AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAGE OF CREATION — “I AM THE VOID II”

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Apr 302021
 

 

This marks the fourth time in five years that we’ve written about the unorthodox, genre-splicing Russian band Cage of Creation. The first time, in 2017, was our review of a record named III, which completed a trilogy of EPs. The second, in 2018, was a discussion of another EP named I Am the Void, which was the commencement of yet another trilogy. And then last year we premiered and reviewed their most recent full-length, Into Nowhere II. The persistent theme of all these written reactions was one of continual fascination with the band’s unbridled experimentation — within the context of songs that were nevertheless so seductive that they were damned difficult to get out of our heads.

The occasion for today’s happy reunion with Cage of Creation is the premiere stream of a new EP entitled I Am the Void II, which will be released on May 16th by Devoted Art Propaganda on 12″ vinyl. As the title suggests, it’s the second part of the new trilogy that began with I Am the Void in 2018, a three-part work that thematically focuses on experiences related to psychoactive explorations. This new EP presents two original works and a cover of Bethlehem’s “Nexus“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AKHENATEN — “HALLS OF AMENTI”

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Apr 302021
 

 

Today is the day when Satanath Records (Russia) and Dark Terror Temple (Mexico) will release The Emerald Tablets Of Thoth, the latest album by the US band Akhenaten, whose amalgamation of death and black metal with Eastern melodies and traditional Middle Eastern instrumentation has already proven to be an alluring combination.

The new album — the fourth full-length in Akhenaten’s discography and the first since 2018’s well-received Golden Serpent God — focuses on the themes surrounding the mysteries of the Emerald Tablets and the teachings of Thoth the Atlantean, and it carries forward the collaboration between Colorado-based brothers Jerred and Wyatt Houseman, who also join forces in the symphonic black metal band Helleborus.

Later today you will have the opportunity to listen to the entirety of the new album, but for now we bring you the premiere of a lyric video for the second track in the running order — “Halls of Amenti“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASCHENVATER — “LANDUNGSFELDMASSAKER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 292021
 

 

“The band name ‘Aschenvater‘ is inspired by the universe of Warhammer 40K. The sound is raw and destructive, like the rotting battlefields of the drop site massacre. Oldschool Death Metal is the perfect way for us to bring the content and the energy of the lyrics together with the music. The HM-2 is sculpting the violence and brutality of the fights in clay”.

This is how this German death metal trio introduce themselves, along with references to the inspirations of Bolt Thrower and Hail of Bullets. And to underscore the influence of Warhammer 40K, they named their debut EP Landungsfeldmassaker, in memory of a battle on Istvaan V, the “drop site massacre” as rendered in German, which is the language used for all the EP’s lyrics.

But when you listen to the EP’s seven songs you’ll come away convinced that this is no game, but is instead a viscerally powerful rendering of the mayhem, the bloodshed, and the desolating misery that plagues all human warzones. The grooves in the music are often massive and the riffing often highly infectious, but the overarching atmosphere of the EP is one of shattering decimaton and soul-crushing hopelessness.

And today we invite you to experience all of that for yourselves via our premiere of a complete stream of Landungsfeldmassaker in advance of its April 30 release (tomorrow!) by Dead Center Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ÅSKOG — “MÅNE”

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Apr 292021
 

The Swedish duo known as Murdryck began musical life in 1999 as a “Blackened Dark Ambient” project, disappeared for a time, and then rejuvenated themselves as a black metal band in 2014. Thereafter, they released two excellent albums, 2016’s Antologi MMXV and 2019’s Födelsen. And then, to the sorrow of Murdryck’s fans, they disbanded. But it turns out that the two men behind Murdryck weren’t finished after all.

That duo — bassist/vocalist Lars Hansson and guitarist Adam Chapman — came back together early last summer, inspired to renew their cooperation in pursuit of fresh ideas. Adopting the name Åskog, they ensconced themselves in a decrepit forest house owned by Lars deep in the woods of Värmland and wrote four songs between July and August, which they released last fall as a demo entitled Varg and which we premiered and reviewed here.

The themes of that music were spawned by the band’s presence in that old forest house, with its own morbid history and its wilderness setting, during a time when the Covid-19 pandemic turned the world into chaos. Åskog told us then: “You only have to watch nature documentaries to realize the natural world is truly a horrific place. The great outdoors is romanticized, but the reality is it is brutal with no room for concession or concern.”

That first demo earned Åskog a lot of well-deserved attention and spurred them to complete work on their debut album Varþnaþer, which again lyrically deals with the dichotomy between good and evil in the context of the natural environment. The album is now set for release on May 12th by Grind to Death Records and Leviaphonic Records (both based in Sweden), with additional physical editions coming in June via Germany’s Corrupted Flesh Records. It’s our pleasure today to reveal the third song to be disclosed from the album so far — a multi-faceted, ravishing, and viscerally frightening track named “”Måne” (moon). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BUNKER 66 — “BEYOND THE HELP OF PRAYERS”

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Apr 282021
 

 

Way back in 1970, advertising executive Jerry Della Femina wrote a book in which he asserted that advertising is “the most fun you can have with your clothes on”. Advertising? Really? Easy to scoff at that claim, and to conclude that Jerry’s horizons were way too limited. We’d feel much more confident in claiming that listening to the new Bunker 66 album is the most fun you can have with your clothes on, even if it might make you feel like ripping them off and running wild into the streets.

Even for an audience of dyed-in-the-wool metalheads, we know that’s an audacious proclamation. But this new record, Beyond the Help of Prayers, really is a completely exhilarating thrill-ride, and today you’ll have the chance to discover that for yourselves via our full stream of the album in advance of its April 30 release by Dying Victims Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GRAVEBORN — “TRANSMIGRATOR”

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Apr 272021
 

 

On May 25th the Boston-based death metal band Graveborn will be releasing their fourth album, Transmigrator, which they describe as “a continuous play concept about eternal cycles, the ever-changing self, and its place amongst billions of others”. It also reflects the band’s own cycles and the changes in their musical approach that have evolved since the release of their first single in 2012.

Once a deathcore band, Graveborn have moved away from that style and more toward a form of death metal that is in some ways reminiscent of the likes of Fallujah — though they still prove themselves capable of giving listeners a vigorous beating. The song we’re premiering today, which is the album’s title track, is a prime example of the band’s different (and divergent) musical facets, and it comes with a lyric video that makes excellent use of Mark Erskine‘s eye-catching cover art. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GLOOMY GRIM — “THEY ARE WAITING”

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Apr 272021
 

 

It seems, as wise people have said for millennia, that all good things must come to an end. And so, after a career that has spanned a quarter-century, the Finnish symphonic black metal band Gloomy Grim will be releasing their final album later this month.

This new and last release is entitled Agathonomicon, and it includes 10 tracks that revel in darkness and horror. So far, two singles from the album have emerged, and today we bring you a third one — “They Are Waiting” — before Satanath Records and MurdHer Records jointly issue the entire release on April 28th. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LUCIFUGE — “INFERNAL POWER”

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Apr 262021
 

 

The German band Lucifuge was born in 2018 as the solo project of Equinox, who wasted no time rapidly discharging a demo, an EP, and the Ride the Beast debut album that same year. The creative fires burned just as hot and bright in 2019, resulting in two more EPs and a second album, Der AntiChrist.

And just last year, Lucifuge released yet another full-length (The One Great Curse) and a single that proved to be the title track to Infernal Power, the latest and most accomplished Lucifuge album yet, which is rapidly approaching its April 30 release date via Dying Victims Productions — and which we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAJESTIC DOWNFALL — “A DYING CROWN”

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Apr 232021
 

 

A persistent favorite of this site, the Mexican doom-death band Majestic Downfall have already provided abundant proof of their formidable talents, having erected, through five albums and a pair of splits, an imposing sonic edifice that’s as magnificent as it is heart-rending. And now they’re approaching the May 21 release date of their sixth full-length, Aorta, which will be released by the new but rapidly growing label Personal Records — and it reveals the band at the pinnacle of their soul-shaking power.

Written and recorded during the pandemic, Aorta consists of four songs that collectively span 70 minutes, and those songs are expansive in ways that transcend mere length, ranging in their sensations (to borrow the words of the PR material) “from suffocating to vibrating, damning to liberating, utterly devastated to strangely hopeful – but always crushing, and devastatingly so”.

As further evidence of the truth of those words, today we premiere an Aorta song named “A Dying Crown“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ALTARAGE — “SUCCUMB”

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Apr 222021
 

 

In 2015, which seems like a geologic epoch ago at this point, we came across a two-song debut demo by Altarage from the Spanish Basque Country and summed it up as “primitive, poisonous, electrifying music from a band that’s now squarely on my radar screen for the future”. They stayed squarely on our radar screen over the course of three subsequent albums, even though they eventually left it in sharp shards of wreckage.

We characterized 2016’s Nihl as “a monster of an album… that will melt your insides”, combining “sheer malignant intensity” and “catastrophic dirges” capable of “dragging your staggering body down into an abyss of despair”. Then came 2017’s Endingent, which we described as “dealing in a brand of pitch-black sonic horror” (“horrifically dense and devastating”), creating an atmosphere “so thick and choking that this album isn’t recommended for anyone who suffers from even a hint of claustrophobia”.

Altarage followed that with 2019’s The Approaching Roar, which we found even more “grim and gruesome” — “one of those records that hits you like a veritable force of nature, and leaves you with no other option except to kick and struggle as hard as you can to keep your head above the water”.

And now comes Succumb, the new Altarage album that Season of Mist has authorized us to put before you in full, the day before its April 23 release. What should you expect? Continue reading »

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