INFERNO FESTIVAL – DAY TWO

 Concert Reviews  9 Responses »
Apr 042013
 

(NCS writer Andy Synn has returned from Oslo’s Inferno Festival, held on March 27-30, 2013, and brings us a multi-part report of what he saw and heard, along with photos. Check out the previous installments here and here.)

Day 2 of the festival had fewer bands I was particularly dying to see, so I decided to check out some different acts I’d never seen before, so as to make better use of my time and to fulfil my journalistic pretensions a bit more.

We decided to have a later start to the day, arriving in time to see Aeternus hit the stage and introduce the crowd (if any introduction was needed) to their twisted take on the darker side of the black/death metal aesthetic. Drawing liberally from all the various spheres of the metallic spectrum, the group performed like a well-drilled musical machine, though their focus on slippery shifts between styles meant that their live stage presence was a little more unassuming than most.

Though the band last played here 11 years ago, there was very little rust to be found on them, as they bled their instruments dry of every hypnotic riff and spiralling, dissonant lead they could wring out of them. Continue reading »

PURIFIED IN BLOOD: “MOT GRAV”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 082012
 

Norway’s Purified In Blood have a new album via Indie Recordings called Flight Of A Dying Sun due for release on June 11 in Norway, June 15 in the rest of Europe, and some other day in North America. The album’s eye-catching cover art (above) was created by Jondix Mahashakti. Here are a few more intriguing details about the album:

It features guest appearances by Glenn Reaper (the band’s second singer who otherwise wasn’t involved in the recording of this album) on a power anthem called “Iron Hands” and Erlend Hjelvik (Kvelertak) on a song called “Mot Grav”. It also includes performances by a guest saxophonist, a guest organist, a guest on double bass, and a guest Siberian throat singer.

Today the band released an official video for that “Mot Grav” song, and Erlend Hjelvik is in it, along with worms, skulls, chains, falling water, and some sketchy looking activities. Along with all that, the video further includes chunky, viral riffs — the kind that will get your headbang on. There’s one thing missing from the video — clean singing. There’s just the kind of vocals that you could use in lieu of a sandblaster if you had a big paint-stripping job ahead of you.

Neck-snapping follows the jump, along with artwork for the “Mot Grav” single.
Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS (Part 2)

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 232010
 

We’re now almost two months into 2010, and it’s already time for our second update to the list of forthcoming new albums we posted on January 1.  (See the original list here and the first update here.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases that we didn’t know about on January 1 or at the time of our last update about a month ago — and there’s a lot of them.

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 over the last month about forthcoming new releases:

1349: “Prosthetic Records will release the brand new album from Norwegian black metal legends 1349 in North America via an agreement with Indie Recordings. The new CD, which promises ‘a return to the band’s more traditional, raw-yet-technical black metal sound,’ is due on April 13. In support of the yet-to-be-titled record, 1349 will embark on a North American tour in April and May as the support act for CANNIBAL CORPSE (alongside SKELETONWITCH and LECHEROUS NOCTURNE).”

ABACABB: “ABACABB are currently out on the road headlining the Hot Dice On Black Ice Tour featuring Upon A Burning Body!. The tour just hit Texas and will be in California this weekend. Following the tour ABACABB will enter the studio with producer Will Putney at Machine Shop in New Jersey and will have a new album to be released sometime this summer.”

AEON: “Swedish death metallers AEON have set Path Of Fire as the title of their third album, due later in the year via Metal Blade Records. The CD was recorded in September 2009 at Empire Studio in Östersund, Sweden and was mixed the following month at Mana Recording Studios in St, Petersburg, Florida by Erik Rutan (HATE ETERNAL, MORBID ANGEL, CANNIBAL CORPSE). The mastering was handled by Alan Douches at West West Side Music (CONVERGE, HATEBREED, THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN) in New Windsor, New York.”

AMORPHIS: “AMORPHIS will release its first-ever live DVD, Forging The Land Of Thousand Lakes, in early June via Nuclear Blast, in time for the band’s 20th anniversary. The filming took place on November 20, 2009 at Club Teatria in Oulu, Finland, where AMORPHIS was supported by STRATOVARIUS and BEFORE THE DAWN. In addition to the full-length live show, the anniversary DVD will include plenty of bonus material documenting the band’s impressive career.”   (much more after the jump . . . ) Continue reading »