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 »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NIGHTWRAITH — “BEGUILER”

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Jun 172022
 

 

Almost three months ago Reaping Scythe Records released a new album by the Denver-based metal collective NightWraith. Entitled Offering, it was one of those albums that threw down the gauntlet to people interested in simple genre descriptors. With changes reflected not only from song to song but within each song, the band made use of ingredients from melodic death metal, black metal, and doom, but pulled from an even more eclectic array of time-traveling influences than even those.

As the band’s extravagantly bearded founder Benjamin Pitts put it: “It’s like we took all the heavy parts from bands like Carcass and Enslaved and combined it with the warmth of classic bands like Thin Lizzy and Blue Oyster Cult. It has been really fun inserting rock guitar and organ tones into a genre that typically avoids these types of sounds.”

And really, even those contrasting references just hint at how many facets Offering displays as it turns. As a reminder of that, today we’re bringing you the premiere of a live video of the band performing one of the thoroughly captivating tracks from Offering, a song appropriately named “Beguiler“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VOID WITCH — “BOUDOIR BLOODFEAST”

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Jun 172022
 

Last October the Central Texas band Void Witch released their first demo, a two-track offering at the altar of death and doom. For 13 minutes and change they led listeners through dank crypts and ghastly mansions, lurching and rumbling, dragging like a wounded beast and convulsing in electrifying fevers, and lacing their strikingly dynamic maneuvers with a rich tapestry of captivating guitar melodies and wide-ranging, spine-shivering vocals.

That demo, especially as a debut recording only two tracks long, really is tremendously multi-faceted and extremely impressive in both its songwriting and its execution. Even without a lot of fanfare it attracted a devoted following, but no doubt still flew under many people’s radars. However, the people at Everlasting Spew Records didn’t miss it. They’ve signed on to give the demo a physical and a new digital release, both of which include a third track exclusively recorded by Void Witch for the occasion.

This new third track is what we’re delighted to bring you today, to coincide with Everlasting Spew‘s street date for the self-titled Void Witch EP. The song’s gruesome name is “Boudoir Bloodfeast“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORBID EVILS — “FEARLESS”

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Jun 162022
 

 

Having previously become preoccupied by Morbid Evils‘ apocalyptically heavy and thoroughly unnerving last album Deceases in 2017, we confess to shuddering at the news that these Finns were coming back with another one. The prospect was even more frightening, given that they had so many years to use, calculating how they might spread ruin in even more obliterating and frightening ways.

Of course, fear can be addictive, especially when it’s delivered through the crushing and mind-warping combination of sludge, doom, and death metal that Morbid Evils so formidably bring to the table. And so it really wasn’t likely we’d actually stay away from their new album Supernaturals. Yes it’s morbid, and yes it’s evil, and it delivers both earthquaking punishment and psychotic mayhem, but for all those same reasons (and more) its twisted twists and turns are thoroughly riveting.

The album consists of four monolithic tracks, and we have one of those for you today that proves the points we’ve stammered above. Its name is “Fearless“, which might be what you need to be to go into it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WINTERHORDE — “THE GREATEST PLAGUE ON EARTH”

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Jun 162022
 

 

Although the word “epic” is unquestionably overused in describing certain variants of extreme metal, sometimes there’s no better word, and that word springs to mind over and over again in listening to the new WinterHorde single we’re premiering today. Other words also come to mind — words like “savage” and “sinister”, “dramatic” and “soul-stirring”, “fist-pumping” and “infectious”.

“The Greatest Plague On Earth” is the name of this new song, and it’s the first recorded output from this Israeli band after a six-year-long break following their 2016 full-length Maestro (reviewed in detail  here). It’s also a sign of what lies ahead on the band’s next album Neptunian, their fourth full-length in a career that began more than 20 years ago. Continue reading »

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