NEW MUSIC ROUND-UP: THE ATLAS MOTH, BARREN EARTH, THE MARS VOLTA, WATER ON MERCURY
New music here, new music there, new music everywhere! By now you’ve probably read my headline and you know where this is going, so let’s get right to it:
The Atlas Moth — whose 2011 record An Ache For the Distance was my absolute most favoritest album of the year — have followed up their cover of The Mamas and The Papas’ “California Dreamin’” with a cover of something a bit more modern, Hooray For Earth’s “Black Trees.” I’d never heard the original — never even heard of the band — but after giving it a spin I can see why they chose this tune; it is kinda dark, and The Atlas Moth treatment makes it sound absolutely ghostly. Stream the cover at Pitchfork; it comes as part of the soundtrack to DTV, a novel by Decibel managing editor Andrew Bonazelli (out March 30th via Handshake, Inc.).
Via MetalUnderground.com: “Finnish death metal supergroup Barren Earth, featuring current and former members of acts such as Amorphis, Moonsorrow, Swallow the Sun, and Kreator,” — hold the phone, you’ve got me right there! Of course we know all about Barren Earth at MetalSucks, but that combo of Finnish metal royalty is always enough to give me pause. New album The Devil’s Resolve comes out on March 13th, and Metal Underground’s got the album’s first three songs streaming right now.
And finally: yup, The Mars Volta are still releasing new albums. Try as I may — especially at Kip W.’s urging — I’ve made every effort possible but I just cannot get into anything after De-Loused in the Comatorium. You can stream “Zed And Two Naughts” from the new album Noctourniquet (March 27th) below. It’s not bad, but… meh. I hate to be that elitist douche who only likes a band’s first album, but for me the old adage has never been more true: this new shit just really makes me wanna go listen to the old shit.
Finally, MetalSucks Unsigned and Unholy vets Water on Mecury — who I described as “Kind of like a darkier, mooder, more atmospheric version of Scale the Summit” — have posted a video for their new track “My Amphigory.” It’s the title track from their new album which will be released later this year. Yet another reason it’s great to be a metalhead in 2012: “Water On Mercury is the instrumental music project of guitarist Tim Gavin. Tim is a family man with a day job as a CPA, but he has an undying passion for heavy music. This project is the culmination of years of writing and producing music at home.” Love it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7js1vbT0kA&feature=youtu.be
-VN
