Mar 312016
 

Universe 217-Change

 

(Here’s the third of our friend KevinP’s monthly selection of releases for 2016, naming his Top 5 favorite albums released during March.)

Truth be told, I’ve been knee deep into “comic book research” for the past few months, but especially in March, so my attention has been split between music and yet another hobby to spend way too much money on.  And by research, I mean investigating what new books and series recently came out and what’s on the horizon so I can generate a valid “pull list”.  I was toying with the idea of doing a semi-regular column on comic books.  What do you think of that prospect?  I’m rarely, if ever, gonna discuss a book about men (or chicks) in spandex, it will be all the indie and creator-owned ones (yes, I’m an elitist snob in my other hobbies as well).  Anyways, on with this month’s best of…… Continue reading »

Jul 202015
 

Abyssal-Antikatastaseis

 

(In this post Dan Barkasi continues his monthly series recommending music from the previous month.)

June is long gone, but alas, there’s music that needs some light shed upon it!

Apologies for the delay on this one. Life finds a way – to get in the way of my getting this done faster. Thanks, Dr. Malcolm, for the line!

How good was June? It was loaded like a politician’s rhetoric, but not vomit-inducing. In other words, lots of audible goodies! A lot of styles represented, too, possibly being the month with the most diversity thus far.

Let it begin!

AbyssalAntikatastaseis

Chaotic as they are potent, Abyssal’s third album displays a band who continue to hone their craft to devastating effect. This sublime combination of black, death, and doom metal is so crushing that it gives a dinosaur a run for its money. There’s also a little bit more melody than the previous two discs, which is used to great effect. Continue reading »

Jul 012015
 

 

(Another month is in the history books, and so it’s time for KevinP to name the releases from last month that most impressed him.)

Half the year has come and gone.  Yeah, it’s beyond cliche to say “that was fast”, so I won’t.  But what got me thinking was how people like to compare different years and judge which ones were better for metal releases.  Since 2012 I’ve been doing Best Of lists here at NCS and I’ve been very happy each year with the plethora of releases I’ve been fortunate to hear.  I can’t really say any one year has been “off” or “poor” for metal.   Nor can I say one year was better than the next.  So on that token, here’s 5 more great albums of 2015. Continue reading »

Jun 152015
 

 

Ten days ago, during one of my MISCELLANY excursions, I came across a just-released EP entitled Mysterivm Magnvm by a one-man project from Serbia named Temple of Gnosis. At that point I only wrote about one song from the album — its title track —  and not long after, the stream of the EP disappeared into the mists. But today we’ve got the pleasure of bringing you the resurrection of that stream as we premiere the entire EP.

Temple of Gnosis is the creation of someone who calls himself H.M.T., and Mysterivm Magnvm is the project’s debut EP. It’s being released by Goathorned Productions and it’s described as a concept work based on the “alchemical process of Enlightenment”, and specifically on the initial step of “deconstruction” along the path toward “transformation of mind and spirit”: Continue reading »

Jun 052015
 

 

The last of these MISCELLANY posts was more than three months ago. I’ve obviously done a piss-poor job getting the series on anything like a regular schedule. Of course, I would be foolish at this point to predict when No. 75 will happen. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

I think we probably need a reminder about how the MISCELLANY experiment works:  I randomly pick bands whose music I’ve never heard before (usually bands whose names I’ve only discovered recently) and I listen to only one or two songs, usually from their most recent releases. I write my immediate impressions of what I’ve heard, and then I stream the music so you can make up your own minds. Unlike everything else we post at this site, I don’t know what the music will sound like in advance, or whether I’ll like it.

PALINOPSIA

My first selection comes from a four-man band named Palinopsia from Poultney, Vermont. They wrote yesterday to call our attention to their first EP, entitled Murmurs From the Well Nothing More, which was released on June 3. The EP is on Bandcamp, and the song that’s set to begin streaming there is the EP’s second track, “Silt”. Continue reading »