MetalSucks

Oh Anso, you so silly with your band acronyms. You also so dead-on with your praise of One Man Army and the Undead Quartet. Like Stratovarius, 1MA+U4 are one of those bands whose name constantly graces Blabbermouth headlines but to whom I’ve never actually listened. How could that be given they’re fronted by ex-The Crown singer Johan Lindstrom? I do not know.

On a complete unrelated note in the same article, Anso (who’s also an MS contributor, you ninnies) chimes in with this truth about French tech-deathsters Gorod (whose 2009 album Process of a New Decline we’ve praised endlessly here on MS):

I learned that in Gorod, technical metal is being wrested away from clever East Coast hipsters and back into the domain of heshers thank you Europe. Like any good pursuit, it is improving itself and less and less frequently being comprised of five guys wanking in unison.

I <3 Anso.

Hugz,
VN

Italian experimental metallers Carnal Rapture sent us their latest 5-song EP several months ago, and though I only just got to listen to it recently… HOLY SHIT!

The first good sign was the design of the CD itself: one side is completely silver and one side is completely black (but not silkscreened — the plastic is actually black). After inserting the CD into my computer silver-side down as I would most CDs, my computer spit that shit right back out at me. Having the black side be the side with the audio on it? METAL!

But most importantly, Carnal Rapture’s style of metal is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Seriously. And you know we hear a LOT of shit (I mean that in both senses of the word “shit”) here at the MS Mansion. Carnal Rapture certainly take inlfluence from progressive extreme metal bands like Cynic and Gorguts, but theirs is a much more modern, refined, completely new, and yes, much heavier sound. And while their music is certainly “technical” to be sure, it doesn’t veer anywhere near the modern tech-death “weedily weedily” fests that newer bands like Gorod and Obscura peddle (I love these bands too, but I’m just sayin’). Carnal Rapture take things way more in a decidedly jazzy direction… heavy as fuck jazz, naturally. The only current band I’d even moderately liken them to would be Intronaut, specifically that band’s early material. This is music that’s heavy, heady, progressive, technical, jazzy, artful, concise… pretty much everything I look for in a new band.

So upon opening and listening to this stellar gem of a record, I emailed the band’s vocalist and guitarist Emilio Trillo to ask his permission to post a track. Here it is, “Precious Time,” the EP’s opening number. I hope you like it as much as I do. If you’d like to hear more, visit Carnal Rapture on MySpace.

Carnal Rapture – “Precious Time”

-VN

Literally, inside a steel box — with no ventilation at all. That’s what French tech-death masters Gorod (over whom we’ve gushed many times on these pages) are doing at Evento 2009, a 2-day art event taking place in Bordeaux, France on October 18th and 19th. Reports Ballsinmouth:

Gorod will perform inside Portuguese artist João Onofre’s “Box Sized Die” installation, a soundproof, steel-walled cube, an homage to Tony Smith’s DIE, an icon of American sculpture dating from 1962. At the beginning of the performance, they will play with the door open (normal concert volume level). Then the door will be shut and nothing more will be heard outside. As the cube has no ventilation, the concert will last at most 14 minutes, after which the exhausted band will open the door again.

That’s pretty awesome, but also kind of petrifying. The picture you see above is of the band Darkmoon performing inside the very same box at last year’s event; I’d be scared as fuck of dying of asphyxiation inside a box that size, whatwith 4 other dudes fighting for the same oxygen as I am for 14 fucking minutes. Although, if things go awry, we’d end up with fodder for the most metal death ever; THAT would be performance art.

If you haven’t checked out Gorod’s excellent Process of a New Decline released earlier this year, get on that shit. You’re missing out.

-VN

It’s been a doozy of a year for metal releases already, hasn’t it?

After the jump, the records I’ve been jamming the most so far that might or might not end up on my year-end Top 10.

Click to read more…

Lazy journalism comparisons to Gojira be damned, there is some damn fine metal coming out of France these days. Whether or not that has anything to do with Gojira laying the groundwork for French bands to gain wider recognition in America is up for debate, but the facts are the facts: good metal = happy Vince.

• Gorod: I’ve chronicled my love of this band in this space before. If you like tech-death firestorms, you oughtta check this band out; their new record Process of a New Decline is a juicy, explosion of head-dizzying technical death metal.
• Hacride: More in the progressive/Opethian veign of the death metal spectrum, Hacride blend Meshuggian groove with the melody and aggression of the aforementioned Swedish death metal kings. Their new album Lazarus is available now.
• Eryn Non Dae: END.’s is certainly influenced by Meshuggah as well, but theirs is a more raw, visceral, dissonant, groove-laden take on what Hacride do. Axl just posted a trippy video of theirs last week which you should check out.

So that’s that. Get your France on.

-VN

Back in March we reported that French tech-metallers Gorod had released a new song from their forthcoming Listenable Records album Process Of A New Decline, and that said song was ridiculously awesome. Gorod have just posted another new song on their MySpace page entitled “Programmers Of Decline,” an equally orgasm-inducing nugget of progressive tech-death that makes my dick hard in anticipation of the new record (for which no official release date has been announced). The new song is five solid minutes of techy, deathy, shreddy goodness; while I listen, I’m fantasizing about a utopian U.S. tour dream lineup featuring Obscura, Psycroptic, Arsis, The Faceless and Gorod. Never gonna happen, right?

-VN

MS Maniac Tiagon sent us a link to a new track by the French “mighty shredketeers” (his words) Gorod. I’d never listened to Gorod before, but the “shredketeer” classification certainly seems apt and I highly approve. Gorod play the kind of progressive / technical death metal peddled by bands like Arsis, Obscura and Psycroptic; aka they’re fucking awesome. Do yourself a favor and go listen to their new song “Disavow Your God” on their MySpace page right now. The band expects to have an album out this summer on Willowtip.

-VN