KING WOMAN: “CELESTIAL BLUES”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Jul 192021
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by San Francisco-based King Woman, which will be released on July 30 by Relapse Records.)

Unlike the interviews of the average metal band Kristina Esfandiari does not say this album is going in a much heavier direction than our first one, she just does it. The band’s first full-length, Created in the Image of Suffering, was heavy only by the sheer magnitude of melancholy churned from the sludgey blues it summoned. This new album, Celestial Blues, not only bears a greater emotional weight but carries a more metallic malice.

Sure many of the riffs are depressing at times, which I of course love since darkness and sonic heaviness are what I seek out in music. They lure you in with the introspective title track, teasing a few punchy dynamics. Then slowly the aggression begins to leak from the cracks of the songs. Continue reading »

THY CATAFALQUE: “VADAK”

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Jun 242021
 

 

(Our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth returns to NCS with this review of the new album by Thy Catafalque, which will be out tomorrow on Season of Mist. A full stream of the album follows the review.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. Once again, the impending release of something truly special rouses me from my nocturnal haze and guides me to my keyboard, compelling me to write. Yes, as the title of the article likely gives away, there is a new Thy Catafalque album ready to enter the public eye, and so I take upon myself the honor of reviewing it. Vadak is the tenth Thy Catafalque album, compilations and the Zápor EP notwithstanding, and as is fitting for such a significant number, it’s a truly noteworthy album in a discography full of noteworthy albums.

By this point in time, my devotion to the work of Tamás Kátai is a well-worn, well-documented history, but for the uninitiated, Thy Catafalque is primarily the work of one man, typically with a number of guests. Kátai is a Hungarian multi-instrumentalist and the driving force behind this project, and (as I will further explain in the paragraphs to come) is something of a musical genius. In the 23 years that Kátai has been recording under this moniker, the band’s style has evolved almost constantly from a relatively experimental black metal project to something that is, frankly, impossible to define. In the lead-up to this review, I did a chronological listen to the entire Thy Catafalque discography, front to back (including the first three albums, which are the most black metal releases and my least favorite simply because they’re the harshest and least listenable), and that endeavor served to further bolster the knowledge that Kátai’s musical fingerprints have been all over this project since the beginning. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): THUMOS, OWL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 272021
 

 

This is a rare weekday at NCS. For the first time in maybe years, we have no premiere on our schedule. And none of my comrades has sent in a review or interview. And despite knowing that our calendar would be a big blank space today, I didn’t get my ass in gear to do anything in advance either.

So here I am, having wandered around exploring new music for a couple hours this morning but having written nothing. To avoid further delay in pitching something up onto the site, I decided to make a brief start with two new songs that seemed to fit together well (fans of doom will be attracted to them). As the day wears on, I’ll add one or two more Parts to this round-up as time permits.

THUMOS

Thumos is a mystery. Metal-Archives identifies the location as the United States, but the members are anonymous. On the other hand, it seems that Thumos is some kind of successor to a project named Mono No Aware, and M-A identifies that project as the creation of a Spaniard. So there, I’ve saved you a little time trying to ferret out background info about Thumos. With that, let’s consider “Epithumetikon“, the first song revealed from a Thumos album named The End of Words. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROSS VAULT — “AS STRANGERS WE DEPART”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
May 242021
 

 

On May 28th Iron Bonehead Productions will release As Strangers We Depart, the third album by the German “Viking doom” band Cross Vault, and their first release since the 2016 EP, Miles To Take.

Each song on the new album is an immersive, time-traveling spell that seems to carry the listener back to a mythic age. They meld poignance and passion, heaviness and heartbreak, with an unmistakable feeling of reverence. It’s a devotional album meant to be savored, to be soaked up from start to finish, the kind of experience in which any sense of time passing vanishes. And thus we’re proud to present a full stream of it today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VUKARI, GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT, WHOREDOM RIFE, TOTHEM, TEMPLE OF DREAD, ARSENIC ADDICT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 212021
 

 

I woke up stupid early this morning, even more stupid early than usual. So after writing today’s premieres that were on my plate I had some time to continue crawling through my list of new songs and videos and came up with this sextet. I decided to really bounce your head around with these picks and the way I arranged them. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

VUKARI (U.S.)

I’ve decided to begin with a new single by Chicago’s Vukari, because it’s the most absolutely riveting and ravishing piece of music in today’s collection. The track is identified as a demo version of a song called “Omnes Nihil“. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AMENRA, ANCIENT WISDOM, COFFIN LURKER, DEFLESHED, ENSLAVED, HANGING GARDEN, HELL STRIKE, IDOLOS, KILLING ADDICTION, KORGONTHURUS, OPHIDIAN I, PERILAXE OCCLUSION, SVARTA SANNINGAR

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May 072021
 

 

The usual insanity of our in-box reached a fever pitch overnight, because it’s another Bandcamp Friday. That fever has been building all week in anticipation of the day, with the typical flood of new music reaching typhoon proportions. I’ve diverted some of that flood into this collection, a baker’s dozen of new songs and videos that range from the dreamy to the decimating, and includes both the re-surfacing of old gods and the emergence of promising new names – but without the usual artwork or my usual wordy reflections. Not everything is available on Bandcamp, but where it is available there, I’ve included links.

Mother’s Day is also on Sunday, but thankfully that doesn’t seem to have added to the torrent of releases. In catch-up mode, I’ll continue recommending more new music that day and on Saturday (if you don’t keep swimming, you drown). By the way, for those of you who don’t live in the U.S., “Mother’s Day” does not stand for Motherfucker’s Day, so most of you won’t have any reason to celebrate.

Continue reading »

CHOCOBO BAND: “TALES FROM OTHER WORLDS”

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Apr 292021
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli returns to NCS with the following recommendation of a new album released by Chocobo Band from Italy.)

I’ve been working on a big project for the website (hence the lack of activity, but trust that I’ve been keeping up with the music), and I’ve been gaming a lot, so I had a real excuse to just sit down and listen to music. I’m currently replaying through Blasphemous (great game btw) while I check out all the albums I personally give a shit about. I wrote an article this year about the relationship and instances where video games and metal intersect, but I was covering it from the perspective of the video games including the metal and not vice versa.

Todays subject of review, Tales From Other Worlds by Chocobo Band, is the inverse. This is a group of metalheads wanting to express their love for one of the most important landmark gaming franchises of all time, and to pay fitting tribute to Nobuo Uematsu, one of music’s greatest compositional virtuosos of ALL TIME.

A proper attempt by people who understand metal covering Final Fantasy music has rarely been attempted, especially this convincingly. Sure there’s one-man cover guys on YouTube, but it’s just never the same. There is always a disconnect between Westerners’ understanding of metal and translating Japanese works into it that feels like the one covering the music just doesn’t quite “get” it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DÖDSRIT, ANGSTSKRÍG, YOUR FAULT, GHOSTBOUND, UNENDLICH, HAGEL, GOATBLOOD

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Apr 222021
 

 

If extreme metal were a big map pinned to a wall and you got a running start and hurled the contents of a bucket of paint at it, the scattered blots would give you something like the following collection of songs and videos — though one of the splashes lands off the map altogether (I put that one dead center in this playlist, surrounded by everything else).

DÖDSRIT (Netherlands/Sweden)

I’m leading off with “Shallow Graves“, because it so thoroughly swept me off my feet right from the start, thanks to the thrill of its opening riff, the pulse-pounding impact of the racing drums, and the grandeur of the panoramic cascades. The song changes, moving through a variety of rhythms and tempos as well as variations in the riffing that alters the moods, though the vocals are blisteringly intense at all times. Continue reading »

STRANGE TRIPS (PART 2): GHOSTS OF ATLANTIS (“3.6.2.4”) AND TIDES OF KHARON (“TITANOMACHY”)

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  2 Responses »
Apr 222021
 

 

(DGR has been spending his listening time with some strange musical creatures and has offered his thoughts about them in a two-part collection of reviews, of which this is the second. Go here to check out Part 1.)

GHOSTS OF ATLANTIS: 3.6.2.4

At this point in my metal fandom I think its safe to admit that there will always be room in my heart for something a little more theatrical when it comes to music. I’m a sucker for things appearing larger than life, buried in bombast, and suffocated by symphonics. If you’re incredibly ambitious and it seems like you may be swinging for the fences on even your first release and coming off just a little bit campier than expected, then you’ll probably have someone who enjoys what you’ve got right here.

Of course all those things don’t necessarily have to apply, so they can be larger than life without having the veneer of a B-grade horror movie, but sometimes the stars align just so that I can’t help but be attracted to it. Like I said, a larger-than-life spectacle can often be just as interesting for me in the world of the extreme, which is how I landed at the debut album from Ghosts of Atlantis. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DORDEDUH, JUODVARNIS, ANTRISCH, ACAUSAL INTRUSION, RALE, SLITHERING DECAY, PAN KUBUŚ

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 012021
 

 

This round-up includes seven bands, which is a lot. But except for two, there’s just a single track per band (in the remaining cases there are EPs). I included a curveball at the end.

DORDEDUH (Romania)

Two days ago Dordeduh premiered a beautiful English-subtitled lyric video for “Descânt” (“Disenchantment”), the second single from their new second album Har, which will be released by Prophecy Productions on May 14th. The previously released single is “Desferecat“, which translates to “unchained”. It was accompanied by a fascinating music video of its own. Both songs have a visceral “physicality” but also quicken the imagination as you listen. Here’s what former NCS contributor KevinP wrote me about them: Continue reading »

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