Foxes, Worms, Black Metal, and Much Ado About Streaming

I am reminded once again of just how awesome NPR Music is.  It had been a while since I checked out the site and on my return I found several amazing things.  For starters you can hear the entirety of the new Fleet Foxes record, Helplessness Blues, which is very very good...ok it's pretty amazing.  Here's The Plains/Bitter Dancer which is one of my favorite tracks from the album...

If you want more stream the whole record here, or do yourself a favor and pick up one of the best records of the year on vinyl while you still can.

I was also quite surprised to see some live audio of Portland, Oregon's Agalloch and San Francisco's Worm Ouroboros.  This was headliner Agalloch's first performance ever in New York City.  Having missed their stop in Boston this year I was rather glad to have the opportunity to hear them play live, and to top it off the entirety of both sets are available for download.  Head here to stream or download Agalloch's set, and here for Worm Ouroboros'.  Agalloch are often described as post black metal or post folk metal, which is not a bad way of putting it.  They borrow the crescendoing, layered, and atmospheric approach of post rock and metal and apply the practice to raw, gloomy metal.  Agalloch mix clean and harsh vocals and make use of acoustic guitars just as much as blast beats...and that is cool.  Here's Black Lake Nidstang from their latest record...

Worm Ouroboros are a female-fronted, atmospheric metal band.  They write lush, haunting tapestries of songs that incorporate medieval voicings and monstrous doom riffs.  Here's a sample, Riverbed...

Quality metal on NPR?  Indeed...and in fact NPR is also offering a first listen to Aesthethica, the second and latest from Liturgy, a very interesting black metal band from Brooklyn, NY.  They've dubbed their particular brand of music "transcendental black metal", and I must admit that I have not heard anything quite like it.  Liturgy explore all kinds of sounds, from noise to harmonized clean chanting vocals, offering an unusual and unconventional style - even to black metal ears.  I highly recommend listening to the album as a whole, here, but here's Returner...I like it more and more each time I listen...

Oh and if you didn't get to catch PJ Harvey on tour you can stream her entire performance from San Francisco here.  You can also choose to download a shortened version of the concert, which due to licensing restrictions, contains only songs from her new record Let England Shake.

Enjoy!