AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HINSIDES — “UNDER BETLEHEMS BRINNANDE STJÄRNA”

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Jul 052021
 

 

Last year Shadow Records introduced denizens of the underground to the Swedish black metal band Hinsides (which is the solo project of Ultra Silvam’s M.A.), through a split release with Monstraat. Only two Hinsides songs were presented, but enough to make a fiendishly promising impression. From there Hinsides went on to complete work on a debut album, which the same Shadow Records is now set to release on July 9th.

The album’s name is Under Betlehems brinnande stjärna, and it is a confluence of surprises that create what might seem to be paradoxical results, harboring music that at first blush is so willfully abrasive it might repel rather than attract, but turns out to be exhilarating and unexpectedly enthralling — even magical. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VURVARAT — “THEURGIA MORTEM”

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Jul 052021
 

 

“All good things come to those who wait.” That hopeful proverbial saying is attributed to the English poet Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (1843-1905), under her pseudonym of Violet Fane. Yet the same poem that’s the source of the saying also includes this stanza: “‘Ah, all things come to those who wait’ / (I say these words to make me glad) / But something answers soft and sad / ‘They come, but often come too late.'”

It has been a long wait for Theurgia Mortem, the debut album of the occult French black metal band Vurvarat. One advance song from the album first surfaced in January 2018, and we premiered a second one in April of that year. At last, it will be released soon by Atavism Records, and thankfully patience is rewarded. It is indeed very good, and comes not too late. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VASSAGO — “ELITE OF SATAN”

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Jul 012021
 

 

Twenty-two years after releasing their debut album, Knights From Hell, the infernal Swedish slaughterers in Vassago have emerged with a second full-length, aptly titled Storm of Satan. In the interval two of its members devoted their attentions to the black metal band Lord Belial, but thankfully have now revived Vassago, which represents a very different vehicle for their talents — and Andy LaRoque of King Diamond joined them on lead guitar for this new hell ride.

The album is indeed a powerfully hellish amalgam of black and death metal, utterly devoted in its lyrical themes to the evil power of Satan (whose name appears in every song title), and utterly demented in the blitzing and blistering ferocity of its attack. Today, leading up to the record’s August 1 release by NWN! Productions, we have the fiendish pleasure of premiering its second single, “Elite of Satan“, which is a true firestorm of ravaging intensity. Continue reading »

KRYPTAN: A REVIEW OF THEIR SELF-TITLED EP AND THE PREMIERE OF “A GIANT LEAP FOR WHOREDOM”

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Jul 012021
 

 

The dumpster fire of the past pandemic year was wretched in countless ways, but most of us have realized that it also gave birth to a multitude of changes that were not all bad. Among other fortunate developments, the shutdowns and solitary confinements gave many experienced musicians the space to turn their talents in different directions, no longer wholly consumed by the feverishness of routines that might have marked the pre-pandemic age.

The Swedish band Kryptan represents one such new beginning. It is the brainchild of songwriter, guitarist, and keyboardist Mattias Norrman, who is best known for his work with October Tide and Katatonia. But while the music on Kryptan‘s debut album does include recognizable traces of his other more brooding and doom-directed work, it is a vehicle for channeling the passions inspired by Scandinavian black metal from the ’90s, perhaps especially the influence of such bands as Dissection, Naglfar, and Marduk.

Kryptan‘s debut EP is et for release on July 23rd by Debemur Morti Productions, and today we’re providing thoughts about all four of its tracks, and premiering one of them Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXPUNGED — “STOLEN LIFE”

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Jun 302021
 

 

The roots of death metal grew from rotten soil, and from its earliest phases there has always been an attraction to supernatural horrors. That attraction is vibrantly evident in the debut album of the Canadian band Expunged. But the creation of ghastly visions isn’t the only thing Expunged are very adept at doing on this new record. They also sound like a massive tank attack that’s capable of bringing crushing heaviness along with cemetery nightmares.

This new album, entitled Into Never Shall, will be discharged on July 30th by Hells Headbangers, and it’s being strongly recommended for fans of Nirvana 2002, Carnage, and especially Bolt Thrower. As proof that those references are entirely appropriate, and as a demonstration of the amalgam of humongous and horrifying sounds referred to in the preceding paragraph, today we present the album’s closing track, “Stolen Life“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SACRILEGIOUS CROWN — “TENEBRA I – THE PROFOUND SECRET OF ETERNITY”

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Jun 302021
 

 

On August 6th Xenoglossy Productions will unite the works of two of its close associates from the realms of raw black metal and dark ambient music — the Italian band Sacrilegious Crown and the Estonian band Illuminated Manuscripts. Those two solo projects have combined forces to contribute two tracks each to a split entitled Meditations on the Revenant Enigma, and Xenoglossy is making it available in an extremely limited cassette tape edition, and digitally.

Today we’re presenting one of the two creations by Sacrilegious Crown, whose most recent EP Plenilunium Cult we premiered and reviewed in March of this year (here). Like that EP, it is devoted to the creation of atmosphere, and it ushers the listener into an inhuman realm. Continue reading »

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 »

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