OVERFLOWING STREAMS ON A SATURDAY: ARCHSPIRE, DREAMWELL, HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH, KUNSTZONE, SLEEPWALKER, CHOSHECH, SWARRRM, SYLOSIS, TRIVAX, WORMHOLE

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Jul 222023
 


Archspire

Someone wrote they get by with a little help from their friends… don’t tell me… it will come to me….

I got by with some help from my friends this morning. It was one of those especially distracting weeks when I had almost no chance to claw my way through the hundreds of e-mails we get every day, so I didn’t have much new music bookmarked to check out over the last 24 hours and really wasn’t eager to do the catch-up chore. However, DGR and Andy Synn pitched five new songs and videos at me, and I also noticed a few recommendations from some other valued influencers.

Collectively, those became my main targets… and like the blind squirrel who found an acorn, I did stumble across a few nuggets of musical nourishment myself. The result is the very big collection I’ve assembled below, organized alphabetically by band name and with fewer words than usual for Saturday round-ups. Surely you will find something to enjoy….

The Beatles! Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BAXAXAXA, BLUT AUS NORD, CELESTIAL, DECOHERENCE, FABRICANT, FORTIÐ, FREYA, HARM’S WAY, MANTAR, SKÁLMÖLD, THY CATAFALQUE

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Jul 182023
 


Baxaxaxa

Today is the 199th day of 2023. On this day in history, among many other instances of idiocy and abuse, the First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility and Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. It’s also the birthday of Nelson Mandela, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Hunter Thompson, Vin Diesel, Geno Suarez of the Seattle Mariners, and maybe you, as well as the death-day of Caravaggio, Jane Austen, Benito Juarez, Machine Gun Kelley, and hopefully not you.

It also happens to be a rare weekday when I had time to pull together a roundup of recommended new songs and videos, which has nothing to do with commemoration of any of the preceding events. There’s so much here that I’ve throttled my usual descriptive verbosity (Satan knows there’s more than enough hot air in the atmosphere today already) and left aside some of the cover art until I can upload it later today. (Presented alphabetically by band name, which led to some interesting juxtapositions).

BAXAXAXA (Germany)

Prepare for: low-end rumbling and thrumming plus grim vibrating riffage, immense jolting chugs and ethereal gothic synths, dragging tones of agony and fanatical serrated-edge yells. The experience is menacing and morbid, feral and ferocious, infernal and infectious…. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD FIELDS OF WOOLWICH — “I’VE MADE IT TO HELL”

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Jul 132023
 

We’re told that Dead Fields Of Woolwich had its beginnings in the Autumn of 2020 in North Bay, Ontario when multi-instrumentalist Kye Bell (Within Nostalgia) created a project inspired by a love of bands like Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, and Wood Of Ypres. The band’s name was inspired by the place where he grew up in southern Ontario, a place that left memories of “of old fields, scarecrows, and dense woods of twisted trees”.

Although still considered a solo project at heart, the band’s forthcoming self-titled album includes the performances of session vocalist Alyssa Broere (Within Nostalgia, ex-Astral Witch), and you’ll see from our video premiere today that Alyssa plays a vital role in the album’s captivating rendering of gothic melodic doom. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: CRYPTOPSY, GRIDLINK, RINGWORM, PHANTOM LUNG, CLOUDS

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Jul 082023
 

I don’t work regular hours for my “day job” (in quotes because it can require night hours too, because it’s irregular). The upside is that it usually gives me time for NCS in the early part of the day when I do most of what I do around here. The downside is that it sometimes inserts itself unexpectedly, like on a Saturday morning of all fucking times, which is what happened to me today, never mind that it’s also my birthday (please hold your applause).

So, getting a late start on this roundup means it’s not as fulsome as it should be. I was able to manage more than two songs (which was the sum total of what yesterday’s roundup provided), but not many more. But they’re good ones!

CRYPTOPSY (Canada)

Cryptopsy are one of those bands that I think all of the steady contributors to our site have enjoyed for a long time (at least I can speak for myself, DGR, and Mr. Synn). So the news of a new Cryptopsy album and song popped up in our secret discussions very quickly. So that’s where we’ll start… with the video for that new song, “In Abeyance” (especially because it gives us a chance to show off some more of Paolo Girardi‘s artwork at the top of the page). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FALSE GODS, VENOMOUS ECHOES, DECOHERENCE, NUCLEAR WINTER, RITUAL DICTATES

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Jun 242023
 


False Gods

“Excess is best?” Well, sometimes it is. In fact, given how much music NCS throws at people every day, one might even say that should be this site’s sub-header (remember when we used to change the sub-headers every week?). But today the latest edition of Rennie Resmini‘s starkweather SubStack, which landed in our in-box overnight and which asked that question in its title, made me think, “No! Not this morning!”

I already had some ideas for this round-up, and then saw Rennie‘s recommendations and bookmarked a dozen of them that I hadn’t been aware of — too many to explore in full, unless I was willing to delay this collection for many more hours, which I’d be anxious about doing. I did investigate a few of them, and you’ll see two of those below, followed by a few I’d previously found in other ways.

Hope you find something to brighten, or ruin, your weekend, even including the astonishing curveball I’ve thrown you at the end. More selections of a blackened variety coming tomorrow…. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ALKALOID, CYSTIC, EUDAEMON, DYMNA LOTVA, TONGUES

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Jun 172023
 

The plan as of yesterday was three round-ups in a row, and now I’m two-thirds of the way to success. The way things are looking now, I feel good about the odds of finishing a third one in tomorrow’s Shades of Black collection. Don’t place any bets, however, because there’s a party in my future tonight and possibly a hangover in my future tomorrow morning, but at least there’s no sign of my fucking day job bringing out the whip.

ALKALOID (Germany)

As a rule, news doesn’t get published here unless there’s music to go along with it. But like the rule in our site’s title, we do make occasional exceptions. This is one of those times.

Yes, I’m sorry we don’t yet have any new music from Alkaloid to share, just that album art you’ve been staring at up there — but hell, that’s worth an exception isn’t it? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SPIRIT ADRIFT, SEEK, THE CIRCLE, SVRM

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Jun 162023
 

 

As usual, I have far more new music I want to recommend from this week that’s now ending than I have time to write about today. If I play my cards right, and the creeks don’t rise, I can spread them out over three posts, including another roundup on Saturday and Shades of Black on Sunday. That will help, though I’ll still fall short of being comprehensive. Here’s what I picked to start off:

SPIRIT ADRIFT (U.S.)

When you see a song named “Barn Burner” you expect… well… a barn burner. Or in this case, based on the lyrics and the video, it’s more likely a church burner, or a flaming pyre of people who bought and sold deified lies. And yes indeed, the song is a muscle-moving born burner. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WOODEN VEINS — “GANYMEDE”

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May 122023
 

The Chilean melodic doom metal band Wooden Veins, whose members are now mostly based in European countries, made an auspicious full-length debut with their well-received 2021 album In Finitude. There, the band crafted beautifully produced music that pulled from deep wells of sorrow and gained strength from the deep, rich singing voice of frontman Javier Cerda.

Now Wooden Veins are returning with a follow-up album named Imploding Waves, which will be released on June 23rd by Ardua Music. Beginning last year the band started disclosing singles from the new album. So far, three songs have surfaced with videos, and today we present a fourth one — “Ganymede“.

Collectively, these songs demonstrate that Imploding Waves expands on the songwriting evident on In Finitude, adding progressive and gothic elements and overall providing a more elaborate, more dynamic, and ultimately more memorable experience. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KRYATJURR OF DESERT AHD, OXBOW, BALMOG, SARVEKAS, HOST, ÚZKOST

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Apr 292023
 


Balmog

Happy Saturn’s Day (and good wishes to the dead Romans who named it.). For me, paying work was all-consuming during the first part of this past week, but it was sheer laziness that kept me from compiling a roundup of new music in the closing days. Those two phenomena were connected of course. After some NCS editorial work and some premieres during the days when the paying work relented, I felt like I’d earned the right to stop scurrying and attempt a mind-meld with sloths.

With no head-start behind me, here I am with a giant slag-pile of new music and videos to go through, and great risk of cutting myself followed by infection as I try to paw through it. But paw I did (thankful for band-aids), and the results are presented below. It doesn’t include everything that grabbed me, but to include everything would have left me still writing come sundown. I don’t want that. I want time to go outside and enjoy the warmest day of the year so far here in the Pacific Northwest, or more likely just take a nap.

As if I didn’t have enough picks already, this morning brought a new installment of Renni Resmini’s starkweather substack, and as usual I hadn’t heard the majority of those selections, and as usual his writing compelled me to check out some of those, which has made this roundup even longer. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: TORTURE RACK, INFERNAL CURSE, STRAHOR, MISMATCHED, SHADOWS, SCHEITAN, DRUNK MOTHERFUCKERS, FLORES Y FUEGO

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Apr 152023
 

I don’t know where you live. If I were some tech-savvy spook I might be able to find out, but I’m not one of those. I only know where I live. Where I live spring is valiantly trying to become sprung. Leaves and blossoms are gradually appearing on deciduous trees, some faster than others, but when the rains come again tomorrow they may regret that.  A few flowers have blossomed, but not many. I hear a lot more birds at sunrise.

However, the overnight lows are still in the 30s F, the daytime highs still mired in the 50s, and the sun is either pale or obscured by clouds. Spring will have to fight harder. Mind you, I’m not complaining. The last few unbroken links of winter’s chains have made it easier to connect to the some of the music I picked for this Saturday’s recommendations. And of course, delirium and rage are not seasonal, but ever-present, as is alcohol.

TORTURE RACK (U.S.)

Death metal, foul and hulking and savage, seemed like the right way to begin. “Decrepit Funeral Home” will put you on the torture rack and a roaring monster will turn the crank until your bones groan and sinews stretch in agony. You know you deserve it. Continue reading »

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