AN NCS PREMIERE: ABYSSUS — “THE WITCH”

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Nov 232021
 

 

We’ve been writing repeatedly about the superb Greek death metal band Abyssus since the fall of 2015, which saw the release of their debut album Into the Abyss following a series of shorter releases that began in 2012. Since then the band have participated in numerous splits and EPs, and at last are approaching the release of their second full-length. Entitled Death Revival, it will provide a bracing start to the new year, with a January 21 release date set by Transcending Obscurity Records.

For a long time the songcraft of Abyssus has been impressive, but they seem to just get better and better, both maintaining a firm connection to death metal and thrash from the glory days of the late ’80s and early ’90s but also embellishing their songs in ways that make them sound fresh and fiery, a kindling of new heat. We have a prime example of their well-honed talents in the track we’re premiering today, a song that seems to embody its title: “The Witch“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TWO FACE SINNER — “SATANIC ALTAR”

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Nov 232021
 

 

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Perúvian black/death metal band Two Face Sinner. Across that span of years they have released an EP and three albums of satanic blasphemy, and have shared the stage with the likes of Rotting Christ, Nargaroth, God Dethroned, and Belphegor.

Two Face Sinner‘s most recent album, Spiritual Nemesis, was released in 2020 by Non Serviam Records (on CD and digitally), and as a reminder of its diabolical allure we are today premiering a lyric video for the record’s second track, “Satanic Altar“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOURMAND — “TO BRING TO NOTHING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 222021
 

 

Gourmand‘s new EP To Bring To Nothing is the kind of thing that demands to be heard repeatedly, in part because the experience is so electrifying and frequently head-hooking, but also because there’s so much to unpack. Every one of the three songs is so intricate and so surprising in its rapidly mutating configurations that it’s almost too much for the normal human mind to assimilate in just one run-through. And it’s such a kaleidoscopic rush that even after repeated listens it still sounds new — because the odds are you’ll detect something (or many things) for the first time that you missed before.

“Progressive death metal” might the closest genre label for what this collective from Kansas City, Missouri have created here, though the technical exuberance of the execution and the labyrinthine compositional approach suggests a more multi-hyphened hybrid. As their name implies, they are connoisseurs of many tastes. The music is certifiably savage, but also remarkably elaborate (and pleasingly groovesome just when you think you’ve become thoroughly discombobulated). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VAHRZAW — “VULTURES”

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Nov 222021
 

In a career that dates back to the mid-’90s, Australia’s Vahrzaw have released a couple handfuls of short works and three full-lengths, with a fourth album now headed our way, courtesy of Transcending Obscurity Records. At a high level, their music could be branded as an amalgam of black and death metal, but they’ve brought so many other ingredients into play that “blackened death metal” doesn’t do an adequate job of summing up their stylistic achievements.

The song we’re premiering today from the new album is vivid proof of that point. In “Vultures“, Vahrzaw discharge devil-thrash — a turbocharged, adrenaline-fueled romp, scorching in its intensity, head-spinning in its elaborate instrumental acrobatics, and vicious enough to conjure images of rabid slavering beasts on the hunt. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SGÀILE — “IDEALS & MORALITY”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 192021
 

 

In many ways, the album we’re about to present is strikingly different from our usual musical fare at this site. Most obviously, the songs include only singing. Blast-beats are a rarity, and distortion is either completely eschewed or applied to a mild degree. The music often has more in common with prog-rock and hard-rock than heavy metal, and pulls from wells of classic heavy metal when it does venture into metal realms rather than dabbling in the sub-genres of extremity that occupy most of our attention.

And so you might scratch your head about what the album is doing here. Maybe you will wonder less after you’ve heard it. What it lacks in throat-cutting viciousness or mind-scarring abrasiveness it makes up for in so many other ways — in ways that make it utterly captivating. It has visceral “physical” power as well as the power to both channel and alter emotional states in gripping fashion, and it reaches heights of splendor that are breathtaking.

The name of the album is Ideals & Morality, and it’s the debut full-length of Sgàile, the solo project of Scottish multi-instrumentalist and vocalist extraordinaire Tony Dunn, whose resume includes work with such other bands such as Falloch, Cnoc An Tursa, and Saor. It will be released by Avantgarde Music on December 10th. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZMARŁYM — “DRUGA FALA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Nov 182021
 

 

I write a lot of premieres, indeed one or more every damned day. I have many reasons for doing that, but one of them is the opportunity it affords to discover something I might otherwise miss, something out of the ordinary and invigorating, and that’s exactly what happened when we were invited to host a full stream of Zmarłym‘s debut album Druga Fala in advance of its November 21 release by Godz Ov War Productions. It struck me like a bolt from the blue, immediately captivating and head-spinning from the first listen.

The album title is Polish for “Second Wave”, and it does indeed mark this trio’s second release, following a 2020 EP, Ziemie jałowe. The fact that it’s only the band’s second effort makes it all the more remarkable. It provides a rich cornucopia of surprises, a truly adventurous black metal album that pulled this the listener in and didn’t let go. It has quickly become a 2021 favorite of mine. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BONE TOWER — “UNDER A VEIL”

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Nov 172021
 

 

What we have for you today is a freakish, fast-cutting video for an equally maniacal blast-furnace discharge of sound, courtesy of Nova Scotia’s Bone Tower. The song in the video, “under a veil“, is one of the eight furious barrages encompassed by the band’s decimating debut EP We All Will Die One Day, which was released on November 5th by No Funeral Records and Fresh Outbreak Records.

Here’s what the band have said about “under a veil“: “This song is pissed. There is more than one meaning, but it’s really written about the perception that you are always in the wrong, that who you are is a made-up persona, you aren’t good enough, and you should be exiled from everything positive in your life. This feeling couldn’t be further from the truth, and it is simply anxiety creeping in to say hello; A flurry of notes and blast beats being thrown at you really like to drive that idea deep into your head, though. Cower away under a veil of delusion.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ERNTE — “THE ENDING VOID”

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Nov 172021
 

 

The plague year 2020 was the year that gave birth to the Swiss black metal band Ernte, but the pair who gave it life were not newcomers. V. Noir, who became the main songwriter and guitar player (and was also responsible for recording and programming), had spent almost 20 years creating dark ambient music, photography, painting, and graphic art. The other member, Witch N. (vocals, bass, violin), had played bass and violin in the doom band shEver (2003 – 2012, Svart Records / TotalRust Music) before she started as front-woman in the Swiss black/doom band Ashtar (since 2013, Eisenwald, Throne Records).

Through Ernte they set about to invade the darker side of their listeners’ souls, drawing inspiration from the contemplation of ancient spirits as well as cold and barren landscapes, and the results have been captured in a debut album named Geist und Hexerei, which will be released by Vendetta Records on December 3rd.

What we have for you today is a video for an album track named “the ending void” that’s equal parts enthralling and intensely unsettling. As the band themselves tell us, “‘The ending void’ is maybe the darkest song on this album – it finally leads to the absolute nothingness, narrated by the last human being on earth”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIABLATION — “DES RUINES DE LA SOLITUDE ÉTERNELLE”

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Nov 162021
 

 

“Hell is in man, hell is man.” That could be considered a summing up of the debut album Allégeance by the French black metal band Diablation, and further, these commandments: “Reject your God, Erase your vows, Embrace the ineffable, Accept the Devil”.

Drawing upon the worship of the Devil as their essence, Diablation have created music that is an enthralling descent into darkness, a rendition of fealty and frenzy, of torment and pain, of unearthly splendor and diabolical peril.

As a riveting sign of their achievements, today we present the third track from Allégeance that has been disclosed so far in the path toward the album’s December 6 release by the distinctive French label Antiq. Its name is “Des Ruines de la Solitude Éternelle“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OLKOTH — “EIDOLON IN THE FLAMES”

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Nov 152021
 

 

Metal-Archives harbors a couple of U.S. bands named Olkoth. The one that’s releasing the song we’re about to premiere was formed in 2016 by Zach Jeter and Vance Jeffcoat (RIP 1981-2017) in Columbia, South Carolina, and now includes a four-person line-up that we’ll name later.

Olkoth have a three-song 2019 demo to their credit, and now this new single, which provides a preview of a new album that’s been in progress since 2020. The name of this new song is “Eidolon in the Flames“, and it’s a discharge of brutal, blackened technical death metal that will take your breath away. Continue reading »

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