Dec 012012
 

In here: A few things I noticed this morning.

SOILWORK

Soilwork’s ninth studio album The Living Infinite, which will be a two-disc release, is now scheduled for release by Nuclear Blast on March 1 in Europe, and March 5 in North America. Late yesterday, the cover art was unveiled. The artist is Mnemic’s Mircea Eftemie Gabriel. He also created the artwork for Soilwork’s Stabbing The Drama album seven years ago. It’s a change from the style of the band’s last few covers, and I’m liking it. It seems to have a nautical theme; I don’t know how that connects to the music, but we’ll find out.

Nuclear Blast also released the album’s track list: There are a total of 20 songs. I’m sure there will be some catchy melodic ones in there, but I’m hoping for some old-school Soilwork head-wreckers, too.

TOMAHAWK

This morning I also saw four new music videos. The first one isn’t metal. It’s for a song named “Stone Letter” by Tomahawk, who we last featured here. Tomahawk consists of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) plus a bunch of other interesting musicians: Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard, Unsemble), Trevor Dunn (Fantomas, Melvins Lite), and John Stanier (Battles, Helmet). Five years have passed since their last release, but they’ve got a new album coming in January called Oddfellows. Continue reading »

Jun 292012
 

As explained in Part 1 of this feature, I mean no disrespect to any of the bands mentioned herein when I refer to them as riff-raff. I guess I’ve been called a motherfucker so many times by bands during live shows that I’ve become convinced we’re all riff-raff, and surely that’s how the straight world looks at all of us, so why the hell not? Plus, there’s the appeal of alliteration.

This post is a continuation of my earlier report on news, music, and videos I saw over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth sharing. Even after dividing this into two parts, there’s still a shitload of stuff left to pass along. So I will try to be brief with my verbiage (yeah, like that will happen). In this post: Reports of new Season of Mist albums from Rage Nucleaire (featuring Cryptopsy’s Lord Worm) and Khonsu (featuring the Grønbech brothers and Thebon from Keep of Kalessin); Jucifer’s new Bandcamp page; new music videos from Profane Omen and Whitechapel; new songs from A Band of Orcs and Dysrhythmia; and for Mike Patton fans in the audience, a blurb about the revival of Tomahawk.

RAGE NUCLEAIRE

I just saw this, but three days ago Season of Mist announced the signing of a four-piece black metal band called Rage Nucleaire. It got my attention because the band was formed by Lord Worm, former vocalist of Cryptopsy. The band are working on a debut album called Unrelenting Fucking Hatred and they describe the music as a “hate-filled blend of melodic black metal and violent industrial.” Their list of influences range from early Emperor and Immortal to Anaal Nathrakh and Mysticum. The other members are bassist Alvater (ex-Frozen Shadows), guitarist/keyboardist Dark Rage, and drummer Fredrik Widigs.

The band have a new Facebook page here, which will allow me and you to sniff around for more info as it emerges. At the moment, although I’m hungry for some music by this group, I have none to share, nor do I have a release date yet. Continue reading »