BECAUSE WITTY YEAR-END LIST TITLES ABOUT RUINING THE HOLIDAYS ARE FOR SUCKERS — THE DGR YEAR ENDSTAVAGANZA PART TWO: 40-31

 LISTMANIA 2024  3 Responses »
Dec 172024
 

(Here we have the second installment of DGR‘s year-end Top 50 list, counting down the second group of 10, with the next three groups slated for the next three days ahead.)

While we have not achieved critical mass yet in terms of writing for the year-end list, we’re definitely making progress down the line. This is still an area of the list where I often tell people that rankings – useless as they may be since this could be best viewed as ’50 albums DGR liked’ – don’t really start to crystalize in any sense until you start reaching the mid-30’s. So you’re reading the last vestiges of the albums I felt must be spoken about just so I can feel good about saying something about them and also starting to see the ones that I really sunk my teeth into.

They’re not a perfect representation by any means and I guarantee that come January 1st I’ll likely be kicking myself for leaving something off – especially with a late December drop of Frontierer‘s new EP looking like a contender to really fuck things up for me – but at least there’s some confidence in the ten collected before you today.

Tomorrow’s genre-spread will likely be just as silly but you’ll definitely start to see some old favorites popping up there since, much like one of the groups that appears in this collection, I too am a hallmark of consistency. I’m just not nearly as attractive. Continue reading »

VALE OF PNATH: “BETWEEN THE WORLDS OF LIFE AND DEATH”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 182024
 

(On May 24th Willowtip Records released a new album by the U.S. metal band Veil of Pnath. As is usually the case, DGR didn’t rush to prepare an early review but allowed the music to linger a while. Now his review is finished and available below.)

Vale Of Pnath are of a class of tech-death groups that never seemed to fully get their due. The Denver-based crew made themselves known at the right time, had the right scratchy logo, and had the right high-speed playing style to prominently place themselves in the world of the initial tech-death explosion as it quickly codified into its own subgenre rather than just a way to describe a much more complicated style of death metal that is more well-known for caveman slamming into the ground repeatedly.

Guitarist Vance Valenzuela is the only long-time member of the group still standing at this point, having been surrounded by a legion of incredibly talented musicians over the years. Maybe it was the ever-shifting nature of the group that was to blame? Maybe the revolving-door list of who would be in the lineup at any album? Maybe it was the sense that Vale Of Pnath was a machine, not just in the precision of their playing but in ‘parts’ changing themselves out, or maybe it was just the tad too long gaps between releases?

Regardless, it never seemed like Vale Of Pnath were fully able to achieve the relentless touring and constant social media renown as well as many of their fellow classmates did, despite having the body of material to back that up. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DÅÅTH, NOCTURNUS AD, OUBLIETTE, ROPE SECT, UFOMAMMUT, VALE OF PNATH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 202024
 

It has been a very busy week for the release of new songs and videos, and the week is only half-way through. Some of my fellow NCS slaves have tossed a lot of them my way, and I’ve ferreted out others.

Even though I’ve included quite a lot of them in this roundup, more are still running around the prairies waiting to be corralled. I hope I can lasso a few more before the weekend, assuming my lathered-up pony doesn’t hit a gopher hole and pitch me over its head into a hard landing.

DÅÅTH (U.S.)

This site sprang to life in November 2009. Just a couple months later we published our first annual list of “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs“, and Dååth‘s “Wilting on the Vine” was one of the 10 we selected. That’s how long ago we started following this Atlanta-based band, though they had been releasing music for six years before that. But after one more album in 2010, the band fell silent for what turned out to be a very long time. Continue reading »

A DGR REVIEW ROUND-UP (PART 3): OMOPHAGIA, INANIMATE EXISTENCE, VALE OF PNATH

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 012019
 


Omophagia

 

(NCS scribe DGR continues to catch up on reviews after a long hiatus with a multi-part collection, of which this is the third of three parts.)

There’s something to be said for comfort food in music and there’s something to be said for the weird looks I receive when I say that tech-death has become something of a comfort food. I recognize fully that I will always be somewhat wowed by the musical equivalent of dangling shiny keys in front of me, but my god is that a lot of keys and boy howdy, they sure are shiny.

The tech-death explosion over the years has led to a large amorphous mass that can often lean a little too heavy in both the technical or the -core direction, often making bands seem like expert musicians that just jammed a massive ton of breakdowns in between, making the musical adventurism and haughtiness feel somewhat unearned. 2019 has of course seen a massive number of additions to the genre as groups push and pull at its boundaries to see what else they can do with it or find ways to stick out in an increasingly crowded field.

Some of those releases came from some now pretty-established names. Such was the case with the following three, where my familiarity with the groups’ extended discographies led me to have them on constant play — even when the latter two hit in the first half of the year and we’re now at the point where as writers we’re panicking to try and get as many of the groups as we’ve listened to out there, so we can start focusing on the craziness that is the year-end release schedule. Of course, none of this pile-up was helped by what was previously alluded to as real life rearing up and kicking yours truly right in the head — much as this music has done over the past few months. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 2 OF 3): INFERI, ALKALOID, VALE OF PNATH, IHSAHN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 052018
 

 

(This is the second part of DGR’s round-up of selected new songs and videos that appeared over the last couple of weeks. You can find Part 1 here.)

 

Inferi – Behold The Bearer Of Light

Right now, the hyperspeed tech-death, melodic-death, black-death, everything-kitchen-sink-and-broken-down-freezer-in-the-backyard metal crew of Inferi are out on the road, touring with Aethere, Alterbeast, and Grindmother as part of Alterbeast’s Feast album release tour. It’s been four years since the group’s last incredibly packed album The Path Of Apotheosis, but those moments of silence shall soon wane as the group have an upcoming April 21st release in the form of Revenant. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (DESPISED ICON, KING, VALE OF PNATH)

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  2 Responses »
Aug 122016
 

Reviews in Haikus

 

(Andy Synn returns again to his irregular series of album reviews in haiku. Three reviews of three lines each come after the jump. With music, of course.)

It seems like almost everyone and their mothers are off to Migration Fest or Bloodstock this weekend, but I’ve taken it upon myself to ensure that our faithful readership aren’t left wanting. How good am I?

Anyway, we’ve got three new albums this time around, covering Canada, Australia, and the good old US of A (respectively)! Continue reading »

FUNDRAISERS: VALE OF PNATH, BLACKHEARTS, MIHAI CARAVETEANU

 Uncategorized  1 Response »
Dec 022015
 

Vale of Pnath kickstarter

 

It seems that almost every day brings news of metal bands or other artists associated with metal attempting to raise money for their projects (or their own survival) through crowd-funding campaigns. If we attempted to provide news of such things on a consistent basis, we’d probably never get anything else done around here. But the three items I’ve collected in this post caught my eye for differing reasons, and so I’m making an exception.

VALE OF PNATH

(Austin Weber graciously volunteered to write this first blurb, and these are his words.)

Back in 2011, a little-known band from Colorado called Vale Of Pnath dropped a monster of a debut full-length through Willowtip Records named The Prodigal Empire. With the passage of time, The Prodigal Empire has been rightly lauded as top-tier technical death metal music that fans of the genre hold dear. In the years following its release the band has lost and gained various members, which has unfortunately delayed the release of a follow-up from the group. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: POLE DANCING TO VALE OF PNATH, LANTLÔS, ARKAN

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Apr 262014
 

Here are a few things I spied over the last 24 hours that I thought were worth passing along. The last two items aren’t nearly as vicious as what normally tends to attract me, but they’re suiting my mood today.

ARORA LEIGH AND VALE OF PNATH

I’m guilty of inconsistent impulses about metal, in the same way as many other fans of underground music. On the one hand, I get cynical and even pissed off when I see metal being spread around in the mainstream, a feeling that it’s being polluted by rubbing shoulders with the uninitiated. On the other hand, I also get a little thrill when I see metal being used in a way that exposes the music to new listeners in new settings. I can’t explain it.

But anyway, I got that little thrill when I saw the following video this morning. It’s a performance by a woman named Arora Leigh at the 2014 Atlantic Pole Championship competition on April 12 in Washington, DC. As musical accompaniment for her routine, she chose an edited version of the song “Poisoned By Prosperity” by Denver’s Vale of Pnath — a band we’ve repeatedly featured and praised at this site. Continue reading »

VIDEO ROUND-UP: CHILDREN OF BODOM AND VALE OF PNATH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 062013
 

(DGR brings us a couple of new video releases that hit our radar screens since the end of our posts on Friday.)

This weekend brought us a lyric video of the new Children Of Bodom song “Transference”, from their due to be released early next month disc Halo Of Blood. I know, NCS isn’t exactly the biggest bastion of CoB news – nor are we planning to become one; but I felt that because I had spent a news post a little while back musing on whether or not the disc would be any good, then at the very least we needed to do some sort of follow-up so folks could judge for themselves.

As far as I know, this is the first song released from the disc other than the samples of songs that have been covered in their video breakdowns. A good rule of thumb on my end for whether or not I am going to find a disc amazing is whether or not I enjoy the lead-off single, and most of the time I never enjoy the first song released; don’t know if I have some sort of old man knee jerk, “I don’t like change!” reaction, but I have very few albums where I have liked the lead-off single. I knew I was really going to enjoy Omnium Gatherum’s and Soilwork’s latest because I loved everything that came off the pre-release PR wagon. This new song? Not so much.

It’s not a bad song and it has way more bass than Children Of Bodom have had before, but I think I’m really going to need to hear the whole disc before I pass any sort of judgement. Right now, we’re about a month out from the June 11th release date, so I figure we’ll probably start hearing more within the next two weeks and I’ll be ending this odd arc of CoB news on NCS. Continue reading »

GOROD HEADLINE BLOODLETTING NORTH AMERICA 9, POLYPHIA MAKE WAVES, AND BETHLEHEM PLAN THEIR NEXT ALBUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 082013
 

I just took a short break from the work grind, flitted around the interhole and the NCS e-mail inbox like a blowfly in search of a raw wound, and came across three items I wanted to pass along. Two are news items, one is new music.

TOURISM: BLOODLETTING NORTH AMERICA 9

I saw that a new North American tour has just been announced. It begins May 3 and runs through June 1. It made my already bulging eyes bulge further from their sockets, sort of like what happens to frogs when you inflate them with a bicycle pump.

The headliner is Gorod. I could stop there, but the rest of the line-up is cool, too: Inanimate Existence, Kamikabe, and Vale of Pnath.

But that’s not all.  On selected dates, the tour will also be joined by Fallujah, Pyrexia, Applaud, The Impaler, River of Nihil, The Kennedy Veil, Cognitive, and Archspire. Continue reading »

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