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

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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”

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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”

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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”

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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”

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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”

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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 »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SCALAR PROCESS — “INK SHADOW”

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Dec 282020
 

 

The Scalar Process are a French trio who will make their full-length debut in February with the support of Transcending Obscurity Records. As a technical death metal band, their advent comes at a time when their chosen genre is burgeoning, indeed splitting at the seams because it is so over-stuffed with bands both new and old. To stand out at such times is a formidable challenge, but not one that is daunting to this band at all. A feeling of confidence blazes through the music, as well it should.

Perhaps it’s a given that the performers are technically impressive, and they’ve composed their music in ways that allow those skills to shine, and thereby to make the songs electrifying. But this flamboyance is only part of the album’s attraction, because the band are equally skilled at creating contrasts, enabling dramatic changes of mood and the introduction of atmospheric elements that are vital in making the songs memorable as well as pulse-pounding.

We have a great example of these compositional ingredients in the song we’re premiering today, the intriguingly named “Ink Shadow“, which is the third song to debut so far from this new album, Coagulative Matter. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DIRA MORTIS — “ANCIENT BREATH OF FORGOTTEN MISANTHROPY”

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Dec 232020
 


photos by Marcin Studzinski

 

Whoever scheduled the release of Dira Mortis‘ new album on Christmas Day 2020 had a wicked sense of humor. The album, whose title is Ancient Breath Of Forgotten Misanthropy, will be discharged that day by Selfmadegod Records. It has many interconnected themes, but one of them is the use of religion by powerful forces to dominate, intimidate, and divide the masses, and in their hypocrisy to use it as a cover for evil. Lyrically, the album also calls for resistance, lest we be led deeper into an abyss of misanthropy in which humanity continues to be a plague of hate unto itself. Merry Christmas.

On the other hand, in many respects this new album is a great way for many of us (and we mean died-in-the-wool metalheads for whom Christmas has no religious significance) to celebrate the day, particularly this year, when gatherings of friends and family are downright dangerous (or outright prohibited) and when the year as a whole seems like such a godforsaken mess, and offers such powerful proof that people have become dangerously alienated from each other in more ways than simply physical distance.

What the album provides, in addition to particularly relevant lyrical themes, is the work of a veteran band whose talents give death-metal-heads other reasons to rejoice. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SEPULCROS — “HECATOMBE”

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Dec 222020
 

 

Yet another instantly recognizable painting by Mariusz Lewandowski has appeared on the cover of a metal album, this time the debut full-length by the Portuguese band Sepulcros. But as imposing and chilling as the painting is, it only hints at the immense, terrifying power and world-ending majesty of the intensely atmospheric music that Sepulcros have created within Vazio.

Harnessing the soul-shaking forces of death and doom metal, and adding the ferocity of black metal, Sepulcros have created an experience that makes a deep impression, though one that most definitely is not for the faint of heart.

Vazio is set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on March 12th (assuming humankind lasts that long), and as a spine-tingling sign of what it holds in store we are today premiering a video for a ravishing album track named “Hecatombe“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SCEPTER OF ELIGOS — “REABSORBED”

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Dec 212020
 

 

Denver-based Scepter of Eligos describe their punishing amalgam of death, doom, and psychedelic sludge as “psychedelic metal of death”, and based on the song we’re premiering today from their debut album Inverted Illusions, you can understand why. When you hear it, you can also understand why the press materials for the record make references to the likes of Crowbar, Incantation, The Black Angels, Acid Bath, Celtic Frost, and Grave.

But as this listener did, you might also be tempted to imagine the mind-mutilating “Reabsorbed” as a monstrous hell-beast dotted with weeping sores, stinking of death, staggering across a landscape of skulls — and undergoing spasms that transform it into a high-speed thresher of flesh, all gnashing fangs and ravaging claws. In other words, it’s a nasty, evil, mutating piece of work. Continue reading »

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