AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HERIDA PROFUNDA — “POWER TO THE PEOPLE”

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Jul 212022
 

It’s hard to understand what life is really like in another country unless you’ve lived there, or maybe spent a lot of time seriously studying it from afar. In the case of Poland, I’ve done neither. Living in the United States, what I know about the current state of affairs in Poland comes just from reading a scattering of news stories from time to time.

A lot of the recent stories tend to focus on the country’s support for Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian invasion, and the huge volume of Ukrainian refugees that have flooded into Poland. At least here, that reporting (which comes with a favorable gloss) has tended to eclipse other things I remember reading about the autocratic and theocratic nature of the country’s right-wing ruling regime over the last few years.

Herida Profunda‘s new album Power to the People caused me to re-focus on those eclipsed narratives. The band’s frustration and fury over socio-political conditions in Poland (where they live) is plain for all to see (and hear) in the album. The music burns so ferociously that you could know and feel the emotions that spawned it even if you were ignorant about its lyrical content.

Of course, the assaults on civil rights that have been occurring in Poland are happening in many other countries, including the one where I live. And thus Power to the People is a rallying cry that knows no borders. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THRASHERA — “BASTARDOS DA NOITE”

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Jul 192022
 

Much has been written about the history of thrash metal, and in those annals you’ll discover how it evolved from both the stripped-down rebelliousness of punk and the influences of earlier “classic” heavy metal, adding more speed, more aggression, and an even more defiantly confrontational attitude to the music. One thing that sometimes gets lost, especially in how the genre has evolved, is that some of the earlier practitioners made the music also sound downright evil.

The Brazilian band Thrashera haven’t forgotten that. It may have something to do with the fact that their own homeland spawned such bands as Sepultura, Dorsal, Atlântica, Chakal, and Vulcano, not to mention Sarcófago. But whatever the reason, these dudes revel in the “golden age” of thrash, when it was taking shape as a world-eating but still deeply underground and confrontational force.

Their roots are plain for all to hear, but they’re so damned good at what they do that the music sounds explosively alive — and yes indeed, downright evil — rather than generic and worn out. You’ll believe this for yourselves when you hear their new album Bastardos da Noite, which we’re streaming in full today in advance of the record’s imminent July 20 release by Helldprod Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BATTLEGRAVE — “CAVERNOUS DEPTHS”

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Jul 182022
 

The Australian duo Battlegrave chose a suggestive name for themselves, one that evokes both warlike savagery and visions of death and all its horrors. Further clues to their music (or at least some aspects of it) are evident in the remarkable hand-painted cover art by Shaun Farrugia for their sophomore album Cavernous Depths. It’s subterranean and supernatural, and has the hallmarks of an instant classic.

But of course these are all merely hints. Of course, other hints are to be found in the band’s previous releases, the 2017 EP To Hell With War and their first album, 2018’s Relics of a Dead Earth, but don’t put too much stock in those hints, because Battlegrave‘s music has evolved from then until now, morphing (as the band themselves have observed) “from more of a Crossover Thrash project to a Thrash/Death project, and now closer to straight-up modern Death Metal”.

One thing hasn’t changed, and you’ll figure it out damned fast when you listen to the new album today in advance of its July 22 release by Bitter Loss Records, and that’s the speed and ferocity of Battlegrave‘s attack. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SAW — “NOTHING BUT DARKNESS”

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Jul 182022
 

You have to admit (I insist!) that The Saw is a great name for a death metal band. In the lore of horror and the reveling in destruction that inspires so much of the genre, it’s not a tool of carpentry but a weapon of ruination. The teeth don’t cut wood and scatter sawdust but bite through flesh and bone. It’s a wonder that Metal-Archives shows the name as unclaimed… until now.

Who has now claimed it? The answer is a quintet of talented Russians, who first began gathering as a side project of vocalist and lyricist Evgeny Pchelyakov (from the band Анклав Снов) and guitarist and composer Roman Derevyanko (Стальные Нервы) and then expanded through the addition of guitarist Max Nikolaevsky, bassist Dmitry Bichenkov and drummer Yuri Puzanov.

What they’ve achieved together is captured in a debut album named Nothing But Darkness that’s set for release on July 30th by the Ukraine-based label GrimmDistribution, and to help pave the way we’ve got the premiere of the album’s title track today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABYSSLOOKER — “CHALICE OF GRIEF”

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Jul 152022
 

Last year the Russian band Abysslooker put out a single called “Maneater“, and it sounded like one. Hell, it was so heavy and hammering it felt like a mountain-eater.

The band combined that titanic pounding with riffing that relentlessly built feelings of tension and misery, plus an amalgam of spine-tingling vocals, which ranged from scraped-raw screams to ghostly crooning, abyssal growls, and maniacal laughter. Unexpectedly, the song also included an interlude of dancing acoustic guitar, mammoth bass grumbling, and gothic singing. A gripping guitar solo led the transition from there back into punishing heaviness.

Turns out that thoroughly riveting song was a prelude to Abysslooker‘s second album Dramaturgy, which is now set for release on July 31st by Symbol Of Domination. Turns out that “Maneater” isn’t the only heavier-than-hell track on that album, but the heaviness comes in different guises, as you’ll learn for yourselves through our premiere today of another one. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRESTFALLEN DUSK — “CRESTFALLEN DUSK”

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Jul 142022
 

Great volumes of music flow through the back of this portal every year, and smaller but still significant volumes flow through the front of it in our daily recommendations for those who visit the site. The range of genres is broad, reflecting the divergent tastes of those who write here. In combination, our recommendations could be considered head-spinning both in their number and in their diversity. Yet despite that, some bands still stand out like beacons on a nightside hill.

In my case, one of those bands that continually drops my jaw like few others is the Tennessee group Primeval Well, whose fascinating amalgams of black metal and old country/folk music is unlike anything else out there. In reviewing the two Primeval Well albums released to date, I’ve spilled torrents of enthusiastic words about their music in an ongoing struggle to explain what it does and how it makes me feel.

And so when I learned that Primeval Well ‘s vocalist/guitarist Ryan Clackner (also in Vile Haint, Stump Tail, and Spintria) had embarked on a new project, I couldn’t wait to hear the music. He named that new project Crestfallen Dusk, and its debut album shares the name. I wondered how it might compare to Primeval Well, because it was logical to assume there must be some difference, else why begin a new project?

The complete answer comes today, because today we’re sharing a full stream of all six tracks in advance of its July 22 release by Moonlight Cypress Archetypes and Folkvangr Records.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEXIS — “AMISSUS”

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Jul 132022
 

We’ve been enthusiastically writing about the Danish blackened hardcore band Hexis at NCS since 2012. In that time they’ve released two album and an assortment of shorter works, and in combination they’ve shown us a formidable band constantly on the move forward. They’ve now landed at Debemur Morti Productions, which gives us added comfort that we haven’t been entirely crazy all these years in our Hexis enthusiasm, and it’s DMP that will be releasing the band’s third album Aeternum on August 26th.

Anyone familiar with what Hexis have done so far knows that their musical ingredients have increasingly ranged beyond their backbone of hardcore and black metal, and the new album is undoubtedly their most diverse yet. It’s not the kind of album where you can listen to a track or two and figure out what everything else will sound like. As DMP reports, the three years of work on this album have allowed the band “to refocus and redefine their thunderous sound into a truly distinctive beast which merges violent Hardcore, desolate Black Metal, brooding post-Metal and elements of Dark Ambient with the churning ruthlessness of bass-driven Industrial and Grind”.

Not surprisingly, then, three tracks have been released so far in the run-up to the album’s release, and now we bring you a fourth one. These songs display the album’s dynamism and diversity of songcraft, but even four of them don’t provide a complete map of the soundscape that awaits listeners. They are, however, very effective in proving that the album is remarkably intense on multiple levels, and well worth a complete investigation. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRITICAL DEFIANCE — “NO LIFE FORMS”

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Jul 132022
 

A bit more than three years ago the Chilean thrash band Critical Defiance released their debut album Misconception through Unspeakable Axe Records. It was reviewed here by TheMadIsraeli. You won’t find many people more devoted to thrash than him, or more knowledgeable about the genre, its history, and its evolution. And so his abundant enthusiasm for Misconception carried a lot of weight among those of us who knew him.

Among other things, he wrote: “These guys are very old-school-minded, but they aren’t trying to imitate the sound — they embody it, seeking to break their way into the public consciousness by approaching from a different front of channeling the heights of thrash based on technical endurance. I’m talking bands like Dark Angel, Coroner, Watchtower, old Kreator, Forbidden. Not many bands attempt this school of thrash metal if they’re into visiting old school sounds because I think it’s difficult to write thrash like this without sounding needlessly excessive. Thankfully, Critical Defiance never fall into this trap….”

Now these prodigiously talented Chileans are returning with a sophomore album named No Life Forms, set for release by the same Unspeakable Axe Records on July 18th. Did they fall into a sophomore funk, or did they hit the heights again, or maybe even soar higher? You can guess our answer, given that we’ve agreed to premiere the full album stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABEST — “MOLTEN HUSK”

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Jul 122022
 

Let’s cut to the chase: What you’re about to experience is a completely unnerving combination of sights and sounds — music that will put your teeth on edge as it claws at your sanity and bludgeons your bones, and an accompanying video that’s equally nightmarish. The combined experience is harrowing and indeed uncomfortable, but so gripping that it freezes you in place, perhaps like waking to find a venomous serpent coiled on your chest, tongue flickering toward your face. You move at your peril.

Chariot Of Black Moth is a proven master at creating stark and startling visual hallucinations, never lingering for too long on any one element of the flashing imagery, so that you can’t be entirely sure what you’re seeing, but you feel its horror at a visceral level. Horror and insanity inhabit the music here as well, and we have the German band Abest to thank for it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ROTHEADS — “GORE COFFIN”

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Jul 122022
 

We liked the Romanian death metal band Rotheads before hearing a single note, thanks to Comrade Aleks‘ engaging June 2022 interview here with guitarist/vocalist Bogdan. He comes across as down-to-earth, unpretentious, and intelligent, very matter-of-fact in his discussion of the band’s history and approach to the music and the lyrics, but with an unmistakable and contagious enthusiasm. We hoped the music would be equally engaging — and thankfully, it is.

What we have in front of us now is Rotheads‘ second album, Slither In Slime, which is set for release on July 25th by the Memento Mori label. Compared to the band’s full-length debut (2018’s Sewer Fiends), it still displays the influence of the early ’90s Finnish scene, melded with other classicists from the Swedish and American old schools, but as Bogdan relates in the interview, it sounds more like a studio album and less like a demo. It’s ugly and twisted, to be sure, but with a sharper and more calculating sound, and the songwriting more powerfully creates creepy and crypt-borne atmospheres as the band crush and careen their way through these tracks. Continue reading »

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