AN NCS PREMIERE: VIOGRESSION — “CIPHER”

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Mar 162022
 

 

Until recently I had never heard Viogression‘s 1991 debut album Expound and Exhort, which led to this Wisconsin band mounting a world tour with Death and Pestilence. Even today that album has a cult following who recognize it as a criminally underrated gem of the early death metal scene, one that draws comparisons to the likes of Death and Obituary, to Morbid Angel and Morbid Saint. And I’ll say now, based on personal experience, that it holds up very well 30 years later.

From all accounts, even that first album didn’t get the attention it deserved when it came out, largely due to negligent label backing. But what happened afterward was like a second hammer blow to the band’s legacy — including the premature release of an unfinished second album (Passage) the year after Expound and Exhort, and then a 9-year hiatus, finally broken by a 2014 EP.

The band continued to perform live, but only now, 30 years after their debut full-length, are Viogression releasing a third album. Its name is 3rd Stage Of Decay. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNBENIGN — “THE UNTENANTED EPOCH”

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Mar 152022
 

 

The Dutch black metal band Unbenign is a relatively new formation but it includes seasoned musicians who have performed with such bands as Prostitute Disfigurement, Centurian, and Nox, and their line-up was rounded out by Michiel van der Plicht (Carach Angren, Pestilence, ex-God Dethroned), who played session drums on their debut album and also handled the recording, mixing, and mastering. That album is self-titled and is now set for co-release by Satanath Records and Asgard Hass Productions on April 16th.

Unbenign have proclaimed that both lyrically and musically they drew their inspiration from second-wave black metal from the early ’90s, with a mission to create ferocious, in-your-face assaults as a means of channeling their frustrations with modern-day society. Their music is indeed ferocious, but it’s a lot more than that as well, as you’ll discover by listening to the song from the album that we’re premiering today. Its name is “The Untenanted Epoch“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FATHER BEFOULED — “SALIVATING FAITHLESSNESS”

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Mar 152022
 

At the end of last month we premiered “Katabatic Deliverance“, a song off the forthcoming fifth album by the harrowing Georgia-based death metal band Father Befouled, and now it’s our diabolical pleasure to bring you another track off this jaw-dropping new record.

The name of the album is Crowned in Veneficum. In case your Latin is rusty, veneficum is connected to the word veneficus, which connotes both poison and sorcery. And this new song you’re about to hear, “Salivating Faithlessness“, is indeed a dose of poisonous aural sorcery. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AZAAB — “B.L.O.O.D.B.O.R.N”

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Mar 142022
 

 

Following the release of two singles in 2017 and 2019, the Pakistani band Azaab are now on the verge of releasing their debut album, which bears the fitting title Summoning the Cataclysm — which is indeed what the band often do in their shifting amalgam of brutal, technical, melodic, and progressive death metal.

Their compositional and instrumental flair quickly becomes apparent, and so does the bestial hostility of the vocals. It’s a tribute to the talents of principal guitarist Shahab Khan and his Pakistani bandmates Waqar (bass), Afraz (guitar), and Saad (vocals), and to the lights-out performance of Indonesian drummer Adhytia Perkasa (from SiksaKubur).

And to add further reason to give the album a chance, it includes guest guitar solos by Bobby Koelble (ex-Death) and Phil Tougas (First Fragment), and guest vocals by Nick Mkhl (Brutal Sphere) and Aissam El Hassani (Vile Utopia).

Hopefully, what you’ve read so far has peaked your interest, but what will should really grab it is the song we’re premiering today, accompanied by a playthrough video that features the band’s dueling guitarists. It’s the explosive album closer, “B.L.O.O.D.B.O.R.N“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AFSIND — “TORTUR”

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Mar 142022
 

 

Relentless emotional intensity is a hallmark of the new song and video by the Danish trio Afsind that we’re presenting today, but so is change. The dark power of “Tortur” is ceaseless, but it takes different shapes. It has elements that someone might say are “atmospheric”, but it also packs a visceral punch. Black metal is a clear influence, but it pulls from other stylistic well-springs too.

It’s such a gripping and dynamic song that, all by itself, it marks Afsind as a band to watch closely, and their self-titled debut album as one to put on your wish list. It will be released by Vendetta Records on April 29th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HAISSEM — “BLEAK HEAVEN ALOFT”

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Mar 112022
 

 

Embattled Donetsk in the Russian-controlled Donbas region of eastern Ukraine is home to Andrey V. Tollock, the man behind the genre-bending metal band Haissem (which is the inverse spelling of Messiah). It is easy to imagine that life there has been… difficult… over the last eight years, and especially now. But while continuing to devote himself to family and to paying work (he was employed as a miner at the time of what seems to be the most recent interview he gave in 2018), he has managed to be a prolific creator of heavy music.

Beginning with Maze of Perverted Fantasies in 2016, he has released five albums, and a sixth one — A Sleep of Primeval Ignorance — is now set for release by Satanath Records and Exhumed Records on April 14th. We’ve hosted premieres of music from some of Haissem‘s previous albums and today we do it again, as we present a lyric video for “Bleak Heaven Aloft” from the newest full-length. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EPITAPHE — “MELANCHOLIA”

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Mar 112022
 

 

The cover art by Petri Ala-Manus for the forthcoming second album by the French band Epitaphe is stunning. The degree of intricacy in the painting is remarkable and justifies careful study, but the numerous fine details all contribute to the captivating extravagance of its overarching impact.

It portrays a natural setting and yet also seems surreal. The scene could be one we might find today, and yet is also primordial. It’s both intimate and vast. The storm-scarred skies might only be burned by a sunset but also might be the beginning of apocalypse. It’s beautiful, and it’s frightening.

Not coincidentally, these same qualities (and others) come through in the music. Especially when the album (entitled II) is heard straight through, the experience of the music, like the cover art, is stunning. Today we present one significant part of this larger panorama, one song from five tracks on the new album in advance of its April 11 release by Aesthetic Death and Gurgling Gore. The song’s name is “Melancholia“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRYPTIVORE — “CELESTIAL EXTINCTION”

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Mar 102022
 

 

Those of you who have spent years listening to death metal as it began to take monstrous shape in the first decade of the genre’s spawning and evolution will easily recognize the stylistic tropes that make up the musical arsenal brandished by Cryptivore‘s debut album Celestial Extinction. Drawing influence from early days of Amorphis and Carcass, Rottrevore and Grave, Cryptivore’s sound is a hybrid of death-metal brutality and explosive grindcore fury, all of it swathed in melodies that evoke haunted houses and horrifying crypts.

But this Australian band’s first full-length (which is the solo work of Chris Anning) is one of those releases where the familiarity of the ingredients in no way lessens the thrill of listening to it. You can see all the knives in the drawer, but once they start flashing and slashing in such remarkably dynamic fashion you get caught up in the spectacle. That’s a tribute to Cryptivore‘s own obvious knowledge of and love for the genre ingredients, but it’s also the result of top-shelf instrumental and vocal technique and a real talent for writing songs that feel like non-stop roller-coaster rides.

And so it’s a genuine pleasure to share with you a full stream of Celestial Extinction in advance of its fast-approaching March 15 release by Bitter Loss Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS — “HELL OF ETERNAL DEATH”

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Mar 092022
 

 

The Australian death metal band Beyond Mortal Dreams feeds from roots that extend back into the mid-90s, but with a discography whose dark flowering has been marked by fits and long silences. Following a pair of demos in the mid-2000s, they released a debut album (From Hell) in 2008, and then only a couple of short releases marked their path for the next 13+ years. But at last they have risen again with a second full-length named Abomination of the Flames that’s set for release by Lavadome Productions on April 12th.

Although the band hasn’t experienced the extent of line-up upheavals that are commonplace among other bands over such an extended interval, it’s inevitable that the passage of time has influenced the musicians — in their thinking about music, in their interweaving of influences, in their desires for what their music should become.

The result, as the Lavadome press materials describe it, is music that reveals an “eagerness to explore, destroy, and conquer in order to create”, “a grand tour of at times cinematic proportions” that is “bestial and brutal” but also “elaborate and intelligent”, and atmospheric as well as savage.

We predict you’ll remember those descriptions when you hear the song we’re premiering today — “Hell of Eternal Death“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FADEAD — “L’ESTREMITÀ DEL MONDO”

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Mar 092022
 

 

This coming April Lethal Scissor Records will release the debut EP of an Italian grindcore band who call themselves Fadead and whose experienced line-up includes Y. (Vomit the Soul, ex-Precognitive Holocaust Annotations), V. (Spells of Misery, Bolvangar, Vertebra Atlantis), and R.

The name of the EP is Terra Ferita, and it comes recommended for fans of Nasum, Cripple Bastards, and Napalm Death. To help spread the word about it, today we’re premiering a lyric video (in Italian) for a brutal assault named “L’estremità del mondo“. Continue reading »

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