ANOTHER SPAWN OF POSSESSION SONG PREMIERE: “SERVITUDE”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  20 Responses »
Mar 022012
 

I’ll spare you a lengthy introduction, because I’ve already written a novella-length review of Spawn of Possession’s new album Incurso, which is rapidly approaching its March 13 release date. I’ll repeat only this over-the-top concluding paragraph from the review:

“Incurso is a landmark album. In the rarified air of technical death metal, it has re-set the bar to a new height. Compared to it, the vast majority of even very good albums in this field seem . . . rudimentary.  We may see its equal someday, but to this simple mind, it’s difficult to conceive how it could be surpassed.”

The first two songs from the album that have been officially released are included with the review, and today we have a third: “Servitude”. It appears in the form of a lyric video. I find the words distracting. I recommend that you close your eyes and just allow the music and the sound of the vocals to tie your neurons in knots. Thanks to Metal Injection’s premiere, we have the lyric video after the jump. Continue reading »

SPAWN OF POSSESSION: “INCURSO”

 Album Reviews  22 Responses »
Feb 202012
 

Spawn of Possession’s Incurso is the musical equivalent of an enormously complex, alien planet-cracking machine working under a tight deadline.

With a globe-spanning reach, thousands of tightly integrated devices split mountains and toss them aside, jackhammer vast plains, uproot continent-wide rain forests and throw them into space, spin mighty rivers into whirlpools arcing upward into the atmosphere, spear the mantle with gargantuan kinetic maces that eject fuming magma into sky-bound plumes that turn the night sky into day, and deconstruct the puny works of humankind into their atomic components, segregating and storing them for some unfathomable future use.

And all of this happens at hyperspeed, the mind-boggling complexity of the matter-smashers directed by beings who may look humanoid, but clearly are not. They live their lives in an accelerated state of existence, a blur of insectile activity compared to which our most energetic efforts are the mere slime trails of slugs creeping pathetically by inches over days.

Sitting at the controls is a brutish overlord, communicating directly with the minds of a thousand machine operators, barking his wolfish commands almost more rapidly than the human ear can comprehend. Before our astonished eyes and ears, a hurricane of decimation methodically disassembles the world as we know it — and begins to build something alien and new. Continue reading »

ANOTHER NEW SPAWN OF POSSESSION SONG

 Metal News  29 Responses »
Feb 132012
 

Sorry for the brevity and lack of originality in this post. My fucking day job is being a jealous mistress of my time. Therefore, I am just pasting in this piece of exciting news:

“Bodiless Sleeper”, a brand new song from Swedish tech-death assassins SPAWN OF POSSESSION, can be streamed at  GuitarWorld.com. The track comes off the band’s third full-length album,“Incurso”, which will be released in North America on March 13 via Relapse Records. The CD, which will contain nine tracks plus an instrumental intro, was recorded at Pama Studios in Kristianopel, Sweden with engineer Magnus “Mankan” Sedenberg.

I’m not even able to listen to this song.  So, please go listen to it, and then tell me about the explosive orgasm I’m not having. Thank you for your assistance.

SPAWN OF POSSESSION DEBUTS THE FIRST SONG FROM “INCURSO”

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  18 Responses »
Jan 172012
 

Fans of technical death metal had a lot to be happy about in 2011, with new releases by the likes of Decapitated, Origin, and Krisiun. This year shows promise, too, with a new Psycroptic on the horizon (I’m not mentioning Necrophagist for fear of jinxing that possibility). But most die-hard tech death freaks I know are perhaps most excited about the March 13 Relapse release of the third album by multinational heavyweights Spawn of Possession.

It’s been a long wait since Noctambulant dropped in 2006, but the wait is nearly over. So far, we’ve seen the eye-catching Par Olofsson artwork for the album cover. We’ve seen the track list. And now, we’ve got the first song from the album.

It’s called “Where Angels Go Demons Follow”. It’s an auspicious introduction to the new album. It’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

2012: METAL IN THE FORGE (Part 1)

 Forthcoming Albums  28 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

December and 2011 are both over, and with the end of the last month, it’s time to round up what we saw over the last 30 days about forthcoming albums.

We usually try to post these updates on the first of the month, but the first of this month was New year’s Day, and I was moving kinda slowly that day. Plus, I’ve been focusing on year-end lists from a variety of sources, and, well, I’m late with this. I have more excuses, if you’d like to hear them.  No?  Okay, I understand.  I’ll just shut up and get going with this list.

So, here’s the deal:  In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, I collect news blurbs and press releases I’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like at NCS (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 December, 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. It includes some real eye-openers. In fact, it’s not too soon to say that 2012 is already looking like yet another royally skull-fucking year for metal. But as usual, this list is half-assed rather than comprehensive. I confess that in December I was even more half-assed than usual in keeping my eyes open for news about new albums. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what I missed when I put this list together. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about, even if you don’t see them here! Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (Part 12)

 Forthcoming Albums  17 Responses »
Dec 022011
 

November is done, and the countdown begins to the end of 2011 and he beginning of the New Year. We’ve been so focused this week on the year behind us, since 2011 Listmania is now in full swing, that we almost forgot that there is a future, and it will be filled with metal.

So, here’s the deal:  In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month (November) 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 November, 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. As usual, this list is half-assed rather than comprehensive. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what we missed when we put this list together. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about! Continue reading »

HALLOWEEN FAIL (Part 3)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Nov 032011
 

In our continuing attempt to make Halloween last all week, I’ve randomly picked three more Halloween-appropriate metal songs from the slew of suggestions we got via this post on Halloween Day. First up is a music video from Finland’s Medeia (with a little help from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video). It includes these immortal pick-up lines in a bar:

“I’m in a band”

“Yeah right, and it’s called old man’s dad?”

“We has a booze at the training place (or something like that)”

“You have a moose? Please just get lost.”

“I think he meant booze.”

“Why didn’t you say so! Let’s go!”

My other two picks are songs from Lair of the Minotaur (U.S.) and Spawn of Possession (Sweden). Stay grisly. Drink more blood. Watch and listen after the jump. (Thanks to jeimssi, kingben, and TRex for these suggestions.) Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 7)

 Forthcoming Albums, Interviews  19 Responses »
Jul 012011
 


June is behind us, July lies ahead. Here in the U.S., we’re about to start the long weekend leading up to Independence Day, when Americans celebrate the birth of the nation by buying explosive ordinance wherever fine explosive ordinance is sold and lighting up the night sky (in addition to blowing the shit out of objects and sometimes themselves). People will also be exposing unsightly parts of their bodies wherever sun can be found and eating large quantities of health food prepared on outdoor grills. Our Founding Fathers would be proud of what they wrought!

Because the last month has ended, that means it’s time for another installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, in which 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 album during May or preceding months, we wrote about them 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. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. And feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that we overlooked. Continue reading »