Islander, Author at NO CLEAN SINGING

Islander

CONVERGE AND CHELSEA WOLFE: “BLOODMOON: I”

Nov 232021

(Bloodmoon: I, the new collaborative album created by Converge alongside Chelsea Wolfe, her bandmate/writing partner Ben Chisholm, and Cave In vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky, is out now on CD and across all streaming platforms via Epitaph Records, with a vinyl edition coming next year. Wil Cifer provides the following review.)

When one of my favorite artists releases an album, you might assume I listen to it for the first time in a blissful state gushing how they can do no wrong. Perhaps this is what neuro-normative people do. I am not one of those. Instead, my expectations are so high that I go into it anxious that they are going to let me down and tarnish their pristine legacy. Why am I explaining this to you?

One, this is not merely one of my favorite artists but a collaboration between two of them. I have been listening to Converge since the ’90s so we have more history, but Chelsea Wolfe‘s career I have championed for over a decade now. One friend of mine sent me a link to their earliest collaboration at the Roadburn Festival where this collaboration first spawned from and said:

“Chelsea Wolfe jamming with Converge is one of the most Wil things ever”. Continue reading »

HORROR OF PESTILENCE: “ILLITERATE CONSTRUCTION // INAUDIBLE DETERIORATION”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Nov 222021

(Ryan Dyer, who made his NCS debut touting the insanity of one-man bands in China and followed that by trumpeting the destructiveness of Calgary’s Whorrify, now returns to the Chinese scene with this new review.)

Guangzhou, China’s Horror of Pestilence are a group of metallic conductors who specialize in creating tech-deathcore savagery blended with symphonic elements, taking the genre beyond its preconceived limitations. Their new EP Illiterate Construction // Inaudible Deterioration marks a pivot for the band, as a new guitarist from Hong Kong-based Massacre of Mothman has recently joined up for further collaborations on their next full-length LP.

Still, there are some Dune-sized ear worms found on this EP such as Middle Eastern elements leading into the snarling “Exiled Revenant.” A tasty saxophone solo also shows up, bringing to mind the brass attack used by Japanese black metal masters Sigh. “God Given. Hell Risen” features some ear-catching dual vocal melodies – another surprise from the plague ragers. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOURMAND — “TO BRING TO NOTHING”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Nov 222021

Gourmand‘s new EP To Bring To Nothing is the kind of thing that demands to be heard repeatedly, in part because the experience is so electrifying and frequently head-hooking, but also because there’s so much to unpack. Every one of the three songs is so intricate and so surprising in its rapidly mutating configurations that it’s almost too much for the normal human mind to assimilate in just one run-through. And it’s such a kaleidoscopic rush that even after repeated listens it still sounds new — because the odds are you’ll detect something (or many things) for the first time that you missed before.

“Progressive death metal” might the closest genre label for what this collective from Kansas City, Missouri have created here, though the technical exuberance of the execution and the labyrinthine compositional approach suggests a more multi-hyphened hybrid. As their name implies, they are connoisseurs of many tastes. The music is certifiably savage, but also remarkably elaborate (and pleasingly groovesome just when you think you’ve become thoroughly discombobulated). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VAHRZAW — “VULTURES”

Premieres No Responses »

Nov 222021

In a career that dates back to the mid-’90s, Australia’s Vahrzaw have released a couple handfuls of short works and three full-lengths, with a fourth album now headed our way, courtesy of Transcending Obscurity Records. At a high level, their music could be branded as an amalgam of black and death metal, but they’ve brought so many other ingredients into play that “blackened death metal” doesn’t do an adequate job of summing up their stylistic achievements.

The song we’re premiering today from the new album is vivid proof of that point. In “Vultures“, Vahrzaw discharge devil-thrash — a turbocharged, adrenaline-fueled romp, scorching in its intensity, head-spinning in its elaborate instrumental acrobatics, and vicious enough to conjure images of rabid slavering beasts on the hunt. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (VERTIGINOUS EDITION): KAECK AND GOATCRAFT

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Nov 212021

This morning I read an article concerning some recent books about H.G. Wells, and the article used the word “vertiginous”. It’s a word that refers to something that causes vertigo — the sensation that you or the environment around you is moving or spinning. Another word for vertiginous might be “dizzying”.

I searched all of our posts at this site and was surprised to find that I had used the word a few times before, but not in a long time. Because I think it’s a great word, and it was in my head, it pulled me in the direction of briefly reviewing and streaming music from the following two albums, which are both vertiginous, albeit in very different ways.

KAECK (Netherlands)

Kaeck’s new album, Het Zwarte Dictaat (released near the end of October by Folter Records), is war music — not because its lyrical themes are devoted to historical conflict but because the music is so often violently tumultuous. The low-end is thunderous and granite-heavy, and when the music mounts a mid-paced charge it sounds like the assault of a tank battalion. At higher speed, the drums pump like heavy-caliber weaponry and the bass vibrates in the marrow. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DORMANT ORDEAL, NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION, CELESTE, VEGAS, BLASTANUS, FARGUE

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Nov 202021

Dormant Ordeal

I didn’t completely neglect NCS during the 10 recent days when I was in Iceland. I did write some premieres, though not as many as usual, and I did regale readers with tales of my Ascension Fest adventures. What I did not do was pore through the several hundred emails that hit the NCS in-box every day, looking for new music that might be worth writing about, or searching for new tracks and videos through other usual sources.

And I spent almost no time actually listening to anything other than the sounds that bombarded me at the fest for four days and nights, not for lack of interest but because I forgot how little sitting-in-my-room-time-with-nothing-to-do I actually have at festivals, especially when every other day I had to make time for a covid test.

So here I am at the end of the first (partial) week following the return home from the land of fire and ice. The thought of trying to completely catch up with all the new songs and videos that surfaced since my vacation began two weeks ago is a ridiculous one, especially because a sister-in-law and brother-in-law are house-guests this weekend. I did a little trolling through the waters yesterday, and had saved a few links from before I left, and from that I still had too much to listen to this morning. I did the mental equivalent of throwing darts, and this is where they landed: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SGÀILE — “IDEALS & MORALITY”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 2 Responses »

Nov 192021

In many ways, the album we’re about to present is strikingly different from our usual musical fare at this site. Most obviously, the songs include only singing. Blast-beats are a rarity, and distortion is either completely eschewed or applied to a mild degree. The music often has more in common with prog-rock and hard-rock than heavy metal, and pulls from wells of classic heavy metal when it does venture into metal realms rather than dabbling in the sub-genres of extremity that occupy most of our attention.

And so you might scratch your head about what the album is doing here. Maybe you will wonder less after you’ve heard it. What it lacks in throat-cutting viciousness or mind-scarring abrasiveness it makes up for in so many other ways — in ways that make it utterly captivating. It has visceral “physical” power as well as the power to both channel and alter emotional states in gripping fashion, and it reaches heights of splendor that are breathtaking.

The name of the album is Ideals & Morality, and it’s the debut full-length of Sgàile, the solo project of Scottish multi-instrumentalist and vocalist extraordinaire Tony Dunn, whose resume includes work with such other bands such as Falloch, Cnoc An Tursa, and Saor. It will be released by Avantgarde Music on December 10th. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA BEGINS: THE DECIBEL TOP 40 FOR 2021

LISTMANIA 2021 11 Responses »

Nov 192021

It has become an annual tradition at our putrid site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA orgy with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list, because they always seem to burst from the starting gate sooner than anyone else — and they’ve done it again this year, although about a week later than they did in 2020. There’s also the fact that, in my humble opinion, DECIBEL is still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal, and their list always generates healthy discussions, so it’s a fitting way to launch the latest LISTMANIA season apart from the list’s early-bird status.

The DECIBEL list will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2022 edition, which hasn’t yet hit my own mailbox, but DECIBEL again decided (for the sixth year in a row, or maybe the seventh) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line yesterday, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt, beyond the sheepishness that comes from being one of the factors that forced them to start outing themselves in the first place.

Of course, there will be a lot more content in the January issue. It includes a cover story on the Converge Bloodmoon collaboration record with Chelsea Wolfe, a Hall of Fame feature on Arcturus’ “black metal weirdo classic” Aspera Hiems Symfonia, editorial comment on the records that made their year-end list, and more. It will also include a Portrayal of Guilt flexi disc. You can order a copy of the issue HERE. Continue reading »

THE “MOST INFECTIOUS” EXTREME METAL SONGS OF 2021: OUR ANNUAL APPEAL TO READERS FOR HELP!

LISTMANIA 2021, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021 26 Responses »

Nov 182021

Tomorrow we will officially announce the beginning of our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza at NCS. For those of you new to this orgy, our LISTMANIA blockbuster comes in four parts:

First, we re-print assorted lists of the year’s best albums, leeched from other big web sites and magazines, like the one you’ll see tomorrow. Second, we will provide a post in which our readers can share their lists of the 2021 albums and shorter releases they enjoyed the most (we’ll be asking for those on December 1, so get ready). Third, we will post the year-end lists of our own staff and assorted guest writers.

And fourth, I’ll again roll out my list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs — which seems especially well-named in this latest plague year, doesn’t it? That list is the subject of this request for help.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZMARŁYM — “DRUGA FALA”

Album Reviews, Premieres 5 Responses »

Nov 182021

I write a lot of premieres, indeed one or more every damned day. I have many reasons for doing that, but one of them is the opportunity it affords to discover something I might otherwise miss, something out of the ordinary and invigorating, and that’s exactly what happened when we were invited to host a full stream of Zmarłym‘s debut album Druga Fala in advance of its November 21 release by Godz Ov War Productions. It struck me like a bolt from the blue, immediately captivating and head-spinning from the first listen.

The album title is Polish for “Second Wave”, and it does indeed mark this trio’s second release, following a 2020 EP, Ziemie jałowe. The fact that it’s only the band’s second effort makes it all the more remarkable. It provides a rich cornucopia of surprises, a truly adventurous black metal album that pulled this the listener in and didn’t let go. It has quickly become a 2021 favorite of mine. Continue reading »

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