OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): MISERY INDEX, WAKE, DAEVA

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  No Responses »
Jan 092023
 

One week of this list behind us, a new week ahead, and we begin it with a trio of songs from albums that made blockbuster impacts on many of us who toil away at this site.

MISERY INDEX (U.S.)

More often than not when you have an album as good as Complete Control, you’ll have more than one song that might qualify as “infectious”. That is certainly true of the latest full-length by Misery Index. No shock there, because this band has so much talent in the ranks that it would be unfair if extreme metal bands were in competition with each other (at some brutishly rudimentary economic level, you might think they’re in competition for limited consumer dollars, but if any underground bands think that way I’m pretty sure Misery Index isn’t one of them). Continue reading »

MISERY INDEX – COMPLETE CONTROL

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 022022
 

(Andy Synn shares his thoughts on the new Misery Index album, scheduled for release next Friday)

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” That’s how the hoary old cliché goes, right?

It just so happens, though, that it’s very much true in this particular case, as there’s no mistaking a Misery Index album when you hear it, whether you’re listening to their more overtly Grind-influenced early work, or their more recent, Death Metal focussed records, or anything in between.

That being said, it definitely feels – in hindsight – that the band’s post-Traitors transition into being a “pure” Death Metal act reached its apex (or nadir, depending on how you feel about it) on 2014’s The Killing Gods, with 2019’s Rituals of Power suggesting a slight return towards their thrashier, punkier roots in places.

That’s why it shouldn’t be too surprising, if you’ve been paying attention, to learn that on Complete Control the Baltimore bruisers have decided to let their inner Hardcore band out to play… and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MISERY INDEX, CLEARXCUT, AWAKENING SUN, NEMA, AKLASH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 152022
 

 

Drowning in new music and regrettably short on time to listen and write about it, I’ve decided to just grab five of the new things I’ve recently seen and heard to share with you today.

MISERY INDEX (U.S.)

I don’t know what came first in the creation of this new Misery Index song, the words or the music, or whether they were conceived together, but both are enraged. The politically charged lyrics begin this way:

Ancient ways ensnared in the monetary grip
Sons and daughters slaved by the wage and the whip
Our way of life crushed, as our lives drown in work
Is this what we’re to think, that a human life is worth? Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): MISERY INDEX AND WITCH VOMIT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  3 Responses »
Jan 092020
 

 

I had to pause the rollout of this list yesterday. My effin’ day job put the squeeze on my NCS time, and I just didn’t have enough free mental space to get another installment finished. But now we resume. I should be able to post another Part tomorrow, and might do one over this coming weekend to make up for yesterday’s hole in the schedule.

It will probably become obvious why I decided to pair the following two songs: They’ll both tear your damned head off.

MISERY INDEX

This was a tough one. I knew I’d name a song from the latest Misery Index album to this list, but had a devil of a time picking just one. As Andy Synn wrote in his review of Rituals of Power, Messrs. Netherton, Jarvis, Kloeppel, and Morris have become “a veritable Death Metal institution”, and with this 2019 album they produced something “that’s pretty much all killer, and zero filler” — “the sort of musical powerhouse that requires… in fact practically demands… to be listened to on repeat until both your body and your mind have been bludgeoned into submission”. Continue reading »

MISERY INDEX: “RITUALS OF POWER”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 012019
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Misery Index, which will be released on March 8th by Season of Mist.)

Where exactly does one start with a band like Misery Index?

From their humble (well, relatively humble) Death-Grind beginnings, the band have grown into a veritable Death Metal institution, one with five (soon to be six) full-length albums and innumerable EPs and split releases to their name, not to mention a not-insignificant amount of critical and cultural influence under their belt, all of which makes it difficult to find something new to say about the ongoing work of Messrs. Netherton, Jarvis, Kloeppel, and Morris.

But while it may be difficult to find a new angle from which to approach the band’s music these days, that doesn’t mean that the band themselves have run out of things to say, and their newest album continues their long-established tradition of raising their fists and kicking against the pricks as loudly, and as angrily, as possible. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MISERY INDEX, ADVENT SORROW, CROWHURST, SEER, SEAX

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 072019
 

 

This week has been ridiculous. With the exception of the year-end holiday season, when releases slow down a bit, every week now brings a flood of new music from metal bands and labels, but this week seems to be turning into a typhoon. With most of Thursday (as I write this) and all of Friday still to come, it’s only going to get worse/better. So once again, I’m resorting to a two-part round-up.

But even with a two-part collection I’m still not going to be able to comprehensively cover the (rising) waterfront. I’ve still had to make some choices, and so in Part 2, in addition to the usual write-ups, I’m just going to link you to additional streams of music that I’m not writing about in more detail. I’m doing that then instead of now, because I haven’t yet figured out where to draw that line.

MISERY INDEX

Two days ago, via Loudwire, Misery Index released a lyric video for another new track off their forthcoming album Rituals of Power. As the band explain: “‘The Choir Invisible‘ is a euphemism for the dead, or those who have passed on. In the context of this song, it is an anthem of the dispossessed and the hopeless. Many across the world exist in an ‘in-between’ state that is often ignored and/or washed over because they lack the power and voice to plead their case as human beings. The song takes up this theme and tells it from the somber view of those who risk their lives, board ships and cross oceans in order to find a better life.” Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: MISERY INDEX

 WAXING LYRICAL  2 Responses »
Feb 022019
 


photo by Heidi Strengell

 

(In this week’s edition of Waxing Lyrical, Andy Synn posed his usual questions about lyrics to Jason Netherton of Misery Index, whose new album Rituals of Power will be released on March 8 by Season of Mist.)

Is it selfish of me to admit that, as much as I hope everyone is enjoying the series so far, one of the primary reasons for coming up with the concept of “Waxing Lyrical” was so that I’d get the chance to speak to, and learn more about, some of my favourite vocalists/lyricists?

Well, selfish or not, it’s the truth, and today’s edition is a particularly special one, as it features one half of one of my favourite vocal tag-teams, Jason Netherton of the mighty Misery Index. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (VICIOUS HEADBANGERS EDITION): LEGION OF THE DAMNED, MISERY INDEX, DESERTED FEAR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

Our focus on LISTMANIA at this time of the year tends to diminish the frequency of round-up posts such as this one; even when I’m not doing the writing myself, the behind-the-scenes work that I do to get year-end features ready for publication (such as Andy Synn‘s impressive week-long series of lists, and DGR’s week-long series of catch-up reviews, both of which concluded today) takes some time. My ability to listen to new music and select songs and videos to recommend has been further restricted by the two-week vacation I took, which ended last weekend, and by way too much holiday-season partying this week.

Our 2018 LISTMANIA orgy isn’t nearly finished, by the way. Next week we’ll begin rolling our year-end lists from other NCS writers and guests, and at some point I’ll start revealing my own contribution to LISTMANIA — a list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. But I still do hope to throw in a new-music round-up every now and then.

The three new songs you’ll find below, all of which come with music videos, barely make a dent in my backlog, but I hope to do a bit more catching up with another SEEN AND HEARD post tomorrow and the usual SHADES OF BLACK column on Sunday. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 1): MISERY INDEX, DEMONICAL, LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, ROTTING CHRIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 052018
 

 

(DGR compiled a round-up of new music to launch our Monday at NCS, an eight-song collection that we’ve divided into two parts, with Part Two slated to come very quickly after this first installment.)

 

I’m not going to lie to you all, I’ve been pretty distracted around the NCS office as of late. Usually I’ve unleashed a handful of ridiculous-length reviews by this point, but so far the beginning of 2018 has had your buddy here firmly ensconced in the news trenches, freeing up some of the other folks around here to fully dive into the deep and murky waters of all things underground and unlistenable.

It doesn’t help that I’ve also had tabs open alongside the news haul consisting of album streams from Dagon’s victorious return on Back To The Sea, Bloodshot Dawn’s surprisingly tech-death oriented Reanimation, Afgrund’s mean and urgently-now The Dystopian, and even the occasional leap back into 2017 with Ireland’s Weed Priest and their stoner doom throwback; all of which are seeing constant listens and hopefully time to deep-dive in the near future. Shit, there is even a new Apophys disc entitled Devoratis that we covered very briefly but need to dive back into.

Of course, now that all of that has been written down, the news flood will get worse and I’ll get something done just in time to watch the moon finally escape Earth’s gravity and go sailing off into space as we’re devoured by the Sun’s outer layers as it goes red giant.

But enough jokes about things that seem preferable to going outside and facing the world. Let’s get on with the music. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AENAON, OBSCURE SPHINX, SATAN’S WAR MACHINE, AND THE ABYSMAL PREDATOR TOUR

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Aug 292016
 

Aenaon-Hypnosophy

 

Happy Monday! I mean that sincerely, despite the usual depressive aspects of the day, because this Monday brought us three exciting new song premieres that I discovered soon after caffeinating myself strongly enough to stun a bull, plus an announcement of an exciting U.S. tour. And here’s what I found:

AENAON

As our regular readers are well aware, we have become ardent followers of the Greek band Aenaon since discovering the wonders of their 2014 album Extance, which made no fewer than four different year-end lists published at our site, as well as a host of our reader’s lists. It was also the source of a song (“Grau Diva”) that I included in my list of 2014’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. You may then be able to imagine how eagerly we have been awaiting the band’s new album, Hypnosophy. Continue reading »

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