AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FUNERAL CHANT — “DAWN OF ANNIHILATION”

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Oct 272021
 

 

In February 2017 Funeral Chant from Oakland, California independently released their self-titled debut, a six-track, 27-minute affair that was subsequently picked up for physical editions by Duplicate Records and Caverna Abismal Records. It was a remarkable release in more ways than one, but the dominant impression it left in our heads was summed up in these passages from our review:

“The band walk a fine line between berserker chaos and the kind of intricate instrumental inventiveness and rhythmic dynamism that produces fascination. It’s a high-wire display of acrobatics, but Funeral Chant are so nimble that they don’t lose their balance no matter how fast they’re flying along that thin cord.

“And so, the songs are crushing, eviscerating, hateful, and ferocious at a primal level, but are also intricate, well-plotted, and eerie. In the heat of the moment, they trigger an enormous adrenaline rush, but it takes multiple listens before you begin to follow all the labyrinthine exercises going on within these raging storms of sound”.

It’s thus no wonder that we leaped at the chance to premiere the band’s new album, Dawn Of Annihilation, which will be released via Carbonized Records on November 1st. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MINNESJORD / TEUFELSBERG

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Oct 272021
 

 

On October 31st Signal Rex will release a vinyl-only album-length split by two bands in the raw black metal brotherhood, the Portuguese duo Minnesjord and the Polish duo Teufelsberg. Each band contributes four tracks to the release, both of them revealing their own particular hellish personalities, and collectively creating a harsh and ravaging but nonetheless thrilling experience.

The album is available for order here, as well as through Bandcamp for each band’s side (here and here), and today we’ve got the premiere streams for all 8 songs, preceded (of course) by our own take on what these two groups have created. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAVAGE DEITY — “PERISH MANGDA”

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Oct 262021
 

On November 28th Inhuman Assault Productions will release Decade of Savagery, the infernally barbaric third album by Savage Deity from Bangkok, Thailand, and today we’re presenting the second track premiere in the run-up to its release.

Steadfastly connecting with the kind of ’90s-era death metal spawned in the earliest days of Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Malevolent Creation (among others), Savage Deity have indeed created music that’s genuinely savage, using compelling songcraft, ferocious execution, and authentic spirit to mount their malicious, adrenaline-fueled attacks rather than trickery or gimmicks. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASTROPHOBOS — “TILL DJUPET”

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Oct 262021
 

 

Today we present the third and final single leading up to the release of a new album by the Swedish black metal band Astrophobos. The name of the album is Corpus, but Corpus is more than the album, and is also the title of a cross-disciplinary collaboration spanning several years in which sculpture, photography, and music have intermingled to explore themes of impermanence, death and decay.

As Astrophobos explain, “Teaming up with artists Lisa Wallert and Morgan Norman, the band ventured into these concepts, taking inspiration from their work to write both music and lyrics”. The artwork of Wallert and Norman can be found on the cover of the Corpus album and throughout the layout of the gatefold vinyl record. The collaboration will culminate in an exhibition/live show taking place in Stockholm on November 13th

But now let’s get to the song you’ll have the chance to hear for the first time today: “Till Djupet“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CONTRITION — “BROKEN MORTAL COIL”

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Oct 252021
 

 

The resumes of the people in Chicago-based Contrition open eyes. Those people are Jerome Marshall (Cobalt, Yakuza) on vocals, Garry Naples (Novembers Doom, Without Waves) on drums, Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves, ex-Wolvhammer) on guitars and synth, and Jon Woodring (Bones, ex-Usurper) on bass. As an educated guess, they’ve got all sorts of different music swirling through their heads from day to day, even making room for the silence of sleep and maybe a few other silences. So, where did they go under the name Contrition on their debut album, Broken Mortal Coil?

The astute among you will already have an idea, based on the singles that have emerged in the run-up to the October 29 release by Wilson’s Disorder Recordings. Some of you may even know that a couple of these people already collaborated in a band called Doomsday, which released one self-titled EP in 2012 (worth tracking down if you don’t have it), and which itself provides some distant clues.

But I’m going to pretend you don’t know where these four (and their noteworthy guests) coalesced on Broken Mortal Coil, that your minds are as clean as an erased chalkboard, still dusty but ready to be filled, or wrecked. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): INTAGLIO — “II”

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Oct 252021
 

 

The second album by Russia’s Intaglio, unassumingly entitled II, follows their debut by more than 15 years. It is filled with moments that set off fireworks inside a listener’s head.

That’s probably not something you expect to read about a band whose music is classified by Metal Archives as “Funeral Doom”. Most music so classified is more likely to mesmerize than it is to provoke gasps of wonder. But II isn’t typical, and while it is indeed entrancing, the magnificent spell it casts derives from unusual ingredients and an unusual conception (and Funeral Doom is no longer an adequate description).

In its conception, II was intended to be experienced as a single long piece. It has a 7-part track list (though there are no pauses between the tracks) and consists of movements, but it is accurately described as a single “doom opera” which achieves its full impact only when heard from beginning to end.

For its ingredients, Intaglio assembled a large cast of performers and live instruments. Seven professional singers contributed voices that range from basso profundo to soprano. The instruments included not only a panoply of electric and acoustic guitars and percussive sources but also classical instruments such as upright bass, cello, chimes, and flute, as well as mouth harp. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CURSE OF DENIAL — “VARIANT”

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Oct 222021
 

We’ve had the thrill of premiering the music of Cleveland’s Curse of Denial on previous occasions, helping to spread the word about the band’s 2017 debut album The 13th Sign (which included appearances from underground Cleveland mainstays such as Nunslaughter, Embalmer, Decrepit, From the Depths, Ringworm, and Keelhaul) as well as their 2019 full-length follow-up, Coming For Your Soul. And thus we jumped at the chance to do it again today.

This time the music comes from a new EP named The Reckoning, which is set for a November 12 release by Redefining Darkness Records.

If this happens to be your first encounter with Curse of Denial, its line-up is made from veteran talent consisting of powerhouse vocalist Rob Molzan (ex-Decrepit and From the Depths), plus three musicians who shared time in the instrumental metal band Pawns In Chess, two of whom were also members of Descend — bassist Michael Perez, drummer Shawn Hapney, and guitarist Jeremy McLellon. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABSCESSION — “DEAD MAN’S HATE”

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Oct 222021
 

Adam Burke‘s fascinating symbolic cover art for Abscession’s new album Rot of Ages stuck in the heads of most people who saw it (certainly including me) before any of the music had been revealed. It turns out that the songs get stuck in the head too, like needles in a pin cushion.

Abscession’s music punches damned hard and grinds bones, deploying in expert fashion many of the traditional weapons of old-school Swedish death metal to create a potent visceral impact. The music is undeniably ferocious, but what makes it stand out from a lot of similarly inclined revivalist bands is the incorporation of evocative melodies, which really make the songs songs, each with its own character. And they really do irresistibly get stuck in the head.

“Dead Man’s Hate“, the song we’re premiering today in advance of the November 19 album release by Transcending Obscurity Records is a great example of these qualities. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FUNERALIUM — “DECREPIT”

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Oct 212021
 

 

The French funeral doom band Funeralium named their 2004 debut demo Ultra Sick Doom, and the name has stuck as a shorthand for their music. But what does it mean? As portrayed in their formidable fourth album Decrepit, it’s music that plumbs the depths of human illness — not so much the magnitude of the diseases that afflict the human body (though as you’ll see, this plays a role) but the deep-seated flaws in humankind which cause us to relentlessly ruin the Earth, our only home.

More precisely, we’re told that the concept of Decrepit was born in 2019 from the conviction that mankind was working tirelessly toward its own demise, diligently destroying its own habitat and the habitat of all other species — only to have these convictions reaffirmed during the first year of the pandemic, a year that seemed to cement the certainty of these convictions, and a likely forerunner of even worse times to come.

And so it was during the pandemic that Funeralium went back to studios in scattered locations to record the four imposing songs that make up Decrepit, creating devastating music on a scale (and with a sound) that matches the magnitude and nuances of the self-destructive human sickness that inspired it. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SEXMAG — “SEX METAL”

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Oct 202021
 

What’s in a name?

In the case of extreme metal bands, there has been a long tradition of names that invoke evil, violence, dark fantasy and mysticism, horror, nihilism, and of course death itself in all of its guises. The impact of such names as Slayer, Emperor, Immortal, Immolation, Suffocation, Darkthrone, Hellhammer, Entombed, Mayhem, Bloodbath, and of course Death (to pick just a few) has been long-lasting.

Of course, the tradition hasn’t been rigidly honored — for example, remember the “verb-the-name” formula that dominated at the height of deathcore? — but naming rites to this day still tend to signify something about musical inspirations, many of them continuing to reflect the transgressive nature of the music in serious and shuddering words.

Which brings us to SexMag. So what’s in a name? In the case of this band and their debut EP Sex Metal, more than you might guess. Continue reading »

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