AN NCS PREMIERE: DARKENED — “THE OLD ONES”

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Jul 222020
 

 

The term “supergroup” is over-used and sometimes not entirely accurate, but it does come to mind in the case of the multi-national death metal formation Darkened. At a minimum, no one would dispute that the band is rich in experience and with a line-up pedigree that’s immediately impressive. Darkened‘s collective resume certainly played a role in drawing the attention of fans to their 2019 debut EP, Into the Blackness, and then the music on the EP did the rest of the job, proving that the band’s members were earning their accolades all over again and intensifying interest in what they might do next under the Darkened banner.

What they’ve done next is a debut album that will be released by the same label that helped usher that EP into the world — Edged Circle Productions. The imposing title of the full-length is Kingdom of Decay, and it will hit the streets (like a warhead) on September 11th. One electrifying song from the album is already out, and now we’re presenting a second one that’s perhaps even more dynamic and multi-faceted but no less adrenaline-charged. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RUIN — “PLAGUE TRANSMISSIONS: VOL. 2”

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Jul 212020
 

 

The California death metal band Ruin released their first demo in 1991, and then nearly a quarter-century later they revived and re-formed. Since 2015 they’ve released two albums (Drown In Blood and Human Annihilation), but a much greater number of short releases, including EPs and splits. They’ve gotten into the habit of periodically releasing compilations that collect these shorter works, and the latest of those is what we’re bringing you today.

Plague Transmissions: Vol. 2, which will be released by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on July 24th, collects Ruin tracks from a 2018 EP (Into Endless Chasms), a 2018 split with Anthropic, a 2019 EP (Death Tomb), a 2020 split with Abysme (Rotting Madness), and a 2020 EP (Infested Death) — 18 tracks at all. And a more vile and ghastly administration of obliterating punishment you could hardly imagine. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HATEFUL — “CALDERA”

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Jul 202020
 

 

Musical vulcanism, even in extreme metal, takes different forms. Death metal in particular is capable of doing an exceptionally good job in channeling explosive destruction, but it doesn’t always fully capture the transmutation of matter on a micro-level or the massive reconfiguration of mountainous landscapes on an epic scale that happen during and after the earth’s megaton upheavals. The Italian band Hateful, on the other hand, prove themselves capable of doing all those things in the song we’re presenting today.

How they create these sensations is a wondrous (and bewildering) thing to behold. Transcending Obscurity Records, which will release Hateful’s new album, Set Forever On Me, on September 25th, identifies some of the explanations in this way: Hateful’s music “includes elements of the early technical death metal bands like Atheist, Gorguts, Disincarnate and Death, powerful brutal coagulants such as Suffocation and Deeds of Flesh, and even the kinetic, ever-changing properties of bands like Spawn of Possession and Necrophagist.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SIBIREAL — “SYMBOLS”

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Jul 202020
 

 

As many of you know, we have a year-end list that’s devoted to highly infectious extreme metal songs. The song we’re premiering today from the debut album of Sibireal quickly jumped onto the candidate list — and not just this one, but another song that was the first track excerpted from the album. Today’s song is “Symbols“, and the one that preceded it is “The Way of Ego”.

The title of the album is Blood Color Sky, and it’s set for co-release on August 8th by the Ukrainian label GrimmDistribution (a label partner of Satanath Records) and the Russian label Wings Of Destruction.

Sibireal are themselves based in Russia, in the foothills of the Altai mountains, which The Font of All Human Knowledge tells us is “in the very center of Asia at the junction of the Siberian taiga, the steppes of Kazakhstan and the semi-deserts of Mongolia.” And thus perhaps it’s not surprising that although the musical backbone of Sibireal is thrashing black metal, their music sometimes includes the Altai harp, tambourines, and throat singing. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATHNOISEFREQUENCY — “HORRID DIRGE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jul 172020
 

 

Straight out of Saudi Arabia comes Deathnoisefrequency. That’s right, Saudi Arabia, not the easiest platform from which to launch a new musical project, and perhaps especially not one named Deathnoisefrequency. But that’s what the duo of Ghassan Al Fudail and Ahmed Mahmoud have done. Both of them have also been bandmates in a Saudi doom/death metal project named Grieving Age, but here they’ve turned in a different direction, one that’s described as “a limitless musical experiment with an all-encompassing creepy, dark and depressive atmosphere where noise and death metal are smashed together with reckless abandon”.

In 2016 Deathnoisefrequency released a single but have now re-surfaced with a debut, two-track EP named Horrid Dirge — which itself is merely a part of a forthcoming LP projected for release by the end of this year. Today is the EP’s official release date, and to help spread the word we’re premiering a full stream of the sounds. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DYSTOPIA A.D. — “SISYPHEAN EXISTENCE”

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Jul 172020
 


In Greek myth Zeus punished the Corinthian king Sisyphus for his hubris and trickery by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill in the underworld, only for it to roll down every time it neared the top. This consigned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless effort and unending frustration, and his name has been associated with pointless or interminable activities ever since, and with goals maddeningly forever out of reach.

Drawing upon this concept, the New Jersey melodic death metal band Dystopia A.D. have crafted a song called “Sisyphean Existence“, which appears on their forthcoming second album, Rise of the Merciless, and it’s that song we’re presenting today in advance of the record’s July 31 release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORLORN WORLD — “THE SHADOWMANCER”

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Jul 172020
 

 

Let’s deal first with the elephant in the room: Forlorn World is the solo project of Josh McMorran, the principle figure behind the enormously successful UK extreme metal band Bloodshot Dawn. That fact alone will form immediate expectations about the music, even though Bloodshot Dawn‘s path has displayed its own twists and turns from album to album, the latest of which was 2018’s Reanimation.

And the connections to Bloodshot Dawn don’t end there — Bloodshot Dawn guitarist Morgan Reid makes a guest appearance on Forlorn World‘s debut album Umbra, and Bloodshot Dawn bassist Giacomo Gastaldi (also Darkend) also handled the bass on Forlorn World‘s debut.

So, why isn’t Umbra a Bloodshot Dawn album? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROSANCTUS INFERI — “HYPNOTIC BLOOD ART”

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Jul 162020
 

 

Ohio’s Prosanctus Inferi will release Hypnotic Blood Art, their first album in seven years, on August 15th via Nuclear War Now! Productions. Founder and only constant member Jake Kohn (vocals, guitars) is joined on the record by drummer Jeremy Spears (who proves to be as hellishly good as Kohn himself is). According to the advance press, “Kohn sheds some of the technicality and velocity of his prior performances in favor of a heavier sound, reflecting, in many ways, a return to the band’s foundations”.

Moreover, lyrically and conceptually, Kohn also “harkens back to the band’s earlier days, with a focus on medieval and renaissance conceptions of Hell and damnation — topics that figured prominently on the demo recordings.”

The album’s first advance track, “Dark Scarp of Hell“, made a striking impression, something like a burning spike hurled into the head. And now we’re presenting the new album’s second single, “Hypnotic Blood Art“, which is no less compelling. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THURISAZ — “THE VEIL”

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Jul 162020
 

 

If you scan across the discography of the Belgian band Thurisaz, it becomes apparent that they do not hurry their work. Yet the time between their last album, 2015’s The Pulse of Mourning, and their forthcoming fifth album, Re-Incentive, has been significant. Those five years were difficult ones for the band, a time during which a dear friend was coping with severe depression and in which a member of the band and another close friend were experiencing their own emotional turmoils.

These experiences fed into the group’s decision to make this newest record “a concept-like album covering the darkness one feels when dealing with the feelings of depression and heartbreak”. And then, to get it right, they spent significant time writing and re-writing.

But now, at last, Re-Incentive is complete and ready for release on September 1st. The melodically rich music, which braids together elements of doom, death metal, and black metal (among others), does unmistakably sound like a very personal record, one that embodies and conveys heart-felt emotion, and the song we’re presenting today through a lyric video — “The Veil” — is a prime example of its compelling power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARS MAGNA UMBRAE — “OF DIVINE DIVERGENCE”

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Jul 162020
 

 

The nightside musical arts of Ars Magna Umbrae leave the mundane world far behind, inspired by interests and ambitions that seek to explore other worlds beyond the sight of banal souls who creep across the earth in their daily trudges. Not for naught does I, Voidhanger Records describe the band’s new album, Apotheosis, as “an occult black metal journey across the shores of plutonian nights, through starless aeons and oneiric fields, to later plunge them into the depths of boundless devotion and joyous madness”.

The label also describes the album’s music as “a fusion of dream and reality”, and the music is indeed the stuff of waking dreams. It inspires the imagination, spawning visions that are simultaneously wondrous and deeply disturbing. “Immersive” may be a trite descriptive phrase, but it’s nonetheless entirely accurate in describing the effect of Apotheosis. Immersed within its sensorium, your mind may take you to unforeseen places, without any conscious direction.

It’s likely that no two people will experience the same visions, or find themselves in the same mental and emotional states. What follows, therefore, is only what this writer imagined in listening to the song we’re premiering today, “Of Divine Divergence“. Continue reading »

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