AN NCS PREMIERE: NEOCAESAR — “VALHALLA RISING”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 022017
 

 

In the early months of this year the Dutch death metal band Neocaesar independently released their debut album 11:11 in a limited pressing of CDs, but since then have teamed up with Dave Rotten’s Xtreme Music label for worldwide distribution and a proper push of the music out onto the radar screens of death metal addicts across the globe. And to aid in that effort in advance of Xtreem’s release on November 27, we’re bringing you a track from the album called “Valhalla Rising“.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Neocaesar, the name may be new but those four men you see up there are veterans. And in fact, all four of them — vocalist Mike van Mastrigt, guitarist Bart van Wallenberg, bassist Michel Alderliefsten, and drummer Eric de Windt — were members of the landmark Dutch death metal band Sinister during the ’90s.

It is thus no coincidence that if you’re a fan of such Sinister albums as Hate, Diabolical Summoning, and Aggressive Measures, 11:11 is gong to bring back fond memories. But at the same time, 11:11 isn’t some weepy nostalgia trip down memory lane — it’s explosively alive and more than capable of holding its own with death metal competitors in the current age. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: DAWN, ELUVEITIE, EXTOL, GHOULGOTHA, LOUDBLAST, MAVETH-EMBRACE OF THORNS, NEOCAESAR, TYRANT OF DEATH

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jul 122014
 

It was a rare Friday night for your humble editor, in that your humble editor didn’t get completely shit-faced. This means that I was able to listen to music on this Saturday morning without experiencing severe brain pain and heaving waves of nausea. I made my way through a long list of new songs and videos I had collected over the last few days, from which I’ve sifted a still pretty long list of things I commend to your ears and eyes, presented in alphabetical order with a minimum of words. But before getting to those, here’s a piece of somewhat older news I only discovered recently.

DAWN

Over the years since I began getting into metal I’ve done a lot of deep diving back into music that was released before I wised up, but I didn’t know about Dawn until just a few days ago. They were formed circa 1990 by guitarist Fredrik Söderberg (Cranium) and recorded a smattering of demos plus two albums (1994’s Nær Sólen Gar Niþer For Evogher and 1998’s Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)) before disbanding for nearly a decade. They’ve reactivated, and the line-up now includes, in addition to Söderberg, original vocalist Henke Forss (Retaliation) plus drummer Tomas Asklund (Gorgoroth, ex-Dissection, ex-Dark Funeral) and bass player Philip von Segebaden (ex-Afflicted, ex-Cranium). That’s a hell of a line-up.

Beginning in April, Century Media has reissued the band’s discography from the 1990s on vinyl, and Dawn have also been working on a new album. A “semi-official rehearsal track” has been up on YouTube for a while, though the song title apparently isn’t correct. Here it is, followed by a full stream of Slaughtersun: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW (Part 2) AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT: MIKE VAN MASTRIGT (AND NEOCAESAR)

 Interviews, Metal News  2 Responses »
Aug 082013
 

(Late last month we brought you Part 1 of KevinP’s interview with Mike van Mastrigt of Houwitser (ex- Sinister), and we promised you that Part 2 would include an announcement you wouldn’t want to miss. KevinP gets to it without delay as we present Part 2 below.)

K:  Okay, now onto the announcement you wanted to make. The floor is yours……

M:   I’m proud to announce that I’m working again with Bart van Wallenberg (Sinister guitarist/bass on Diabolical Summoning —> Creative Killings). We have a new band called NEOCAESAR.  When we started we had an idea of the music we wanted to write,  only this did not work out (it was not the quality we were used to).  So I told Bart just to come up with anything he feels fine with.  We started working with that new material and found ourselves back in our Hate time period.  We initially tried to work with international drummers, but we needed to spend time practicing.  So we decided we needed someone from Holland, which left us with only one option (and there are a lot of good Dutch drummers), Eric de Windt.  I worked with him before (and he was also the vocalist on Sinister’s Aggressive Measures album). When Eric said yes, I called Michel [Alderliefsten] (Houwitser guitarist) with the good news.  Michel will be our bass player.

 

K:  So Bart has been quiet since his departure with Sinister many years ago (and I simply loved his work on Diabolical Summoning & Hate).  How long has this been in the planning?

M:  A few years ago we talked about it, even had a Sinister reunion night. With Bart, Aad, Michel and myself. We came up with the idea to reform Sinister, only Aad could no longer play drums anymore. We talked about getting a different drummer, but at the time Bart had other things to worry about (and it wouldn’t be nice for Aad, as an original member of the band). Little did we know the “rat” would use Sinister for his own benefit.  So this has been in the planning for a while, but finalized just a few months ago. Continue reading »