SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: RADIATION, REDENIK, LETHVM, DEADSMOKE, DEATHFUCKER, PEACE IS JUST A BREAK

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Sep 302017
 

 

September ends today. If history is a useful guide, we’re only about six weeks away from the point at which year-end lists will begin appearing (DECIBEL’s is the first high-profile one that I usually see, in mid-November). And yet, while a lot of people will soon be looking backward, we still have a full three months of new metal ahead of us.

Fortunately, those of us here at NCS have undergone body modification so that we have eyes in the back of our heads as well as those gazing forward. Using the latter pair, I’ve spied four forthcoming releases from which I’ve selected song streams in this round-up. Using the backward-looking orbits, I’ve also chosen some music from a pair of other releases that have already come out, though very recently. I’ve arranged the music so that we’ll start fast, slow down, and then ramp up again.

RADIATION

Bratislava, Slovakia, is home to the death/thrash band Radiation, whose debut album The Gift of Doom will be released by Witches Brew on October 17. I would like to draw your attention to a pair of songs from the album now streaming on Bandcamp, “Praise the God of Nuclear Fusion”, and the title track. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 89: INGURGITATING OBLIVION

 THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Sep 302017
 

 

(Andy Synn presents the 89th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, and on this occasion reviews the collected discography of Ingurgitating Oblivion from Germany.)

Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Ulcerate, Immolation

One of the great joys of the modern Death Metal scene is the sheer variety of different forms and flavours available to tantalise our musical taste buds. These days if you’re not enjoying what you’re currently being fed it’s barely the work of a moment to find something else to dig your teeth into.

The subject of this month’s edition of The Synn Report, Germany’s own Ingurgitating Oblivion, have been plying their trade in the murky sub-corner of Dissonant/Atmospheric Death Metal since 2001, and have produced three increasingly fearsome full-length albums in the years since then, the most recent of which, Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light, was released in April of this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRYPTIC FOG — “THE GRAND BERATOR WALKS AMONGST THE HALL OF MISERY”

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Sep 292017
 

 

As we near the year’s final quarter and thoughts begin turning to end-of-year lists amid a mad rush through the fall and winter holidays, we should still keep our eyes peeled for new releases, and the one that’s the subject of this post shows signs of being one of the final quarter’s best surprises — the debut album of Cryptic Fog, which will be released by Sweden’s Blood Harvest Records on October 27.

At the time of this recording, Cryptic Fog was a two-man operation based in the U.S. midwest consisting of guitarist/bassist Dave Bennett and drummer/vocalist Dan Klein. The name of the album is Staring Through the Veil. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CURSED MOON — “CREATURES OF THE NIGHT”

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Sep 292017
 

 

The first song I heard from Rite of Darkness, the debut album of Cursed Moon, was “Rise of the Antichrist“. When it began playing I thought I’d been transported back to the ’80s, when I listened (and danced) to my fair share of gothic new wave and post-punk. And then the vocals kicked in, and it became evident that an evil incursion had occurred in the dead of night.

“Deathwave” is the name that Cursed Moon has given to this hybridization of genres. As the project’s sole creator, Los Angeles musician Sal “Hellraiser” Yanez, has explained: Continue reading »

FOREVER PLAYING CATCH-UP (PART 3): PSUDOKU, VMTHANAACHTH, FELIX MARTIN

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Sep 292017
 

 

(This is Part 3 of Austin Weber’s ongoing series devoted to reviews of 2017 releases we haven’t previously covered. More installments will be presented next week.)

In spite of what the naysayers will tell you, I’m of the opinion that there’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of good metal releases coming out all the time, many of them coming from new groups or independent groups that we’re just now catching onto for the first time.

This lengthy round-up has been in the works for awhile, but I kept adding more and more to the list of what I wanted to cover, and that delayed it until now. The focus here is on releases that dropped in 2017 that haven’t been covered at NCS yet. We’ll run through a boatload of harsh and unorthodox black metal, mountains of mathcore, death metal of all stripes, a few technical grindcore acts, a ton of different prog-metal bands, some sick instrumental metal jams, and a whole lot more. Hopefully you will find something new you enjoy in each installment.

PSUDOKU – DEEP SPACE PSUDOKUMENT

Cult favorite weirdo grinders from Norway, Psudoku, are back again with a new release of strange grindcore from an alternate timeline. This isn’t the first time I’ve covered them at NCS, having previously highlighted them in a 2015 article regarding their prior album, Planetarisk Psudoku. Somehow the group continue to push their already out-there songs into ever-stranger territory on their new 2017 album, Deep Space Psudokument. Continue reading »

SAR ISATUM: “SAR ISATUM”

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Sep 292017
 

 

(Our ally Gorger from Norway, who usually brings us reviews of albums and EPs that have traveled beneath our radar, today brings us music from an album that hasn’t yet appeared. To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

The more shit you have to do, the more life will find its way of putting a spoke in your eye. Thus, I’m keeping this short. But enough about me.

When I was asked to cover a self-titled single from Colorado based Sar Isatum, I realized it was outside my self-limiting borders of only covering what I deem as actual releases. I see this as more of a preview of something that looms on the horizon, but such a great one that I decided to share it on a more fitting platform. Namely No Clean Singing. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: WOE UNTO ME — “AMONG THE LIGHTENED SKIES THE VOIDNESS FLASHED”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 282017
 

 

When you see that a metal band is releasing a double-album, one thing you know without being told is that they must have had a lot of ideas. When you see that the total length of a double album is almost two hours, you’re inclined to resort to all caps, and at least one exclamation point: A LOT OF IDEAS! But what you won’t know until listening is whether there were enough GOOD IDEAS to justify the risks of such an imposing creation.

Because, let’s face it, in a fast-paced age plagued by famously short attention spans when many (if not most) single albums barely top half an hour, going THIS BIG can be a deterrent to listeners. Will they be as devoted in listening to the music as the band were in creating it?

The Belarusian doom band Woe Unto Me will learn the answer to that question, because they have taken precisely that risk. Their new album, Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed, will be released tomorrow (September 29th) through Solitude Productions, and we have a full stream for you today. It consists of two records, and together they are nearly two hours long. And they are indeed full of ideas — but they address big, timeless questions too, questions of such intrinsic weight and pervasiveness in the human conscience that you can better understand why they did what they have done. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXIMPERITUSERQETHHZEBIBŠIPTUGAKKATHŠULWELIARZAXUŁUM (EXIMPERITUS) — “DESHRET”

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Sep 282017
 

 

Seventeen months ago I posted a track from an album by a band from Minsk, Belarus, named:

Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum

Were it not for the copy/paste function, my hands would have been paralyzed trying to type that. My entire body would have become paralyzed if I had attempted to type the full title of the song, or the album title, which consists of a great volume of words and a seemingly endless string of letters. I had no clue what any of it meant, though a comment on our Facebook page at the time explained:

“The name of the record translates to ‘Projecting the singular emission ov the Doctrine ov Absolute and All-Absorbing Evil through the hexahedral prism ov Sîn-Ahhī-Erība upon the hypersurface ov zodiacal arc ov the cosmotechnical order ov paleocontact founders the utterly ancient hypostases ov pre-axes civilizations actuate the resonance transformer ov temporally similar to the eternity ov the future in the towers ov Nwn-Hu-Kek-Amon’s obcervatory embodying the ashes ov Alulim into the ethereal matter to the west ov exoplanet PSRB 1620-26b'”.

Thankfully, the title of the new release by… let’s just call them Eximperitus… is far briefer, though no less cryptic: W2246-0526. It will be discharged on October 20, and today we’re helping spread the word about a new lyric video for one of the new songs — also far briefer in its title: “Deshret“. Continue reading »

ODIOUS ICON: “PLANET OF IMMENSE DECAY”

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Sep 282017
 

 

How many killer riffs and tempo changes can be packed into three-and-a-half minutes of extreme music without wrecking its structural integrity as a song or undermining the dominance of its ravenous, slaughtering vibe? It seems that Norway’s Odious Icon decided to put that question to the test when they wrote and recorded the title track to their debut album, Planet of Immense Decay, which we’re premiering in this post. Maybe someone else has achieved a higher score, but this song grades very, very high.

The song’s compact length magnifies its intensity, sort of like venting pressurized water through a narrow opening: The striking force is impressive, especially given that the blast hits you in the face right from the start, in a high-speed torrent of razoring guitar work, machine-gun percussion, and maniacal, blood-thirsty howls. Electrifying stuff… and then the first change happens. Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: “NIGHTBRINGERS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 282017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by The Black Dahlia Murder in advance of its October 6 release by Metal Blade Records.)

It’s extremely fitting that the striking, crimson-hued cover art that you see above has been provided by the legendary Kristian Wåhlin, aka Necrolord, who last worked with The Black Dahlia Murder on the cover for their career-defining Nocturnal, as Nightbringers is without a doubt the band’s best release since their 2007 breakthrough.

That’s not to disparage or denigrate the albums the band have put out in the intervening years (Deflorate in particular remains a personal favourite of mine), but the harsh, bitter, ugly truth of the matter is that, try as they might, the Michigan quintet have never quite managed to fully replicate that strange mix of power and precision, heaviness and hooks, menace and melody, that came together on their third record.

But album number eight definitely comes very, very close. Continue reading »

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