AN NCS PREMIERE: LUNG KNOTS — “DEVOUR THEIR BODIES SATURATED WITH BRINE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 082021
 

 

Consider this description of the new project that’s the source of the track we’re premiering today:

“Lung Knots is a vessel of auditory violence whose sole purpose is to exist in this place and moment in time. It is an overwhelming form of aural terror conveyed through primal and mechanical means, conjoining visceral matter of an organic origin with that of an abiotic one. These together fabricate an entity focused on the seething aspects of interminable dread and the humiliation of flesh.

“Lung Knots‘ essence can be summed up as the channeling of hate and disgust towards man and its progeny, and the very construct of humanity in its current, turbulent state, by weaving together textures that vary from harsh noise to black metal and carefully crafted sound design-like sonical scapes, and everything falling in between. The territory from where these scraps are gathered is a profound, hopeless, and lightless hole, familiar to every single being in one sense or another.”

Now consider the lyrics of the macabre audio assault you’re about to experience: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALTERED DEAD — “THRAWING IN AGONY”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 072021
 

 

Five years after the release of their self-titled debut album, the barbarous death metal duo from southern Vancouver Island who call themselves Altered Dead are at last ready for the release of their sophomore album, fittingly named Returned To Life. It will be released by two celebrants of slaughtering sound, with Memento Mori handling the CD release on January 25th and Fucking Kill Records discharging vinyl editions on February 28th. And today it’s our sadistic pleasure to share with you the perverse pleasures of a track from the new record named “Thrawing In Agony“.

Altered Dead‘s approach to death metal draws upon the influences of such progenitors as Autopsy, Death Breath, Grave, Asphyx, Darkthrone, Unleashed, Exhumed, and Carnage. Hallowed names indeed, and suggestive of the fact that Altered Dead interweave within their spine-shivering art varying takes on the most grim and ghastly death metal formulations, and therefore don’t sound like clones of anyone. Even more impressive is that only two people are responsible for such mutilating ravages of sound. Continue reading »

A NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ILDARUNI — “TREADING THE PATH OF CRYPTIC WISDOM”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Jan 072021
 

 

The Armenian pagan metal band Ildaruni made an auspicious debut with their 2018 demo Towards Subterranean Realms (which we reviewed here), revealing both a lyrical focus on ancient Armenian history, drawing upon mythology and aspects of occultism, and a musical blending of folk melody, symphonic sweep, and blood-rushing blackened power. Ildaruni are now building upon that impressive demo with their first full-length, Beyond Unseen Gateways, which will be released by Black Lion Records on March 19th.

Thematically, this debut album continues the band’s focus on ancient myths and arcane forces. It is, in the band’s words, “a hymn to the blazing light, which sank into shadowy shrines, to the wild darkness which covered the debris of Ardini, to the bygone flame which enlightens the sanctum of Haldi”, with each song “an indivisible part of a grand ode which explores the height of the Urartian domain and the esoteric knowledge of pagan mysticism.”

The striking cover art of Mark Erskine captures the album’s essential concept, and so does the music, as you’ll discover through our premiere of a lyric video for “Treading he Path of Cryptic Wisdom“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD WORLD RECLAMATION — “HERALDS OF THE FORMLESS ONE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 062021
 

 

The first word that comes to mind in considering the new music of Dead World Reclamation is extravagant — quickly followed by exhilarating, ingenious, and barbaric. Mark Erskine‘s cover art for this Arizona band’s new album, Aura of Iniquity, is itself astonishing, but make no mistake: it’s not misleading, because the music within is equally striking and no less memorable. And the songs’ lyrical themes are in keeping with the fascinations of the art and the music.

For those who may be familiar with the band’s first album, Sentient, you will be expecting melodic death metal, and that is indeed still at the heart of the band’s creations, but this new album also represents a considerable divergence from what came before. The compositions are even more intricate, and now exhibit even greater technicality in the execution while also bringing into play scintillating keyboards and mesmerizing orchestrations, without stinting on bludgeoning brutality.

As a sign of these changes, and of the kind of experience that spawned all those adjectives in the opening paragraph, we present today a lyric video for an album track named “Heralds of the Formless One” in advance of the record’s release on April 23rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MALICE DIVINE — “IN TIME”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 062021
 

 

Malice Divine is a new solo project from Toronto, Canada. whose self-titled debut album is set for release on February 19th. It’s the work of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ric Galvez, who began composing the album’s music while he was a member of Astaroth Incarnate (whom we’ve written about here in the past) and was also studying as a music major at York University. After Galvez parted ways with Astaroth Incarnate, he finished the rest of the album by writing the guitar solos and the lyrics.

Stylistically, the music draws on a range of melodic black and death metal influences, including Dissection, Death, Wintersun, and Immortal, while also incorporating a lot of jaw-dropping guitar prowess.

As a demonstration of what Malice Divine brings to the table, today we’re premiering a guitar-and-vocal playthrough video for the album’s first advance track, “In Time“, which will be released as a digital single on January 8th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAUDIIR — “THE SLUMBER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 052021
 

 

On the 19th of February the Montreal-based metal band Maudiir will release a second EP. Entitled La Part du Diable, it was inspired by many of the disturbing events that the last year brought us. It follows by almost one year the band’s first EP, Le Temps Peste, and reveals some new dimensions of sound and style, embellishing and extending the black/thrash inspirations that gave birth to the project.

Maudiir is the solo project of F. (ex-Deeply Confused, Tears for the Dead Gods), who also currently leads the prog/thrash metal band Trinity Blast. Through the vehicle of Maudiir, and particularly on this new EP, he brings into play ’80s heavy metal influences alongside black metal and punk, while adding progressive flourishes. We’ve got a fine example of Maudiir’s multi-faceted approach in a song we’re premiering today from the new EP. Its name is “The Slumber“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: STORTREGN — “COSMOS EATER”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

Today we present our site’s first premiere of 2021, and we could hardly ask for a better way to begin than with this new song “Cosmos Eater“, the first single from the forthcoming fifth album by the Swiss band Stortregn. Entitled Impermanence, and adorned with wonderful artwork created by the maestro Paolo Girardi, the record is set for a March 12th release by the band’s new label, The Artisan Era.

If by chance you’re unfamiliar with the music of Stortregn, you might guess from their new label partnership that the band’s stock-in-trade is technical death metal, but you would only be partially correct. Expertly executed technical death metal is indeed a vital ingredient in their music, but far from the only one. Even more so on this new album than before, Stortregn have drawn together a multitude of influences and musical ingredients, and done so in ways that seem naturally conducive to the fascinating experiences of each song. And “Cosmos Eater“, presented through a lyric video, is undeniably fascinating. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FEDSMOKER — “SPLATTER PATTERN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 312020
 

 

After listening to “Splatter Pattern” a few times, it occurred to me that when Fedsmoker decided to release the track on New Year’s Eve they really weren’t trying to ring out the old year, but to bludgeon and burn it to the ground — all of it, from January 1 straight through today. I’ll drink to that!

We’re told that “Splatter Pattern” was the result of this Pacific Northwest powerviolence/hardcore trio — drummer Benjamin Hall (from Rot Monger and Honey Badger), guitarist Devon Jensen (Infrablaster, The Festering), and vocalist Scott Rozell (Sterileprayer, Scatterbox) — experiencing months of pandemic cabin fever. They’re not alone in that experience, of course, they just have ways of letting the fever run wild which most of us don’t have. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE — “THE GOLDEN PATH”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 302020
 

 

A. White has been making audio sensations (purists would object to calling all of it “music”) for more than 25 years, through a variety of projects. Most recently he has become known for his work in Vessel of Iniquity and Crown of Ascension (we premiered the latter’s debut EP earlier this month), but the longest-running project has been Uncertainty Principle, which has amassed a catalogue of 16 albums that date back to 1999, and a handful of shorter releases. Now a 17th full-length is on the way.

This new album, aptly named Sonic Terror, is a survey of Uncertainty Principle‘s entire career — not a compilation, mind you, but a re-recording of songs that has involved a process of deconstruction and rebuilding, with an updated and improved sound and an adjustment in the way the sonic ingredients work together. As described by Xenoglossy Productions, which will release Sonic Terror on February 5th, the album “focuses on some of the heaviest doom metal you will ever hear, mixing harsh noise, funeral doom, sludge and drone, like an extreme hybrid between Godflesh and the Australian doom band Halo“. Judging from the song we’re premiering today from Sonic Terror, that’s not an exaggeration. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXIMPERITUS — “TAHÂDU”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 282020
 

 

On the 23rd of April, 2016, I discovered a band from Minsk, Belarus, whose name was Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum and promptly wrote (here) about a newly released track from their debut album, the name of which, in truncated form, was:

Prajecyrujučy Sinhuliarnaje Wypramieńwańnie Daktryny Absaliutnaha J Usiopahłynaĺnaha Zła Skroź Šaścihrannuju Pryzmu Sîn​​-​​Ahhī​​-​​Erība Na Hipierpawierchniu Zadyjakaĺnaha Kaŭčęha Zasnawaĺnikaŭ Kosmatęchničnaha Ordęna Palieakantakta​​.​​​.​​.

On our Facebook page a note was left explaining that, in English, this means “Projecting the singular emission ov the Doctrine ov Absolute and All-Absorbing Evil through the hexahedral prism ov Sîn-Ahhī-Erība upon the hypersurface ov zodiacal arc ov the cosmotechnical order ov paleocontact founders the utterly ancient hypostases ov pre-axes civilizations actuate the resonance transformer ov temporally similar to the eternity ov the future in the towers ov Nwn-Hu-Kek-Amon’s obcervatory embodying the ashes ov Alulim into the ethereal matter to the west ov exoplanet PSRB 1620-26b”.

As I wrote at the time, the song I had found kicked massive amounts of ass, even if its title, and that of the album, and that of the band, were guaranteed to defeat all efforts of the human mouth to shape the letters into sound.

More than one year later I found myself in the position of premiering a song from the band’s next release, an EP whose title was far briefer, though no less cryptic: W2246-0526.

And then after that, in 2019, Eximperitus (even with copy/paste functionality I’d rather use this shortened form) released a single named “Tahâdu” that I managed to overlook. “Tahâdu” is also the name of an Eximperitus track that we’re premiering today, and I’m okay using the term “premiere” because I haven’t attempted to determine (and may not be able to determine) whether this is the same song that appeared earlier or has been revised in some way. In any event, it comes from a new Eximperitus album named Šahrartu, which seems to be the Sumerian word for “Devastation”. It will be released by Willowtip on January 29, 2021. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries