SEEN AND HEARD: MORDBRAND, SLIDHR, PLAGUE RIDER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jul 162015
 

Mordbrand-Rite split

 

I’ve spent so much time since last weekend writing my own reviews (which isn’t a weekly occurrence) and scribbling words to accompany premieres that I’m afraid I’ve fallen down on the job of rounding up new music to throw your way. Because the never-ending flood of new metal doesn’t pause for me, I’m now very far behind, with a list of new tracks that would stretch from here to that distant planet NASA finally caught on film this week.

Okay, that last part may have been a slight exaggeration, but it really is a long list. Rather than throw up my hands in despair, I decided to make a start and at least feature new songs from three bands this morning. They’re all really worth hearing.

MORDBRAND

I think I’ve written about every release that Sweden’s Mordbrand have ever delivered, and not just because the band’s name means “arson”. The main reason is because they’re all so very good. The latest offering is a song named “Order of the Formless”, which appears on a split with the band Rite that’s been expected for a long time and is finally being released this month by Doomentia Records. Continue reading »

SATURDAY SLAUGHTER, SWEDISH STYLE: TORTURE DIVISION, MORDBRAND, PAGANIZER, JOHANSSON & SPECKMANN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 272014
 

 

It’s been a little while since I posted some real Swedish fucking death metal on the site, long enough that I was starting to get the shakes, the night sweats, the dry mouth, and the volcanic gut rumbles. So I decided to do something about it. I’m tending to my needs, and bringing you some slaughter for your Saturday at the same time. But as you’ll find out, this is also a very bittersweet post for me to write.

TORTURE DIVISION

I first discovered Torture Division in March 2011, when they released a cover of Mastodon’s “Iron Tusk” from the Leviathan album, accompanied by an introduction that included these words:

“This is how we would have made this song, had we written it in the first place. But we didn’t, we just thought it would be nice to MASTODON to make a proper tune out of it. Kidding, kidding… MASTODON‘s cool. They are no TORTURE DIVISION, but hey — can’t win them all.”

I became an immediate fan, and have remained one in the years that followed (you can still hear that “Iron Tusk” cover in the first Mordbrand feature I prepared). I wrote about most of their other releases over the last three years (collected here) and liked every goddamn one of them. And now, sad to say, I’m writing about their final effort. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MORDBRAND — “VASTATION”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Oct 032014
 

I think I’ve written about every release by Sweden’s Mordbrand after their 2010 debut in a split with Evoke, including their excellent 2014 album Imago. Since I only write about what I like and want to recommend, you can figure out that they haven’t disappointed me yet — and they still haven’t: Their forthcoming two-song 7″, Vastation, is another winner for fans of Swedish death metal.

The first song, “Failure of the Paraclete”, is loaded with a variety of big riffs — riffs that grind, gallop, lurch, and stagger — and a rhythm section that expertly matches the music’s shifting patterns, with rippling bass and tremolo chords surfacing at the end to close the song memorably. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: BÖLZER, MORDBRAND, OCCULTATION, KATECHON, EVERGREY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 152014
 

 

Here are some things I saw yesterday that opened my eyes wide and increased my flow of drool, requiring an early change-out of the trademarked NCS bib I wear at all times. You may increase the size of some of these images by clicking on them.

ITEM ONE

Item One appears at the top of this post. It’s a shirt design created by Manuel Tinnemans (Comaworx) for Switzerland’s Bölzer, based on the song “Steppes”. I guess it’s not enough that Bölzer are making lots of people jealous with their music. Now they get shirts like this made for them. Stunning. Here’s the artwork on a black background:

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/BÖLZER/108657105834227 Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: NIGHTBRINGER, BEYOND CREATION, INHUMAN REMNANTS, MORDBRAND, MARTYRDÖD, AND ERLING BRONSBERG

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 232014
 

Here’s a typically random and diverse collection of recommended new music and metal news that I came across over the last 24 hours. It ranges from highly anticipated black metal to a metal banjo cover, with all sorts of different musical trajectories in between.

NIGHTBRINGER

The fourth album by Colorado’s Nightbringer is entitled Ego Dominus Tuus (I Am Your Lord), and it’s due for release by Season of Mist on September 20 in NorthAm (September 26 elsewhere). Yesterday, SoM revealed the cover art by David Herrerias (above), which is wonderful. At the same time, the first advance track from the album began streaming at various sites around the globe. Its name is “Et Nox Illuminatio Mea In Deliciis Meis”, which refers to a line from Psalm 139. According to the band:

“The lyrics draw heavily upon this psalm, which we feel, via a perhaps more heretical approach, elucidates symbols relevant to the ‘midnight sun’ and the ‘night of light’. Furthermore we touch upon the Greek melancholia and the sovereignty of Saturn over those of us who are born with his mark and our relation to the former concepts as well as the significance of the ‘black light’ of our Lord. It speaks much of the ecstatic furor one may enter in which wisdom is imparted both from above, below and within, via a state of ‘divine madness’. “

Should you be interested in reading the 139th Psalm, you can do so here (the song’s title refers to the phrase “and night shall be my light in my pleasures”). Whether you do or don’t peruse the psalm, I strongly recommend listening to the song (it’s streaming at Stereogum here). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE — MORDBRAND’S “THAT WHICH CRAWLS” — AND A REVIEW OF “IMAGO”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  6 Responses »
Mar 252014
 

I’ve been waiting eagerly for the time when Sweden’s Mordbrand would release a full album’s worth of songs, and that day is finally approaching. After a string of well-regarded splits and EPs (most of which we’ve praised in reviews on this site), their debut album Imago is projected for release in late April by Deathgasm Records and Doomentia Records. One song from Imago has already premiered, and today we’re sharing with you a second one: “That Which Crawls”.

But first, a review of Imago.

If you’re a Swedish death metal addict, Imago is your fix. It is both steeped in the familiar musical traditions of the genre and enlivened by Mordbrand’s own creative twists and turns. If you think you’ve heard it all before, think again. Listening to Imago is like spending time with an old friend you thought you knew inside and out, and then being surprised by something you hadn’t noticed before. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: TRIPTYKON AND MORDBRAND

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Feb 072014
 

Due to the demands of your humble editor’s fucking day job, we will be a little light on the content at NCS today. We will have this little round-up, a show report from Umeå, Sweden, and (I hope) one more installment in our list of 2013’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs — and that will probably be it. So, to start, here are two items of interest that I commend to your attention.

TRIPTYKON

This morning, Century Media announced that it and Prowling Death Records Ltd. will release the second album by Triptykon on April 14 in Europe and April 15 in North America. The title is Melana Chasmata, which according to Century Media means (roughly) “black, deep depressions/valleys”. It will feature nine songs and a playing time of around 67 minutes. The cover art is above, and yes, we have yet another pairing of HR Giger and Triptykon.

For me, Triptykon’s first album Eparistera Daimones (2010) was a grower rather than an immediate love interest. But come on, how could you not get a bit tingly with anticipation over new music from Tom G Warrior and V. Santura? Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
May 062013
 

What do you do when you get flooded with tantalizing news and new music over the span of 24 hours, and it’s all too much to cover in your usual long-winded style of prose (I don’t mean your long-winded style, I mean mine)? You swallow all those words and you do this . . . really short blurbs about many items . . . from Howl, The Resistance, Strychnia, The Absence, Darkane, Mordbrand, and After the Burial. Whew!

HOWL

Today, Rhode Island’s Howl premiered a new official music video for “Demonic”, a song off their new album Bloodlines, which is out now and which features some incredibly eye-catching cover art. “Demonic” is a cross between scorching and crushing. Scorshing? It’s catchy, too. The video comes next . . . Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MORDBRAND – “UNMAKE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 082013
 

Imagine this:

Massed armies of the night stacked in ranks under a blood red moon, their veins surging with adrenaline, teeth bared, straining at the leash.

Before them lies a wasted no man’s land, stripped of life, muddied by lakes of blood and stinking with the decay of putrescent corpses from the carnage of previous nights.

Their master barks the word for which they wait and they bolt forward as one, the stillness broken by the cacophony of their headlong race. A thousand growls erupt from their throats, the ground pounds with the weight of their charge. Bloodied mud spatters and scatters, bones crunch beneath their scampering feet, they find their rhythm amongst the flesh of the unburied.

Their foes cower and cringe in the rapidly closing distance, they wail in anticipation of the utter destruction advancing upon them. They turn, they run, but not fast enough. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORDBRAND – “CONSUME THEM” FROM “KOLUMBARIUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 162012
 

Mordbrand is a three-man death metal juggernaut from Sweden whose work has appeared frequently at NO CLEAN SINGING and drawn considerable attention elsewhere, too. Consisting of vocalist Per Boder (ex-God Macabre), guitarist/bassist/backing vocalist Björn Larsson, and drummer Johan Rudberg, Mordbrand have chosen (so far) to release their music in small portions. There was a 2010 split with Evoke, an attention-grabbing EP in 2011 entitled Necropsychotic (reviewed here), and a split with Bombs of Hades released earlier this year under the title No Life (featured here).

Since the release of the No Life split, Mordbrand have recorded two more songs destined for release by Deathgasm Records as a 7″ vinyl bearing the name Kolumbarium. The two songs are “Consume Them” and “Let Them Slumber”. The second one features guest vocals by Nox from the excellent Swedish band Craft.

Originally expected this summer, manufacturing delays have pushed off Kolumbarium’s availability — the latest word is that it will be released by late September or early October. However, because we are awesome, we have been allowed to hear the two songs in advance. Because you are awesome, you will also get to hear one of them before you finish reading this post. Yes, in a moment of weakness, Mordbrand agreed to allow NCS to provide the world premiere of “Consume Them”. And man, does it rip hell. Continue reading »

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