SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THAW, THUMOS, THUNRAZ, THE CURE, DISFIGURE, MARTERPÆL, KEITZER

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Sep 282024
 

Last week I filled up this column with 16 songs from 15 bands, all but two of those tracks from forthcoming records. This week I’ve taken a different tack, recommending some complete new records and singles, and fewer advance songs.

With a smaller number of bands I also decided not to arrange things in alphabetical order, other than three in a row at the start for groups whose names share a couple of opening consonants. And to break things up I stuck a curveball in the middle instead of at the end. Continue reading »

ROADBURN 2018, A PHOTO RECORD: DAY 2

 Concert Reviews  No Responses »
May 232018
 

 

The 2018 edition of Roadburn Festival is in the history books. From April 19th through April 22nd at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands, metal fans got the chance to choose from among performances by more than 100 bands across four stages and a fascinating array of musical genres. NCS was fortunate to be represented by the fantastic New Orleans-based music photographer Teddie Taylor, who made a visual record of the event for us.

We left it to Teddie to decide which bands to see; no doubt she had a lot of difficult decisions to make — and we had difficult decisions of our own in determining which of her images to share with you (they’re all really damned good!). We’re dividing this collection of pics into four parts, one for each day of Roadburn 2018. You can find her photos from Day 1 here. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (TWO DAYS IN A ROW): THAW, FUNERAL HEARSE, VREDEHAMMER, WITCH TRAIL, HORNWOOD FELL

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Oct 092017
 

 

I did just post a SHADES OF BLACK column on its usual day (Sunday), and I really do listen to other genres of metal. But as I began collecting music for a SEEN AND HEARD post today I found that half the candidates had some connection to black metal, and therefore decided to collect most of them separately from everything else. With luck, I’ll finish writing about the others in time to post that planned SEEN AND HEARD round-up tomorrow.

By the way, when I say that all of the following tracks have “some connection to black metal”, you’ll find that it’s definitely not the same kind of connection. In short, the music here is quite varied, which is one of the reasons I combined all of it here. And the second item (Funeral Hearse) is an exclusive announcement.

THAW

In a 2014 year-end list we posted here, one of our former contributors described this experimental Polish band’s last album Earth Ground this way:  “The use of dissonant guitar with face-cringing noise and vocal assaults layered throughout the space in this album gives a chaotic feel reminiscent of recent Deathspell Omega releases, but with more moments of space and resolution (for better or worse): contemplative and explorative.” Continue reading »