Free Music: Neurotech - Infra Versus Ultra

Hey do you guys like free stuff? The industrial metal one man project Neurotech just released their newest album, Infra Versus Ultra. It's available on the band's bandcamp for free/name your price! This is one of the most atmospheric albums I've heard in a while. It's a beautiful combination of symphonic keyboards, electronic sounds, robotic vocals and metal guitars and drums. Honestly, just check it out.

A little about the band; Neurotech is the project of Wulf, a very talented musician from Slovenia. He makes music that he enjoys and then releases it all for free/name your price on his bandcamp. This is a guy who's making music because he loves it and you can tell. Everything is surprisingly layered and fine-tuned. The music itself mixes together the genres of metal, electronic and even classical to create something quite different from the vast majority of stuff out there. It's good stuff, what more can I say?

You can find Infra Versus Ultra right here: https://neurotech.bandcamp.com/album/infra-versus-ultra

Enjoy!
-Zombie Viking

Aggrotech

I'm here to spread the word on a genre that you may not already know about. In fact, judging by how hard it is to find bands, I'd say this stuff is even less popular than metal. But it's just as awesome. It deserves to be known so I'm posting about it and hopefully at least one of you will find it as good as I do.

This type of music goes by many names: EBM, electro-industrial, dark electro, hellektro or my favourite, aggrotech. It's a dark and heavy subgenre of industrial music. You may know about industrial through some industrial metal bands like Nine Inch Nails or Pain (the best). Industrial itself is already a subgenre of electronic, so we're currently at least three levels deep in musical inception. I mean, just check this crap out. Electronic music is crazy! Just as a side note, clicking 'aggrotech', 'dark electro' or 'electro-industrial' on that Wiki page all link to the same place.



The timeline of the emergence of these genres is pretty confusing since they're often referred to as the same thing. Industrial music began in the early 1970s, around the same time as metal itself. Then EBM spawned off of it a decade later in the 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the awesome electro-industrial was created. Then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, dark electro and aggrotech appeared. To be honest, I still can't tell the difference between electr-industrial, dark electro and aggrotech. What I do know though, is that these guys have been making deliciously heavy music for about as long as metal bands have been doing the same thing.

So why should a metalhead care about some obscure electronic genre? Well for starters, it's metal as fuck. These guys focus on making the heaviest and harshest electronic music possible. Vocals are usually screamed, the lyrics are about typical metal themes like horror, anarchy and being awesome, and the music itself is complex and layered. Some bands even throw in down-tuned guitars when they feel like making a song extra metallic. While genres like industrial metal bridge the electronic-metal gap from the metal side, aggrotech bridges the gap from the electronic side. I would even go as far as to say that this is the most metal music you'll find outside of the metal genre.



One interesting thing is the countries that aggrotech comes from. South America (Mexico included) as a whole is a big exporter of this sweet sweet music. Personally, I enjoy the fact that I'm expanding my global repertoire of music by listening to this stuff. It's a place with a very scarce amount of metal bands. The second biggest aggrotech base I've found is located in Germany. These guys make both awesome metal and aggrotech. I think it's just because the Germans are so naturally aggressive. What a lovely language.

Another interesting thing is the online presence, or lack thereof, of these bands. There's no online repository like metal-archives to find profiles on everyone. The closest thing is vampirefreaks, which you can find the majority on. The only problem is that vampirefreaks doubles as a gothic social media site, which is its main focus. With the lack of functionality on its band pages, it's less effective than Myspace, and that's saying something. The only viable form of information seems to be the band's official website (if they have one) or their Facebook page. You'd better hope they update it semi-regularly. Practically none of the bands have a dedicated Youtube page, and neither do any of the labels. While Youtube is still the best place to find this music, almost every single video is some crappy slideshow that a kid put together in Windows Movie Maker. It's like a time machine to 5 years ago.


Here's a list of some of the better aggrotech bands I've found. Man I love lists...

• Asphyxia
• C-Lekktor
• Combichrist
• God Module
• Grendel
• Nitronoise
• Phosgore
• Suicide Commando
• Xperiment

The highlighted ones are better starting points in my opinion, but you should check out as many of those bands as you can.

So turn up the bass and throw on some aggrotech tunes. This is an awesome genre that deserves more attention than it's getting. It's something that's not too far from metal yet a nice change every once in a while. Check it out!

-Zombie Viking

Shade Empire - Ruins

Here's a relatively unpopular band that I listen to. Shade Empire plays blackened industrial metal from Finland. Though now it sounds like they've gone a bit more towards the black/dark metal side of things. I didn't know what was happening with this band, as they've been quiet for a few years. The vocalist recorded a couple albums with his other bands Chaosweaver and Deathchain and the rest of the band did.. something else. But now they're back with a new music video and a new album coming out May 6th. Check it out.

-Zombie Viking

Musician Spotlight: Peter Tägtgren

Peter Tägtgren is one of those guys that's just able to do everything. You've almost definitely listened to something that he helped create in one way or another- whether you know it or not. He's been making awesome music since 1990 and in that time has become a huge part of the metal scene. Yes, the metal scene. Like, as a whole.

He also sorta looks like Johnny Depp if you look at him from the right angle.. in the right light.

Peter is best known for being the mastermind behind the huge death metal band Hypocrisy. He created the band after living in America for a bit and becoming involved with the death metal scene here. He returned to Sweden and created one of the most kickass bands ever. How's that for a vacation? Hypocrisy has been around for 22 years and released 12 albums. Also, Horgh (of Immortal fame) has been the drummer since 2004. Me likey. Hypocrisy has played all sorts of death metal from traditional to a more melodeath sound and back again. That's great and all, but it's not until you realize how much other stuff Peter has done in that time (while keeping the damn band alive, mind you) that you start to become amazed.

He also has a side project that I am a huge fan of: Pain. Well, if you call Pain a side project.. It's been just as active as any band in the time it's been around. Pain has released 7 albums since 1996 when it was formed. Peter basically just goes back and forth from Hypocrisy to Pain to record an album or go on tour. Also, he was the only member for quite some time and I'm pretty sure still makes the majority of the music. The reason why I like this band so much is because it's so different from the majority of what I listen to. Pain is industrial metal, grouped in with the likes of Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails. Peter sings clean vocals to round out the different style; something I bet most metal vocalists aren't able to do. The first few albums were almost entirely electronic before shifting to a more traditional rock-ish sound. Still great though. To hear the difference in these two bands, just listen to the songs below.




Same guy. He has also appeared as a guest musician in countless other bands including: Bloodbath, The Abyss, Lock Up and War.

Of course, this is not all Peter spends his time doing. For he lives his life the metal way. 24/7 metal. Metal in the morning, metal in the night. Etc. etc. He also owns The Abyss studio and has produced quite a few albums. You may have heard of some of the bands he's produced albums for. I'm going to post a list of them because lists make stuff seem longer and more impressive.

The Abyss, Naglfar, Death Organ, Dark Funeral, Fleshcrawl, Hypocrisy (obviously),  Setherial, Marduk, Pain (obviously), Dimmu Borgir, Abruptum, Therion, War, Amon Amarth, Dispatched, Love Like Blood, Enslaved, Raise Hell, Thyrfing, Immortal, Borknagar, Children of Bodom, Old Man's Child, Rotting Christ, Susperia, Grimfist, Grave, Celtic Frost, Noctiferia, Sabaton, Tarja, Overkill, Abigail Williams, Belphegor, Legion of the Damned, Kampfar, The Unguided, Loudblast, Septicflesh

Yeah!

So yeah. Chances are you've heard something that Peter Tägtgren has been a part of in one way or another. I thank him for everything he's given to the metal industry. He's quite an interesting person and a genius musician. Also he owns a small town in Sweden, so that's pretty cool too. Keep on rocking!

-Zombie Viking