And, as promised yesterday, here it is!
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Now, get sharing! You can RSVP to International Ne Obliviscaris Sharing Day here.
Here is the link to pass along to all your friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wa4zqBwPVE&feature=youtu.be
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New album Portal of I can be pre-ordered here; the official release date is the 7th of May.
Good morning. Do you like free music? Do you like thrash metal? Of course you do, I was only kidding.
Bonded By Blood, who are associated with the contemporary “re-thrash” revivalist movement (and not, as the name implies, an Exodus tribute band), are putting out a new album, The Aftermath, on the 3rd of July (2nd July in Europe) through Earache Records. In anticipation of that forthcoming release — their third full-length and fourth overall — they’re offering up a brand new track from that album for you to download for FREE!
Also I’ve got some pre-order info as well as tour dates to share with you, so keep on scrolling…
We all love a good cover, right? Of course, nobody can quite agree on the definition of a “good” cover — but most often, these are usually the ones that honor the spirit of the original while taking them in a new direction, or those that are totally unexpected choices for the band doing the covering. Anyway, I’ve got two brand new ones for you in this post, and you can be the judge!
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First, Swedish atmospheric/depressive blackened death metal band Shining has released the first song from its upcoming covers EP Lots of Girls Gonna Get Hurt. Scheduled to come out 16 May 2012 from Spinefarm Records, this will feature versions of songs by Katatonia, Kent, Imperiet, and Poets of the Fall. Apparently, the renditions here are different enough from the typical Shining material, that frontman Niklas Kvarforth issued a statement (the quote here is taken from a paraphrasing of that statement, which was published in a press release by the band’s management), saying that this EP
…is definitely not a change of direction for the band. It was recorded at the same time as the band’s as yet untitled eighth album, and represents some of the artists and music that Shining’s members like and listen to. The fact that some Shining followers will be ill at ease with the material is, according to the band, irrelevant.
So what in the hell does that mean, you may be asking yourself. Well isn’t it obvious from the name? Tomorrow (3 May 2012) starting at 5 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (that’s GMT+10, so for example, it would be 8 am in the UK, or 3 am on the American east coast), a brand new song will be available for your listening pleasure — courtesy of Melbourne-based, violin-centric, progressive metal band Ne Obliviscaris. And, well, I’ll let them explain the rest:
Do you have good manners?
From very little we’re taught that sharing is the polite thing to do. So later today at 5pm (AEST), May 3, 2012 we are going to put up a new song from the album ‘Portal Of I’ (out May 7!), and in return all we ask of you guys is that if you like it, share it!
Let’s see how many people we can get sharing this song and how many people we can get to hear it!
Don’t hog it all to yourself, be polite and share.
You can RSVP to International Ne Obliviscaris Sharing Day here.
**Update: head on over here to check out the new song!**
New album Portal of I can be pre-ordered here; the official release date is the 7th of May.
Happy May Day! Also, happy International Workers’ Day, for those readers lucky enough to live someplace that celebrates that holiday — I hope you’re enjoying your day off work as much as I am not enjoying my day not off work. Which is to say, quite a lot. But there’s nothing to prevent me from imagining I’m someplace else; I do it pretty much any other day, anyway!
Now, to be honest, as an American I really don’t know anything about May Day celebrations except for what I’ve seen in movies, so basically I am picturing a bunch of people in old-fashioned clothes, dancing in a circle with a bunch of ribbons tied to a pole, while playing some folk songs. There’s lots of flowers and happy shit all around, and people are celebrating springtime and nature and generally acting like a bunch of hippies. Actually, that sounds pretty fucking lame.
So naturally, in my imagined celebration, I need to make some serious modifications. First of all, any hints of happiness and dancing has got to go. That would just make me more depressed, and frankly, I’d be better off just being here at work, totally miserable. No thanks. We can swap out the folk music for some folk metal, and instead of the springtime celebration of nature… well, I don’t mind the pro-nature sentiments, but I need everyone to be all pissed-off about it, like they’re ready to smash someone’s face in.
Then it hit me — some really angry folk metal that’s rooted in pagan celebrations and violently pro-environment while being equally anti-humanity, that sounds awfully familiar. Time to break out some Krampus!
Happy Tuesday, readers! Just passing along the word about another great contest sponsored by Metalhit and Metal Maniacs. This one offers you the chance to pick up three brand new CDs from Doomentia Records!
All you have to do to enter is CLICK HERE, then fill out your name and address. Good luck!
Good evening, readers! Well, another Monday has come and gone. That’s okay by me; coming back to work after a three-day weekend is never fun, and I am glad to get it over with as quickly as possible. Before the end of the day, though, I need to check in with the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website to find something good to listen to, so that I can share it with you! Today, I found a message that I’d received from Mind Structure, a band whose members come from the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv (Київ) and Kryvyi Rih (Кривий Ріг) asking for a review of their music. Now, I’m familiar with Kyiv (also called “Kiev”), which is the capital of the country, but Kryvyi Rih was brand new to me. Thankfully, I have Wikipedia to help me; it informs me that this city is located in the middle of a large iron mining region, and in fact, that it’s one of the most important locations in eastern Europe’s steel industry. Sounds like a place I can relate to! Besides that, I had such success listening to Ukrainian black metal last week, I figured it would be a good idea to check out someone else from that country.
Hey readers! If you’re looking for something to keep you busy on a boring Monday evening, head on down to Altar Bar in the Strip, because I’ve just learned that Swedish power metal giants Sabaton are swinging through town tonight as part of their Swedish Empire Tour through North America! I would’ve posted this earlier but I just found the above poster this morning, which local thrashers Sick Twisted Debauchery had linked to on their Facebook page last night. (People need to tell me about these things sooner so I have time to pass the word along to you!)
Anyway, details for this particular show are reprinted at the bottom of this post, after a list of all the confirmed dates remaining on the tour…
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Time to breathe a huge sigh of relief. As of midnight last night, school’s out for summer! I feel a bit dazed, and a bit numb. I’ve been out of high school for fifteen years now, so it’s refreshing to know I should only have about one more year to go before I finally complete my degree. But honestly, I don’t want to think about that right now. I don’t want to think about anything at all if I can help it. I know I can use a bit of work on my time management skills, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been up until past four in the morning Thursday night trying to get stuff caught up. Let me tell you, it’s pretty surreal to be getting ready to go to bed and to hear your alarm clock telling you it’s time to get up for work. I didn’t have to get up for work yesterday; I had the day off and took advantage of that to head out to the physical campus to take some final exams, as well as getting some last-minute homework turned in, but nevertheless it is weird to be getting into bed at around the same time I had gotten out of bed the previous day!
All of that made for a pretty interesting Friday, but I am just totally relieved to have all of that over with — at least for the next few months. And as I said, I really don’t want to have to do any thinking, or anything at all that might be mentally taxing. I just need a few days to recover, I think. On the upside, I will probably be spending more time writing blog posts, so you’re welcome for that! For now, though, I just want to curl up in this chair with a bottle of wine (an Argentinian chardonnay from Bodega Elena de Mendoza, if you were curious), and my headphones, and listen to something that doesn’t really require any mental effort. My plan is just to close my eyes and let my consciousness drift off into some state of complete numbness.
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Good morning, Readers. Do you think I’m strange? Wait, don’t answer that. What I mean is, does it sound strange to you if I say that listening to some of the darkest, most mournful and depressing music actually makes me feel better? Here’s an example: last year I listened to a stream of Loss‘s critically-acclaimed album Despond, when that was made available shortly before the album’s release. I thought it was really good stuff — but shortly after that I was reading some reviews on some of the blogs I frequent, and admittedly I was confused by what they were saying. Stuff like how the experience took the listener to a really dark place, filled with torture and anguish and misery. I remember thinking to myself, I should really go back and listen to that again, because I remember coming out feeling peaceful and uplifted.
So with that in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two possible things happening here: either I am totally strange, with some sort of abnormal personality disorder… or else being at work (where I do quite a bit of my music listening) is such an awful and soul-crushing experience, that listening to aural expressions of pure melancholy actually can brighten that environment. I don’t know, probably it’s a little bit of both.
In any case, I’ve developed quite a taste for the doomier side of music. I love doom metal, I’ve found that I generally prefer death/doom over standard death metal, and just within the past year or so I’ve discovered a strong passion for Funeral Doom. So, the next logical step would be a Funeral Doom plus Death Metal hybrid, right? Of course it would. I propose that it would be called Funeral Death. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Anhedonist.
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Valley of Steel 