AN NCS INTERVIEW AND A PREMIERE: VON — “BLACK LOTUS (BASS DEMO)” AND “EXTINCTION”

 Interviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Jan 122015
 

 

As those who dwell in the underground already know, the seminal U.S. black metal band VON has embarked on an unusual audiovisual project: They are releasing their third album Dark Gods: Birth of the Architects  (which is itself Part II of a trilogy that began with 2013’s Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves) in 12 CD installments, with each of the 12 tracks accompanied by part of a comic book named Dark Gods written and illustrated by VON’s founder VENIEN!!! Each CD includes not only a version of a track from the album — which will be released in its entirety in March — but also a bonus track exclusive to the comic book.

Today we bring you a special two-part feature: the premiere of a demo teaser for the album’s 7th track “Black Lotus” along with an instrumental B-side from the CD called “Extinction”, plus an exclusive interview with VON’s drummer “Dirty FvKn! Pistols” and the band’s guitarist “HangMan”. The interview, conducted by e-mail, comes first… the images you will see are preview pages from the comic.

THE INTERVIEW

“Dark Gods: Birth of the Architect” is an unusual project – 12 songs released on a weekly basis, with each song accompanied by an installment of a 12-part “Dark Gods” comic book, with a variety of variant covers. For people who are just learning about this, could you explain the concept behind the story and the music?

Dirty Fvkn! Pistols:
The idea was to take the story each song told individually and release them as though someone was giving you a novel, one chapter at a time. Conceptually we already intended to intertwine them so it just made sense to us. We wanted a record that was more than just a bunch of songs, but rather its own entity within itself. It was important that each piece be the correct fit to make one cohesive unit in the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ALCO TONY (PRESSOR)

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Jan 092015
 

 

(Our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks brings us this interview with Alco Tony of the Russian stoner/sludge band Pressor.)

Let me introduce you to a sludge’n’stoner band from the far-away and ancient Russian city of Kostroma – Pressor is its name. The guys have absorbed all the necessary elements of this dirty genre, so Pressor’s way lies through murky and ugly swamps of narcotic nightmares and most horrific dreams. Anton Khmelevskij aka Alco Tony reveals the sacred ancient obscure occult knowledge of Pressor. Alright now!

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Hello! What do our readers need to know about Pressor?

The main thing is to keep yourself together and not get into postmodernism. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SAMI RAUTIO (MY SHAMEFUL)

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Jan 072015
 

 

(Our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks returns with another interview.  This time he talks with Sami Rautio of the band My Shameful, whose sixth album Hollow was released last fall by Moscow Funeral League Records.)

My Shameful is a pretty extreme death doom / funeral product of bitter and hateful inspirations from the daily life of its mastermind Sami Rautio. Its line-up has changed through the time, but mostly My Shameful works as a trio with Sami (vocals, guitars, keyboards) at the helm, Jürgen Frohling on drums, and Twist as the bass-guitarist.

The band’s followers got a full-length album Penance in 2013 after five years of silence; but Sami and the crew didn’t want to waste their time and they returned with the next record Hollow in 2014, and soon after that My Shameful took part in the split-album The Symmetry of Grief with Russian band Who Dies In Siberian Slush. Is it too much? That’s a good question, and I needed to ask Sami himself to know the answer. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KEVIN QUILLIGAN (APOPHYS)

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Jan 072015
 

 

I first discovered the Dutch band Apophys last June through a video about a visit by the band’s vocalist Kevin Quilligan to phoniatrician Enrico Di Lorenzo (who also happens to be the frontman of Rome’s Hideous Divinity) for a vocal assessment. That very interesting video (a short version of which is here) led me to search out music, and I found the band’s blast-furnace four-song 2013 promo (and frothed at the mouth over it in this post).

At the time I wrote that post in June, the band were working on a debut album — and then last month brought the surprising news that Metal Blade Records had signed Apophys and would be releasing that debut full-length to the masses. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: STEVE SHERWOOD (OF WOLVES)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Jan 062015
 

 

In the summer of 2013 I came across an album named Evolve by a Chicago band named Of Wolves, and it spun my head clean around. I had more “what the fuck?” moments than I had experienced with any other album during the year up to that point. There was something unexpected lying in wait around every corner, and the album had more corners than a roller-coaster ride. As I wrote in my review:

These three working men in Chicago are fed up, frustrated, and pissed off. They vent their fury at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and they don’t mince words about it. As they say, “Life has been rough, the music is therapy.”

Apparently, the therapy consisted of taking a whole kitchen sink’s worth of musical influences and interests — from punk to crust to metal to garage rock to backwoods mandolin melodies —  and letting them spill out in a flood of exuberant creativity.

After I wrote the review, I talked with the band’s vocalist/guitarist Steve Sherwood about doing an interview. Almost eighteen months later, it happened, via e-mail. There’s a reason why the slow loris is the mascot of this site. All live photos accompanying this interview were taken by John Mourlas.

Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: STEVE JANSSON (CRYPT SERMON)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews  4 Responses »
Jan 012015
 

 

(NCS interviewer KevinP delivers the first in a planned interview series, and this inaugural edition features guitarist Steve Jansson of Crypt Sermon — whose forthcoming debut album Out of the Garden is absolutely killer!)

Welcome to what I plan on being a monthly feature, GET TO THE POINT.  Besides wanting a fancy title for my interview segment, the idea is to be a bit more succinct, if and when possible.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be a chatty Kathy more than usual and totally not stick to it, let’s see how things turns out.  In the coming months, we will be talking to (among others):  Calvin Robertshaw (My Dying Bride), Matt Calvert (Dark Descent Records),  Öxxö Xööx (a French avant garde doom band), and Nikos Panagiotopoulos (Universe217).  So, without further ado……

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K:  So Enrique (Crypt Sermon’s drummer) was scared to do the interview and pawned me off onto you.  What’s up with that guy?

S:  Oh, we don’t let him do interviews. I sent his ass to get more beer, though.

Hah, nah, Brooks (vocalist) and I are generally the ones who do the interviews. It just sort of worked out that way, I guess. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ECHOES OF YUL

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Dec 192014
 


(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview of Michał Śliwa of the Polish atmospheric doom band Echoes of Yul.)

Echoes of Yul (Opole, Poland) was started as an instrumental doom project with some experimental influences that give their first self-titled album some unique and strange atmosphere. Time has passed, and with each new release Echoes of Yul became stranger and more eclectic. Their second LP brought even more researches with dark electric sound and haunting samples, so I was not surprised that their EP Tether came with a bunch of remixes amidst a few new tracks. Even the name of the new drone-like track “Asemic”, which was included in a 2014 split-CD by Echoes Of Yul and Thaw, means “a wordless writing”, as the project remains an instrumental one. But Michał, the man behind Echoes, has some words to share, so we did this interview a couple of days ago.

 

Salute Michal! What’s going on in a life of Echoes of Yul? Did the sales of your last album “Tether” go well enough?

Hello Aleksey. Echoes of Yul is very busy – as always. I am recording and arranging a new album, doing remix work etc. In September I released a split album with Thaw on the Instant Classic label.

Regarding the sales of “Tether” I’m not sure whether Zoharum Records are satisfied with the results. I am aware that it is niche music with a small number of listeners, and it’s a good thing that Zoharum is rather a  child of love to music than a business venue, so I haven’t heard any complaints. But you know in a wider view streaming music, downloads, etc. is slowly killing small labels. I totally respect their passion to increase their catalogue with new bands. They put a lot of effort and cash into promoting, packaging, and discovering hidden treasures. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: QUERCUS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Dec 162014
 

 

(In this post Comrade Aleks presents an interview with Lukáš Kudrna of the Czech doom band Quercus, whose latest album was released this past summer.)

The Czech doom scene is an unexplored and dark segment of the underground. The honorable Dissolving of Prodigy have gone, and such stubborn newcomers as Et Moriemur are a very rare example, so I was very surprised by the fact of a new Quercus release. This project has a thirteen-year-long history, and its last work Postvorta was released in 2007. One way or another Quercus has returned with another piece of avant-garde and enigmatic funeral doom. Lukáš Kudrna, a constant author of Quercus, is ready to tell the story of his new record Sfumato.

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Hail Lukas! Quercus was silent for about 7 years. What is the reason for such a long hiatus and returned the band to activity?

Hallo Aleks. I and my brother in doom — we recorded lot of albums with our main band UMBRTKA, almost 10 CDs in 7 years. And then we had a break for a short time with Umbrtka, so we made slower drums and a new album started to rise… Someone said that Quercus is a slowed down Umbrtka. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ET MORIEMUR

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Dec 122014
 

 

(Our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks brings us this interview with Zdenek Nevělík, vocalist of Et Moriemur, whose second album Ex Nihilo In Nihilum was released last month by Solitude Productions.)

As Solitude Productions released the second full-length of Czech death doom band Et Moriemur, I remembered my old promise to get in get in contact with Zdenek Nevělík, the band’s voiceman. Ex Nihilo In Nihilum sounds stronger and more mature, considering the band’s debut record Cupio Dissolvi, so why wouldn’t we take a glance into the Czech underground?

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Hail Zdenek! How are you man? Et Moriemur has a fresh record Ex Nihilo In Nihilum, are you happy with that fact?

You can bet on it Aleks! Some songs on Ex Nihilo were written already before the completion of our first full-length album Cupio Dissolvi so it’s a circle that comes to a close. The new CD is similar in some ways to its predecessors but in others inevitably different. We tried to write a compact album with a definite sound and theme. Of course there are many variations but I think as a whole Ex Nihilo is more cohesive than Cupio. In any case we are very very proud of it and hope that doom fans will like it as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ALAN “NEMTHEANGA” AVERILL (PRIMORDIAL)

 Interviews  8 Responses »
Dec 112014
 

 

(Wil Cifer brings us an interview with Primordial’s main man, Nemtheanga.)

I had the honor of recently getting the chance to catch up with Primordial’s lead singer Alan Averill and talk about the success of the new album (Where Greater Men Have Fallen), the pitfalls of touring in America, and the state of black metal. It went a little something like this.

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Wil– So this is your 8th album. How has the songwriting process changed from the first album to the eighth?

Alan – In no way. The same thing. The only difference is there is not an old school tape machine in the middle of the room. We write in our rehearsal room. We do send files to each other over the internet and tell each other what to do. We do what we do. We do it when it feels right. Not when we need an advance from the record company.

 

Wil– You changed producers this go around and recorded out in the Grouse Lodge; how was that different from how you have done things in the past ?

Alan- It is more of fact that every two albums you need to change producers and change studios. You need to change the routine. Routine is death. It is very important to step out of your comfort zone to create. Continue reading »

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