Oct 092018
 

 

The time has again arrived for us to check in with Nordland, the one-man black metal band from the damp east coast of England, whose distinctive musical contemplations of a pagan past and looming death have gripped our attention in past releases, the last of which was the excellent European Paganism album in 2017. Not one whose creative inspirations go dormant for long at a time (or maybe ever), Nordland’s creator Vorh has recorded a new album named The Dead Stones which will be released on October 24th by the Russian labels Satanath Records and More Hate Productions.

I wrote of the music on the last album that Nordland had “succeeded in maintaining connections to some of black metal’s most revered (and most copied) traditions, while also embellishing and changing the methods of expression in ways that stand out from the pack”, creating music that was “so complex, so intricate, and so kaleidoscopic in its changes that it also merits adjectives like ‘progressive’ and ‘avant garde'”. Nordland’s propensity for crafting ever-changing musical expressions that take listeners outside of themselves into a different imagined world is on display again in the song from The Dead Stones that we’re premiering today — “The Roots Impale the Dead“. Continue reading »

Mar 032017
 

 

I would guess that most of us have favorite metal labels whose releases we check out, and maybe even buy, automatically. We’ve figured out over time that certain labels tend to sign quality bands whose music lines up well with our own tastes. Especially over the last year, and for precisely that reason, I’ve gotten into the habit of reflexively checking out new releases by Russia’s Satanath Records and its Belarusian affiliate, Symbol of Domination (e-mail alerts from Bandcamp make that easy). And so when I got a Bandcamp alert about two weeks ago concerning a new Satanath release by the UK’s Nordland, I visited the page without delay — and it wasn’t long before I included the song I found there in an NCS feature on new music.

That song, “Rites of Dawn”, is one of three on a Nordland album named European Paganism, which Satanath will be co-releasing with More Hate Productions on March 25. I’m happy to tell you that we’ve now been given the opportunity to premiere a second song from the album, “A Burning of Idols“. Continue reading »

Feb 202017
 


Palmer

I admit that I went berserk posting about new music this past weekend. Pretty sure that I set a weekend record for our site in the number of releases I included in those five posts between Saturday and Sunday. You’d think I would have exhausted what I found last week that got me excited — but no, not even close.

I really like all three of the songs I’ve collected here, and I also think they complement each other when heard one after the other, even though the genre styles are different.

PALMER

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery”.

Those words, written by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy almost 700 years ago, begin the video that you’re about to see. Powerful words, and profoundly true. There’s also tremendous power in this video, and in the song for which it was so beautifully made. Continue reading »

Oct 282015
 

Fatum-Life Dungeons

 

A musician acquaintance of mine who recently started following our putrid site was pleasantly surprised at how many bands he had found here that he’d never heard of before, and he asked me how we find the music we write about. I can only speak for myself (because everyone here makes their own choices and writes what they want to write about).

In my case I do discover a lot of the music via press releases from labels, bands, and PR reps, but I would guess that more than half of what I choose to feature and review comes through tips from our readers and from messages or posts by Facebook friends. And that’s what I’m doing here — picking new music I’ve enjoyed from among recommendations I received yesterday via Facebook friends one from a reader e-mail.

Though you know I like to provide my own descriptions and reactions to what I hear, I can’t do that this time. I’ve got to leave town early this morning for my fucking day job, and until I get back home late tomorrow night I won’t have much blog time. But trust me — everything you’re about to hear is really good.

FATUM

Fatum are from Moscow, Russia. Their new album is called Life Dungeons. It’s hell-on-wheels thrashing crust that will get your blood pumping. (Many thanks to Craig for posting about them on FB.) Continue reading »