AN NCS PREMIERE: HELSLAVE — “ROTTING PILE OF FLESH”

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Mar 122021
 

 

Last month we had the fiendish pleasure of premiering the first single from the forthcoming second album by the Italian death-dealers Helslave. We don’t have a crystal ball, but we’ll still predict that their new album, From the Sulphur Depths, is going to become a huge favorite for fans of massive, marauding, deliciously gruesome old school death metal. And as a further teaser for its horrifying pleasures, we’re equally pleased to bring you the album’s second advance track today — “Rotting Pile of Flesh“.

We summed up that first single, “Unholy Graves“, as “bombastic chainsaw death metal of the finest kind, an electrifying, turbocharged thrill-ride that’s as crushing as a pile-driver and as ferocious as giant famished wolves on the hunt”. The song we’re bringing you today is just as exhilarating — even when the band introduce a ghastly change of pace. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEADS FOR THE DEAD — “THE SEANCE”

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Mar 122021
 

 

Soon, we will light the candles, join hands, and our seance will begin. Your mind’s eye will be opened to visions of the supernatural, entering a realm of wondrous horrors. But the eyes in the front of your head will witness visions of a different but equally wondrous kind.

Our seance takes the form of a fantastic music video, and for this entertainment ovations should be given not only to the maker of the video and the makers of the music but also to the performer who threatens to steal the show. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRUEL LIFE INSIDE — “ECLIPSIS VITAE”

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Mar 092021
 

 

With their debut album Eclipsis Vitae the Italian band Cruel Life Inside have created a thoroughly captivating experience from start to finish. Inspired by both a commitment to channeling dark and intense emotions, ranging from pain and rage to suffering and hope, as well as by the rich landscapes of their Calabrian homeland, C.L.I. lead the listener through a continuously ebbing and flowing experience that is often dreamlike but also titanically powerful.

In crafting this wide-ranging musical journey, the trio that make up C.L.I. have deftly interwoven a variety of stylistic ingredients that include atmospheric black metal, melodic doom, post-metal, and prog-rock, as well as bringing in instrumental textures that include lush cinematic soundscapes, classically inspired piano performances, and acoustic guitar, with vocals that vary between evocative clean singing to vicious snarls.

Today it’s our pleasure to present a full stream of this remarkable record in advance of its joint release by Casus Belli Musica and Beverina Productions on March 12th, preceded by a few more thoughts about what you’ll hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GODLESS — “VAGINAL EMPATHY FOR THE MONARCH OF LUST”

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Mar 082021
 

 

The seeds of the Puerto Rican black metal band Godless were planted by its founder Gröfaz (a.k.a. Asaradel) a long time ago, in the winter of 1989. Since then, its history has been infamous. It’s reported that live Godless performances created controversy due to severely brutal and sick displays of self mutilation, blasphemy, and carcasses on stage, which led to a prohibition on them playing live. Line-up changes ensued, as they alway do, and eventually Gröfaz decided to make Godless a one-man band, but the music has remained ominous, sinful, misanthropic, perverted, and of course godless.

Over the course of the decade since its founding, Godless has released (in addition to early demos) a pair of EPs and three albums, and now an hour-long fourth one is on the way. Its name is Lustcifer, and it’s set for co-release by Satanath Records and The End Of Time Records on March 28th. From that album we are today presenting a track that’s stripped-down, primitive, carnal, and evil at its core. That track is “Vaginal Empathy for the Monarch of Lust“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SVART LOTUS — “UNDERGANG”

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Mar 082021
 

 

What we are about to present is, among other things, a fascinating case study in how talented musicians can take a song by a different artist with a dramatically different style from their own and transform it into something new — something of their own — while still retaining a connection to the original. Of course, you could just call it a “cover”, but that seems like an inadequate label for the kind of wonderful interweaving of artistry that has been created here.

The song in question is “Undergang“. It was written and originally recorded by a Norwegian folk musician named Stein Torleif Bjella, and it appeared on his 2013 album Heim For å Døy. The cover of the song, which we’re now premiering, was created by the Norwegian black metal band Svart Lotus, and it adds to the already significant proof that Svart Lotus isn’t just another black metal band, but a particularly distinctive one that goes its own (very captivating) way.

By way of background for those just now discovering the band, allow us to repeat a few things we wrote the last time we premiered a Svart Lotus single: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE AND A REVIEW: SCITALIS — “AWAKENING”

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Mar 052021
 

 

Today the black metal band Scitalis from the north of Sweden make their debut with an EP named Awakening that’s being released by Vendetta Records, and to help spread the work we’re presenting a full stream of its six ravaging tracks.

Presented through a clear and powerful production (which makes effective use of channel shifting), the music is persistently pitch-black in its temperaments, though it explores them in dynamic fashion and with piercing, mood-altering melodies that become key ingredients within changing episodes of upheaval and surrender. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DECLINE OF THE I — “DIEV VIDE”

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Mar 052021
 

 

When writers characterize a piece of music as “ambitious”, that might mean different things to different people, but usually signifies an effort to reach beyond what is commonplace, perhaps through the use of unusual techniques or the creation of rare sounds but more often by trying to more fully engage the listeners’ imaginations and emotions — to create a sensation that takes them places far beyond mundane experience. In all those ways (and others), the new album by the French post-black metal band Decline of the I is ambitious, and it greatly succeeds in realizing those ambitions.

The name of the album is Johannes, and its ambitions actually extend beyond what we hear. For example, there can’t be many black metal albums out there which (as this one does) take their inspiration from the works of Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. And this album is also the beginning of a new trilogy, following this band’s completion of a previous one, which was inspired by the works of French surgeon and neurologist Henri Laborit.

We’ve already written about the first song that was revealed from the album (“The Veil of Splendid Lies“), and today we bring you a second one in advance of the album’s March 26 release by Agonia Records. Its name is “Diev Vide“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GREY AURA — “MARIA SEGOVIA”

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Mar 042021
 

 

You can guess even from gazing at the cover art for Grey Aura‘s new album (by Dutch photographer/artist Sanja Marusic) that you may be about to experience something that’s well off the usual beaten paths, and that turns out to be undeniably, unmistakably, true.

The album’s name is Zwart Vierkant, and it will be released on May 7th by Onism Productions. In creating it, this Dutch band from Utrecht have crafted a fascinating, hard-to-categorize musical narrative that is bound to a novel written by Grey Aura’s Ruben Wijlacker which follows the journey of an early 20th-century painter through Europe, a character who has become obssessed with the Russian art movement Suprematism.

Onism has provided a description of the album, which we’re going to share with you because it really does provide a good introduction to the music — but we will also be giving you a chance to actually listen to some of the music, through our premiere of the album’s opening track, “Maria Segovia“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ORECUS — “THE OBLITERATIONIST”

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Mar 042021
 

 

On March 12th the Swedish modern death metal band Orecus will follow up their 2016 Conclusion EP with a debut album accurately named The Obliterationist through Violent Groove (a label whose own name is entirely fitting for this band’s music). Today we present a full stream of the album, preceded by a preview of what you’ll be in for.

Orecus choose to begin the album with the title track, and it provides an explosive introduction to their terrifically destructive and disturbing strategies. It delivers jolting and jabbing riffs with pile-driving power and savage energy, accompanied by gritty, ferocious, belly-deep growls and attention-grabbing drum rhythms, which often provide a counterpoint to the rapid-fire riffing and which, in the chorus, transform into maniacal blasting as the music soars in delirious, blazing fashion. The song builds up to an even more brutalizing and compulsive hammer-sequence whose piston-driven blows will send your head pumping like an oil derrick. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STONE HEALER — “WHENCE SHALL I”

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Mar 032021
 

 

We are surrounded these days by so much new music, perhaps in part an unforeseen by-product of lockdown days and an abundance of pandemic-provoked anxieties. Much of it is very good, even when the artists aren’t pushing boundaries, or maybe only nudging them a bit, like an elbow bump.

But every now and then we hear something that really makes us sit up straight and take notice, something that pulls together different stylistic ingredients in unexpected ways that shove through boundaries. And when that’s done by people who are unusually gifted instrumental performers but who also bring undeniable emotional power to their song-writing, well then it’s almost like a lightning strike through the top of your head.

And that brings us to North Carolina-based Stone Healer, whose new album Conquistador is all of those things and more. Continue reading »

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