Dark Funeral preparing new studio album for 2016

by Gabe Kagan on November 24, 2015

df_ss2016
Around here, Dark Funeral is probably best known for being one of David Parland’s (Necrophobic et al, RIP) projects that later took on a life of its own as a relatively mainstream sort of black metal act, similar in streamlining, commercializing effect to bands like Dimmu Borgir or Marduk. The band’s recently announced a new studio album for 2016 through their various social media presences, although not much information about the album and its approach have been revealed yet. It’s probably going to not only be more of the same (which is typical for aging bands that don’t go for major style shifts), but also even more of the same, given that the band is commonly criticized for a lack of diversity. For a good primer on the band’s overall approach, see their 1994 debut EP, which has been reissued several times over the years with varying quantities of supplementary Bathory covers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP1JZc8o8JM

5 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Metallica continues San Francisco Giants concert series

by Gabe Kagan on November 24, 2015


In the latest of what are assured to be profitable sporting events, Metallica will perform their 4th “Metallica Night” at AT&T Park on May 6th, 2016, alongside a baseball game featuring the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies. This ungainly combination of baseball and metal music is sure to make a lot of money. Now, stadium performances are a pretty common choice for bands of Metallica’s commercial stature, but they’re usually not interleaved between innings of baseball like this. Furthermore, the Giants host an enormous amount of special events to liven up their seasons, so maybe their acquisition of Metallica’s services isn’t so out of the ordinary. In the end, an opportunity for those who like both (they of exquisite taste), and the punchline of a joke that’s yet to be written for everyone on DMU.

2 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Blood Music preparing a expensive Emperor vinyl box set

by Gabe Kagan on November 23, 2015

emperor_the_complete_works1
After two and a half years of preparation, Blood Music is compiling a huge and particularly expensive box set of everything Emperor officially released, and then some. For 700 Euros (currently 744.52 USD or 492.38 pounds sterling), you can get a swathe of material released between 1992 and 2009 – from the band’s earliest demos, to their studio albums, to the occasional post-dissolution live performance document and so on. Now, this is obviously a major financial investment; the people at Blood Music claim it’s due to the cost of press vinyl and creating the lavish packaging. Unless you’re a complete and utter Emperor die hard, it’s a tough sell, and it suffers from the typical box set pitfall of including later and less accomplished works in addition to In The Nightside Eclipse. Blood Music would do well to renege on their promise not to publish albums separately in this form, at least if they want to get in on the ambitious “One Emperor Album Per Child” initiative we could start if we had the funding and global reach we seek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb6JiKL3d1s

7 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Borknagar sets release date for Winter Thrice

by Gabe Kagan on November 21, 2015

borknagar winter thrice
The bastard sons of Molested are back. Borknagar started their career as a melodic ‘viking’ themed black metal band, but gradually (under the influence of its revolving door of vocalists) evolved towards the sort of melodramatic, pseudo-progressive heavy rock music of their post-black companions like Arcturus and Solefald. Winter Thrice is allegedly going to hearken back to the band’s earlier days in some ways, but judging from the sample track released, this is going to be the same sort of musically proficient but sterile product so many other bands are releasing. It comes out on January 22nd, 2016, further adding to the barrage of upcoming releases in that month and on that day in particular.

10 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Chthe’ilist to release Le dernier crépuscule

by Gabe Kagan on November 20, 2015

chtheilist
You don’t get a great deal of straight up Demilich worship, but Chthe’ilist got some buzz a few years ago for having some clear similarities in their aesthetics and writing style. This presumably continues on the band’s upcoming full length debut – Le Dernier Crépuscule will come out in January 2016. Several record labels have claimed the rights to various formats, but Profound Lore is responsible for the CD pressing and digital releases, so that’s probably who you should go unless you’re a major collector. Profound Lore has already released a preview track from this album – “Voidspawn” bears some surface similarities to the works of Demilich, but otherwise sounds a bit smoothed out and obviously streamlined to meet the requirements of a larger audience.

9 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Rhapsody of Fire unveils new album – Into The Legend

by Gabe Kagan on November 19, 2015

into the legend
The consistently bombastic and melodramatic (except when splitting into two bands) Rhapsody of Fire has revealed the cover art and tracklisting for Into The Legend. Intended for release on January 15th, 2016, Into the Legend will likely continue the band’s signature style, although word on the street is that its predecessor (Dark Wings of Steel) was a partial departure from such. Without a promotional single, there’s not a great deal of information we can work with. On the other hand, expect the media to compare this to Luca Turilli’s competing and recent Prometheus, Symphonia Ignis Divinus, and perhaps for the bigger symphonic power metal fans to insist that it either does or does not live up to whatever standard some of the other bands in the genre have set with their recent material.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Brutality to release new album – Sea of Ignorance

by Gabe Kagan on November 15, 2015

sea of ignorance
The relatively obscure Floridan death metal band Brutality is releasing a new studio album (Sea of Ignorance) on January 22nd, 2016, following up on 2013’s Ruins of Humans EP, and several albums in the 1990s. Back then, they mixed influences from various contemporary acts into their own unique style; generally more melodic and phrasal than not and sometimes even reminiscent of Scandinavian acts like At the Gates and Sentenced. Since Ruins of Humans built off that and the band apparently retains some of its lineup from that time (according to their Facebook), it’s likely that Sea of Ignorance will continue that style; it would certainly be a worthy addition to your collection if that turns out to be the case.

2 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Fleshgod Apocalypse reveals cover art for King

by Gabe Kagan on November 14, 2015

fga_king
Fleshgod Apocalypse is probably one of the most popular Italian metal bands (sorry, Sadist), although not necessarily for the best reasons, as their maximalist, symphonic death metal ambitions aren’t matched by the same level of attention to songwriting as their Western classical inspirations. Still, they press on; King has been under construction for some time, and this cover art (painted by Eliran Kantor) is certainly part of the conceptual backing for the album. When the band revealed this artwork through Facebook, they described the “King” as “…the last stand of integrity and justice in a court infested by traitors, villains, perverts, parasites and prostitutes” and furthermore decried the decay of society’s values and standards. Does this sound familiar? Either way, writing coherent symphonic death metal represents a challenge, and we’ll probably see how it turns out closer to its release date.

4 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Vektor releases new track from upcoming full-length

by Gabe Kagan on November 13, 2015

I found myself interested in Vektor after discovering their studio albums late in 2011. Essentially an extreme speed metal band that at times reminds me of a souped up Destruction (although their visual imagery is clearly patterned off Voivod), Vektor demonstrates great technical ability and knowledge, but more importantly writes coherent and well structured songs that allow them to effectively use their prowess to explore interesting musical ideas and to illustrate science fiction/dystopian themes. “Ultimate Artificer”, off the upcoming Terminal Redux, tends to favor the melodic and consonant side of the band’s work. It is still representative of their overall sound, and certainly should be of value to anyone interested in this genre or Vektor’s overall themes. Terminal Redux is currently scheduled for release on March 11th, 2016.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , ,

Obscura teases upcoming album – Akroasis

by Gabe Kagan on November 10, 2015

Usually, when the word “obscura” enters my brain, it’s because of the works of Gorguts, and not this band. Then again, Obscura’s jazz-fusion-prog-techdeath-clusterfuck approach hasn’t won much of a fandom here, but it has won some acclaim from the meatworld for being disorganized, diverse, and instrumentally proficient. The teaser for Akroasis is full of more of the same, beginning with an intro highly reminiscent of “Veil of Maya” off Cynic’s debut album before abruptly shifting into an unrelated progression for reasons that very likely are not related to this video being composed of 45-60 second snippets of Akroasis‘s songs. If the rest of the album is like this (and I’m sure it will be), even its most ardent fans will find themselves infatuated with something else long before this album gets its own successor.

5 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