AN NCS PREMIERE: REAPER — “THE REAPER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 282022
 

 

Metal-Archives lists 8 active bands from around the world who call themselves Reaper (plus a couple more Reapers that have split up and one that changed its name). The one we’re focusing on here is from Melbourne, Australia (not to be confused with the other Australian Reaper from New South Wales).

This Reaper released a blistering six-track self-titled demo in 2017 and have rocketed from that to a debut album named Viridian Inferno that’s now set for release on April 22nd by Dying Victims Productions. Doubling down on all things reaping, the band named the song we’re premiering today “The Reaper” (emphasis added). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CHTHONIC CULT — “BECOME SEEKERS FOR DEATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 252022
 

Seven years ago the Polish duo Chthonic Cult seemed to appear out of nowhere, as if charging forth from a hideous nether-dimension through an invisible door suddenly flung open. It was then that their debut album I Am the Scourge of Eternity scourged the metal underground without previous warning. But almost as suddenly, they seemed to vanish back through that terrible portal, falling silent for a long span of time.

And yet here they are again at last, with a ravenous and mind-ruining new album named Become Seekers For Death that reveals different strategies and is all the better for that. While their full-length debut consisted of four monstrous and monstrously long songs, the new one assaults the senses with 8 more compact tracks of head-spinning blackened death metal. These are almost relentlessly explosive and, to a degree not achieved on the debut, they’re rapidly addictive. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AMBROTOS — “AERAS, THE INFINITE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 242022
 

After releasing two well-received EPs — αμβροτος in 2018 and Cosmic Annulus in 2019 — the Greek black metal band Ambrotos are now poised to released their striking debut album Transcendental Mastery.

Lyrically inspired by pre-Socratic philosophy and ancient cosmology (represented by Khaos Diktator Design‘s stunning cover art, depicting Empedocles’ idea of the Origin of Cosmos), the band have fashioned melodically memorable music of fiery and forlorn intensity that’s capable of reaching towering heights of extravagant and mythic power.

As proof, we present a gripping video for the new album’s second single, a breathtaking onslaught named “Aeras, The Infinite“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOISE AHOLIC — “NARCISSISTVÄRLD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 242022
 

Man, have we got a wild and explosive experience lined up for you! And for that we give thanks to the veteran gang of Finnish crust-punk marauders who’ve joined forces behind the name Noise Aholic.

This project is the brain-child of Pedersöre crust-punk Owe Inborr, known for his work with Wolfthrone Studios, Dispyt, and Ondfödt. To help realize his savage visions on the new EP Narcissistvärld which we’re now premiering, he brought together a formidable group of guests who seem to have fully united behind those visions. They include:

Mathias Lillmåns (Finntroll, Dispyt, …and Oceans), KjellHell (Bob Malmström, Jarruketju), Dario Kåll and La55e Dog (Dogshit Boys, Trashcan Dance) on guest vocals; Jacob Björnfot (Kvaen), Otto Kaalikoski (Bob Malmström, S.A.A.B.) and Marco Lindholm (Marco Luponero and The Loud Ones) on lead guitars; Matias Löfman (Bob Malmström, Varoshan, S.A.A.B.) on bass, and the whole The Dogshit Boys and Bob Malmström on gang vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI — “INMORTUOS SUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 232022
 

 

“Sumptuous” might not be the first word that springs to mind in considering a new album by a band who proudly embrace baleful black metal traditions from the mid-’90s, but it actually suits the forthcoming third full-length by Germany’s Mortuus Infradaemoni.

For one thing, the band have loaded the new album Inmortuos Sum with more than an hour’s worth of music, which perhaps should be expected given that a long 13 years separated this new one from the band’s last full-length, Imis Avernis. But it is lavish in other ways, beyond its significant length, as you’ll discover through our complete premiere of the record today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SCUM — “I DRINK YOUR BLOOD AND I EAT YOUR SKIN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 232022
 

 

We’re about to bring you a new song for your abused ears. It will take you about two seconds to realize that it doesn’t deal with any deep philosophical subjecta. Look at the song title. Look at the band name. Look at that cover art!

For the moment you’ll have to look elsewhere for your philosophizing. Now it’s time to revel in the grand old death metal tradition of horror — of unnatural wolves and disemboweled corpses. And to guide us in our gruesome revels we owe thanks to The Scum, who come our way from the topographically dramatic city of Manizales, a mountainous Colombian cradle of both coffee and extreme metal.

The band’s second album, The Hunger, is set for co-release on April 18th by Satanath Records and the Colombian label Wild Noise Productions. And what is the means by which the monstrous hunger is sated? The song title tells us: “I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DESOLATE SHRINE — “FIRES OF THE DYING WORLD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 222022
 

 

In 2017 our man Andy Synn reviewed Desolate Shrine‘s Deliverance From the Godless Void (along with the band’s preceding three albums), calling that fourth full-length in the group’s discography “another triumph of will and wickedness, and well worth getting hold of if you’ve ever had an urge for a truly masochistic metallic experience.”

With “a production that may be more powerful than ever”, Andy wrote, “the band are still as foul and filthy at heart as they have always been, at times bringing to bear a crippling sense of dissonance and discordance,” meshing together “neck-wrecking grooves”, “gnarly, guttural vocals,” “bulldozing riffs,” “strangling bass lines,” and “foul, demonic atmospherics” to produce a truly electrifying experience.

After a 4 1/2 year wait this devastatingly talented Finnish trio now return with their new fifth album, Fires of the Dying World, which Dark Descent Records will release on March 25th. The wait is now only days away from ending, but today you’ll get to hear the album without any further delay, as we present a full stream below. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUNTOLD — “INTO NO MAN’S LAND”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 222022
 

History repeats itself. What was once old (and horrible) becomes new (and horrible) again.

Estimates of the human carnage inflicted during by the First World War vary to a great extent, but some place the number of military casualties (killed and wounded) at 9.7 million and the number of civilian casualties at 10 million. The magnitude of the slaughter is incomprehensible, but of course it didn’t sate the blood-lust of humankind. Another global conflagration began only two decades later. And now look at what’s happening, again.

The new part-American, part-Belgian black metal band Suntold have made World War I the central theme of their forthcoming debut album World Torn Asunder. It comes at a time when reminders of that brutal conflict centered in Europe are sadly all too relevant. And the music makes the reminder shockingly vivid. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NECROMANTE — “XI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 212022
 

 

Most of our parents tried to educate us about the importance of first impressions, even the ones who didn’t seem to be very good about setting a useful example. Many of us didn’t take the lesson seriously, or tried and failed often enough that we stopped caring. Necromante, however, learned the lesson well.

The first track on their new album XI, “The Equinox of New Aeon“, seizes attention with a haunting melody of piano and strings and two speakers (one of them gloomily beseeching and one of them demonstrably demonic) fighting to be heard. Even people who don’t speak the language can make out the name “Lucifer”.

But this is only the first piece of their first impression, and they answer their own call with the rest of it when “Lucifer Rising” floods the senses with diabolical riffing that blares, jolts, skitters, and darts, backed by drums that pummel and clatter, overlaid with scorching goblin snarls. The aroma of sulphur is strong, the black magic is vivid, and Lucifer does indeed rise as the music itself rises in a vision of infernal grandeur. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAEDEOUS — “OBSCURUS PERPETUO” (AND A VIDEO PREMIERE TOO!)

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 182022
 

On March 22nd the Portuguese symphonic black metal metal band Caedeous will release their third album, Obscurus Perpetua, and today we present not only the premiere of the album as a whole but also an official video for the song “Magisteri Peccatorum“.

If we were trained medical professionals we’d advise you to take your seats and get a firm grip on something solid before embarking on this journey, because Obscurus Perpetua is a dazzling, diabolical, and disorienting trip through the imperiums of Hell. The music is elaborate and unpredictable, theatrical and bombastic, sometimes breathtaking in its splendor but always as scary as your worst nightmares. Fascinating music, to be sure, but also demented and intensely unnerving. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries