AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELGE — “DEPRESSIVE WATERS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
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”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
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”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
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”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
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”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
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”

 Premieres  No Responses »
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”

 Premieres  No Responses »
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 »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AS THE WORLD DIES — “THE TEMPEST”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 042022
 

 

A glance at the line-up of As the World Dies, which includes members of Memoriam, Massacre, and Pemphigoid, creates high expectations very quickly, as do comparative references in the promotional press to the likes of Bolt Thrower and Grave, as well as other legendary bands in the pantheon of UK death metal. But their debut album Agonist, which will be released by Transcending Obscurity on March 25th, makes clear that they have their own distinctive approach despite the presence of these well-known influences.

Yes, the music is crushing, like a bulldozer or a battering ram, and compellingly ferocious, but while As the World Dies are formidably capable of inflicting brute-force physical trauma, they’re equally skilled at effectively evoking dire and distressing moods, and simultaneously casting unearthly spells. The song we’re premiering today — “The Tempest” — is a prime example of these talents. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VÉHÉMENCE — “AU BLASON BRÛLÉ”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 042022
 

The second album by the French medieval black metal band Véhémence, 2019’s Par le Sang Versé, was a stunner. It was one of the most thoroughly entrancing and gloriously vibrant metal albums this writer had heard in years, regardless of sub-genre. It embraced ancient folk traditions and hurled them forward into the modern age, but without letting go of the intense devotion to the centuries-old well-springs of inspiration that gave birth to the record. I thought it would be impossible not to be moved in some significant degree by the fervency of its music, and likely that most listeners would simply be swept aloft and carried away, as I was.

How would Véhémence even equal, much less exceed, such a rare and marvelously multi-faceted achievement? In about one month everyone will find out whether they have done so, because on March 8th Antiq Records will release a new Véhémence album named Ordalies. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PESTILENGTH — “TAMM”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 032022
 

 

We were late in discovering the ruinous and mind-boggling talents of Pestilength from the Basque Country of Spain, having overlooked the slew of EPs and singles with which they began their career, but their 2020 debut album Eilatik changed all that. It was so eye-opening, as was the band’s Apore Flesh EP and their split with Mexico’s Reverence to Paroxysm, both of which were also released in 2020, that we’ve been hungry for the next album — and now we have it.

This new eight-song record is named Basom Gryphos, and it will be released on March 7th in a variety of formats by Nuclear Winter Records in collaboration with Sentient Ruin and Goat Throne, accompanied by the chilling cover art of Namurian Visions that’s emblazoned at the top of this post.

One track from Basom Gryphos has already emerged, and today we present another, the name of which is “Tamm“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries