GUILTY PLEASURES: OCEANO’S “DEPTHS”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 212012
 

(TheMadIsraeli is no fan of deathcore in general, but in this post he confesses and attempts to explain his love for Oceano’s 2009 debut.)

I know what a lot of you must be thinking.  Is he fucking shitting me?  No, I am not.

Anyone who keeps himself or herself apprised of metal should know who this band is, because they are one of the first stars of the second wave of deathcore along with bands such as Suicide Silence and The Acacia Strain.  You and I do not need to rehearse the beef with deathcore by metalheads of a more purist sort.  For the most part and in the case of most bands, I agree that it’s shallow, insipid, immature, half-assed death metal.  But I believe Oceano, on this album in particular mind you, had something going for them. I honestly don’t know if I can define it, but of course I will try.

Depths has a very strange character.  Its mix matches its title perfectly, with a very open yet hollow shape to the sound and an odd echo surrounding all of the instruments and the vocals.  It sounds like a recording engineered inside an ancient underwater cave infested by demon-spawned sirens.  This is one of the elements that gives Depths its weight and a mood that other deathcore records simply don’t have.  It’s distinctive for this reason alone.  The important part, though, must of course be what lies at the core — the music itself.  What to say about that? Continue reading »

SUMMER SLAUGHTER HIGHLIGHTS (YEAH, IT’S ALL ABOUT FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE)

 Concert Reviews  28 Responses »
Jul 282011
 

On Tuesday of this week, my two NCS co-founders and I, plus other friends, attended the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour stop in Seattle at a venue called The King Kat Theater. The doors opened at around 2:30 and the show went on until something like 11:30. I’d seen many of the bands before, the exceptions being Within the Ruins, Oceano, Powerglove, Six Feet Under — and the band I wanted to see most of all, Fleshgod Apocalypse.

When something is blatantly obvious, it’s best just to admit it. So yes, I admit, I’m a Fleshgod Apocalypse pimp. I’m talkin’ about the kind of BIG PIMPIN‘ that Jay-Z had in mind. I pimp FA at every fuckin’ opportunity I get here at NCS. So, it will come as no surprise that although I found something to like about most of the performances I saw, the highlight of the tour for me was FA’s set (followed closely by a skull-collapsing performance from Dying Fetus). I even got to meet three of the guys in FA and bore them with conversation after they played!

I also took a shitload of amateurish photos of FA’s performance, including the one up above and about two dozen more (the best of a sorry lot) that I’ve posted after the jump. But before getting to that, I have a few awards to hand out (also after the jump). And at the end, I’ve got a link to an audio stream that just appeared today for a new song from FA’s forthcoming album (it’s called “The Egoism”). Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 9)

 Forthcoming Albums  9 Responses »
Sep 302010
 

Another month has passed. The fall season is approaching — unless you live in Los Angeles, which is pretending that it’s Phoenix in August. Fuck is up with that? It’s like that town has been placed in a cosmic microwave and the user likes his burritos very well done.

On the other hand, we’ve had way too many grey, chilly days in Seattle this September, which is traditionally one of the best months of the year. The weather gods have clearly dropped acid over the last 30 days and forgotten which end is up. But eventually they will get themselves straight, remember which season is approaching, and get ready to just blast the fuck out of our whole country with a vicious winter. Won’t that be fun?

No, it won’t be fun. It will suck like a new-born piglet at dinner time. But one pleasant constant will remain true — there will be new metal, regardless of how foul the weather becomes. And that brings us to another monthly installment of  METAL IN THE FORGE, a forge being the old name for a place where a blacksmith heats metal and works it into the shape of something useful.

And that’s what we’re interested in — new metal that will be useful in scrambling our brains, or uplifting us to a place where it really doesn’t matter what the fucking weather is doing.

What we do in this series of posts is update the list of forthcoming new albums we first posted on January 1. (All the other updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or updated info about some of the previously noted releases.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs from other sites, or from press releases, about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Perhaps needless to say, these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site — the kind that would like to tear your head off.

So, after the jump, in alphabetical order, you’ll find our list of cut-and-pasted items from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Continue reading »

THE SECRETS OF GROWLING AND SHRIEKING REVEALED!

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  8 Responses »
Aug 162010
 

You learn something new every day. You may not think you do, but you do.

Like on Friday, I learned that the German word for emptiness is “leere”. On Saturday, I learned that if you live in the Pacific Northwest and forgetfully leave your car window down overnight, spiders will move in and later drop on your arm while you’re driving, causing unexpected vehicular fun ‘n games. And yesterday, I learned the secrets of how extreme metal vocalists can shriek and growl really low without requiring hospitalization.

I’ve always wondered, and finally, after years of listening to non-clean singing, it now all becomes clear to me. It’s like some trade secret that finally leaked. And it turns out to be something that is easily duplicated. It just takes the right preparation and the right record producer (like Chris “Zeuss” Harris).

I’m not making this up. I learned it from a dude who ought to know — Adam Warren, who happens to be the frontman for deathcore heavyweights Oceano. It’s all in that video at the top of this post. It just takes sleeping ’til noon, some microwaved elixir, a little Lion King chord-stretching, and someone who can tell you which buttons to push.

Go ahead, see for yourself. The secrets are out. We won’t even charge you to watch. In the video, you can also see some spirited debate over whether “Contagion” is the kind of album title people will have to look up, as compared to a common street-word like, uh, “harbinger”.

Truly, Adam Warren is an engaging dude, and we can pretty much guarantee this thing will make you smile, even if you’re not an Oceano fan.  And while we’re on the subject of deathcore, word of a Whitechapel–Impending Doom–Miss May I–Oceano–I Declare War tour has leaked out. Details about that breaking news, plus an Oceano video, follow after the jump. Wonder what I’ll learn today? Continue reading »

THE TEN MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS OF 2009 (Part 9)

 Album Reviews, Listmania  No Responses »
Dec 242009
 

Here at NCS, we’re putting a different spin on year-end listmania. Ours isn’t a list of the best metal full-lengths of the year. It’s not even necessarily our list of the best individual extreme metal songs of the year. Ours is a list of the most infectious extreme metal songs we’ve heard this year. We’re talking about songs that produce involuntary physical movement and worm their way into your brain to such an extent you can’t get ’em out (and wouldn’t want to).

We’re not ranking our list from #10 to #1 because that would be too much fucking work (and your co-Authors would still be arguing about it this time next year). So, our list is in no particular order. We’re also dribbling the songs out one at a time because your lazy Authors are still debating what belongs in the remaining slots. (Yes, still.) Our list heretofore:

1. Asphyx: Sorbutics

2. Mastodon: Crack the Skye

3. Amorphis: Silver Bride

4. Goatwhore: Apocalyptic Havoc

5. August Burns Red: Meridian

6. Pelican: Ephemeral

7. Scale the Summit: Age of the Tide

8. Daath:  Wilting On the Vine

And to see our ninth entry on the list, continue reading after the jump. Continue reading »