Hello again, readers, and a happy Wednesday morning to you! My vacation has ended and I’m back to pollute your in-box and/or RSS reader with random ramblings and desultory dialogue.
…and music, of course. After all, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it — to discover some new tunes, not to hear me whine about how lousy my day was at work or whatever?
So then, let’s get straight to it, shall we?
Well, folks, you’ve been looking forward to this for several years, and it’s finally here: The Faceless have finally put out their third album!
Well, when I say “you” I mean “a LOT of you” — here’s a band that has almost 200,000 Facebook likes (compared with the typical band I write about, which might have several hundred, or a couple thousand at most). So yeah, that’s a lot of people, and probably a good chunk of my faithful readers, hence the reason I felt compelled to pass along the details about this new album when they popped up in my in-box.
Do you know who was not among those hundred-grand-plus anxiously awaiting? Yours truly. The news of new The Faceless material left me feeling pretty indifferent, simply for the reason that I’d never heard this band before. True story. Now, I’m not one of those über-elitist types who refuses to listen to anything that isn’t underground enough — I like to believe I’m more open-minded than most — but more often than not, the modern style of metal music that’s currently in vogue (without naming names, let’s just say I’m referring to the bulk of stuff that gets played on Liquid Metal, or the bands that seem to have the most rabid fans among commenters over at MetalSucks) just doesn’t do anything for me.
Or to put it another way, it seems like the more hype that surrounds a band or an album, the less likely I actually end up enjoying it. Not that I purposely dislike stuff because it’s popular, it just seems to work out that way a lot of the time. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, and so I would never totally dismiss something without first giving it a shot, but I also typically wouldn’t go out of my way to check something out if I got that sort of a vibe from it.
But part of that earlier post prior to the album’s release included a video trailer, and the small amount of music that was included in that preview didn’t really sound like all the other generic crap floating on the airwaves nowadays. In fact, it struck me as a bit intriguing. So I decided I wanted to check it out — to see what the big deal was.
So Autotheism officially hit the store shelves ten days ago (figuratively speaking, as I’m pretty sure they don’t actually have shelves at iTunes or wherever), and since then I’ve heard it from start to finish no less than ten times. At this point, I feel that I can confidently say, this is an amazing album and I strongly recommend you take the time to discover what it has to offer — I’m sure that you, too, will be glad you did.
Good afternoon, readers! Are you having a good day so far? I hope so. I know it’s still Monday, but at least it’s almost over, right?
Anyway, I’ve got an excellent serving of black metal I’d like to share with you all. Laster (“libel” or “defamation” in English) is a two-piece band from the Netherlands. Each of the members is also involved in other musical projects, but they both use initials as pseudonyms (and both are credited with “vocals and all instruments”) so it isn’t much use trying to discuss that.
In fact, outside of their city (Utrecht) and country of origin, pretty much everything else about this band is mysterious. They don’t even have a Facebook or Myspace page (as far as I have been able to discover). In a way it’s a shame, because I do like to find as much information as possible so I can be more knowledgeable about what I’m writing about.
At the same time, isn’t part of the allure of black metal its arcane nature, that sense of mysteriousness? Perhaps sometimes the ease with which the internet has put nearly limitless information at our fingertips can actually detract a bit from the magic? Turn the extraordinary and unique into something familiar and commonplace?
In any case, that’s the extent of the details I am able to share. Even the EP title and each of the three song titles have aluded my translation (via Google) abilities. I’ve been able to pick out a few words, but not enough to decipher anything meaningful. For example, the record is called Wijsgeer & Narreman; apparently the first word means “philosopher” or “sage” but the second part has no results however hard I try searching. Perhaps one of my helpful Dutch friends will want to offer some assistance?
Well hello there, readers! I know it’s been a long-ass time since I’ve posted anything, and for that I apologize. Things have just gotten super-busy at work and at home, and so there’s barely been any time for writing … I definitely hope to get some more posts published in the very near future, because I do have a ton of stuff to share with you! To start with, here’s my review of an amazing album that just came out on vinyl…
Originally self-released digitally and on CD in March of this year, Trephine by Chapel Hill’s MAKE is now available via Devouter Records as of this Monday (30 July).
As you’re surely aware, a trephine is a special type of saw used to cut a hole in the skull, allowing a brain surgeon access to operate.
Similarly, the album Trephine will enter your head, forcing its way deep into the recesses of your mind, but there’ll be no anesthæsia here; you’ll be fully aware the whole time, to witness the journey down to the darkest depths of your psyche.
Okay, first of all I feel like I need to clear this up right away: regardless of how it might sound, a “Cenobite” is not a unit for measuring computer memory. Don’t go into your local electronics store and try to buy a 50 Cenobite hard drive or something.
No, as my research has taught me, the word stems from the Greek roots κοινός (“common”) and βίος (“life”), and refers to individuals involved in the practice of communal living, as typified by Buddhist or Christian monks.
Researching a little bit further, I found that the name was also used for the race of formerly-human beings who live in an extra-dimensional void (but can be summoned to earth through a portal created by solving a complex puzzle-box) in the Hellraiser series of movies and comic books.
As I understand it, these creatures were named Cenobites because their apparently-religious-like devotion to hedonism and sadomasochism had ultimately transformed them into a state where they had completely lost all semblance of humanity, just like monks’ religious-like devotion to — well, to religion — inspires them to give up all earthly possessions and pleasures and enter a communal living environment. I guess.
I’d heard of the Hellraiser series before, but never actually knew anything about it until I read all this stuff earlier today. The funny thing is, the brief overview of the characters, and the synopsis of the first film’s plot that I read, both sounded awfully familiar to me — when I remembered that there was a Mortician song that incorporated a lengthy sample (as many of their songs do) where they talked about these demon-like beings who’d been summoned by using a box, and then they wanted to take somebody back to another dimension of hellish torture, someone who had escaped from their clutches previously. So I poked around a bit more, and found that the song “Hell on Earth” (from Zombie Apocalypse) did, in fact, make use of a sample from the original Hellraiser movie.
Isn’t it funny how sometimes a quick search on Wikipedia can turn into a whole chain of discovery?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past nine months, or have never ever seen a post on this blog before, chances are you’ve heard me talking about the Iron Atrocity project. This is purely a labor of love by the wonderful folks who run the Innervenus Music Collective, and designed as a showcase for the array of high-quality metal (and other related music) we’ve got here in the Pittsburgh area.
It’s been a long time coming, and there have been many trials and tribulations along the way, but the second edition of this compendium of local talent has been completed! Just like volume 1, this new collection will be handed out for free by Innervenus-related bands at shows and other events (beginning with the Iron Atrocity Vol.2 release show, which is scheduled for Friday 03 August 2012), but also just like its predecessor, the compilation can be downloaded for free — and it’s available right now!
The new CD has assembled tracks — some newly recorded, exclusively for the compilation, some taken from recent releases — from sixteen different local bands, all of whom have been mentioned on this website in some form or fashion, at one time or another. Nevertheless, I’ll give you the full rundown on all the songs, about an hour and a quarter in all, that will be yours FREE when you grab this download. All you need to do in return is listen and enjoy, spread the word, and whenever possible, show your support by heading out to some shows (or buying some merchandise)!
Hello readers! As you may have noticed, I’m pretty interested in learning about where different bands come from, and I try to seek out material from places that are unfamiliar to me. Well until now I’ve never written about any music from China, so when I learned about the Core in China Project, I decided it would be a great opportunity to share something that was totally new to me, and probably new to you as well. I’d never heard of Rock in China Records before this compilation was brought to my attention, but I think it’s really cool what they are doing — working to help Chinese musicians find greater exposure across the world.
Despite the censorship and controls on the internet within the Chinese borders, it seems that many people have managed to gain access to foreign recordings and videos somehow, and then post them to websites within that country (which basically serve as Chinese versions of Youtube, etc.); through these means, young bands have been inspired by some of the trends that are taking place across the world and are now able to produce their own take on many new musical genres and sub-genres.
Core in China (described as a “free online compilation of Chinese Metalcore, Deathcore, Nintendocore, Hardcore and Screamo bands that have been selected via an open song submission process from January to May 2012”) is an attempt to document some of what is happening within China (also including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Inner Mongolia). It was officially released online about two months ago, as a free download.
Since this compilation covers a pretty wide range of material, I wouldn’t expect most people to fall in love with everything you’ll find here (for me, personally, it breaks my heart — and also makes my ears bleed a bit — to find that the awful trend of abusing auto-tuning has found its way to that part of the world), but this is a cool way to discover some music you might never have been exposed to otherwise. With around ninety minutes of music, there should be a little something for everyone here!
Below, I’ll give you a brief run-down on what you can expect from the tracklisting, as well as where you can get more information on the project and the bands, and finally where you can grab these free tunes!
Whoah.
Despite all my attempts to stay alert and focused on doing my job, I think I might have accidentally dozed off a little bit just now.
And let me tell you — I had one fucked up dream.
Picture this: King Diamond and his band, Chris Cornell and the rest of Soundgarden, Rob Zombie, Glen Benton and the rest of Deicide, and all four dudes from Mastodon somehow all met up at a party, where they ended up playing cards and drinking and having a good time, and suddenly they decided they wanted to collaborate on a musical project. All of them.
Naturally, with so much talent in the room, nobody could decide who should be the vocalist, so they figured the only fair way would be to let everyone sing — sometimes they’d take turns, or sometimes they’d all join together in like this massive heavy metal choir. Something like the chorus in the Blue Öyster Cult song “Extra Terrestrial Intelligence,” just on a much grander scale.
Another issue arose when it came time to start writing songs, since they all came from such diverse musical backgrounds. But this supergroup soon discovered that they at least had some influences in common — all the great old-school metal, proto-metal, and hard rock bands. So they let this sound be the foundation for their new music, and as they began working together on the songs, they found that the little bits of death metal, stoner metal, thrash, NWOBHM, and whatever else kept creeping into the writing process seemed to mesh together surprisingly well. (I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense — I told you it was a pretty crazy dream!)
How’s it going, Dear Readers? I’ve got another amazing album I would like to share with you. I’ve been so fortunate with how much good stuff I’ve been coming across lately, I only wish that I had more time to write about it all so that you could have the chance to read about it and listen to it sooner! I guess what I’m saying is, it makes me feel guilty that my brain and fingers don’t work quite as fast as my ears sometimes…
Anyway, here we have Portal of I, the (relatively) new album by the Melburnian sextet Ne Obliviscaris. I usually have a pretty good memory when it comes to my history with specific bands, but to be honest I have no idea where or when I discovered these guys. Chances are, I probably read something about them over at No Clean Singing, or possibly at The Number of the Blog, since I’ve made an awful lot of discoveries through both of those places.
Oh and by the way, for all you former TNOTB readers who have been grieving since that website was lost in cyberspace, I hope you’ve started reading Oculus Infernus, the new home of head editor and writer Grover XIII. In case you haven’t seen it yet, the new blog can be found here. (And while we’re at it, No Clean Singing is over here.)
As I was saying, sometime, somehow I came across this group of Aussies, and I found them intriguing enough to “like” them on Facebook. Fast-forward to this May, when the band invited all their fans to “International Ne Obliviscaris Sharing Day” — when they planned to reveal an advance single from their then-forthcoming new album. I wrote about that impromptu holiday, and then shared the song (“Xenoflux”). Based on previous experience I had expected it would be good, but as it turns out, it was amazing!
To make a long story short, soon after that, the album was released in Australia and New Zealand on Welkin Records, a small, independent label run by one of the band members; right around the same time it was announced that Ne Obliviscaris had signed on with Italy’s Code666 Records for the rest of the world. This made perfect sense to me, since I’ve always found that Code666 tends to work with very good — and very unique — bands. So then the album was available all over the world, and about a month later, it’s finally time for me to share this masterpiece with you.
Good morning, readers!
You may have noticed that I don’t normally publish album reviews before the official release dates. Part of the reason might be because I want to share things with you when they’re actually available for you to get your hands on them, because I know how short people’s attention spans can be sometimes — myself included! Sometimes when I read about something several months before it comes out, I might think to myself, “Oh that sounds great, I’ll have to check that out” and then I completely forget about it a few days later.
More than that, though, it’s mostly because I usually just don’t get around to it. I hear about loads of great music and I want to write about all of it, because I want to make sure the bands get the exposure they deserve, and I want to make sure YOU have every opportunity to hear about the new music you want. Besides that, I try to spend as much time as possible with something before I start writing — albums usually get numerous listens on several different days, so that I feel familiar enough with the material to be able to describe it adequately AND so that I can be sure I wasn’t hearing something wrong just because I was grumpy or preoccupied on a particular day.
Unfortunately, I don’t have an unlimited amount of time for writing, which means I’m perpetually running behind. I’ve still got a bunch of albums from 2011 I haven’t even listened to yet, not to mention how much stuff I haven’t had the chance to write about!
When I heard this album full of killer thrash music by Vancouver’s Titans Eve, I knew I would want to write about it and share it with you, but then when I found out that they have pre-order packages (either the digital or CD versions) where they are throwing in a FREE t-shirt, I decided I needed to bring this to your attention sooner rather than later! This Friday (the 13th of July) is the official release date, so hurry up and finish reading, then at the end of this post you’ll get the chance to hear the album for yourself, and I’ll give you all the links you need to take advantage of this special pre-order deal.
For my Canadian friends, I’ve also provided the dates for the band’s July/August tour of western Canada with Anvil, as well as a list of stops when they will be heading east across the rest of the country with Kill Devil Hill.
Valley of Steel 