AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUPERSTATIC — “GLIMMERING VEIL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Oct 122021
 

 

Glimmering Veil is the second album by the Irish band Superstatic, and you’ll have difficulty finding a 2021 record that’s as simultaneously unnerving and fascinating. It’s a work of extravagant and unpredictable imagination, labyrinthine in its movements, fantastically textured in its sounds, and both deleterious and awe-inspiring in its moods.

It extends through seven long tracks across one hour and 12 minutes, but never allows the listener’s attention to wander. To borrow from the following review, we can recognize downcast and distraught human emotions in the music, but really, nothing sounds truly eartb-bound.

“Death/doom” is the simplest label one might affix to the music, but it would be an absurdly simplistic label, unless perhaps you add “avant-garde” or “experimental” as another descriptor, as a way of hinting at how wide-ranging the experience becomes.

We have a lot more to say about the album below, but beyond the torrent of linguistic impressions we also have a full stream of the album in advance of its imminent October 15 release by Solitude Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VATICINAL RITES — “DYSPHORIA” AND “TELEKINETIC BLOOD RITUAL”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Oct 122021
 

 

We have yet another silver lining to the immense black cloud of our pandemic existence, and the silver here is shaped by a band whose name sent us scurrying to the dictionary. What might “vaticinal” mean? Authoritative sources explain that the word means “having the nature of or characterized by prophecy; prophetic”.

And yes, this UK band was formed in 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, social upheaval, and isolation. As the band themselves explain, they “play a visceral form of death metal inspired by the classic Floridian bands of the early – mid ’90s, with a special homage also paid to the European underground sound” and with lyrical and visual themes that “explore spirituality, loss, the occult and escapism”.

The debut EP of Vaticinal Rites is a self-titled four-track affair that arrested the attention of three highly-regarded labels — Redefining Darkness Records, Caligari Records, and Dry Cough Records — who will jointly release it on November 12th. Today we present the first two tracks on the EP, and when you hear them it will become obvious why the band’s debut release attracted such support. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CONJURETH — “AN OCCULT MOSAIC”

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Oct 112021
 

 

At last, the diabolical death metal band Conjureth from San Diego, California will be releasing their debut album on October 25th, via a label conspiracy with Memento Mori and Rotted Life.

In fashioning this beastly offering, emblazoned with the name Majestic Dissolve, Conjureth (whose line-up includes current or former members of such stand-out groups as Encoffination, VoidCeremony, and Ghoulgotha) creatively rooted themselves in the filth and fury of DM classics from the late ’80s, ranging from Florida to Finland, and the results on display in Majestic Dissolve are electrifying…

…and “electrifying” is definitely the word for the well-named song we’re premiering today: “An Occult Mosaic“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORS VERUM — “PURGE”

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Oct 112021
 

 

The titles of the five tracks on Mors Verum’s new EP The Living consist of single words — but they collectively create a sentence: “Inside Death’s Womb Purge the Living“. As this Canadian death metal trio explain, The Living is a concept EP “that beckons the listener to inspect life as an artifact of death and its infinity”, and that sentence is “a statement reflecting our observations of conscious existence”. “Though the subject matter is grim”, they say, “the music implores the listener to seek beauty in the vast emptiness of mortality.”

Dissonant and dizzying, the music does indeed create a kind of terrible and transfixing beauty, a mind-warping and continually jaw-dropping vision of delirious exultation and ruinous destruction. As to how they do this, the press materials invite you to consider a collision of such bands as Artificial Brain, Fuck the Facts, Imperial Triumphant, Plebeian Grandstand, Morbid Angel, Incantation, and Ulcerate.

More to the point, we invite you to listen to the second single from the EP that we’re premiering today in advance of its November 5 release, a track named “Purge” that will send your head somersaulting. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE TROOPS OF DOOM — “THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 112021
 

 

The Absence of Light is the kind of recording that first sells itself by the names of the people who participated in making it.

It’s the work of the Brazilian death metal band The Troops of Doom, whose line-up includes guitarist Jairo “Tormentor” Guedz, a former member of Sepultura’s original lineup playing author and co-author to classic Sepultura albums Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions, alongside bassist/vocalist Alex Kafer (Enterro, Explicit Hate, ex-Necromancer), drummer Alexandre Oliveira (Southern Blacklist, Raising Conviction), and guitarist Marcelo Vasco (Patria, Mysteriis, and an acclaimed graphic artist for the likes of Slayer, Kreator, Machine Head, Soulfly, and Hatebreed).

Moreover, Jeff Becerra of Possessed shared vocals on the track “The Monarch”; Lars Nedland of Borknagar, Solefald, and White Void performed bass on the first three tracks; and Dave Deville conducted the orchestral introduction. As additional icing on the cake, the songs were mixed and mastered by Øystein G. Brun (Borknagar) at Crosound Studio in Norway.

All these names draw attention by themselves, but of course the music must ultimately win people over. The music here is guaranteed to do that, because it’s absolutely electrifying, written and performed with the kind of veteran skill and spirit  you would expect. And you’ll have the chance to experience it through our premiere stream of the EP’s three original tracks today, presented through a video (made by Wanderley Perna) as a single work. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GRAVESLAVE — “IN THE MOUTHS OF GIANTS”

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Oct 082021
 

 

Last summer we had the pleasure of premiering the title track from No Center, the latest album by Graveslave from the Minnesota Twin Cities, which was subsequently released on July 30th by TRVASFUK Music, adorned by the terrific cover art of Adam Burke. In an effort to sum up the music, we called it “a rich and relentlessly dynamic mix of sounds and sensations, which underscores the progressive elements of Graveslave‘s brand of death metal… intense in different ways and highly memorable”.

If you overlooked the album, today we have a reminder of just how good it is. What we’ve got today is a new music video for the album’s epic and unnerving closing track, “In the Mouths of Giants“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SVPREMACIST — “DRUG OF CHOICE”

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Oct 082021
 

 

We’ve been covering the fiery ascent of the Israeli black metal band Svpremacist since their debut release in 2018 — Black Fuck You Metal. They released a second demo that same year (Book Burner) and a single for a compilation (“No Life Matters“) the following year. And now a debut album is at hand. Entitled Meaningless Death, it’s set for a November 5 release by the UK label Repose Records.

Our previous writings about Svpremacist‘s feral brand of take-no-prisoners black thrash have included such phrases as “raw and ripping”, “electrifying and infectious”, “diabolically unhinged and unpredictable”, “imperious and volcanic”, “delirious and explosive” — but we’ve also praised the well-structured nature of the songs and the band’s incorporation of other heavy metal ingredients to make the music even more attention-grabbing and contagious.

And so it’s a real pleasure to continue yelling about the band today, the occasion being our premiere of a track named “Drug of Choice” off the debut album. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ILLYRIAN — “AGE OF CHAOS”

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Oct 072021
 

 

Take some big gulps of air and make sure your head is screwed on tight, because the fireball of a song we’re premiering today through a lyric video will suck the wind from your lungs and threaten to send your head spinning off into the clouds.

The track is “Age of Chaos“, and it’s off a forthcoming concept EP (Aegis) by Illyrian from Calgary, Canada, which presents an electrifying combination of thrash-fueled death metal with impressive technicality and an ear for evocative melody. The EP will also appeal to gamers, because it draws inspiration from the gaming world, and specifically Dark Souls. The song we present today is a prime example of these inspirations. The band explain:

“‘Age of Chaos’ is a song about a king’s hubris, a witch’s creation, and the downfall of a kingdom they built together. The Dark Souls fans in the room will recognize this story, along with those told on rest of the EP, but if you’re not familiar – it’s a whole lot of demons, dragons, and death (metal).” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURIAL –“INNER GATEWAYS TO THE SLUMBERING EQUILIBIRUM AT THE CENTER OF THE COSMOS”

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Oct 072021
 

 

Today we present our second track premiere from the debut album by the Italian death metal band Burial in advance of its October 29 release by Everlasting Spew Records. When presenting the first premiere, a track named “Halls of the Formless Unraveler“, we summed up the music as “both hideous and haunting, assaulting and anguished, unearthly and oppressive,” with “the capacity to hypnotize, and to create harrowing emotional disturbances”.

What we have for you today is the album’s title track, “Inner Gateways To The Slumbering Equilibrium At The Center Of Cosmos“. It’s a mammoth song, both in its length and in the stunning impact of the nightmarish musical sensations it presents. It sounds like a monstrous intrusion from some horrifying realm beyond our own plane of existence. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE DESIGN ABSTRACT — “DECRYPTOR”

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Oct 062021
 

 

Today marks the first appearance at our site of The Design Abstract from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, and it’s an enormously eye-opening advent. Though only a trio, their brand of sci-fi-inspired melodic death metal sounds like a cast of thousands, bringing into play orchestral and other electronic/industrial synth elements that magnify the scale, the sweep, and the mind-bending extravagance of the music in ways that vividly suit their futuristic narratives.

The band’s new concept album, Metemtechnosis, is their fifth record overall and it’s set for release on October 29th by Abstrakted Records. Through music that should appeal to fans of Scar Symmetry, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Soilwork, it tells the story of humanity being reborn as a creation of hyper-intelligent technology. The song we’re premiering today is “Decryptor“, and the band describe it’s place in their larger narrative with these words: Continue reading »

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