AN NCS PREMIERE: CHOP7X — “TELL YOURSELF A LITTLE LIE / CHOSEN IGNORANCE”

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Dec 092022
 

(Christopher Luedtke introduces our premiere of a two-track blast from the cubergrind project Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop.)

Cybergrind has become a fluid, ever-evolving genre that can be a bear to keep up with. As far as genre conventions go, there the genre seems to be over-trying to move as fast as it can to shatter conventions. But that doesn’t mean it is devoid of more straightforward projects.

Cybergrind is not a young genre, it is just a more recently utilized one. It can be mad-scientist experimental or just straight noisy digital grind. The one-man-band Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop (or Chop7x if you’re nasty) falls into the latter category. Noisy and harsh, the project has been on an unrelenting path and is ready to step up its game on its latest singles “Tell Yourself A Little Lie” and “Chosen Ignorance.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PNAKOTIC MANUSCRIPT — “PETER THE HERMIT’S CURSE”

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Dec 092022
 

What we have for you now is the premiere of a song from the forthcoming debut album Dark Prometheus by the multi-national black metal band Pnakotic Manuscript. Both the album’s conceptual narrative and the band’s own name launched this writer on a series of internet searches.

The band’s unusual name seems to be a reference to mythic ancient and occult writings that may be rooted (at least in part) in Lovecraftian lore, which provide medieval descriptions of alien races populating the earth, strange cosmic deities, and legendary heroes. But this is only a guess.

As for the album, its central protagonist is the historical figure Peter of Amiens, also known as Peter the Hermit. A Roman Catholic priest, he was commissioned by Pope Urban II to command an armed pilgrimage from France to Jerusalem, and thus became a key figure during the military expedition known as the People’s Crusade and the First Crusade. Under his leadership, the crusaders also engaged in the torture and slaughter of Jews along the way. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE GAUNTLET — “DARK STEEL AND FIRE”

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Dec 082022
 

The cover art for The Gauntlet‘s debut album Dark Steel and Fire portrays a hell-raising synthesis of motorcycles and epic fantasy with a distinctly warlike and demonic cast. What you might guess about the music, based on that portrayal is, well, anyone’s guess.

The Gauntlet‘s 2020 debut EP War and Guilt spawned such descriptors as pounding black metal, rocking death, or more jokingly as “stadium Bathory“, and the new record is forecast as an amalgam of influences from the past that include Bathory, Venom, and Celtic Frost.

But let’s quit guessing and find out first-hand what The Gauntlet‘s sole creator Ace Meggido has cooked up this time, and what better way to do that then to check out the debut album’s title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THEY GRIEVE — “TO WHICH I BORE WITNESS”

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Dec 082022
 

The Ottawa-based duo They Grieve (Gary Thibert and Deniz Güvenç) made their advent with the EP I Made My Sacrifice Accordingly in late 2016, and now, a substantial number of years later, they’re moving toward the release of their first full-length, To Which I Bore Witness, which they recorded at Apartment 2 with Topon Das of Fuck the Facts. The band readily acknowledge that this new music is a departure from what you might have heard on the EP, and thus should be considered in its own right, standing alone. As Deniz explains:

“This album, both lyrically and musically, tries to capture the uncomfortable juxtaposition between weakness and weight. We are constantly trying to express the ways in which the ugliness and decay we see in the world sets itself down and plants its roots inside of us—how the weight of the world transforms into our own weakness once it has done so. We try to capture this feeling of juxtaposition and tension within the music itself by oscillating between ambient, textural drones and heavy, doom-laden riffs.”

As a sign of the changes, what we have for you today is the new album’s title track, which is paired with a video that’s as mysterious and as interesting to watch as the song is to hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SARCOPTES — “TET” (AND A REVIEW OF “PRAYERS TO OBLIVION”)

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Dec 072022
 

Everyone who visits NCS regularly knows full well that when I come across music that really electrifies me I have a pronounced tendency to get carried away with words as the music carries me away. I was reminded of that when I re-read what I wrote about Plague Hymns, the 2020 EP by Sacramento-based Sarcoptes:

In the most brutally shorthand way of describing these two songs, they’re a fashioning of blackened thrash, but that label really under-represents how remarkable they are. They do indeed blaze like hellfire driven by gale-force winds, but they also feature beautifully chosen symphonic accents as well as the kind of glorious guitar-work that brings to mind bands from the forefront of classic heavy metal.

And from there the words went on and on and on, with references to the music as “black magic alchemy — sinister and vicious, ecstatically wild, a breathtaking, turbocharged thrill-ride through sulfurous, fire-bright nether-regions”, “diabolical harmonies and the skittering voracious sensation of demonic feeding frenzies in the midst of possessed screams”, “head-spinning dementia leavened with a panoply of sorcerous leads and the shine of supernatural, phosphorescent majesty”, and the kind of “crazed, darting ebullience” that made the music “sound like bats on after-burners, flying with abandon from caverns lit by the blaze of burning souls”.

And there was more, but you get the idea. And it’s about to happen again, because Sarcoptes now have a second album (Prayers to Oblivion) set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on
February 24th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DISCHORDIA — “THE WHEEL”

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Dec 062022
 

Last spring we had the fiendish pleasure of premiering a song from Triptych, the startling new album by Dischordia, which is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records. As we discovered then, and as the label accurately reported in its PR materials, this Oklahoma City crew’s latest full-length is a bone-smashing, mind-boggling hybrid of technical and brutal death metal with a healthy flavoring of dissonance and an impressive degree of adventurousness that matches the virtuosity of the performances.

As we’ve written before, the sound quality of the music is itself very interesting. The guitars have a mangling, mauling, and detonating quality that’s dense, heavy, and brutally distorted, and yet the obliterating drums and the mercurial bass come through vividly, as do the bizarre and often unearthly lead-guitar machinations and the wild howling and roaring vocals.

Moreover, the music is packed with stops and starts, twists and turns, and sudden variations in tempo, and this sonic balance makes it possible to pick out and appreciate even more what’s happening — while still feeling like you’re being scathed and steamrolled into submission.

Many of you have already discovered the disconcerting wonders of Triptych, but you’ll still enjoy and appreciate the full-band playthrough video we’re about to premiere, and for those of you who haven’t been exposed to the album, this should provide a jaw-dropping introduction. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NIDARE — “WINDSPIEL”

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Dec 062022
 

What we have for you today is the premiere of a song whose soul-stirring and soul-stricken passions are unmistakable — music of both torment and tragic beauty, rendered in a way that’s unsettling but in equal measure completely immersive and enthralling.

The name of the song is “Windspiel” (“wind chime”), and as the name signifies, the music rings, and continues ringing in the mind even after it ends. For that, we have Nidare to thank, a Berlin-based black metal band whose members came together from post metal, screamo, and hardcore outlets such as Ancst, Henry Fonda, Ast, Chambers, Afterlife Kids, rýr, and Youth Cult, and who took their name from the old German word “nidar”, which means “below”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ALIENATÖR — “REGRETS”

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Dec 052022
 

Not long ago, November 25th to be precise, the Canadian band Alienatör from Thunder Bay, Ontario, released their second album, Regrets. It’s the kind of album, coming in the late fall from a largely unheralded group, that easily could have flown under the radar. That might have been good for radar screens, which otherwise would have been fractured from the impact, but not so good for listeners, who might have missed a strikingly multi-faceted and emotionally raw and uncompromising experience.

“Sludge metal” might be one label for what you’ll find on Regrets, but that descriptor is too confining, because it doesn’t capture the music’s other ingredients, which range from punk and hardcore to noise rock, or the acid-drenched knife-storm of the lead vocals, which would make most black metal bands proud. Not for naught has the album been recommended for fans of Unsane, Converge, Cursed, Botch, and Jesus Lizard, but those references probably don’t do Regrets complete justice either.

It’s fair to say that Regrets reflects a dark and chaotic time in history, “exploring personal themes, as well as racism, and abuse of power in Canada and the erosion of truth we’ve seen in modern times” (as the band say), but there’s as much fight in the music as there is disgust and despair, and glimpses of self-reflection and o beauty that seem like a window to better times that might come, even if that now seems like a fool’s bet.

In a nutshell, even here in the year’s dwindling days, this is a free-wheeling and cathartic album that’s worth attention. The more people who her Regrets, the more fans it will earn, and to help give it a push we’re premiering a video for the title track today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OMINOUS SCRIPTURES — “RITUALS OF MASS SELF-IGNITION”

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Dec 022022
 

In both 2021 and 2020 we hosted premieres of music from albums by Ominous Scriptures from Minsk, Belarus. Now they’ve got a third full-length headed for release on January 27th via Willowtip Records, and we’re damned happy to support it with yet another premiere.

The name of this new full-length is Rituals of Mass Self-Ignition, and what an outrageously fine title that is, but no less outrageously fine than the monstrously hellish cover art that Jon Zig created for it.  One song from the album has already debuted, and the one we’re bringing today is the title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TURBOCHARGED — “IRRELIGIOUS”

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Dec 022022
 

Metal is good fuel (or good treatment) for lots of moods, but way up on the list of what it’s good for is raising hell, and if you’re in the mood for hellraising, you’ll never go wrong with the Swedish band Turbocharged. They’ve been living up to their name through the course of about two decades and five albums, the most recent of which is Alpha Beast, Omega God (it hit the streets, rioting, about six weeks ago via Emanzipation Productions).

Led by the ex-Vomitory and Gehennah frontman Ronnie Ripper, with a line-up that’s been stable since their first demo release in 2008, Turbocharged have fueled their big engines with lots of high-octane ingredients, maybe Motörhead and Venom most of all, but certainly including old Entombed, Dismember, and traditions of the Swedish punk-metal movement and thrash.

They do raise hell on this newest album, and we do mean HELL. You could hardly find a better example than the album track named “Irreligious“, and that song was the band’s smart choice for the first video released in support of the record. We’re happy as hell to premiere it today. Continue reading »

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