Samothrace
TBA
Label – 20 Buck Spin
Release Date – mid-2012

Certain bands will always stay with you, almost as if the sounds they create and share stick to your bones, get caught in your lungs, or make nests in your atria. Semi-outlandish description, maybe, but there aren’t many other ways I can convey the way Samothrace made me feel upon first listen. My heart nearly stopped from excitement when I learned that a new album was in the works, and the grin on my face must’ve been of the shit eating variety. Between you and me, quite frankly, I think I pissed my pants.

If you’re already familiar with Samothrace, you know that their catalog isn’t especially vast — they’ve only release one full length, Life’s Trade, and that was years ago. Bearing this in mind, after some time passed without hearing any news from this ensemble, I was getting worried we’d never be graced with a new chapter of their infectious, droning ambiance. Thankfully, they’re not ready to leave us quite yet, giving listeners another opportunity to invite a healthy dose of crippling heaviness to inhabit both their eardrums and arteries.

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It was the best of times, it was the most epically lame of times. 2011 saw my first speeding ticket ever, my car totaled, me spend a month in a sling due to surgery necessary after an injury at a Deströyer 666 show five years ago, and start writing for this fine online publication right here. So yeah, this year “suck”ed — but it’s just about over, and there have been some pretty awesome bands come out with new shit to listen to day in and day out. Awwww, there’s that silver lining :)

When I was first asked to submit my year-end list, I have to say, I was a bit intimidated. Not because I’ve never comprised one for public consumption before, but because this year has been, in my mind, a phenomenal year for metal. I can’t tell you how many times I rearranged, added to, subtracted from, and stressed over this list so that it reflected exactly what got me stoked this year. I was lucky enough to see a large chunk of these bands live in 2011, which certainly didn’t hurt in helping me with my painstaking decisions. One band, and I’ll point this out when we get to them, actually swayed me almost entirely after seeing them live, allowing me to listen to the album in a new light and appreciate it on a new level. Don’t you love it when that happens?

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One thing’s for damn sure: Coliseum know what they’re doing. They’ve been around long enough and they’ve seen parts of the world some of us (myself included) still dream of visiting; needles to say, the notoriety they’ve built up has been well earned. That worldliness, minus the pretentious undertones you might expect from a band as well traveled, is articulated quite well on their latest EP, Parasites.

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The worlds of music and visual art often meet and intertwine in ways that allow us to appreciate each work, each medium, on an entirely new level. Thankfully, these marriages are plentiful in the world of extreme metal, and one stand out propagator of this union is Nader Sadek. Cairo-born and NYC based, Sadek has been a visual icon on the scene for years most noted for creating visually striking settings and costumes for bands such as Mayhem and Sun O))). With the help of a pretty heavy-hitting core band featuring Steve Tucker (vocals – ex-Morbid Angel), Flo Mounier (drums – Cryptopsy), and Rune Eriksen (guitars – Aura Noir, ex-Mayhem), as well as appearances by other notable musicians, Sadek’s album In the Flesh is nothing to shake a stick at, either. Quite the contrary, actually – the meticulous composition of each song coupled with the intensity lent by each artist involved in the making of the release could easily set it up as a contender for a spot on an “Album of the Year” list.

Still, Nader does not quite consider himself a musician; rather, an artist exploring various mediums to best portray a concept or an idea that’s been ruminating in that fascinating brain of his. A commendable stance, I think, and tell-tale of the level of talent and drive he truly possesses. Speaking with him, it’s very clear as well; his visions will not, under any circumstances, be quelled. While the theme of In the Flesh is humanities detrimental dependency on petroleum – an undeniably political issue that’s been (rightly so) argued over for ages — in speaking with him about the subject, it’s turned into an eerily poetic, as well as desperate, concept: the living in a seemingly never-ending fight over a substance derived from death and decay. Our daily lives fueled by the rotten remnants of civilizations past.

It would be interesting, to say the least, to see what kind of live show this ensemble would come up with. For those of you in New York City, imaginations can be put to rest in that respect. On Sunday, November 20 at Santos Party House, Nader Sadek will bring to life In the Flesh in a (free!) performance surely not to be missed. Please be advised that in a perfect world, one wherein I’m not a cubicle rat working 9 to 5 in an office hours away from the Big Apple, I would hop a bus to see just what he’s come up with for the event. Sadly, this world is far from perfect, and I’d like to be able to pay my rent this month. Thankfully, though, I got to talk with the artist about everything from his music, his art, his upbringing, video shoots, and man-made machines that consume food and produce, well… see for yourself.

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Far be it from me to hate on anyone’s taste in music – to each their own. I’m sure if one were to wrassle my iPod from my (cold, dead) hands they’d find a number of artists and/or songs suitably mock-worthy. I earnestly try to give all (eh… most) genres a try, especially in the metal and hardcore realms. You never know, something could surprise you! In a way, Carnifex’s newest, Until I Feel Nothing, did just that – I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.

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I’m gonna tell you right now – I don’t usually get all “fan-girl” and nervous talking to people, even those I greatly admire on an artistic level. When I was told I was going to be interviewing Rex Brown, the fact that I was going to be talking to someone who helped mold my musical tastes as a kid didn’t hit me until probably an hour or so beforehand, and that’s when, admittedly, I started to get a bit weak in the knees. I started to remember so vividly hearing Pantera’s “Floods” for the first time on a family road trip to the Midwest, how it chilled me like nothing else ever had, and those days speeding down 95 in my first car blasting Cowboys from Hell. As one of the founding members of Pantera – up until their unfortunate end – he helped open the gates for a great deal of us to the world of metal. With his involvement in Down, as well as Crowbar, that love for many of us was kept alive.

Of course, with his recent departure from Down, some may have been wondering what else, if anything, Rex had next up his sleeves. Thankfully, there’s plenty.

As soon as I answered the phone, one of the first things Rex said to me (with a laugh) was that he’d been “giving interviews all day.” That in itself I thought was a true testament to someone who, even after over two decades working at it, is not looking to give up anytime soon – a fact that’s emphasized by his enthusiastic involvement with his new band Kill Devil Hill. The new project, featuring Vinny Appice (Heaven and Hell, Dio, Black Sabbath) on drums, Mark Zavon (Ratt, 40 Cycle Hum) on guitar and Jason “Dewey” Bragg (Pissing Razors) on vocals, is currently on tour and looking forward to releasing their yet-to-be-named debut album early next year on SPV/Steamhammer Records.

Talking with Rex was not only an experience in that he’s someone I have long admired; it was something getting to speak with someone so excited and hopeful about his current conquest. After over two decades playing music – through the triumphs as well as the hardships – to be as enthusiastic and passionate is not an incredibly common thing. I think that’s something that all of us can not only appreciate, but hopefully aspire to.

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October is upon us, and with it, the lot of us are bombarded with kitschy, brass-hinged, cardboard jack-o’-lanterns and rubber bats spewing over-dyed corn syrup via time-release mechanisms settled in their plastic innards. It’s a time of haunted hayrides, zombie-infested corn mazes, and other equally tepid Halloween-esque activities likely only to scare those under the age of six.

Now, imagine if you will, a world so ghastly, so horrifically twisted and hellish, even the most sadistic of creatures would break down in violent sobs at the very notion. A town so riddled with death and dire desperation that the streets overflow with tribes of gargantuan maggots and the most thriving business is that of the local coffin shop. Halloween isn’t just an overly-saccharin-ized holiday in this realm, and maybe this is why the anthems derived from this environment continue to bombard us with vigorous, horror-fueled thrash.  That’s right; drenched in the bloodied sewage from the bowels of Creepsylvania, Ghoul has come back with Transmission Zero, and they’ve kept their riffs (and blades) sharp.

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Summer is slowly but surely slipping away, and with that comes the eventual end of BBQs, pool parties, and muggy basement shows. While autumn is a pretty rad season, most of us are trying in vain to hold onto the last remnants of summer in any way we can. For some, that’s freezing the fuck out of one’s self at the beach. For others, it’s using up the dregs of BBQs past from the back of the fridge in an effort to pull together some sort of  “last hurrah!” smorgasbord. For me, it’s blasting crust and grind as loud as my car stereo will allow, windows down, scaring the bejezzus out of the townsfolk as I zip by. For some reason, grind just calls to mind summer for me, and I find myself in this situation year after year as the leaves start to turn. Currently on heavy rotation is Defeatist’s new album Tyranny of Decay and yes, my friends — it’s been hitting the proverbial spot.

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In each scene — and I’d wager that this is the case spanning from Boston to Bejing and beyond — there are at least a small handful of bands you’ve heard of time after time, but, for whatever reaso,n never really gave a listen to. Maybe you kept meaning to but never got around to it. Or maybe you missed one of their shows and subsequently/subconsciously dismissed their existence. The Proselyte has been one such band for me up until recently, I’m sorry to say, and, no, there is no viable excuse I can give. There is, however, a lesson to be learned here: get the fuck out there and engross yourself in all that your local metal scene has to offer, because you could be missing out on a potential new favorite.

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While at work a few years ago, as I was hammering out document after document in my cubicle, listening to Wolves in the Throne Room battle the sound of my fingertips hitting the keyboard, a co-worker popped her head in letting me know that what I was listening to sounded like “funeral music” to her. Of all the niches I’ve heard Wolves in the Throne Room get thrown into, I thought this one was the most interesting. I guess I could see where she was coming from to an extent — the mournful vocals lent by Jessika Kenney on Two Hunters wouldn’t by any means seem out of place as an accompaniment to, say, a roaring funeral pyre. That very element, in fact, was what really took that album to another level for me. So of course I was glad to hear the beautiful, haunting voice grace the band’s newest release, Celestial Lineage.

Fans of Wolves in the Throne Room have come to expect a certain quality hard to exactly decipher or pinpoint with each anticipated album. That sort of earthen and, at the same time, undeniably ethereal sound, which invokes visions of rain soaked forest beds, or cavernous ruins of a long lost congregation of mystics. Of course, I could be completely alone in these specific conjurations, but the fact remains that the brothers Weaver continuously deliver not only meticulously well-constructed pieces, they create an intricate landscape with each note, each chord, each painful cry, taking the listener to another realm entirely. Rounding out the trilogy set forth with the sorrowful Two Hunters, and followed by the more punishing Black Cascade, the release of Celestial Lineage is anything but anticlimactic.

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