AN NCS PREMIERE: MALEMORT — “STATE OF COLLAPSE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 262017
 

 

Malemort was born in Rouen, France, in the month of August 2015, with a line-up of experienced musicians from the French underground whose other bands you would know of (including but not limited to Ataraxie, Mhönos, and Sordide). A year later the band recorded a debut album that will be released by Prison Tatt Records in time for a release show in Paris on the night of Wednesday, August 16th. The album’s name is Individualism, Narcissism, Hedonism.

The album consists of four tracks and about 50 minutes of total music. Today we have the good fortune of premiering one of those four powerful songs, which happens to be the one that brings the album to a close: “State of Collapse“. Continue reading »

MARYLAND DEATHFEST 2018: FIRST ROUND OF BANDS ANNOUNCED

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Jun 262017
 

 

The 16th edition of Maryland Deathfest will take place in Baltimore on May 24-27, 2018. Today, MDF announced the first round of confirmed bands for the festival, and it’s a list that palpitates my heart:

-(16)-
Abhomine
Bloodbath (Sweden)
Blood Incantation
Broken Hope
Coven
Chthe’ilist (Canada)
Destroyed in Seconds
Dead Infection (Poland)
Durian
Enemy Soil
Evoken
Eyehategod Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: A FEW ALBUM REMINDERS (VULPUS, KAFIRUN, VONNIS, TIME LURKER, CHAMBRE FROIDE)

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Jun 252017
 

 

As everyone who writes for our site has remarked from time to time, we just don’t have enough time to write reviews of every new album, EP, and split that catches our fancy, no matter how fine we think they are. I have no doubt we would still fall short even if we all did this as a full-time occupation instead of a part-time un-paid labor of lust.

I also have no doubt that we could throw more good music at your head if we truncated or eliminated our verbiage and simply installed music streams and yelled, “LISTEN TO THIS MOTHERFUCKERS!” Or maybe, “LISTEN TO THIS PLEASE AND THANK YOU”. But where’s the fun in that? Maybe more fun for you, but less fun for us… and that might lead some of us to spend more time playing with ourselves and less time playing with you.

Nevertheless, I’m admitting defeat to the hands of time in this post. There are a handful of recently released new albums in a blackened vein that I’m simply urging you to hear. Please. And thank you. Motherfuckers. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VERTHEBRAL — “BEYOND THE GARDEN OF CREATION”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jun 252017
 

 

Prepare yourselves for a death metal rocket-ride that may leave your eyes rolled back in your head, your teeth bared in your frothing mouth, your head banging in a fury, your body convulsed in a seizure.

Okay, that may be overstating things a bit — but it’s not much of an overstatement, because Verthebral are already a ferocious, turbocharged machine despite their relatively young ages, and based on their debut album Regeneration, Verthebral’s future looks very bright.

To help spread the word about these death-dealers from Paraguay, we’re premiering a track from Regeneration named “Beyond the Garden of Creation” in advance of the album’s fast-approaching release by the triumvirate of Satanath Records, More Hate Productions, and Final Gate Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUNERAL DESEKRATOR — “THE DESCENT”

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Jun 252017
 

 

One of the constant challenges in writing about music is coming up with different ways of describing the sensations provoked by sound. When the music is unusually vibrant and exhilarating, as this song is, it’s an even bigger challenge; the same old overused words can diminish the message. That’s one reason we always try to include the music streams. But of course these challenges won’t stop me from trying.

The song we’re premiering in this post is “The Descent“, one of five explosive tracks on First Desekration, which is the debut demo by the French band Funeral Desekrator. It will be released next month on tape by Atavism Records. If you’re looking for a scorching new blast of black thrash, this will fix you up. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ZURVAN — “HALLUCINATION”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jun 242017
 

 

Three years on from the release of their last album, the Persian black metal band Zurvan have completed a new record named Gorge of Blood, which will be co-released on June 28 by Satanath Records (Russia) and The Eastern Front (Israel). What we have for you today are streams of two previously released songs from the album plus our premiere of a new one named “Hallucination“.

Zurvan first came to life in Iran as the project of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Nâghes in 2009, and in 2012 the band became a two-person strike force with the addition of drummer Taromad. The band is now located in Germany, but as you will discover, the music is still very much connected to the Oriental musical traditions of their homeland, yet at the same time firmly rooted in the rebellious and ferocious antagonism of black metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SINNERANGEL – “SINISTER DECÁLOGO”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

On June 25th — two days from now — GrimmDistribution will release the new album by SinnerAngel, a group that first came together more than a decade ago in the city of Medellín, Colombia. The album’s name is Sinister Decálogo, which refers to “a precise set of ideas that conform to the sinister side of the human existence”. The album also “deals with themes about the allegorical double human morality, the need for approval and dependence of the deities to assert themselves, the constant fear of the earthly and the passing”.

Today we are pleased to present a full stream of what turns out to be an unusual album, one that incorporates a variety of musical influences that reflect the wide-ranging interests of the band’s members. Lacking any clearly defined genre boundaries and with a tendency to experiment, the band have grasped the term “dark metal” as a description. Of course, like the music on this album, that term has no precise definition. And so we’ll offer a few more words of introduction, though no one will blame you if you just skip right down to the album stream and dive in. Continue reading »

EXTINCTION OF MANKIND AND BURNING THROATS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

As I explained in an earlier post today, I’ve resisted the temptation to compile yet another gigantic round-up this week, deciding instead to spread around some of the good new things I found in a listening session last night across a few different pairings.

I’m a big fan of both songs collected here, and I’m also going to suggest you do something weird with them if you want a Grade A head-wrecking experience, though I’m sure it’s an idea that not everyone will find appealing. But I’ll come back to that at the end of the post.  First, here are the two songs, along with some introductory verbiage.

EXTINCTION OF MANKIND

The death/crust crew Extinction of Mankind have been plying their trade since the early ’90s, though more than a decade has passed since their last album, Northern Scum. While we’ve had a long wait for a new album, the band haven’t been completely dormant. In 2010 they put out splits with Phobia and Disgust, and now they have another split on the way with Apocalypse. This one will be a 7″, and EoM’s song from that split is now up on YouTube (actually, it’s been there since mid-May but I just found it). It’s excellent. Continue reading »

SHADOWFLAG AND DEVIL’S FORCE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

I’m continuing to make my way through some of the songs and videos that have come out since I basically checked out of NCS to work on Northwest Terror Fest. Especially because I’m getting a slow start on this Friday, I decided to put together this pair of good ones I found last night, and if the day goes right, a couple more pairings before we hit the weekend, rather than compiling another overstuffed SEEN AND HEARD post.

SHADOWFLAG

I hadn’t encountered this UK black metal band before last night. Metal-Archives (which lists them as “Shadow Flag”) identifies two albums released in 2013 and 2015, and today they’re releasing a third one named The Delusion Machine. I can’t comment on the whole album yet, but I sure as hell have fallen hard for a song called “Singularity 45“, which is the subject of the lyric video I saw last night. That’s the first item in this pairing. Continue reading »

DECAPITATED: “ANTICULT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 232017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Poland’s Decapitated, which will be released on July 7th by Nuclear Blast.)

I find, when a review has the potential to be contentious, that it’s always best to lay your cards out on the table right from the start.

So let’s be clear about one thing straight away – Decapitated are never going to go back to being a “pure” Death Metal band.

It’s just not going to happen.

In fact Vogg has been very clear, in numerous interviews, that as long as his hand is on the tiller (and seeing as how it’s very much his band, I can’t see that ever changing) the good ship Decapitated will keep on moving forwards, not backwards, upwards not forwards… Continue reading »

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