ROUND-UP: BOSSE-DE-NAGE, ZUBROWSKA, OBSCENE ENTITY, HELL MILITIA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Nov 062012
 

This post is about as lame a post as any post I’ve ever posted, except for the post on Saturday that was actually entitled LAME. (My ankle is now black and blue, but improving, and thank you for asking). To be clear, this post is not lame because the music I’m recommending is lame. Far from it! It’s lame because I don’t have the time or the mental clarity to add much to the recommendations, such as an explanation.

My day job is imposing on me at the moment (and this will continue over the next two days), and to be brutally honest, I’m also experiencing some anxiety over the outcome of state and national elections. Between those two things, this is all I can manage at the moment:

BOSSE-DE-NAGE

A few weeks ago I reviewed a new split release by deafheaven and Bosse-De-Nage. Both of the two songs on the split are long — 10:37 and 9:02, respectively — and I expressed the opinion that together they made up one of the best short releases of 2012. When I wrote the review, only the deafheaven track was available for streaming. Now, so is the Bosse-De-Nage track.

The split will be released by The Flenser Records on November 20, both on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl can be pre-ordered from The Flenser here, and it’s also available at deafheaven’s store at this location. Watch The Flenser Facebook or Bandcamp pages for news about the digital release. The BDN song is streaming at Stereogum as well as on YouTube, and it’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

AEON, TARDIVE DYSKINESIA, AND ZUBROWSKA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 232012
 

I found many new metallic abominations to like over the last 24 hours, too many to shoehorn into a single post. So I’ll make a start with this batch of sharp spiky European offerings from Aeon (Sweden), Tardive Dyskinesia (Greece), and Zubrowska (France). Don’t touch, now, or you may draw back a bleeding stump.

AEON

Still loving the fantastic album art up above, by  Kristian “Necrolord” Wåhlin. It’s for Aeons Black, the fourth album from Sweden’s Aeon, which Metal Blade will release on Nov 19 in Europe and Nov 20 everywhere else. As previously reported, the title track is available for free download here. You can also catch an official lyric video for the same song at the end of KevinP’s recent NCS interview of the band’s founding guitarist Zeb Nilsson at this location.

Today’s news is that another song from Aeons Black premiered today. It’s streaming at Metal Hammer’s web site. The song is the album’s first track, “Still They Pray”. It’s lacerating, the kind of death metal that leaves skin in tatters. Go here to listen, and then come back and thank us for pointing you in that direction. Continue reading »

A TOP 5 LIST FROM MIKA ANDRE

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 062012
 

We first made the acquaintance of Mickael André in the early days of this blog when we developed a fascination for the French metal band of which he is the bassist — Eryn Non Dae.. I counted, and we’ve posted about them seven times since 2010, most recently here. The band’s own description of their music is one I would endorse: “Complex and brutal structures, black and apocalyptic moods, an obscure music where dissonant compositions carry an in-your-face, aggressive vocal style… A trip into the depths of the soul.”

I asked Mika if he would share with us a list of the metal he enjoyed most during 2011, and he responded with a list, which I’ll come to eventually. But this post also gives me an excuse to feature music from the many projects in which Mika is involved. Eryn Non Dae. is only one of those projects, though it’s Mika’s main one. The latest news from END. is very sweet news indeed — they are now beginning to record their second album. Their 2009 Metal Blade release, Hydra Lernaïa, was a remarkable debut, and I’m really curious to hear what the band will come up with next.

But END. is not Mika André’s only musical project. He’s also the guitarist for an instrumental band called Nojia (that’s their photo at the top of this post), who recently released a fascinating debut album called Solarchitect. (available here).

The album starts with a 6-minute overture and then proceeds through four long songs, ranging from 11 to 18 minutes in duration. It was recorded live, with all the musicians performing together in the studio — and when you hear the range and complexity of the music, you’ll appreciate even more what that means. I’ve embedded a music player later in this post that will stream the entire album — listening is an intense, mesmerizing experience. Continue reading »

FRENCH GORING, INTACT

 Album Reviews, Metal News  3 Responses »
Jun 122010
 

In our dog-eat-dog world, effort alone doesn’t count for much. You can pour yourself into something heart and soul, and that doesn’t mean anyone else will notice. It may be that despite the intensity of your desire, you’re held back by a deficit in your ability to express what you feel.  It may be that you’re only missing the right launching pad for the delivery to a wider audience of what you create.

Or it could be that somewhere in your past you stepped on the wrong ant, which unbeknownst to you was the reincarnation of some godlike being that just doesn’t like to be stepped on and decides to take revenge by fucking up every significant thing you try to do.

But here in our meager domain, we have the ability to give a modicum of recognition to whatever the fuck we want to recognize, and no fucking ant is going to stop us!

We’ve got a reader who recently has made enough time to delve deeply into all sorts of shit we’ve written over the six-plus months this site has been in existence, and he’s left thought-provoking comments on lots of posts we’d forgotten we even wrote.  His nom de plume is “Elvis Shot JFK.” And he deserves some recognition. Not to presume that he really needs recognition from us, and not to presume that we’re terribly objective in doling out recognition. To be honest, we’re pathetically grateful to anyone who bothers to leave comments on our site.

But what this dude did yesterday is way over the top, not just in terms of effort, but in terms of quality. What he did can only be described as a labor of love — for the most extreme forms of extreme metal — and what’s more remarkable is that he did it even though he isn’t even a fan of the sub-genre he wrote about. He paid homage to effort, through his own effort. And we ain’t gonna let that pass by unnoticed. What the fuck are we talking about? Please stay with us after the jump, and all will be explained . . . (plus we have some songs for you to stream) Continue reading »

NEWZ

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Jun 072010
 

We do our best to keep up with news in the world of extreme metal. We read a few web sites every day that collect news items, we get press releases via e-mail, and we get alerts about MySpace and Facebook posts by bands we’re following. Put it all together, and it’s a daily flood of words — almost all of which are just completely forgettable, or worse. Usually, we find items that are either intentionally or (more often) unintentionally funny. Rarely, we find something we think is worth writing about on this site.

We’re kinda behind on putting together reviews of new music we’ve been cranking, and that may have lowered our newsworthiness threshold today, but whatever. Today, we’re just gonna dump a bunch of news on you that we read over the weekend, including one of those funny items and one new video that put us in a party mood. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to our choices, but there’s not much rhyme or reason to anything we do, so what the fuck?

Our topics? They involve Heaven Shall Burn, Hour of Penance, French Bat-Shit Grindcore, All Shall Perish, and The Ghost Inside.

HEAVEN SHALL BURN

Last Friday, German death metal and hardcore fusionists Heaven Shall Burn announced that their new album Invictus, which has already been released in Europe and will be released in North America tomorrow, landed on the official chart in Germany at position No. 9. According to the announcement, this marks Heaven Shall Burn’s and Century Media Records‘ first-ever Top 10 release in Germany.

The press release included this comment from guitarist Maik Weichert: “Top Ten! This is insane! It is a dream come true and we thank everybody who had something to do with it! Everything will be awesome! However, when the police stopped my car yesterday they were still quite unpleasant to deal with, so I am assuming they hadn’t heard the news yet . . .”  (lots more after the jump — stay with us . . .) Continue reading »

ZUBROWSKA

 Metal News  No Responses »
May 052010
 

Back in January, we interviewed Mika André, the bass player for one of our favorite French metal bands, Eryn Non Dae. We asked him to recommend some other French bands we might not have heard about, and one of the names he gave us was Zubrowska. At that time we were able to hear a handful of songs Zubrowska had recorded for a forthcoming album.  We really liked what we heard, and wrote about it here.

Yesterday, we got a message from Zubrowska’s talented guitarist Jon Rauzy with some news we want to pass along: The band has now made the entire new album (Zubrowska Are Dead) available for streaming at this location. The album is still not officially released — that will happen in September — but at that same location you can pre-order it now. It will be distributed in the U.S. by Debello Records and in Europe by the band’s own label, Bollocks Records (nice name, huh?).

Those songs we heard in January were sweet — and so are the rest of the songs you can now stream. Some quick impressions follow after the jump, plus one of the songs for you to hear without leaving NCS . . . Continue reading »

MUSIQUE MÉTAL FRANÇAIS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 312010
 

Last week we ran a look-back at Eryn Non Dae‘s striking 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, and then followed that with an interview of the band’s terrific bass player Mika André. In the interview, we asked Mika if he would recommend some other French metal bands that we might not know about here in the U.S. of A. He obliged, and of course we had to go check them out. Two of his choices hit us in the sweet spot. You might dig ’em too, so here goes:

DOPPLeR

DOPPLeR (pictured above) is a three-man band that hails from Lyon and appears to have been playing since 1998 — and their years of experience show in the music. The line up is Yann Coste on drums, Xavier Amado on bass, and Yoann Brière on guitar/vocals. Their latest album, Songs to defy, was released in the fall of 2008 by SKrecords. So much for the hard data. What do they sound like?

Here’s a string of genre labels, all of which roughly suit some of what’s going on in Songs to defy: progressive, experimental, noise rock, hardcore, punk, tribal. But while you can slap a genre label on some bands and that tells you about all you need to know, it doesn’t work here because, as the album title suggests, these songs defy labels.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »