SEEN AND HEARD: OF WOLVES, OLDD WVRMS, UNENDLICH, PERNICION, EWIGKEIT, LACERATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 072019
 

 

At the not-inconsiderable risk of overwhelming our visitors with new music, I’m following up yesterday’s two-part round-up of music from the black(ened) realms with another collection of new tracks. One of them is yet another example of black metal, but the songs that follow are much more wide-ranging in their styles — I made a conscious decision to compile a varied playlist that I hope will be appealing, but will at least keep you off-balance. All the songs are from forthcoming albums.

OF WOLVES

Beginning last October, Chicago’s Of Wolves began rolling out three songs that they had originally composed as separate pieces but then, after noticing the interesting flow among them when performed live, decided to combine into a single track on their new album, Balance. The first of those, “Clear Cutting”, premiered at DECIBEL; the second, “Bloodshed”, premiered at our own site in November; and the third, “Heart To Hand”, got its debut at Sludgelord last month.

Now the band have released a combined video for these combined tracks, and as of today have made it available for download on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND ALBUM REVIEW): OBLIVION — “INSURRECTION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 072019
 

 

(In this feature TheMadIsraeli reviews the new self-titled album by the California death metal band Oblivion and introduces our premiere of a track from the album named “Insurrection“.)

I honestly believe Oblivion are one of the most consistent newer death metal bands we’ve got right now, with a unique voice of their own. Whether it’s down to Nick Vasallo’s distinctive old school high/low vocal approach, the same granite yet antimatter guitar tone they’ve had since their debut EP, or the flagrant combination of ’90s tech death and modern progressive tendencies, there’s always been a lot to like on all fronts about Oblivion.

I was a huge fan of the band’s last record The Path Towards and it’s move in a more proggy direction with some very welcome black-metal-intensive moments, and songs that really shook things up and showed the band expanding their horizons delightfully. I was surprised, as a result, on my first hearing of Oblivion’s upcoming self-titled record, that the band had decided to take a direct, distinct step backward to the more grounded death metal sound they came crashing through the gates with on Called To Rise. Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON (BEST OF 2018 EDITION) BY SURGICALBRUTE

 LISTMANIA 2018  20 Responses »
Jan 072019
 

 

(For the 8th year in a row, we asked our old friend SurgicalBrute to weigh in with his year-end list of favorite albums and/or EPs. As expected, his list adds many names of some especially savage underground releases that haven’t appeared before in our 2018 Listmania series.)

I know you all have been waiting with bated breath, wondering when my list would arrive… because this is MY list we’re talking about, and why wouldn’t you? Unfortunately the delay just couldn’t be helped. Between going back to school, and an unusually busy Christmas season, there wasn’t a whole lot of spare time to go around this year for me to do any writing. Things have finally eased up a bit for me though, so it’s time to get this ball rolling.

Now I’d originally intended this to be a much longer list, as I have listened to a lot of music this year… and I mean a lot… but I was expressly asked not to for fear that I would make the other authors look bad. So being the kind and gracious person that I am, I took pity on everyone else, followed the rules…mostly… and still, without a doubt, created the most metal list of the year. So kick back, open your favorite beer, and turn the volume up as high as it will go, because it’s once again time to separate the casuals from the grim and kvlt…Enjoy the music \m/* Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KALPA — “IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 072019
 

 

In the new song we’re about to present, a hell of a lot happens in less than three minutes, and all of it is geared to send lightning strikes into your head (and hammer your spine). “It’s Not Always About You” is the name of this electrifying barrage, and it comes from A Grand Misconception, the new album by the Athenian hardcore band Kalpa.

Kalpa are a heavy-hitting, politically charged crew of five with a DIY ethos, but a long list of distros (whose names we’ll give you later) have lined up to release this new album on vinyl and tape. When you listen to the music, it’s not hard to understand why. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SINOATH (SALVATORE FICHERA)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jan 072019
 

 

(Comrade Aleks rejoins us with the following interview of Salvatore Fichera of the Italian black/death/doom band Sinoath, whose latest album in a career which began in 1990 is 2018’s Anamnesis.)

This band has a long and complicated story and a pretty short discography containing only three full-length albums. Having started in 1990 in Catania, Sicily, they recorded their first album Research in 1995 after two demos — Forged In Blood (1991) and Still In The Grey Dying (1993). It’s hard to categorize this material but it’s done on a converging of death, black, and gothic metal, with some Italian dark prog influences.

The band was finished in 1996, but seven years later it was restored with Sinoath’s initial drummer Salvatore Fichera. The new album, Under The Ashes, turned out to be darker and heavier than its predecessor, but the band didn’t aim to strengthen their position from there and laid down again after that. After 11 years of silence in terms of album-length releases, Sinoath returned again in 2018 with their third album, Anamnesis, which combines doom metal with some other influences. I’ll try to sort out everything in this story with Salvatore himself. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): VUKARI, VIELIKAN, KALMANKANTAJA, RINGARË, LIMINAL SHROUD, Y I Y

 SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Jan 062019
 

 

This is the second part of today’s usual column on black metal, which I began here. The first three bands are old favorites; the next three are new discoveries. The focus is still mainly on new tracks from forthcoming records, but I’ve included one brand new single and a full EP that came out near summer’s end.

With more time, I could easily include a third part, but there’s too much on the table for Monday — and I think you’ll want to be here to discover what happens then.

VUKARI

I first came across this Chicago quartet via their En To Pan EP (which I partially reviewed back in July 2014), thanks to a recommendation by Panopticon’s Austin Lunn. Subsequently, Vukari and Panopticon became label-mates: Vukari’s second album Divination was released by Bindrune Recordings in 2016, and I thought it was stunningly good. It appears that the band are now working on a new album, and on January 3rd they released a demo track from it named “Entire Worlds Encased In Ice“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): MO’YNOQ, BERGRAVEN, ALTARAGE, DEFECRATOR, SVARTELDER

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jan 062019
 

 

I got a slow start on the day yesterday, and by the time I got my head in gear it was too late to put together a post of new music. So I decided to focus on what I might recommend today.

I listened a lot to things I’d spotted over the last week or two, focusing mainly on advance tracks from forthcoming releases, and found so much I enjoyed that I’ve had to split this SHADES OF BLACK installment into two parts. Look for the other one later today.

MO’YNOQ

If North Carolina’s Mo’ynoq still aren’t on your radar screen, it’s time you put them there, dead center. Their debut album, Dreaming In A Dead Language, is coming out on January 11th. I premiered a song from it called “The Collector” last month, and now there’s a second one I can share with you, which premiered at Antihero on Friday. Continue reading »

THE GRINDING GEARS OF OUR HORRIBLE MACHINE (WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE’RE HEADED — PLUS NEW MUSIC FROM MĘKA)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jan 042019
 


an 1888 painting by Vasily Vasilevich Vereshchagin

 

We’re now at the end of that hybrid week which always ends the holiday season, and which for most people seems to be a mix of fucking off and becoming wage slaves again. Although no one asked me, I thought I’d commemorate the moment by telling you where we are in our posting schedule and what lies ahead (other than another probably shitty year in the outside world).

We’re almost finished with our year-end LISTMANIA series — almost, but not quite. Next week we’ll have at least one more year-end list from a guest, and possibly two or three (I’m crossing my fingers that those latter two, which are a bit uncertain, will pan out, because in past years those particular writer/musicians have delivered highly anticipated and eagerly viewed collections). But either way, we’ll close out the main part of LISTMANIA next week…

…and we’ll also begin the final segment, which is my sole contribution to the series, i.e., the list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, which I’ll roll out in installments every day or two until around the end of February. Continue reading »

DGR’S QUEST TO TURN 2018 INTO A COFFEE TABLE BOOK – ISSUE FIVE: 10-1

 LISTMANIA 2018  10 Responses »
Jan 042019
 

(At last, we reach the fifth and final installment of DGR’s 5-part year-end effort to sink our site beneath an avalanche of words and a deluge of music. It includes his Top 10 albums, plus a list of EPs, and one final non-metal entry.)

Here we go into the final installment. One last grouping of albums and one last collection of thudding riffs, heavy guitars, and enough drumwork to leave one’s head spinning by the time it wraps up.

This final ten is all over the place, in terms of both genre and location. My lists tend to be pretty international always, but the consistent bouncing back and forth that is happening in this part has proven to be entertaining in its own right.

This group also reveals just how much of 2018 turned out to be the year of cathartic release for me. Alongside all the genre-bending, all the experimentation, and all of the well-executed groove, I found that every once in a while this year a disc would hit that would just boil down to a half-hour-plus of yelling, and I would relish every single second of it. I’m sure we could credit that to the wider situation of the world these days but I’ve also always been a sucker for turning music into an instrument of release, and for some reason that approach won me over hard this year.

So let’s begin with the final ten, and then a grouping of EPs I enjoyed this year, my final non-metal (ish) release recommendation, and a small (ish) closing paragraph… because why would I ever stop typing after just finishing the final ten?

That’s for crazy people. Continue reading »

SOILWORK: “VERKLIGHETEN”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jan 042019
 


Photo by Stephansdotter Photography

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new 11th album by Sweden’s Soilwork, which will be released on January 11 by Nuclear Blast.)

One thing which you may have noticed, if you’ve been visiting NCS consistently for any length of time, is that we sometimes purposefully refrain from covering what you might think of as “the big names” in Metal.

Largely this is because we feel that our time would be better spent focussing on smaller, and less well-exposed artists, but also due to the fact that these “bigger” bands invariably receive so much attention and fawning flattery (in fact I’ve just recently stumbled across a few suspiciously sycophantic reviews which seemed like they’d been half-written before even hearing the album), that any attempt on our part to offer a more nuanced or critical appraisal would likely just get ignored and lost in the flood.

Still, every so often one of us will stumble upon a particular take or angle that they feel compelled to follow up on, which is why you’re about to read my review of the soon-to-be-released eleventh album from those stalwart Swedes known as Soilwork.

Be warned though, if you’re expecting nothing but blind praise based on the band’s name-value alone, then you might want to look elsewhere. If you’re after a more measured appraisal of the album’s pros and cons, however, then please, read on. Continue reading »

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