AN NCS PREMIERE: HEXAKOSIOIHEXEKONTAHEXAPHILIA — “DEMO DCLXVI”

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May 012023
 

“Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia” is an actual word. It refers to fear of the number 666 (just as the slightly better known triskaidekaphobia refers to fear of the number 13). We’re not sure that anyone is actually afflicted with that fear as a clinically recognized phobia, but we have many examples of fearful superstitious avoidance of the number.

For example, did you know that there used to be a U.S. Highway 666, so named because it was was the sixth branch off U.S. Highway 66? Did you know that in 1986 researchers found that 23% of all crashes involving injury that occurred in the Shiprock District of New Mexico occurred on a 0.9-mile stretch of Highway 666, and that it eventually became known (of course) as the Devil’s Highway? Perhaps needless to say, the government did away with that name in 2003; it’s now the much duller U.S. 491.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphilia, on the other hand, isn’t a word we’ve been able to find in our googling — other than as the name of a new solo metal project out of the Netherlands. But it’s about damned time someone coined that word, which must mean “fondness of the number 666”. Even if it would take a lot of practice to be able to enunciate it correctly (and we’ll be doing a lot of copy/pasting today), we should hail the conception because it represents basically all of metaldom.

But we’re here to hail the name for another reason, because the debut demo of Hexakosioihexekontahexaphilia that we’re about to premiere is dazzling. Its name is Demo DCLXVI. Can you guess which Arabic numeral is represented by that Roman numeral? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SHODAN — “NONE SHALL PREVAIL”

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May 012023
 

On May 5th Time To Kill Records will release None Shall Prevail, the third LP by the Polish death metal band Shodan. In two words, it’s absolutely stunning.

Of course we have a lot my words to spill about it, but we’ll leap ahead through them to emphasize these: The album is a genuine rarity, in the sense that it has the potential to appeal to fans from across many genres of extreme metal, from brutal death metal to technical death metal, from prog metal to melodic death metal (and more).

Moreover, the band don’t reveal these different influences in separate songs, but beautifully integrate all of them in every track through songwriting that’s elaborate, dynamic, and executed with eye-popping skill. In addition, the record is exceptionally well-produced to emphasize these signal qualities, delivering both power and clarity.

Of course, it’s still way too early to be throwing around references to year-end lists, but None Shall Prevail is so spectacular that it seems like a very safe bet we’ll see it on many of those in the waning months of 2023. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LUX NIGRUM — “OMNIA AB UNO, OMNIA AD UNUM”

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Apr 282023
 

Lux Nigrum‘s 2019 debut EP Burning the Eternal Return (which we reviewed and premiered here) made a striking impression. The music channeled chaos, but not in the sense of some flailing, disorganized cacophony. There was a palpable sense of fierce wildness and burning devotion in the music, but an equal devotion to the crafting of excellent riffs, which had both emotional power and magnetic musical appeal.

And so it was very welcome news to learn that this Chilean band would be returning this year with a debut album named Omnia Ab Uno, Omnia Ad Unum. The band describe it as “a conceptual album based on the Acausal Spirituality and the mysterious duality of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death, dealing with the unification of everything as One, and its own dissolution towards Ain.”

In February we had the pleasure of premiering a lyric video for the song “Adamas Voluntatem“, and today we’re equally pleased to bring you the sounds of the entire record on the day of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NON SERVIAM — “APOCALYPTIC LUST”

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Apr 282023
 

Many musical extremists add new layers of brick and mortar to old walls surrounding well-established genre structures, and some of them are such good crafts-people that they still deserve applause for their renewal of the fortifications. On the other hand, the anonymous Parisian collective Non Serviam take a wrecking ball to genre walls.

No doubt, what they do with their noise scandalizes some listeners, but as their name suggests, they’re dedicated to being confrontational — conventions be damned — and their confrontational nature extends to the anarchist and antifascist convictions that inspire their music. We have a prime example of all this in the video we’re presenting today for the furious Non Serviam tirade called “Apocalyptic Lust”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PUNEBRE — “HELE HELE”

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Apr 272023
 

As you can see, we’re about to bring you another premiere. As you can see, it’s from a record with an out-of-the-ordinary piece of cover art, especially for a slab of monstrous death metal. So let’s start with that artwork.

Obviously, it looks like a comic book cover — a strange one, to be sure, with an attractive young woman swaddling a Lovecraftian nightmare spawn, and some other inhuman figures in the corner presiding over the torching of a church. There’s a tiny logo in the other corner with “HM-2” in the center. And then there’s the comic’s date: April 02 1973. What is the significance of that?

Well, it turns out to be a tribute to the late Leif Cuzner, who was born on that day. A bassist and guitarist for the enormously influential Swedish band Nihilist, he is widely credited as the inventor of the legendary “buzzsaw” guitar sound, created by turning up all the knobs on his Boss HM-2 distortion pedal to the maximum.

Paying attention to all the clues in the unusual cover art tells you many useful things about the record itself, which is the debut album of the Filipino death metal band Punebre. Entitled Ang Nasa Dako Paroon, it will be released on May 15th by the Mexican label Death in Pieces Records. But through our premiere of the album track “Hele Hele” we have an even better clue. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ELITIUM — “TASTELESS”

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Apr 272023
 

After quickly turning out a pair of EPs in 2012 and 2014 (Transcendence and Ataxia), the Portuguese band Elitium fell silent… for a long time. We don’t know all the details about how the last 9 years were spent, but no doubt there were trials and tribulations of various kinds — as well as a lot of work on new music.

That work has borne extravagant fruit, because at last Elitium are returning with an explosive debut album named Wrong that will be released by Gruesome Records, and today we’re presenting an electrifying album track named “Tasteless” accompanied by an excellent music video. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DJINN-GHÜL — “OPULENCE”

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Apr 262023
 

The last time we heard from this Denver/Bolíver axis was through their 2021 EP Mechalith, a record our own Andy Synn put on his year-end list of top 10 EPs, even though it had just come out the day before he finished the list. Why did it make such an impact (like a meteor crater)? Andy explained:

“[I]f you’re looking for something that exists purely to pulverise your ear-drums – blasting and bludgeoning and breaking-the-fuck-down without mercy or restraint – but also has a few clever cyber-synth tricks up its heavily armed and armoured sleeve (also drawing comparison, in places, to the extremophile excess of our old friends The Monolith Deathcult), then you should definitely give Mechalith a shot.”

About 2 1/2 years later, here we are, confronting another imminent meteor strike. Which is to say that Djinn-Ghül are back, this time with a full-length named Opulence. You’ve still got a little while to prepare — there might be time to build an underground bunker before the July 14 release date scheduled by Vicious Instinct Records — but you better not waste time. Dig deep and harden that shelter as if your life depends on it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUFFERING QUOTA — “GROW”

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Apr 262023
 

Adjectives like “terrorizing” and “explosive” have tended to surround the music of the Dutch grindcore band Suffering Quota like swarms of angry hornets. Of course, sensations of fury and violence are endemic to a lot of grindcore, but adjectives like those don’t always come to mind as frequently as they do with this band.

Yet those aspects of their music, while integral and vital to what they do, really aren’t all that sets them apart from a lot of their peers. What really sets them apart is the feeling that they’d get bored just blowing off the doors in listeners’ heads and wrecking the hell out of whatever’s inside. It’s got to be more interesting than that.

The stew of genre ingredients they incorporate — which include death metal, crust, and hardcore — can’t always follow the same recipe, song after song, or what’s the point of continuing to write and record? Better to make them fight for survival in different ways and see what happens. Better to keep the listener off-balance, because for sure, there’s no balance in the world either.

Well, that’s just armchair psychology from our little underground hovel, because we’re not telepaths. But when you listen to some of the music of Suffering Quota‘s new album Collide, maybe you’ll understand the point we’re trying to make. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORMALIST — “MONUMENT”

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Apr 252023
 

Five years after our last premiere of a song by the Italian band Formalist we have been granted the opportunity to make another one.

Five years ago the occasion was the impending release of their debut album, No One Will Shine Anymore, which contained three massive tracks that were relentlessly multi-faceted and engrossing, yet also ruthlessly created waking nightmares.

Today the occasion is another impending album release, this one named We Inherit a World at the Seams, which will be out on May 25th via Brucia Records. It too consists of three epic-length tracks, collectively totaling 44 minutes of harrowing sound, and today we’re premiering the one that’s fittingly called “Monument“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SISYPHEAN — “THROUGH CORROSION”

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Apr 252023
 

Shakespeare is the author of the famous statement, uttered by a character (Antonio) in The Tempest, that “what’s past is prologue”. What he and his character meant is that history provides the context for what is about to happen in the present (in The Tempest, it was the opportunity for Antonio and his co-conspirator Sebastian to commit murder). Some might go so far as to assert that what happens in the present is fated to happen because of what has happened in the past.

In the case of the Lithuanian black metal band Sisyphean (themselves named for a legendary character), the past that is most powerfully prologue is their 2020 album Colours of Faith. That’s not to suggest that people should ignore their 2017 debut full-length, but it was Colours of Faith that really opened eyes and established high expectations. Continue reading »

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