Extol gives us a “Gift Beyond Human Reach”

Extol, one of those awesome bands that everyone should listen to, are set to release their new album next week (and if you live in their native Norway, you can get it today!). In anticipation of that, the band have released a few tracks from the album and the one of them has a video. Amazing huh? And in 2013! Wow!

Saracasm aside, the song is killer and the video isn’t too shabby. It definitely straddles that line between too much self-promotion and boring “band playing in an empty venue” thing, but it’s cut well and the song doesn’t sound pretentious at all. So, it works. Check it out and go buy yourself a copy of Extol’s self-titled new one when you can (June 25th for those of us in North America and June 25th for the EU).

 

-Dan

Blue Stahli leaves you bloody and numb.

In 2011, I was alerted to the musical stylings of Blue Stahli via a friend. His 2011 album was one of my favorites that year and while I wouldn’t exactly call it metal, it is some pretty great electronic infused rock. Or vice versa. So, I’m happy to alert you the first music video from that album, for the lead off track “UltraNUMB.” It’s a pretty rocking song, super infectious, and the video has a equal doses of nice visuals, humor and blood. How can that combination not be good?! If you like the track, go pick up the album here. Now, without further b.s., here’s the video which debuted yesterday at Bloody Disgusting!

 

-Dan

Benea Reach look to the summit, don’t quite make it.

One thing that I enjoy about the ridiculous amounts of bands that I follow, is that every now and then one slips through the cracks until they release new music. Then, I get to rediscover said band all over again. It’s like a birthday present that you get to open twice and be just as excited about the second time! Meshuggah were like this for quite sometime (they’ve recently, as in the past few years, made it into my regular rotation). Benea Reach are another one. I really enjoyed their last album Alleviat when I heard it back in 2009, but I never followed them. So, it came as surprise to me yesterday when there was a new video/song from the Norwegians on all the metal blogs.

The song, “The Mountain,” is a decent song. In fact, it’s a pretty good tune. Lots of heavy, a nice chorus and the video is interesting enough. Unfortunately, the song also plods a little and doesn’t have the same “umph” they used to. That said, I still found myself replaying it a couple of times and one decent song does not a great album ruin. So, I’ll look forward to their next slab of music. In the mean time, check out the video for “Mountain” below.

 

Benea Reach’s new one, Posession, comes out on March 22 via Spinefarm.

-Dan

And… we are back from the silence!

Oh, hey guys! Sorry it’s been awhile. We’ve been pretty quiet because, well, this happened (switch math for English):

And this happened (sort of):

And this happened:

 

It’s all good though. Because, uh, we are going to start writing again. Maybe. Until then, here’s some Meshuggah for you. Happy day!

*YAWN*

Oh, hey guys. Sorry, I must have fallen asleep while listening to the new All That Remains song. Man, remember when we thought this band was really cool and exciting? Good times.

-Dan

“dUg” Pinnick wants to know what you gonna do and make you sick.

It’s no secret I’m a fan of King’s X. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the follow up to their fantastic 2008 disc XV, but as with most of the really good bands, they don’t make much money and therefore wait a long time between albums. However, the three members of the band are really prolific artists on their own and have released solo albums in that time. Apparently, lead vocalist/bassist Doug (styled “dUg”) Pinnick has a new album coming out called Naked sometime in the next… whenever. And as such, he’s released a track from that album called, “What You Gonna Do?” in the form of a self-filmed music video.

And when I way self-filmed, I mean it’s himself holding a camera to himself while he lip syncs the words and spins around the room. It’s all a little too nauseating for my tastes and it makes me wonder just how high dUg was when he filmed it (the man is a well-known fan of the ganja). The song isn’t half bad though. Like most of his stuff, it’s got some heaviness to it, some groove, and while not the greatest thing ever, it is pretty fun. Check out the vid below and be on the lookout for Naked sometime in the future.

-Dan

Still counting… on hard rock to give me something to care about.

Unlike what seems to be an increasing amount of individuals, I did not start my heavy music career off with hardcore or post-hardcore and then migrate to metal. Seems like this is the progression for a lot of kids these days. I’m old, so for me it began with hard rock bands, particularly the early nineties stuff. Because of this, I have a soft spot for hard rock and every now and then I decide to peep the local hard rock radio station (which is always announced as “pure… new… ROCK!”) to see just what all the construction workers are listening to these days. And the other day, I heard this song…

…and I laughed. Pretty hard too. “Counting all the assholes in the room.” Poetic stuff, right there. We (meaning I) give a lot of crap to scene/core bands because it’s easy fodder and it’s so far removed from what I grew up with I don’t feel bad throwing them on the fire. This Volbeat stuff though… it’s not much better. And now I know why no one has recommended them to me. So, yeah I’m not playing favorites with my snark here. I can poke fun at myself (sort of) too! I guess the likes of Behemoth have just corrupted me too much, as I can’t think of one modern hard rock band worth a damn.

Then again, maybe I’m just another asshole in the room.

-Dan

Project 86 let loose another new track.

Project 86 are getting ready to release their new, fan funded album Wait for the Siren on August 21st. Over the past few weeks, the band have been debuting different tracks on different sites and the most recent one is “New Transmission” over at Noisecreep. This is definitely not the heaviest track they’ve ever composed, but it is a pretty catchy one. Like most recent P86 tracks, the chorus has a definite hook to it and creates a great sense of melody. It’s kind of light on the riffage, which is strange considering the band have always had great riffs. I’m not sure if this is due to the revamped line-up leaving only vocalist Andrew Schwab as the only remaining original member, or what but I guess the answer will come with the release of the whole album.

You can check out the track here.

-Dan

Machine Head’s “Darkness Within” has a lot of heavy-handed symbolism

Machine Head debuted the video for “Darkness Within” off of last years excellent Unto the Locust last week. It’s one of the highest quality and biggest production videos of the bands’ career and showcases just how a “bigger” metal band can make great videos.

The video itself is chock full of some heavy-handed symbolism, though. From the images of the church, to the monks and the book of music notes, its not a subtle message. Much like the song, the visuals orchestrate the move from a religious faith to a life of decadence, to a faith in music (and oneself, I would argue). However, the end of the video, where all the band gets buried, leaves something to be desired. As the song is, for the most part, positive in its affirmations of finding faith in music, the video seems to reaffirm that life leads to one point; death. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on here and I could deconstruct it for days. Basically, score one for Machine Head in creating one of the most dynamic and cool videos of the year. I’ll never get why people don’t think this band is awesome.

Check the video below!

-Dan

Black/Death metal band members to appear in Hell documentary.

Christianity and metal have a long, contentious history. Some might posit that without Christianity then there may not have been a heavy metal genre (I think this is silly logic, but I get the reasoning). So it might seem oddly appropriate to talk about a documentary coming out this fall called Hellbound?, which seeks to showcase the varying views of hell in modern Christianity.

At this point you’re probably wondering why we are talking about this. On the movie’s about page, they list the likes of David Vincent, Glenn Benton, Necrobutcher and everyone’s favorite Orderus Ungus as appearing. I’m not sure how prominent any of these metal luminaries will be, or what they will say, but I thought it worth bringing attention to. This could either be really cool, or it could just solidify the statement that all metal bands are evil Satanists. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Here’s the teaser and the movie web page is here.

-Dan