LEVIATHAN PUT ALL TONGUES TOWARD GREATNESS

One Man American Black Metal project Leviathan have put out a new track and it's a piece of bleak art. Jef Whitehead seems to have pushed the project in a Post-Black Metal direction, think Altar of Plagues or Deafheaven if they weren't boring. This is a wonderfully layered and deep track, words that you wouldn't normally use to describe Black Metal, but All Tongues Toward is both. A hypnotic, beautiful, 8 minute journey to Hell, where apparently the view is quite spectacular based on the grandiosity of its ambience..

I can wax lyrical all day about this kind of  Black Metal, but I'll save you from that, so just do yourself a favour and listen to All Tongues Toward. 



All Tongues Toward is taken from the upcoming album, Scar Sighted, that'll be released in April of this year.

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45 SECONDS OF THE FACELESS, ANIMOSITY AND ANIMALS AS LEADERS SUPER GROUP

We briefly touched on the formation of Entheos, a super group featuring ex-members of Animals as Leaders, The Faceless and Animosity, last week. Well now we have 45 seconds of drum cam footage to add to the small riff snippet we had before. It doesn't sound like much but it could have been a minute of Alex Webster staring blankly into the camera and plucking open strings on his bass and it’d still be exciting. This is the best Super Group line up to come along in a while and many are excited for what Entheos aka “Animosity with a different singer”, can come up with. Whatever it is it’s probably gonna be awesome.

Post by ENTHEOS.

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THESE GUYS RE-RECORDED ST.ANGER FOR SOME REASON

The best thing that can be said about Metallica’s St.Anger is that it’s an album with sounds on it. There are many things wrong with this 2003 though one of the most noticeable flaws… aside from the bad riffs, over-long songs and basically everything else, is that of the production. Lars Ulrich’s trash can, snareless monstrosity of a drum sound being the prime offender.

Three guys from some bands decided that right now, 12 years later, when the world had almost forgotten the horrors of Metallica trying to play Nu-Metal, have decided to re-record the entire thing. The ENTIRE damn thing. They even went out of their way to get permission from Metallica's management company Q-Prime Management. I think some medals for bravery are in order.

Sadly Daryl G. and Chris D. of Grace The Skies and Dave C. of Adust didn't rewrite any of the cringe worthy lyrics, repetitive riffs or bloated structuring, in short they didn't replace St.Anger with a good album. They just recorded a turgid mess of an album with better production. I don't want to get too down on these guys as they obviously have some talent, but c'mon, no one asked for this.

You can listen to this exercise in pseudo-masochism below. But if your life style really does determine your death style then I hope you’ll avoid this some kind of monster; you’ll never get your wasted days back so keep on searching for some sweet amber instead.

(I am truly sorry for the above paragraph)

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PERTURBATOR RELEASES TIME MACHINE IN PLAYLIST FORM

Retrowave Artist Perturbator, who, coincidentally released our favourite electronic album of 2014, has released a one and a half hour Retro mix tape. For free.

If you felt you were lacking Blast Processing and Robocop in your music recently then I think this playlist of 80’s classics, including Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Vangelis, should sort you out.

Tracklist :

Ulver – The Future Sound of Music – 00:00:00

Clan Of Xymox – Innocent – 00:06:35

Astronoid – Detachment – 00:11:56

HOME – Sleep – 00:13:36

Sinoia caves – Sentionauts II – 00:17:51

Xeno & Oaklander – Par Avion – 00:20:49

Noir Deco – Regret – 00:25:31

Something About Us (Daft Punk piano cover by Seob) – 00:30:34

Chromatics – White Lie – 00:35:04

Blende – Plush – 00:37:46

Sommet – Lhotse Face – 00:41:25

Chrome Canyon – Elemental Themes – 00:45:29

Annie – Anthonio (Berlin Breakdown Version) – 00:48:29

AnalogSweden – Leaving Until Charcoal Sky – 00:52:14

Lusine – Arterial – 00:59:34

Kenji Kawai – Follow Me – 01:03:36

SPACE – Fasten Seat Belt – 01:08:34

Mitch Murder – Nocturne – 01:14:39

Kraftwerk – Computer Love – 01:20:18

Brian Eno – Prophecy Theme – 01:27:42

Tangerine Dream – Alchemy Of The Heart (Redux) – 01:30:22

Vangelis – Piano In An Empty Room – 01:33:42

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NAPALM DEATH CONDEMN YOU TO HEADBANG

English Grindcore legends Napalm Death are streaming a brand new track, How The Years Condemn from their upcoming album Apex Predator - Easy Meat.

And Damn is it heavy.

The track premièred over on Stereogum earlier today and you'd be doing yourself a huge disservice not to check it out immediately. So go do it.

Now.

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CHELSEA WOLFE ANNOUNCES "ABYSS"

I think that Dark Ambient, Post-Dark Folk, Avant-Garde Creepiness artist Chelsea Wolfe is releasing a new album. I think it's called Abyss and I also think it's coming out some time in 2015. Don't quote me on that though. I'm not sure what made me think all this but it could be something to do with this Facebook post:

Post by Chelsea Wolfe.

Anyway, since that's all the information available and many of you may not know of Chelsea Wolfe's work (beyond the Game of Thrones trailer she was featured on) here are some examples to get you nice and acquainted.

Abyss will be released on a label of some kind some time this year... probably.

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PYRAMID NOISE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

We have a bunch of ways you can get in touch with us at Pyramid Noise, why not follow us here?

Facebook

Of course everyone is on Facebook and so are we, we post all new content here and so you’ll never miss another update. Unless of course Facebook dictate otherwise with questionable algorithms.

Twitter

Same as Facebook but shorter. Why not @PyramidNoise us to tell us how much we smell or something?

8Tracks

8Tracks is a great way of sharing playlists with you guys. We’ve used it already on our series of Top Albums of 2014 articles and we will be continuing to use it because it’s awesome.

Instagram

A new addition to the Pyramid Noise social roster. We’ll be posting albums of the day and other cool stuff direct to your phones!  

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KORN DRUMMER DOESN'T LIKE PIRACY

Ray Luzier, drummer with Nu-Metal Icons KoRn, isn't happy. Ray Luzier, ladies and gentlemen, isn't happy with music fans pirating KoRn records.

The drummer claims that modern fans don’t see downloading as stealing, nor seemingly value music on a monetary level:

The thing is, with the newer generation, the kids don't really understand that it's taking or stealing. They're, like, 'What? I'm at your freakin' show.' And I'm, like, 'Yeah. But our record's ten bucks.

The “I go to shows” view, while founded on the good intentions of giving money direct to bands not to record labels, has been debated  many a time already. As long ago as 2010, Shay Blay of middle-of-the-road metalcore band Oh, Sleeper, broke down live costs to show that there isn't much money in touring because there’s more to a live show than the band. If nothing else buying CDs shows booking agents that band can pull a crowd and so they get bigger shows, as Misha Mansoor states in this interview from Guitar Messenger (and also points out that even as recently as 2012 Periphery weren't making all that much money.) It’s like any job. Your CV shows what you've achieved and what you can bring to the table... or in this case how many people you can bring to a show. Buying merch doesn't seem to help much either. Most Record companies take cuts of Merch sales these days because no one is buying music any more, Sumerian Records being one of the few companies who don’t. Basically making money in music is hard no matter how you look at it. That’s why some people don’t bother trying to monetise it.

There is another, more personal, side to these complaints. As Luzier continues:

…we work hard on our records, man. We don't sit in the studio and waste time. It's, like, you pour your heart and soul and your blood and all this stuff into this recording

To Luzier it seems the willingness to pay for music is a sign of respect for that artists work. I guess you could liken it to doing a sweet backflip through a ring of fire and no one caring. You took a lot of time and effort into learning how to do a sweet backflip and you damn well want the recognition for doing it.

On the flip side to Luzier’s point there are many artists who will happily give away their music for free and there are lots of good reasons for wanting to do this. Perhaps they would rather people come to shows and buy merch, though most bands who do this are smaller and tend not to need to pay back huge Record Company loans. I say all power to them, I think it’s a really cool thing to do (If nothing else it gives me a weekly article to put out.)

As far back as Lars Ulrich’s campaign against Napster, bands have been struggling with income losses from bits and bytes damaging physical album sales. This is nothing new and the Metallica drummer’s unpopular crusade didn't exactly stem the tides. Luzier seems to realise this, saying:

But, whatever. We're not gonna stop it. It's technology. I get it. I'm just saying, to the fans out there, if you really love your art and people you support, go buy the freaking record. How hard is it?

Ultimately he makes a solid, if defeatist, point. Support the bands you love. I think most people would agree.

As a side note I doubt KoRn are being effecting too badly. I'm sure the bands upcoming tour with Slipknot will pay a few bills and indeed the Drummer seems to imply as such:

…there's people flocking to [our] shows. We're not going anywhere…

I’m sure such news will infuriate some and sooth others.

[Quotes courtesy of Blabbermouth.net]

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BABYMETAL RELEASE NEW COLLABORATION

Love them or loath them Babymetal have made quite a huge impact on the Metal scene in the last year or so. Controversies, complaining and general strangeness seem to follow the trio (and their awesome backing band) wherever they go… though mostly it’s the complaining.

With this latest track, Road Of Resistance, Babymetal seem to be approaching some kind of critical mass of  ridiculousness, something which could ultimately be a huge risk to humanity as we currently know it. Joining forces with the equally silly British Power Metal group DragonForce, Road Of Resistance, is perhaps the worst-best/best-worst thing you’ll hear today, perhaps even this entire year. While the instrumentation is unmistakably the standard DragonForce affair and the vocals are quintessential of the Japanese J-Pop trio, the creation of Baby Metal X DragonForce is something quite special.

You can stream the Official Trailer below (which contains a good chunk of the song, if not all of it.) Don’t say we didn’t warn you however. 

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DEVILDRIVER ANNOUNCE NEW DRUMMER

It seems that DevilDriver are looking to keep things in the NWOAHM family. Replacing previous drummer, John Boecklin, who left back in October, is Austin D’Amond (apologies to anyone hoping is was going to be Dave Lombardo or Mike Portnoy.) D’Amond has previously worked with Bleed The Sky and, more recently, played on Chimaira’s final album Crown of Phantoms. This guy’s drumming is absolutely thunderous on these releases and should be a good fit for the Californian quartet.

Austin D’Amond is also currently a member of The Elite, a project fronted by fellow ex-Chimaira member, guitarist Rob Arnold. It is unlikely that D’Amond’s duties to DevilDriver will interfere with this project any time soon however, as Dez Fafara has left the band in hiatus while he summons the end of days reforms Coal Chamber for a tour and new studio album. God help us all. 

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ANIMOSITY REFORM (KINDA) AND RAMMSTEIN GETS PAINFUL

The turn of the New Year has seen a couple of interesting announcements come from the world of Super Groups. That strange realm in which shining examples of musicianship come together to make turgid messes of albums, or at least mostly. These two announcements however, seem promising.

Till Lindemann of Rammstein and Peter Tägtgren of Pain and Hypocrisy have formed Lindemann which makes it sound like Till’s vanity project. Considering that both have a past in Industrial it is not beyond the realms of doubt that it’ll be a Pain/Rammstein hybrid. It also reaffirms the latter groups break period. It looks like Lindemann and Richard Kruspe's Emigrate will be all that fans of the German Techno Metalers will be getting instead of a core release. The duo already have a Facebook page up, but that’s really all the information that is currently available.

While a meeting of Industrial leviathans is interesting, the reformation of Animosity is infinitely more so. Okay well it’s not QUITE a reformation of one of Deathcore’s forgotten heavy weight champions, but it is damn close. Ex-The Faceless Bassist Alex Webster, joins fellow Ex-Animosity members Navene Koperweis (also previously drummer for Animals As Leaders) and Guitarist Frank Costa in a new project named Entheos. Vocal duties are taken Chaney Crabb, probably only known for auditioning for Veil of Maya that one time. It is exciting stuff and many have been praying for something like this ever since Brewer announced his departure from The Faceless earlier this year. This is probably as close as we’re gonna get to a full on Animosity reunion so let’s be thankful. The clip bellow shows what we’ve got to look forward to:

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BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME RECORDING NEW ALBUM

Progressive Metal(core) masters Between the Buried and Me announced  they were writing a new album back in early 2014. Now it seems that Autumnal writing process is complete and the recording process for the follow up to the superb to The Parallax II: Future Sequence has begun.

All I can add is Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggg. 

(I'm excited, can you tell?)

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SUMERIAN RECORDS SIGN CHON

I was very tempted to title this article something along the lines of

SUMERIAN USE DEM COREDOLLA$$$ TO SIGN MORE PROG

Or

ASKING ALEXANDRIA T SHIRT SALES FUND WANKFEST FUN

I didn't... but the second one was especially tempting.

Anyway, CHON yesterday made this statement:

'We are insanely stoked to announce that we've joined Sumerian Records!! We have cooked up some incredible things for 2015 and beyond. Look out for our debut album to be released early 2015'

The singing of San Diego’s CHON should come as a surprise to very few people. Sumerian Record’s roster is equal parts highly profitable, teen friendly, pop acts like Dayshell and wizard level prog nerds like Animals As Leaders. CHON are obviously not a pop act, but they are full on Dungeon Master Progressive Jazz Rock... or something. 

Before this deal CHON were a solely internet famous group, popular on forums and youtube. If that sentence gives you deja-vu, it was meant to. Now-label mates Periphery started in a similar position and perhaps Sumerian hope to replicate that transference of success. 

If the name CHON is completely new to you, then why not check out the announcement video and their last release, Whoohoo!, below?

CHON's debut release on Sumerian Records is due Spring 2015

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PAINTED IN EXILE BAKE A FRESH NEW TRACK

Long Island's Painted In Exile have been seemingly dormant since the release of the wildly eclectic, yet absolutely superb, Revitalized EP back in 2009. This is not the case however, plagued with member losses and various other band related inconvenience, the band has been trying to make a comeback from some time.

And here it is, released just today (sometime very early this morning), Painted in Exile posted DM, their first track in 5 years.

You jam? I jam. Though I can't help but feel that the song misses rap verses where 'bitches call me Gandalf.

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SLICE THE CAKE WANT TO TAKE YOU ON AN ODYSSEY TO THE WEST

International Deathcore unit, Slice The Cake, seemingly not satisfied with announcing their live début at UK Tech Fest next year, have set the release date and track listing for their next album. Odyssey to the West will be released March 1st 2015 and the band describes the release as:

‘…a concept album that combines a more emotionally mature approach to our songwriting with a visceral and poetic lyrical take on biblical allegory and meta-narrative, exploring themes such as archetypes, the nature of narrative itself, universal symbolism, spiritual alchemy and recurrence.’

While this sounds like something lifted from one of my University essays, I can’t help but wait in quivering excitement for March 2015 to roll around. A wait which the whopping  track list makes even harder:

1. The Exile i. The Razor’s Edge

2. The Exile ii. The City of Destruction

3. Stone and Silver i. The Mountains of Man

4. Stone and Silver ii. The Horned God

5. Stone and Silver iii. The Man of Papyrus Limbs
6. Westward Bound i. The Lantern
7. Westward Bound ii. The Pilgrim’s Progress
8. Castle in the Sky ii. The Tree of Life
9. Unending Waltz
10. From Shell to Shell
11. The Dark Carnival
12. The Man of Ash and Rust i. The Torn Thread
13. The Man of Ash and Rust ii. Nameless, Faceless

14. Destiny’s Fool
15. The Holy Mountain

The trio’s last release, The Man With No Face, proved that there was still much that could be done with the old Deathcore formula and Odyssey to the West has the potential to build on that success.

Slice The Cake will release Odyssey to the West on March 1st next year through Subliminal Groove Records.

(What are you talking about, of course I know how to spell Odyssey... -ED)

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THE NEW MARILYN MANSON SONG ISN'T AWFUL

Brian Warner, better known to the world as the American Shock Rocker Marilyn Manson, released a new single from The Pale Emperor album yesterday, an album slated for release early next year. You can listen to Deep Six below:

The really interesting thing about Deep Six, is that it is far from awful, it's actually pretty good. Whilst Manson's last effort, Born Villain was an exercise in tedium, singular in its complete lack interesting content, Deep Six seems to mix the style of later works with albums considered amongst his best. If you were to ask me, and maybe you wouldn't, I would call Deep Six The High End of Low meets Mechanical Animals. It will be interesting to see whether Manson can recapture the appeal that made him the poster child for alternative culture in the 90's. I doubt it, but he might still make some decent music.

What are your thoughts? 

The Pale Emperor is slated for release on January 19th(UK)/20th(US) through Manson's own "Hell Etc." label. 

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UK TECH FEST WIN AT LINE UP ANNOUNCEMENTS

As you are no doubt aware, festivals up and down the UK are announcing initial line ups. Download surprised few with announcements including Slipknot, Muse and Five Finger Death Punch. Bloodstock has been continuing to show that they are the UK's answer the more well rounded European Metal fests. Rising Nottinghamshire festival UK Tech Fest, have however, completely destroyed all other UK festivals in this game. Announcing one hell of an opening line up. 

You may well be thinking, Well what is so special? There aren't that many big band names?

That dear friends, may be missing the point, and is also the kind of attitude that has lead to big names in UK Metal festivals booking the same bands every year. This is important, not for Decapitated as their position at the top of the flyer may indicate, but for the following reasons.

• This will be the one time that we get to the deathcore world's answer to Cynic, The Contortionist, play the UK if the poster is to be believed
• Haken are the UK answer to Dream Theater, this years EP and last years LP 'The Mountain' truly install them as one of the premier modern Cheesy Prog Bands
• It marks the world debut of International Progressive Deathcore Masters, Slice The Cake, who were before now a Studio Project only. This will see the 3 parts of the band travelling from all over the world to play their first ever show. This is a big deal.
• Progressive Djent Project Sithu Aye are in a similar situation. This will be the first time they ever play live.
• Again, Plini, one man, posi vibe, prog project will be playing Europe for the first time. If we count Decapitated in with the other 3, as well as Shokran (a band I honestly know nothing about) that's FIVE Exclusives. Bands that no one will be seeing in the UK that year and in some cases the first time ANYONE will be able to see that band live. That's not better than seeing Slipknot at a huge UK festival for the Nth time how?
• 4 of the Bands are from Subliminal Groove, one of the best Modern Extreme Prog labels out there

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to gush incoherently for a while before working out if I can afford to go to UK Tech Fest next year.

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THE PYRAMID RISES

A Shadow falls across your path.

What is it? What does it want?

It is the Pyramid.

We of the Pyramid would like to welcome you to Pyramid Noise; provider of only the best review and opinion in the Alternative Music World. I hope this will be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Note: As of the 15th of December 2014, Monolith Sound changed it's name to Pyramid Noise as to avoid confusion with a similarly named website dealing with similar themes. 

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