AN NCS PREMIERE: GOATCRAFT’S “PHOBOS” (AND A REVIEW OF THE GOATCRAFT-PLUTONIAN SHORE SPLIT)

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 022020
 

 

On September 4th Hessian Firm will release a split record that includes the music of two San Antonio-based projects, Goatcraft and Plutonian Shore, both of whom have created outstanding releases that we’ve paid attention to before at this site. For this new split, each project has recorded three tracks, and today we’re presenting one by Goatcraft — along with a review of the split as a whole.

As the solo vehicle of musician Lonegoat, Goatcraft has specialized in the creation of dark neoclassical and ambient music that he has named “Necroclassical”. For this new split he created three pieces devoted to the depiction of Mars, drawing inspiration in part from Beherit’s electronic era (in particular Electric Doom Synthesis), and it’s the third of those in the running order — “Phobos” — that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERMISST — “ZMIERZCH STALOWEJ CIEMNOŚCI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 022020
 

 

Of the eight tracks on Vermisst‘s new album Zmierzch Stalowej Ciemności (which Signal Rex will release on September 4th, on vinyl and digitally), five of them first appeared as an EP bearing the same title as this album, released in a CD edition in January 2020. The other three are bonuses — new original tracks recorded last December which expand the EP to 40 minutes.

For those readers who may have overlooked the EP over the last eight months, it’s quite an arresting and often elaborate experience, one that featured not only the performances of Vermisst‘s core members Belath (guitar), Vorghast (vocals), and Kvalvaag (keys) but also impressive session work by Vlambré (bass), Bloodwhip (guitar), and Vulgrim (drums). The bonus tracks, created solely by Belath (guitars) and Vorghast (vocals, drums), are very different in important respects, but arresting in their own harrowing way. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: JUPITERIAN — “CAPRICORN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 012020
 

 

It makes perfect sense that the grim hooded eminences within Jupiterian chose the name they did. Their music is so stupendously heavy that evoking the solar system’s most massive planet — twice as massive as all other planets combined — can’t really be considered an act of hubris. They’ve earned the right to align themselves in that way.

Apart from its immensity, and the glacial slowness of its spin, Jupiter is also home to a giant red storm that is itself larger than Earth and has raged for hundreds of years. And perhaps the most striking evolution in Jupiterian’s new album Protosapien is how much their new music rages, and how powerfully it creates an atmosphere of fear, without sacrificing the quality of titanic heaviness that first brought them global attention. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HARK FROM THE TOMB — “FEEDING HIS HUNGERING FLAMES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 012020
 

 

The Swedish duo who have joined forces under the name Hark From the Tomb prefer to remain anonymous, though we’re told that they’ve been participants in the Swedish black metal scene extending back to the early ’90s, and members of much better-known bands. Why then did they choose to create a new vehicle for their musical creativity?

One inspiration was to channel a deep disgust with the current state of the human species — “the inability of humanity to evolve intellectually, the revolting character of mankind as a whole, and the unforgivable error of letting religion exist as anything more than an artefact of Bronze Age mythology”. As they have further explained:

“The combination of easily led idiots, the charlatans that exploit the weak, and the ultimately cataclysmic symbiosis of the dumb and the evil that collectively holds back humanity as a species is the worst and most poisonous trait that both threatens the survival of humanity as a whole, and the source of the revulsion that led to the creation of Let Them Die.”

The band’s musical inspirations — the contours of sound through which they’ve expressed such utter contempt on this debut album Let Them Die — derive from the old-school, primitive parts of their Nordic black metal antecedents. But the music is more than an experience in unbridled ferocity, as you’ll discover through our premiere of the album track “Feeding His Hungering Flames“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GORATORY — “EVOLUTIONARY WART”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 312020
 

 

Sixteen years is  long time between albums. Over the course of that extravagant span of time, which marks the distance between Goratory’s third record and the fourth one that’s going to be evacuated upon the world by Everlasting Spew Records in October, the members of Goratory went on to perform with such bands as Arsis, Deeds of Flesh, Job for A Cowboy, The Black Dahlia Murder, Despised Icon, Sexcrement, and Abnormality. Surely, they still have other things to do with their wicked time. So why now have Adam Mason (Vocals), Al Glassman (Guitars), Zach Pappas (Bass) and Darren Cesca (Drums) decided to resurrect Goratory’s brand of degenerating, grinding and schizoid technical Brutal Death?

Well, take a look around you. What better time than in the midst of the humongous shitshow that is 2020 for these deviants to bare their giant balls again? Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASTRINGENCY — “OF VACANT PLANES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 282020
 

 

Today we’re helping spread the word about the release of the second album by the West Texas melodic death metal band Astringency, which follows their 2017 full-length debut, Sanguinarium. Entitled Of Vacant Planes, the album is an extravagant 11-track work that’s packed to the brim with intricate, technically adventurous, and tempo-dynamic performances, while incorporating evocative melodies that cross a wide emotional range.

Stylistically, the music draws from many wells, incorporating Scandinavian melodeath gallops, bursts of full-throttle thrashing, episodes of blackened malignancy and gloom, and a lot more. It’s definitely a “modern” take on the music of this old genre, and thus continues to breathe new life into it. As a further sign of that, Astringency call out the music of such bands as The Black Dahlia Murder, Fallujah, and Allegaeon as influences, in addition to the likes of Obscura, Deicide, and Cannibal Corpse. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORTA — “FÚNEBRE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 272020
 

 

in late March of this year the Catalonian band Morta self-released their second work, a half-hour album (or EP if you prefer) named Fúnebre. There seems to have been a very limited vinyl release accompanying the digital version, but the Portuguese label Signal Rex obviously decided that such a gripping combination of ruination and revelation shouldn’t be allowed to languish in obscurity, because Fúnebre is now set for an August 28 re-release by Signal Rex on CD and tape.

Once you hear Fúnebre — as you will be able to do at the end of this post — it’s not difficult to understand why that decision was made. The album is devoted to black metal of an undeniably rough, raw, and riotous fervency, capable of manifesting bestial terrors, but the riffing is always targeted to evoking emotional responses, and the nature of those moods may surprise you. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LEBENSSUCHT – “A HOLE IN MY HEART”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 272020
 

 

(Andy Synn prepared the following introduction for our premiere of a video by the multinational band Lebenssucht for a song from their 2020 debut album.)

Is there any greater joy than discovering a band early on in their career and then following them as they grow, develop, and evolve into something truly special?

I suppose some people might say parenthood but… those people are wrong.

Case in point, we first came across the bleak malevolence of multinational Black Metal coven Lebenssucht way back in 2016, and even ended up hosting a premiere for their first video, “Beloved Depression”, not long after.

In April this year the band released their debut album, -273,15°C, which built upon the potential demonstrated on their EP by going even deeper, darker, and bleaker than ever, and today we’re once again pleased to host another video premiere for the group, this time for the record’s sinister second track, “A Hole In My Heart”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UPCDOWNC — “SCORE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 262020
 

 

Although we believe that our site covers a pretty broad range of music, most visitors know when we’re stepping outside that range, climbing over the fences to take a look at something that lies on the other side. What’s usually inside the fences is a landscape of extreme metal, most of it with vocals that aren’t meant for tender ears, and most of it not meant for tender souls either. And to be honest, what lies on the other side is a universe of sounds far more vast than what’s inside.

It’s fair to say that we’ve climbed over those fences today — though maybe keeping one hand on the fence. Or maybe we’ve just pushed the fence a bit further out. The new album by Upcdownc that we’re premiering today definitely has connections to metal — the music does get plenty heavy, and picks its moments to make abrasive assaults on the senses. And as you’ll discover, some of the moods it channels (and there are a wide range of them) become very dark indeed.

But the album undeniably goes places we usually don’t, and for that it has become a refreshing discovery, one that’s persistently tantalizing and transportive. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SPECTRUM OF DELUSION — “AWAIT THE TRANSITION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 252020
 

 

We’ve already seen, at least twice over, that the Dutch technical death metal band Spectrum of Delusion (and their film-making allies) are extremely clever when it comes to preparing videos for their forthcoming second album Neoconception.

The video they made for “Into Another Formation” is still one of my favorites of the year. The fact that it was filmed in a single take is astonishing. The fact that they were able to pull it off while having a good time is all the more impressive. And their full-band playthrough video for “Through Mankind’s True Ambition“, in which they fly like crazy across their instruments (and roar in rage) in various placid locales is an enormous kick to watch.

And now we add one more piece of audio-visual entertainment to those, as we premiere “Await the Transition“. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries