SEEN AND HEARD: SAOR, AXIOMA, ACID MAGUS

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Nov 222024
 

This collection is short in number, just three new songs, two of them with compelling videos — though those two are quite long. But that’s three songs I now don’t need to include in this weekend’s coming roundups, and thus I’ll have room for three others as I continue trying to winnow down my monstrous list of recent releases.

SAOR (Scotland)

I’ve chosen to begin with a video for the title song from Saor‘s new album Amidst the Ruins. Although the video starts with a majestic but haunting scene from the Highlands, it soon shifts to dramatic film of the band’s performance, appearing as dark silhouettes in the midst of rushing smoke or clouds. The music is equally dramatic. The drums attack and the bass heavily rumbles, but the music flows in sweeping and searing waves, glittering and glorious. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE GREAT OLD ONES, OBSCURA, YOVEL, CONCRETE AGE, SPERE

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Nov 212024
 


The Great Old Ones – Photo by Daphnea Doto/Solweig Wood

(written by Islander)

This week I’ve done a better than average job staying abreast of new songs and videos that have surfaced since last weekend which I thought would be worth checking out. The result is that my list of things to investigate is now 40 links longer than it was on Monday morning! Anyone who thinks the rollout of heavy new music slows down near the end of the year must have just awakened from a very long slumber.

Fortunately, I had some time this morning (which I usually don’t have on the weekdays) to make a small dent in that list and pull a few things together to get a head-start on my usual Saturday and Sunday roundups at our site. I confess that today I erred on the side of bands who I think of as “proven commodities,” just to make the winnowing process a bit easier — though I did decide to include one I’d never heard before. Continue reading »

HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY TO US!

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Nov 212024
 


Dawid Figielek – KNIGHT (2013)

For another year we’ve raced through the ongoing firestorms of heavy new music without being thrown off and trampled, and so it’s time to celebrate survival again.

On November 21, 2009, I made the first post at this blog. On the 21st day of every November since then (except one year when I forgot to do it until a few days later) I’ve made a post commemorating our birthday.

In these annual posts I used to explain how I had no ambitions or expectations when I started the blog, nor any training or experience as a music writer, and that the sum total of my motivation was to create an enjoyable diversion for myself from the grind of daily life, and to indulge my burgeoning interest in heavy music. And there, I just did it again, albeit in fewer words than some earlier years.

In these annual observances I also tended to reminisce about how many things about NCS have changed from the early days, and about how surprising it is to me that we’re still here. Some of you remember the early days, because you were here with us then. Others who have begun checking in here more recently might yawn if I indulged in that kind of nostalgia, so once again I’m going to skip that and get right into expressions of gratitude and the annual tradition of mind-numbing statistics. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MANTAR, SAVAGE LANDS, FRONTIERER, ASS TO MOUTH, ROTTEN SOUND, RITUAL FOG, SKAPHOS, THE SWORD, SOLIPSISM, PLAGUEFEVER

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Nov 162024
 


Mantar photo by Sonja Schuringa/Chantik Photography

I have my second miserable cold in two months, and how are you doing? I’ve been focusing on music that I thought would help blast the snot out of my head. I’ve included a lot of that below. I can’t tell that I’ve really come un-clogged, but it has made me feel better in other ways, including providing catharsis for being so pissed off that the virus has hit me again so quickly.

As you can see, I had time enough to do lots of listening and watching yesterday and this morning. As usual, the music from the 10 bands featured below isn’t all I heard and liked, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I moved some of my choices to tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column, and others I hope I’ll get too somewhere down the road. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: EZOV, DIZZINESS, [4672], THE SUN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT, SLUG SALT LAVA, SAHG, DAEDRIC SHRINE, KTANA

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Nov 092024
 

(written by Islander)

I was going to begin by sharing some thoughts about “current events”. I started writing them. Then it dawned on me that if you wanted to read some dude’s thoughts about current events right at this moment, you wouldn’t be here. You might even be trying to forget about current events, to put off thinking about them until another hour, another day, another month.

And anyway, trashing what I started writing rather than finishing it provided more time for thoughts about another couple of songs. You might not want to read those either, but you might listen, and that’s good enough.

Once again, there’s a lot here. I’ve alternated between complete albums and preview tracks from forthcoming records, followed by a couple of clean-singing head-knockers and something quite out of the ordinary at the end. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART II): UNREQVITED, MONOLITHE, THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID, KÆLAN MIKLA, MOROKH, ULVER

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Nov 022024
 


Unreqvited

(written by Islander)

In Part I of this Saturday’s roundup of new songs and videos I likened the flow of them, as I’ve arranged them, to a river that twists and turns through passages of greater and lesser turbulence and gloom. Now you’ll have a better idea why I wrote that.

In this Part, as compared to Part I, our musical river begins to make a bend into increasingly less turbulent and more haunted environs, though it will prove to be a long curve and not a sudden one — and the river also leaves the earth at first. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART I): LÖMSK, DJEVEL, DEUS MORTEM, GHOULHOUSE, SVARTKONST

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Nov 022024
 


Lömsk

(written by Islander)
Halloween (or Samhein if you prefer) is in the calendar’s rear-view mirror but not out of my head yet. That’s the best way I can explain why I picked some of the selections for this roundup, and not just the ones that sound hellish but perhaps especially the ones that are carried by (gasp!) clean singing. Many of the songs were actually released on Halloween.

There’s again a lot to see and hear today, so much so that I again divided the collection into two Parts, with Part II coming in an hour or two from now. But rather than default to alphabetizing the picks, I organized things based on what I was hearing, to create a little flow, a river of greater and lesser turbulence and gloom.

P.S. Happy Día de los Muertos.

P.P.S. If you live in the U.S., don’t forget to roll your clocks back an hour before you go to sleep tonight. Also, fucking plan to vote if you haven’t already voted early! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY, PART II: H-W

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Oct 272024
 

(written by Islander)

Moving on from yesterday’s Part I of the usual weekend roundup, I’m starting with the next letter of the band-name alphabet and continuing through W (no X, Y, or Z bands in this collection).

I mentioned yesterday that I had a few complete releases in this collection, in addition to all the singles, but I realized that one I thought had come out on Friday isn’t actually out yet, so I’ll push that one to a subsequent weekend.

But the first band today does have a complete release to their name, and it’s an interesting one. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY, PART I: A-G

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Oct 262024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re creeping toward the end of 2024, not too far away from the time when the denizens of our miserable site and the visitors who come slumming here will begin focusing on year-end lists. But there’s still more than two months to go before we ring in 2025, and a lot of new music is still coming out, and will come out.

I was brutally reminded of that fact when trying to sort out what to recommend today, especially because a short vacation prevented me from making as big a compilation last week as I usually do. By the time I had sorted out what I thought would be worth exploring with you today, I had 16 picks, far too many to cram into a single column.

So, I divided this giant collection into two parts. Rather than try to figure out what kind of musical flow might make sense, I took the easy road and alphabetized everything. This post is roughly the first half. Roughly the second half will arrive tomorrow, barring some personal catastrophe. And I have ambitions to bring forth another SHADES OF BLACK collection tomorrow as well, but we’ll see. Might be a case of biting off more than I can chew.

In the meantime, chew on these choices. Most of them in this two-parter are singles, but with a few complete releases in the mix. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MANDROÏD OF KRYPTON, ALTAR OV ASTERIA, SLUAGH, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 192024
 

 


Mandroïd of Krypton – photo by Rebecca Bowring

By the time you read this I will have left home early this Saturday morning on a quick three-day vacation. I mean, really early, so I didn’t have time to write much, and I stabbed these songs off my gigantic list pretty quickly and impulsively.

But that doesn’t mean the songs aren’t excellent, because they are. In fact I impulsively stabbed them because each one of them shivved me right fast and deep.

Due to the vacation, the odds are high that there won’t be a SHADES OF BLACK on Sunday, and we might not have much to throw at you on Monday either. Continue reading »

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