September 2015 - Page 12 of 12

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAÏEUTISTE — “LIFELESS VISIONS”

Sep 012015

After more than five years of work, the French band Maïeutiste have completed recording of an ambitious self-titled debut album that will be released on September 18 by Les Acteurs de L’Ombre Productions. Two of the album’s 11 tracks have previously been shared with listeners, and today we bring you a third — “Lifeless Visions” — presented in the form of a video that combines the music with imagery from F.W. Murnau’s landmark 1926 film Faust.

At nearly 10 minutes in length, the song is more like a tour of some imagined haunting landscape than a walk around the block outside your home — and the song would leave an unsettling impression even without the visual accompaniment from Faust (though the video is indeed a very fitting combination of sight and sound). Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WITCHSORROW

Interviews 3 Responses »

Sep 012015

(In this post our Russian friend Comrade Aleks interviews Nick “Necroskull” Ruskell, vocalist/guitarist of the UK band Witchsorrow, whose third album No Light, Only Fire, is being released on September 18 by Candlelight Records.)

It’s hard times for doom cult followers. There are so many bands that you can stray within the labyrinth of names and faces and get into the trap of another copycat band. But here we are — to spread a Word of Doom, to bring the knowledge and tunes so heavy and crushing that skies are shaking! Well, heavy and crushing are Witchsorrow, the band from London, where people disappear in fog-covered streets and are swallowed by the routine of life in a hive-city…

Witchsorrow is a headstrong band, and they’ve recorded their third work No Light, Only Fire and are releasing it through Candlelight Records. The new songs sound harsh, sinister, and straightforward, yet in a traditional doom way, and I was wondering how the band could reach such a result?

It was necessary to know, so I’ve contacted Nick “Necroskull” Ruskell, the singing guitarist of Witchsorrow. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ÆVANGELIST — “LEVITATING STONES”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Sep 012015

The portal to the Abysscape is about to open again. Or in more prosaic terms, a new Ævangelist album is almost upon us. Entitled Enthrall To The Void Of Bliss, it will be released by 20 Buck Spin on October 9 in North America and October 23 in Europe. Today we are fortunate to host the premiere of the album’s first advance track, a transfixing torment called “Levitating Stones“.

With three albums in as many years and a trio of EPs, Ævangelist have already abundantly proven their ability to cast spells of nightmarish power and conjure visions of claustrophobic, otherworldly terror and despair. But listeners who have followed the band’s tortured path since 2012’s De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis already know that their arcane creative inspirations have not left them rooted in a fixed place. “Levitating Stones” shows them moving again, navigating a new (and twisted) course within the alien hell they call home. Continue reading »

MEPHORASH: 1557 — RITES OF NULLIFICATION

Album Reviews 10 Responses »

Sep 012015

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Sweden’s Mephorash.)

One unfortunate consequence of the way that much of our musical culture has developed over the years, particularly with the rise of digital dissemination and access, has been that many of us are much less likely to allow a band the time to develop over multiple releases before we “invest” in them fully – too often we unfairly demand that a band appear “fully formed” on their first release, or else we end up writing them off before they’ve even had a chance to find their feet.

And while I can see both sides of the reasoning behind this attitude, it’s not always the fairest way of assessing a band’s future potential. Sure, it may have raised the bar for debut albums/EPs (though this is hard to quantify), but it also means we’ve probably missed out on a lot of bands who took a little while longer to really hit their stride.

Case in point, I didn’t really give Swedish occultists Mephorash the time of day until only very recently, as although I’d heard both their previous albums, nothing from them really stood out to me. Those are not bad, not by any means (my advice is to ignore the rather venomous reviews on Metal-Archives), but they just didn’t captivate me. They didn’t have that X-factor that makes an album stand out from the pack.

Thankfully, the times, they are a’changin’… Continue reading »

PUTRIDITY: “IGNOMINIOUS ATONEMENT”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Sep 012015

(Our good friend from the Dominican Republic, Vonlughlio, returns to NCS with this guest review of the new album by the Italian band Putridity.)

To the readers who have seen my top year-end lists, it would be safe to say that one of my favorite genres in metal is Brutal Death Metal. Some of my favorite bands in this genre are: Gorgasm, Cerebral Effusion, Seminal Embalmment, Cenotaph (Turkey), Defeated Sanity, and Putridity.

The band Putridity is from Italy and was formed in 2005 from the ashes of Obscene Perversion and in 2007 they released their debut album Mental Prolapse Induces Necrophilism. But I found out about this band in 2012, a year later after the release of their second album (shame on me I guess) and purchased it along with their debut album. I have to say that I was blown away by this band’s performance in both of those releases. Great riffs with superb drumming and killer vocals.

Now flash forward to early 2015. When the band announced their new album Ignominious Atonement I was at work, but somehow a “fuck yeah” escaped my mouth. Since it was released via Willowtip I have lost count of how many times I have listened to it. My first impression is how much the people who recorded that album — Davide “BrutalDave” Billia (Drums), Paolo Chiti (Vocals), Andrea “Ciccio” Aimone (Guitars), Paolo “Panino” (Guitars), and Alessandro Cravero (Bass) — have grown as musicians, with such strong performances. They just flat-out released one of the best BDM albums of 2015. Continue reading »

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