It's that time again!
It's that time again - more metal straight from the warped minds of me, myself and I (we've gotten over the bout of schizophrenia, we swear!).
Let's start with a look at a few pieces of news in the metal world. I have to start off with amazing news involving my absolute favourite technical death metallers, GORGUTS!. There are two sweet little pieces of news. First off, a new live Gorguts CD and a new live DVD are coming out in early-mid 2006. The CD was recorded in 1993, and the DVD was recorded from the tour supporting Obscura. Obscura... live... *drool*. Man, I'm stoked for that.
But, that's all old material, right? Well, Gorguts may be dead, but a new project called Negativa has been started, which feature's Gorguts' own vocal/guitar stylings of Steeve Hurdle and Luc Lemay. The rest of the lineup is Dominic Lapointe on bass and Etienne Gallo on drums, both from Augury, among others. The writing team from Gorguts with the rhythm section from Augury? I'm super stoked about this, now.
A couple new MP3 postings on Blabbermouth have caught my attention. First, let's take a look at Distorted, a "progressive doom" band with a female vocalist who both sings and does death-metal growls, in a similar fashion to current Arch Enemy. They recently posted the track "Redemption", from their upcoming CD "Memorial". I'm not sure really how "doom"y the sound actually is, but it's good stuff. The vocalist's growls are some of the best from a woman that I've ever heard, and the clean vocals are fantastic. I have to say, I enjoy that combination a lot more than the operatic female/growling male combo of Nightwish and Lacuna Coil. Check the song out, and for my metal-challenged friends, it's quite accessible.
Speaking of accessible, also posted today was a track by Jester's Funeral, from their fourth(!) album. I've never heard of them, but they play a catchy, somewhat thrashy brand of metal with great hooks. The posted track, "Miss Singularity" is a rocking good time, and has some interesting spoken passages. Here is the origin of the passages:
"Like on their third album, the lyrics are written by Jan D. Kucharzewski. Together with America’s brilliant author and screenwriter John Shirley the idea of soundtracking selected short stories came to life. John Shirley, the godfather of cyberpunk, made his breakthrough in Hollywood with the script of the movie “The Crow”, worked together with Alice Cooper and Blue Öyster Cult and wrote the novels to the current blockbuster “Constantine” and ego-shooter “doom”."
Now, there are a couple of *official* complete album downloads that I've come across recently that have introduced me to types of metal I've really never experienced before. First, let's look at Woodtemple - The Call From The Pagan Woods. This is an example of the pagan metal/black metal crossbreed, and I have to say, it's pretty incredible. While you may only see five songs on the album, it spans more than 45 minutes, and is structured to be very deliberate and repetitive, but in a good way. It has these great, sweeping builds, and the whole thing is really evocative, slowly changing between hopeful, melancholy, and desperate. The vocals are a very low, gurgling rasp, which are completely indiscernable lyrics-wise, but somehow, they complement the music, and they aren't hard on the ears. I would definitely reccommend the adventurous download this stuff and give it a listen - it very well may grow on you.
There is also the Dreams of Winter Under the Scorched Summer Sun compilation(http://cp05.ionhosting.com/~joelh/comp/compilation.htm), put together by Lunar Hypnosis Webzine. It's 17 tracks of metal, usually some sort of folk or black metal. It covers a lot of ground, and I think that most people could find a few tracks that they like. This is something I haven't explored really at all before, but it's a nice primer to the different styles and sounds possiblle. Free is free, so check it out!
That's it for now, because it's late, but there's so much more to talk about, like my new love of all things thrash metal. Until then, take it easy, and keep it metal! \m/
Let's start with a look at a few pieces of news in the metal world. I have to start off with amazing news involving my absolute favourite technical death metallers, GORGUTS!. There are two sweet little pieces of news. First off, a new live Gorguts CD and a new live DVD are coming out in early-mid 2006. The CD was recorded in 1993, and the DVD was recorded from the tour supporting Obscura. Obscura... live... *drool*. Man, I'm stoked for that.
But, that's all old material, right? Well, Gorguts may be dead, but a new project called Negativa has been started, which feature's Gorguts' own vocal/guitar stylings of Steeve Hurdle and Luc Lemay. The rest of the lineup is Dominic Lapointe on bass and Etienne Gallo on drums, both from Augury, among others. The writing team from Gorguts with the rhythm section from Augury? I'm super stoked about this, now.
A couple new MP3 postings on Blabbermouth have caught my attention. First, let's take a look at Distorted, a "progressive doom" band with a female vocalist who both sings and does death-metal growls, in a similar fashion to current Arch Enemy. They recently posted the track "Redemption", from their upcoming CD "Memorial". I'm not sure really how "doom"y the sound actually is, but it's good stuff. The vocalist's growls are some of the best from a woman that I've ever heard, and the clean vocals are fantastic. I have to say, I enjoy that combination a lot more than the operatic female/growling male combo of Nightwish and Lacuna Coil. Check the song out, and for my metal-challenged friends, it's quite accessible.
Speaking of accessible, also posted today was a track by Jester's Funeral, from their fourth(!) album. I've never heard of them, but they play a catchy, somewhat thrashy brand of metal with great hooks. The posted track, "Miss Singularity" is a rocking good time, and has some interesting spoken passages. Here is the origin of the passages:
"Like on their third album, the lyrics are written by Jan D. Kucharzewski. Together with America’s brilliant author and screenwriter John Shirley the idea of soundtracking selected short stories came to life. John Shirley, the godfather of cyberpunk, made his breakthrough in Hollywood with the script of the movie “The Crow”, worked together with Alice Cooper and Blue Öyster Cult and wrote the novels to the current blockbuster “Constantine” and ego-shooter “doom”."
Now, there are a couple of *official* complete album downloads that I've come across recently that have introduced me to types of metal I've really never experienced before. First, let's look at Woodtemple - The Call From The Pagan Woods. This is an example of the pagan metal/black metal crossbreed, and I have to say, it's pretty incredible. While you may only see five songs on the album, it spans more than 45 minutes, and is structured to be very deliberate and repetitive, but in a good way. It has these great, sweeping builds, and the whole thing is really evocative, slowly changing between hopeful, melancholy, and desperate. The vocals are a very low, gurgling rasp, which are completely indiscernable lyrics-wise, but somehow, they complement the music, and they aren't hard on the ears. I would definitely reccommend the adventurous download this stuff and give it a listen - it very well may grow on you.
There is also the Dreams of Winter Under the Scorched Summer Sun compilation(http://cp05.ionhosting.com/~joelh/comp/compilation.htm), put together by Lunar Hypnosis Webzine. It's 17 tracks of metal, usually some sort of folk or black metal. It covers a lot of ground, and I think that most people could find a few tracks that they like. This is something I haven't explored really at all before, but it's a nice primer to the different styles and sounds possiblle. Free is free, so check it out!
That's it for now, because it's late, but there's so much more to talk about, like my new love of all things thrash metal. Until then, take it easy, and keep it metal! \m/