SEEN AND HEARD: PARADISE LOST, PRIMORDIAL, DE PROFUNDIS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 062015
 


Photo by Ewan Cawood

 

A flood of new music and videos appeared yesterday. I found a dozen of them I’d like to recommend, but I’m squeezed for time at the moment, so I’ve made some hard choices and picked three for this post. Perhaps I’ll be able to collect a few more later today — though it’s likely that as this day wears on even more good new music will appear. Anyone who thinks there’s something wrong with the state of metal in 2015 is just WRONG.

PARADISE LOST

My Facebook news feed blew up with friends posting about the new Paradise Lost video yesterday. Most of the links were accompanied by exclamations of surprise and praise. To those I’ll now add my own.

The song is “Beneath Broken Earth” and it appears on the band’s forthcoming album The Plague Within, due for release on June 1 by Century Media. The video was directed by Ash Pears. Here’s a quote about the song and video by the band’s guitarist Greg Mackintosh (who we hope has recovered from his recent mishap on stage in Seattle with Vallenfyre): Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): PARADISE LOST, NIGHTRAGE, SYMBOLIK, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, HOPE DRONE, MIRACLE OF SOUND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 242015
 

 

This is the second of today’s round-ups of newly discovered music. This one should probably be called “Seen and Heard by DGR“, because it was he who linked me to everything collected here (except the final song) over the course of this week.

PARADISE LOST

Paradise Lost is such a “name” that after four days out in the world, their new song “No Hope In Sight” has probably been heard by every sentient creature (and many non-sentient ones) who know of the band. But we haven’t featured it here yet, and since many of our readers are not earthlings, we thought a few of them might not have discovered it yet. So, here it is. DGR says: “It was good sound”. What do you think? Continue reading »

LIVE IN SEATTLE: KATATONIA, THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT, PARADISE LOST, AND STOLEN BABIES

 Concert Reviews  17 Responses »
Sep 092012
 

On the night of September 4, 2012, a group of friends and I were on hand at Studio Seven in Seattle to take in the first show of a North American tour featuring Katatonia, The Devin Townsend Project, Paradise Lost, and Stolen Babies, and I brought my fancy camera, which I still haven’t learned how to work very well. And yes, that means there will be a bunch of amateurish photos scattered around this write-up.

Two of us had bought VIP tickets, which gave us the chance to attend a “meet and greet” with DTP in advance of the show. As instructed, we arrived at the venue at 5:45 pm, and eventually a group of about a dozen of us were brought inside, given swag bags, and escorted to Studio Seven’s balcony bar, which was empty except for staff people getting ready for the night — plus Devin Townsend and two members of his live band, drummer Ryan van Poederooyen and guitarist Dave Young.

We spent the first 10 or 15 minutes talking with Ryan, who couldn’t have been more friendly and humble (and who clearly was in love with the songs DT had written for Epicloud). Eventually, we wandered over to where DT was holding court with the rest of our group of admirers, and he seemed very much the same person as he does on stage — full of energy and humor, making jokes and funny faces, and enjoying talking with all of us mostly tongue-tied well-wishers. If there’s a big rock star ego anywhere in his personality, it’s well-hidden. (We had talked earlier with one of the venue’s security guys who we know, and he confirmed the impression — that DT has always been outgoing and nice to all the staff people every time our friend has worked one of his Seattle shows).

We had our photos taken with DT and then were escorted back out of the venue to wait for the doors to open along with everyone else (though our swag bags contained VIP laminates that allowed us to get back in first). The goodies inside the bag also included a signed copy of the Epicloud CD, which hadn’t yet been released as of the time of this show. Continue reading »

BLOODSTOCK 2012 – A REVIEW AND MUSIC FROM THE FESTIVAL (Part 2)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 292012
 

(Our UK correspondent Andy Synn, who is a lucky devil, attended the mammoth BLOODSTOCK festival earlier this month and delivered a report on the performances. You can find his review of the festival’s Friday and Saturday shows at this location, and today we’ve got his write-up about what he saw and heard on BLOODSTOCK’s final day — plus a collection of videos (some of which are full sets) at the end.)

SUNDAY

Unfortunately, the first band to assault my ears on the last day of Bloodstock were the generally uninspired Kobra & The Lotus, a band who the metal media have been trying desperately to ram down our throats for some time now, but who don’t have the songs or presence to justify it. Not the worst band in the world by a long shot, but memorable only for how forgettable they were, and for the singer’s often flat, often forced, vocals.

So it’s a good thing we had Nile! After some admittedly hilarious sound problems (where you could hear the sound guy shouting and swearing at everyone to ‘Fuck off! We’re not ready!” after Nile tried to start their intro a tad early), the quartet finally kicked into a sterling set of challenging death metal mechanics. The new songs are definitely finding their place in the complex algorithm of Nile’s set, while a run-in by members of The Black Dahlia Murder for the climactic chant-along of “Black Seeds of Vengeance” helped add to that special “festival-feeling”.

Speaking of The Black Dahlia Murder, they were up next and also faced the unappealing task of presenting their razor-sharp melodic death metal to a crowd that had seemingly greeted their announcement with either measured ambivalence or outright hostility. But with good natured aplomb, and some hilarious stage banter, the quintet were definitely up to the challenge, packing an impressive number of songs into a short time slot in an effort to win over as many with their music as possible. Kudos for the handling of the naked guy (“Raise him up, I want to see his penis… no wait, keep him away from security… oh no, they got him. Enjoy jail dude!”), and well done on ending the set with more people in the field than they started with. Continue reading »

INTERLUDE: TWO AMAZING FAN-MADE VIDEOS FOR VALLENFYRE AND PARADISE LOST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 242012
 

As previously mentioned, we’ve got another doom-oriented post planned for today, as a bookend for the one with which we started, but in the meantime here’s one more interlude.

Vallenfyre and Paradise Lost are two of our favorite bands, united by the common presence of Greg Mackintosh. Both of them have released extremely strong albums over the last eight months — Vallenfyre’s A Fragile King (reviewed at NCS here and here) last November and Tragic Idol by Paradise Lost (reviewed here) earlier this year.

Both of them also seem to be united by the dedication of fans who are not only faithful but also really fuckin’ talented. Witness the two videos featured in this post, which I just saw this morning.

The first one is a stop-action animation for Vallenfyre’s tremendously monstrous song “Ravenous Whore”. It tells the story of theocratic rat people trying to summon a creature through the sacrifice of one of their own, and it’s really well-done. Not only is the animation extremely cool, but the conception and syncing of the visuals to the music are creative and beautifully executed. Credit goes to Jamie Evans from the UK, who is submitting the video to the upcoming Bradford Animation Festival.

The second video is another animation, in the style of a lyric video, for the song “Theories From Another World”, which is probably my favorite track on Tragic Idol. A Russian fan who goes by the name MrHuempolbu created the animation using the Tragic Idol cover artwork created by Jean Emmanuel Simoulin (www.metastazis.com), and it’s also superb.

Both videos are greatly helped by the fact that the songs kick so much ass, but the creativity and artistic skill shown in both of them deserve a round of applause. Watch them next . . . Continue reading »

PARADISE LOST: “TRAGIC IDOL”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 042012
 

(In this post, BadWolf reviews the new album by Paradise Lost.)

Angry metal is easy listening music. Anger rears its ugly head all too often in modern life; we find it easily, relate to it easily. But the negative spectrum of emotions stretches far past anger, and the feelings in its more obscure realms—frustration, longing, melancholy—make music just as stimulating. Sometimes more so. Unlike anger, love, and lust (the pop music stock-and-trade), Melancholy has no object to fixate on. It floats in the air without form or shape. More than those other emotions, we need art and music to give these tough, amorphous emotions a form.

Enter Paradise Lost. Continue reading »

THINGS I SAW AND HEARD TODAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Jun 012012
 

I’ve been doing actual paying work all morning. I took a break not long ago and cast my baleful eye around the interhole and my NCS e-mail box to see what there was to see and hear. And these are things I thought worth passing on.

First, that cover you see above is for a tribute album to Emperor called In Honour of Icon E, which will be released on June 25 by Metal Swamp. It’s a very nice piece of art, created by Wolkogniv of Folkingrimm Art.

It also looks like it will be a very nice album, with Emperor covers by the likes of Demonical, Helheim, Horna, Taake, and Setherial. I’ll give you the full tracklist rundown after the jump, but the news for today is that the album has gone up on Amqzon for pre-order, which means you can hear snippets of each song here. Continue reading »

NEW VIDEOS FROM INSOMNIUM AND PARADISE LOST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 222012
 

I’m just taking a short break from slaving away at my fucking day job . . . just long enough to tell you that TERRORIZER just premiered brand new videos from Insomnium and Paradise Lost in advance of their UK tour next month, the poster for which you can see above.

The Insomnium video is for “Regain the Fire” from One For Sorrow. The Paradise Lost video is for “Honesty In Death” from their new album Tragic Idol.

To see these videos, go past the jump. I haven’t even seen them yet, so please let me know what you think so that I will know what to think when I watch them during my next momentary break from my fucking day job.

Thank you for your service. Continue reading »

PARADISE LOST, NOW AND THEN

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Feb 142012
 

Huh, it still seems to be Valentine’s Day. And I found someone else who loves you, even if no one else does (besides your friends at NCS, of course, because we love all of you). The someone else is Paradise Lost. I discovered that they love you last night (thank you DemiGodRaven), and meant to tell you about it earlier today, and . . . just fucked up.  What a shock.

Here’s how much they love you: They and their label (Century Media) are giving away a song from their next release (their 13th studio album), Tragic Idol. The song is called “Crucify”, and you can listen to it after the jump and get the download link if you like it — but the free download is only for today.

I may have listened to Paradise Lost once long ago, but if I did, I’ve forgotten. I became interested more recently because of all the coverage we gave the UK death-doom band Vallenfyre last year. Vallenfyre was started by Greg Mackintosh, who is a key member of Paradise Lost. I liked the Vallenfyre album so much that I decided to give Paradise Lost a chance, even though I knew their music wouldn’t be my standard fare.

If you’re unfamiliar with the band, their music is melodic doom, with mainly clean singing. Much of it is slow. Of course, much of it is atmospherically bleak. But much of it is also beautiful, and it achieves that without sacrificing heaviness. Continue reading »

MORE TOURISM

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  5 Responses »
Feb 012012
 

This post is really about news of new spring tours, but I couldn’t resist adding that just-released cover artwork for the next studio album by Paradise Lost, Tragic Idol, which is scheduled for release on April 23 in Europe via Century Media Records. The album’s artwork was designed by Parisian designer Valnoir (www.metastazis.com), who has also worked with other artists such as Morbid Angel, Ulver, Watain, and more than 150 others.

Now, on to the tours news:

First, Lambgoat reported this news earlier today: “Late this spring there will be a festival type tour in the U.S featuring Origin, Cattle Decapitation, Misery Index, Aborted, Vital Remains, Threat Signal, Rings Of Saturn, and Dawn Of Ashes. The trek is currently being booked, with dates expected to surface in several weeks. We’ll keep you posted.” I mean, holy shit, that’s a helluva tour right there. But there’s more:

Hails and Horns reports that Skeletonwitch and The Black Dahlia Murder will be mounting a U.S. tour this spring. The dates are after the jump.

But that’s not all: MetalSucks will be co-sponsoring a 24-city U.S. tour consisting of Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire, and Today I Caught the Plague. The schedule for that one is after the jump — and there’s one more tour after the jump, too. Continue reading »

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