AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FERALIA — “UNDER STIGE / OVER DIANAM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 262022
 

 

As the title of Feralia‘s new record suggests, it’s a two-part work, combining the album-length Under Stige with the EP-length Over Dianam. They are conceptually linked, focusing on “the rituality of Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Roman traditions”, but musically they are different.

The band and the label that will release it on April 28th (Time To Kill Records) characterize the two parts in gender terms: “As Under Stige is extreme, nocturnal, ritualistic and manly, Over Dianam develops in the opposite direction. Four folk-oriented tracks that carry more of a bright, ambient, feminine mood, overall giving life to a play of opposites that is the essence to the new album.”

However one might choose to classify and characterize these two companion works, the combination of them creates a fantastic listening experience from an extremely talented band, and one that we’re delighted to share with you in complete form today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATHCRUSH — “UNDER SERPENTS REIGN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 252022
 

The Sardinian band Deathcrush have been growing in hideous strength over the course of a career that’s now almost two decades long. For such a long life, their discography is relatively limited, with the most prominent releases being two studio albums and one live album (the sign of a preference for quality over quantity). Their third album, Under Serpents Reign, is now set for release on April 26th (tomorrow!) by Time To Kill Records.

If you knew nothing about the band’s music, their name alone would give you a clue. And most definitely, crushing death metal inspired by the likes of Morbid Angel, Immolation, and Deicide, has been a key ingredient in their blasphemous discharges of fury. But it’s not the only ingredient, as you would know if you heard the changes reflected in their second full-length, 2017’s Hell, as compared to their debut album Collective Brain Infektion (2013).

The new album seems like a continued evolution, one that integrates the more brutal ravages of the debut and the more blackened atmospherics of the second full-length, and then does even more to distinguish itself. You’ll have the chance to learn this for yourselves today as we present a full stream of Under Serpents Reign. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SUNTOLD — “WORLD TORN ASUNDER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 222022
 

Suntold named their debut album World Torn Asunder. The conceptual focus of the album is World War I, which did indeed tear the world asunder, killing and wounding 9.7 million military combatants and 10 million civilians. It wiped out almost an entire generation of young men and left an older generation humbled by grief and shame. And yet only two decades later the world convulsed in war again, propelled by the power-hunger and blood-lust of tyrannical leaders and fueled by the worst impulses of their citizens.

History continues to repeat itself. Once again, brutal conflict rages in Europe and atrocities are being inflicted on innocent civilians at the hands of a dictator and his conscripts. There is no clear end in sight, and significant risk that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will become even more decimating to the Ukrainian people and that the conflict will spread beyond its borders.

Unless they had a crystal ball, Suntold did not know the invasion of Ukraine would happen when they wrote and recorded World Torn Asunder. By a terrible coincidence, it is now depressingly relevant. World Torn Asunder reminds us of past horrors but also reminds us of the horrors that are still happening, and in the music it’s a stunningly powerful reminder, which we now share with you via our premiere of the complete album here on the day of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VORAATH — “THE BARRENS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 212022
 

 

Perhaps more than any other genre of music, metal continually intersects with science fiction and fantasy. We can leave to another day a discussion of why that is, and why so many metal fans are themselves also fans of sci-fi and fantasy in literature and cinema. The intersections have proven to be varied both in the style of the musical narratives and in their degrees of success. But when they work, they can be tremendously satisfying.

Which brings us to Voraath, an experimental death metal band whose line-up hails from the Carolina’s and includes members from Nile (Brad Parris), Xael (Joshua Ward), Rapheumets Well, Implosive Disgorgence, and Sweet Blood. They have conceived harrowing unearthly tales and narrated them through genre-bending music that is, in a word, spectacular. Moreover, they’ve wrapped the story lines and music in gripping cinematic videos, and we have one of those for you today which accompanies the Voraath song “The Barrens“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SCITALIS — “SLITHERING IN SINS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 212022
 

In the spring of last year the Swedish black metal band Scitalis made an explosive debut with their Awakening EP on Vendetta Records, and we had the pleasure of premiering and reviewing here. We wrote then: “Presented through a clear and powerful production (which makes effective use of channel shifting), the music is persistently pitch-black in its temperaments, though it explores them in dynamic fashion and with piercing, mood-altering melodies that become key ingredients within changing episodes of upheaval and surrender”.

Now Scitalis are following up those six ravaging tracks with their first full-length, Doomed Before Time, and Vendetta will again usher it into the world. It continues to brandish the hallmarks that made Awakening such a startling advent, but the band have built upon them to reach new heights of power in the forthcoming album. You’ll discover that for yourselves when you hear the song we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VAAMATAR — “PLUNDERING CLAWS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 202022
 

 

Even the most devoted fans of black metal may stifle a yawn when they read about a new band whose music is portrayed as an embrace of the genre’s groundbreaking second wave. After all, that wave has been rolling forward and swelling in its mass for 30 years. It doesn’t need to be revived, and some may already feel drowned by it. But embracing the second wave doesn’t mean becoming entirely one with it, and it’s the differences that can still make a band stand out.

Vaamatar are a band who stand out, and that’s strikingly obvious when you listen to their debut album Medievalgeist. We can plainly hear what inspired this SoCal group, but we can also marvel at the sophistication and multi-faceted nature of the songwriting, and at how well they have succeeded in creating magical and mesmerizing atmospheres to go along with assaults of racing ferocity and bouts of brawn and brazenness that are red meat for a battle-vested headbanger.

We’ve got tangible proof of this in the fantastic song we’re premiering today. It’s time to feel the band’s “Plundering Claws” in action. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERAL LIGHT – PSYCHIC CONTORTIONS

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Apr 202022
 

(Andy Synn presents a review, and full premiere, of the new album by Minnesota’s Feral Light)

Let me tell you a bit about how premieres work here at NCS.

Generally speaking, a label (or a band) will contact us at some point in advance of the release date of whatever they want us to host – whether it’s a single, a video, or a full album stream – and ask us directly if we’d like to handle a premiere for them.

Before we say yes we have to check two things – firstly, do we have time and space in our schedule to actually do the hosting (the more lead-in time we have the better, obviously)? And, secondly, do we actually like the music enough to want to host it?

This latter question is definitely the more important of the two. After all, we only want to promote things that we honestly think are good – we do have some integrity, after all – so we need to be sure that what we’re premiering is something that’s definitely worth your time, and ours.

Every so often, however, things just seem to line up and we’ll get offered a premiere for something which we were already writing about… which is exactly what happened in the case of Psychic Contortions, the upcoming fourth album (set for release this Friday by I, Voidhanger) from Feral Light.

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WHITE MARE — “THE WHITE MARES’ PROCESSION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 202022
 

 

White Mare is a new melodic doom/death formation created in 2019 through the collaboration of Swiss musician D.G. (Duthaig, 3 Days Of Silence, Nightshade) and J.A. from Doomcult (hailing from The Netherlands). Later they were joined by T.W. (Nightshade), in time to perform drums in the recording of their debut album Isle Of Bliss, which is now set for co-release by Symbol Of Domination and Negre Plany on April 25th.

The new album was inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, and like its inspiration the music is epic in its scale and tragic in its moods. It’s a deeply moving and immediately memorable record that unfolds like a grand but harrowing tapestry. Even a single song from the album creates those impressions, and we have one for you in today’s premiere of “The White Mares’ Procession“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VULNIFICUS — “THE INCREDULOUS INVOCATION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 192022
 

We’re about to turn our focus to a dangerous place where the vicious vectors of technical, brutal, and slamming death metal intersect, a place from which the U.S. band Vulnificus have launched their savage and scintillating attacks.

The band is a fairly new project, having formed just last year, but the project’s two members — multi-instrumentalist Wilson Sherels (Epidermolysis. among many others) and Eston Browne (Abolishing The Ignominious, ex-Gigan) — aren’t novices. That will become apparent from the song we’re premiering today from their second EP, Invocation, which is set for release on June 10th by New Standard Elite. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CONSECRATION — “THE DWELLER IN THE TUMULUS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Apr 192022
 

Cinis is the name of the forthcoming third album by the UK doom/death metal band Consecration. We’re told that the word is taken from the Latin and that it means “cold ashes, and has numerous associations with death, destruction and ruin, extinguished love and burnt-out hate” — which makes it a form-fitting title for the record.

As we’ve said more than once, we don’t usually copy-paste promotional material, preferring instead to create our own impressions independently and express them in our own words. But this is one of those rare instances where the words circulated by Redefining Darkness Records (who will release Cinis on June 17th) eloquently capture much of what makes this album so dauntingly powerful: Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries