AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WARCALL — “BULLY BASTARD”

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Oct 252017
 

 

On Friday the 13th of this month Montreal’s WarCall released their fourth record, Invaders, a concept album based on humanity fighting back an alien invasion, with lyrical themes that focus on topics such as the importance of resisting oppression. What we have for you today is the debut of a lyric video for a track named “Bully Bastard“.

WarCall guitarist and backing vocalist Mat Simard sent us this comment from Europe, where the band are in the midst of a tour in support of the album: “The song shows a different side to the style of the album, more groove oriented. We wanted to do a lyric video from this one because the text is interesting, talking about standing up for what you believe in. I see it as a very very heavy rock song.” And it definitely is that. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEVLSY — “PRIVATE SUITE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 242017
 

 

“Post-Black Metal” is a particularly amorphous genre term, one that has been applied to everything from Alcest to Enslaved, from Sólstafir to Wolves In the Throne Room, from Oranssi Pazuzu to Harakiri For the Sky, from Altar of Plagues to Deafheaven. With such an expansive palette of sounds arguably encompassed by the term, it can leave a lot to the imagination, though a re-imagining of the boundaries of black metal may itself be the very core of the concept. Which brings us to the Lithuanian band DEVLSY and their forthcoming second album Private Suite.

It is a provocative and adventurous six-track affair, a compact 35 minutes of music that will be released by ATMF on November 3, but which we have the pleasure of presenting in a full stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: APOLOGOETHIA — “DE HUMANAE NATURA”

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Oct 242017
 

 

Javi Bastard (aka J.B.) is a man of many talents. He has been a creative force and accomplished performer in such excellent and stylistically diverse Spanish bands as Graveyard, Körgull the Exterminator, Krossfyre, Lux Divina, and many more. He is also a busy record producer under the banner of his Moontower Studios, with an extensive (and very impressive) list of albums that he has engineered, mixed, and/or mastered over the last 8 or 9 years. And now he can add one more splendid accomplishment to his burgeoning resume, and that’s the debut EP of Apologoethia. Entitled Pillars, it will be released by Invictus Productions on November 24, and we’re fortunate to present the premiere of a track from the EP named “De Humanae Natura“.

We’re told that J.B. began Apologoethia back in 2012 as a solo black metal side-project to develop musical ideas that didn’t fit with his main band, Graveyard. A few years later he enlisted the assistance of J.F. on drums, and then brought L.O. into the band as lyricist for the tracks he had composed. And now the first fruits of these efforts are being revealed. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SOUND THAT ENDS CREATION — “YOUR MOM IS TOO BIG TO FAIL”

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Oct 242017
 

 

Do you remember what happened in 2008? When the U.S. economy came close to a meltdown that would have rivaled The Great Depression, and then dragged the global economy down into a trough along with it? Do you remember the government bailouts of giant companies that were considered “too big to fail”? The man behind The Sound That Ends Creation (hereafter, TSTEC) hasn’t forgotten, and to those corporate behemoths who had their hands out, he offers a pungent retort: “Your Mom Is Too Big To Fail“.

That’s the name of this one-man wrecking machine’s new song that we’re premiering today. It comes from his new album Fitting Through the Crawl Space Between Rhyme and Reason, which follows a debut album named We Are the Burden that was self-released in the summer of 2016. Continue reading »

ANTARKTIS: “ILDLAANTE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 242017
 

 

(DGR reviews the debut album by the Swedish group Antarktis, released earlier this month by Agonia Records.)

Sweden’s Antarktis, comprised of In Mourning, Ikhon, and Necrosavant musicians, are a project that we’ve been writing about at our humble abode for some time, albeit when they were first operating under the name Majalis. In the three years since that group’s debut EP, Cathodic Black, they have changed their name to Antarktis and settled down to write what has become their recently released debut full-length Ildlaante.

The album sees the effective tracklist from Cathodic Black doubled from three to six and the runtime similarly extended to a sweet, sweet forty-some-odd minutes of drifting, grooving, and lightly keyboard-seasoned post-metal with a light sludge element that reveals them running alongside fellow countrymen Gloson in the smoke-machine-enveloped bleakness that seems almost required of the genre. Continue reading »

SCATOLOGY SECRETION: “THE RAMIFICATIONS OF A GLOBAL CALAMITY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 232017
 

 

(Vonlughlio brings us another review of brutal death metal, this time focusing on the new release by the multinational band Scatology Secretion.)

This time around I decided to do a small write-up about a new BDM band that formed in the beginning of this year. The project is called Scatology Secretion, with none other that Justin Downs (from Human Excoriation, Vituperate, Purulent Necrosis) on vocals, Oscar Fixation (of Fixation on Suffering, ex-Cerebral Effusion) on guitars, and Squeezer on drums.

In their short time as a band they were signed by rising new BDM label Reality Fade Records and this past July released their first demo entitled Inauspicious Apocalyptic Inception. That struck me as one of the best BDM demos released this year, a display of old-school BDM that reminded me of Brodequin and to some extent Disgorge.

But that wasn’t all the band accomplished this year. Not long after the release of the demo the label announced they were going to release their first full-length in 2017 as well. At that moment I must admit I was a bit worried. I mean, they just released a demo, and usually it takes time for a band to work up to the next musical endeavor. Also, I wondered whether they would they keep the same direction or change to a different sound. Would they pull an Illud upon us fans? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANIMA DAMNATA — “NEFARIOUS SEED GROWS TO BRING FORTH SUPREMACY OF THE BEAST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Oct 232017
 

 

Offerings of praise to Satanus and efforts to channel blasphemous rage against the constricting noose of religious piety are commonplace in extreme forms of metal, with widely varying degrees of sincerity and success. But you will find few if any albums this year that channel such inspirations with the degree of inhuman ferocity and stunning violence displayed on the new album by Poland’s Anima Damnata. Their dedication is relentless, their execution merciless, and the impact of what they’ve done is nothing short of breathtaking.

The name of the new album, set for joint release by Godz Ov War and Malignant Voices on November 1, is Nefarious Seed Grows To Bring Forth Supremacy of the Beast. It’s their third full-length in a career that began in the mid-’90s.

About halfway through the album during the first time I heard it I realized that my mouth was hanging open, and had been hanging open since a few minutes into the first track. Even then, despite looking like a carp out of water, I couldn’t close the gaping hole in my face. The sheer speed and unrestrained fury manifested in the music is simply stupefying.

And simply surviving the assault may be as much of a challenge for many listeners as the high standards of destructiveness that the band obviously set for themselves. But for those steely enough to run this gauntlet, you’re in for an exhilarating (and perhaps terrifying) experience as we deliver the premiere of a full album stream today. Continue reading »

SARKE: “VIIGE URH”

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Oct 232017
 

 

(Norway-based metal writer Karina Noctum prepared this review of the new fifth album by the Norwegian band Sarke.)

Sarke released their fifth full-length Viige Urh on October 13. This time they are infusing the Viking theme into the music. This is not being done in the same metal fashion as other epic, folk bands have done. They borrow from genres which you wouldn’t normally see mixed into anything Viking. They are attempting to sound unique without straying too far from their original sound, and they succeed.

This album is excellent and it is not going to bore you at all because it is complex and comes with many musical surprises along the way. In addition, it is super-infused with feeling! So it is also unique in that sense. With Viige Urh, Sarke get a bit less thrashy and voyage much more into the dark waters of Viking, Stoner, and Doom.

In fact, Sarke kinda mess with your head by blending so many different soundscapes into a whole, and it is amazing how they manage to do this while maintaining a hold on the album’s integrity. It is absolutely not a mess, yet it is ever-changing and even gets a bit experimental. I guess it takes lots of years to get to this point. It can’t be done easily. Continue reading »

A DIRTY (HALF) DOZEN: ALTARAGE, BELL WITCH, LENG TCH’E, NE OBLIVISCARIS, PROGENIE TERRESTRE PURA, SPECTRAL VOICE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 232017
 


Altarage

 

(Andy Synn brings us this compilation of six reviews.)

I’ve said it a few times already… but it bears repeating here… there’s just SO much music to listen to that even I can’t keep up with it properly.

But hey, trying is half the battle, right? So here’s my attempt to make some sort of dent in the ever-growing pile of albums which we have yet to review here at NCS… some of which are several months old, some of which are very new indeed! Continue reading »

LIST-BREAKERS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  26 Responses »
Oct 232017
 


Fernando Falcone: “Antiguos cuentos de Brujas, 05. Edhasa” (2015)

 

I’ve mentioned more than once that we have very few plans here. Or at least I have very few plans. I live from day to day, wondering what fusillades from our writers will appear in my in-box, and remaining just as clueless about what will light the spark under the kindling stacked in my own mind. But this post was kindled in an especially unusual way.

In January 2013 I posted an extensive list of albums we were eagerly anticipating would be released over the early months of that year. Yesterday, almost 4 years later, Gaia left a comment that asked this question: “Is there anything I should be looking out for in the tail end of this year? I’m wondering if there’s any list-breakers due.”

Yes, it’s my burden as this site’s editor, to be notified of every comment, on every post, no matter when the posts were made, no matter how close we are to a thermocnuclear holocaust or unfortunate delays in the picking up of our garbage bins.

At first I thought, man, Gaia is really far behind, like a snail bringing up the rear of the Bataan death march; all the other people are dead, and he’s just now coming home. And then I thought, man, it’s our own damned fault for not giving people any logical place where they could engage in a conversation about what’s left to be released THIS YEAR. Or maybe Gaia just discovered LSD. Continue reading »

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