to do, having inadvertently created a new vision for what Heavy Metal could be?

They took the ball in the opposite direction, and created Koloss. Instead of a new vision of metal, these ten tracks aspire to the traditions of classic metal records—punchy riffs, structural songwriting. For the first time since Chaosphere, Meshuggah sound like five men in a room together, not disembodied entities conjuring sound from a digital hell. Continue reading »

THALLISM: TOWN PORTAL AND MESHUGGAH LIVE (YESTERDAY)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Feb 262012
 

For some reason, That Word leaped to mind twice this morning, prompted by the music in this post. I’m sure I’m leaving myself open to vicious assault by Meshuggah purists for using it in their case, since they came first and That Word came later. But I kind of view it as a form of homage to The Masters, even though I still have no clue what it means.

And speaking of The Masters, what I have for you is a fan-filmed video of Meshuggah performing one of the new songs from KOLOSS — “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion” — at the Soundwave festival in Brisbane, Australia, yesterday. But first, I have to share a new discovery I made this morning via a status from a Facebook friend (thanks Talae).

TOWN PORTAL

This Danish three-man band is relatively new, and their six-song debut EP, Vacuum Horror, is available on Bandcamp for a “name your price” download. That Word came to mind when I listened to the EP this morning because it’s loaded with Meshuggah-esque groove, and it has that phat low-end tone that I now tend to associate with That Word. The band do acknowledge the Meshuggah influence, but it’s only one part of what makes their music click. I would not, for example, classify them as a djent band despite the often massive, head-snapping rhythmic structures.

The sound is probably closer to a metalicized math-rock. Along with all the low-end convulsion, head-swimming guitar melodies abound. There’s no singing on the EP, but that simply makes room for a group of very skilled instrumentalists to spin a kaleidoscope of musical colors. The swirling guitar leads are creative, the arrangements are beautifully constructed, and the production quality of the recording is excellent. Listen to two songs from Vacuum Horror after the jump. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH DEBUT SECOND SONG FROM “KOLOSS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Feb 172012
 

“Do Not Look Down,” a second track off the upcoming new album KOLOSS by the almighty Meshuggah, is now available for streaming in the Nuclear Blast USA Web Shop.  If you click on any pre-order bundle item, it will take you to the SoundCloud player for the song.

Everyone will undoubtedly be comparing this song to the first one released from KOLOSS — “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion”. Here’s my reaction: This song brings the funk, Meshuggah-style. The distinctive pneumatics are still present in abundance, but the song dances to a less coldly mechanical beat (not that I have anything against the frigid mechanics of the first song — I like it quite a bit, too). Plus, this song includes a guitar solo that will singe your eyebrows. Scorching vocals, too, but that’s to be expected.

Verdict: big win.

You should definitely go check out the album bundles at that Nuclear Blast shop — and listen to this song. For posterity, I’m leaving the SoundCloud player after the jump for the day when Nuclear Blast allows the embed to work on other sites. I believe this direct link will work, too:

http://soundcloud.com/nuclearblastrecords/meshuggah-do-not-look-down/s-hlFcg

Continue reading »

OP-ED: MESHUGGAH WILL NEVER DIE, BUT DJENT WILL

 Metal News  21 Responses »
Feb 152012
 

 (BadWolf stirs the pot on an issue that’s been generating a lot of discussion recently.)

I’d like to address some  speculation floating around the blogosphere now that the internet has had its first taste of Meshuggah’s new record, Koloss. Namely, our allies in metal at Heavy Blog Is Heavy and MetalSucks. Apparently, these people seem to think that Meshuggah may have somehow lost their relevance to the next generation of metalheads, who are being raised on Djent, itself the offspring of Meshuggah’s  influence.

 

First, just so you know where I am coming from: I love Meshuggah and mostly hate Djent. Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve was the first ‘extreme’ metal record I ever owned. As for Djent, I was an early adopter and early abdicator. I stand by Cloudkicker and Animals As Leaders resolutely, but their largely instrumental/ambient take on the genre is very different from the now-proliferating pop-metal variety. I also stand by Periphery’s demo tapes, but the instant I saw that ‘Icarus Lives’ video and heard Spencer Sotelo’s voice, I knew it was time to jump ship. Anything that evokes Linkin Park is incredibly bad, unless that project involves Trent Reznor. Now we have Djent evoking Fred Durst, but replacing his trailer park machismo for otaku-pandering roleplaying that gestures toward environmental and social consciousness, but fails to evoke even 1/100th of the mastery Gojira display with such grave subjects.

Now that you know where I stand, on to the offending quote (from HBIH): Continue reading »

NEW MESHUGGAH SONG, WHICH YOU’VE ALREADY HEARD, BUT WITH VIDEO BELLS AND WHISTLES

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Feb 132012
 

Last Thursday we broke the news about the apparently intentional leak of the first song from Meshuggah’s forthcoming album Koloss. That’s right, WE broke the news, along with 80% of all metal blogs in existence, 50% of all Facebook pages, and the e-mails you got from your grandmother.

Well, guess what, today we have an O-FFI-CI-AL release of the same song, this time with its proper name — “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion” — instead of “iamaleak”. It’s available for streaming on Meshuggah’s Facebook bandpage. BUT, the band have ALSO released an official lyric video.

The opening frames of the video explain the title of the song: It’s an excerpt from a quote by philosopher, physician, organist, and 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer: “Revenge… is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.”

The more I listen to this song, the more I like it. It’s so dark and cold, and so very heavy. “This is the soundtrack to our hostility . . . .” Watch the video after the jump. Continue reading »

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