AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OLAMOT — “PATH OF DIVINITY”

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Apr 262024
 

We’re about to premiere a complete debut album of modern death metal from the Italian band Olamot, one that’s brutish and bludgeoning but also a whirligig for the head and fuel for nightmares.

We’ll explain in more detail what we mean by that, but let’s begin by quoting some of the background information furnished in the press materials offered on behalf of the Lethal Scissor label, which will release the album on April 29th:

OLAMOT started in 2021 from the minds of Daniele Boccali (FICTIO SOLEMNIS) and Edoardo Casini (XENOFACTION, DESOURCE), eager to create a musical concept which develops a story lyrically and conceptually ideated by Edoardo Casini. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NOBODY — “PERPETUAL TORMENT”

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Apr 252024
 

The Ohio-based duo Nobody made their advent last year with a pair of EPs (Fading Into Obscurity and Lifeless and Still), and have now recorded a debut album named Despair is Where My Thoughts Swim, which will be released on May 17th by End My Life Records/Tragedy Productions. For the album, the founders Troll and Ulver are joined by new vocalist Void.

You may see the genre labels of “post-black metal” or “post/depressive black metal” affixed to Nobody‘s music, which might be as good a way as any of trying to summarize versatile songs that really don’t fit neatly into any boxes and that draw inspiration from a host of sources, including sources outside of metal altogether.

But it might be better to just forget about labels, because the ones above might prove to be as misleading as they are predictive once you begin listening to the album. Even the terrible sadness and sense of regret and abandonment that the song titles and lyrics convey isn’t the sum total of the moods, and so even the “depressive” label isn’t a complete portrait.

To help you understand this, we’re premiering a lyric video for one of the album’s new songs, “Perpetual Torment“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELL:ON — “HE WITH THE HORSE’S HEAD”

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Apr 252024
 

Long ago the Ukrainian extreme metal band Hell:On established their musical philosophy, and in the nearly two decades since their formation in Zaporizhzhia they have stayed steady, only sharpening their swords and their magicks and magnifying the power of their delivery.

“Atmospheric death metal” is one way of describing their music, a way of trying to capture their union of high-powered death metal ferocity, oriental melodies, and “tribal” ingredients, which create mystical, shamanic shades of light and darkness.

This union is on full display in their new album, which fittingly is named Shaman. It was intended for release two years ago, but then the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupted those plans, and of course life as a whole in their country. But now they have a May 17th release date via Archivist Records and we begin to see the fruits of their creative endeavors. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOMUNCULUS — DEMO MMXXIV

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Apr 242024
 

As you can see, we’re premiering a demo today, the first two songs to be revealed from a Seattle band named Homunculus, a word that most dictionaries define as “a very small human or humanoid creature”. It’s an interesting choice of name because, as you’ll soon discover, the music is anything but small, though it most definitely is inhuman.

To begin our introduction of the demo, we’ll share some of the evocative words provided by Cestrum Nocturnum Recordings, which will release the demo on May 1st and brands it “experimental black/death”: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMBAT NOISE — “STALINGRAD IN BLOOD”

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Apr 242024
 

The Cuban death metal band Combat Noise first emerged in 1995 in La Habana, inspired by both Floridian death metal and a desire to render tales of war through their music. Beginning in 1996 they steadily released a sequence of demos, an EP, and eventually three full-length albums, with the last of those appearing in 2013.

There then followed a decade-long hiatus in recordings, a gap that will now end with To the Heart of Battle, a new album set for co-release by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Sanatorio Records (Costa Rica) on May 21st. Today we premiere one of its 12 anthems of war, a song entitled “Stalingrad in Blood“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WINGLESS — “ASCENSION”

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Apr 232024
 

Wingless is a great name for a band who’ve chained themselves with the heavy links of doom and death. It seems to encapsulate the core reality that human beings struggle to soar, land-bound and crawling toward a bitter end beneath the distant gaze of winged creatures that have always seemed more free.

And yet the new album from this Krakow-based band, their fifth full-length since forming in 2012, is named Ascension. The title raises questions: ascending toward what? and when? and how?

The music suggests answers, though they are likely to vary with each listener’s interpretation of the experience. What’s not likely to vary is the inevitability of becoming submerged in the music, and to rise with it. You’ll have that chance today, as we premiere a full stream of Ascension in advance of its release on April 26th by Selfmadegod Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO AND ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEPLORABLE — “SHATTERED LAMENT UNMOORED”

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Apr 222024
 

In this article we’re presenting two premieres — a full stream of Shattered Lament Unmoored, the debut album by the Costa Rican band Deplorable, which will be released today by the Dutch label Breathe Plastic, and a video for one of the album’s six songs. Perhaps the best one-word description for both of them is… HARROWING. But of course we’ll try to flesh that out with more words.

It might be best to begin with the video and the song it presents, “Apparition In The Ether“, even though that song appears second in the album’s track list, because it provides such a soul-shattering introduction to the black chasm of dread and despair that the album opens up beneath us as listeners. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CANIS MAJORIS — “THE END OF CIVILIZATION”

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Apr 192024
 

Canis Majoris is a musical project created in Gdansk, Poland by the multi-instrumentalist musician and lyricist Alienus, joined on the project’s debut album by invited vocalist Brut from the death metal band Raspatory.

The name of that album, which will be released by Satanath Records on April 28th, is Eternity Borns From A Moment. It is described as “a journey around the endless space of the Universe,” and a journey through time as well, in which “the listener becomes a time traveller from the beginnings of life till its total disappearance…” Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEADSPEAK — “NO RESPECT – NEITHER FOR LIVING NOR FOR THE DEAD”

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Apr 182024
 

The occult death metal band Deadspeak was formed in 2008 in Ireland, where its two Polish co-founders (Krakus and Tomasz Prokop) were then living. They recorded a pair of demos in 2008 and 2010, but then the band seemed to disappear for a long time.

Yet after returning to Poland the creative embers caught fire again and just last year Deadspeak released an excellent debut album named Human Alchemy (available here), a 44-minute work that they have described as “a blizzard of obscure riffs and strange melodies, fueled by hypersensitivity to society”.

Striking while the iron is hot, Deadspeak are already following up that album with a two-song EP that we’re happily premiering today. For these recordings, the Deadspeak duo of adventurous guitarist Krakus and venomous vocalist Tomasz were joined by guest bassist Ataman Tolovy and, as session drummer, the veteran hitter James Stewart (Decapitated, Berserker Legion, Bloodshot Dawn, ex-Vader, etc.). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PARADOX RIFT — “THE SKY BENEATH”

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Apr 162024
 

On May 10th the Cleveland-based extreme metal band Paradox Rift will release a debut album named Ensnared. It features harrowing cover art by Remy Cooper (Headsplit Design), which captures key elements of the album’s themes. In the band’s words it depicts: “A figure or entity stuck/being torn between two dimensions; A demolecularizing body that has no complete form in one realm or the other. Existing in agony, never to be whole. Constantly being ripped apart and reanimated, Ensnared between two worlds.”

The band’s music pulls from different worlds too — different sub-genres of metal reflected in the influence of such bands as Between the Buried and Me, Gojira, Lamb of God, and Converge (among others). To share again the band’s own explanation:

Paradox Rift is a blend of multiple generations of metal coming together. With members in their early thirties, late thirties and even a fifty year old. We all listen to different generations, styles and subgenres of metal and we all bring something different to the Paradox Rift table.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video made by Scott Rudd Films and featuring artwork by Mark Erskine for a song from Ensnared named “The Sky Beneath“, and once more we’ll start with the band’s description of what the song is about: Continue reading »

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