NU SCENE AND HERD: THE SCHOENBERG AUTOMATON, WARFORGED, LAMB OF GOD, BLACK FAST, PERIHELION, DYSTROPHY, NEKROGOBLIKON, DIRE NECRO CERBERUS, GLADIUS SKY, INIQUITOUS DEEDS, SHAPE OF DESPAIR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 102015
 

 

(Austin Weber has stepped up for round-up duties today, with a collection of new music and videos from 11 bands.)

Seeing as Islander is once again away in a work-related hell setting, I figured I’d step in again and keep our readers up to date with several newly released jams as well as newly released albums from a variety of bands.

Unfortunately, however, I’m low on spare time, as you may or may not have noticed from my recent absence from posting here at the site these last few weeks. So, I’m going to try something new and say nary a word about the songs/albums posted below — much as that fucking pains me to do! Not because I don’t feel strongly about each and every one of them, but simply because it’s almost 6 AM here, I haven’t gone to bed, and need to be up again in 4 hours. Thankfully, you came here for the music more than anything I would hope.

Without further ado… Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUND-UP: UNHUMAN, NEKROGOBLIKON, ANAGNORISIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 192013
 

(NCS contributor Austin Weber steps up, but not on my toes, to provide this round-up of new metal.)

Normally these songs and album news round-ups are all Islander, and I would dare not step on his toes lest he cut mine off. However, I had a few things to discuss, and he was busy so here are a few bands to check out.

UNHUMAN

The first item on today’s agenda is Unhuman, a name many do not know yet, but should. They are a supergroup from Canada, with a high degree of quality metal pedigree in their insane line-up.

Which really starts with the sole remaining founding member Youri Raymond (Secret Chiefs 3, Cryptopsy), who brings some punishing and varied vocals to the mix while also composing on guitar. He is joined by Kevin Chartré, the badass guitarist from Beyond Creation and the also excellent Brought By Pain. Following those two is Mathieu Bérubé on 7-string bass; he is also the guitarist in Teramobil, a group I wrote about earlier this year here at NoCleanSinging. Rounding out the line up is the excellent mechanical precision drumming of Alexandre Dupras who also is in Teramobil and also drums for The Plasma Rifle. Together, “Chaotic Equilibrium” shows the totality of what such an incredibly skilled and creative line up can achieve.

“Chaotic Equilibrium” traverses a diverse melding of melodic and aggressive ideas fighting back and forth trying to reach resolution, much as the title would suggest. As much as I hate most metal lyrics, this song is the exception to that rule. The lyrics are intriguing, a sort of positive philosophical musing with a powerful message I can get behind. If you go to YouTube from the link they can be found in the “show more” section. Continue reading »

A FLOOD OF NEW VIDEOS FROM OBLIVION, NEKROGOBLIKON, HEAVENWOOD, DROPBUNNY, AND ENGEL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 042012
 

Holy shit!  The last 24 hours have brought a flood of brand new music videos that are (a) constructed around kickass music of considerable diversity, and (b) fun to watch. I’ve collected five of them in this post, and have kept my introductory verbiage to a minimum so you can spend your time listening and watching.  Go!

OBLIVION

Oblivion are Nick Vasallo (vocals, bass), Ted O’Neill (guitar), and Luis Martinez (drums). They are tech-death hell on wheels. TheMadIsraeli reviewed their 2012 demo here, and we’re damned excited about their forthcoming debut album, Called To Rise.

Today they debuted a video for the first song to be aired from the album, “Black Veils of Justice”. The song just blazes. And the video is cool, too, mixing a band performance together with an animated short film called “ARK” by Grzegorz Jonkajtys.

We’ll have more news about the new album in the near future. You can keep track of what Oblivion are up to by visiting their Facebook page. Here’s the video: Continue reading »

VARIOUS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 202011
 

To supplement Andy’s review of the recent show in Leicester by The Faceless, Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, and Gorod (here), I threw together some breaking news of interest to me (and perhaps you), plus some new music and videos (also of interest to me, and possibly to you, too). The subjects of this post: Bewilderbiest, Nekrogoblikon, Fit For An Autopsy, Adam Gray (Texas in July), and Your Chance To Die.

BEWILDERBIEST

NCS co-founder IntoTheDarkness doesn’t write for NCS much any more, but at unpredictable times he texts me in bursts of enthusiasm about new music or new developments in the scene. Yesterday was one of those days. So, credit to him for this first piece of intriguing news.

Bewilderbiest is a new band, a “super group”, if you will. Somehow, IntoTheDarkness became aware of the recent, unheralded appearance of this band on Facebook. So far, I haven’t seen any fanfare about this, but it sure does command interest. Check out the line-up of band members:

Sacha Dunable – guitar (Intronaut, Graviton)
Derek Donley – drums (National Sunday Law, Graviton)
Charles Elliott – vocals, guitar (Abysmal Dawn)
Derek Rydquist – bass (The Faceless)

I think this makes the 5,231st band that the super-talented Sacha Dunable is involved in. No music is yet available, but based on some internet sleuthing, I did discover that the band are finishing up work on their debut effort and that the genre focus will be doom. When we have more to report, we’ll clue you in.  That Facebook page is here, though the content is pretty spare at the moment. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

GOBLINS MAKE “BEST OF 2010” LISTS, TOO

 Listmania  9 Responses »
Dec 222010
 

[EDITOR’S NOTE: SoCal’s Nekrogoblikon is an NCS favorite. If you doubt that, go here. And today we’re favored with a retrospective on the year that’s almost ended from one of the goblikons — Timbus, who helped bail us out while I was on vacation in November. To see his previous post, visit this location. To see what he thought of the year in metal, simply light your heads on fire and continue reading. I’ve heard a grand total of two albums on this list — which is awesome . . . more discoveries lie ahead.]

The past few years have been an interesting time to be in the metal scene. Technicality has made a comeback in a big way and combined with a giant improvement in modern metal production, has produced some of the most intricate, precise, heavy, fast, dense, mind-bending, ferocious music ever created. If someone had gone back in time with After The Burial‘s Rareform or Periphery‘s self-titled and given me those albums say in 1999, I would have probably shat my pants and said that nobody could possibly do this. Arguably, this response would have been correct, since most metal albums nowadays are heavily, heavily quantized (every note of the drums and guitars aligned with a grid).

Anyway, the point is, metal music is moving forward and we’re quickly approaching the second decade of the third millenium. EPIC AS FUCK, YOU GUYS. I have been asked to provide my view of the best albums of 2010, and so I shall. First though, a disclaimer:

I do not listen to a large number of bands on a regular basis. I am not really one of those people that will actually check out every album stream or new release that comes (though I do read Lambgoat pretty regularly). I will check out lots of things, but it takes something visceral and unexplainable to get me to incorporate a new album or band into my regular rotation.

Therefore, if I’ve left out an awesome album or 50, this is why. Also, despite the fact that this blog is called “No Clean Singing”, I unfortunately must admit I listen to very few bands nowadays that don’t have at least “some” clean singing. There haven’t really been very many good straight-up death/black/grind releases in a while, so I have to make do with all sorts of other shit. (see the shit that Timbus makes do with after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ON TASTE . . .

 Mosh Pit  19 Responses »
Nov 132010
 

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s guest post is from Timbus, the guitarist, back-up vocalist, and co-founder of NCS favorite, Nekrogoblikon. He has some thoughts about musical taste and what it means to be open-minded . . .]

Sometimes people are just walking piles of bullshit. In fact I bet half the people you see day-to-day are made solely of poop. It’s really horrifying. I wonder if they know? Probably not. They’re all stomping around *splunch* *splunch* “I’m so smart!” *splunch* *splunch*. Their footsteps probably make that noise. That’s how poop walks. Probably. Maybe one day some dude will try to talk to them and quickly determine that the human being they’re interacting with is really just sentient excrement. Then the dude will sit back and go “Ohhhh, I see what the problem is. We disagree because you’re actually just made of poop.” I think that doesn’t happen very often though.

People can bullshit just about anything. You’ll hear stories all the time about how either people bullshit the government or the government bullshits us. Or maybe it’s a job. Or maybe it’s Enron. Or maybe it’s Osama Bin Laden, I don’t fucking know. The entertainment industry is definitely made up 90% of poop. But so are the consumers! So it’s ok!

Have you ever asked anyone “What kind of music do you like?” or “What’s your favorite band?” I’m a musician. Music is such a big part of my life that relating to other people is much easier if I can find common ground musically. So, naturally, I ask those questions of people I meet. Sometimes I get really interesting answers. Sometimes I get a response that’s more like “Oh I just listen to radio” or “I watch MTV” or some other mainstream response. Those are fine! If you’re not really “into” music, and you just listen to whatever’s on your local rock station, that’s totally chill. Hey, I like eating out a lot, but I don’t really care about the particulars of how my food was prepared, just as long as it tastes good. Not everyone is a musician or even a music nerd.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE STENCH OF NEKROGOBLIKON

 Album Reviews  19 Responses »
Oct 182010
 

We like collective nouns — those sometimes strange, often evocative, often humorous names for groups of things, like animals, birds, insects, and sea creatures. Examples: A pride of lions, a pack of dogs, a troop of baboons, a litter of kittens, a flock of gulls, a brood of hens, a murder of crows, an exaltation of larks, a parliament of owls, a swarm of bees, a plague of locusts, a school of fish, a bed of clams, a shoal of bass, a pod of orcas.

But what do you call a collective of goblins? Since we’re fans of alliteration, we thought about “a gaggle of goblins”. But a collective of geese (on the ground) is called a gaggle, and geese don’t seem too bright. Goblins, on the other hand, are fiendishly clever. So gaggle is out.  (btw, did you know that a collective of geese in flight are called a “skein”?) A “gathering” of goblins might work, but it doesn’t adequately convey the devilish menace or the barely contained chaos that we imagine would ensue.

No, what you call a collective of goblins bent on mischief and mayhem is Nekrogoblikon. And that sulphurous smell in your nostrils? Why, that’s the aroma of the hell-storm unleashed on the band’s forthcoming new album entitled, of course, Stench. Because we have ingratiated ourselves with the goblin hordes, we have been gifted with the opportunity to absorb the miasma of Stench before less-favored humans. In a word, Stench is brilliant, from beginning to end.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »