TYRANNY ENTHRONED: “OUR GREAT UNDOING”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 232014
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new second album by Tyranny Enthroned from St. Louis, Missouri.)

Tyranny Enthroned are one of America’s best death metal newcomers.

That could be viewed as a bit of a hyperbolic statement, but to me it’s absolutely true. I was already in love with the band’s debut Born of Hate, which I have reviewed here, but their sophomore opus Our Great Undoing cements them as a death-dealing titan worth watching.

It would be odd for me to quantify how this album functions as a sophomore release, especially considering just how important the second album is in any band’s career to either showing their stuff or getting dismissed. A lot has changed, and at the same time nothing has. The Polish influences of Behemoth and Hate are still a core of their sound, and they do maintain that layer of American militarism, but their riffing and songwriting is much less derivative and is now molding and establishing more of a definitive identity for them. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2014: A YEAR-END LIST FROM TR00 NATE

 LISTMANIA 2014  17 Responses »
Dec 232014
 

 

(We renew another cherished annual tradition as we present a year-end list of metal from Tr00 Nate (ex-The Number of the Blog) — whose own blog is here.)

Another year, another list. I’ve always enjoyed doing these lists, starting way back in 2009 when I made my first post on The Number of the Blog. Since then I’ve managed to make one every year, with various amounts of effort put into them. It’s weird that I consider my main stretch of internet blogging to have been with Number of the Blog, yet I only made two lists for that, while this will be the fourth I’ve written for No Clean Singing. Anyways, my adoptive home has asked me back to write for them again, and I’m all too happy to do so.

2014 wasn’t quite the year 2013 was. Last year it felt like there was a huge deluge of just great releases coming from every corner of the planet. This year I really had to think about my top 20. The top 10 was easy, but after that it was a struggle to think of the truly great great albums that came out this year. Not to say that numbers 20 through 11 are forgettable albums. I think they’re all great. It’s just that last year the struggle came from whittling it down to twenty as there were so many albums I wanted to talk about that I couldn’t fit on the list. Some of this might be jadedness as I’ve listened to a lot of stuff that people have thought is awesome, and if I had heard it like two or three years ago I would’ve been all aboard that shit. But now I just get a “yeah that’s cool” reaction to so much shit. It’s kind of depressing, but it does make the stuff that breaks through all the better. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INVIDIOSUS — “OVERLORDS OF THE APOCALYPSE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 232014
 

 

(In this post Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a new single by Minnesota’s Invidiosus.)

You may have already heard the music of Invidiosus here at NCS this year through one of my previous posts about them. Their album from this year, Malignant Universe, often reminded me of Origin in places, although it also drew from all over the death metal spectrum and was also infused with some grindcore love. If you haven’t check that record out yet, you need to. To end your year with an ugly metallic present, the band recorded a new single called “Overlords Of The Apocalypse”, and asked us to premiere the video for it, which doubles as a song premiere since today is its release date as well.

The video was shot during an Invidiosus Halloween show, and it offers up an amusing gore-soaked twist on your typical performance music video. The band members and the audience are dressed absurdly, with D. Todd Farnham in a Satan outfit slappin da’ bass taking the cake. Guitarist Kevin Alter dressed up as bad guy Lo Pan from the legendary John Carpenter film Big Trouble In Little China comes in a close second.

As the video progresses, you see its story take shape; a hammer-wielding maniac who also carries a knife first murders the doorman, then proceeds to start violently killing members of the audience once inside. By the end of the video, the mysterious deranged assassin has murdered every single member of the audience. It’s done in a tongue-in-cheek way, and I thought it was a hilariously original concept. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: XIBALBA, GREY AURA, AETHYR , SWAMP WITCH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 222014
 

 

I spent most of my listening time this past weekend delving into shades of black (and also trying to narrow down the candidates for our Most Infectious Song list). But I also did a bit of additional searching for new things to recommend, and here’s what I found — along with a contribution from Grant Skelton who has a recommendation of his own at the end.

XIBALBA

I discovered that last Friday Xibalba debuted a song named “Invierno” from their forthcoming LP, Tierra Y Libertad. The album is coming out on January 27 via Southern Lord and sports fantastic cover art by Dan Seagrave.

Based on past experience, I was expecting something crushing and savage, and I wasn’t disappointed. “Invierno” is one big sonic meat tenderizer. Everything about it is immensely heavy and dark, driven by a combination of needling and piledriving riffs, and with a couple of skull-smashing breakdowns. It’s an exclusive stream, so go here to listen: Continue reading »

OCULUS INFERNUS: IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR REFLECTS UPON ANOTHER FULL YEAR OF MUSIC

 LISTMANIA 2014  20 Responses »
Dec 222014
 

 

(The esteemed Professor D. Grover the XIIIth once again provides us with his year-end list of personal favorites, and an eclectic list it is.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. I apologize for my recent silence, but real-life intrusions (growing children, job promotions, that sort of thing) have made it all but impossible for me to write. Still, I listen when I can find the time, and as such, I return to provide you with my annual year-end review. As always, my list has reached an absurd size, with fifty albums and a separate list of fifteen demos and EPs. However, my comments about each album may not be quite so in-depth due to the aforementioned lack of time.

First, we have the EPs, demos, and singles that I enjoyed this year. Sometimes a shorter release can better capture my memory due to its short run-time, because I can listen to it more and really, truly digest it. These fifteen are all excellent releases. Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON (BEST OF 2014 EDITION)

 LISTMANIA 2014  33 Responses »
Dec 222014
 

 

(For the fourth year in a row our old friend SurgicalBrute weighs in with his list of the year’s best metal.)

Okay, let’s be honest… When it comes to end of the year lists, no one really cares about these intro paragraphs. They’re usually some anecdote about how this was a such great year in metal, and truthfully, we all know I could be writing erotic hobbit fan fiction up here and most of you wouldn’t notice… You’re going to skip right to the music. So I’m just going to make a couple of quick points

First, I don’t know if it was the abnormally grim and frosty weather that we got last winter, but this past year seemed to be a particularly strong one for black metal… at least for me.

Second, this was probably the hardest list I’ve written. Lots of good albums came out this year, but there wasn’t a whole lot that actually stood head and shoulders above the rest. It just seemed like a year full of very solid, enjoyable releases.

So, with that out of the way, on to the important stuff (…and no, there’s no particular order to this). Continue reading »

IN PRAISE OF… MESHUGGAH

 Concert Reviews  7 Responses »
Dec 222014
 

 

(This is more than a show review… this is Andy Synn’s analysis of why Meshuggah rise far above their legions of imitators.)

Two nights ago I was lucky enough to witness the sheer awe-inspiring power of Meshuggah lay waste to a packed Roundhouse in London, as part of their 25th (!) Anniversary tour.

As I’m reviewing the show for another publication (because I am, at heart, a whore for attention and approbation) it didn’t seem right to also review it here for NCS. However, the whole experience did stimulate more than a few different thoughts in my head, and so I wanted to at least take the opportunity to write a few of them down, and maybe go a little deeper into exactly why I think Meshuggah are such an important, vital band in today’s metal scene. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LVTHN, NECROSAVANT, OUTER HEAVEN, GNAW THEIR TONGUES, CONDOR, BÖLZER AND SPECTRAL LORE,

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 212014
 

 

I suppose this post could be considered Part 2 of a collection I began yesterday (here). It’s a big selection of music I discovered over the last couple of days that in widely varying degrees incorporate elements of black and death metal into the sound. And I do mean “widely varying” — no two of these bands sound alike, but I hope you’ll agree they all sound good.

LVTHN

LVTHN is a Belgian black metal band with three short releases to its credit, all of them appearing in 2014. The first one, Adversarialism, I reviewed here. The next two of those releases came this month — a four-song EP entitled The Grand Uncreation (which includes a cover of a Katharsis song) and a split with Lluvia entitled Illuminantes Tenebrae. Both are worthy of separate reviews, but I’m so pressed for time that I’m afraid I’ll never write them. I decided this short comment is better than nothing.

In a nutshell, these five new LVTHN songs are potent examples of bestial black art — torrential hailstorms of knife-edged riffs undergirded by the distant rumble of percussion and pierced by flesh-rending vocals, with waves of dark, dramatic melody moving through the music like the migration of leviathans. It’s gripping, galvanizing, ravaging music, with just enough well-placed breaks in the onslaught to prevent total sensory overload.  And the Katharsis cover is obliterating. Continue reading »

A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEMJAZA (THY DARKENED SHADE)

 LISTMANIA 2014  11 Responses »
Dec 212014
 

 

(One of my favorite albums of 2014 is Liber Lvcifer I: Khem Sedjet by the Greek black metal band Thy Darkened Shade. I asked Semjaza, the man behind the music, if he would share with us his favorite music of this year, and he agreed.)

 

When Islander invited me to do a 2014 favorite music list of mine, I thought instantly about what I needed to hear from new releases.  Concerning black metal in 2014, as a LHP practitioner and a diehard black metal enthusiast, when I hear about spiritual black metal I demand real devotion towards the black arts. Too many people are poisoning this divine artform with their pseudo-occult imagery, their zero knowledge towards LHP initiation, their posing like they found the Lapis Philosophorum, and of course their zero musical talent. It is better to openly admit that you are dabbling with the occult or write about a random retarded theme, than to approach the currents with the least of devotions. It is not a matter of spiritual or aesthetic preferences, it is a matter of honest expression; I can tolerate a band’s choices when they are honest artistic expressions even when I do not agree with their concepts, but I highly despise the followers who are trying to steal the flames of genuine Luciferian art in order to receive scene points.

In order for a release to be included in my ultimate playlist, it must either be a genuine approach towards Luciferianism or a new Iron Maiden release. Malkuth needs more music to transfer LHP knowledge to the listener, to make him/her comprehend that there is a hidden potential via the acausal link that opens the path towards Chaos, godhood, and Self-preservation (onwards to the Black Sun). Music and especially the black metal genre can aid the eradication of pre-determined ego-based notions by the awakening of the black flame. This is not an exaggeration but rather my life story, since heavy metal & black metal were for sure really crucial for my own awakening.

The social environment carefully boycotts those of the blood by making spiritual superiority look like psychological illness, but those few who possess the sinister flame know what they search and how to find it. To those few, the mundane achievements are nothing but mere illusions that can be easily reached with little effort since the will to become more than human is always more demanding and contains more value than any mundane aim. This doesn’t mean that I solely listen to strictly occult oriented music since music many times may act as a reflection of the artist when it is an honest expression. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LEVIATHAN, HUMAN BODIES, DEAD IN THE MANGER, HIC IACET

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Dec 202014
 

 

Here is a collection of recommended items from the blacker end of the metal spectrum that I spotted and heard yesterday; I have some others that I’ll feature tomorrow. I wrote most of this last night, just before the alcohol-soaked holiday party hosted by the place where I work. The parts that don’t make any sense were written this morning as I began the long road to recovery.

LEVIATHAN

Yesterday brought additional details from Profound Lore about the next album by Leviathan: As previously disclosed, the album’s title is Scar Sighted; it will be released March 3 digitally and on CD; it was produced, engineered, and mixed by Billy Anderson; and it includes nine tracks. There was also this info about the album’s packaging, with a reference to the artwork I’ve included at the top of this post:

“Scar Sighted” will be packaged as a boxed CD edition (the only version of the CD this will be available as) which will come with eleven two-sided inserts featuring exclusive paintings by Jef Whitehead himself (one of them being the one pictured, LEVIATHAN logo watermarked specifically for online purposes, there is no actual front cover for “Scar Sighted”). The vinyl edition, to be released a month or so after the CD/digital version will also be specially packaged and will be released via the artists’ own Devout Records imprint (in which we will directly update you on its progress in due time).

This is an album I’m eager to hear, in part because I have a feeling it will include some surprises (see this interview of Wrest for reasons why I think that). This is the track list: Continue reading »

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