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SEEN AND HEARD: MALIGNANCY, UMBRA VITAE, LIMBONIC ART, SUMAC

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 032024
 


Photo Credit: Paul McGuire

Wallet- and pocketbook-protective dikes continue to fail at an alarming rate, deluging bank accounts with continuing torrents of new music. Yes, cheap-ass streaming services like Spotify might let your money keep its meager head above water for the time being, but at some point your conscience will assert its ascendancy, won’t it?

Way too much new music to cover comprehensively in this mid-week roundup. I just grabbed a few ugly gems as they swept by, with one hand still on the felled tree that’s serving as my temporary life preserver as the flood carries me toward that bridge pylon ahead. Hopefully we won’t hit it as hard as the Dali. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TENEBRIFIC — “LABYRINTH OF ANGUISH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 032024
 

Tenebrific is a new band from Australia, a studio project created by Adam Martin of Golgothan Remains and Sarcophagum, in collaboration with Cris Bassan from Decrepid. Their debut release (in which they’re aided by some special guests) is an EP fittingly named Labyrinth of Anguish, which is set for release on April 8th.

The band have described the EP (quite accurately) as a release that “offers a glimpse into the abyss of existential despair, inviting listeners to confront their own inner demons and navigate the labyrinth of anguish.” “Throughout 22 minutes,” they say, “we summon monstrous and hallucinatory blackened death deformations that echo the howls of tortured souls and the whispers of malevolent entities.”

Over the course of three substantial tracks, the EP progresses as a single cohesive and carefully planned journey, one that really must be heard straight through to get the full effect — and fortunately, that’s what you’ll be able to do further down in this article as we premiere the full stream. Continue reading »

KORPIKLAANI: “RANKARUMPU”

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Apr 032024
 

(Below you’ll find Didrik Mešiček‘s review of Korpiklaani‘s new studio album, Rankarumpu, which will be released this Friday, April 5th, via Nuclear Blast Records.)

Korpiklaani is one of the first bands I ever properly got into – even though I thought they were way too heavy when I was a very, very different child at the age of about 13. For that reason, they’re one of those bands that will always be a bit more special as we’ve spent a lot of time together many years ago, and in my mind, a new Korpiklaani release can’t possibly be bad. Luckily, one is very close, as Rankarumpu will be released on April 5th through Nuclear Blast.

In more recent history, the band has oscillated quite wildly. From the 2018 release, Kulkija, which was widely considered not great and had an odd, somewhat melancholic, overarching sound that I can only describe as farmy, except for a few tracks that picked up the tempo and involved a bit more of that typical Finnish humppa, to 2021’s Jylhä, which, I still insist, is the band’s best album – at least musically. That is, however, not the same as being the most palatable or having the most drinking songs you can scream along to. Jylhä therefore showed maturity and renewed my faith in the Finns’ ability to write genuinely good music. Continue reading »

TEN FESTIVALS TO VISIT IN 2024

 Metal News  No Responses »
Apr 022024
 

(NCS contributor Didrik Mešiček wrote the following article, shining a spotlight on ten metal festivals from around the world that will take place during 2024.)

The long and winding tunnel that is winter is slowly coming to an end. The snow (by which I, of course, mean fog and endless rain) will retreat and make way for the joys of summer. Now, if you’re reading this in some place that actually sees sunlight more often than every three months and thinking, “Rain? What in the world is this twat on about?”, please send me your address. I’m coming to visit for an undisclosed amount of time.

The unequivocally good thing about summer, however, is that the festival season is in full swing and if you haven’t yet decided where you’re going this year I might have some useful suggestions for you. I’ve tried to include a varied array of geographical location and subgenres, but as customary at NCS, we’re not really as interested in the mainstream goings on and therefore I won’t be telling you to go to Wacken or Hellfest in this list.

Also, with this intro I now declare that summer has officially started (or ended, sorry, Aussies/Kiwis and other creatures of the southern hemisphere). You’re welcome. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OSSILEGIUM — “THE GODS BELOW”

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Apr 022024
 

“In the days of antiquity, after the embers of a funeral pyre had died, the bones of the deceased would be gathered together in a funerary box and given a place of reverence to withstand the ravages of time. OSSILEGIUM stand upon these burnt offerings of the past while forging onward into new realms of darkness, where even light fears the eventual entropy of universal death.”

That’s an excerpt from the press materials distributed by Personal Records for this Chicago band’s debut album The Gods Below, which is set for release on May 3rd. We don’t usually copy/paste from PR materials, but maybe you see why we just did that — and why we’re doing it again next:

“Indeed, the record is aptly titled, for the alternately ice-cold / burning-hot majesty the duo unleash here reinvigorates noble old tropes – namely, the days when melody was married to death metal crunch and when leathery black wings enclosed it, flying far and free across a landscape of blue-purple emotion.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NUCLEAR TOMB — “PARASITIC (LIVE A LIE)”

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Apr 022024
 

Since August 9, 1945, the world has somehow dodged becoming a nuclear tomb, though at times that seemed inevitable. But don’t give up hope, it could still happen!

It certainly seems to be a vision embraced by the Baltimore band Nuclear Tomb, reflected not only in their own moniker but also in titles such as Terror Labyrinthian, the name of their new album, and “Fatal Visions“, the album’s second single following the title track.

The terrifying absurdities of our existence under the nuclear shadow, and a multitude of other self-created shadows, are also well-represented in Nuclear Tomb‘s music, which has been labeled “weirdo death thrash”, and we’ve got a fine example for you in our premiere today of the third single from the new album — “Parasitic (Live A Lie)“. Continue reading »

SUFFER: “GRAND CANVAS OF THE AESTHETE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 022024
 


cover art by Ettore Aldo del Vigo

(We present Todd Manning‘s very enthusiastic review of the new album from Suffer, which was released by Wise Blood Records on March 29th.)

Most death metal bands define themselves by emphasizing one aspect of their sound. Maybe it’s speed or lack thereof, technicality versus primitivism, seeing how guttural they can be, and so on. On their latest, Grand Canvas of the Aesthete, which just came out on Wise Blood Records, South Dakota’s Suffer take a different approach; they define themselves by the balance they strike of all the elements of death metal that they incorporate. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, MARCH 2024

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Apr 012024
 

(March 2024 is in the history books, and in this column Gonzo reviews six albums that made it a good month to remember.)

So, I dunno if it’s just me, but 2024 has already been a banger of a year for heavy music after only three months. My best-of-’24 Spotify playlist has over 10 hours of music on it, and that’s just me throwing random shit in there on a fairly haphazard basis.

Later in April, I’m also taking a trip down the road to Red Rocks to see Amon Amarth headline a wild show that includes Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, and Frozen Soul. And by the time this piece goes live, I’ll have already seen Wayfarer perform “American Gothic” in its entirety at the Bluebird in Denver. Look for a review of that one coming up.

Good times await, my friends.

But first, let’s get to some new gems I’ve unearthed from metal’s grimy underbelly over the past 30 days. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PHANTASMAL ABYSS — “THE SPAWN OF LYCAON”

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Apr 012024
 

It’s a silly day today, or rather, sillier than usual. But the silliness is superficial, a temporary skin-deep covering for deplorable conditions and events world-wide that will be every bit as wounding tomorrow as they were yesterday.

That’s a reality not lost on the Oakland band Phantasmal Abyss, whose new single that you’re about to hear they describe as a song that “presents a bleak, raw and savage sonic landscape that is consumed with darkness and ferocity”.

The name of the song is “The Spawn of Lycaon”, a title that invokes the mythological king of Arcadia who (per this source) “killed and cooked his son Nyctimus and served him to Zeus, to see whether the god was sufficiently all-knowing to recognize human flesh”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SREFA — “A DREAM, NEVER ENDING”

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Apr 012024
 

What we have for you today is the premiere of a song that carries us into an unnerving dreamscape, a venture into a hostile void that’s cold enough to chill the blood, venomous enough to create fear, and mentally afflicting in the way of an alien encounter — no fooling.

The song is “A Dream, Never Ending“, and it comes from the debut album Solstice by the Israeli black metal band Srefa, which will be co-released by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Australis Records (Chile) on April 26th. Continue reading »

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