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LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST FROM JOSEPH SCHAFER — PART I

 LISTMANIA 2017  8 Responses »
Dec 202017
 

 

(Joseph Schafer, who was one of this site’s earliest regular writers under the pseudonym BadWolf and has been a steadfast friend of all of us ever since, returns to NCS once again with a year-end list. This year it comes in two parts. Part 2, which we’ll post tomorrow, is a Top 10 list. In this Part 1, the focus is on 25 albums that narrowly missed Joseph’s top slots.)

 

This list will mark my return to No Clean Singing after three years editing Invisible Oranges, and now six months as a dedicated freelance writer. I got my start here at NCS and this time of year I always return. The holidays, after all, are about setting a light in the dark and navigating home, if only for a moment. Now as ever, NCS remains a light in the deepening internet dark, and will always be home.

I can think of many ways to summarize 2017. One could call it a year of reconciliation. Storied and well-traveled bands easing into their twenties and thirties did their best to flex and please after 2016’s glut of great new and super-underground acts. To their credit: 2017 has to be the best year for ‘mainstream’ metal in over a decade. The disappointing tripartite belly flop of Emmure, Suicide Silence, and Winds of Plague’s limp new records hopefully put that subgenre in the dirt for the time being, but otherwise the old Big-little labels, Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Metal Blade, and Relapse delivered some polished surprises: Obituary, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Satyricon, Dying Fetus, Trivium, Belphegor, Vader, Danzig (what?), Exhumed, The Black Dahlia Murder, and Unsane all released their best albums in years. Special accolades must go to Cradle of Filth, who have somehow come out of their maybe-worst-band-in-metal tailspin and released a front-to-back rager with Cryptoriana – the Seductiveness of Decay. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: XAEL — “APATHY OF THE IMMORTAL”

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Dec 202017
 

 

Xael is a new band from North Carolina, and they are nothing if not ambitious. Their debut album The Last Arbiter, which will be released next year by Test Your Metal Records, is a musical narrative organized around a sci-fi/fantasy saga created by Xael that takes place on a distant planet and whose protagonist is an immortal wayfarer chained to demonic entity.

The music itself has a theatrical, operatic quality with a scale and scope that matches the drama of the story line. And the band are planning to release two songs from the album each month as well as a series of videos that provide a rich visual depiction of the story as well — the first of which we present to you today.

Before we get to that video — for the song “Apathy of the Immortal” — some background information may prove useful. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COLOSSO – “REBIRTH”

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Dec 202017
 

 

The fourth album by the Portuguese death metal band Colosso is entitled Rebirth, a title that could be understood in more than one way. Aside from the album’s lyrical themes, it marks a transformation of the band from a five-piece group to the studio project of Colosso’s founder, Max Tomé, who is supported on Rebirth by guest drummer Emídio Alexandre (The Autist, ex-Shadowsphere).

Rebirth will be released digitally and on tape and CD on February 25, 2018, and today it’s our pleasure to premiere the first single from the new album, which itself is entitled “Rebirth“. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 30): AEGRUS, HEIR, CAÏNAN DAWN, STAHLSARG, LUNA, SAR ISATUM

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Dec 202017
 

 

(This old year is gasping its last breaths — and even fewer are left than the last time we welcomed our friend Gorger from Norway — but he has found time for one more collection of 2017 releases that we haven’t previously reviewed before the death rattle. To find more of his recommendations, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

 

Welcome to Part XXX in this here attempt at filling the gaps left by the runaway NCS high-speed rail. Last time around, I wrote about “four new picks” in the ingress. I obviously can’t count for shit. Also, Islander’s prequel indicated that BtNCSR pt.29 was my last endeavour to finish off 2017. Well, I never told him that I was hoping for one more, and truth be told, I wasn’t betting on it either.

I do have more 2017 metal to share, but that’ll have to wait ’til next year. In the meantime, my top 20 will emerge amidst the Listmania® madness. I’ve narrowed down my candidates from more than 60 to 30 at the time of writing. The finals will be tough as hell. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST BY NEILL JAMESON (PART II)

 LISTMANIA 2017  3 Responses »
Dec 192017
 

 

(For the fourth year in a row, Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) kindly accepted our invitation to share with us his list releases from the past year that meant the most to him. It comes in two parts. In this second part, Neill’s list is devoted to splits, reissues, and “non-metal odds and ends”. Part I, which includes albums and EPs, is HERE.)

 

Still with me? Thanks, I promise this won’t be as wordy. 2017 was also a great year for splits, reissues, and dark music that doesn’t fall into the “metal” category but is worth your attention just the same. That seems like enough of an intro, let’s dive right in. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NETER — “THE PILLARS OF HERACLES”

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Dec 192017
 

 

At almost the precise mid-point of this year our own Andy Synn wrote a column in which he discussed the never-ending moan (and shriek) of people who complain that metal is dying and that nothing new under the sun compares favorably to “the good old days”, As a means of responding to such points of view (which obviously none of us here shares), he recommended that we do more than simply tell such complainers they’re dead wrong; instead, we should expose them to music from newer bands which proves that “we don’t need to make Metal great ‘again’, we just need to make more people aware of how great it already ‘is’”.

And Neter is one of the bands he gave as a prime example of metal’s current greatness.

Referring to the band’s last album, Idols, Andy described the music as “punishingly tight, hellishly hooky Death Metal from Spain”. And now a new Neter album named Inferus is nearly upon us, set for release on January 15th through the cooperation of Satanath Records (Russia), Cimmerian Shade Recordings (USA), Murdher Records (Italy), and Black Plague Records (USA). Two songs from the album have premiered previously, and today we deliver a third one: “The Pillars of Heracles“. Continue reading »

A DOOMED DESCENT (PART 5): NORILSK, OPHIS, PROCESS OF GUILT

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Dec 192017
 

 

(In the fall of this year we posted a four-part series of reviews by Comrade Aleks, who usually brings us excellent interviews from the manifold realms of doom, and now we have a fifth part, in which Aleks spreads the word about 2017 albums by Norilsk, Ophis, and Process of Guilt.)

 

Autumn 2017 brought three big releases to followers of the extreme doom metal scene. Of course there were many more, but I want you to pay an attention to these three today.

I greatly enjoyed the first album of death-doom Norilsk (Canada) in 2015 and was pretty excited to listen to their second work Le Passage Des Glaciers. The new Ophis (Germany) became a real trial for me with its sick and deranged atmosphere embodied in their own darkest nihilistic way. And Process Of Guilt (Portugal) made another step further from their death-doom roots and have recorded interesting and intensive sludge-focused music. Let me sum up my impressions. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S TOP TEN TRACKS OF 2017

 LISTMANIA 2017  15 Responses »
Dec 182017
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn’s annual list of 10 favorite songs from the year that’s nearly ended.)

Oh, you poor, innocent fools… did you really think I was done with you just yet?

Not only do I have a bunch of other reviews, plus another edition of The Synn Report, all set to roll out over the course of this week and the next, but I’ve also got yet another list for you after this one, so you needn’t worry that you’ll be lacking any content to keep you distracted from the grim reality of your lives this festive season.

One quick word of warning – the following list is neither kvlt, krieg, or kool… it’s just ten of the (many, many) songs that lodged themselves deep in my brain over the past twelve months, and which I felt compelled to highlight. Make of that what you will! Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: A YEAR-END LIST BY NEILL JAMESON (PART I)

 LISTMANIA 2017  17 Responses »
Dec 182017
 

 

(For the fourth year in a row, Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) kindly accepted our invitation to share with us his list releases from the past year that meant the most to him. It comes in two parts; we’ll have Part II for you tomorrow.)

2017 was a really great year for music, a year that comes only once every ten years or so for me. Nearly every subgenre had at least one recording this year that I could see listening to in a few years time. That’s always been something that perplexes me regarding this time of year: how many of the records on some people’s top 175 of the year are actually going to stay in their lives beyond a few bylines during the year it was released? With so much shit being pressed into these massive lists, not to mention the literal thousands of releases that don’t make the cut, how much time do we really give these records, to let them sink in, and to really look at them as the benchmarks of the ending year?

In the end none of these lists mean much beyond the bands (hopefully) being proud of what they accomplished and our own ego stroking, as writers, to basically force our tastes onto you. What matters is what you get out of a record, even if your favorite didn’t make anyone’s list. Who gives a fuck as long as it’s a meaningful record to you. Here’s what records ended up being meaningful to me this year: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): “EKSTROPHË” (A COMPILATION BY DEVOURING STAR, FLAGELLANT, ARFSYND, IBEX ANGEL ORDER, DØDSENGEL, AND CHALICE OF BLOOD)

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Dec 182017
 

 

Ekstrophë is the name of an album-length compilation by six black metal bands, some of whom haven’t been heard from in years and some of whom have created outstanding 2017 releases already: Devouring Star (Finland), Flagellant (Sweden), Arfsynd (Sweden), Ibex Angel Order (Netherlands), Dødsengel (Norway), and Chalice of Blood (Sweden). Each band has contributed one song to the album, and they are all tied together with ambient passages created by Norway’s Black Majesty and the Temple of Erythran Current.

Hints about this collaborative effort surfaced earlier in the year, but today we can provide details about its release through Terratur Possessions, as well as a full stream of all the music. Continue reading »

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