ANIMALS AS LEADERS, NAVENE-K, LEGION’S REQUIEM, JOURNAL, BISPORA: LIVE AT ACE OF SPADES 8-21-13

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Aug 242013
 

(DGR reviews the August 21, 2013 show in Sacramento, California, put on by Animals As Leaders, Navene-K, Journal, Legion’s Requiem, and Bispora.)

It’s so odd being outside of the home city right now, especially considering that just three days ago I was out in front of a venue there waiting for a show. This jet-setting lifestyle creates some cognitive dissonance with the brain for sure. On Wednesday Animals As Leaders made the incredibly cool gesture of coming to Sacramento after their time on the Summer Slaughter tour had already wrapped up. The guys chose to soldier on and play a few more shows, and one of them took place in my stomping ground.

So it came to pass that I found myself standing out front in what began as a very small line outside of Ace Of Spades, which would grow to a pretty good-sized crowd over the span of the night. It was somewhat of a local social event as well since the whole support came from local groups, with the exception of Navene-K, who would eventually go on to surprise me as one of my favorite things that I saw that night.

I tried to find videos of every band from that evening and managed to do so for three of the five. We have a new group out here called RealityCheck Sacramento who are proving to be very cool, so look them up, and SickDrummer uploaded some drum-cam footage of Navene doing the song “Microcosm”. I haven’t found anything from Animals As Leaders yet. but the previous two uploaders are amazing people and I love them. Continue reading »

ANIMALS AS LEADERS: “ISOLATED INCIDENTS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 232011
 

Today seems to be a day for song and video debuts from bands we like here at NCS. As long as they continue rolling out, we’ll continue putting them up.

The most recent advent comes from those brilliant instrumentalists in Animals As Leaders, whose sophomore album Weightless is coming our way in November via Prosthetic Records. The song that debuted in full today is called “Isolated Incidents”, and it’s a blast to hear.

The song begins with an inventive but almost placid passage, which is hardly preparation for the sledgehammer blows that follow it as the song kicks into high gear. Tosin Abasi is in fine, fine form, mixing a host of different guitar instrumental styles as the song weaves its way through the maze of its progressions, and his compatriots Navene Koperweis and Javier Reyes stay right with him. Coolness. Listen after the jump. Continue reading »

AAL LIVE!

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 242010
 

Not long ago, we posted a video retrospective of the meteoric career of multi-instrumentalist Navene Koperweis. When we did that, we had trouble finding a decent performance video of Animals As Leaders — the band in which Koperweis plays drums with the godlike Tosin Abasi on guitar. Now, METAL INJECTION has remedied that problem.

They were on hand when AAL played the Sonar in Baltimore on the SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2010 tour and filmed some of the band’s performance using multiple cameras. The video quality and the sound quality are both far superior to any other videos currently available of AAL playing live.

The one at the top of this post is the song “Tempting Time”, and after the jump, we’ve got a second METAL INJECTION video of “Wave of Babies”. If this doesn’t make you come, then it’s possible you were neutered in your sleep last night.  Plus, when’s the last time you saw a metal guitarist playing in a polo shirt and white shorts? Continue reading »

THEN, AND NOW

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 072010
 

We’ve splashed our admiration for Navene Koperweis across these pages enough times that it’s verging on stalkerish. If somehow you missed one of our many posts in which we dropped his name, he’s a self-taught drummer from California who’s also strikingly adept at playing all sorts of other instruments, too.

He used to blast the skins for deathcore band Animosity. Now, he plays with Tosin Abasi in the stunningly good Animals As Leaders, and he’s the creative and instrumental force behind Fleshwrought (with Job For A Cowboy’s Jonny Davy on vocals).

It’s not like we think about him all the time, which would be kind of creepy. But a few days ago, we saw a Facebook post by one of the dudes in FXZero that linked to a four-year old video of an Animosity song called “The Black Page” that we’d never seen.

And there was Navene Koperweis, pummeling the crap out of his drums and looking much younger than when we saw him with AAL on the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour a few weeks ago (see our photo above).

So, we thought, what the fuck — let’s put together a little audio-video montage of this dude, then and now. You can see how he’s grown in his playing and his musical interests, and all the songs happen to be fucking great, too.  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MISCELLANY (NO. 5)

 MISCELLANY  2 Responses »
Aug 072010
 

I guess this MISCELLANY thing is turning into a weekly installment. I do have fun with it, and I hope you continue to find it worthwhile, too.

For new readers, it’s a record of how I spent my time on a recent morning (in this case, yesterday), checking out music I hadn’t heard before. The process is pretty random. I see something that looks interesting — whether from an internet post somewhere or an e-mail we receive here at NCS or a MySpace friend request or something that shows up in the mail.

I’m still hoping our cat will bring me a new CD someday, thinking it’s a mouse. That would really be random, but it hasn’t happened yet. I try to explain what I want, but he just looks at me like that rare Sri Lankan loris over on the right. Except he’s a cat. I wouldn’t want a loris for a pet because they have hands. That would worry me.

Anyway, this MISCELLANY post is a record of what I heard, not knowing in advance whether it would be good, so you’re kind of taking pot luck right along with me. As usual, there’s an international flavor to what I found. And as it happens, I had amazingly good luck on this most recent excursion. Not 100% satisfaction, but pretty fucking close.

The performers whose new music I heard (or whose new videos I watched) were: Navene Koperweis and Alex Rudinger (U.S.), Sole Remedy (Finland), The Red Shore (Australia), Apocalyptica (Finland), and The Autumn Offering (U.S.) — with a little bonus from The Crown (Sweden).

You can hear the music and watch the vids after the jump . . . Continue reading »

FREE MUSIC! (that doesn’t suck)

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 242010
 

We were reading today about a band called Fleshwrought that just signed with Metal Blade Records for the worldwide release of their debut CD, Dementia/Dyslexia. The news caught our bloodshot eyes because of who’s in that band (more about that later). We listened to some tracks streaming on the band’s MySpace page and got more interested. We Googled the band, and among other things, found a link to Amazon.com.

The link was not for a Fleshwrought album — of course not, because Metal Blade hasn’t released it yet. Instead, the link took us to a Metal Blade Summer Sampler released on June 22 that happens to include a Fleshwrought song. It also includes songs from 23 other bands.  And guess what? You can download the whole thing for free.  And guess what? There are some fucking good songs by some fucking good bands on this comp.

Here’s the line-up.  And after the jump, as a public service, we’ll give you the link for the download — and we’ll tell you the interesting names behind Fleshwrought.

1. Enemy Unbound Absence
2. Kill Them All Aeon
3. The God Particle Allegaeon
4. Holy Smokes Barn Burner
5. Two-Day Booze Bison b.c.
6. Monumental Failure Brain Drill
7. Ghost Town Charred Walls Of The Damned
8. Seething the Flesh in the River of Phlegethon Dawn Of Ashes
9. Wake the Dead Fatal Embrace
10. Mental Illness Fleshwrought
11. Vinterrket Istapp
12. Vamods Tale Kings Of Asgaard
13. Nihilistic Stench Lightning Swords of Death
14. Swallowed By The Earth Ocean
15. Back Of My Hand Return to Earth
16. In The Underworld Skyforger
17. Vagaries of Perception System Divide
18. Oceans to Dust Valkyrja
19. Creatures of the Mire Woe Of Tyrants
20. Dead Wrong Cancer Bats
21. Mercy For Today Son of Aurelius
22. Since 1776 I Am Abomination
23. Charmer This Or The Apocalypse
24. London Lost Its Fog Rosaline

(more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

“DOIN’ IT LIVE ‘TIL WE’RE DEAD” IN SEATTLE

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 112010
 

“Doin’ It Live ‘Til We’re Dead” appears to be the motto of The Dillinger Escape Plan for 2010. They passed through Seattle and stopped for a show at El Corazon on the night of April 10, with support from Darkest Hour, Animals As Leaders, and local favorites 7 Horns 7 Eyes. Two of your three NCS Co-Authors were on hand for the fun, and we file this report. In a word, the show was just amazing from start to finish. And for a change, we got some decent photos. You can see a lot more of them at the end of the write-up.

7HORNS 7 EYES

We last saw this local quintet (featuring two pairs of brothers) on January 26 as support for the Metal As Art tour. We hadn’t seen or heard them before that show, but they made a huge impression. We wrote then: “‘Epic” is an overused word in our community, but it truly suits the music that 7H7E delivers. The music is atmospheric but technical . . . It’s some mesmerizing shit!”

And it was more of the same last night: Complex, mid-tempo rhythms, sweeping melodies, a mix of growly and high-pitched vocals, tight instrumental interludes — and their own light show, with the fog machine pumping out the smoke. This is some mighty tasty progressive/death-metal fusion. And based on some mid-set comments from the stage, it appears we will finally have a debut album in the next couple of months. An awesome way to start the night!

(lots more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »