AN NCS PREMIERE: SAURON — “KLASZTOR”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 252017
 

 

The Polish band Sauron first took shape in 1991, discharging their first demo Hellish Requiem in 1993 and a second one named The Baltic Fog in 1995, helping to introduce the sound of pagan black metal within their homeland. The band broke up in 1999 but resurrected themselves in 2003, and since then have released four albums, including the powerful Wara! in 2016 (which we wrote about here).

Now, Wheelwright Productions is re-releasing The Baltic Fog in a new remastered vinyl LP edition, with a release date of March 3. In advance of the release, we’re helping to premiere a single from The Baltic Fog named “Klasztor“, which includes cover art for the single created by Robert A. von Ritter (Outre, Witchmaster, In Twilight’s Embrace, etc.). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEMONIC RESURRECTION — “MATSYA – THE FISH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 252017
 

 

Every country on the planet has distinctive folk music and ethnic music traditions, and while the melodic tonalities, rhythms, and instruments may sound common and familiar to the people of that country, they often sound exotic to the ears of listeners from distant lands. Combining such distinctive folk music traditions with the aggressiveness and weight of heavy metal can produce riveting and fascinating outcomes, in which each of these disparate elements enhances the other, and they can also fall flat. The song you’re about to hear is one of the successes.

The track we’re premiering today through a lyric video is named “Matsya — The Fish“. It’s by an Indian band we’ve been following for many years — Demonic Resurrection — and it comes from their new album Dashavatar, which will be released on March 15th of this year. It has quickly become one of my favorite DR songs, and in my humble opinion one of the best of their creations over the length of a discography that goes back more than 15 years. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AEGRI SOMNIA — “AD AUGUSTA PER ANGUSTA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 252017
 

 

The opportunity to premiere the fascinating debut album by the Spanish band Aegri Somnia is a special pleasure for me, and therein lies a story that I will tell — and part of that story includes commentary about the music by a friend of mine who I think of as a Renaissance man, an American close to my own advanced age who spent much of his younger formative years living in Madrid, and hasn’t ever lost his fascination for the country and its people. For this purpose I’ll refer to him as Oudekerk.

But first, an introduction to the band and the music. Continue reading »

PESTIFER: “EXECRATION DIATRIBES”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 242017
 

 

(We present Todd Manning’s review of the new album by the Portuguese death metal band Pestifer.)

If you’ve ever become frustrated trying to parse out what’s Old School Death Metal and what’s New, and maybe what’s just plain Death Metal, Portuguese trio Pestifer (who have recently become a four-piece) leave no doubt about where they stand.

Inspired by only the most atavistic and savage originators of the genre, they are poised to release their debut full-length, Execration Diatribes via Lavadome Productions on February 14th. It is nothing short of a love letter to their forefathers. These Old School maniacs have no goal but to satiate the bloodlust of Death Metal’s most dedicated fans. Continue reading »

LATE DECEMBER AND EARLY JANUARY GEMS (PART 3): PARIUS AND KERATOCONUS

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 242017
 

 

(This is a delayed Part 3 of what started as a planned  3-part series by Austin Weber about noteworthy January releases and a few from the end of last year. However, during the interval between Part 2 and Part 3, the series has expanded to 5 parts — so more lie ahead.)

Parius – Let There Be Light

Parius are a Philadelphia-based melodic death metal band, one that was unknown to me until last week when my friend showed me their newest release that dropped on January 17th, Let There Be Light. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EVER CIRCLING WOLVES — “LENORE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 242017
 

 

Like all the broad genre terms of metal, “Doom” covers a lot of ground, so much musical landscape that the term by itself gives only the sketchiest of clues about what you may be about to hear. But even the more specific sub-classifications of the genre really don’t fit the unconventional twists and turns of the song by Ever Circling Wolves that we’re now presenting to you.

The name of the song is “Lenore“, and it comes from this Finnish band’s second album, which bears the wonderful title Of Woe or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gloom. It will be released on January 27 by Colorado-based Cimmerian Shade Recordings. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 16): ABBATH, DORMANT ORDEAL, DARKEND

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  1 Response »
Jan 242017
 

 

Well, I did it again. I let two days go by without posting a further installment of our growing list of Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Unfortunately, I don’t have time at the moment to double up, as I did the last time I fell behind. If the day goes well, I might be able to add Part 17 before the day ends.

Once again, I perceive a sense of musical belonging between the three songs I’m grouping together, although there are important differences among them and I’m not sure I could articulate the connections even if I had more time.

ABBATH

The self-titled debut album by the former frontman of Immortal landed very early in 2016, and I think it convincingly answered the questions and doubts of most fans who had been left with a bad taste in their mouths from the public squabbling among the former Immortal brethren — because the album is damned good. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VITRIOL — “VITRIOL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 242017
 

 

Vitriol have accomplished something remarkable on their first release, in fact so remarkable that it’s going to leave the brains of a certain segment of the listening public spinning around like they’ve been dropped in a blender set to puree. It’s one of the most stunning and stupefying death metal releases I’ve heard in this new year, and I probably won’t hear its equal by year-end. But I must say in the same breath that it may repel all but the most scarred and hardened listeners, the kind of people who (like me) revel in new extremes of noxious but electrifying filth. For those kinds of fans, however, Vitriol have already reach dizzying heights of appalling power.

Vitriol is a two-man operation based in Nuremberg, Germany. They originally released this self-titled debut demo last summer on tape, and now Hellthrasher Productions will expose the music to a wider audience through a CD release on January 27. We’re about to expose you to it with the premiere of a full stream. Prepare yourselves for something completely wild, and uglier than sin. Continue reading »

HOUR OF PENANCE: “CAST THE FIRST STONE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 242017
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Italy’s Hour of Penance, which will be released on January 27 by Prosthetic Records.)

There is a temptation when writing reviews to believe that everything needs to have some sort of deeper meaning attached to it — especially when it comes to music, because the idea of describing sound with words is one that can paralyze a person. So whenever something is pretty much exactly what it says on the box, you can often find yourself spinning endlessly.

Italy’s long-running Hour Of Penance have made a name for themselves in the brutal death scene since their full-length starter in 2003 as one of the forebears of the hyperblasting death metal bands who now seem to extrude out of that country like few others. Since 2010’s Paradogma, Hour Of Penance have really found a sound for themselves, a relentless battering of metal that is driven almost entirely by a wall of hellfire-belching guitars and drumwork that exists somewhere between Gatling gun and machine gun in terms of speed. Continue reading »

ODD LOGIC: “EFFIGY”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
Jan 232017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli is the author of this review of the new album by Odd Logic.)

I always try to put some serious thought into why an exception to the rule should be an exception to the rule here at NCS. I confess that sometimes it really comes down to the fact that I just like the album, and fuck the rules and the site and blah blah blah, but for the most part I believe there is an integrity that the NCS brand, as it were, has an obligation to maintain. I’ve basically boiled it down to three things that help me decide what a good exception to our rule is. Any one, or a combination, of these three:

A:  The music is sufficiently heavy without extreme metal vocals.
B:  The music is extreme in either virtuosity, progressiveness, pretentiousness, or eccentricity, despite the absence of harsh vocals.
C:  The writing of music around clean vocals offers definitively different avenues of instrumental expression. Any band that really understands and gets this on a transcendent level is an exception.

Tacoma-based Odd Logic are B and C but not A. Effigy is their 7th record. Continue reading »

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