AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PRÉSAGES – “HIÉROPHANIE / PLEURE – LIVE IN THE STUDIO”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 142022
 

(With an introduction by Andy Synn, today we premiere a video of the Montreal band Présages performing the final two tracks on their 2021 debut album Pleurs.)

The debut album from Présages was one of last year’s hidden gems (and you can read more about it here).

By amalgamating elements of Death, Doom, and Post-Metal — aided and abetted by an almost Meshuggah-sized guitar tone — the eight tracks which made up Pleurs left a serious (and seriously heavy) impression on yours truly, and I’m pretty sure at least some of our readers had the same reaction.

It wasn’t just that the Canadian quartet were capable of conjuring such a stunningly dense, almost physically palpable, sense of sheer sonic mass with their music though, it was their ability to pair this level of riff-focussed (and, at key moments, blast-driven) intensity with an equally massive and weighty sense of atmosphere, as well as some subtle, mood-enhancing electronic elements, which helped them stand out from the crowd.

But you don’t have to take my word for it, as the band have asked us to host a “live in the studio” performance of the album’s climactic double-act – “Hiérophanie” and “Pleure” – which together represent the very best that Présages have to offer, and positions them as potential future leaders of the burgeoning “Atmospheric Death Metal” movement, alongside similarly awesome artists like Barús, Nightmarer, and Nero Di Marte. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): S.I.D. — “CITY OF CHEMISTRY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 132022
 

With their new EP City of Chemistry, the Italian death-doom-sludge band S.I.D. have created a devastating experience, the musical equivalent of crusher, crematorium, and crypt, designed to channel the suffocation of hope and the domination of agony.

The music is a match for the concept of the EP. It was principally inspired by the book Veleni di Stato by the Italian author and journalist Gianluca Di Feo, which condemned the production and use of chemical weapons during the second World War. The music makes a harrowing journey through the horrors of war, with a focus on the places where chemical instruments of death were developed and produced, concealed by warmongering powers.

At a time when war is again ravaging souls in many places, the EP stands as both a reminder and a denunciation, and it serves as a second chapter by the band, following their 2019 debut album Architects of Armageddon. Elaborating on these themes, the band explain: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRITICAL EXTRAVASATION — “WALTZ OF HYPOCRISY”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 122022
 

 

Almost eight months after it began, the war in Ukraine drags on. Spawned by Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked aggression and delusional dreams of imperialist grandeur, and prosecuted in part through a litany of apparent war crimes, it has caused agony and death on a large scale. Worse still, it appears to be entering a particularly vicious new phase, where even Putin seems to realize that victory is impossible and that rather than attempt to occupy a country he feels has no right to exist, the mission will now be to terrorize and destroy it.

These events have put many Russians in a difficult position, and a dangerous position for those who not only disagree with what Putin has done but speak out about it. Sure, from afar it seems like most Russians have been kept in the dark or brainwashed by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, but there have been growing cracks in that wall of misinformation and suppression of dissent. For some people, those cracks began long ago.

Critical Extravasation, the band whose music we’re premiering here, are Russian. Three days after Putin’s invasion, they made this post on their Facebook page: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARCHE — “IN A SOLACE LIGHT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 122022
 

 

Of course record labels always heap praise on their own releases, and only the naive would take that without a heaping dose of salt. We use lots of salt. As consumers of endless press releases, we often roll our eyes at the hyperbole after listening to what they gush about, and too often find that instead of groundbreaking AOTY material the music turns out to be generic and dull.

The track record of some labels is solid enough, and their good taste dependable enough, that we give more weight to their promotional verbiage. Transcending Obscurity Records is one of those labels. But we still confess to being a bit skeptical when reading their claim that the Finnish band Arche had succeeded in adding “masterful touches” to the sounds developed by such groups as Thergothon, Skepticism, and Shape of Despair, and their proud proclamation that Arche‘s new album Transitions is “an immaculate expression of ethereal, moving, atmospheric doom metal that has everything in the right proportions”.

Would it really be so? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECIPHER — “ENSLAVED TO BE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 122022
 

If you’ve caught the first two advance tracks from Decipher‘s new record Arcane Paths To Resurrection then you already know this about the band’s talents: Their riffing is gale-blown and flame-throwing, but also slashing and cruel, and the hooks within them are potent. Their rhythm section thunders but also rocks. The vocals are both deliriously hellish and grim in their chants. And the melodies channel a range of dire and desperate emotions with formidable power.

If you’ve heard those songs you’ve also learned that this Greek black metal band are dynamic songwriters, capable of erupting in violent frenzies but also scaling their music to heights of anguished splendor.

And if you haven’t heard those first two songs, you really ought to (we have them for you below), but we also invite you to listen to a new third song that we’re presenting today, “Enslaved To Be“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WHORE OF BETHLEHEM — “PSEUDOCHRIST”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 112022
 

It’s been five years since Whore of Bethlehem appeared in our pages. Back then the subject was their then-forthcoming second album Extinguish the Light. It spawned thoughts of hellish war zones, brutal bludgeonings, and slithering serpents. In a nutshell, we called their blend of brutal death and black metal “catchy stuff, as well as obliterating”.

Five years along, these central Texas demons have risen from their crypts into the light again, with a new single named “Pseudochrist” that we’re premiering today along with a visualizer that makes good use of the striking cover art. It stands alone as a vivid reminder of the band’s electrifying savagery, but it’s also a herald of a new album that’s in the works, which makes it even better news. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): XANATHAR — “GOLD, BLACK AND CRIMSON”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 102022
 

 

If you haven’t yet tumbled to the marvelous talents of the Italian one-man band Xanathar, today is a good day to do that. Prior to today Xanathar had released two EPs (Darkmoon and The Towers), both of them emerging last year, but today there’s a third one and it’s an eye-opener too.

What made the two previous EPs such great experiences was Xanathar‘s skill in interweaving classic ’80s doom and epic heavy metal with raw black metal and dungeon synth. It was quite evident from those releases that Xanathar really loves all those divergent stylistic influences. But just because you love a bunch of disparate kinds of music doesn’t mean they’ll work together well if you try to mash ’em up or even stand them side-by-side. Making it work requires a lot more than affection.

Xanathar made it work in those first two outings, so much so that I included a song named “The Test of Fate” on my list of 2021’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. And as you’ll discover through our premiere stream today, it works again on Gold, Black and Crimson. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE HOWLING VOID — “DEEPER, DARKER WATERS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Oct 072022
 

The last time we wrote about The Howling Void, three and a half years ago, this one-man project was on the verge of releasing its seventh album, Bleak and Everlasting. We’d been following the project for a long time even then, and remarked that it wasn’t like following someone on a sidewalk, striding along a straight line, but more like being in a dense forest and thinking, “Where the hell did he go?!? He was right in front of me a second ago!”

That was an effort to explain that the muse followed by the band’s Texas-based alter ego Ryan Wilson has periodically tended to lead him off in different directions as one album has followed another, even though the branching paths still weave through the massive forests and looming monoliths of funeral doom.

We’re revisiting The Howling Void now because an album named Into Darkness Ever More Profound will finally follow Bleak and Everlasting, and it might be the first one with a release date in 2023 that we’ve covered here so far. As you can see, we have a song premiere today to help spread the word, and it comes timed to coincide with another Bandcamp Friday, where more of your money will go to the artists and labels, thanks to Bandcamp surrendering its usual share. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INVICTUS — “BLEED ME OUT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 072022
 

To say that Maurizio Iacono has nothing left to prove is to state the obvious. After 14 studio albums from Kataklysm (and a host of other releases), four more full-lengths from Ex Deo, numerous global tours and festival performances, and many other endeavors in prominent aspects of the music business, he’s already secured a rare level of success in the world of heavy metal and a secure position in its history.

Having nothing left to prove, however, doesn’t mean having nothing left to say. How else does one explain his decision to create a new band at this very mature stage of his career? That is in fact what Maurizio has done with the formation of Invictus, a group that makes its recording debut with an album named Unstoppable on October 21st via the MNRK Heavy label. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UPON YOUR GRAVE — “GOLD & DECAY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 062022
 

The image of a golden heart amidst black roses which welcomes listeners to the new EP by the Quebec-based death metal band Upon Your Grave isn’t just appropriate for the EP’s title — Gold & Decay — it also meshes with some of the music’s manifold ingredients. There’s head-spinning brilliance in these five songs, but also a surrounding yet alluring darkness in some of the melodies.

But the cover doesn’t clue you in to all of the ingredients, most prominently the fact that in this EP Upon Your Grave routinely inflict the kind of brutally obliterating beatings and unchained demolition work that spawns images of shattered bones and buildings reduced to rubble. And while there are moments that are mesmerizing, the main probable effect of the EP will be to leave people hyperventilated and gasping. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries