NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HASARD, BURIAL CLOUDS, NEÀNDER, DJATLOW, HIDEOUS DIVINITY

Apr 012023

Still playing catch-up on all the new songs and videos that surfaced last week… and before….

I suppose I should include some kind of April Fool’s joke, but I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be obvious. We’ve been nominated for a Pulitzer? We’re starting a clothing line? We’re merging with Rolling Stone so their year-end list will become our own? An AI wrote all the song descriptions in this article? Well, maybe that last one might be believable, if the writing were better.

Anyway, no jokes in the following music, though I have made these selections with the intent of keeping you off-balance.

HASARD (France)

I, Voidhanger Records has once again dropped a bunch of pre-orders and advance tracks for forthcoming albums in one fell swoop. I’ll probably get around to saying something about all of them, but impulsively chose just one today — a new song from Hasard‘s debut album Malivore. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CREPITATION — “METHANATED PROPULSION OF GASEOUS LEVITATION”

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Apr 012023

April Fool’s Day! Yes it is, and the joke’s on you!

Well, we’re not suggesting that we don’t really have a Crepitation premiere for you today, because we really really do. But look, the song was inspired by the kind of wet farts that provide a queasy recurring lift to your stride.

Hold that thought… along with whatever gaseous emissions may be trying to escape your bunghole at the moment … and let’s consider “Methanated Propulsion of Gaseous Levitation” (the nasty song from a new Crepitation album we’re premiering along with an insane “lyric video”), not the nasty bodily phenomenon for which it was named). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE INFERNAL SEA, NERVOSA, WORM SHEPHERD, PAVOR NOKTURNUS

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Mar 312023

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The Infernal Sea – Photography by Jay Russell

Well, this was another ridiculous week for the release of new music and videos designed to tease forthcoming records, not to mention the release of complete albums, EPs, and splits. Sadly, it was also another week when I couldn’t manage to catch up to them in other round-ups. At least I got a bit of a head-start today on the usual Saturday and Sunday collections, when more catching up will occur.

THE INFERNAL SEA (UK)

Oh hell, where to start? Well, how about with a new single from NCS favorites The Infernal Sea?

“Apostle of Gehenna” is a nice surprise, since about 2 1/2 years have elapsed since the band’s last release (the Negotium Crucis album, reviewed here), though there’s nothing “nice” about gaping jaws of the hellhound in the artwork (the work of Rob Gould). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VALGRIND — “MILLENNIUM OF NIGHT BLISS”

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Mar 312023

We’ve been following the music of the Italian death metal band Valgrind for many years, and for good reason. But if you happen to be discovering them for the first time, despite how often we’ve written about them, they released four demos and an EP between 1995 and 2002 — and then seemed to go into hibernation until the appearance ten years later of their debut album, Morning Will Come No More. Another four years passed, and then Valgrind’s second album, Speech of the Flame, was released by Lord of the Flies Records. The wonderful 2017 EP Seal of Phobos tided over Valgrind fans until the 2018 appearance of the next album, Blackest Horizon, via Everlasting Spew Records.

And then came their Condemnation album released in 2020 through the Spanish label Memento Mori, followed by their From the Viscera of Darkness EP in 2021. Now, the same Memento Mori is poised to release Valgrind‘s mind-blowing fifth album, Millennium of Night Bliss, on April 24th, and we’re able to share the title track with you today. BUT… before we get to that song, we want you to lend your ears to the new album’s previously released opening track “Teshub“. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 157): AFSKY

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Mar 312023

Recommended for fans of: (early) Ulver, Panopticon, Wolves In The Throne Room

Well, I promised you two Synn Reports this month, and I always (well, sometimes) keep my promises.

So here’s a little extended feature about Afsky, the solo-project of one Ole Pedersen Luk, whose music – rich in rugged sonic textures and raw, unfiltered emotion – errs more towards the “atmospheric” side of the Black Metal spectrum, while still possessing a sense of primal power and passionate urgency that runs deep through each and every track.

Equal parts melancholic and majestic, and infused with sombre folk influences that add a brooding, soulful edge to each of the band’s albums – all three of which I’ll be talking about here today, while leaving their two EPs (their self-titled 2015 debut and their 2022 acoustic release, I stilhed) for you to discover on your own time – this is Black Metal that you really feel, right down in the marrow of your bones.

AN NCS INTERVIEW: LUNAR CHAMBER

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Mar 312023

photo by Marissa Godinez

(On April 28th 20 Buck Spin will release the debut album of Lunar Chamber. As the label says, it offers “a deluge of jarringly brutal metal, overwhelming progressive physicality and instinctively accomplished memorability inspired by Buddhism, the East and esotericism.” It piqued the interest of Comrade Aleks, and he reached out for the interview that follows.)

20 Buck Spin just released two albums by the bizarre and progressive death/black crew Ulthar, and if you scraped your brains off the wall after listening yo their Anthronomicon / Helionomicon albums then here’s another challenge for people of strong spirit and thirsty minds.

Lunar Chamber’s debut EP Shambhallic Vibrations is a concept work of spiritual journey through the sonic plains of all things extreme and progressive. The album was mastered by Colin Marston of Gorguts and mixed by Greg Chandler of Esoteric; these two bands serve as good references to the avant-garde and complex music of Shambhallic Vibrations.

The band’s line-up is Timeworn Nexus (guitars, vocals, programming, songwriting), They, Who May Not Be Perceived (guitars, vocals, songwriting), Æther Lotus (fretless bass), and K. Paradis (drums). Right, the Lunar Chamber crew mostly keeps their anonymity and there’s no information in Metal-Archives yet, but Timeworn Nexus holds few secrets from our readers.

(Thanks to Jan of Sure Shot Worx for organizing the interview.)
Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PRONOSTIC — “BARE AND WRETCHED”

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Mar 302023

The darkest clouds of the covid pandemic didn’t have many silver linings, but one of them is that the lockdowns gave musicians a chance to bring to fruition ideas that had been long-gestating. The Montreal-based technical/progressive melodic death metal band Pronostic is a prime example of that. The dead times allowed them to complete their second album, Chaotic Upheaval, which is set for release on May 12th. It follows their formidable full-length debut (An Atomic Decision) by a long eight years.

It’s fair to say that with this new album Pronostic pulled out all the stops. New participants have come on board, including Fleshgod Apocalypse‘s piano and orchestration maestro Francesco Ferrini; world-renowned drummer Samuel Santiago, known for his time in First Fragment, Gorod, Black Crown Initiate, and more; and fretless bassist extraordinaire Xavier Sperdouklis, whose resume includes work with Killitorous and Ignominy. Moreover, the new album includes a host of impressive guest appearances (which we’ll identify later in this feature). And they got Cryptopsy‘s Christian Donaldson to produce and record it along with the band’s Charles “Butcher” Pilotte.

And none of that is intended to take away from the songwriting and performance skills of continuing members Pilotte (Low Vocals / Guitar) and Alex Lauzon (High Vocals / Guitar).

What all these talents have accomplished on the new album has already been previewed by the release of a single called “L’impureté Globale” (accompanied by an ambitious post-apocalyptic music video), and today we’ve got a further preview in our premiere via a lyric video of the album track “Bare and Wretched“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS (SELF-TITLED)

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Mar 302023

What you’re about to experience is likely to be the most electrifying 18 minutes of your day, unless you lose control of your car, the brakes fail, and you’re surging toward a concrete pylon at Formula One speed.

Those 18 minutes of full-throttle, mind-boggling music are wrapped within the self-titled debut EP by the Chicago quintet Necronomicon Ex Mortis, which will be released tomorrow (March 31st). Their brand of death metal is so fast, so technically head-spinning, and so devilishly inventive that it allows no room for any calm contemplation. All you can do is hang on for dear life and enjoy the flame-throwing madhouse thrills while they last — and then yield to the impulse to throw yourself back in right away. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 156): THRON

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Mar 302023

Recommended for fans of: Necrophobic, Naglfar, God Dethroned

I was honestly spoilt for choice this month when it came time to choose which band to cover.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was going to be a Black Metal band, but choosing between Thron, Downcross, Mork, Aara, Afsky, Lamp of Murmuur, and Nemesis Sopor was almost too difficult a task… which is why you’re going to get two editions of The Synn Report this month!

The subjects of today’s article deal in a particularly high-intensity form of Black Metal – big on both riffs and melody, with just a dash of deathly power and a touch of gothy glamour – that hits many of the same hook-heavy highlights as the likes of Necrophobic and Naglfar (the former especially), all propelled by the sort of electrifyingly extreme drum work that wouldn’t sound out of place on a God Dethroned or Dark Funeral album.

The group’s songwriting skills, however, are more than sharp enough to separate them from their peers, especially on their new album, Dust, which I’d say is the best of their impressive career so far.

Before we get to that though… there’s three other albums for you to sink your proverbial teeth into!

AN NCS PREMIERE: PUSTILENCE — “ASPIRANTS OF INTEMPERANCE”

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Mar 292023

We’re going to leap right into the music we’re now presenting, and then backfill with some details about who’s responsible for it and the album that includes it.

The song is “Aspirants of Intemperance“, and it is indeed a belligerently intemperate death metal outburst. With little more than a noxious grunt to announce it, the song quickly begins bludgeoning listeners and broiling their brains with squealing, siren-like strings and viciously roiling riffage. The raw madness in the seething and swarming fretwork channels rabid savagery as the rhythm section rapidly jackhammer syour spine and horrific gutturals vent their vitriol.

And there’s more violent lunacy to come, including a freaked-out guitar solo, gut-plundering bass-lines, crazed screams, bursts of jittery and jolting fretwork, weird channel-shifting yowling tones, constant shifts in rhythmic patterns and tempos, and even more macabre vocal howling and roaring. It’s all bizarre and bamboozling, not just gruesome and barbaric but also intricate and elaborate. Continue reading »

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