AN NCS PREMIERE: DEADSPACE — “THE MALEVOLENCE I’VE BORN UNTO OTHERS”

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Jul 212023
 

It’s hard for us to imagine that there is anyone out there who doesn’t begin or end their day visiting our site. Still, perhaps the record-shattering heat that has afflicted much of the globe in recent weeks has produced a malaise that has led to inattention. And so it might be wise for us to repeat some of the news we broke about the Australian black metal band Deadspace exactly one week ago (here) — as a prelude to something new from them that we’re presenting today.

The principal news is that on on September 22nd Immortal Frost Productions will release the band’s seventh album, Unveiling the Palest Truth, which was very good news indeed, given that there was a time when it appeared Deadspace had ended its existence. The related news that we broke last week is that even before then Deadspace will release another record, an EP named Within Haunted Chambers that includes three tracks from two Deadspace albums, The Promise of Oblivion (independently released in 2015) and Dirge (released through Talheim Records in 2019), that the band re-recorded to showcase their evolution over the years in the live and studio arenas. As they explained to us:

This is part of us re-establishing ourselves and a much harsher and heavier entity, leaving behind the DSBM moniker. These tracks are how these songs are played live now in 2023 and are designed to sit well amongst our newer material that will be out in September.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LACRAU — “DECLINIO”

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Jul 212023
 

We have paid a lot of attention here over the last six months to the Portuguese band Carma and their second album Ossadas, which was released in early March by Monumental Rex. If you haven’t heard it, you really should find the time to go to this location and do that. We have learned, however, that there are members of Carma, as well as the Portuguese band Everto Signum, that have worked together in another musical entity named Lacrau that will also release an album this year — their full-length debut.

The name of that album is Axioma, and the same Monumental Rex will release it on September 22nd. To help spread the word, we’re premiering one of its emotionally powerful tracks today.

The album is a conceptual work that grapples with an ages-old phenomenon that concerns the burdens of aging, and it’s described in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ARTANOR — “IN SERVITUDE OF DARKNESS”

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Jul 202023
 

Although the Australian solo black metal band Artanor released a split in 2009 (and its sole creator Menelyagor released a demo three years earlier under the name Fen Hollen), there has been no follow-up until now. But as follow-ups go, the band’s forthcoming debut album In Servitude of Darkness (to be released on July 27th by Gutter Prince Cabal) is an unusually ambitious one.

Rather than a stitching-together of unconnected individual songs, it’s the creation of a cohesive soundtrack to an expansive tale of fantasy that Menelyagor has been writing, a novel that relates the conflict between the Necromancer Rakinar and his evil minions, who have lost the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, and Rakinar’s children and their allies, the Murkar. Menelyagor tells us this about the narrative and its connection to the music: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CHALLENGER DEEP — “CONFIDENCE”

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Jul 202023
 

In their own words, Challenger Deep is “an experimental Belarusian band that plays an emotional, atmospheric mix of post-metal, black metal and hardcore,” whose live performances bring “a cold shower of emotions and nerves stretched to the limit, supplemented by atmospheric light show and video background.”

To date, the band have released two albums (Our Own Prisons in 2011, and Irreversible in 2014), a pair of splits (with their countrymen Barrow in 2013, and with Poland’s Hegemone in 2015), as well as a 2016 single named “Indifference“. And though there’s been a long seven years of silence since that last release, the band have brought themselves back together and are working toward the release of a new album — III. The Path — by the end of 2023.

To help pave the way, today we’re premiering a new single from the album named “Confidence“, and based on the power of what it delivers, expectations for the new full-length should be be very high. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NITE — “THE TRIDENT”

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Jul 192023
 

On their most recent album Voices of the Kronian Moon (released in March of last year by Season of Mist), the Bay Area band Nite found a rare sweet spot — often summed up by reviewers as an intersection of glorious NWoBHM riffs and leads and the venom of blackened vocals, though the heavy metal stylings woven through the songs in fact extended beyond those trad-metal references.

With a line-up featuring members of Dawnbringer, High Spirits, Satan’s Wrath, Wild Hunt, and Serpents of Dawn, perhaps it wasn’t a shock that the songs were so well-written and performed with such genuine spirit and feeling, yet the album still excelled in ways people might not have expected, and it certainly provided a big and bracing step forward from the band’s (also excellent) debut full-length, Darkness Silence Mirror Flame.

We would guess the odds are high that most visitors to our site are already quite familiar with Nite and Voices of the Kronian Moon, but some folks (whether frequent visitors or newcomers) may still not have tumbled to its manifold allures. And so today we have a great reminder, an official video for “The Trident“, the album’s hard-rocking closer. And even those of you who already know the album and the song well are in for a treat. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HIVERLUCIDE — “FOR THE ABYSS”

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Jul 192023
 

In March of this year Trepanation Recordings, Fiadh Productions, and Vita Detestabilis Records released Satan Death Whale, an experimental three-track album by the two members of the French band Non Serviam working through their side project Hiverlucide. It was recorded in live conditions and was described at the time as “their first attempt at mesmerizing through whale chants”:

“Lacking melody, and (de)generating a profoundly misanthropic atmosphere inhabitable for humans by exploring the tritone, with drone apparitions, unidentifiable organic human and animal sounds, electric guitars, and layers and layers of decadence.”

It was further suggested that fans of Sunn O))) and Tangerine Dream might find it especially appealing.

We described the album (at least in part) as an “immersive experience” but in many ways also an “unnerving one” which created manifold juxtapositions: “something like celestial choirs high above, and an immense undulating drone of subterranean depth; shrill piercing cacophonies redolent of pain and madness, moaning chords, and mutated organ-like tones that seem to ring in lunatic glory beneath the vault of an abandoned gothic cathedral; whirlpools of screaming agony bounded by the crushing of rock and the mangling of iron. A hallucinatory sonic nightmare of destruction and despair, it roils the mind and puts the teeth on edge, and to become lost in it is almost inescapable”.

Hiverlucide did not end their harrowing experiment with Satan Death Whale. They created a follow-up improvisational experience, again creating it under live conditions but this time doing it in front of an audience in their first public performance. They named this 22 1/2 minute sequel “For the Abyss“, and today we present it to you in full along with a video of the performance. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MOONLIGHT SORCERY — “VIHAN VERHON TAKAA”

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Jul 182023
 

After releasing a pair of singles and a pair of EPs since the beginning of 2022, the Finnish melodic black metal band Moonlight Sorcery will at last release a debut album entitled Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle through Avantgarde Music in September of this year.

To help pave the way, they released the most recent of those singles last month on 7″ vinyl; with the nane Burning Embrace, it included the original song ““In Coldest Embrace” (which will appear on the album), along with a B-side cover of Deep Purple‘s “Burn“.

And to further pave the way, they will digitally release another single from the album on June 21st. Its name is “Vihan verhon takaa”, and we’re bringing it to you today via the premiere stream you’ll find below. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SEPTORY — “SWAMP”

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Jul 172023
 

The Russian death metal band Septory came together in Saint Petersburg in 2005. They released albums in 2008 and 2011, plus a split with Finland’s Sadistik Forest in 2013, and then a long silence descended. But now, a decade later, Septory is releasing a compilation that spans the long bridge between their first recordings and new works in 2023.

Entitled Rotting Humanity, it’s set for co-release on August 17th by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Heretic Rex (Russia). A six-track collection, it consists of the previously unreleased 2006 EP Rotting Humanity (which includes the title track and a cover of Deicide‘s “Sacrificial Suicide”); a demo from 2007 (“Madness“); a completely re-recorded song from the 2008 album World War Chaos (“Swamp”); a new recording of a cover of Benediction‘s “The Grotesque”; and a new intro track named “Dies Irae”.

For the new recordings, Deiron (guitars, bass, vocals) was joined by guest musicians Dym Nox (Pyre, Blazing Rust, Drama) on drums, and Devourer (Warder, Sudden Rage, Rotten Coffin, Apostate) on vocals, and the compilation is adorned by the cover art of Rotten Phantom.

What we have for you today is the premiere of that re-recorded song “Swamp” from Septory‘s World War Chaos album. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD FIELDS OF WOOLWICH — “I’VE MADE IT TO HELL”

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Jul 132023
 

We’re told that Dead Fields Of Woolwich had its beginnings in the Autumn of 2020 in North Bay, Ontario when multi-instrumentalist Kye Bell (Within Nostalgia) created a project inspired by a love of bands like Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, and Wood Of Ypres. The band’s name was inspired by the place where he grew up in southern Ontario, a place that left memories of “of old fields, scarecrows, and dense woods of twisted trees”.

Although still considered a solo project at heart, the band’s forthcoming self-titled album includes the performances of session vocalist Alyssa Broere (Within Nostalgia, ex-Astral Witch), and you’ll see from our video premiere today that Alyssa plays a vital role in the album’s captivating rendering of gothic melodic doom. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: COUNTESS ERZSEBET — “IN THE BLOOD OF VIRGINS”

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Jul 132023
 

In this feature today we’re sort of premiering a video for a song from the forthcoming self-titled mini-album by the artist Countess Erzsebet. “Sort of” because the video is age-restricted, and therefore we’re only able to give you a link to YouTube where you can verify that you are a mature adult, or at least an adult.

The name of the song is “In the Blood of Virgins“, and it’s age-restricted because (as the Countess explains) it includes “abstract erotic horror elements”, though the scenes of her bathing in blood obviously weren’t abstract enough to satisfy YouTube and its algorithms.

Before we get to some further details about the video, and most especially about the music you’ll hear, we might need to introduce some of you to Countess Erzsebet (previously known as Erzsebet when she released the nearly-album-length Black Spell in 2017). She is also known as Rachel Bloodspell Moongoddess, who has previously played bass for a number of bands but more recently Xasthur, where she did three tours playing acoustic bass and was on the Aestas Pretium MMXVIII EP.

But her background also includes other interesting details. Continue reading »

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