SUPREME CONCEPTION: A REVIEW OF “EMPIRE OF THE MIND” AND THE PREMIERE OF “TRANSGRESSION II: SELF-DISCOVERY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 222021
 

 

(In this article we present Todd Manning‘s review of a new EP by the Czech band Supreme Conception which will be released on August 6th, and our premiere of a track from the EP.)

It’s easy to get Tech-Death wron;, endless flurries of indistinguishable notes make for unremarkable material. It’s a good thing then that Supreme Conception avoid the genre’s pitfalls on their new EP Empire of the Mind. The trio consisting of Michal Kusak (ex-Imperial Foeticide) on vocals, Martin Meyer (Heaving Earth) on guitar, and Aaron Stechauner (ex-Rings of Saturn) on drums, display plenty of instrumental prowess on these five songs, but also manage to create an engaging listening experience as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: REJECTER — “DOUBLE SPHINX AT THE ENTRANCE”

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Jul 222021
 

 

We’ve had a lot of premieres at our site today already, but this final one definitely should not be overlooked, even though the band is an unheralded newcomer of undisclosed origin. A duo consisting of musician Carhaix SSP and vocalist G., they’ve taken the name Rejecter, which is a reflection of their rebellious black metal ethos — an embrace of “the yearning for freedom” (including freedom from the genre’s more rigid and dictatorial voices) and an encouragement of people “to repel the forms of authority that disrupt their lives”.

Rejecter’s eight-track debut album, The Vulgar Wine, is being presented by the anti-fascist black metal collective RABM, and today we’re premiering a multi-faceted and immediately gripping track named “Double Sphinx at the Entrance“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VEILBURNER — “VAULT OF HAUNTING DISSOLVE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 222021
 

 

In December 2018 our writer Andy Synn compiled reviews of all the albums released as of that date by Pennsylvania’s Veilburner, including their then-latest (and then-finest) record, A Sire To the Ghouls of Lunacy. In tracing the band’s evolution, he characterized the music as “warped and twisted, tumultuously technical and deviously discordant Black/Death Metal which doesn’t really sound exactly like anyone, or anything, else out there.”

And now here we are, two and a half years later, even more copiously surrounded by bands who have embraced “dissonant death metal” as their dominant style, and yet what Andy wrote at the end of 2018 still holds true: Veilburner still don’t really sound like anyone, or anything, else out there. Their newest album, Lurkers in the Capsule of Skull (set for a September 24 release by Transcending Obscurity Records), is abundant proof of that.

The new full-length is relentlessly fascinating and mood-altering, both horrifying and mesmerizing, ingenious as well as deranged, and thoroughly gripping from start to finish. Although only time will tell, it has all the earmarks of a record that will be remembered for a long time after it emerges in all its fiendishly spine-tingling and skin-chilling glory. As a further sign of this, today we’re premiering a stunning album track named “Vault of Haunting Dissolve“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TEMPLE OF DREAD — “HADES UNLEASHED”

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Jul 212021
 

 

On Friday of this week, July 23rd, Testimony Records will release Hades Unleashed, the third full-length of the titanically powerful German death metal band Temple of Dread. It is everything that its title promises — as hellish, as electrifying, and as explosive an album as you’re likely to encounter in the realms of death metal this year.

The band’s two previous albums, Blood Craving Mantras and World Sacrifice, were damned good, but the songwriting on this new record still shows big steps forward, with even greater dynamics of tempo and mood, but without stinting on the hell-raising, bone-smashing power of the band’s attack or the astonishing insanity of the vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRIGSGRAV — “DREAD THE NIGHT”

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Jul 202021
 

 

One of our favorite bands, Krigsgrav, will be returning on August 6th with a new album named The Sundering, to be released through Wise Blood Records. This is their sixth full-length since 2004 and features a revised line-up that now includes not only David Sikora (drums, bass, backing clean vocals) and Justin Coleman (vocals, rhythm guitars, ambient noise), but also new lead guitarist Cody Daniels, whose name will be familiar to many of us as a member of Giant of the Mountain.

If there is a spiritual center to Krigsgrav’s amalgamation of black metal and melodic death/gloom, it is the portrayal of bleakness. In Justin Coleman‘s words, “Krigsgrav is based around beauty in darkness, our stoic internal reflection and just the smallest amount of hope that can still be found, even at life’s darkest moments.” He further explains that The Sundering in particular “is based around the dread of a natural event occurring and having no control, but trying to find the means to pull yourself together to get through it all. It is about personal perseverance in the face of absolute crushing odds that should not allow it. Our lyrical content is almost consistently about our place in this world, and how finite and fragile our existence is.”

One concrete source of this thematic focus was the devastating hurricane that decimated the then-thriving island city of Galveston in Krigsgrav’s home state of Texas in 1900 — a stunning assault of nature than left 8,000 dead in its wake. If only that were a never-to-be-repeated event, but as we all know, extreme weather events have become relentlessly more common and are likely to be an ever-present part of our experience for a long time to come. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARX ATRATA — “SUCCESSION”

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Jul 202021
 

 

After three full-length albums the one-man atmospheric black metal band Arx Atrata from Nottingham, UK, joined forces with Bleakwinter Shrine for a split release named The Warrior Cycle that was revealed in April of this year. Unlike Arx Atrata‘s previous works, this was an instrumental record, but nevertheless it was one that told a story. Arx Atrata‘s alter ego Ben Sizer explains it:

“The Warrior Cycle was unusual in that although it was an instrumental release it was built around a strong narrative theme, the idea coming from Bleakwinter Shrine as a way to unify our work on the split record. With no lyrics to explain it, we decided to have the storyline included in the liner notes to give listeners some additional context and help them paint the imagery in their minds while listening to the record. But there was a realization that we could go further and show the storyline visually, setting the music to a short video that really captures the essence of the theme and provides an interpretation of the events within”.

It’s that video that we’re helping to premiere today, and it really is extraordinary. The narrative theme that inspired the music is tragic, and although the events are set in an ancient time, it resonates all too powerfully in our current age. The song in the video, “Succession“, plays upon the heartstrings with mastery, and the beautifully rendered video makes the impact of the music even more heartbreaking and deeply memorable. We’re truly honored to share it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOMAN IS THE EARTH — “BREATH OF A DYING STAR”

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Jul 192021
 

 

Five years have passed since Woman Is the Earth‘s last album, Torch of Our Final Night. It’s possible that some of you are thus new to this South Dakota group. If you are, Andy Synn‘s SYNN REPORT on the band wouldn’t be a bad way to get caught up, since it includes reviews and streams not only of that last album but also the three which preceded it. In that extensive essay he summed up their music as a special “blend of grim grandeur and metallic majesty”, “a brand of Black Metal that’s as heavy in atmosphere as it is in aggression, with songs that meld writhing riffage and rolling drums with passages of acoustic contemplation and ambient meditation, all without falling prey to the more generic tropes and clichés of the over-saturated ‘Post Black Metal’ scene”.

And now five years later we are about to receive a new album, which should be regarded as a signal event of this half-finished year. Entitled Dust of Forever, it will be released by the distinctive Init Records on August 20th, and is a timely reunion of these two musical forces since this year marks the label’s 20th anniversary.

Not long ago Invisible Oranges premiered the new album’s first single, “Spiritual Rot“, and today it’s our great pleasure to present the second one, “Breath of A Dying Star“, which happens to be the track that immediately precedes “Spiritual Rot”. Happily, we have a Bandcamp stream that allows you to hear them back-to-back. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KROSSFYRE — “RITES OF EXTERMINATION”

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Jul 192021
 

 

What we have for you today is the complete premiere stream of one of the most exhilarating and explosive albums of the year so far. Anyone who’s heard this Barcelona band’s 2017 debut EP Burning Torches won’t be shocked to hear that, but even devoted fans of that EP are going to have their eyes opened wider and their jaws dropped lower by what Krossfyre have achieved on the rip-roaring Rites of Extermination.

Once again, the band have stewed together a host of metal styles in a boiling cauldron, with black metal, thrash, and death metal being the most prominent. Benefitting from a more clear and cutting production, the music creates blowtorch heat and black powder explosiveness, whirling-dervish wildness and feral savagery, hellish grandeur and dire melancholy — and all of these experiences, save perhaps the last of them, simultaneously radiate an atmosphere of unchained devilry, of a coven of witches and warlocks spinning and levitating in the throes of diabolical possession. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAVESLAVE — “NO CENTER”

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Jul 162021
 

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

That opening stanza from Yeats‘ famous poem The Second Coming has sprung to this writer’s mind more than once over the last year, and came to mind again in thinking about the title of Graveslave‘s new album — No Center — and its title track, which we’re premiering today. But apart from what’s been happening all around us, the times have also had a way of hollowing people out, and it’s that aspect of existence that seems to be the song’s true focus. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FETID ZOMBIE — “BREATH OF THANATOS”

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Jul 162021
 

 

Almost five years have passed since Epicedia, the last album by Mark Riddick’s Fetid Zombie. That long stretch of time didn’t represent a hiatus, because Fetid Zombie continued releasing splits and EPs every year, but the time has finally come for a new full-length. Bearing the title Transmutations, it’s calendared for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on July 30.

Long before this new album it was evident that Riddick’s songwriting wasn’t going to stagnate with the passage of time. Instead, it has become increasingly exploratory and inventive, and those tendencies are in full bloom on the new album. While it may be true that classic death metal heaviness and ferocity are still at the core of the music, it wouldn’t be wrong to call Transmutations a progressive death metal thrill-ride.

As proof of that we’re presenting today “Breath of Thanatos“, an amazing song that’s a genuine kaleidoscope of sound, as elaborate and enthralling as it is punishing and frightening. Continue reading »

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