AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLACK ROYAL — “GHOSTS OF THE DEAD”

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Oct 052022
 

 

The heart is a pump. It drives the pulse. It sets the beat. Whether it slowly thumps or hammers in your throat, it’s the body’s rhythm section. When music makes us move, isn’t it because it connects to those primal grooves that keep us alive? (Anthropologists and other scientists have probably proven this, but at the moment we can’t be bothered to hunt for the proof.)

But the fact that the reaction is reflexive means that it’s easy for even mediocre musicians to lay down songs that make listeners move. Even extreme heavy metal bands do that all the time, easily triggering the headbang reflex, even though other groups obviously believe that putting too much groove in their music cheapens their “artistry” or clashes with their “ethos”. And indeed, taking the easy way out is rarely the basis for respect.

Which brings us to Black Royal, and what has made — and still makes — their deathly sludge ‘n’ roll so special. It’s undeniable (or at least your reptile brain won’t deny it) that in both their music and their vocal phrasings these Finns know how to lock in with the beat of your heart, and make it both slowly pump and hammer like a well-fueled piston.

But their expertise in doing that isn’t the sole basis for the allure of their music, and in the case of their new album Earthbound, which will be released on October 21st by M-Theory Audio, a strong case can be made that it’s the artistry and ethos of everything else they do which makes the album stand out. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MASTIC SCUM — “ICON”

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Oct 052022
 

(On October 7th MDD Records will release a new album by the Austrian band Mastic Scum, and it’s our honor to premiere a full stream of it today, preceded by an extensive review prepared by NCS writer DGR.)

It is wild to think that were it not for 2017’s Defy EP almost nine years would have passed between releases for Austria’s Mastic Scum. As it stands. almost nine years between full-lengths is getting up there in time, and five years between an EP and a full-length is pretty lengthy as well. Usually when you get gaps like that it is because the band have gone through massive lineup changes or things behind the scenes, usually resulting in some sort of change in sound. Long-lost groups will return and it will play out like a relaunch of the band in those ways, the prior history something for the books and the current format the defining sounding.

It’s hard to even fathom the amount of shit the world has gone through in the span of time between the December 2013 release of Mastic Scum‘s album CTRL and the impending release of their new album Icon. You’d think that with everything we’ve all been through it would be reflected in the Mastic Scum sound, but Icon is kind of incredible because it’s like the band looked at the ever-shifting sands of heavy metal and the constantly changing scenes in death metal, glanced at their own brand of industrial-strength Terminator-murdering death metal, and just said, “Haha, nope”, things are going to stay exactly the same.

Because Icon picks up right where CTRL left off… like almost from the exact moment, down to the four-letter album title that has been every Mastic Scum full-length. The biggest difference here is that Icon is the first Mastic Scum album since 2005’s Mind not to feature a skull up front and center on the album art in some form. Icon is  Mastic Scum once again pummeling the planet for ten songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THUNDERING HOOVES — “RADIANCE”

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Oct 052022
 

(Andy Synn presents his first impressions of the fantastic new album from Thundering Hooves, which is set for release on October 7th by Mercenary Press)

Well, here we are… finally.

I say “finally” because, originally, this premiere/review was meant to go live yesterday, but due to a major behind-the-scenes mix-up (which involved me working with the wrong promo materials entirely… long story) we had to bump it back a day.

But, while this obviously means I haven’t been able to give it the usual in-depth investigation, perhaps we should treat this as something of an opportunity… after all, dear reader, how often is it that you and I get to experience an album for the first time together?

So let’s see what Radiance has to offer, shall we, and compare our notes at the end? Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MORBID STENCH — “MACABRE INTROSPECTION”

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Oct 042022
 

The process of rot after death may seem like a slow and stultifying process, but in fact there is a feverish busyness beneath the surface. Decomposition begins immediately, as a multitude of a body’s organisms join forces to create putrefaction, releasing compounds such as cadaverine and putrescine, which produce the unmistakably putrid odor of decay. Where possible, they are aided by worms and other external creatures satiating their own hunger from the stinking flesh.

No, this isn’t a science class today, but merely some morbid meditations spawned by the Central American necrotic doom-death band Morbid Stench and their new album The Rotting Ways of Doom. And it’s not just the name of the band and the title of their new album that prompt such thoughts, but also the music itself — and we have a prime example of that in our premiere of a track off the new album named “Macabre Introspection“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLASPHEMOUS PUTREFACTION — “WEATHERED”

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Oct 032022
 

It’s not often that we’ve premiered two songs from the same release three years apart (well, actually we’ve never done that before), but in the case of Blasphemous Putrefaction‘s Festering Plagues EP, that’s what we’re now doing.

You see, this EP was first released on cassette tape (by Death In Pieces) back in 2019. It was this German duo’s second release, following the Abominable Premonition demo two years earlier, and we greedily premiered a song from the EP named “Grief” shortly before the release.

Since then Blasphemous Putrefaction have released a debut album — 2020’s Prelude to Perversion — via Dunkelheit Produktionen. And that album made such a fabulously disgusting impact that it’s no wonder someone decided to reissue Festering Plagues, which is what the Crawling Chaos label will do on October 28th, capturing the EP in a CD edition for the first time.

So, strictly speaking, the song we’re presenting today isn’t a premiere, but more like a re-introduction, though it’s highly likely it will indeed be a first-listen for many of you. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IMPUGNER — “OSTRACIZED VITALITY

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Sep 302022
 

Last December an obscure death metal band from Oslo named Impugner independently released their debut demo Advent of the Wretched in a tiny run of tapes. But Impugner won’t remain unnoticed, because that tape found its way to Sentient Ruin Laboratories and Caligari Records, who pounced on it. They will jointly be reissuing it on November 4th, and with respected labels like that giving Advent of the Wretched a big push, Impugner are about to find a much bigger audience.

It’s no wonder these labels were seduced. Impugner have invested themselves in an early phase of death metal’s evolution, when bands like Autopsy, Death, Pungent Stench, Nihilist, and Darkthrone (circa Soulside Journey) were shaking up the underground, but while that kind of old-school devotion is at the core of what Impugner have achieved on Advent of the Wretched, there’s more going on here than slavish worship of early heroes — as you’ll discover from our premiere of the song “Ostracized Vitality” today. Continue reading »

VEILBURNER: A REVIEW OF “VLBRNR” AND THE PREMIERE OF “REPULSED BY THE LIGHT”

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Sep 302022
 

(Today we premiere a song off the new album by Veilburner, which is set for release on December 2nd by Transcending Obscurity Records, and to accompany it we present a fascinating in-depth review by Rob Tamplin.)

At this moment in time it’s difficult to think of a more on-the-nose band name. If Pennsylvania’s Mephisto Deleterio and Chrisom Infernium intended to toy with controversy when they conceived Veilburner, they could never have predicted world events taking place on the eve of the release of their sixth album. Born into a world where burqas are banned in 16 states, while protesters in Iran have been arrested and killed for burning their hijabs, both sides, fighting for the choice to either wear or not wear an item of clothing.

On this almost-eponymously-titled mission statement, Veilburner tell us none of us has any choice at all.

Across the album’s runtime, Infernium fires off a volley of hexes, ipse dixits, questions, and demands, all pointing to the inconvenient truth that humans’ warlike nature (“lathe a shiv from broken rib”) has consigned us all to a grisly end.

The band restrict the album’s lyrical matter to the realm of Old Testament apocrypha. I’m sure there’s a lot more going on with the lyrics than I can identify – Google searches of ‘the womb of Gehenna [and] the valleys of Sheol’ reveal these to be abodes of the dead in Jewish and Christian eschatology, i.e., ‘the doctrine of last things’! Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AMAUROT — “…TO TREAD THE ANCIENT WATERS”

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Sep 292022
 

In the broad domain of Doom its musical denizens often dwell in subterranean caverns, moldering crypts, or dingy weed-steeped squats. But others, like Amaurot, make their home in ancient gothic halls, elaborately embellished and richly furnished, even if still swathed in darkness and with catacombs beneath that lead to perilous caves where beasts growl their laments.

To lead you on a grand tour of their haunted dwelling, this Sweden and Germany-based group have recorded a debut album named …To Tread the Ancient Waters, which will be released tomorrow by Obelisk Polaris Productions. They welcome you to their bleak but fascinating abode with these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DAIUS — “JĂLIRE”

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Sep 292022
 

Many members of the Romanian band Daius will be best known to listeners as current or former members of the widely beloved Clouds (and a dozen other groups), but the music of Daius takes them in other directions, which could be crudely summed up as a fashioning of atmospheric/pagan black metal. Those directions were first revealed in the debut album of Daius, named Ascuns, which was released in February of last year. Consisting of five substantial tracks, three of which were 10 minutes or longer in length, it deserved much more attention than it received.

Hopefully, the word about Daius will spread further, and their new single that we’re premiering today through a lyric video should help do that, especially because it foreshadows the creation of another Daius album in the coming months. The name of this song is “Jălire“, and the band describe its conception in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORBIFIC — “SUICIDE SANCTUM”

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Sep 292022
 

Contemplate the artwork of Chase Slaker that introduces people to the second album by Morbific. Take in the wretched, lifeless vision of skeletons strewn about and piled high in chilling monoliths. Consider also the album’s name — Squirm Beyond the Mortal Realm — and song titles such as “Meal From An Open Skull”, “Initiation Into Oblivion”, “Malignant Germination”, or the track we’re premiering today, “Suicide Sanctum“.

All of that foretells death (metal) and the presence of the supernatural.

These signposts are also very accurate. Morbific‘s brand of death metal is undeniably raw and foul, well-calculated to channel sensations of disease, putrefaction, and madness while giving your bones a brutal beating — and creating an atmosphere of supernatural horror while they do all that.

That would be enough for most fans of rotten-to-the-core death metal, but it turns out that Morbific are ridiculously good at making their creations head-moving and “catchy” as well as hideous. Continue reading »

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