AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MARCHE FUNÈBRE — “WHEN ALL IS SAID”

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Jul 312020
 

 

From album to album the Belgian band Marche Funèbre have marched from strength to further strength, becoming more assured in their songwriting and more expansive in their incorporation of varying ingredients into their core musical framework of doom and death. Through three albums and a small group of shorter works dating back to 2009, they’ve proven their ability to intertwine crushing heaviness, gloomy moods, up-tempo intensity, and distinctive melodies — and to make full use of the striking versatility of Arne Vandenhoeck‘s voice.

What is also evident, and pleasing to fans who have been following Marche Funèbre from the beginning, is that they have evolved, stretching their talents to come up with new and increasingly powerful ways of standing out from the pack of doom/death bands that surround them — not radical revisions, to be sure, but natural changes that suit and strengthen the myriad appeals of their creations.

It is perhaps a measure of the self-confidence that has accumulated over more than a decade of working together that Marche Funèbre have chosen the longest track from their new hour-long album Einderlicht to introduce the record to the public. That song, “When All Is Said“, is the one we’re premiering today through a lyric video in advance of the album’s joint release on September 25th by Hypnotic Dirge Records, Solitude Productions, and The Vinyl Division. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROLEPSY — “CLOT OVER CONCRETE”

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Jul 302020
 

 

Time brings change, sometimes unexpected, sometimes planned. When multi-instrumentalist Muttaki Shafayath and vocalist Ruzlan Safat created Necrolepsy in Sylhet, Bangladesh during 2012, they dedicated themselves to goregrind. They launched an EP named Exhibition of Mutilated Apparatus in 2014, and followed that with a sequence of split releases from then into 2016. In that year, Necrolepsy fell silent, though its members continued to create together in the stoner doom band Moonshiner, which released a self-titled demo on 2017.

But the ensuing years brought even further changes. Muttaki moved to Toronto, and Ruzlan moved to Dhaka. And when they decided to resuscitate Necrolepsy across the span of thousands of miles, they decided to focus more heavily on death metal than they had in their earlier goregrind-rooted music. With that new focus, they’re at work on an EP projected for release in 2021, and today we’re premiering its first single, which will be released for download on July 31st.

Today we’re presenting a stream of that single — “Clot Over Concrete” — and it is a spectacularly wild ride. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SVNTH — “ERASING GODS’ TOWERS”

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Jul 292020
 

 

As we wrote at time of our last premiere for this Roman band two years ago, in genre terms they were hard to pin down. At the time of that 2018 release (an EP named SVNTH) one could tick off references to black metal, post-rock, and Pink Floyd-inspired psychedelia, with a nod toward experimental flourishes — and you could also hear ambient sounds and folk-oriented digressions with a dark cast.

As we observed then, just making a list like that might make you think of a juggler feverishly trying to avoid dropping any of the multi-colored spheres he’s whirling through the air, but Seventh Genocide (who have begun shortening their name to SVNTH) made their amalgamation of myriad influences sound effortless. All those changing colors weren’t distracting; they just made the music more engrossing.

Which is one reason why we’ve been so curious to see what they would do on their next release. That next release turns out to be an album named Spring in Blue, which will be released by Transcending Records on August 28th. The band have previously released a first single called “Wings of the Ark“, and today we present a second one — “Erasing Gods’ Towers“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BURNT OFFERING — “THE NIGHT OF HARVEST”

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Jul 292020
 

 

“Darkness fell on the village. The night scattered silver stars across the sky shining with blackness. Harvest Night. The Night of the harvest of souls. Among the stellar myriad, one of the stars is the brightest One. The One that is the essence. The One which is the key. The One which is the Lord of the harvest of souls. On the waves of steppe grasses They wander without haste. Those whose will is the Star. Those whose blood is the Star’s light. Whose eyes keep its reflection. Whose ghostlike flesh will reap some primitive lives. The sickle is raised to reap. It is the Harvest Night!”

Those words are the backdrop fashioned by the multi-national trio Burnt Offering to the song we’re premiering today from their debut album Harvest (“Жатва”), which will jointly be released by Casus Belli Musica and Beverina on August 20th. Those words, and the song, also channel the inspiration of the band members Nameless Enemy, Blind Idiot God, and Asbath (from Darkestrah) to pay tribute to the raw archaic black of the early ’90s Scandinavian scene, and early Ukrainian black metal groups such as Astrofaes — a time “when Black Metal was a source of terror and sorcery”. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ÆPOCH — “THE SCRYER”

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Jul 282020
 

 

A little more than two years on from the release of their Awakening Inception debut album, the Ontario-based death metal band Æpoch are on the verge of releasing a new EP named The Scryer, a six-track, 30-minute offering that diverges in some ways from that full-length debut. The band themselves state that when these songs were originally written, their main influences were Death, Through The Eyes Of The Dead, and Abysmal Dawn, and they pursued musical ideas that were “much less progressive and technical than our more recent influences”.

But these are relative comparisons, because The Scryer is still home to a lot of full-throttle technical virtuosity and an unmistakably adventurous instrumental spirit. Yet the EP’s appeal also significantly derives from its exotic melodic qualities, which provide a unifying theme throughout this extravagant thrill-ride of an EP.

Today we’re happy to present a full stream of The Scryer in advance of its July 31 release, along with some detailed notes about what you’re about to hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: HERESIARCH AND ANTEDILUVIAN — “DEFLESHING THE SERPENT INFINITY”

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Jul 272020
 

 

Both New Zealand’s Heresiarch and Canada’s Antediluvian have already elevated themselves high up in the global pantheon of ruinous blackened death metal. It seemed inevitable that the day would come when they would join forces, and that day has arrived. They have combined their terrifying talents in a new split release named Defleshing the Serpent Infinity, which will be released on July 31st by Iron Bonehead Productions.

The split reveals both bands at the height of their powers, and displays what makes their particular forms of assault on the senses different from each other. Moreover, the split has been used as a vehicle for both bands to engage in experimentation, coupling forms of nightmarish ambient music to their more unhinged and apocalyptic sonic attacks. Today we make public the split in its entirety, preceded by a slightly revised version of a review we published weeks ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WILLS DISSOLVE — “ECHOES” (AN EXCERPT)

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Jul 252020
 

 

In 2018 Houston-based Wills Dissolve released their debut album, The Heavens Are Not On Fire…. Conceptually and lyrically, it was based on the Leonid meteor shower of November 1833, the first great meteor storm of modern times, in which hundreds of thousands of extraterrestrial projectiles blasted through the atmosphere per hour. In rural West Texas (as in other locales), it was mistaken as a sign from God, followed by destruction.

As fascinating as the concept was, in its meditation on religion, violence, and cosmic chaos, so too was the music. As our own Andy Synn wrote, it is “a phenomenal piece of Prog/Death wizardry….” “Clocking in at a mere five tracks but still supplying over forty-five minutes of spellbinding metallic magic, Wills Dissolve have produced something here that’s equally influenced by Edge of Sanity and Opeth as it is Isis and Neurosis, yet which effortlessly stands out as its own unique entity through a delicate blend of ambitious songwriting and artful execution.”

And now Wills Dissolve are returning with their second full-length, Echoes, which is a single 31 1/2 minute track. No sophomore slump here, once again the album turns out to be both conceptually and musically fascinating. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SHATTER BRAIN — “LOREM IPSUM”

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Jul 242020
 

 

March 2020. Not so long ago, really, but the world was so different then that it seems like another era, or at least the beginning of a new era, as in fact it was.

In the middle of that month we premiered a video for a song named “Talk In Fear” off Pitchfork Justice, the then-forthcoming new album by Shatter Brain from Adelaide, Australia. Even then, the video already seemed like something from a by-gone day… a day when people could congregate in a bar and cause trouble. Even then, people were beginning to be limited to the internet as an available place for making trouble (and then they got to go to bars again, and now look how much trouble that has caused). The video also proved that Shatter Brain are probably a hell of a lot of fun to watch on stage, though in March it was mighty uncertain when they’d get to do that again.

Now here we near the end of July. Pitchfork Justice has been released (by Wormhole Death/Aural Music). And lo and behold we have another Shatter Brain video for you. This one, however, was made under the constraints of the pandemic. It’s still loads of fun to watch, and the music still kicks ass. The song this time, also off Pitchfork Justice, is “Lorem Ipsum“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SCORDATURA — “DISEASE OF MIND”

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Jul 242020
 

 

On September 25 Gore House Productions will release Mass Failure, the third album by the Scottish death metal band Scordatura. We expect neither delicacy nor mercy, but instead the kind of brutish and blistering treatment that our pathetic world so richly deserves. Based upon the first single from the album that we’re premiering today, “Disease of Mind“, those expectations will be fulfilled.

Where did those expectations come from? Let’s remind you: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERVAL — “BEELDENSTORM”

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Jul 232020
 

 

In early 2018 the Dutch atmospheric black metal band Verval opened a lot of eyes with their debut album Wederkeer. They didn’t pave the way to that full-length release with a sequence of demos or other shorter works, but simply sprang into being, though the album was the culmination of years of effort. Now this talented duo are returning with an astonishing new EP named Beeldenstorm. It will be released on July 24th — tomorrow! — but you’ll have a chance to become immersed in it today as we present a full stream of its three significant tracks, which together total almost 25 minutes of music.

Verval‘s two members — R. Schmidt (bass, cello, guitars, vocals) and drummer W. Damiaen — have been key participants in many other noteworthy bands, including Wesenwille, Laster, Mystagogue, and Sea of Trees. Only two of them here, but on Beeldenstorm they sound like an army, and what they’ve created will take your breath away. Continue reading »

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