AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE SECOND FOVEA — “VIBORA”

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Nov 232023
 

Today marks the fifth time we’ve written about and/or premiered singles by The Second Fovea (a band who began in India and are now based in the San Francisco Bay area) — and thus we’ve covered all of them to date. Thematically, each one has been different from the ones before, but all of them driven by a socio-political consciousness:

“Headshot” was a condemnation of hate crimes and racism across the globe. “Manta” was devoted to the majesty and mystery of the creatures for whom the song was named and tried to help spread the word about their conservation (we featured two different videos for that song). “The Echoing Habitat” called attention to our relentless pollution of the oceans with plastics. And today we have a fourth single, “Vibora“, which takes as its subject a metaphor for the lethal consequences of greed.

Just as the band’s lyrical themes have differed, the music has differed too, from song to song, and it changes again here, in part due to the appearance of the band’s new permanent vocalist, “Lalit Mehta“, who lives in Dublin, Ireland. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FRAUGHT — “TRANSFIXED ON DYING LIGHT”

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Nov 232023
 

Here in the U.S. many people are celebrating Thanksgiving Day today, a national holiday first officially announced by Abraham Lincoln during our Civil War but modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (“Pilgrims”) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag indigenous people (who had previously occupied the Plymouth site but had been decimated by smallpox).

We have many things to be thankful for here at our humble site today, and one of those is Transfixed on Dying Light, the debut album by the Irish band Fraught. Founded in 2018, they survived a change of name (from Drought to Fraught), the rude interferences of the covid pandemic, and the kinds of other difficulties that beset any band trying to make underground music they believe in rather than following whatever way the prevailing winds are blowing.

Fraught are one of those bands who are given to experimentation, inspired by their many influences but driven to interweave them in ways that don’t neatly get circled by genre boundaries. That was already becoming evident in their MMXIX demo (released in 2020) and their first EP, 2021’s Splitting Tongues, but more evident still in this new album, which we’re giving you the chance to hear in advance of its release tomorrow by Argonauta Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PESSIMYSTIC — “BURNT OFFERING”

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Nov 222023
 

Pessimystic is a clever name for a band, one that amalgamates two concepts or themes that will be familiar to adherents of extreme metal. It was chosen by a trio of musicians from Ottawa who first came together only this year, though the writing process and general concept originated in 2022. They played their first show only in September, opening for Sunless and Thantifaxath, a couple of very good groups to share a stage with.

What we have for you today is a premiere stream of the first public recording of Pessimystic, an EP named Burnt Offering that will be released on November 24th. It’s described as “an apotropaic oblation of self-surrender through self-destruction and unity through detachment”, and conceptually it “contemplates divine retribution and conjures the apocalyptic imagery enshrined in the human psyche.” Pessimystic indeed. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FAWN LIMBS & NADJA – VESTIGIAL SPECTRA

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Nov 222023
 

(Andy Synn handles hosting duties for our premiere of the new collaborative album from Fawn Limbs & Nadja)

The last few years have undoubtedly blessed us with a number of phenomenally creative collaborations between artists whose creativity and talent is absolutely unquestionable.

From Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas to Oranssi Pazuzu & Dark Buddha Rising to Mizmor & Thou – and many more besides – the fruits of these labours has often (though not always… Lulu anyone?) resulted in a collective whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

And now its the turn of Fawn Limbs & Nadja to combine their forces.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TODOMAL — “A GREATER GOOD”

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Nov 212023
 

The odds are high that once you’ve seen the painting above by Paloma Pájaro that adorns the cover of TodoMal‘s new album The Greater Good, you won’t forget it. The odds are also high that it may perplex you. The choosing of the art was obviously unconventional, but then again, so is the music.

The Greater Good is the second full-length by the TodoMal duo of Christopher B. Wildman and Javier Fernández, following the release of Ultracrepidarian in 2021. As they conceive it, the new album follows dark paths, “where doubts about what is right or wrong, what we do in this world to earn redemption, or why we have a nefarious tendency to destroy what we love are depicted against a smoldering forest”. “The journey continues,” as they say, “despite the obstacles”.

And so we have a Spanish band whose name means something like “all is evil” or “all is wrong” ambitiously seeking “The Greater Good”. They put a lot of thought and work into making it a continuation from their first album that would both expand their ambitions and manifest them more precisely, and today you’ll be able to hear every minute of what they achieved in advance of its release on November 24th by Ardua Music. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: STRIGAMPIRE — “SOLD OUR SOUL”

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Nov 202023
 

Canada is home to a great many metal bands, and over 60 of them participated in the contest to determine which one would represent the country at Wacken Metal Battle in Germany during the famed Open Air festival last August. The chosen band was Strigampire from Trois-Rivières in Quebec.

It was good timing for the band, because they’re following that appearance next month with a new album named All To Dominate, their first release of new music in five years (and again with their strigoi mascot Stan on the cover). One single from the album has already been released, and today we bring you an official video for another one — “Sold Our Soul“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STUPOROUS — “DECORATING THE WILLOW TREE”

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Nov 202023
 

“Stuperous,” in case you were wondering, is a word found in the dictionary. It means “stunned or confused and slow to react (as from blows or exhaustion)”. Synonyms include dazed, foggy, groggy, and lethargic.

A strange choice for a metal band name, you might think, especially a band whose music stands as an antonym for “stuporous”. Momentarily, you’ll see why we think that.

As for the band itself, it’s the brainchild of Floris Velthuis, whose name you might recognize as the main person behind the unorthodox black metal band Meslamtaea. In Stuperous he’s joined by trumpeter Izzy Op de Beeck, who’s also part of Meslamtaea, and singer Devi Hisgen, who we’re told works in psychiatry, a useful specialty in the context of the trio’s debut album Asylum’s Lament, given that the lyrics are about mental disorders and depression, based on true events in a psychiatric facility.

That album is now set for release on January 25th by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions, and what we have for you today is the premiere of the album track “Decorating the Willow Tree“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DUSK — “BEACON OBSCURED”

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Nov 172023
 

You can tell from the name Dusk that this Wisconsin band got their start a very long time ago. Especially in the doomier sectors of the metal-verse, a name like that would have been seized early. Of course, as Metal-Archives shows us, 10 other bands from around the world also seized it, but none earlier than this group from Green Bay.

Metal-Archives also documents for us that many of the other early Dusk‘s no longer exist, some of them barely surviving past their first releases. And so it seemed with the Wisconsin band: They released a self-titled EP in 1994 and a debut album (…Majestic Thou in Ruin) in 1995, and then nothing new for 10 years after.

The silence was broken by a 2005 split with Aphotic (another Green Bay band), and then another long silence descended until the band re-formed in 2015 and the Dark Symphonies label then released Dusk‘s 2018 EP, Withdraw.

Twenty-eight years is a damned long time between albums, but at last we have a new one on the way from Dusk, a second full-length named Dissolve Into Ash that will be collaboratively released on December 8th by Dark Symphonies/The Crypt Vinyl and Dread Records, and as a sign of what Dusk has now accomplished we’re premiering an official video for the new album’s opening song, “Beacon Obscured“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STILLEKLANG — “SEHNSUCHT LAUERT”

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Nov 172023
 

At almost exactly this same time last year we had the pleasure of premiering a song from the first album by a captivating German melancholic black metal band named Stilleklang. That album, Tränen der Vergangenheit Part 1, was (as its title portrayed) the first part of a two-part work. And now the second and concluding part is ready for release and it’s again our pleasure to host a song premiere.

The songs on Tränen der Vergangenheit Part 2 date from the same period as the first album, both in terms of the compositions as well as the recording and mastering. On both albums Stilleklang‘s sole member Fabian Veith was joined by two guest musicians — Markus Röll (Gernotshagen, Herbstlethargie) on drums and M. on violin.

Last year we described Stilleklang‘s music as “a multi-faceted fashioning of black metal that’s elegant and poignant as well as harsh and livid” — both somber and tormented, spellbinding and wondrous. Those words come to mind again in listening to the long song from the latest album that we’re presenting today — “Sehnsucht lauert“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FOETAL JUICE — “GROTESQUE”

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Nov 162023
 

“Foetal Juice! Foetal Juice! Foetal Juice!”

OK, so some of you were born too late to get that warped reference to a certain excellent 1988 movie. The choice of name isn’t the only thing humorously warped about this UK death metal band, who make sure you know where they’re from in the spelling. Their outrageously vulgar song-naming traditions are even more over the top.

In fact, it’s likely that their putrid plays-on-words will be one of the first things that come to mind for anyone who’s encountered their previous releases. And make no mistake, they haven’t cleaned up their act on their new album Grotesque, whose title rigorously adheres to principles of truth in advertising.

But anyone who’s encountered their previous releases, and especially 2020’s Gluttony album, also know that Foetal Juice have a helluva lot more going on in their music than gruesome and raunchy humor. They could be reciting treatises on generally accepted accounting principles and the songs would still blast your head open like a cantaloupe on the receiving end of a shotgun.

And as you’re about to find out, there’ still more going on in Grotesque than we’ve already hinted at. Yes, it’s gross and traumatizing, and rabidly vicious, but it’s also galvanizing in the way of a big precision-made turbine. Continue reading »

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