AN NCS INTERVIEW: SYLVAINE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 292017
 

 

Last spring we had the pleasure of premiering the opening song on Wistful, the second album by Norwegian composer and multi-instrumentalist Sylvaine. On that album, Sylvaine again composed all the music and performed vocals and almost all instruments, with Alcest’s Neige and Stephen Shepard splitting the drum performances and with additional guests Coralie Louarnika and Thibault Guichard performing violin, viola, and cello on the title track.

Aided by Sylvaine‘s ethereal voice, the album is entrancing and enthralling, a beautifully layered atmospheric work that’s capable of transporting listeners far away from the mundane aspects of daily existence, though the places it may take you are deep inside the crevasses of your own memories and emotions.

In this post we bring you an interview of Sylvaine by John Sleepwalker of the Greek web zine Avopolis.gr, which has also recently been published at that site. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HEXIS — “TANDO ASHANTI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 292017
 

 

We’ve been following the Danish band Hexis since 2012, posting reviews of their early split with As We Draw and Euglena, their 2014 album Abalam, and a remarkable video for the song “Septem“, which will appear on the band’s new album, Tando Ashanti. Hexis have also participated in split releases with This Gift Is A Curse, Primitive Man, and Redwood Hill, while also releasing a trio of EPs and playing more than 300 shows across a range of nations.

The new album will be released on April 14 by by Init Records on CD, by Halo of Flies and Alerta Antifascista on vinyl, and by Bloated Veins on cassette tape. The strength of the band’s previous releases should be reason enough to spend money on one or more of these editions, without more inducement, but today we have an exclusive full stream of the album to take any remnants of guesswork out of the decision. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): SINCARNATE, FARSOT, OPUS DIABOLI, APPALLING, MOTHERWOOD

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Mar 292017
 

 

This is the second part of a post I began on Sunday, collecting recent music in a blackened vein that I’ve been enjoying. As is often the case, other obligations derailed my plan to post this on Monday, and of course I found a few more things since then that I also want to recommend.

The truth is, I’m drowning in dark new releases that I want to recommend, many of which (unlike what’s in this post) are full albums and EPs. I’m stewing about how to solve that problem, since reviewing all of them is an impossibility. But let’s put that conundrum aside and dive into some very good videos and advance tracks.

SINCARNATE

A few days ago the Romanian band Sincarnate released a lyric video for a song called “Curriculum Mortis” from their new album In Nomine Homini, which will be released on April 1 by Hatework. This is one of those full releases I mentioned above — from what I’ve heard so far, it’s excellent, and I hope to find a way to come back to it in print here at our site. But for now, I’m focused on “Curriculum Mortis”. Continue reading »

DODECAHEDRON: “KWINTESSENS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 292017
 

 

(We present Austin Weber’s review of the new album by the Dutch band Dodecahedron, recently released by Season of Mist.)

Back in 2012, Tilburg, Netherlands natives Dodecahedron came out of nowhere and dropped a rightly revered self-titled album, one that was far ahead of the curve for black metal at the time as well. When you release a black metal album as forward-thinking and nightmare-inducing as Dodecahedron, where exactly does one go from there?

It’s a bit of a long answer since the band write such complex and dynamic songs, but basically the music they’ve come up with on Kwintessens hits even darker while frequently dropping into lighter and oddly calming flourishes as well. A lot of new elements are at play here, and it’s also a slightly trimmer effort at 41 minutes versus their self-titled album, which was 52 minutes long. Simultaneously more deranged, yet also littered with a stronger prog influence and an influx of heavy grooves to their arsenal, the album also includes some grind-gone-technical black metal moments that caught me off guard too. Continue reading »

EARTH ROT: “RENASCENTIA”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 292017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new second album by Australia’s Earth Rot.)

As much as some people hate it, I find making comparisons between bands to be very useful when writing reviews, as they help me to set the reader/listener on the right path, and allow me to put them in the right frame of mind when listening to a new album.

But picking and choosing the right references to make is more of an art than a science, and inferring what other bands may have influenced a certain artist is more complex still.

Case in point, during a recent conversation about the heavy influence of Dismember and early Entombed (particularly in their cutting, buzzsaw-through-bone guitar tone) I hear when listening to Earth Rot, two of the band’s members happened to chime in to inform me that, as a matter of fact, none of them are massive fans of either group, and would all consider both Dark Funeral and Emperor to have had a much greater impact on their sound than anything from the Stockholm scene!

Like I said, it’s an art, not a science…

Still, now that it’s been made painfully clear I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, what else can I actually say about Renascentia?

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEVIL — “CEMETERY STILL”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 292017
 

 

We have an exception to the porous rule in our site’s title — sort of. The song we’re bringing you is a piece of moonshine-swilling devil rock by the Norwegian band Devil. “Cemetery Still” comes from the band’s third album, To the Gallows, which will be released by Soulseller Records on April 21.

The production quality of this new album may not be as rough as the band’s first demo, and the influence of classic heavy metal may be eclipsing doom to a greater extent than on the band’s first two albums, but as “Cemetery Still” proves, Devil are still a sure-handed source of highly addictive riffs — and sinful vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BARATHRUM — “ON THE DARK RIVER BANK”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 282017
 

 

No historical investigation of the roots and evolution of Finnish black metal would be complete without a chapter on Barathrum. The band took shape in 1990, released their earliest demos the next year, and then churned out eight albums from 1995 through 2005, pursuing a musical course that changed over time but was persistently hellish and profane. Barathrum haven’t been completely silent in the 12 years since their last album, but it’s still fair to call their forthcoming ninth full-length a comeback record. Its name, fittingly, is Fanatiko, and it’s set for international release by Saturnal Records on April 28.

The first single from the album, “Hellspawn“, was released in February of this year. If you listen to it, you might make some immediate assumptions about what Fanatiko as a whole will sound like. And you would probably be wrong. Barathrum revealed many different dimensions of their sulphurous musical interests over the decade-long span of their first eight records before their extended hiatus, and Fanatiko ranges across many of them. Compelling proof of the diversity within the new album can be found by listening first to “Hellspawn” and then to the song we’re premiering today — “On the Dark River Bank“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SLAGDUSTER — “MOTHER’S MILK”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 282017
 

 

I had forgotten about Slagduster. More than six years of absence will do that, even for a band whose debut album back in 2010 was as astonishingly good as Slagduster’s Nature. Humanity. Machine. But Slagduster have come roaring back, and have lost none of the instrumental flair and song-writing panache that made that debut so impressive — they’ve just gotten even better. Their new album is named Deadweight, and today we’re revealing one of the new songs, “Mother’s Milk“, in advance of its release on May 5th.

Slagduster like to say that they are “from the boonies of Grand Forks, BC where there’s nothing to do but play metal!” According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, Grand Forks has a population of 4,049 situated at at the confluence of the Kettle River and the Granby River, where piles of slag still remain from a copper mine that closed in 1935. And now you have an insight into the band’s name. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “ADVENIENS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 282017
 

 

(DGR turns in one of his typically detailed reviews, this time focusing on the new album by Italy’s Hideous Divinity.)

I tried something different with my first few listens of the new Hideous Divinity album Adveniens. I put the whole thing into a shuffled order, so that the first few times Adveniens breathed life into my speakers, it was done in a random order each time. I did so because I wanted to really see what songs captured my attention, which ones really reached out into the ether and punched me hard enough to make me check what song I was on.

I say this, in part, because the branches of the hyperblasting brutal-death metal tree that Hideous Divinity hail from are many, and at times it can be difficult for bands to stick out. Now three albums deep, Hideous Divinity have never had too much of an issue with it — having written their music like lyrical mad scientists unleashed upon the brutal death world — but the line between a solid hunk of speedy and caveman-level groove-heavy death metal and the monotonous whirring of a truck engine can be a little thin, and even the best of bands have failed the wire-walking act and fallen into that crevasse before. Adveniens does not. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 20): IN AETERNUM, ACOD, FIDES INVERSA, NASTY SURGEONS

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 282017
 

 

(We welcome the return of our Norwegian friend Gorger with the first 2017 installment of his ongoing series embarrassing us about releases we’ve overlooked.  To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

Ah, finally back in the NCS saddle. This is my first post on this putrid site in 2017. About fucking time.

I decided to get off to a soft start; EPs. I wrote down a dozen candidates, but when finished removing those that had been covered here, I was left with only three. Although a small number of items suits me just fine, I’ve added a short review of an album to make the equation true. I’ve sorted them by release date, not that it matters. Continue reading »

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