TOUR NEWS (PRIMORDIAL, CORMORANT, AND YOB) PLUS NEW MUSIC FROM A MILLION DEAD BIRDS LAUGHING AND XAPHAN

 Metal News  16 Responses »
Jul 192012
 

Still plagued by the annoying intrusions of non-metal life (fuck non-metal life), your stupid friends at NCS have nevertheless found time to gather a few recent items of interest for your amusement and edification.

ITEM ONE

First item is above, presented to you as a public service, rather than because of my usual self-centered interests, since this tour isn’t coming remotely close to Seattle. But any U.S. tour involving both Primordial and Cormorant is by definition newsworthy. I don’t know While Heaven Wept, but they must at least be interesting or they wouldn’t be along for this ride.

Do pay close attention to the little asterisks, since not all bands will be at all dates.

ITEM TWO

The next item is also a tour announcement that also happens to be in September and also happens to include Cormorant (look closely at the dates for Sept 16-20 on the following poster) and also happens to be by-passing Seattle. On this tour, the headliners will be YOB and a band called Norska, which features YOB bass player Aaron Rieseberg and his brother Dustin and is described as a “progressive tech-sludge rock band.” Continue reading »

PRIMORDIAL’S “REDEMPTION AT THE PURITAN’S HAND”: A CRITIQUE

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
May 042011
 

(NCS writer BadWolf provides a critique of the new album by Primordial, released April 26 by Metal Blade)

Primordial’s 2011 powerhouse album Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand is the black metal record I would give to my friends who listen to Fleet Foxes, and not merely because this is ‘folk metal.’ Rather, as they have before, Primordial transcends folk metal.

That term is insufficient. It has come to describe bands that shoehorn ethnic instruments and elements into what is, in the end, basically power metal repackaged. I find the practice self-deprecating and highly commercial, resulting in music with more in common with a Nightwish record than any strong sense of cultural identity. That is not Primordial. This record has nothing in common with the work of, say, Eluvite, Tyr, or Turisas, who make themselves into a travelling circus side show.

Primordial have no need of specialized instruments—no Viper violins, just guitar, bass, drums, and voice. The elements that feel meaningful and authentic are transmitted well enough in the tribalism of the drums and the melodies of the guitar. The unique sounds of Celtic folk have been alloyed completely with black metal guitars; there is no separation.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

PRIMORDIAL: BLOODIED YET UNBOWED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Mar 082011
 

In recent weeks we’ve written about two up-and-coming Irish black-metal bands — Wound Upon Wound and Eternal Helcaraxe. But today we have the pleasure of providing for your aural delectation a new track from Primordial — arguably Ireland’s finest black/folk band. The song is called “Bloodied Yet Unbowed”. It’s from their new album Redemption At the Puritan’s Hand, which is scheduled for release on April 26 by Metal Blade. It will be the band’s first album in four years.

Here’s what Primordial’s vocalist Alan “Nemtheanga” Averill has said about the album:

“Expectations, my friends, expectations! Yes, it contains rabble-rousers and hooks and choruses, memorable themes and dynamics but also it has darkness in spades. It has grit, filth and foreboding. Dark sweeping tragedy as always mixed with blood stirring defiance!

“The recording, of course, was booked during what has turned out to be one of the worst winters in living memory in Europe. Leaving Ireland at -15 to travel to a -20 Wales, trudging through feet of snow, slipping on black ice and basically having our bollix frozen off for three weeks left me thinking next time I’m going to record in the Bahamas and fake all this grimness. For good measure, I got what looking back must have been swine flu recording the vocals. In fact, some I can’t remember recording, I was so out of my head on painkillers and energy drinks. Suffering for your art is overrated, believe me.”

That may be so, but if suffering is what it takes to create a song like “Bloodied Yet Unbowed”, then more bands must suffer. (more after the jump . . . including a link to the song) Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 3)

 Forthcoming Albums  14 Responses »
Feb 272011
 


We’re jumping the gun on this post, since the month doesn’t end until tomorrow. Why? Uh, because this post is ready to go and we don’t have anything else finished for today yet. Work and other shit interfered with our grand plans for a Sunday post.  We might still get another one up later today, but for now, feast your eyes on the barrage of metal headed our direction.

What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days (or in this case, the last 27 days) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming New Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. There’s some awesome shit on the way. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 2)

 Forthcoming Albums  No Responses »
Feb 012011
 


The first month of the year has come and gone. January brought those of us in Seattle some typically ass-sucking winter weather, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the brutality dished out by the weather gods on our metal brothers and sisters in the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S. And of course, our readers ins places like Russia, and Finland, and Sweden are probably laughing their asses off reading our complaints about our winter weather. So, we’ll just shut up about that.

Besides, January brought all sorts of great new metal to our tender ears, so who gives a shit about the weather anyway? And you know what else January brought? It brought news of still more metal goodness on the way — great bursts of audio sunshine in our collective futures that will part these winter clouds and leave them whimpering in cloudy tatters.

Okay, maybe we should leave poetry to the poets and just get on with this next monthly installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, where we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like, or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we’ve cut and pasted the announcements and compiled them in alphabetical order. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones:

AJATARRA: “AJATTARA — the Finnish band featuring former AMORPHIS frontman Pasi Koskinen (a.k.a. Itse Ruoja Suruntuoj) — will release its seventh album, Murhat (“Murders”) on February 2 via Osasto-A Records. Murhat is available for streaming in its entirety on the AJATTARA Facebook page.”  (much more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 5)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 012010
 

We’re now five months into 2010, and it’s time for another monthly update to 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 about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re old school like us, just get ’em tattooed someplace you can see without a mirror (because reading stuff backwards is hard).

THE ACACIA STRAIN: “Western Massachusetts’ chuggernauts The Acacia Strain, have completed work on their new album, which will be released July 20th in North American and August 2nd in Europe via Prosthetic Records.”

ATHEIST: “Reactivated seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST will enter LedBelly studios in Atlanta, Georgia on July 5 to begin recording their long-awaited, as-yet-untitled fourth album. Engineering the session will be Matt Washburn. Additionally, the band has secured the services of one of metal’s most significant talents of the past decade, Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER), to handle the mixing of what promises to be a modern classic from the pioneers of technical metal. . . . ATHEIST‘s forthcoming album is tentatively scheduled for a late 2010 release and will be followed by a world tour in 2011.”   (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

ROTTING CHRIST: AEALO

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 032010
 

Aealo, the 10th full-length offering from Greek extreme metal band Rotting Christ, is by far the most interesting listening experience we’ve encountered to date in 2010. It’s a coherent compilation of lush, passionate, densely layered songs that establishes a new milepost in Rotting Christ’s fascinating musical evolution. When the year ends, something tells us this album will still be in the forefront of our memory.

Thematically, Aealo is organized around concepts of battle, destruction, death, and mourning. And in exploring those subjects, songwriter (and vocalist/guitarist) Sakis Tolis has tapped into ancient Hellenic culture and events. More than any other Rotting Christ production, Aealo incorporates the sounds, rich musical traditions, and mythic history of the band’s homeland.

It accomplishes this feat in part by the use of guest artists, including a female choir from Ipiros called Pilades, Greek-American performance artist Diamanda Galas, and musicians from Greek pagan folk band Daemonia Nymphe. But while incorporating the sounds and ancient musical traditions of their homeland, Rotting Christ have not forsaken the powerful, signature style of their previous discography. Aealo is an intensely emotional and wholly remarkable blend of traditions, and we venture to say the result is like nothing else you will hear this year.  (read more after the jump, and listen to a track from Aealo . . .) Continue reading »

ROTTING CHRIST UPDATE

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jan 192010
 

There are some bands we dig so much that just about anything they do becomes newsworthy on NCS. Rotting Christ is one of those bands. Their last album, 2007’s Theogonia, has become an old friend that we visit on a monthly basis, and we’ve been salivating over the prospect of their new release scheduled for February. It will be called Aealo, and we’ve now learned that audio samples of all the tracks are currently available for streaming on Amazon.fr.  You can also find samples from Aealo mixed in with Rotting Christ tracks from older albums at Amazon.com.

Even though all you can hear is about 30 random seconds per track, it’s enough to increase the salivation to embarrassing proportions. And the samples are really intriguing at the same time — they make clear that Aealo isn’t just a Theogonia clone (though that would have been just fine with me). The most startingly difference is in the appearance of guest vocalist, Greek-American Diamanda Galas, an avant-garde performance artist, vocalist, keyboardist, and composer. Rotting Christ hasn’t been a pure black metal band for a while, and it sounds like Aealo is going to carry it even further away.

Due on February 15 in Europe and February 23 in the U.S. via Season of the Mist, the CD will also feature a guest appearance by Alan Nemtheanga from Irish black metal band Primordial. It’s going to be interesting to see what influence he has on the album. (Note to self: One of these days we have to write about Primordial!)

According to a press release, Aealo will delve deeper into Rotting Christ’s Greek roots (and that’s really evident in the samples that include Galas’s vocals). The band’s guitarist and vocalist Sakis Tolis explains: “Aealo is the transcription of an ancient Greek word into the Latin alphabet. It means thrashing, catastrophe or destruction and reflects the musical and lyrical content of the album.”

Regarding the musical direction of the new album, Nemtheanga said, “It sounds classic Rotting Christ although it sees them continue where they left off with Theogonia, further away from the older ‘satanic’ feel and more into the realm of the ancient Greek gods, mythology and folklore.”

If you’re not familiar with Rotting Christ, here’s a sample from Theogonia:

Rotting Christ: Nemecic


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