AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DØDSLEIE — “WHEN THE TRUTH GROWS”

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Dec 212021
 

 

The part-Swedish, part-U.S. black metal band Dødsleie, which features current and former members of Integrity, Broken Cross, and Unreal City (among others), made their first mark on the musical landscape in 2018 with the release of their self-titled demo. They have now prepared a debut album named Immortal Hand, which is set for release on February 11 by Bat Magick Records and Subversive Craft. It is intended (in the band’s words) “to serve as a guide to those lost souls who question conformity amidst the daily death of dreams”.

Unmistakably black metal, the album is nevertheless unorthodox. It is both feverish and gloomy, harrowing and eerily entrancing. As the press materials accurately portray, it will take listeners “on a fever dream journey beyond time and space”.

The opening track of Immortal Hand is a song called “When the Truth Grows“, and we’re premiering it today (through a surreal music video) as the first tangible sign of what the album holds in store. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DØDSKVAD — “KRØNIKE II”

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Dec 202021
 

 

With Krønike II, now set for a January 20 release by Caligari Records, the Norwegian death metal band Dødskvad continue on the journey through the old legends of their homeland which they began on Krønike I in 2020. Founder E.R. (Desolation Realm, Stygian Ruin) is still at the helm, joined by members of Obliteration and Sovereign (among other bands). Taking their inspiration from Norse myths, they’ve compiled four tracks, and they introduce the soundscapes with these words:

“In the midst of bloody battlefields; through thundering heavens; on the outer branches of the world tree; within the deep caverns beneath the roots. Across a blackened land, fate strikes dissonant chords.”

Dissonance does play a role in these songs, along with other ingredients that make them disconcerting. But every song is multi-faceted in ways that constantly will keep listeners on their toes — and rock them back on their heels, with heads spinning. True to the inspirations, the music also sounds otherworldly, manifesting strange and often terrifying visions, a changing pattern of cold dread and crazed exhilaration. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BENTHIK ZONE — “NA ILUMINAÇÃO DO PRESENTE”

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Dec 202021
 

 

The British label Onism Productions recommends the new album εἴδωλον (“eidolon” in English) by the atmospheric/progressive black metal duo Benthik Zone for fans of Esoctrilihum, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Darkspace. When I saw that I whispered a “hell yes”. Reading further, I saw that it was also being recommended for fans of Summoning, Blut Aus Nord, and Leviathan. Another “hell yes”.

And then I read that the instruments used on the album include didgeridoo, transverse flute, flute, berimbau, and hangpan. The band’s description of the inspirations and intentions behind the album created even more intrigue — but we’ll get to that a bit later.

Of course we have all learned to take FFO references with a few grains of salt, and to make up our minds based on the music itself. So that you can begin to make up your own minds, what we have for you today is the premiere of the first single from εἴδωλον in advance of its January 28, 2022 release. The song’s name is “Na iluminação do presente“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SIREN’S RAIN — “KEEPERS”

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Dec 162021
 

The folk metal band Siren’s Rain hail from Tacoma, Washington, just down the highway from our site’s home base. Their debut full-length, Rise Forth, was released earlier this fall, and it delves into themes of abandonment, betrayal, hope, despair, and resilience, while joining together elements of heavyweight metallic extremity and such folk instrumentation as mandolin, harp, and the nyckelharpa.

What we have for you today is the premiere of an official music video for a song off Rise Forth called “Keepers“. The video features the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. As vocalist Rena Hellzinger tells us, “We wanted to do a ‘metal band in the woods’ video, as this song is about protecting the environment”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FESTERDECAY — “ABORTICIDE”

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Dec 162021
 

 

If you haven’t yet discovered the wickedness of FesterDecay, they formed in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan in 2015 with the aim of reviving goregrind the way Carcass did it with their 1988 full-length debut, Reek of Putrefaction.

FesterDecay have already released two demos and a split with the band Crash Syndrom, and now they’re releasing a new single named Aborticide. To get an idea of what’s coming, the band say their intent was “to make your eyeballs rot while you are eaten by maggots and body fluids drain from every hole of your body while you get ready for something bigger and tastier!”

“To make this single even more delicious,” they say, “we also added some infested entrails, a delicate touch of juicy pus and a live version of the track ‘Maggot Bath’! Blueearghhhh!”

Okay, are you ready to become befouled? Because we’re now presenting the song “Aborticide” in all its disgusting glory. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SYMBOLICAL — “EPIPHANY & REVIVAL”

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Dec 162021
 

 

The death metal mystics in Symbolical have embarked on a new musical campaign, the purpose of which is to draw you into the darkness that ancients believed was “the home of all that is not yet in form but holds the energy of the creative source”. These Polish musicians proclaim that “Symbolical is our darkness, filled with fat, gloomy, remorseless, simple, and morbid sounds which create and destroy sorrow, depression and grief.”

The new campaign consists of a three-part series of EPs, the first of which — Igne — will be released on December 25, with the next two coming in 2022. Each EP includes a trio of tracks, each of which will be presented through a video. Two of the tracks included within Igne have already premiered through videos, and today we present the third one, “Epiphany & Revival“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: MYRDØD — “THE MOURNING HOLLOW”

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Dec 152021
 

 

(Todd Manning provides the following introduction to our premiere of the new album by Myrdød, whose release is imminent.)

Emerging from the rural nether-swamps of Pennsylvania, the duo known as Myrdød are set to release their full-length The Mourning Hollow on December 17th courtesy of Wise Blood Records. Originally formed by the mysterious Søppelskaler, the project released several singles before enlisting collaborator Fractal Creature.

While many bands claim both death and black metal influences, Myrdød truly blend the two genres and not in a fanboy sense. The Mourning Hollow reeks of pure death mysticism.  Søppelskaler states the following: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BENEATH THE SOD — “BENEATH THE SOD”

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Dec 152021
 

 

“Beneath the Sod scrape back the top soil to lay bare all that is repulsive and feculent beneath. Narcotic and eldritch, Beneath the Sod erodes the listener with a writhing tapestry of industrial doom, grinding noise and hallucinatory horror. Punishing and bewildering, with each release Beneath the Sod sinks deeper into their unique and singularly maddening mire”.

Those are the accurately evocative words with which Cursed Monk Records introduces a new self-titled EP by this utterly diabolical Irish band, an EP set for release on December 17th that we’re presenting today in the full bloom of its terrors. We have more detailed commentary of our own, of course, but at least one more way of attempting to sum up the experience might be this:

It is deeply unsettling, even to the point of inducing queasiness in the listener, and brings forward the stuff of nightmares as old as humanity, and yet manages to become bewitching, to transfix attention, maybe in part because it is so fiendishly effective in crushing the soul and unhinging the mind. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEPLETED URANIUM — “BETA PARTICLES”

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Dec 142021
 

 

When does insanity begin to make sense? When you yourself begin to feel like you’re losing your mental moorings? When the whole fucking world seems to be going insane around you? Or when you realize there’s an appealing method to the madness you witness? Or some combination of all of the above?

These ruminations were spawned by listening to Origins, the new record by the brawlers and mad scientists in the Canadian band Depleted Uranium, which is set for release on January 28th of the coming new year. The music (which could be thought of as a blending of powerviolence and math metal) genuinely sounds insane — furiously so — and yet something about the experience makes sense. Not just because it sounds like people throwing away mental shackles and conventions, but also because the music simultaneously gets its hooks in your head. There’s a sense of order and precision of execution in it, at the same time as it seems completely disruptive of order. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KADAVEREICH — “RADIANCE OF DOOM”

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Dec 142021
 

 

On December 18th Godz Ov War Productions will release Radiance of Doom, the debut EP of the Russian blackened death metal band Kadavereich. Apart from a reference that the line-up includes members of Grond, Act Of God, and Gwarloth, Godz Ov War gave us no hints about the nature of the music the band had created when it asked that we host the EP’s full streaming premiere today. And thus the feeling of shock and awe that we experienced when listening to it was all the more stupefying.

In a nutshell, the sonic power of the EP is immense, and its impact is utterly devastating (but equally electrifying). It chokes the senses, blots out the ability to think of anything else, and becomes an all-consuming, bone-smashing, mind-mauling experience in remorseless destruction, abject terror, and paralyzing agony. If you’re looking for a transfixing visceral experience and don’t mind being subjected to ruthless audio ruination, you’ve come to the right place. Continue reading »

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