AN NCS PREMIERE: 0N0 — “UNWAVERING RESONANCE”

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May 102022
 

If you’re unfamiliar with the music of the Slovakian trio 0N0 (and shame on you if you’re not!), Metal-Archives will tell you that it’s “Experimental Industrial Doom/Death Metal”, which is a mouthful, and still not completely adequate. As we wrote here when we last had occasion to write about 0N0, “Eerie, chilling, tremendously heavy music” might be a different way of trying to wrestle their sounds into linguistic form, yet still misses some relevant adjectives.

That last visitation we made was through our premiere of the band’s tremendous 2019 split with Owl, and today’s reunion is prompted by their follow-on release, a new album named Unwavering Resonance.

Divided into four massive tracks that collectively just under forty minutes, it’s no easier to classify than 0N0‘s previous creations. It presents a sequence of extravagant, elaborate, mind-blowing, and jaw-dropping journeys so wondrous and frightening that they seem only barely tethered to the planet we call home. We have one of those excursions to share with you today, and it’s the new album’s title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HORN — “VERZET”

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May 092022
 

One week from today the German pagan black metal band Horn will release Verzet, its ninth album in a musical career that now spans nearly two decades. As ever, Verzet is the vision and solo work of Niklas, aided by a few talented guest performers.

The album’s name is Dutch for “resistance”, and three of the tracks (“Galgenblech”, “Aufstand”, and “Verzet”) deal with the topic of rebellion, while others concern the importance of perseverance and principles (“A Hill To Die On”) and the concept of agency and the lack thereof (“Protektor”). But the song that Horn chose as the lead “single”, which was accompanied by a beautiful video, was “Alpenrekorder”, and it manifested a reawakening of the classic Horn style, with its roots in folkloric traditions and a reverence for nature. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MOONSHADE — “BLOOD OF THE TITANS”

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May 062022
 

Moonshade are a melodic extreme metal band from Porto, Portugal, who are now more than a decade into a promising career. Their second album, As We Set the Skies Ablaze, is now set for release on July 22nd. With one single from the album (“Epitaph“) already out in the world, today we’re helping spread the word about a second one, which is presented through a lyric video.

This newest single, “Blood of the Titans“, draws upon ancient Greek mythology to confront humankind with a choice, and fashion a message, and it does that through melodic death metal that’s electrifying in its vibrancy and magnificence. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HARVESTED — “HARVESTED”

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May 052022
 

Harvested are an Ottawa-based quartet (with members from Quebec as well as Ontario) who are on the brink of releasing their self-titled debut EP, and it is indeed an explosive debut. Drawing influence from the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, and Hate Eternal, Harvested blast their way through five ferocious tracks that combine visceral destructive power, megawatt vocal intensity, and the kind of high-speed technically impressive performances that tend to pop eyes wide open.

That melding of speed, savagery, and technical fireworks makes the run through the full torrent of the EP an electrifying (and indeed breathtaking) experience, and it’s an experience we’re providing today through our premiere stream of the EP in its entirety. So, take some deep breaths, and proceed…. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TOMB OF FINLAND — “WRETCHED BLISS”

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May 052022
 

The beautifully made video you’re about to see takes us on a journey of mystery, menace, magic, and madness. We follow the actions of a lone shirtless man who appears to be engaged in a ritual of incantations and blood, a ritual that spawns hallucinatory visions and the presence of a hooded figure who may not be of this world. The man seems to spasm like a puppet on a string. He burns from the inside out, and perhaps what burns is his soul — as it is removed and encased in a different vessel, leaving his body a lifeless husk.

Does he experience a wretched kind of bliss during the course of this experience? Well, that is the name of the fantastic song by Tomb of Finland which the video presents, a song that will be released as a single on May 6th to help pave the way for the band’s forthcoming third album, which will be released later this year by Uprising! Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ENSANGUINATE — “LOWERMOST BAPTISMS”

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May 042022
 

Today we revisit the Slovenian band Ensanguinate, whose 2020 debut demo Entranced By Decay we praised here as an offering of “absolutely delicious red meat for a death/thrashing metal fan”. What they’ve got for us now is a debut album named Eldritch Anatomy, to be released later this year by Emanzipation Productions, and what we’ve got for you is a first taste of what it brings to the table.

That first taste is a song from the album named “Lowermost Baptisms“, which will be officially released as a single this coming Friday, May 6th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABADDON INCARNATE — “SHRINE OF FLESH”

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May 042022
 

Later this year, in furtherance of a career that now spans a quarter-century, the Irish extreme metal band Abaddon Incarnate will release their sixth album overall, and their first one since 2014’s Pessimist. Transcending Obscurity Records will handle the release, and promises that The Wretched Sermon not only delivers “a quintessential blend” of death metal and grindcore but also expands upon the band’s sound by “injecting myriad elements from thrash parts to atmospheric passages and stringing them together using staggering transitions”, thereby turning it into “a fascinating beast of an album”.

We haven’t yet heard all of what Abaddon Incarnate preach in The Wretched Sermon, but the new album track we’re premiering today — “Shrine of Flesh” — bears out at least some of the label’s promises. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SIETA — “DREAM”

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May 032022
 

Russian people, both inside and beyond the borders of their homeland, are paying a price for their fascist dictator’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, even when they had nothing to do with that brutal invasion and even oppose it. In the case of artists whose work is known outside Russia, they’ve undoubtedly experienced a decline in support even after condemning the horrors that have been wrought in the name of their nation.

We’ve said it before, but it may be worth repeating: Here at NCS we won’t be part of that kind of blanket retribution, even though our hearts are with Ukraine. We’ll continue doing what we always have, supporting music we believe is worthy of your attention, including music made by Russian bands such as the one whose new video is the subject of this premiere.

For those who may care, this band Sieta (Сѣта) have publicly condemned the invasion of Ukraine, and one of the two labels that is reissuing the album which includes the song (Satanath Records) has left Russia because of the invasion.

We can’t always expect such action, because expressing disagreement with Putin in Russia is dangerous, and leaving to establish a new life elsewhere is very difficult for most Russians. And so neither kind of action should be a litmus test for Russian music or Russian labels. But of course it helps fortify the resolve not to punish Russian artists for the actions of one homicidal maniac who would be a modern tsar or the ruler of a resurrected USSR, and those who have bent their knee to him. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LUNAR CHALICE — “IMMORTUAE”

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May 032022
 

The German black metal band Lunar Chalice, though composed of veterans, only came together in 2019, but they have wasted no time in making their mark. They promptly released the Walpurgis Dance demo in 2019, and quickly followed that with a pair of EPs — Night Poetry on 2019, and Medieval Cults of Heresy in 2020.

Now the band are finally delivering to us (through Iron Bonehead Productions) their first full-length, Transcendentia: The Shadow Pilgrimage. Even in a thoroughly saturated genre, it’s a frequently astonishing work — as if a gathering of alchemists had turned their magical talents from the transformation of metals to the sorcery of music.

The spells that Lunar Chalice create seem of ancient origin, as cold and mysterious as the moon whose name they invoke, but also frightening in numerous ways, in their jaw-dropping combination of ferocity, imperious domination, and unearthly eeriness, a union of feral hostility and nightmarish elegance. Such qualities stand out in the track we’re premiering today — “Immortuae“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VITAL SPIRIT — “STILL AS THE NIGHT, COLD AS THE WIND”

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May 022022
 

In the Faith That Looks Through Death, the 2020 debut EP of Vital Spirit (which we had the privilege of premiering), was a true gem. Black metal provided the backbone for the music, but it flourished through the fuel of other wide-ranging inspirations, both conceptual and musical.

The band is a Vancouver duo — guitarist/bassist/vocalist Kyle Tavares (Seer, Wormwitch) and drummer Israel Langlais (Wormwitch) — but the EP took shape in between Wormwitch’s 2018 and 2019 American tours, and thus it was animated by the lands to the south that these two saw and the histories of those places. “Harrowing ballads imbued with the enduring spirit of the Americas” is how they described that four-song EP, and through it they brought to life visions of the Old West and Southwest of the U.S.

After hearing that remarkable EP we hoped it wouldn’t be a one-off adventure but instead an excursion that would continue. “There is, after all,” we wrote, “a lot of source material in the history and landscapes of the Americas that’s yet to be mined!” We and a lot of other fans have gotten our wish, because on May 6th Vendetta Records and Hidden Tribe will release Vital Spirit‘s debut album, Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind. Continue reading »

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