September 2015 - Page 4 of 12

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORD’A’STIGMATA — “OUR HEARTS SLOW DOWN”

Sep 212015

The remarkable new EP by Poland’s Mord’A’Stigmata is named Our Hearts Slow Down. Although the title has meaning in the context of the music, your hearts will not slow down when you hear it. Unless you’re listening to the EP just as you’ve lost your brakes while bending through a hairpin curve on a mountain highway, we can assure you that you hearts will beat faster. You can tell us if we’re wrong — because at the end of these words you can listen to the EP from start to finish.

Black metal is at the core of this music, but whatever instinctive reactions you may have to that genre label, good or bad, put them aside. On this EP, you can tell that Mord’A’Stigmata had a vision that didn’t conform to established forms, and they bring into play a number of diverse musical styles to create a thoroughly narcotic and irresistibly powerful concoction. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: GREY WIDOW / SONS OF TONATIUH — A SPLIT

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Sep 212015

This is a review of the just-released split by Grey Widow from somewhere in the southeastern wastes of the UK and Sons of Tonatiuh from Atlanta, Georgia. I’ll take them one at a time, but in a nutshell, this is one hell of a devastating split.

GREY WIDOW

This split comes in the wake of Grey Widow’s debut album last year, a catastrophic sludge/doom behemoth that I thought was brilliantly caustic, corrosive, and crushing. The band contribute two songs to the split, a 10-minute track named “X” and a somewhat shorter one named “Obey”. They’re as utterly obliterating as anything else I’ve heard this year.

The three minutes of inexorable pounding and excruciating feedback that launches “X” may put your teeth on edge, but the absolutely staggering riffs that follow may knock them into your throat. It’s the titanic, fuzz-drenched sound of buildings collapsing in slow motion and bone being pulverized into dust. The vocalist shrieks for all he’s worth in the background of the destruction — and though all this noise is ghastly enough, it still doesn’t completely prepare you for what happens when the band really start storming about halfway through the song. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND AN INTERVIEW): ABHORRENT DECIMATION — “MIASMIC MUTATION”

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Sep 212015

Last week in a “Best of British” article on our site, Andy Synn reviewed Miasmic Mutation, the new album soon to be released by Abhorrent Decimation — and now we’re bringing you the premiere of a full-album stream, along with an interview of the band.

While referencing the likes of such stellar bands as Hour of Penance, Decapitated, and Man Must Die, Andy further wrote:

“This isn’t an album that feels derivative. It feels fresh. It feels vital. It feels… alive. In fact, it’s one of the most shamelessly infectious and irresistibly head-bang-able Death Metal albums that I’ve heard this year.”

AN NCS PREMIERE: PERIHELION — “VÉG SE HOZZA EL”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 212015

One good thing sometimes leads to another good thing. About two weeks ago I was excited to discover a music video for a track from a forthcoming album (Zeng) by the Hungarian band Perihelion. I wrote about the song (“Égrengető”) here, and now we find ourselves in the happy position of being able to bring you the premiere of another song from the same album, a track named “Vég se hozza el” (Hungarian for “Even the end will not bring relief”).

While “Égrengető” has its heavy moments, particularly as it builds toward the climax, much of its magic lies in the ethereal guitar melody and the experience of listening to Gyula Vasvári send his voice arcing into the sky. “Vég se hozza el” combines similar ingredients, but in different proportions. It starts in a blaze, takes a breath, and then pours out its intensity and passion in a stream of gleaming black water. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ABYSMAL LORD, NIHIL KAOS, WOLFBASTARD, NIGHT, VERHEERER

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 4 Responses »

Sep 202015

This is the second part of a two-part post I began earlier today, the purpose of which is to collect new music that I discovered in an extended bout of listening yesterday, most of it from bands who were also new discoveries. It gets the Shades of Black label because much of it is black metal, though as you’ll discover, there’s quite a lot of diversity in these songs.

ABYSMAL LORD

In August of last year we premiered a song from a debut EP named Storms of Unholy Black Mass by Louisiana’s Abysmal Lord. That EP was a hell of a debut, and now the band have completed their first full-length, which is scheduled for release on November 27 by Hells Headbangers. The strength of the EP would have provided reason enough to look forward to Disciples of the Inferno, but the first advance track from the album (“Sabat”) seals the deal. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: PROTOLITH — “DARK”

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Sep 202015

Almost five years have passed since Protolith released their debut album Light, and three years since their Sunsetter EP. But this Massachusetts-based band have now completed work on their second full-length, with a title that contrasts with the name of their debut: Dark. Today we’re happy to bring you a full streaming premiere of the new album in advance of its official release.

Dark represents a rare combination of genre-spanning musical styles, including sludge, doom, death, post-metal, and progressive metal. It’s evident that Protolith are adept at writing and performing in all of these fields, but what makes Dark such a fascinating achievement is the band’s success in blending them together so naturally within each song. Even with such marked contrasts in these musical styles, the music flows. The transitions feel organic, and at its best, Dark succeeds not just in transitioning between these different approaches but in uniting them. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 3 Responses »

Sep 202015

(Austin Weber prepared this Sunday’s edition of The Rearview Mirror.)

As on every Sunday at NCS, it’s time again for us to reflect on music that’s been out for a while, including music you may never have heard before. Today’s time-machine trip into the past takes us into the strange world of California natives Spaceboy, who never really got the recognition they deserved for any of their releases.

Spaceboy played a particularly unusual and complex style of Progressive-minded sludge/death/doom. I’ve strongly argued for years that their two full-length records — 1998’s Getting Warm On The Trail Of Heat and 2002’s Searching the Stone Library for the Green Page of Illusion — are two of the greatest sludge/stoner/doom records of all time. They set a high creative benchmark that has yet to be bested by any group, in my estimation. Here is “Pink Domain” to check out while you read on: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): PRAISE THE FLAME, VENEFIXION, EÏS, MEPHORASH, SACRAMENT OV IMPURITY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 6 Responses »

Sep 202015

I listened to a lot of metal yesterday, making a rare effort to get ahead of the game on some things I’m planning to post on Monday. That didn’t work out exactly as I’d planned, because I spent more time impulsively exploring music I’d never heard before than writing those other posts. And most of what I heard that I thought was good was either black metal or thoroughly pestilential death metal with a charred coating. So once again I’ve collected the music under the heading Shades of Black, divided into two parts because there’s a lot I want to share with you. Part 2 will come later today.

(Once again, I want to thank my Serbian friend “M” for suggesting half of what I chose to write about in this two-part collection.)

PRAISE THE FLAME

The first band is Praise the Flame from Santiago, Chile, whose ranks include members of Death Yell, Megiddo, Insorcist, and Occidens. Their debut album Manifest Rebellion will be released September 21 on CD via Memento Mori, but the album is now streaming on Bandcamp until October 12. Continue reading »

SATURDAY SEEN AND HEARD: GRAVE, DECEASE, MOLOKEN, HAIDUK, HORN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 9 Responses »

Sep 192015

It’s a rare Saturday morning here on my metallic island. My head isn’t hammering and my stomach isn’t heaving. I managed to resist the usual Friday night temptation to celebrate the end of the work week by destroying myself. The feeling is so unusual that I decided to get my head hammered and my stomach heaved this morning with some metal instead of a night of strong drinking. Here’s what I found:

GRAVE

For me, it’s hard to think of a better way to start a weekend of listening than with a new song by Grave, especially when it comes from an album adorned with the artwork of Costin Chioreanu. The album is Out of Respect For the Dead, scheduled for release by Century Media on October 16, and the new song (presented through a lyric video) is “Mass Grave Mass”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SOIJL — “ENDLESS ELYSIAN FIELDS”

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Sep 182015

Soijl is the name of a project founded by Swedish multi-instrumentalist Mattias Svensson, whose past musical involvements have included the likes of Saturnus, Istapp, Vanmakt, and Nidrike. On Soijl’s debut album, Endless Elysian Fields, Svensson is joined by Henrik Kindvall of Skald (ex-Nidrike), who wrote the lyrics and provided the vocals. What the two of them have achieved is a powerful and moving work that’s enormously heavy, beautifully atmospheric, and emotionally devastating — and today we give you the chance to hear the entire album in advance of its September 21 release by Solitude Productions.

On the seven tracks included on the album, Svensson has crafted music that’s achingly anguished, each song built upon a bedrock of huge, moaning doom riffs from which tendrils of bereft guitar melody spiral upward like smoke from the dying embers of a funeral pyre. The songs are usually slow and majestic, spreading a heavy mantle of despair and heartache in their wake. Those calamitous bedrock riffs are dire enough to drag you bodily into a sinkhole of grief, but the lead guitar melodies are sublime, often ethereal, and even transcendent in their cold, alabaster purity. Continue reading »

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