AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CANNIBAL ACCIDENT — “NEKROKLUSTER”

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Feb 232021
 

 

Let’s cut to the chase: While the Finnish band Cannibal Accident look like a group of blood-soaked killers who’ve lost their minds, their new album Nekrokluster is one of the best old-school death-grind releases you’re likely to encounter this year. There are many reasons for that, but one of them which might not be expected from outward appearances is that these maniacs turn out to be really good songwriters, and top-shelf in their execution (pun intended).

To be clear, the album is blood-soaked and lethal, and well-calculated to leave its listeners gutted and bone-fractured. But there’s more going on here than obliteration of body and mind — as you’ll discover through our premiere of a full stream in advance of its February 26 release by Time To Kill Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BECERUS — “PRIMEVAL IGNORANTIA”

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Feb 222021
 

 

Rising from Palermo, Sicily, Becerus is a new band who openly declare their love for ’90s death metal, and the first demonstration of their devotion is a debut album named Homo Homini Brutus, whose title alone provides significant clues to what Becerus have done with their music. That savage cover art up there, created by Karl Dahmer, provides another significant clue. But an even more tangible clue comes in the form of the album track we’re premiering today.

Before we get to that, you should know that none other than Everlasting Spew Records, who know a thing or two about slaughtering death metal, will be releasing the album on April 30th. The song that has been chosen for the first premiere is “Primeval Ignorantia” — and that’s another title that’s in keeping with part (but only part) of this band’s overall aesthetic (though “aesthetic” is probably too fancy a word for what they do). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CREEPING FEAR — “HATEGOD TRIUMPH”

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Feb 222021
 

 

The Italian maestro Paolo Girardi has created the artwork for so many metal album covers that trying to count the number would be a daunting task. But in the humble opinion of this writer the one he created for the new album by the French band Creeping Fear is among his best (and most frightening), and surely will be an enticement for fans to pick up a physical edition of the record — IF the record is any good. Is it any good?

Well, hell yes, it is very good indeed, a big slab of red meat for slavering carnivores of death metal in the vein of such bands as Hate Eternal, Immolation, and Cannibal Corpse. The name of the album is Hategod Triumph, and today we present evidence of its brutal, barbaric, and unhinged attractions through the premiere of the title track in advance of the album’s March 26th release by Dolorem Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TROBEROTH — “MY WILL IS GONE”

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Feb 212021
 

 

Today we have a rare Sunday premiere for you, a lyric video for a song named “My Will Is Gone” off the second album from the Costa Rican death/thrashing marauders in Troberoth. That album, Fallen Angel, will be co-released on April 2nd by GrimmDistribution (Ukraine) and Sanatorio Records (Costa Rica).

The song is a hell-raising thrash attack, but it quickly becomes apparent that Troberoth‘s song-writing approach is more varied than usual for this genre, and that their dynamic and multi-faceted song-writing is made possible by the impressive instrumental skill that every band member brings to the table. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MOTHER OF ALL — “AUTUMN”

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Feb 192021
 

 

Mother of All is the brain-child of veteran Danish multi-instrumentalist Martin Haumann, who for many years has been a sought-after drummer, performing with such bands as Myrkur, Mercenary, and Afsky (notably, he performed on Afsky’s fantastic 2020 album Ofte jeg drømmer mig død). For Mother of All, Haumann’s conception was to concentrate on death metal with melodic and progressive elements, and that conception is now fully realized on the band’s debut album Age Of The Solipsist — though you’ll discover that it incorporates even greater musical variety than just those elements.

To help bring these musical visions into reality, Haumann enlisted some very talented allies. The new album features the stunning bass performances of none other than Steve Di Giorgio (Death, Testamant, Sadus), as well as eye-popping work by Danish guitarist Frederik Jensen. But even in such impressive company, Haumann’s song-writing, drum-work, and vocals still strongly stand out. And speaking of talented allies, we should also note that the record was mixed by Hannes Grossmann (ex-Necrophagist, ex-Obscura, Alkaloid) and that the cover art was created by Travis Smith, who is an artistic institution himself.

All these names by themselves should build considerable intrigue about what they’ve accomplished, and now we can at least partially satisfy that curiosity by presenting a lyric video for the opening track from the new album, named “Autumn“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PURE — “THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN LIGHT AND SHADOW”

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Feb 192021
 

 

The prolific Swiss artist Bornyhake Ormenos has assumed many musical guises in a career that now spans more than two decades — more than 25 past and current bands and projects according to Metal-Archives, including Borgne, Enoid, Ancient Moon, My Death Belongs To You, and The Path Of Memory. One of those projects is Pure, a solo black metal endeavor that was born during 2013 as a result of “a tormenting and egregious experience painfully born” by Bornyhake.

Since then Pure has released four albums, and now a fifth one is on the way, following the last by roughly four years. Entitled Seeds of Despair, it will be co-released on March 30th by Satanath Records and Obscure Abhorrence Productions. It is described on behalf of the labels as music “for loners and secluded people who have the habit to follow the mind-stultifying smoke to some ineffable fields close to Judas Iscariot, Horna, Gorgoroth, and Lifelover…” And today we present one of the new songs, fittingly named “The Boundary Between Light and Shadow“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NIXIL — “MAY THIS FLAME FLICKER OUT”

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Feb 182021
 


photo by Shane K. Gardner

 

The Maryland band Nixil have embraced, and luxuriated in, an alchemical approach to black metal on their debut album All Knots Untied. Formed by past or current members of Spectral Tombs, Tsepesch, Dagger Moon, and Corpse Light, this foursome reveal a spectrum of stylistic influences that (as the advance press correctly reports) might remind listeners “of the weirder side of Mayhem, the atmospheric expansiveness of French avant garde black metal a la Blut Aus Nord or Glorior Belli, and the moody, gothic depression of Bethlehem“.

Envisioned as “a manifestation of chaos, rage, strength, and despair” in the midst of “a toxic and crumbling world”, the album is a serious-minded but adventurous channeling of such sensations, though it’s not without infiltrations of the occult and the psychedelic as well.

We have a fine example of Nixil’s multi-faceted approach to the black arts in the song we’re presenting today, “May This Flame Flicker Out“, via a beautifully made video. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELSLAVE — “UNHOLY GRAVES”

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Feb 182021
 

 

If you’re like me, surrounded by new music you might know nothing about, sometimes you’ll take a chance on something based entirely on the cover art — even though there is no necessary connection between the appeal of cover art and the attractiveness of the sounds. If I hadn’t agreed to host the following premiere, this is hands-down an example of music I would have investigated anyway, based on the album cover by the great Juanjo Castellano. And that would have been a very smart decision.

In this instance the album is From the Sulphur Depths, the second full-length by the Italian death metal band Helslave. It will be released on April 23rd by Pulverised Records (with a vinyl edition coming on May 14th), and today’s premiere is for a track named “Unholy Graves” — which is 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. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): QWÄLEN — “UNOHDAN SINUT”

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Feb 172021
 

 

Musicologists have spilled millions of words tracing the twisting and twining path of underground and popular music from R&B to rock ‘n’ roll, punk, metal, and elsewhere. Over time, and in different ways, the connections often seem to snap apart, producing music that seems severed from distant roots, even as the overaching ethos of “outsider” music might remain intact. Blast-beats, for example, diverge sharply from back-beats and d-beats, and the blazing or freezing aggression of tremolo’d riffing seems alien to head-nodding three-chord progressions, just as incomprehensible screaming veers dramatically from a voice that carries a melody.

But even with regard to black metal (perhaps the paragon of severed connections such as those mentioned above), punk was deep down in its early roots, and it’s still alive and well in the music of some segments of black metal who are kicking up sonic storms in the here-and-now. The music of the Finnish quintet Qwälen is one such example, as reveled on their debut album Unohdan Sinut, which is set for release by Time To Kill Records on February 19th, and which we’re premiering in full right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAISSEM — “AN INSPIRATION FOR MY INNER CARNIFEX”

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Feb 162021
 

 

Almost one year to the day after our last premiere for Haissem, we welcome the return of this Ukrainian project with yet another premiere, leading the way toward the release of Haissem‘s newest album, Philosofiend, on March 27th (by Satanath Records and Exhumed Records).

The solo work of Andrey V. Tollock, sometimes accompanied by session musicians, Haissem has been a prolific creator — Philosofiend is the fifth album since 2016. And along the way the band’s musical interests have evolved, now creating a hybrid of melodic black metal and melodic death metal, with elements of thrash occasionally in the mix. And whereas the immediately preceding album Kuhagahn Tyyn (which was the source of our 2020 premiere) used synthesizers and guest musicians to create an atmospheric experience, the new record is more sharp-edged and aggressive — but not without its appealing melodic accents. Continue reading »

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