AN NCS PREMIERE: NOCTAMBULIST — “ENGULFED”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 022021
 

 

(Nathan Ferreira introduces our premiere of a track off the new album by Denver-based Noctambulist, which will be released by Willowtip Records on July 2nd.)

It’s difficult to stand out in any style of music, but that challenge is heightened for The Barren Form – first impressions of it will bring to mind the claustrophobic fretwork of Portal distilled into the blistering intensity of Hate Eternal. Such overstimulating qualities don’t tend to leave a lot of room for dynamics, and on top of that, Noctambulist like to write slabs of 6+ minutes of chaotic cacophony. The few moments you do get to breathe are barely able to be savored before a song powers into another turbulent assault, highlighted by the mind-boggling speed and stamina of drummer Michael Nolan.

The musicianship on The Barren Form is top-notch, as is expected from a Willowtip Records release, but what is striking about Noctambulist is how much emotion they can inject into a suffocating, abstruse template. A couple of staccato chops at the right time hammers the riffs in deep, and the guitars themselves don’t tend to noodle around the fretboard a lot – either that or it’s muffled amidst the discordance. What then emerges are jagged, unsettling chords that simultaneously release tension as it’s built.

Where contemporaries in this realm of death metal might focus more on snaking subtleties and enhancing the overall creepiness and confusion, Noctambulist are fast, heavy, and fucking loud. It feels like everything is just coming at you all at once, with a roomy, modern production job giving proper balance so no one element is neglected. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARTACH — “SHE GATHERS LEAVES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 012021
 

 

You would be forgiven if you got the wrong idea about the music of Artach based on their location and some of the ideas that inspire their approach to black metal. This duo hail from St. John’s, Newfoundland, a place they describe as “the coldest, windiest, snowiest, foggiest, provincial capital city in Canada”, a location that would “give many Norwegian cities a challenge for gloomiest weather”.

Moreover, many of their songs are about nature, and many of those involve winter. Their 2020 debut album was entitled Chronicles of a Black Winter, and their forthcoming sophomore full-length, Sworn To Avenge, includes such song titles as “Ice Throne”, “Endless Tundra” (an epic 20-minute exploration about the doomed Franklin expedition of 1846), and “Into the Frozen Woodlands”.

But if you’re expecting naught by icy grimness, think again. As you’ll discover from the song we’re premiering today through a lyric video, Artach’s music is equally capable of discharging full-throttle fieriness, maniacal fervor, and a feeling of visceral lust. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DANTALION — “TIME TO CLOSE THE CIRCLE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 012021
 

 

On July 31st the Spanish label Darkwoods will release the eighth album by the powerful Galician band Dantalion. Bearing the name Time to Pass Away, and adorned by the cover art of the great Russian artist Vergvoktre and further artwork by el dios perezoso, it represents a return to the band’s black metal roots (as well as the spectacular return of Sanguinist as the vocalist).

Today it’s our privilege to help spread the word about the new album by premiering a gripping video for its first single, “Time To Close the Circle“, which is being digitally released today as a stand-alone track. The dark emotional power of the song is undeniable, and so is its blood-rushing intensity. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BECERUS — “PRIMEVAL IGNORANTIA”

 Premieres  1 Response »
May 312021
 


Becerus co-stars

Goat mosh pit!

Hold that thought for a minute.

Back in February you might have caught our premiere of a track named “Primeval Ignorantia” off Homo Homini Brutus, the thoroughly killer debut album by the Sicilian death metal band Becerus. If you did check out that song, or the album as a whole, then you already know that the music of Becerus is surprising in more ways than one.

It’s surprising, first, because this group sound a lot more seasoned than their newcomer status would suggest. But it’s also surprising because there’s more going on in their songs than brutish caveman bludgeoning, which is what some of the outward trappings of the band might lead you to guess.

But if you didn’t catch that previous premiere and have failed to discover the album (shame on you!), you’ll get to experience these surprises for the first time, because today we’re presenting a video for that same song — and it’s a highly entertaining video, one that make clear that these dudes don’t take themselves too seriously, even though their music delivers a serious ass-kicking. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RUACH RAAH — “SKULLS CRACKED”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 282021
 

 

In your searching for new metal, if you need to check off boxes like “melodic”, “nuanced”, “forward-thinking”, “intricate”, or “soulful”, you should probably stop reading right now. On the other hand, if adjectives like “filthy”, “feral”, “primitive”, “carnal”, and “ferocious” are on your list, you’ve come to the right place.

With vitriol surging in torrents through their veins and no regard for the well-being of their listeners, the Portuguese black metal band Ruach Raah (now stripped down to a duo) are returning with their third album, Misanthropic Wolfgang, which is set for release by Signal Rex on June 30th. Based on the music, we’re guessing that the title isn’t an homage to Mozart but is instead a contraction of “wolf gang”. They do indeed sound like wolves on the hunt, racing their listeners into the ground with teeth bared — or maybe more accurately igniting a desire among listeners to run with them on their wild romps.

And make no mistake, as abrasive, rabid, and riotous as the music is, it’s primally infectious stuff — which you’ll discover through today’s premiere of the new album track “Skulls Cracked“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RIEXHUMATION — “THE FINAL REVELATION OF ABADDON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
May 262021
 

 

After releasing a pair of demos and an EP from 2012 through 2017, the Italian death metal band Riexhumation then turned their energies to the creation of a debut album that’s now set for release by Lavadome Productions on this coming Friday, May 28th — and it turns out to be a big, eye-opening surprise that should be greedily welcomed by death metal connoisseurs.

It’s not as if this quartet are green newcomers — in addition to those three previous Riexhumation releases, a glance at their resumes on Metal-Archives shows their involvement in other noteworthy extreme metal collectives — but this album is still a most impressive accomplishment.

To borrow some of the (accurate) words from the PR material, it embraces primeval and frightening energies that “dwell somewhere deep within the chasms of the cosmos” to create “ominous, old school death metal darkness” that’s alternately “doom-laden, eerie, raw, and blistering”. It evokes anguished dread, instinctual terrors, and visceral thrills in equal measure, and does so with admirable song-writing dynamism and instrumental execution. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEADSHRINKER — “THE BURN OF INDIFFERENCE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 252021
 

 

Almost exactly five years have passed since Chicago-based Polyptych released their third album, Defying the Metastasis. That album was a genre-bending head-spinner, an unconventional mix of death metal and black metal with progressive and technical elements woven within it. It made such a striking impact that we pleaded for a chance to premiere something from it (and our wish was granted).

While that band’s continued existence has been in question since then, it turns out that three of its members — Young Werther, Scott Skopec, and Frank Lato — have joined forces in a new Colorado-based group called Headshrinker, which also features the considerable talents of Havok drummer Pete Webber. Their debut album Callous Indifference is now set for release on August 27th, and once again we have the chance to host a song premiere. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROSS VAULT — “AS STRANGERS WE DEPART”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
May 242021
 

 

On May 28th Iron Bonehead Productions will release As Strangers We Depart, the third album by the German “Viking doom” band Cross Vault, and their first release since the 2016 EP, Miles To Take.

Each song on the new album is an immersive, time-traveling spell that seems to carry the listener back to a mythic age. They meld poignance and passion, heaviness and heartbreak, with an unmistakable feeling of reverence. It’s a devotional album meant to be savored, to be soaked up from start to finish, the kind of experience in which any sense of time passing vanishes. And thus we’re proud to present a full stream of it today. Continue reading »

TRANSCENDING RITES — “AWAKE!” (AN EXCERPT)

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 212021
 

 

These are notes I made to myself after listening to the song-excerpt we’re premiering in this article:

“I have never awakened in a house on fire. I imagine that would send me in a nanosecond from somnolence to a rocketing fight-or-flight level of adrenaline. I’ve never escaped a raging inferno and raced outside only to discover that everything around me is also in flames. But listening to this music, those are the experiences I imagine. In listening to it I also imagine the terrible feeling of loss that would come from the inferno-destruction of everything, every memento and memory, that I enshrine in the place where I live.”

Obviously, those are some intense emotional reactions — a commingling of exhilaration, fear, and despair. And those reactions were provoked by only a portion of the entire song, the roughly 8-minute excerpt from “Awake!“, that we’re now presenting. The full song is a daunting 21 minutes long, but I’m anxious to hear it and I think you be will too after you listen to what we’re streaming below. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DØDSFERD — “LOYAL TO THE BLACK OATH”

 Premieres  No Responses »
May 212021
 

 

August 10 of this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the Greek black metal band Dødsferd, which was first formed in Athens by Wrath (Nikolaos Spanakis) as a one-man band, with the assistance of session musicians, and has been based in Crete since 2018.

Dødsferd’s discography is extensive, and now includes two demos, ten full-length albums, nine split albums/EPs, four EPs, one live album, three compilation albums, and two boxed-set albums. The most recent full-length was 2018’s Diseased Remnants of a Dying World, and the most recent EP is Skotos, which was released earlier this month by Transcending Obscurity Records on CD, in an edition that combined Skotos with Diseased Remnants of a Dying World. (The artwork for both the album and the EP was created by Giorgos Gyzis, aka Bacchus from Grab.)

In commemoration of the impending 20th anniversary, Wrath’s label, Fucking Your Creation Records, will also be releasing the combination of Skotos and Diseased Remnants… in a limited box cassette tape that features layout and graphic design by by Nikos Stavridakis (VisionBlack), and to help spread the word about it, we’re premiering a striking video for the equally striking song “Loyal To the Black Oath“, which first appeared on Diseased Remnants…. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries