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Live Review: Nile, Immolation, Krisiun, Dreaming Dead, Nighfire @ Sonar (2010.01.15)

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  1. MP3: Nile – Sacrifice Unto Sebek
  2. MP3: Nile – Lashed to the Slave Stick

Nile played one of the best metal shows I heard in the past year at Sonar two Fridays ago. Read the rest…

Live Review: Marduk, Nachtmystium, Mantic Ritual, Tyrant’s Hand @ Sonar (2009.11.23)

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All photos: Diana Lee, Special to MetalSucks.net

Last Monday was cold and rainy and depressing; perfect black metal weather. A decent sized crowd turned out for Marduk and Nachtmystium at Sonar, where they made a big circle, moshed, fought, gave each other dirty looks, made the sign of the devil and were violated in the ear-hole. I wear earplugs at metal shows: One of them fell out as I was head-banging. I did not replace it, and I paid for that decision.

Read the rest…

Preview: Marduk and Nachtmystium @ Sonar Club Stage (2009.11.23)

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MP3: Nachtmystium – Cold Tormentor (I’ve Become) from Nachtmystium (2003)

To me, “black metal” means a style of music pioneered by Norwegian bands like Darkthrone and Mayhem in the early 1990s. The (again, for me) defining elements of the genre are densely layered trebly guitars, often low-fidelity production, high screechy vocals, lyrics about darkness, despair, and evil (as opposed to dismemberment, gore and violence), and riffs that are more melodic than one finds in other extreme forms of metal like death metal. In recent years, American bands have produced some of the best music in this subgenre. Chicago’s Nachtmystium (opening for Marduk on Monday on the Club Stage at Sonar), are among my favorites of this new crop.

Marduk represents the more fast and brutal end of the black metal spectrum: no synthesizers, intense drumming, and overall a sound that is more aggressive and less ambient. They wear scary makeup and sing about evil. I have never seen them live, but they have a sound similar to 1349 who I saw play with Carcass last year; they stole the show from the other opening acts. Marduk is real black metal, a must-see especially if you missed Satyricon in September.

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However, the main draw for me is Nachtmystium. Using the basic elements of black metal as a point of departure, bands like Krallice, Wolves in the Throne Room, Leviathan, and Nachtmystium, have each contributed something unique.  The result is not so much one new trend or direction but a set of cool possibilities, ranging from classic-rock-tinged black metal (Nachtmystium) to experimental noise black metal (Canada’s Wold), to ambient, new age-y black metal (Wolves in the Throne Room). All of these bands maintain the darkness and depth of the Norwegian sound, drawing on the bleakest musical style in the world and producing something new and vital.

Nachtmystium’s Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt. 1 uses more sounds from seventies rock and roll than their previous albums, but the basic skeleton is still black metal. My favorite (and one of my favorite black metal records ever) is still 2006’s Instinct: Decay. Listen to “Eternal Ground” from this album to get psyched up for Nachtmystium. Instinct and parts of Assassins both have an urgency and an energy that I think is very rare in the black metal that I have heard, and downright remarkable in any music that is this dark. I am not personally energized and sustained by darkness and despair (confronted and challenged maybe) in music, and those moods are somewhat intrinsic to this style. Nachtmystium’s mixture of the energizing elements with their dark and brutal side is a rare accomplishment.

Interview: Dysrhythmia (w/ Kevin Hufnagel)

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Photo credit: Ed Marshall

Dysrhythmia unleashed devastating sonic lethality this past Saturday at the Talking Head. I talked with guitarist Kevin Hufnagel before the show about rad metal, the role of theory in songwriting, and his participation in the reincarnated legendary avant garde metal outfit Gorguts.

Aural States: I ran into you at Summer Slaughter Sunday July 19th. What do you think was the highlight of that show?

Kevin Hufnagel: Unfortunately I was really tired. The night before was our CD release show and I stayed out until five am, so I left right after Suffocation…Suffocation was probably the highlight, but Origin was really good too. Origin and Suffocation killed it. Read the rest…

Sound Off! / Contest: Dysrhythmia @ the Talking Head (2009.07.25)

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We are giving away a pair of tickets to Saturday’s show @ the Talking Head with DC’s Rattler. Comment with some sort of euphemism about how hard Dysrhythmia rocks.  Winner chosen on Friday.

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MP3: Dysrhythmia – Sleep Decayer

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MP3: Dysrhythmia – Appeared at First

Dysrhythmia play dissonant (sometimes), technical (sometimes), catchy (always), progressive, metal-influenced rock music. Everyone says their music is really hard to describe but this not true. Imagine the cover of Joe Satriani’s Surfing with the Alien. Now imagine that cover colliding with a strange dimension and becoming a bizarre, dark cubist rendering of the Silver Surfer. And then imagine that as a piece of music. That’s what they sound like.

It is tempting to describe their music in terms of the clichés symptomatic of “progressive” and “experimental” music that they manage to avoid: Words like “restraint” come up a lot in reviews. Their music provokes comparisons to other heavy instrumental rock groups like Don Caballero, and avant garde jazz guitarists like Bill Frisell and Sonny Sharrock. Comparisons to jazz and experimental rock are well motivated and seem accurate, but they are belied somewhat by the emotional payload of Dysrhythmia. To the extent that the terms “technical” and “experimental” suggest music that is interesting but that you cannot get down to, disregard those terms in reference to this band. One reviewer suggests that their special appeal consists in the fact that they make music that is challenging but enjoyable and emotionally stirring. I concur, and for me this puts their albums in a very special category alongside jazz and metal classics like A Love Supreme and The Sound of Perseverance.

Individually the members of Dysrhythmia demonstrate incredible technique and musicianship. However, on their records you will not hear anything showy that might make you exclaim “That drummer rules!” even though drummer Jeff Eber is awesome. More often than not, you will hear deceptively simple musical ideas explored and developed in a way that makes you pay attention.

On their earlier recordings (especially No Interference which I’m listening to as I write this) guitarist Kevin Hufnagel uses a warm, twangy, Strat-y sound which makes for an organic and live-sounding listening experience. His playing never really sounds “technical,” although he is playing complicated parts. Listen to one of the long trance-y songs (e.g. “Let You Fall” from No Interference) for some tasteful and subtle guitar (no 64th note triplets, but that is what we have Necrophagist for). Their two most recent albums Barriers and Passages and this year’s Psychic Maps sound more metal than their first three. I like former bass player Clayton Ingerson, but Colin Marston definitely brings something cool to the mix (to my ear a heavier sound). All their recordings have a tight, collaborative feel and emanate musical hyper-competence and a magical energy.

I have never seen them live and I am really excited.  You should be too.

Sound Off!: Necrophagist

necrophagistNecrophagist plays the Summer Slaughter tour, kicking off at Sonar this Friday, June 5th.

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MP3: Necrophagist – Seven from Epitaph (2004)

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MP3: Necrophagist – Stabwound from Epitaph (2004)

If ‘metal-head’ is an honorific term measuring the duration (as well the depth) of one’s commitment to metal, I am probably not a metal-head.

I am a dedicated and passionate student of metal, but also a fairly recent convert. The lynchpin in my conversion: Necrophagist, who I first heard somewhere in the middle of a ten-hour car ride in the summer of 2006. Pushing play, the friend who introduced me to Necrophagist declared with confidence that they were “the best death metal band in world.” This kind of enthusiasm is typical of devotees to death metal, and is hard to resist. Walking home from the library a few weeks later with “Stabwound” on my iPod, I had a thought which went something like “these guitar solos are really, really good.” And thus, my conversion was complete.

Necrophagist incorporates an almost absurd degree of technical proficiency into their music. If you are into metal you have probably already heard them. But besides those who already like fast, brutal, technical metal, fans of jazz, progressive, and guitar dweebs (players or fans of Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen, i.e. me) could find plenty to love. What sets guitarist and vocalist Muhammed Suicmez apart from many other gifted guitar players is the degree to which his solos are seamlessly integrated into the music. Necrophagist’s songs are constructed around complex guitar parts, so two minutes of sweep-picking can be a development and expansion of what has gone before instead of a showcase for Suicmez’s awesome talent.

Necrophagist also go far beyond technicality and complexity for its own sake, and many of their songs could be even described as catchy. It is weird to find yourself humming “Intestinal Incubation,” but just try to get those harmonics out of your head. Necrophagist, in other words, make really good music and (unlike Steve Vai) they are not a guilty pleasure. Depth and complexity are terms that apply to a lot of heavy metal, especially death metal. Necrophagist can easily become a bridge to some of the even heavier bands at Summer Slaughter like Origin, Beneath the Massacre, and death metal legends Suffocation. Metalheads are already looking forward to Summer Slaughter.

Non-metalheads, I want to convert you: Necrophagist are the best death metal band in the world.