Necrophiliac – Maze of Forking Paths Set Announced

Necrophiliac - Maze of Forking Paths

Xtreem Music is reissuing Necrophiliac‘s Chaopula: Citadel of Mirrors and all of their demos on a two cd anthology titled Maze of Forking Paths.

If there’s a pioneer band in the Spanish Death Metal scene, that’s NECROPHILIAC! Emerged in ’88, the band released various demos until ’92 when their classic album “Chaopula – Citadel of Mirrors” was released. After that, the band did split-up and it’s now when, after 6 long years trying to get this release out, Xtreem Music is proud to announce the release of a 2-CD containing this album with all demos, unreleased 7″EP’s and live tracks with unreleased tunes on it.

“Maze of Forking Paths” is a complete collection of the band’s studio & live recordings from ’88 to ’92, all remastered with the best possible sound and a killer booklet full of photos, liner notes, demo covers, lyrics, flyers, etc. This is a mandatory release to understand where the spanish Death Metal scene comes from!

Release date for “Maze of Forking Paths” will be September 1st through Xtreem Music on 2-CD format with limited T-shirts available at the same time. You can visit NECROPHILIAC’s official Facebook here: www.facebook.com/necrophiliacdeathmetal and listen to an advance song on the following links:

http://soundcloud.com/xtreemmusic

2 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Budějovický Budvar – Czechvar (Budweiser Budvar) Original

czechvar can

Czechvar (Budweiser Budvar outside of the US) is the original Budweiser beer whose demonymic name Adolphus Busch appropriated for his green apple tasting adjunct lager omni consumer product in the 19th century. Czechvar and Pilsner Urquell were the two beers the communist government of Czechoslovakia chose to export to increase foreign currency reserves. Unlike Pilsner Urquell, Czechvar‘s production was modernized after World War II despite the recipe remaining largely the same an Budějovický Budvar was not privatized after the fall and failure of communism, still remaining an asset of the Czech Ministry of Agriculture. This means that that Czechvar/Budvar remains largely the same as it was decades ago, having kept its distinctive yeast strain, exclusive use of whole-cone Saaz hops, and ninety day lagering period in in comparison to SABMiller slightly genericizing Pilsner Urquell in order to stock it on the import shelf every deli and bodega the world over to compete with the likes of Beck’s, Heineken, and St. Pauli Girl.

(more…)

No Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Sorcier des Glaces / Ende – Le puits des morts (2016)

sorcier des glace and monarque - Le puits des morts

Le puits des morts is a split album featuring Sorcier des Glaces and French black metal band Ende. On the first side, Sorcier des Glaces present four all new songs in their distinctive style of epic black metal continuing from their last few albums (including North from earlier in 2016) after the band’s abandoning of keyboards.

(more…)

4 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , ,

“C” Is For Average

c_is_for_average

Metal was born of the fusion of heavy rock, horror music, progressive rock and the nascent proto-punk movement. The history of rock is the history of rebellion and rule-breaking: from Friedrich Liszt making his strings break live at key moments on purpose, to Jerry Lee Lewis lighting the piano on fire, to the Beatles with their hairstyles and jackets which were radical for the time, to the Doors being suggestive on the Ed Sullivan show, through Hendrix burning his guitar, to Kiss being super-sexual and painting their faces, to Black Sabbath who sang about Satan and magic, to Metallica who combined neoclassical with thrash and had a hard-partying image, to Slayer’s seemingly outright Satanism. Metal is about taking things one step further, breaking the rules and being unique. Not about following them.

Good music aims for a grade of “A” by experimenting and breaking the rules, but in doing so, takes the chance that it will get an “F.” Think of good music as Icarus: he flies toward the Heavens (or in the case of metal: towards hell) aware he is taking a big chance. He may well crash and burn to the ground in pursuit of his musical ideals. It’s a risk Icarus is willing to take.

Today we have way, way too many bands following all the rules of their genre, and not enough acts pressing ahead. When I look at my local scene it is clear that the bands who have stayed together a long while, while following the rules of their genre, are the bands who have been most successful. Most of these bands have decent music and are listenable. But its not stuff I want to listen to more than once, or see live more than once. This is the curse of local bands: competent, good at following trends, but not so good that they break out and become emblematic of those trends.

(more…)

63 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Classic reviews:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z