PREMIERES: OBLIVION’S NEW VIDEO AND A NEW NOTHNEGAL TRACK

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 292013
 

We’ve already let loose a string of posts about new song and video premieres today, but we have one more. The first is a new video from . . .

OBLIVION

Not long ago we reported that this Bay Area band who we’ve written about frequently (writings collected here) had signed with the Unique Leader label, and that Unique Leader plans to re-issue the band’s self-released debut album, Called To Rise, on October 15 (check our review of it here). Today we got the new official video for the album’s final track, “Omniverse”. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album, a mix of heart-racing death metal performed with technical flare and eerie atmospherics.

That eerie quality that drifts through the song is captured in the visual effects and animation in the cool new video by Brandon Hunt. Check it out next: Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: WATAIN, FATHER BEFOULED, NOTHNEGAL, AND I KILLED EVERYONE

 Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 152013
 

I came across some news today involving three bands I like.  Unfortunately, the news involves releases that we can’t yet hear, but at least the news brings album art that’s pleasing to mine eyes. And then I came across one other piece of eye-catching new artwork that introduced me to a new band and a new song that I’m pretty sure fractured my skull . . . as if I needed any more skull fractures. Here’s what I found:

WATAIN

As we previously reported, this Swedish black metal band have a new album named The Wild Hunt coming on August 19 in Europe and August 20 in the US via Century Media Records. Today I learned that they will first be releasing a two-song single, both digitally and in a variety of physical formats, in late June. One song will be an original album track named “All That May Bleed”, and the B-side will be a cover of “Play With the Devil”, originally recorded by the Swedish black/heavy metal band Taiwaz in 1988; Gottfrid Åhman from In Solitude has contributed a guitar solo to that cover track.

Above, you can see the just-disclosed artwork for the single, which is quite cool and was created by the amazing Zbigniew Bielak II, whose work for Ghost we featured at length here. As for the original song, here’s what Watain had to say about “All That May Bleed”:

“‘All that May Bleed’ shows but one facet of a quite diverse album, but we chose this song as a first glimpse into ‘The Wild Hunt’ because of its bombastic lunacy and white-eyed malevolence which could be said to constitute a main foundation for the album. The lyric is an invitation to sacrificial blood letting, ecstatic zealotry and human sacrifice. The salt of Satan in the wounds of Christ!”

Well then, if this is an invitation to sacrificial blood letting, ecstatic zealotry, and human sacrifice, I accept! Continue reading »

NOTHNEGAL VIDEO: “SINS OF OUR CREATION”

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 192012
 

July 4, 2010. That was the day I first wrote about Nothnegal. Looking back at that post I realize how damned wordy I was. And you know that as long-winded as I am, when I say something is wordy, I mean it goes on and on and on.  And on.

I was really pumped up about that band, in part because they were from The Republic of the Maldives and in part because the music on their debut EP (Antidote of Realism) was so fuckin’ good.  Since then, they recorded a debut album (Decadence), which was released by Season of Mist in January 2012. That album featured drums by Kevin Talley (Dååth) and keyboards by Marco Sneck (Kalmah).

Decadence took me somewhat by surprise, given what I was expecting after Antidote. The album is primarily mid-paced, heavy-chugging melodic death metal with significant use of Sneck’s keyboards to lend the whole affair a sci-fi aura. The biggest surprises were two tracks near the end of the album — “Sins of Creation” and “Singularity” — which replaced the raspy growls that accompanied the rest of the music with strong clean vocals (by Affan) that would have been right at home in a power metal band.

Today, the band released an official video for “Sins of Creation”. It’s animated, it’s science fiction, and I thought it was a blast to watch. And it reminded me that “Sins of Creation” is really not a bad song, and that because of my prejudices about vocals I didn’t really give it a fair chance when I heard the album the first time. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 11)

 Forthcoming Albums  14 Responses »
Nov 032011
 

October is over, except for Halloween, which continues to go on and on here at the metallic island that NCS calls home. Your humble editor spent the end of the month and the beginning of this new one grinding away at his fucking day job, which explains why this installment of METAL IN THE FORGE is late. It also explains why it’s more than typically incomplete, but more on that later.

Here’s the deal:  In these posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (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 September, 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. I fell down on the job of monitoring the interhole and press releases to catch news about new albums that looked potentially cool to me, so I know I missed announcements of new releases that should be included here. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what I missed. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about! Continue reading »

NOTHNEGAL

 Album Reviews, Metal News  7 Responses »
Jul 042010
 

Fair warning: This will be one extended session of spittle-flecked frothing at the mouth, because we haven’t been this blown away since stumbling into a full-fledged Seattle windstorm last winter. So get the safety glasses on and strap on sanitary masks if you got ’em.

The subject of our enthusiasm is Nothnegal. They’re a band from The Republic of the Maldives that now includes two non-Maldivian heavyweights — drummer Kevin Talley from Dååth and keyboardist Marco Sneck from those Finnish swamplords Kalmah. They’ve got a four-song EP to their credit called Antidote of Realism and they’ve just signed with Season of Mist for the release of their debut album early next year.

Oh yeah, they’re also playing with Arch Enemy this month and touring Europe in the fall with the likes of Rotting Christ, Samael, and Finntroll.

And we’d wager that most of you have never heard of them. Until earlier this week, we hadn’t either. But this band shows all the seismic signs of an impending Vesuvius-sized eruption onto the scene — and based on the band’s output to date, it would be well-deserved.

If you like technically immaculate, headbangingly compulsive, Scandinavian-style melodic death metal played at autobahn speed, stay with us after the jump. Among other things, we’ll stream all four tracks from that EP and we’ll show you how to download a cut from Nothnegal’s forthcoming debut album. Continue reading »