AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): IRONHAWK — “RITUAL OF THE WAR PATH”

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Jun 282022
 

It’s time to raise hell and horns, to get hearts hammering, heads pumping, and voices snarling. To do that, we’re bringing you a full stream of the fierce and feral debut album by the Tasmanian devils who call themselves Ironhawk. Fittingly named Ritual of the War Path, and fittingly emblazoned with battle-ax imagery, it’s set for imminent release on June 30th by Dying Victims Productions.

By way of quick introduction to the particular kind of punk/metal rampaging embraced by this trio (who made their start covering Motörhead songs), we’ll first share an excerpt from the PR material: “We hear the cavernous crunge of early Bathory, the sooty surge of early Sacrilege, the burning spirits of prime English Dogs, and definitely (and uniquely for this style) the epic landscapes of mid ‘80s Amebix across the album’s surprisingly dynamic 37 minutes”.

So that’s one kind of preview, but of course we have our own…. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOUL DISSOLUTION — “THE ABSOLVING TIDE”

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Jun 282022
 

 

Four years have passed since Soul Dissolution released their last album, Stardust, a phenomenal achievement that still rings in the head with lasting power. Since then we’ve had the good fortune of two further releases by this Belgian atmospheric post-black metal band, the EPs named Nowhere and Winter Contemplations, both of them delivering two long-form tracks it was very easy to get lost in. And now Soul Dissolution are returning with an eagerly awaited new full-length.

The name of the new album is SORA (a Japanese word for “sky”), and it’s described as “a conceptual work about the sky and its many facets”. We’ll still have some anxious waiting to discover what all five of its tracks do with that expansive concept, because the release won’t come until September 30th (via the band’s own Viridian Flame Records). But we do have a powerful first sign in the song we’re helping the band reveal today. The title of the song is “The Absolving Tide“, and it comes with an official video. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TUSCOMA — “GU-CCI”

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Jun 272022
 

 

The title and lyrical themes of Tuscoma’s new album Gu-cci have little or nothing to do with the usual tropes of extreme metal. Anti-church tirades are missing, as are demonic invocations, troughs of gore, dank catacombs, the blaze of torches, or the brandishing of blades. They’re more poetic, more emotionally rooted, and never exactly spell things out.

Tuscoma‘s music on the new album is also itself unorthodox, bringing together elements from a range of genres, including black metal, post-metal, death metal, shoegaze, and hardcore. The results are monumentally heavy, powerfully turbulent, and emotionally fracturing. The songs become daunting, desolate, and deranged, coupled with rhythms that hit with concrete-splitting force. In other words, it’s not what you might expect from the album title or the lyrics.

Before elaborating on the sounds ourselves, we’ll begin by sharing a comment from Tuscoma bassist Craig Leahy: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUFFOCATER — “EMPTY STREETS”

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Jun 242022
 

 

We’re bringing you a helluva good song in this feature, one that helps herald the forthcoming arrival of Rotting Existence, a new record from Salt Lake City’s Suffocater. This is a group that only formed last summer, but they’ve wasted no time, releasing a self-titled debut EP last November and now following it with this album.

The band’s three members all played in punk and folk projects in the past, but they united within Suffocater as a way of channeling their passion for heavier music. They describe their style as “straightforward hardcore with brutal metal vocals,” taking influences from bands like Portrayal of Guilt, Eyehategod, and Genocide Pact.

But like most shorthand descriptions, that one doesn’t fully incorporate what you’ll hear in their music. You’ll get a better idea by checking out the song from the new release that we’re premiering today — “Empty Streets“ Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SVART VINTER — “GALE”

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Jun 242022
 

On September 15th of this year the Italian label Black Mass Prayers will release the striking debut album of Svart Vinter, an extreme metal band that combines the songwriting and instrumental talents of Luca Gagnoni and Emanuela Marino from Rome, and the terrifying vocals of Argentinian performer Noctem Aeternus.

Here at NCS we know of Gagnoni and Marino from their work in Veil of Conspiracy, whose latest album we premiered and praised here last year. There were “blackened” ingredients in that music, along with elements of doom and death metal, but in Svart Vinter‘s first full-length, Mist, they’ve indulged their black metal influences to a much greater degree.

Yet in Svart Vinter they continue to demonstrate, as they did through Veil of Conspiracy, the capacity to wholly immerse listeners in spellbinding (and shattering) music of great emotional power. That will become evident when you hear the song we’re premiering today, whose name is “Gale“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: REMAINS — “LORDS OF GRIND”

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Jun 232022
 

You are about to experience the third and final video for the third and final single off Grind ‘Til Death, the debut album by the Melbourne-based death/grind powerhouse Remains, which will be released worldwide via Spikerot Records and in Australia via Disdain Records on July 15th.

This one is named “Lords of Grind“, and as you’ll see in the lyric video, the song is about Remains themselves and the punishment their music inflicts on listeners and club-goers. Now if you’re going to brazenly anoint yourselves “Lords of Grind“, you’d better be able to back it up — and man, do Remains back it up! Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ENDONOMOS — “ATROPOS”

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Jun 222022
 

 

Welcome friends to the haunted halls of doom, where heavy ancient vaults loom high above, candles flicker, and skeletal spectres seductively beckon — with teeth bared within their vapors. Our guides through these chilling domains will be the Austrian band Endonomos.

Endonomos is a new name, but one that’s likely to spread quickly because of the power of their self-titled debut album, which will be released by Argonauta Records on August 26th. It’s the brainchild of Austrian multi-instrumentalist, producer, and session musician Lukas Haidinger, who is mostly known for playing extreme Metal for bands like Profanity, Nervecell, Distaste (and many more).

Through Endonomos, he has indulged his long-held affection for Doom, joined by his friends Armin Schweiger (drums), Philipp Forster (guitars), and Christoph Steinlechner (guitars) — who are obviously off on a tangent from their main musical pursuits too.

Well, but Doom is a varied domain. Where within it have Endonomos gone? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALTARS — “LUMINOUS JAR”

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Jun 222022
 

 

As the years plodded along after the release of Altars‘ impressive 2013 debut album Paramnesia, it began to seem that the band were dead and buried. Its members occasionally surfaced in other groups and projects, but Altars itself remained silent for what turned into more than eight long years. In part this was due to a debilitating illness affecting co-founding member Cale Schmidt (vocals and bass). Yet finally Altars have emerged again, renewed and even more formidable than before.

How this finally happened is a tale we at NCS don’t yet know, but we do know that it included the involvement of Convulsing‘s Brendan Sloan as the band’s new bassist and vocalist, joining founding guitarist Lewis Fischer and founding drummer Alan Cadman. Together, this formidable trio have recorded a new album named Ascetic Reflection that’s now set for release on July 8th by Everlasting Spew Records.

Paramnesia revealed an adventurous songwriting spirit, and that hasn’t changed on the new record, but if you know the first album, you’ll also easily discern changes in the new one, and the song we’re premiering today is a vivid example of Altars‘ evolution. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEVERED HEADSHOP — “ETERNAL SOUL PENETRATION”

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Jun 212022
 

Take an array of bullet-spitting and neck-breaking percussive assaults, heaping helpings of fretwork mania, doses of brazen and grim melody, a slaughtering spectrum of vocal belligerence, and some bridge-collapsing breakdowns, then put all that into the blender of your mind and press “Puree” in rapid pulses.

That thought might help you imagine what the Indiana band Severed Headshop pull off in the barbaric and bamboozling track we’re premiering today, along with a video of the performance.

The song in question, “Eternal Soul Penetration“, is one of five that appear on their hilariously named debut EP The Fuckening, which is now set for an August 5th release by Everlasting Spew Records. It’s quite a head-scrambling stylistic amalgam, which the label has attempted to sum up this way: “Blending early 2000s brutal death with blackened sorceries and modern Death Metal approaches and playing it all with a grindcore sneer….” Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: GRAVE GNOSIS AND HVILE I KAOS — “TOWARDS THE NAMELESS DARKNESS”

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Jun 202022
 

 

Way down at the bottom of this extensive feature you’ll find the premiere stream of Towards the Nameless Darkness, a remarkable split by Grave Gnosis and Hvile I Kaos that’s set for a June 21 release by the Red Nebula label. We’d never blame anyone for just going there right now and beginning to listen, but either before or after indulging yourselves with the music you might appreciate the insights and additional information we’ve assembled.

Both of these bands have already made names for themselves among discriminating and demanding listeners, and for those devoted fans anything new from them will be welcome. But we hope the split will also bring new fans into the fold, especially because this split release functions as a teaser for new albums that are in progress from each band — Pestilence Crowned by Grave Gnosis, and Lower Order Manifestations by Hvile I Kaos. Continue reading »

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