AN NCS PREMIERE: GOLDEN GOD — “FLESH”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 232021
 

 

We’ve written repeatedly about the genre-splicing metal band Witchtrip from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, premiering music from all three of the EPs they’ve released so far, including 2021’s Sledmetal. But it’s not Witchtrip that’s the subject of today’s premiere, so why are we mentioning them?

Well, it’s because today’s band, Golden God, is a Witchtrip side project that includes three of that band’s five members — Sean Kaye (guitar/vocals), Josh Buors (bass/vocals), and Adrian Meijn (drums). Golden God will soon be announcing their debut EP, and what we’ve got today is a track from it named “Flesh“. Continue reading »

AN NCS DOUBLE PREMIERE: WITCHTRIP — “PSYCHO KID” AND “REPTILE LORDS”

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Feb 262021
 

 

It’s time for a return visit by a hard-to-define metal band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, whom we’ve been writing about since 2018 when they released their first EP, Cosmic Cauldron. They followed that release with a second EP, A Burnt Offering, in 2020. Metal-Archives now classifies them as “Split-up”, but the accuracy of that is questionable, given that they’ve completed a third EP named Sledmetal which is set for release on March 9th.

This new EP is a five-track offering, and we accepted an invitation to premiere one of them. Problem was, the band left it up to us to pick the track. That turned out to be a maddeningly difficult choice because all the tracks are so damned good. So the band took pity on us and said, what about two tracks? We jumped at that chance (though it was still a tough call), and so now we’re presenting streams of two songs from Sledmetal — “Psycho Kid” and “Reptile Lords“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: WITCHTRIP — “A BURNT OFFERING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 242020
 

 

During the early morning hours of July 23, 2019, a fiery inferno engulfed and consumed a warehouse on Jarvis Avenue in Winnipeg, Canada. By the time the sun rose that day, according to this report, there was nothing left of the building but some skeletal exterior walls. The flames devastated more than the structure itself. The three-story warehouse had been home to the work of some of the city’s most distinguished artists, and it also housed the jam space of Witchtrip, a metal band whose membership significantly overlaps with Occvlt Hand and whose debut EP (Cosmic Cauldron) we premiered in 2018. Lost in that conflagration were thousands of dollars of the band’s instruments, gear, band merchandise, and other possessions, all of it uninsured.

Sometimes even disasters like that one have a silver lining, and in this instance it spurred Witchtrip to record a new two-track EP, their first music to be released since Cosmic Cauldron, as a means of trying to raise money to replace what they lost. Fittingly, and perhaps with a rueful smile, Witchtrip named the EP A Burnt Offering, and we’re premiering it today in advance of its official release on February 1st. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: WITCHTRIP — “COSMIC CAULDRON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 142018
 

 

We were told that the Canadian band Witchtrip includes all the members of Winnipeg’s Occvlt Hand other than the vocalist — so, basically the same band with a different singer. That was reason enough to check out the two tracks on Witchtrip’s debut EP, Cosmic Cauldron, because we were big fans of Occvlt Hand’s 2017 album, Not Everyone Deserves A Happy Ending. We gleefully premiered a track from that album, and put that same track on our list of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

Now, one would expect that Witchtrip’s music would be different from Occvlt Hand’s, despite the significant overlap in members. Otherwise, why choose a different name? And in fact, the music is quite different. And perhaps it should also come as no surprise that the music is nevertheless really, really good — as you’re about to discover for yourselves through our premiere of Cosmic Cauldron in advance of its release on March 16th by Possessed Records. Continue reading »