OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): SARGEIST, DARKEND, TOTENGOTT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  2 Responses »
Jan 262020
 

 

I’m writing this on Saturday, to make sure I’m able to post it on Sunday — because there’s a more than even chance that my head won’t be functioning very well on Sunday morning. I’m going to an annual party tonight (to celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns), and based on past experience I’ll drink way more single malt whisky and sleep less than is conducive to the formation of sentences the next day.

For the same reason, the odds are high that I don’t get a SHADES OF BLACK column written for Sunday (I also do remember that I never finished Part 2 of last Sunday’s column). So, to partially make up for that, the songs I grouped together in this Part 17 of the list fall into the categories of black or “blackened” metal.

SARGEIST

In the 2018 edition of this list (here) I included the title track from Sargeist’s brilliant last album, Unbound. Given that the band have established about a four-year cycle on their albums, I figured it would be 2022 before we got more new music from them. But at the beginning of the last week of 2019 they dropped a surprise EP named Death Veneration. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FULL OF HELL, POUND, TOTENGOTT, FROM THE BOGS OF AUGHISKA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 222019
 

 

I guess this week has been like every other week: It brought a flood of new metal. Unfortunately, it was a week when the job that pays the bills left me no time for round-ups. It was a mad scramble just to get everything else done around the NCS compound. Confronted with a list of way too many new songs to write about, most of which I haven’t even heard yet, I made completely impulsive choices from among those I have heard, three of which are videos.

Not sure how much further catching-up with new music I’ll manage in the posts this weekend, but I’m going to try. We’ll see how that goes…

FULL OF HELL

I had to lead off with this new song from Full of Hell because it’s just such a shrieking, roaring horror. One of those things that makes you sit bolt-upright and prevents you from thinking about anything else, which was a blessing, given my scrambled state of mind when I first heard it. Continue reading »

A DIRTY DOZEN

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Sep 162017
 

 

(Andy Synn is playing catch-up in a furious torrent, with brief reviews and streams of music from 12 striking 2017 albums.  Open wide… dine like queens and kings.)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (and again)… the vast array of music now available at the touch of a button is both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at it.

And while I generally celebrate the fact that I’m now able to search out and discover music from all around the world with an ease that’s quite mind-boggling when you think about it, the sheer plethora of albums clamouring for my attention means there’s simply not enough hours in the day to give them all the attention they deserve.

As a consequence of this, my “to do” list has swollen to a frankly rather distressing size over the last 4-5 months, so I’ve made an executive decision to clear my slate a little bit by pulling together twelve albums, which we’ve thus far failed to cover properly here at NCS, into one collective round-up.

So, without further ado, let’s get to it, shall we? Continue reading »