AN NCS PREMIERE: HADAL — “WITHOUT A WORD”

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Nov 302020
 

 

Born in late 2009 from the ashes of So Cold, the Italian doom-metal group Hadal (from Trieste) have created a compendium of their ten-year history in the form of a new album named December, whose title not only signals the month of its release but also musically summons the wintry bleakness and crestfallen moods that come with the season.

Arriving three years after their debut album Painful Shadow, December draws upon the traditions of such bands as early Paradise Lost and Anathema, as well as My Dying Bride, while also bringing into play doses of black metal viciousness to accompany the crushing riffs, doleful melodies, and despairing atmospheres.

Today we’re premiering a song called “Without A Word“, which is the third track to be publicly revealed from December. Collectively they provide vivid evidence of just how multi-faceted Hadal’s new album really is. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEMONSTEALER — “SYSTEMIC FAILURE”

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Nov 302020
 

 

Over a significant span of years — going all the way back to the spring of 2010, in fact — we’ve devoted a lot of attention to the musical endeavors of the multi-faceted Mumbai-based extreme metal musician Sahil Makhija, whose nom de guerre is Demonstealer. We’ve followed his progress through the bands he has led, including Demonic Resurrection and Reptilian Death, as well as through his solo work in Demonstealer.

In addition to his musical output, which has featured live appearances at big European metal fests, his career has included starting a record label, establishing a professional recording studio dedicated to extreme metal, and even hosting a YouTube cooking show. And so, through two decades of activity in the often-fractious metal “community” he has not only survived but often thrived, and is probably India’s best-known figure in its heavy music landscape.

Of course, those two decades weren’t all smooth sailing. “Smooth sailing” is a foreign concept in the world of extreme metal, where fans are fickle, money is always scarce, and failure rather than fortune tends to be the dominant narrative. Yet despite all the obstacles, Sahil is still working at what he loves, and we have a new Demonstealer EP to show for it. Its title is And This Too Shall Pass, and today we’re bringing you the premiere of one of its four death metal tracks, presented via an official video, in advance of the EP’s release on December 11th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARCINOMA — “BLOATED PARASITES”

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Nov 272020
 

 

Among the many thrills that serious fans of heavy music can experience, if we’re lucky, is to be seized by the music of a new band at their inception and then watch as they progress from strength to further strength with each new release. That has certainly been the case with the black/death band Carcinoma from Plymouth, UK.

They made their debut with a self-titled demo in 2015, about which we wrote here: “The music is hard to pin down, which is one reason it is so interesting. In part it’s ugly, grinding, tearing noise, the kind of rancid death metal that wants to cut the legs out from under you and then put the remains through a meat tenderizer. In part it’s pounding, bleak, sludgy doom. In part it’s a tornado of black thrashing mayhem. And in part it’s a transmission of disorienting signals from space (or an interdimensional void, take your pick). However you want to sum it up, it’s full of venom and fury, and like a pit of vipers with you teetering on the edge, it gets the adrenaline flowing.”

And then came Apanthropinization, their 2018 split with Abyssal, released by Goatprayer Records. On that album-length record (reviewed here), they contributed four truly harrowing tracks, braiding together strands of black, death, and doom metal to achieve sensations of fracturing sanity and apocalyptic destructiveness. Dissonance reigned supreme, fueling the music’s atmosphere of murderous, inhuman lunacy. Chaos also reigned supreme, although Carcinoma wisely chose not to make their four songs simply 20 minutes of non-stop nuclear vulcanism.

And now we’re delighted to announce that Carcinoma will be releasing a debut album named Labascation on February 5, 2021, from which we’re presenting a track called “Bloated Parasites”. It’s evidence that as powerfully good as Carcinoma’s past releases have been, the new one will be the best yet. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FRACTAL GENERATOR — “AEON”

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Nov 272020
 

 

More than six years have passed since Fractal Generator launched their debut album Apotheosynthesis, a significant span of days to be sure, but not nearly long enough to dim the eye-popping, jaw-dropping impressions of that debut, all of which came roaring back when I learned that Fractal Generator would be returning with a sophomore full-length, the name of which is Macrocosmos. It will be released by Everlasting Spew Records on January 15th.

However, six years is long enough that some of you might only now be encountering this Canadian band for the first time. I looked back at what I wrote to accompany our three premieres for Apotheosynthesis (which included a stream of the album as a whole), and found this passage:

“Their music displays a lot of technically barn-burning fretwork and hyper-blasting drum technique, perhaps not completely machine-like but most definitely head-spinning — the kind of dizzying experience that simulates giving your brain a ride in a high-speed centrifuge. And the music also includes some cold, eerie melodic elements that, when coupled with the instrumental exuberance, conjure images of alien technicians either constructing or dismantling some massive device or edifice beyond our understanding”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOL DE SANGRE — “DISMAL BLASPHEMIES”

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Nov 262020
 

 

Going back to September 2017, this is the seventh time we’ve written about the Colombian death metal band Sol De Sangre and the fifth time we’ve happily hosted the premiere of their music, including their self-titled debut album in 2018 and the Sol De Sangre‘s tracks on La Senda De La Muerte, a split EP with Pánico Al Miedo in which both bands covered songs by giants of the death metal pantheon. Basically, Sol De Sangre‘s music hooked me early, and obviously they haven’t let go.

The subject of our latest celebration of their music is a video for a new song called “Dismal Blasphemies“, which is one of three on an EP entitled Despair Distiller that will be released in 2021. I’m happy to report that the EP is a prelude to the band’s sophomore album. I’m also delighted to report that the EP is hellaciously good. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOOTHSAYER — “OUTER FRINGE”

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Nov 252020
 

 

A soothsayer is a seer, a speaker of truths enabled by visions, an oracle enabled by magic, but perhaps just as likely to be ignored as to be believed. Soothsayer is also the name chosen by an Irish quintet whose visions are very much rooted in the desperate reality of the here and now, but who defiantly refuse to succumb. Their music, as represented in what we’ve heard so far from their forthcoming debut album, is harrowing in the extreme, and also transportive. It’s not “easy listening” by any stretch, but it makes such a transfixing and mind-bending impact that it’s very hard to forget, no matter how unreal and disturbing it can become.

This debut full-length, which follows a small handful of excellent short releases (for which we’ve done premieres in the past), is named Echoes of the Earth. It will be forthcoming from Transcending Obscurity Records. The first two tracks bear the names “Fringe” and “Outer Fringe“, and we’re presenting them to you today for the first time, accompanied by a video prepared by Irish drone artist Ruairi O’Baoighill that enhances the mind-altering impact of the sounds. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAESTITIUM — “TALE OF THE ENDLESS”

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Nov 252020
 

 

Even the best of times can become shadowed by dark days, but these are obviously among the worst of times for almost all of us, the kind of times when music that uplifts the spirits can be most welcome. But few of us are in search of cheep thrills, naivete, or shallow pandering. In rotten times, the most welcome uplift comes from genuine passion, and from music that doesn’t forget the darkness in our midst even as it soars.

These thoughts have come to mind thanks to the spectacular title song we’re premiering from the debut EP by the Swedish band Maestitium, which will be released on February 5, 2021, by Black Lion Records. Maestitium is a studio project started by guitarist, vocalist and composer Elias Westrin (Tomb Dweller, ex-Voices of Vengeance) in the fall of 2019. The idea for the EP was born while Westrin was attending a music production course at Hola Folkhögskola outside of Kramfors, Sweden, and drew inspiration from the music of such bands as Insomnium, Sentenced, Wintersun, Hinayana, and Wolfheart. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: REVULSION — “LAST ECHOES OF LIFE”

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Nov 242020
 

 

According to Metal-Archives the Finnish death metal band Revulsion first took shape 15 years ago, but they took some time before releasing a debut demo in 2010 and then a debut EP in 2011. With the exception of a single in 2016, more than 9 more years passed between that EP and the now-established release date for their self-titled debut album, which will be brought to us on February 1, 2021, by Transcending Obscurity Records.

And so Revulsion clearly aren’t a band concerned about rushing things. And based on their new album, they’re also not chained to the past. Although they obviously have a healthy devotion to old school traditions, their music doesn’t sound dated at all, but instead draws into play stylistic ingredients that give it the impression of a big turbocharged engine driving forward, with some twists and turns along the way.

Today we’re bringing you a song from the album named “Last Echoes of Life“, which turns out to be a thrilling (and addictive) amalgam of livid derangement, voracious ferocity, and neck-wrecking groove. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WHITE WARD — “INHALE MY DESPAIR”

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Nov 242020
 

 

The distinctive Ukrainian band White Ward should need no introduction to our regular visitors, or for that matter to any attentive and adventurous metalheads. Their 2017 debut album Futility Report (which we premiered and reviewed here) introduced many new listeners to the band’s ingenious, genre-splicing musical alchemy and immediately put them on the global metal map. Two years later their second album, Love Exchange Failure, only solidified their reputation as an unpredictable but completely beguiling musical force.

To borrow the words of our own Andy Synn from his review of that most recent album, it presents an “unusual mix of biting riffs, moody jazz inflections and neo-noirish vibes that purposefully eschews the more ‘traditional’ aspects of Black Metal – the nature worship, the rustic spirituality – in favour of a sound that’s distinctly urban in both tone and texture, all neon and glass and cold concrete”.

“It’s the soundtrack to the world outside your window, a world of digital prophets and ephemeral profits, social media sirens and vicarious virtual violence. A world where what we put in no longer equals what we get out. Where what we give no longer balances what we take. A world on the brink of total Love Exchange Failure.”

But those two remarkable albums were not White Ward‘s first creations. Those were preceded by a sequence of shorter works that began in 2012 with the release of their first demo. Many of those earlier works were collected in an album-length compilation named Origins that the band digitally self-released in 2016. But now Debemur Morti Productions, who released the band’s two albums mentioned above, will also be releasing a physical edition of Origins on January 22, 2021. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EOS — “DRAUGUR”

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Nov 232020
 

 

On December 18th Brilliant Emperor Records will present the debut album from the Australian black metal band EOS, whose three members first began laying the foundations for it over a decade ago. Entitled The Great Ascension, it reflects four years of intense work completed in 2018. Lyrically, the seven songs are described as painting “nightmarish visions of man. The solemn journey through spiritual ecstasy, blood lust and pride. A stone to the face of the gods”.

What we have for you today, presented through an official video, is the premiere stream of a shattering song called “Draugur“. The band tell us this about the track’s narrative: “‘Draugar‘ tells the story of the again-walker. A revenant possessed by revenge without Mercy after he is Burnt alive. A distant voice heard only in the nightmares of man. Pestilence and famine are brought to his enemies. He swells the tongues of children. There is no end to his torment until all feel his isolation and pain”.

Unsettling words to be sure, but as you’ll discover, the music itself is even more unnerving, and yet spellbinding as well. Continue reading »

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