AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THÖRNE — “THOSE GOLDEN RULES”

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May 082023
 

In late January of this year the Portuguese blackened hardcore band Thörne followed up their 2019 debut EP Octagon with an immensely powerful three-track single named Those Golden Rules. Unfolding across 9 stunning minutes, the band used the single to explore “the untold truths of one’s past — the trauma caused by reckless parenting, the toll it carves in one’s behavior and social capabilities, and the resulting depression during adulthood”.

The single was originally released digitally, but in late April it received a cassette tape release through Black Lava Records. What we have for you today is a beautifully filmed video for a live performance of all three tracks that appeared on the new single. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CHTHON — “EREMITE”

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May 082023
 

As you’re about to see in the lyric video we’re premiering, the scribe of the Athenian band Chthon is a talented story-teller, though the tale told in the title track to Chthon‘s new album Eremite is a narrative of supernatural horror. It recounts the experience of a ruined, one-eyed zealot offering himself before a basalt shrine to an unnamed terror from another dimension.

The music tracks the tale in a progression of sound that’s just as supernatural and frightening as the words. In its initial phases the song presents the physical and mental ruin of the eremite — famished, face scarred, fingers mangled, body afflicted by festering wounds, and his one remaining eye unnaturally dilated — and simultaneously creates a chilling occult atmosphere.

In those initial phases, slow isolated notes reverberate in their gloom through an ambient mist, and then the band proceed in a massive mid-paced stomp, with distorted guitars deepening the feeling of oppressive gloom. A wailing guitar melody begins to slither and sway, like the exotic strains of a snake-charmer, but the melody is disturbing — it channels illness and misery. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OLKOTH — “TO EAT OF THE LOTUS”

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May 052023
 

The South Carolina black/death metal band Olkoth first began taking shape in 2016, formed by Zach Jeter (also in Imperivm and Lecherous Nocturne) and by Vance Jeffcoat, who passed away the following year. A debut demo emerged in 2019, and the band (with a new line-up in harness) released the “Eidolon of Flames” single in 2021 (which we had the pleasure of premiering here). Now they’re poised at last for the release of their debut album At The Eye Of Chaos by Everlasting Spew Records on the 26th of May.

Embracing themes of the occult, horror, mythology, and corruption throughout history, the new album creates sonic experiences that are ferocious and deadly, brutalizing and nightmarish. It makes good sense that the Italian maestro Paolo Girardi was enlisted to create a particularly blood-congealing piece of cover art — tentacular, abundantly skulled, and altogether hideous. You’ll understand why the artwork is so fitting when you hear the album track we’re about to premiere — “To Eat of the Lotus“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE ISUA — “DEPARTURE”

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May 052023
 

We live in a world where engaging with strangers we don’t have to engage with is a risky endeavor. Wariness is an important self-protective instinct, even though it might prevent engagements that would turn out to be felicitous. Hell, here in the U.S. for example it seems that rubbing some stranger the wrong way could lead to gunfire.

Fortunately, the rules of engagement when it comes to new music are very different. Encountering strangers is actually something desirable, at least around this site, because it can lead to very welcome surprises, even if it may also lead to disappointment.

Case in point: Today we welcome ISUA to our pages for the first time. Getting to know their music has been a captivating experience — even though it has also led to destruction. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BOARGAZM — “ARMAGAMMON”

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May 042023
 

With their new album Armagammon, the South African band Boargazm have reached the end of their Aporkalypse trilogy. A twisted sci-fi narrative accompanied by comic books, it tells the story of a rebel band of time-travelling freedom fighters known as “The Pig Whisperers”, who warn the world of the impending Aporkalypse, through the Baconing, all the way to Armagammon.

And if that sounds like some weird fun, wait ’til you hear this new album. As the band’s founder Heine van der Walt has explained: “We wanted to shift our focus on doing something highly experimental and weird, yet true to our sound. So, lots of freneticism, while still retaining groove, and to see if we can balance that in a coherent method. It was a fun exercise and experience, figuring out how to do all that.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HOLY GRINDER — “GET WELL”

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May 042023
 

(Christopher Luedtke introduces our premiere of a new song and video from the Canadian band Holy Grinder.)

Toronto, Ontario’s Holy Grinder has been blasting out some of the harshest noisegrind since 2016. Rough, tough, mean, and gruff, the unit has been fluid in its approach while achieving a consistently brutal output. And their upcoming album 10 Desecrations will be nothing short of another bull strapped with Semtex in a China shop. Today, the band is unleashing their latest video for the new single “Get Well.” It’s time to take a trip to the cleaners. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAVEFIELDS — “PILGRIMS OF AMIRAH”

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May 032023
 

There are a lot of extreme metal songs out there where the vocals are really just an accent or an afterthought, with the vocals struggling to match up with musical instrumentation that carries the lion’s share of the load. What you’re about to hear, however, is a song where the burden is almost — almost — reversed.

Especially at first, the vocals on Gravefields‘ new song “Pilgrims of Amirah” are so stunningly monstrous, macabre, and frighteningly deranged that you almost don’t notice the music around them, though perhaps that’s because the instrumentation is also deranged — and dangerously destructive.

This isn’t the first time we’ve hosted a premiere for a release by Gravefields, but because almost exactly four years have passed since the last time, it’s worth a reminder that the core of the band is a duo consisting of Irish multi-instrumentalist Alan Hurley and French lyricist/vocalist Thomas Blanc (aka “DM“), who has a very long resume of vocal credits that you can find here. On the band’s forthcoming second album Tetragrammaton, they’re joined by bassist Paul Girvin. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GAROTED — “UNFATHOMABLE MANIFESTATION”

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May 032023
 

We have one hell of a video for you today, for a vicious song that generates enough voltage to drive massive turbines to the meltdown point. Garoted easily could have made four different playthrough videos for it, each one featuring the eye-popping performance of a different band-member, but instead we get to be even more thoroughly bamboozled by watching as the screen rapidly cuts from one to the next.

The song that’s the subject of the video, “Unfathomable Manifestation“, is off this Kansas-based band’s forthcoming fourth album, Bewitchment of the Dark Ages, which is set for a May 26 release by Lavadome Productions. It ought to leave fans of savage, technically jaw-dropping death metal slobbering, both hungry and head-spun. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NADIR — “EXTINCTION RITUALS”

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May 022023
 

All things rise and fall, both the animate and the inanimate. Mountains heave up from the Earth’s crust, and erode over time. Flora and fauna flourish much more briefly, but all of it is always doomed to perish. Human life in particular strives, grasping for meaning and some measure of “success”, but humanity’s most vaunted achievements are in fact evanescent, and self-destruction seems deeply rooted. In the arc of all things, there are zeniths, and at the bottom of the trajectory is where you’ll find Nadir.

Nadir is the name chosen by a Norwegian blackened hardcore band whose extravagant debut album we’re presenting today in advance of its May 5 release. Its conception is summed up in the title — Extinction Rituals — and becomes even more clear through the band’s elaboration of what that means:

Extinction Rituals is an exercise in the duality of futility and hope. It is a comment upon the ignorance of man and the inventive way we manage to prey upon each other. Musically, Extinction Rituals sets out to match the lyrical content through blending eclectic sources of inspiration and striving for a harsh and aggressive sound.”

Nadir succeeded in their striving. Paradoxically, they’ve made their dark descent into a zenith of their own. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HAIL CONJURER — “GOLDEN SPINE / THE HEAT GOES ON”

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May 022023
 

Today marks the first appearance at our humble site of the Finnish black metal band Hail Conjurer, but a glance at the band’s discography reveals that we are very, very late in paying attention.

Beginning in 2017 Hail Conjurer has released numerous demos, splits, and EPs, as well as six full-length albums. The word “prolific” is well-earned here, and the volume of creative output is even more impressive considering that during those years the person behind the project has also been a participant in Hooded Menace, Horse Latitudes, and Ride for Revenge (among others).

As large as it is, the discography of Hail Conjurer is about to swell again, because on May 18th (Ascension Day in the christian church) the band will release a new full-length named Ouroboros Lust on the Bestial Burst label, and that album is the source of the hellish music we’re premiering today through an official video. Continue reading »

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