AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AU CHAMP DES MORTS — “DANS LA JOIE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 272017
 

 

Today is the day when Debemur Morti Productions releases Dans La Joie, the debut album by the French band Au Champ Des Morts, and we’re helping people to discover it.

That’s a worthy mission, because the album is an emotionally intense experience of rare quality. Over the course of helping to premiere two tracks from the album, I’ve already spilled a lot of words about it. So in a rare attempt at brevity, I’m going to introduce the album stream in a summing up that focuses more on the music’s emotional resonance, as I feel it, than on any kind of intricate dissection of its many facets and ingredients. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (IN THE FORM OF A VERY METAL MUSICAL SANDWICH): MANETHEREN, MISERIST, CRESCENT, QUASARBORN, MAHAKALA, LETHE, VERMIN LORD, WRATH FROM ABOVE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

As I made my way through the enormous list of new songs and videos that I’ve been compiling since last weekend, a certain shape began to suggest itself to me — the shape of a tasty metal sandwich. And with that shape in mind (and a gnawing hunger in my guts), I selected and organized the following 8 songs.

For this playlist of mostly brand new things we begin harsh and heavy, then segue into a block of Exceptions To Our Rule (the one about singing), and then move into the other side of the sandwich where total war on the senses lies in wait again. You’ll also find some very eye-catching videos in here, along with a broad assortment of music that struck my fancy — with only truncated commentary from yours truly.

MANETHEREN

According to a press release, “The End is a concept album about a human being travelling across the lands as the world begins to end…. Each song represents different events during the ending process, and as they unfold the being feels as himself is becoming god, or death itself. By the end of the album this being by all means becomes god and rules over the wasteland left behind.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEHEADED — “BEAST INCARNATE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

This is Malta, and its sister island Gozo. As you can see, they sit sort of dead center in the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its strategically important location, Malta has an incredibly rich and eventful recorded history stretching back for millennia, bearing the influences of a multitude of cultures. From photographs scattered around the web, Malta also appears to be an extravagantly beautiful place.

And it’s also home to a lethally explosive death metal band who have managed to survive and flourish for more than a quarter-century, just as their homeland has survived centuries of occupation and conquest. I’m talking, of course, about Beheaded.

Beast Incarnate is the band’s fifth album, set for release tomorrow (January 27) by Unique Leader Records, and we are very happy to host the premiere of a full album stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNDRASK — “BATTLE THROUGH TIME”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through our house, all the creatures were stirring, even the mouse — because on that day we posted “Conscripted”, a song by Undrask. Further stirring of a frenzied kind will be happening today, because we now have for you a full stream of this North Carolina band’s debut album Battle Through Time, this time on the eve of its January 27 release.

The album chronicles the story of “a man lost to eternity — forced to fight and die repeatedly throughout time and alternate realities.” That sounds like my typical work week at NCS. However, the actual (glorious) sound of the music is more consistent with a saga unfolding on a grander scale. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: A TRIO OF TRACKS FROM THE DISTURBING WORLD OF SLAGMAUR

 Premieres  8 Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

The gestation of Thill Smitts Terror continues, but now we have a birth date: On March 30, 2017, Osmose Productions will release this new album conceived by the twisted imaginations within Slagmaur. We have for you today streams of three songs to disturb your peace of mind.

Thill Smitts Terror is the third album by these masked Norwegians, separated from its next-oldest sibling Von Rov Shelter by roughly six and a half years. Almost three years have now passed since I first began writing about the album. My intrigue began in the summer of 2014, when I came across pre-production versions of two songs, “The Drummer of Tedworth” and “Werewolf”, and promptly wrote about them. Two years after that, versions of two more songs appeared — “Kom Igjen Norge” and “Bestemor Sang Djevelord” — and I wrote about them, too.

Those tracks have disappeared from the place where they were once available for streaming, and what we have now are the finished album versions of three of those four tracks — “Drummer of Tedworth“, “Werewolf“, and “Bestemor Sang Djevelord“. Continue reading »

LATE DECEMBER AND EARLY JANUARY GEMS (PART 4): PLASMODIUM AND CZAR

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 262017
 

 

(This is Part 4 of a now-five-part series by Austin Weber about noteworthy January releases and a few from the end of last year.)

Plasmodium – Entheognosis

There’s something about truly dark and disturbing metal that connects with me in a deep way, as it also does for an assortment of other odd individuals too. Trying to understand the reason for that is the more difficult part, but overall, I think it has something to do with finding some odd sense of peace in hearing sounds that reflect the bleakness and harshness of the world all around us.

Forming a cathartic energy which we can lose ourselves in, that’s exactly what the otherworldly music from Melbourne, Australia-based Plasmodium has to offer. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): WARCRAB, HEAVEN SHALL BURN, UR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  13 Responses »
Jan 252017
 

 

In this 17th part of our 2016 Most Infectious Song list, I’m adding three songs that were all made for headbanging, or at least vigorous head-nodding, knee-bobbing, and toe-tapping, even though they’re scattered across different parts of the metal musical map.

WARCRAB

I’ve been meaning to write about WarCrab and their 2016 album Scars of Aeons (released digitally by Black Bow Records) but so far haven’t succeeded. The album did appear on Grant Skelton’s year-end list, where he wrote: “Warcrab’s breed of deathened sludge (sludgened death??) is certain to quench your rapacity for beefy slow-to-mid death metal”. And on May 1 of this year, the album is going to be released on CD for the first time by Transcending Obscurity. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: POLARITY OF LIFE — “BEGINNING / END / BEGINNING”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 252017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli prepared this brief review of the new EP by Polarity of Life from Croatia.)

At least in terms of its global profile, Croatia seems to be a very underrepresented part of Europe, given the quality metal that its bands are always producing. Lots of the best aspects of Polish, Finnish, and German metal are fed into a blender, and the result is often killer, as well as something that seems uniquely Croatian.

Polarity Of Life are a Croatian melodic death metal band, of a more deathly, old school sort. The proper majestic, epic, sweeping melodies are present, but they exist amidst a torrid storm of heavyweight haymaker riffing with German weight and Polish military march. Insomnium meets Vader meets Heaven Shall Burn is definitely a fair assessment as references. Beginning/End/Beginning is an impressive sophomore release, and I’m eager to hear more. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: ACHILLEAS KALANTZIS (AENAON, KATAVASIA, VARATHRON)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jan 252017
 

 

(KevinP returns to NCS with a new episode of his short-interview series, and this time talks with Achilleas Kalantzis, guitarist of the mind-bending Greek black metal band Aenaon — whose new album Hypnosophy was released late last year — as well as Katavasia and Varathron.)

 
K: You’ve had some lineup changes for Hypnosophy. What was the impetus and did this affect the sound/direction of the new material?

A: Indeed. Unfortunately it was really hard for Thyragon (bass) to keep up with the band’s schedule and Anax (guitars) had to join the obligatory army service, so we recorded without him (he is still a member now though). On the other hand Orestis was already playing the Sax for us since Extance, so becoming a permanent member wasn’t a big change. Astrous (vocals) and I are usually building the first demos of the songs, so the core of the creational process was the same (no matter the final arrangements). What made a big difference to me was that I also composed and performed the bass guitar. That gave me as a composer the ability to use it in a more prominent way, leading to groovier arrangements. Continue reading »

THE GREAT OLD ONES: “EOD: A TALE OF DARK LEGACY”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 252017
 

 

(Here is Andy Synn’s review of the new old one by The Great Old Ones from France.)

As much as I generally like to give my reviews some sort of concept or over-arching theme, sometimes there are only two questions which really matter – “is it a good album?”, and “is it as good as their last one?”

In the case of EOD: A Tale of Dark Legacy, the third album by French cabalists The Great Old Ones, the answers to those questions are:

  1. Yes
  2. Not quite…

Continue reading »

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