AN NCS PREMIERE: ANTHEMS OF ISOLATION — “AS PAZUZU RISES”

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Apr 152022
 

On their forthcoming debut album Apocalyptic Portrayals, the Iraqi duo Anthems of Isolation demonstrate a formidable power to create music that’s simultaneously spellbinding and unnerving. It’s steeped in moods of despair and downfall, and harrows at any sense of well-being like the swing of a scythe against fragile shoots of wheat, but its measured beats and celestial melodies are also undeniably hypnotic.

The music is sinister and perilous, tension-filled and tormented, and yet it’s easy to fall into the cold and shining void-space of these sounds and then find it difficult to escape. You’ll discover this for yourselves by listening to the three tracks we’re streaming below, one of which we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s co-release by Satanath Records and More Hate Productions on April 23rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CLEARxCUT – SONGS OF DESIRE ARMED

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 152022
 

(Andy Synn presents Songs of Desire Armed, the upcoming second album by CLEARxCUT)

While my love of Hardcore has been well-documented by now, there are still certain things about it which don’t always sit right with me (and I don’t just mean karate-dancing in the pit, whose ignorant, “look at me”, attitude has always seemed antithetical to the communal mindset of the genre).

In particular, despite supposedly being founded on principles of brotherhood and community, a lot of Hardcore bands/fans can be rather elitist and exclusionary – especially when it comes to emphasising the “brother” part – and while there have been a lot of moves towards changing this in the years since I first got into the genre, there’s still a fair way to go until Hardcore as a whole will be able to truly say that it practices what it preaches.

There are, however, still a lot of bands who both talk the talk and walk the walk, and CLEARxCUT – a vegan, anarchist, anti-fascist and straight-edge Metallic Hardcore collective made up of, among others, both current and ex-members of Implore, King Apathy, and Heaven Shall Burn – are unequivocally one of those bands, expressing their beliefs and ideals not to exclude or impugn others but to engage and inspire by example.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE TROOPS OF DOOM — “ANTICHRIST REBORN”

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Apr 142022
 

 

The stars have aligned on Antichrist Reborn, the debut album by The Troops of Doom from Brazil. There are many stars within the underground firmament who have joined forces to create the album, and the music itself reaches us like lights across a void from a distant time, gleaming like brilliant obsidian arrays lit by hellish flames.

Among the human stars are the troops of doom themselves — former Sepultura guitarist Jairo “Tormentor” Guedz, bassist/vocalist Alex Kafer (Enterro, Explicit Hate, ex-Necromancer), drummer Alexandre Oliveira (Southern Blacklist, Raising Conviction), and guitarist Marcelo Vasco (Patria, Mysteriis, and acclaimed graphic artist for the likes of Slayer, Kreator, Machine Head, Soulfly, and Hatebreed).

In addition to them, the album includes guest performances by João Gordo (Ratos de Porão) and Alex Camargo and Moyses Kolesne from Krisiun.

And that still doesn’t touch every point in the constellation. The album was mixed by Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy, Pain) at the The Abyss Studio and it was mastered by Jonas Kjellgren at Blacklounge. Moreover, the cover art was painted by Sergio “AlJarrinha” Oliveira, the artist behind the original artwork for Sepultura‘s Bestial Devastation. And physical editions of the album will be released by Alma Mater Records, the label owned by Moonspell frontman Fernando Ribeiro.

All those stellar names seize attention, but for serious metal listeners only the music will count — as is only right. The names build expectations, but those hopes must be fulfilled in the sounds or the album will soon be forgotten.  We’ve already hinted at our own opinion — that Antichrist Reborn won’t soon be forgotten — but you can decide for yourselves today because we’re presenting a full stream of the record on the eve of its April 15th release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLASPHEMATORY — “FLOODED GRAVES”

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Apr 142022
 

The New Jersey death metal band Blasphematory boasts a line-up that includes members of Abazagorath, Death Fortress, and Altar of Gore, and for anyone who knows the music of those bands there should be no further encouragement needed to check out Blasphematory‘s forthcoming second album, aptly titled The Lower Catacombs, even if you missed their first full-length (2019’s Depths of the Obscurity).

But perhaps all those names may have eluded some wanderers among the tombstones and sepulchral crypts of dank and devastating death metal or the freezing moons of black metal. Or maybe the music of Blasphematory alone has escaped the attention it deserves. Certainly, The Lower Catacombs deserves a lot of attention. It’s as macabre as the cover art, and turns out to be as addictive as it is filthy and ferocious.

The song we’re presenting today, “Flooded Graves“, is unmistakably soiled in its sound, and it’s also preternaturally maniacal, a ghastly, hard-charging barrage that’s a huge thrill to hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FADEAD — “TERRA FERITA”

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Apr 132022
 

 

Later this month Lethal Scissor Records will release the raging debut EP of an Italian grindcore band who call themselves Fadead and whose experienced line-up includes Y. (Vomit the Soul, ex-Precognitive Holocaust Annotations), V. (Spells of Misery, Bolvangar, Vertebra Atlantis), and R.

The name of the EP is Terra Ferita, and it comes recommended for fans of Nasum, Cripple Bastards, and Napalm Death. To help spread the word about it, last month we premiered a lyric video for a brutal two-minute assault named “L’estremità del mondo“. Today we prolong the assault by un-caging the entire EP so it can run rampant through your skull for… a whole nine minutes. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELIOSS — “L’INSONDABLE CRÉPUSCULE DES MORTS”

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Apr 132022
 

 

Today marks the third opportunity we have seized upon since 2017 to help spread the word about the music of Helioss through a music premiere. Today the subject of the premiere is a song called “L’insondable crépuscule des morts” from this French band’s forthcoming fifth album Contre ma lumière, which is set for release by Satanath Records on April 21st.

Once again, Helioss mastermind and multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Muller directed the enterprise, again joined by vocalist D.M. (Celestial Swarm, Gravefields, etc.) and guest drummer Mikko Koskinen (The Lifted Veil, Proscription). And once again Helioss has pushed its expanding musical boundaries of progressive black/death metal outward into even more inventive and genre-bending territory. This newest song premiere from the album, which comes with a lyric video, provides an extravagant demonstration of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEFECT DESIGNER — “TROLLS”

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Apr 122022
 

Anyone who has dabbled in the discography of either Diskord or Defect Designer, who share a pair of members, know that both of these Norway-based bands revel in severely discombobulating their listeners, and beating them almost senseless.

At the risk of our own sanity and skeletal integrity we’ve done our own fair share of dabbling across their releases, and have always come up wildly smiling, albeit through broken teeth. And so the news of the first Defect Designer album in seven years, following on the heels of Diskord‘s own 2021 full-length (reviewed here), set our nerves a-tingling.

Sure enough, it’s a goddamned bonanza, and so insane that it makes Ian Miller‘s  bizarre cover art seem understated and entirely intelligible. The name of the album is Neanderthal, and from that album we’re really fucking delighted to drop a brain-bomb on you named “Trolls“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ZORNESTRIEB – “LICHTBLICKE”

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Apr 122022
 

 

“A gentle spring wind blows on these lonely days. A star shines brightest in the endless and still cold night, in this pain-filled silence…Thousands of empty hearts, exposed to their fate. In this world we don’t want to be without you… ‘Memory breaks the desolate silence, awakens the ray of hope in all of us'”.

Those words accompany a song we’re premiering today from Der Eskapist, the forthcoming debut album by the Thuringian atmospheric black metal band Zornestrieb. The song’s name, “Lichtblicke“, itself translates in English to “rays of hope” — but the music itself seems to reach for those rays through dark and turbulent clouds of torment. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CIRCLE OF CHAOS — “PURGATORY”

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Apr 112022
 

On April 22nd Satanath Records (Georgia) and The Ritual Productions (Netherlands) will co-release Forlorn Reign, the third album by the Swedish death metal band Circle of Chaos. It comes a long eight years after the band’s second full-length, and represents the work of a changed line-up in pursuit of a new musical direction for the band, one that’s more extreme and aggressive and brings elements of black and thrash metal into the mix.

As a prime example of what the new album holds for listeners, we present the band’s official music video for a venomous, vicious, and preternatural track named “Purgatory“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PAGANIZER — “BEYOND THE MACABRE”

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Apr 112022
 

He might blush to hear it, but Rogga Johansson is death metal royalty. Prolific and seemingly indefatigable, he and hordes of talented allies have been churning out death metal and other forms of musical extremity since the mid-’90s under dozens of names. The oldest of all those bands (unless one counts the short-lived Terminal Grip) is of course Paganizer, a mauling and magnificent offspring that reached maturity long ago but still grows and flourishes.

All good things will come to an end, but Paganizer seems deathless — in the vanguard of Swedish death metal from the early days and relentless in its continuing momentum. On June 24th of this year we will witness the release of their 12th album Beyond the Macabre, nearly a quarter century after the first one, embellished with a cover painting by Juanjo Castellano that’s as much of a supernatural spectacle as the music is.

And yes it’s true — Beyond the Macabre is a supernatural spectacle, a display of Swedish death metal that continues to menace and maraud in the best of the old traditions, but with a knack for incorporating evocative melodies that both add to the music’s visceral and vicious vitality and makes the songs genuinely memorable. It’s thus an honor to present the title track today. Continue reading »

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