EIGHT BELLS: “LEGACY OF RUIN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  2 Responses »
Feb 212022
 

 

(Our friend Justin Collins  is the author of the following review of the latest album by the Oregonian band Eight Bells, which is scheduled for release on February 25th by Prophecy Productions.)

It’s been a little while since we’ve been graced with an Eight Bells release. As is probably the case with many people, I’ve lost all sense of time because of the pandemic, but it’s been 6 years since they released Landless. Granted, life sometimes gets in the way. Injuries, lineup changes, and the need to make a living get in the way of artists who make music off the beaten path, but luckily Melynda Jackson, the constant of this group, has soldiered on to create Legacy of Ruin with two new band members, Matt Solis (Cormorant) on bass and vocals, and Brian Burke (Cave Dweller) on drums. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2021’s MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 15): SKEPTICISM, RISE TO THE SKY, DAWN OF SOLACE

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021  2 Responses »
Jan 252022
 


Skepticism

 

In looking back at the songs I’ve included in this list so far (you can see all of them here), it occurred to me that I hadn’t paid much attention to doom. That realization influenced me in the choices I made for today’s installment, which gives glimpses of the genre’s night-blooming diversity, because part of my aim in doing this list is to provide snapshots of what the last year brought us in metal, across a swath of genres.

But of course the songs must be infectious to qualify, and these are, even if the contagion they bring us is heartbreak.

SKEPTICISM (Finland)

Skepticism is the first funeral doom band whose music I ever heard, long ago. It was a gripping discovery. Skepticism always draws my attention for that reason, but also because of the band’s remarkable consistency over a career that spans three decades. Their latest work, 2021’s Companion, was as powerful and immersive as I’ve always come to expect. As is often the case with stand-out albums, it was home to more than one song I wanted to put on this list, but alas, my self-imposed rule compelled me to pick only one. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEEPER GRAVES — “THE COLOSSAL SLEEP”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 252022
 

 

We’re about to venture off our usual beaten tracks, lured away from the usual ferocity by music that beckons like ghost lights on the other side of our midnight walls of thorns and vipers. It conjures spells and splendid visions, and it often irresistibly quickens the pulse, but the lights are ephemeral and hopes are dashed where these alluring wraiths reside.

The allure of the new album by Deeper Graves that we’re about to premiere in full is powerful. The Colossal Sleep combines visceral rhythms and mesmerizing soundscapes that shine like moon-lit mists and reach heights of even greater splendor, but it harbors harsher aspects as well, and it doesn’t go too far to say that there is a deep and haunting darkness at its core. It often makes you want to bounce, but the gloom of sorrow persists. Continue reading »

SOM – THE SHAPE OF EVERYTHING

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 202022
 

(Andy Synn provides another well-deserved exception to our usual rules with the new album from SOM)

What with it being a new year, I suppose now is as good a time as any for a little history lesson.

Long story short, back when Islander (and his two collaborators, whose names have long-since been stricken from the records in some sort of pseudo-Stalinist purge) first started this site the name was intended as something of a two-fingered salute to all those bands who, whether pushed into it by their management or simply because they were desperate to be popular, jumped on the “harsh verse, clean chorus” bandwagon.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people – including our beloved overlord – were pretty pissed off that so many bands were willing to sacrifice their integrity and identity just to fit in with current trends… and so NoCleanSinging was born.

Of course, the name has always been somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and there’s no actual rules about what sorts of vocals that we’re actually allowed (or forbidden) to include… heck, if you take a minute to look at just some of the bands we’ve covered over the years – Chrome Waves, Katatonia, Klone… Brutus, Borknagar, Boss Keloid… Protest The Hero, A Swarm of the Sun, Junius… – you might even conclude that we actually love clean singing. At least when it’s done well.

And it’s the latter name from that list which leads us into the album I want to talk about today, as while SOM is made up of several ex-Junius members (along with musicians from Caspian and Constants) and shares several sonic similarities with that group, their second album, The Shape of Everything, finds the band stepping out of that particular shadow and fully coming into their own.

Continue reading »

KONTACT: “FIRST CONTACT”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 122022
 

(We welcome first-time NCS writer Alex Atkinson, who makes his debut with a review of the recently released first EP by the Calgary-based heavy metal band Kontact.)

As our planet continues on its path toward ultimate doom, we must look to the cosmos for relief, enlightenment, and breakneck, extraterrestrial riffing.  Kontact fills the vacuum of space with songs soaked in all the ancient technologies of heavy metal’s heroes while creating a sense of new possibilities that help the surging traditional metal scene remain exciting.  Through the combined forces of Canadian powerhouse Traveler and the downright dirty Blackrat, Kontact has managed to harness their talents to finely (space)craft their debut EP, First Contact.

The album opener, “Ancient Malice”, uses some familiar tropes to build up to an unexpected vocal performance by singer, The Alien.  The vocals sound a bit like Alice Cooper and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard stopped listening to music once they heard King Diamond’s lamentation, “Melissa”, while creating something stark and original inside that space.  This is what really sets First Contact apart from an overwhelming couple years of excellent heavy metal releases.  Surprising vocal melodies are around every corner on this track, not to mention the remaining four powerhouse songs. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: HUMAN HARVEST, AEVITERNE, ARKAIK, MESLAMTAEA, PESTILENGTH, CORRUPTER, HYDRA, LOATHE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 062022
 

 

There was a modest but noticeable slowdown in the release of new songs and videos over the holidays, but things have kicked back up into high gear again, as evidenced by the enormous number of tabs I’ve opened up for new music and video streams just since last weekend. I’ve made my way through many (but not all) of those and made the following selections across many metal sub-genres in the hope of brightening (and darkening) your day.

HUMAN HARVEST (Sweden)

A dozen years after the release of their second demo this death metal band (now the formidable duo of Jonny Pettersson and Jon Rudin) has crawled from its crypt again and fashioned a debut album named Flesh Sermons that’s been set for release on January 31st by Iron, Blood and Death Corporation. Last Monday saw the discharge of the album’s first advance track, a macabre monstrosity called “Blasphemy“. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: NIHIL KAOS, NON SERVIAM, FERNWAH, BANK MYNA, GREY MOTH, LAANG, NIGHT HAG, BLOOD COUNTESS, VINTERDRACUL, HELLFIRE DEATHCULT, VENATOR, OCEANHOARSE, MACKLEMORE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 292021
 

 

A baker’s dozen of new songs and videos is a lot to take in, but that’s what I’ve compiled here, and since we’re in the middle of Dead Week it seems entirely fitting for me to throw it your way now.

This 13-band round-up is the result of me going deep down a music-listening rabbit hole last night, a topsy-turvy underground descent in which I didn’t encounter any metal bands other than relatively obscure ones. My head was spinning by the end, and I hope yours will be too.

I did attempt to arrange the following items into “blocks”, but I make no promise that the arrangements will always make sense to you. Sometimes they barely made sense to me. I do promise you a real musical roller-coaster ride, and hope you’ll not jump out before you get to the end. And of course I had to pitch a curveball at the end.

P.S. I picked up the name “Dead Week” from this recent essay in The Atlantic, which perfectly sums up the oddities and attractions of this blank space that stretches between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

NIHIL KAOS (International)

While I think the entire journey through today’s round-up will prove to be head-spinning, I’ve chosen to lead with a trio of songs that are within themselves head-spinning. And I’ve begun with the track that for me had the most jaw-dropping, eye-popping impact of them all. 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 »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: PHRENELITH, MÆRE, 夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER), DRUNE, ANTI RITUAL, LHAÄD, PSILOCYBE LARVAE, SINIESTRO, LÄHDÖN AIKA, IMPENDING DOOM, VELCH, BURNING TONGUE, TEETHGRYNDER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 162021
 

 

I experienced NCS anxiety again this morning. That’s what comes from having 84 open tabs on my computer for new songs and videos, all of which I opened just since last Saturday. Not lying — 84 of them! To increase the anxiety level, I hadn’t listened to any of them until this morning.

Of course, I didn’t listen to 84 music streams, some of which are complete albums and EPs that were released over the last week, nor to all the other songs on the long list of candidates that I’d made over previous weeks. I did add all 84 to that pre-existing list, so I could stare at the band names and try to figure out what to spend time on. I stared… made choices… and from those choices here’s what I decided to share:

PHRENELITH (Denmark)

Nice to have these Danish death metal heavyweights back, with a jaw-dropping song named “Awakening Titans“. That’s what the music sounds like too, mystical and ringing at first, and then furiously slaughtering, packed with electrifying drumwork, unhinged, venomous riffing, jolting grooves, gargantuan growls, and maddened howls. Continue reading »

HIPPOTRAKTOR – MERIDIAN

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
Oct 142021
 

(Andy Synn would like to introduce you to the debut album from Hippotraktor, out tomorrow on Pelagic Records, and invites you to leave your prejudices and preconceptions at the door)

I know that the post-Meshuggah breed of Metal bands can provoke some pretty divisive reactions around these parts. And I understand why.

After all, what initially seemed to be fresh and fertile soil for creativity and experimentation quickly became over-saturated with copycats and soundalikes whose music only seemed to grow increasingly sanitised, simplified, and mass-produced for mass-appeal with each successive generation.

But, let’s be honest, that’s the case for most, if not all, styles of music, to one extent or another, and just because the veritable deluge of Djent, Post-Djent, Proto-Djent, and Pseudo-Djent bands reached its saturation point in practically record time doesn’t mean you should dismiss any and all groups who elect to take inspiration from the works of Thordendal, Haake, et al.

I mean, it’s entirely up to you if you want to do that, sure, but you’re potentially robbing yourself of the chance to discover and enjoy a whole plethora of bands whose love of polyrhythmic groove and atmospheric melody transcends the trite tricks and tropes of their more djeneric peers.

Which brings us nicely to Meridian, the debut album from Belgium’s Hippotraktor.

Continue reading »

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