AN NCS PREMIERE: GLEMSEL — “SAVN”

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Feb 152022
 

 

In 2020 the Danish black metal band Glemsel released their first two recordings, a 28-minute EP named Unavngivet (which means “untitled”) and a demo that had no title either, both of which we reviewed. Together they gave listeners a 10-song demonstration of the band’s capabilities — which were formidable.

Through those releases Glemsel demonstrated the ability to quickly carry listeners away. Collectively, the songs were persistently dark in their moods but included beguiling twists and turns. Among other things, they married discordant yet seductive melodies with hurtling drums and vicious vocals, and brought into play ominous, otherworldly, chiming guitars and dirge-like marches. They raced and ravaged in displays of ferocious ecstasy and painted panoramic portraits of heart-rending melancholy. All the while, the band embroidered their music with accents that made the experience even more riveting.

Those first steps left no doubt that Glemsel were very good, and left us eager for a full album, which is finally about to arrive. It does have a name (Forfader) and it’s now set for release on March 18th by Vendetta Records. Today we’re very happy to present its first (and only) single, a song named “Savn“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THOUGHT TRIALS — “FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING”

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Feb 142022
 

 

What is it that is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? In the words of Macbeth after learning of his wife’s death, it is life itself — “a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more… a tale told by an idiot….”

There may be no speech in all of Shakespeare that is more laden with pessimism and despair than that one in Act 5, scene 5 of the great tragedy. That this phrase was chosen by Thought Trials as the title of this Buffalo band’s new album signifies something. As described by Thought Trials‘ sole creator Josh Martin, the album “is a study of the fragile human psyche and how our journeys are shaped by trauma and misadventure. Each song explorers a different facet of mental health, sometimes from a place of optimism – and sometimes not”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ΑΧΕΡΟΝΤΑΣ — “BELIAL – THE ENN OF BELIYA’AL”

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Feb 112022
 

 

The Greek black metal coven Acherontas has long been known for the vital connection between their occult spirituality and their music: Each fuels and guides the other. There is no reason to think that has changed (to the contrary, it hasn’t), but with their new album The Seven Tongues of ΔΑΗΜΩΝ the band have announced their entry into a new phase of existence, a final reincarnation and a new era of continuity that is in part signified by a new expression of their name: ΑΧΕΡΟΝΤΑΣ.

As captured in the album’s name, it consists of seven ritualistic hymns, expressed as offerings upon the altars of Seven Gods — a “Mission of Seven Hells and Seven Destinations” — still rooted in ancient esoteric sources. In the progression of the album, the third offering invokes the name of Belial — “Belial-The Enn of Beliya’al” — and we present it to you today through a diabolical lyric video. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELGE — “DEPRESSIVE WATERS”

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Feb 112022
 

 

The video we’re about to present features a song by the Danish black metal band Helge — a song that’s ferocious, intensely unnerving, and rhythmically riveting. It also features imagery that’s unnerving in its own way, even though much of it makes use of natural settings.

The name of the song is “Depressive Waters“, but the music, although unmistakably dark, isn’t what most people would consider depressive black metal, nor is it a portrayal of quiet suffering, inconsolable sorrow, exhaustion of interest and energy — or surrender.

Helge‘s mastermind Helge Nørbygaard has explained the feelings that the song is intended to capture: “When your head is spinning and thoughts so dark become your reality. Trying to release the pain and the skin becomes red. So far away from the heart, nothing but hate and despair. Then it’s all about how much you listen to your own heart, either you rise up or become history”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BECULTED — “GEBORGENHEIT”

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Feb 102022
 

 

Beculted began to take shape in 2018 in Darmstadt, Germany, and completed its current line-up in 2019. Pandemic-trapped behind their own individual walls, the band made the recordings in the fall/winter of 2020 that have now been assembled in their debut album Archaic Manifestations. which will be released on April 29th by the Cologne-based label The Crawling Chaos.

What we have for you today is a single from the album named “Geborgenheit“, which reveals in stunning fashion the ways in which the anonymous Beculted quartet have drawn together stylistic ingredients of doom and black metal to present experiences of dismal oppression, violent upheaval, and chilling unearthliness, painting portraits (as the label accurately says) of emptiness and rapture. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DAEMONESQ — “ALLURE AND GRANDEUR”

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Feb 102022
 

The name of the song you’re about to hear is “Allure and Grandeur“. The woman who wrote the lyrics and gave them life through her scorching voice has explained its inspiration:

“‘Allure and grandeur’ is a prayer to the goddess of destruction and renewal by a person that struggles with stigmata causing her to withdraw into an inner exile. By means of this prayer she reminds herself of what she believes in, summons her inner strength, and reignites the rage providing the vitality to fight back”.

That description connects to the name of the debut EP by the German black metal band Daemonesq that includes it — The Beauty of Letting Go — and the music powerfully connects as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CORRUPTER — “DESCENT INTO MADNESS”

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Feb 092022
 

 

Only hindsight gives us the ability to speculate about why a band or their label chooses one particular song as the first single from a new album. In the case of Corrupter‘s full-length debut Descent Into Madness, that chosen song was “Darkest Light“.

The opening riff of that song, which has a dismal and diseased aura, seizes attention quickly, but no more so than the eruption of thunderous battery, miasma-like riffing, and gory, gargled vocals that follow it. The guitar work has a dense and writhing quality that’s frightening, and even when the drumming slows and Corrupter send off grand but deeply disturbing fanfares of sound it’s enough to put a cold sweat on the back of your neck.

The second time the music explodes in violence, propelled by a crazed solo, might be even more exhilarating than the first time, an experience in ferocity and fear, madness, and malignancy that’s not soon forgotten. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAMMR — “ETERNAL POSSESSION”

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Feb 082022
 

 

I still have burn marks, slash scars, and giddy memories from Hammr‘s first album Unholy Destruction. That was four years ago, long enough to heal the wounds but not long enough to quell the feelings of dizziness and thrill-filled mayhem that come back in thinking about that blast of proto-black metal, hardcore punk, and evil speed metal. And so I got a surge of adrenaline from just thinking about the advent of a new Hammr album, and an even bigger surge in listening to it — which you’ll get a chance to do right now.

Eternal Possession is the name of the new one, and it’s a valid title, foreshadowing both the experience of being overtaken and overwhelmed by it as a listener and the conviction that the person who made it was himself under the throes of diabolical possession, with a take-no-prisoners, give-no-fucks, spirit that shows no signs of surrender, now or ever. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SISYPHEAN — “SOVEREIGNS OF LIVID HOPE”

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Feb 072022
 

Over the course of a debut EP, a first album, and a split, the Lithuanian band Sisyphean have moved from strength to greater strength, and their forthcoming second full-length sees them reaching a new summit of shattering power. This new album, Colours of Faith, will be released later this year by Transcending Obscurity Records, and today we have a gripping preview of what it holds in store through our premiere of an unsettling video for a strikingly intense song named “Sovereigns of Livid Hope“.

Presenting an amalgam of black and death metal (with elements reminiscent of post-metal in the mix), the music of Sisyphean here is almost unrelenting in its capacity to harrow the senses, and becomes towering in the scale of its sonic and emotional upheaval. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLACK HILL COVE — “ANGELS FALL”

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Feb 072022
 

 

Formed in 2020, right at the rise of a global pandemic, Black Hill Cove is a new Portuguese band composed of seasoned musicians from well-known acts in the Portuguese metal and hardcore scenes like Painstruck, Grankapo, and We Are The Damned. Drawing upon their varied influences, they recorded a debut album named Broken that was released last November by Raging Planet Records, which braided together in differing ways elements of hardcore, thrash, and sludge.

From that album the band have chosen a song called “Angels Fall” as the subject of a video that we’re premiering today. Created by Nuno Aguiar de Loureiro, the video presents a fast-moving collage of images that rivet attention and also mesh with the darkness and desperation of the music. Continue reading »

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