AN NCS PREMIERE: VESSEL OF INIQUITY — “DYING”

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Jun 292021
 

 

Vessel of Iniquity‘s third full-length is named The Doorway. It will be released by Sentient Ruin on August 6th. To borrow some of the words from the completely accurate press materials announcing the LP, Vessel of Iniquity reveals itself (again) to be a vicious “aural weapon” devoted to “overwhelming sensory annihilation”, “funneling a blinding scourge of swirling atmospheric harsh industrial and lacerating abstract black metal into forty-five minutes of pure concentrated chaos.”

Lest you doubt the truth of that description, we present today the premiere of one of the album’s experiments in “overwhelming sensorial annihilation”, a track named “Dying“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NIGRUM PLUVIAM — “FROM THE EARTH TO THE ABYSS THROUGH SUFFERING”

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Jun 292021
 

 

In a fundamental sense, simplicity is the hallmark of Nigrum Pluviam‘s forthcoming debut album, Eternal Fall Into the Abyss. The compositions are uncomplicated. The technology seems primitive. The instrumental ingredients are spare. It’s not difficult to imagine that its sole creator (Kraëh Määtruum) made it in a cold, sodden, dimly lit place, removed from the rest of life, bereft of creature comforts, and disdainful of both human interaction and any distractions from the severe belief that humanity is worthless and the future is cursed.

The album’s conveyance of such complete and hermit-like dedication to such a dark craft generates a kind of frightening respect. And so does the atmosphere that it so relentlessly creates. Even with such a stripped-down approach, or perhaps because of it, the album powerfully succeeds in creating a submersive effect that builds over time in its changing phases of fear and hopelessness. It becomes weirdly enthralling even as it steadily generates an array of unearthly sensations that will chill you to the bone. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURIAL IN THE SKY — “MECHANISMS OF LONELINESS”

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Jun 282021
 

 

After two increasingly impressive and adventurous albums — 2016’s Persistence of Thought and 2018’s Creatio et Hominus — Philadelphia’s Burial in the Sky are returning with a third full-length named The Consumed Self, which will be released on August 13th by Rising Nemesis Records. If anything, it’s an even more adventurous amalgam of technical and progressive death metal than the records which preceded it, and even more elaborate and multi-faceted in both its compositional approach and its textures of tone and mood.

This is a band bursting with ideas, and they’re not timid about showing that. All the members also happen to be highly skilled performers, and that’s what makes possible the realization of their most high-flying ideas — and the somehow seamless juxtaposition of dramatically changing emotions and styles, bewildering or bone-smashing in one moment and then visionary or entrancing the next. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GODHEAD MACHINERY — “MASQUERADE AMONG GODS”

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Jun 282021
 

 

With two albums to their name released by Inverse Records — Ouroboros (2017) and Aligned to the Grid (2019) — and work now beginning on a third full-length, the Swedish extreme metal band Godhead Machinery will be releasing a new EP on July 2nd through Black Lion Records, and we have the pleasure of presenting it in its entirety today.

Sometimes in the space between full-length releases a band will record an EP as a “filler”. In some cases you get the sense that a group just wants to remind fans that they still exist. But in other cases, and this is one of them, the EP represents a serious work, with just as much dedication to composition, performance, and emotional impact on the listener as you would find in a full-length endeavor. In fact, when the work is done as well as Godhead Machinery have accomplished on Masquerade Among Gods, the intensity of that impact might even exceed what could be achieved through more tracks and minutes. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: JÄRNBÖRD — “GÖR OM, GÖR FEL”

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Jun 252021
 

 

Imagine having electrodes jammed into your neck and someone spinning up the voltage dial to full power while other marauders beat you with hammers, scamper about the room in savage ecstasy, and bray in your face with raw, vitriolic yells. You spasm, become savagely bruised, and yet it all feels fucking great.

That kind of vision might be what comes to mind when you listen to the title track off Järnbörd‘s new album Gör om, gör fel (meaning something like “do again, do wrong”), which will be released this year by Downfall Records. The album includes 10 tracks of fast and heavy grindcore and punk, plus a long 11th track that presents a remix of the first 10 tracks using harsh electronics and synth-filled landscapes of noise. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GALVANIZER — “THE EVER-CRESCENT”

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Jun 252021
 

 

Three years ago we had the ghoulish pleasure of premiering the debut album of the precocious Finnish death metal band Galvanizer, summing it up as “a full-throttle, titanically toned barrage”, with each compact song delivering “an electrifying death/grind rampage, each one spliced with grooves”. As we wrote then, “the music rips, romps, and pounds, and sometimes (but not often) it drops into a grisly, staggering lurch,” with the whole affair draped in “a morbid mantle of horror”.

Sanguine Vigil was indeed hellishly impressive, and so is their full-length follow-up, Prying Sight of Imperception. It’s so impressive that Me Saco Un Ojo and Everlasting Spew have again teamed up to release it, as they did the debut album, and so impressive that we’ve again signed on for a premiere in advance of the July 26 release date. Today’s revelation is “The Ever-Crescent“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUFFER YOURSELF — “RIP TIDE”

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Jun 242021
 

 

During a falling or ebbing tide the outflow of water through constricted channels can create a powerful surge capable of carrying a person caught within it far offshore, or dangerously submerging them in the surging flow, with little ability to escape and find air once again. This phenomenon is called a rip tide — and when you listen to the remarkable new album by Suffer Yourself you will understand why they chose Rip Tide as its name.

This multinational funeral doom collective, which first began as the solo project of Polish musician Stanislav Govorukha and then blossomed, like a night-blooming flower, into a full band, has released two previous albums, 2014’s Inner Sanctum and 2016’s Ectoplasm. On this third one, they’ve expanded and altered their musical range in ways that bring them closer to the deathly terrain of such bands as Esoteric and Evoken — though it would be a mistake to push that comparison too far, because Suffer Yourself possess their own distinctive identity and have drawn within their music a multitude of stylistic and tonal ingredients that make each song different from the others and the album as a whole an unconventional experience.

You’ll be able to discover all of that for yourselves today, because we’re now premiering a full stream of Rip Tide on the eve of its release by Aesthetic Death. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST — “HAIR AS THE SALT OF CARTHAGO”

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Jun 242021
 

 

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the fascinatingly distinctive Italian black metal band Laetitia In Holocaust. To celebrate the occasion, the band have recorded a new three-song EP entitled I Fall With the Saints, and Brucia Records is releasing it on a limited run of tapes, along with a book that includes photos and an exclusive interview with the band covering much of their history. Today, in addition to sharing this news, we’re reviewing the EP and premiering one of its three songs, “Hair as the Salt of Carthago“.

For those who may only now be discovering this band despite their longevity, Laetitia in Holocaust was formed in 2001 by Stefano G. and Nicola D.A. That duo self-released two demos, one EP, and two albums before being joined by drummer Marcello M. for the release (by Third I Rex) of the remarkable (and enormously surprising) Fauci tra Fauci in 2019, which we had the thrill of premiering here. And they followed that with the release last year of the transfixing Heritage (via Nifihel Records).

It’s possible to make comparisons of this band’s idiosyncratic creations to the avant-garde stylings of a few other bands, but the truth is that they really don’t sound like anyone else I’ve encountered. Trying to sum up their music in succinct sentences would be a daunting challenge. Forgetting the music after you’ve heard it would be an impossibility. This new EP is a vivid demonstration of all that. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SIDEREAN — “LOST ON VOID’S HORIZON”

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Jun 232021
 

 

The Slovenian band Siderean began their career under the name Teleport, and as Teleport they released a sequence of demos culminating in 2018’s remarkable Expansion. Afterward came the name change, and a refinement of sound, which was displayed on Siderean’s 2020 demo, aptly named Sidereal Evolution, which was released by Edged Circle Productions. And now, at last, Edged Circle Productions will soon release Siderean’s debut album, Lost On Void’s Horizon.

In their Teleport incarnation, the band drew influence from the likes of Gorguts, Voivod, and Australia’s Stargazer, with musical connections to contemporaries such as Blood Incantation and Sacriphyx. But as revealed on that 2020 demo and even more so on the new album (which includes those demo tracks), they’ve ventured out into more mind-bending and off-planet dimensions, creating a combination of progressive and technical death metal that’s as fascinating and enthralling as it is disorienting.

Thus, it’s with a genuine thrill that we present a full stream of the album just days away from its June 25 release, preceded by our review. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): IRAE — “DANGEROVZ MAGICK ZPELLS FROM THE MESZIAH OF DEATH”

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Jun 222021
 

 

If you are familiar with the catalogue of raw black metal assembled by the one-person Portuguese band Irae, then you will have some idea what to expect from the band’s new EP, intriguingly titled Dangerovz Magick Zpells from the Mesziah of Death — but you will likely still be surprised. The music is in many ways as idiosyncratic as the title, and its effect on the mind is confounding.

Like much of raw black metal, and perhaps especially that produced by the Portuguese cults, the music is willfully abrasive — yet this EP still manages to be enthralling. The moods are often harrowing in their displays of inner torment, but equally capable of reaching heights of tortured grandeur. The garage-band sound of the drums is primitive, but the beats are invigorating and head-hooking. The songs generate auras of blood-freezing, supernatural terror, but somehow still harbor beckoning, magical melodies that are spell-like and seductive.

We have further, more detailed, thoughts below about the fascinating contrasts within these unsettling yet beguiling compositions, which are not soon forgotten, but we also have a premiere stream of the EP for you, in advance of its June 24 release by Signal Rex. Continue reading »

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