MISSED OPPORTUNITIES — PLAYING CATCH-UP

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 222020
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli wrote and packaged together this series of mini-reviews of 2020 albums he wants to recommend.)

So many albums I’m trying to catch up on and reviews I’m still trying to pump out, but I figured in the meantime I’d offer this collection of mini-reviews of albums I recommend.

STATIC-X

Static-X I think are a pretty niche band, but I personally loved their brand of dance groove industrial metal.  I thought Wayne Static was a great vocalist, and except for a couple of questionable albums, their discography was always reliably good, assuming you liked the premise of their sound.  Project: Regeneration Vol.1 is the first in a series of two albums that Wayne Static had started demo-ing prior to his death in 2014.  Helmed by the band’s OG lineup of bassist Tony Campos, guitarist Koichi Fukuda, and drummer Ken Jay, the band decided they’d try to pay tribute to their departed friend and bandmate while doing something for the fans, and finish what he started. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2 OF 3): ACÂRASH, AVOID HUMANITY, BLEED FROM WITHIN, BOLESNO GRINJE, NAGLFAR, NERO OR THE FALL OF ROME, O, OKKULTOKRATI

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 292020
 

 

I did say in the abbreviated Part 1 of this round-up yesterday that there would be a lot more coming — so much that a Part 3 will be on its way later today. In these two Parts I organized the music in alphabetical order by band name, with Alpha through Omega in this installment and then picking up with letters after O in Part 3.

This is the stuff that stuck out to me as I waded through a big mass of new music and videos yesterday. I had to make myself stop, because this could have been a lot longer. I siphoned off some of the black metal I found, and they will be included in today’s SHADES OF BLACK column. Yeah, this is going to be a big NCS Sunday….

ACÂRASH (Norway)

This hard-rocking track is swaggering and sulphurous. It will rumble your guts and bob your head, and the pulsing energy of the riffs is highly infectious. With scorching black-metal vocals, a spiraling and shrieking solo, and occult lyrical themes, it’s a hellish — and hellishly good — song. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY ZERO

 Concert Reviews  10 Responses »
Apr 072015
 

Svartidauði

 (Andy Synn took in the sights and sounds of the Inferno Festival on April 1-4, 2015, in Oslo, Norway, and this is the first of a multi-part report about his experience. Andy took the photos as well.)

Once again last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to attend Inferno Festival in Oslo, which this year is celebrating its 15th Anniversary, with a frankly flabbergasting line-up of bands that could almost have been hand-picked for yours truly, including some of my absolute favourites as well as a number of bands I’ve been dying to see live.

For those of you who are unaware, the Wednesday night always serves as a pre-festival “Club Night” and kick-off party, with a variety of different bands playing at different locations scattered around in relatively close proximity to the main venue. With the right pass (which, thankfully, included my fancy pink “Press” wristband) you can wander freely between the different places, picking and choosing what artists you want to see.

I decided (for reasons which will become clear) to focus my activities around the new Vulkan arena, and particularly the smaller Pokalen bar down in the lower level… 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 »

SUMMER BREEZE 2012 – THE REVIEW (Part 2)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 072012
 

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn made the trek to Germany for this year’s edition of the SUMMER BREEZE festival, and provided us with a review of the bands whose performances he witnessed.  We’ve divided the review into two parts. Part 1 was yesterday, covering performances on the first two days of the festival. In this post, Andy covers the festival’s third and final day, and at the end we’ve again collected videos of some of the performances discussed in the review.)

DAY 3

Day 3 saw a late start (which may have had something to do with the amount of alcohol consumed the night before) with Naglfar over on the main stage, kicking out some lethal melodic black metal despite the blazing sunshine and clear blue skies. It’s really only in the live setting you can fully appreciate both the anthemic quality of the group’s material, as well as the technical skill behind it.

Over on the second stage Unleashed wasted little time getting into the swing of things, their brutish, occasionally melodic, Viking-obsessed death metal garnering a surprisingly loud reaction (at least for this early in the day). The only niggling problem is that where Amon Amarth are more obviously self-aware, using these tales of Viking lore to inspire and uplift their fans, Unleashed seem to treat their subject matter as a manifesto, and their uncomfortable “we should all be Vikings!” schtick is both extremely geeky and embarrassingly ill-informed.

Over in the third-stage tent Incantation were unleashing their own brand of filthy, blood-spitting aural horror, dropping some gut-clenching death metal grooves and breakdowns into the whirlwind death metal stew, even throwing in a few Possessed covers for good measure. Slightly breaking the atmosphere though was John McEntee’s use of an uber-gravelly Batman voice for his between-song banter, unintentionally hilarious in its own special way. Continue reading »

“VIKING METAL”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  113 Responses »
Jul 172012
 

In one of yesterday’s posts I compared a song from Sweden’s King of Asgard to Naglfar and Immortal, and I got questioned about that comparison in one of the comments, suggesting that King of Asgard is a Viking metal band. That caused me to consider, certainly not for the first time, what “Viking metal” really means and whether there really is such a thing as a “Viking metal” genre.

These are questions that have been argued in many other places at many other times. For example, our brother Trollfiend devoted a post to the subject at ALSO, WOLVES last fall, insisting that, yes, it’s a genre and it’s defined by the band’s lyrical themes (though he also implied that, musically, it’s a subset of black metal). Other people contend it isn’t a genre at all, or that if it is, it begins and ends with Bathory and early Enslaved and everyone else can go fuck off. And still other people say it’s a pointless question — you either dig the music or you don’t, and who gives a rat’s ass what you call it.

The fact that there seems to be no consensus about how to define “Viking metal” weighs in favor of the argument that it isn’t a genre. That conclusion is bolstered by the significant diversity in the music of bands who different people classify as “Viking metal” (see, e.g., the bands included in the “Viking metal” tag at Last.fm or the Viking metal genre group at Metal Archives). Genre classifications are usually (though not always) defined by widely accepted hallmarks of the musical style, and if no such consensus exists, or if the sound of the music isn’t really the defining characteristic, can we really say that “Viking metal” is a genre?

Is the lyrical content really enough, especially when much of the time you can’t make out the words in the songs when you hear them? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NAGLFAR — “AN EXTENSION OF HIS ARM AND WILL”

 Premieres  23 Responses »
Feb 242012
 

Drawing upon Norse mythology, Sweden’s Naglfar named themselves for the ship made from the nails of the dead that was foretold to carry the hordes of Hel across the waters, bringing them into battle with the gods of Asgard during the cataclysmic events of Ragnarök. The band released their first demo, Stellae Trajectio, in 1994 and their first album (Vittra) in 1995. On March 26, Century Media will release Naglfar’s sixth album, Téras, and today we’re privileged to stream the North American premiere of its fifth track, “An Extension of His Arm and Will”.

In addition to appearing on the album, the song will be released on Monday (Feb. 27) as a limited-edition 7″ single that will also include a non-album b-side song, “As Long As They Fear.” A white vinyl version will be limited to 100 copies exclusively for U.S. customers, and both black and transparent red vinyl versions will be shipped in the EU, also in limited quantities. They can be ordered through CM Distro via these links:  http://bit.ly/zk8eeq (EU) and http://bit.ly/yA7P3k (US).

Naglfar now features a line-up consisting of vocalist Kristoffer W. Olivius (the band’s original bass player, who become lead vocalist following the 2005 departure of Jens Rydén), guitarist Andreas Nilsson (who has been with the band since its inception), and guitarist Marcus E. Norman (who joined in 2000). The drums for Téras were recorded by Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Scarve).

Téras will be Naglfar’s first album in almost five years. One song from Téras — “Pale Horse” — has already debuted, and we featured it here on the day before Christmas. The new song that we’re premiering today confirms that Téras will be well worth the wait. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: NAGLFAR

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  4 Responses »
Feb 042012
 

I was a relatively late-coming fan of Sweden’s Naglfar, discovering them through their 2007 release, Harvest, but I’m now solidly in their camp. Their skillful intertwining of melodic black metal and death metal elements creates music that is both memorable and viciously scathing.

I’m happy to report that as of today, we now have more details about their next album on Century Media, Téras. First, we have the album’s killer cover art by Niklas Sundin (Dark Tranquillity), who has previously designed artwork for bands such as In Flames, Arch Enemy, and At the Gates.

Second, we have specific release dates: March 26th in Europe and March 27th in North America. Third, we have a track list:

1. Téras
2. Pale Horse
3. III: Death Dimension Phantasma
4. The Monolith
5. An Extension Of His Arm And Will
6. Bring Out Your Dead
7. Come Perdition
8. Invoc(H)ate
9. The Dying Flame Of Existence

Since Naglfar and this album cover are on my mind, I decided to collect all of their previous album covers, which are equally eye-catching. That’s after the jump, along with a replay of the first song from Téras. Continue reading »

2012: METAL IN THE FORGE (Part 1)

 Forthcoming Albums  28 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

December and 2011 are both over, and with the end of the last month, it’s time to round up what we saw over the last 30 days about forthcoming albums.

We usually try to post these updates on the first of the month, but the first of this month was New year’s Day, and I was moving kinda slowly that day. Plus, I’ve been focusing on year-end lists from a variety of sources, and, well, I’m late with this. I have more excuses, if you’d like to hear them.  No?  Okay, I understand.  I’ll just shut up and get going with this list.

So, here’s the deal:  In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, I collect news blurbs and press releases I’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like at NCS (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — THIS ISN’T A CUMULATIVE LIST. If we found out about a new forthcoming album before December, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier.

This month’s list begins right after the jump. It includes some real eye-openers. In fact, it’s not too soon to say that 2012 is already looking like yet another royally skull-fucking year for metal. But as usual, this list is half-assed rather than comprehensive. I confess that in December I was even more half-assed than usual in keeping my eyes open for news about new albums. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what I missed when I put this list together. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about, even if you don’t see them here! Continue reading »

NAGLFAR FINALLY RELEASE A NEW SONG: “PALE HORSE”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Dec 242011
 

The Friday before Christmas is probably not an ideal day for releasing important news. In fact, as eagle-eyed as I am, I nearly missed this item. I’m so glad I didn’t. When I saw it last night, I became nearly giddy with excitement. Not actually giddy, because giddy is not metal, but nearly giddy. Here are the key elements of this story:

Sweden’s Naglfar has finished recording their new album — the first one since Harvest was released in 2007. It will be called Téras. It will be released by Century Media in March of next year. Sometime between now and then, the band will put out a limited-edition 7″ single that will include one track from Téras and a second song that will be exclusive to the single.

The band’s new line-up is down to vocalist Kristoffer W. Olivius (the band’s original bass player, who become Naglfar’s lead vocalist prior to the recording of Pariah (2005) after the departure of Jens Rydén), guitarist Andreas Nilsson (who has been with the band since its inception), and guitarist Marcus E. Norman (who joined in 2000). The drums for Téras were recorded by Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Scarve).

Last but certainly not least, yesterday Century Media made at song from the new album available for streaming. It’s called “Pale Horse”, and you can listen after the jump. If the quality of Naglfar’s previous albums weren’t enough to put Téras on your radar screen, this song should do it. Continue reading »

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