AN NCS PREMIERE: REDEMPTOR — “LES RUINES DE POMPEI”

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Nov 262021
 

 

The lineup of Redemptor includes current and former members of Decapitated, Vader, Hate, Sceptic, Sothoth, Banisher, Deivos, and more, which should be enough to attract your attention to their new album Agonia even if you hadn’t heard any of their previous works — which were the subject of NCS scribe Andy Synn‘s 93rd SYNN REPORT.

When Andy wrote in detail about the collective discography of Redemptor as it existed almost four years ago, he summed it up this way:

“Over the course of three albums and one EP the Polish quintet have steadily evolved their sound from the Schuldiner-esque strains of their debut album None Pointless Balance to the angular hooks and merciless precision of 4th Density and The Jugglernaut, with the process finally culminating in the gargantuan grooves and captivating atmospherics of last year’s utterly crushing Arthaneum.”

And now we have the band’s newest work,  Agonia. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOLLOW WOODS — “A FROZEN GLANCE”

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Nov 262021
 

 

Winter is upon us, and we have a soundtrack for its descent.

We know very little about the Finnish black metal band Hollow Woods, neither the precise location nor the identity of its member (or members). We know something about what inspired their debut album, Cold Winds Cleave the Earth, which will be released on the Winter Solstice, December 21st of this waning year.

We’re told that the artwork and the album’s themes were inspired by the Finnish linguist and ethnographer Kai Donner (1888-1935), taken during his expeditions to Siberia for the purpose of studying the Ugric and Samodeic peoples, including their languages.

Beyond that, the music must speak for itself as Hollow Woods works within a framework of devotion to the primal world and nature mysticism. The song we present today, “A Frozen Glance“, speaks in terms that are deeply haunting and harrowing. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE LAST OF LUCY — “TEMPLE OF RATI”

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Nov 252021
 

 

The cover art created by Par Olofsson for Moksha, the new album by the technical death metal band The Last of Lucy, is an immediately arresting and disturbing vision, grotesquely alien and yet fascinating and formative of intrigue.

In those respects it turns out to be a fitting adornment to the new album, whose music the band have refined into an extremely vicious, often unearthly, yet undeniably captivating sonic creature. And much like the cover art, the music is also elaborate in its creation of menace and mayhem, and far from commonplace — as you’ll discover in our premiere of an album track named “Temple of Rati“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABHORRATION — “AFTER WINTER COMES WAR”

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Nov 252021
 

The Norwegian trio Abhorration (guitarist/vocalist Magnus, bassist Andreas, and drummer Øyvind) are a relatively new formation, having started life just last year, but their resumes portended quality, even before any of the music became public — because those members hail from such bands as Condor, Nekromantheon, Hecatomb, Resonaut, Purple Hill Witch, and Obliteration.

We hope that the foregoing list of bands has already peaked your interest in discovering what Abhorration‘s music is all about (it certainly peaked ours). The publicity distributed by Invictus Productions, which will release the band’s debut EP After Winter Comes War, makes further reference to death metal in the vein of such legends as classic Sadistic Intent, Morbid Angel, Possessed, and early Vader, which kindles even more interest.

All of this created high expectations in these quarters, and it’s such a pleasure to proclaim that those expectations were not merely met but exceeded. And thus it’s with genuine delight that we present a full stream of this heart-pounding EP for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GORE BRIGADE — “THE ROT BECOMES YOU”

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Nov 242021
 

 

The three veteran Swedish musicians whose music is the subject of the following premiere proclaim their love for blood spatter and horror in the very name they chose for their collective enterprise: Gore Brigade. And of course it’s death metal they chose for the audio expression of their deviant adorations, a natural expression given the other bands on the resumes of this trio, who are: Guitarist Ludvig Johansson (Defiatory), drummer Jon Skäre (Defiatory, Wachenfeldt), and vocalist/lyricist Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Massacre) (who coincidentally was the subject of an interview we published earlier today).

Well, but death metal is a big tent that houses manifold mutations of sound, so what stylistic ingredients go into the musical blood cravings of Gore Brigade? Those will be fully revealed on December 10th, when Redefining Darkness Records will cremate the desiccated corpse of this year by releasing Gore Brigade‘s self-titled six-track EP, but today we give you a twisted taste of what’s coming through our premiere of an EP track named “The Rot Becomes You“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GODHEAD MACHINERY — “MONOTHEISTIC ENSLAVEMENT”

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Nov 242021
 

 

In tale June of this year we premiered and reviewed an EP by the Swedish band Godhead Machinery named Masquerade Among Gods, which added to a discography that then included two full-lengths, Ouroboros (2017) and Aligned to the Grid (2019). We offered these thoughts about it (among many others):

“Through the four songs on this EP, when absorbed straight through, Godhead Machinery have created a truly harrowing and haunting experience. The music is multi-faceted and intricate, revealing (in the simplest of genre terms) an amalgamation of black, death, doom, and progressive metal that’s capable of generating visions of frightening calamity, earth-shaking upheaval, and terrible grandeur, but also casting mesmerizing spells and plunging the listener into moods of soul-shaking sorrow”.

Conceptually, the EP was connected to a then-upcoming album, both of them spawned from what the band stands for in general, which is to serve as “a tool to analyze how religious beliefs infiltrate laws, policy, behaviors, and moral codes of today’s society”. Now that album is fast approaching its November 26 release by Black Lion Records. The album’s name is Monotheistic Enslavement, and today you’ll have the opportunity to experience all of its tremendous power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VORGA — “DEATH MANIFESTING”

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Nov 242021
 

 

The title of Vorga‘s 2019 debut EP, Radiant Gloom, was itself a signpost to this German black metal band’s sound, and serves as a signpost to what their first album holds in store as well. The title of the new album, Striving Toward Oblivion, also forecasts the affecting darkness in the music, and yet it is indeed also radiant.

The album’s song titles and cover art point the way toward an excursion into the stunning expanse of the cosmos, but one whose ultimate destination is death manifesting — which happens to be the title of the album’s closing track that we’re presenting today.

This new song is a multi-faceted and thoroughly captivating one, which is emblematic of Vorga‘s many strengths and of the progression their songwriting has taken since that debut EP. It’s rhythmically arresting at a primal level, so much so that it’s capable of shaking listeners like rag dolls, but it’s also atmospheric, emotionally evocative, and memorable, blending moods of desperation and wonder with compelling intensity. Continue reading »

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”

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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 »

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