AN NCS EP PREMIERE: VINTERBRIS — “AD ABSURDUM” (AND A VIDEO BY KIM HOLM)

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
May 232017
 

 

We have a double-premiere for you in this post, both of which have stirred excitement here at the NCS metallic island. The first of these is the stream of a powerful new two-song EP by the Norwegian melodic black metal band Vinterbris, set for release on June 6th, the title of which is Ad Absurdum. And the second, which was inspired by the first, is a time-lapse video of the wonderful Norwegian artist Kim Holm that depicts his creation of the EP’s evocative wrap-around cover art.

In 2014 we wrote repeatedly about Vinterbris‘ superb second album Solace. What first drew our attention to the album even before hearing the music was the artwork that Kim Holm created for that album. In addition to a cover piece, Holm created separate illustrations for each song on the album (which we collected in one place here). Having been lured into the album by this artwork, we found the music to be a treasure as well. We even included a song from Solace on our list of 2014’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

And now we will face the challenge of deciding which of these two new songs to pick for the 2017 edition of that list — because both songs surge with infectious energy, both of them immediately appealing at the first listen, and both of them persistently boiling in the listener’s mind long after they end. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VINTERBRIS — “GAZING AT A FALLEN SKY”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Aug 242016
 

Vinterbris-Solace-artwork

 

In 2014 we wrote repeatedly about a superb album called Solace by Norway’s Vinterbris. What first drew our attention to the album even before hearing the music was the artwork created for Solace by an artist we greatly admire, Kim Holm. In addition to a cover piece, Holm created separate illustrations for each song on the album (which we collected in one place here). Having been lured into the album by this artwork, we found the music to be a treasure as well. We even included a song from Solace on our list of 2014’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

We now have a fine occasion to revisit Solace because Triton’s Orbit will be reissuing the album next month in a slipcase edition featuring Kim Holm’s artwork, and in advance of that release Vinterbris have also made available their first lyric video, for a song on Solace called “Gazing At A Fallen Sky” — which we are happily premiering below. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 29): VINTERBRIS AND AUTUMN’S DAWN

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014  2 Responses »
Jul 192015
 

Vinterbris-Solace

 

As promised yesterday, I’m now adding two more songs to my woefully delayed roll-out of our list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Bad enough that five months went by before I resumed the roll-out after starting it late last year, but then I let three weeks go by since the last installment in the series. With two songs added yesterday and two more today, I hope to be a little more consistent in completing it.

For an explanation of what this list is about, go here. To see the songs named to the list so far, use this link. The titles of today’s two songs happen to refer to ashes, and they both happen to be affiliated with black metal.

VINTERBRIS

I thoroughly enjoyed this Bergen, Norway, band’s second album, Solace. I wrote separately about two of the tracks when they premiered in advance of the album’s release last year, and they were both candidates for this list (“Fathom” and “Dysphoria”). But the one I picked is the album’s wonderful second track, “Ash Alight”. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: VINTERBRIS AND KIM HOLM

 Eye-Catchers  11 Responses »
Jun 122014
 

If you look on the right side of this page under the heading of “Categories” you’ll see a link to something called “Eye-Catchers”. It was an irregular series of posts I started a very long time ago and then sort of forgot about. The original idea was to pick music to write about based solely on the cover art, as a way of testing the hypothesis that cool album art tends to correlate with cool music. I still often check out new music in just that way — because the artwork catches my eye — but writing about what I’ve found in that way as a test of the “Eye-Catchers” hypothesis has fallen by the wayside. I’m going to try to do more of that.

I’ve already written (twice) about music from the forthcoming album (Solace) by Norway’s Vinterbris, and I first paid attention to it precisely because of the cover art, which was created by an artist I’ve praised frequently at NCS: Kim Holm. The last time I wrote about this partnership was after the release of a video showing Kim Holm’s creation of a drawing for the album with the song “Dysphoria” as musical accompaniment. I’m going to embed that video again at the end of this post in case you missed it. But the main reason for the post is to collect in one place all the other pieces that Holm created for Solace — because he created separate pieces for each song on the album (just as he did for Sólstafir’s Svartir Sandar — that art is collected here.)

Solace will be released on June 16 by Nordavind Records. You can order it now on CD either here or here, and that second link will take you to a Bandcamp page where digital downloads can also be pre-ordered. But of course one reason to spring for the CD (which is what I’ve done) is to get the booklet with the art you’re about to see (a CD pre-order gets you immediate download of two songs). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VINTERBRIS, BINAH, TENGGER CAVALRY

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  15 Responses »
May 122014
 


Vinterbris — drawing by Kim Holm

A lot of music and videos reached my ears and eyes over the weekend and today, and I’ve been collecting the best of what I heard in a series of posts. I guess I could have called all of them “Seen and Heard”, but I labeled the first one today “Videography”, and the next one (to be posted tomorrow) will be “Shades of Black”. Here are the next three goodies:

VINTERBRIS

I first came across this band from Bergen (Norway) last month after discovering that the very talented Norwegian artist Kim Holm had created the cover art for their forthcoming new album, Solace. I found an advance song named “Fathoms”, liked it a lot, and featured it here. (You can listen to another one at Pitchfork, where Kim Kelly spotlighted it.)

Today Vinterbris unveiled a wonderful music video for another new song, “Dysphoria”, which fittingly features Kim Holm’s creation of artwork for the songs on the album. As the band have explained, nothing in this video is sped up or otherwise altered. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AUROCH, VINTERBRIS, MACHINE HEAD

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News  5 Responses »
Apr 212014
 

Swimming through the effluent of the interhole this morning I came upon these life rafts that buoyed my spirits. May they make you buoyant as well.

AUROCH

Last November I reported the happy news that Vancouver’s Auroch had signed with Profound Lore, for the release of the band’s next album during 2014 (that same report was merely the prelude to a review of the band’s killer 2013 EP Seven Veils, which you should hear if you haven’t). And now we have the album’s name — Taiman Shud — and the cover art by Cold Poison, which you can see above and which is damned cool — cold, grim, and undoubtedly fitting for what I expect will be an immense and forbidding death metal release.

The official release date was also announced:  June 24, 2014. A vinyl edition will be coming in July via Dark Descent.

And in other Auroch news, it was announced that Tridoid Records will be releasing the band’s previous album From Forgotten Worlds on vinyl this coming August. Continue reading »