FREE SHIT FROM DEMONHOOD PRODUCTIONS: “ENLIGHTENED DARKNESS”

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
May 102013
 

Demonhood Productions, as I learned this morning, is a relatively new Norwegian label mainly focusing on underground black, death, and thrash metal. It was established in 2012 as “a cooperation” between Duplicate Records and Neseblod Records. As I also discovered only this morning, they released a compilation in March that’s a free download on Bandcamp. Entitled Enlightened Darkness, it consists of 14 tracks by 14 different bands.

I’m not familiar with all the bands on this comp, but the names I do know are impressive (and we’ve written about them here at NCS): Nekromantheon, Wormlust, and Cobolt 60. The compilation also includes a song by a Czech band named Cult of Fire that I’ve recently become interested in. In fact, that’s how I found this comp.

Last year Cult of Fire released their debut album Triumvirát through Demonhood; one of the tracks from that album is what’s included in this comp. However, Cult of Fire are now signed to the German label Iron Bonehead for release of their next album (which should be coming in 2013). This morning I saw that Iron Bonehead has started selling a Cult of Fire shirt called “Insane Dance of Kali”, and it’s so eye-catching that I promptly ordered it (here). This is what the shirt looks like (it comes in black and white): Continue reading »

GRAMMY vs GRAMMY: THE 2012 SPELLEMANN AWARD NOMINATIONS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 122013
 

a photo of Enslaved that I took last night

A nice coincidence:  Last night I saw Enslaved perform at a bar in Seattle. This morning, Enslaved were nominated for Best Metal Album of 2012 in Norway’s version of the Grammy awards, which are called the Spellemann awards.

The other nominees in that category are Nekromantheon for Rise, Vulcan Spectre and El Caco for Hatred, Love and Diagrams. You gotta love a country where fuckin’ Enslaved and fuckin’ Nekromantheon get nominated for Grammy’s. Songs from each of their albums made our list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Hell, last spring I even wrote about a song from El Caco’s album (here) — though the song is more hard rock than metal.

Contrast this with the American Grammy Awards: Although there were 81 award categories for 2012, there is no award for Best Metal Album. As close as we get is an award for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance. And Halestorm won that award two nights ago. Uh huh. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 5

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  7 Responses »
Jan 012013
 

This is Part 5 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

My tastes have evolved and expanded dramatically since NO CLEAN SINGING was established more than three years ago. They’ve changed significantly even over the course of this past year. You’re about to find out just how much they’ve changed.

There was a time when the only metal songs I found infectious were ones with catchy hooks and memorable melodies. Now I’m finding that even music that’s utterly blistering or obliterating can also stick in my head. No matter how challenging that kind of music may be to some listeners, to omit it from this list would be hypocritical, because I’ve enjoyed so much of it this year. And so today I bring you Nekromantheon and Pseudogod.

NEKROMANTHEON

I first came across (and wrote about) this Norwegian band in December of 2011, when they released an advance track from their then-forthcoming 2012 release Rise, Vulcan Spectre. I subsequently listened to the entire album — it’s one of many 2012 releases I loved but never found time to review. The style of their music is a certain kind of thrash. But it’s not let’s-get-drunk-and-fuck thrash. It’s more like let’s-find-innocent-children-and-sacrifice-them-to-Cthulhu thrash. Continue reading »

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC (NEKROMANTHEON, KRODA, AND INTERVALS)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 202011
 

Here are a few things I saw and heard last night and this morning that I thought were worth your time.

Of course, I don’t know exactly what you do with your time, or how valuable your time is, or what potentially horrible consequences might result if you spent time listening to this music instead of doing what you would be doing if you weren’t listening to this music.  So, I guess you could say I’m being presumptuous.  I prefer to believe that I’m enriching your miserable lives with the beauty and joy of good metal, compared to which most things are drab and stultifying, including your lives.

ITEM ONE: NEKROMANTHEON

This item came my way from KevinP, who believes that I do not need erectile dysfunction drugs because I pop wood over almost every metal band on the planet. He sent me a link about a band named Nekromantheon. The fact that I like their music in no way validates his own opinion about it, because my own standards are so low. Perhaps sending me links such as this is KevinP’s subtle way of trying to raise my standards. If so, that’s a mission doomed to failure. I like what I like, and if you don’t like it, fuck you. (I’m not talking about YOU when I say that; I’m referring to that one person who stopped reading NCS because he thought my standards were too low. Of course, there’s only one such person, ever, or ever will be.)

Nekromantheon is from Norway and the style of their music is a certain kind of thrash. But it’s not let’s-get-drunk-and-fuck thrash. It’s more like let’s-find-innocent-children-and-sacrifice-them-to-Cthulhu thrash. Continue reading »