Sep 112023
 

Happy Monday to one and all. It can’t hurt to wish for that, even if the odds aren’t high, especially on this particular Monday. But rather than stop at empty wishes, I also have some news and new music that might improve the day.

SUFFOCATION (U.S.)

I detest clickbait, but well, this first item is very close to that. I’ve not yet seen an official announcement of a new Suffocation album, only the surfacing of the cover art at the top of this page and a notice on Metal-Archives that a new Suffo full-length named Hymns from the Apocrypha will be released by Nuclear Blast on November 3rd. Continue reading »

Sep 092023
 


Celeste

A lot of new music came out over the last week. All I can do today is lightly scratch the surface, like a friendly cat who touches their human companion’s skin with claws that let you know they’re there but without drawing blood — though some of the music here might feel like blood is being shed.

I got a very late start this morning, and so depended on late-breaking alerts from some of my NCS compatriots and a couple of other acquaintances rather than methodically clawing through my immense list of links and letting my own impulses determine the choices.I’ll probably be more self-directed in assembling tomorrow’s blackish column. Continue reading »

Sep 022023
 


Gravesend

A week that ends with a Bandcamp Friday is a terrible week for the NCS in-box. During just the 24 hours of September 1st we received 310 e-mails. The count for the week was significantly more than 1,000.

Such weeks are also terrible for roundups like this one, because so many bands and labels release new music in an effort to capitalize on the attention that Bandcamp Fridays tend to attract — terrible because it results in so much music to choose from.

I sure as hell didn’t read all those 1,000+ e-mails. I did skim the subject lines, skipping over the ones that seemed geared toward selling merch and others that arrived because (annoyingly) we’re somehow on mailing lists for music that has nothing to do with metal, and others which hinted that the metal was of the kind that would hurt my head if I listened to it (e.g., power metal). And eventually I just ran out of time, so I’m sure I overlooked some things that might have been gem-like if I’d discovered them.

But the skimming process still left me with a giant pile of new music I thought might be interesting, and on top of that were other sources of recommendations outside of our e-mails that I pay attention to. Nothing more than instinct and impulse led to finding the following needles in that haystack. Continue reading »

Aug 302023
 

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley, but they didn’t gang a-gley today: I succeeded in completing the second Part of today’s roundup of new songs and videos. If you missed Part 1, here’s a convenient link to that.

DAUÐARÓ (Iceland)

I couldn’t resist beginning with this first advance track from Dauðaró‘s new album Nýir Heimar because (a) the cover art is fantastic and I wanted it to be at the top of this page; and (b) the song is scary as shit and why should I be the only frightened person around here? Continue reading »

Aug 302023
 

Here we have another hump-day roundup of new songs and videos. This one is a little shorter than usual but that’s because I have ambitions to make this a two-part edition. Indeed, I’ve already picked the stuff for Part 2, but I didn’t have time to write up everything for a single post — I have to turn to an upcoming album premiere I haven’t quite finished.

However, I didn’t call this Part 1 because between now and when I can turn back to Part 2 some kind of shit could unexpectedly rain down on my plans. Time will tell….

JOB FOR A COWBOY (U.S.)

JFAC released their last album Sun Eater nine years ago. In his review, my colleague Andy opined that it saw them “taking some big leaps, and some big risks, with their sound, going proggier and more melodic overall, without pandering to notions of popularity and accessibility”. “That’s not to say it doesn’t absolutely crush when it wants to,” he wrote, “it’s just that it’s now more intricate, more layered, and more expansive in its vision, than ever before”.

Based on some of the surprised reactions to JFAC‘s new single, nine years later, you’d think Sun Eater had been forgotten. The band didn’t forget. They seem to have picked up almost right where they left off nearly a decade ago. Continue reading »

Aug 262023
 

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. this morning. No fucking idea why. I was wiped out last night and fell asleep by 8 p.m., but that still doesn’t explain it. I was thinking 4 a.m. would be the likely waking hour, a solid 8 hours later. Maybe it’s Mariners fever (baseball fans may understand.)

I hope my loss is your gain. The ridiculous waking hour gave me lots of time to catch up on music, and to compile a bigger than average roundup for this Saturday. In organizing this I decided to lead with the most prominent name in the collection, and then move in a more obscure and musically challenging direction before embarking on a pair of anthems and then concluding with nastier notions.

OCTOBER TIDE (Sweden)

When my compatriot DGR reviewed October Tide‘s last album, 2019’s In Splendor Below, he found it “a very different album from its predecessors,” “one of the fastest-moving albums they’ve created” and with a new emphasis on “death metal atmospherics and groove” — though he noted that the band had not completely abandoned “the beautiful and cold atmospheres” that had become a major part of their hallmark.

The new October Tide album, The Cancer Pledge, is likely to be in a similar vein as that last one. Indeed, guitarist Fredrik Norrman calls it “a direct continuation of the previous album — less doom and more death metal, yet melodic and with more layers”. That’s born out by the album’s first single, “Tapestry of Our End“, which arrived with an engrossing animated lyric video. Continue reading »

Aug 222023
 

A rare day with no premieres on our calendar, which means I had time to whip up a roundup of new songs and videos.

Lots of things to choose from, as usual, and in making those choices I decided to give you a musical carnival ride, one of those things that’s spinning in several directions at once and leaves you stumbling with vertigo by the end.

ALKALOID (Germany)

My comrade DGR alerted us to this first song, which he pithily described as “one of the more batshit songs from Numen,” Numen being the name of Alkaloid‘s new album. Saying that anything on an Alkaloid release is more batshit than others is really saying something, since everything tends to be in the batshit crazy category. But sure enough…. Continue reading »

Aug 192023
 

Well, no unforeseeable calamities befell me or our indomitable site in the last 24 hours, and so I’ve probably set a record for us today with the fourth roundup of new music in a row. If you include tomorrow’s Shades of Black column (barring a calamity), that will be five in a row.

The incredible thing is that even with so many daily installments, one after the other, there’s still a big pile of worthy new metal I haven’t managed to feature, and in that respect there’s nothing particularly unusual about the last week. Every week, the flood just keeps surging.

GREAT FALLS (U.S.)

I fibbed a little. Not everything in today’s collection surfaced during the last week. These first two songs, “Trap Feeding” and “Old Words Worn Thin“, are a tad older than that. They’re both from a new album by this devastating Seattle crew that will be out on September 15th through Neurot Recordings. Continue reading »

Aug 182023
 

It’s been a very long time since I was able to compile roundups of new music three days in a row, but lo and behold I have done so, mainly due to the absence of any premieres on our calendar for today. Barring some unforeseeable calamity I’ll add a fourth one in a row tomorrow in the usual Saturday Seen and Heard spot.

MALOKARPATAN (Slovakia)

To spice up the musical fall, and just in time for Samhain, Malokarpatan will release a new album named Vertumnus Caesar through Invictus Productions (EU) and The Ajna Offensive (NorthAm) on October 27.

We never really know what devils will come out to play when this band records something new, and that’s probably not entirely clear from listening to the first single from the album, which just surfaced. But that’s all we have so far, so what does it show us? Continue reading »

Aug 172023
 

Oh look! Another mid-week roundup of new music, and it’s even more voluminous than the one I managed yesterday.

To give you a bit of a roadmap to what’s ahead, I’m starting with a perennial NCS favorite from Australia, then moving into an absolutely devastating block of U.S. metallic hardcore, then veering off in all sorts of other different directions.

THE AMENTA (Australia)

The Amenta decided to record a bunch of cover songs by a very eclectic group of bands, ranging from the black metal of Nazxul and Lord Kaos to Alice In Chains, Diamanda Galas, Killing Joke, Wolf Eyes, Halo, and… wait for it… My Dying Bride.

As if the prospect of these covers wouldn’t be titillating enough on their own to pique our interest (because we know a band like The Amenta aren’t going to play it straight with any of those songs), the 40-minute “EP” that includes the covers also presents a new original song, which is the subject of a video that debuted yesterday. Continue reading »