AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SUPPRESSIVE FIRE – “SIEGE”

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Jan 142021
 

 

North Carolina’s Suppressive Fire made their full-length debut four years ago with Bedlam, an album that loosely explored the terrible nature of World War I. Wasting no time, they followed that with a second full-length the next year entitled Nature of War, which again organized the band’s hell-raising brand of black thrash around the subject of warfare, culminating in the closing track “Nuclear Dismemberment”.

Now Suppressive Fire are returning to the field of battle with a new EP entitled Invasion that’s set for release on the Ides of March. The band’s line-up has undergone significant changes, with guitarist Joseph Bursey as the only remaining original member, now joined by vocalist Devin Kelley (also of Cemetery Filth and Dire Hatred), drummer Scott Schopler (owner of Blasphemous Mockery Productions), bassist Andrew Nye (also from Leachate and Eyn), and second guitarist Nate Stokes (also of Witchtit and Noctomb). But the band’s thematic focus has remained consistent, with this new EP heavily focused on the events of World War II, and as you’re about to discover through our premiere of a track named “Siege“, their music is even more explosive. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MOLTEN — “DYSTOPIAN SYNDROME”

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Jan 122021
 

 

Among almost all die-hard metalheads the phrase “Bay Area thrash” immediately brings to mind a very well-defined and much-loved sound, but one that for many listeners has been done to death, to the point that for many fans clutching their old favorites the chance of finding something new seems hardly worth the time. But while Molten are a Bay Area band and thrash is a vital part of their DNA, their new album Dystopian Syndrome is very much worth all the time you can give it.

As you will discover through our premiere of the entire album stream today in advance of its January 15th release, thrash is the foundation but not the entire edifice of what they’ve constructed. As a function of the band’s varied musical interests, their music is a richly embellished experience that channels changing moods and energies and reveals a taste for instrumentation not usually found in the genre, while also delivering monstrous vocals and the kind of technical performance skill that drops jaws and pops eyes. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIPYGUS — “MYIASIS IN HUMAN MOUTH”

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Jan 122021
 

 

This is one of those premieres that spurred us to engage in arcane research, and to learn some macabre facts which you can now learn too, in addition to digesting the most obvious thing, i.e., a new song by Dipygus — unless it digests you first.

We will of course eventually turn to the music off this California death metal band’s forthcoming second album, Bushmeat, but first let’s share the results of our curiosity, beginning with the band’s name. What does it mean? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PESTIS CULTUS — “BLACK TONGUE HYMN”

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Jan 112021
 

 

With a previous incarnation under the name Snorri and contributions to underground black metal across various other projects, three lifetime friends from Perth are now cutting their way forward under the name Pestis Cultus. Their self-titled debut album will be released on February 12th, and from that album we are today premiering a track named “Black Tongue Hymn“, which follows a previous single, “To the Old Ruins“.

The album begins and ends with an intro and outro fashioned by Mortiis, and in between Pestis Cultus have fashioned a truly chilling yet electrifying experience, one that’s hideous and vampiric, violent and chaotic, sepulchral and sinister — and yet with a turn-on-a-dime dynamism that makes each song more twisting and turning than a simple exercise in raw black metal orthodoxy. These two tracks you can now hear are solid proof of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS DOUBLE PREMIERE: THORN (“IRON SHARPENS IRON”) AND FUMES (“THE EREMITIC”)

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Jan 082021
 

 

On January 22nd a consortium of labels — Gurgling Gore Records, Life After Death Records, and Cavernous Records — will release a tremendous split by two fearsome and frightening North American death metal bands: Thorn from Phoenix, Arizona, and Fumes from Toronto, Ontario. Each band contributes two tracks to this experience in crushing audio horror, and today we’re premiering one of them by each band.

THORN

Thorn is the solo project of Brennen Westermeyer, a musical vehicle dedicated to the creation of cavernous, ominous, and dreadful death metal. Thorn made its advent last year with an EP entitled The Encompassing Nothing, and for this new split Thorn recorded two songs — “Eclipsing a Dying Sun” and “Iron Sharpens Iron“. It’s the second of those which we present today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LUNG KNOTS — “DEVOUR THEIR BODIES SATURATED WITH BRINE”

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Jan 082021
 

 

Consider this description of the new project that’s the source of the track we’re premiering today:

“Lung Knots is a vessel of auditory violence whose sole purpose is to exist in this place and moment in time. It is an overwhelming form of aural terror conveyed through primal and mechanical means, conjoining visceral matter of an organic origin with that of an abiotic one. These together fabricate an entity focused on the seething aspects of interminable dread and the humiliation of flesh.

“Lung Knots‘ essence can be summed up as the channeling of hate and disgust towards man and its progeny, and the very construct of humanity in its current, turbulent state, by weaving together textures that vary from harsh noise to black metal and carefully crafted sound design-like sonical scapes, and everything falling in between. The territory from where these scraps are gathered is a profound, hopeless, and lightless hole, familiar to every single being in one sense or another.”

Now consider the lyrics of the macabre audio assault you’re about to experience: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALTERED DEAD — “THRAWING IN AGONY”

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Jan 072021
 

 

Five years after the release of their self-titled debut album, the barbarous death metal duo from southern Vancouver Island who call themselves Altered Dead are at last ready for the release of their sophomore album, fittingly named Returned To Life. It will be released by two celebrants of slaughtering sound, with Memento Mori handling the CD release on January 25th and Fucking Kill Records discharging vinyl editions on February 28th. And today it’s our sadistic pleasure to share with you the perverse pleasures of a track from the new record named “Thrawing In Agony“.

Altered Dead‘s approach to death metal draws upon the influences of such progenitors as Autopsy, Death Breath, Grave, Asphyx, Darkthrone, Unleashed, Exhumed, and Carnage. Hallowed names indeed, and suggestive of the fact that Altered Dead interweave within their spine-shivering art varying takes on the most grim and ghastly death metal formulations, and therefore don’t sound like clones of anyone. Even more impressive is that only two people are responsible for such mutilating ravages of sound. Continue reading »

A NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ILDARUNI — “TREADING THE PATH OF CRYPTIC WISDOM”

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Jan 072021
 

 

The Armenian pagan metal band Ildaruni made an auspicious debut with their 2018 demo Towards Subterranean Realms (which we reviewed here), revealing both a lyrical focus on ancient Armenian history, drawing upon mythology and aspects of occultism, and a musical blending of folk melody, symphonic sweep, and blood-rushing blackened power. Ildaruni are now building upon that impressive demo with their first full-length, Beyond Unseen Gateways, which will be released by Black Lion Records on March 19th.

Thematically, this debut album continues the band’s focus on ancient myths and arcane forces. It is, in the band’s words, “a hymn to the blazing light, which sank into shadowy shrines, to the wild darkness which covered the debris of Ardini, to the bygone flame which enlightens the sanctum of Haldi”, with each song “an indivisible part of a grand ode which explores the height of the Urartian domain and the esoteric knowledge of pagan mysticism.”

The striking cover art of Mark Erskine captures the album’s essential concept, and so does the music, as you’ll discover through our premiere of a lyric video for “Treading he Path of Cryptic Wisdom“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD WORLD RECLAMATION — “HERALDS OF THE FORMLESS ONE”

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Jan 062021
 

 

The first word that comes to mind in considering the new music of Dead World Reclamation is extravagant — quickly followed by exhilarating, ingenious, and barbaric. Mark Erskine‘s cover art for this Arizona band’s new album, Aura of Iniquity, is itself astonishing, but make no mistake: it’s not misleading, because the music within is equally striking and no less memorable. And the songs’ lyrical themes are in keeping with the fascinations of the art and the music.

For those who may be familiar with the band’s first album, Sentient, you will be expecting melodic death metal, and that is indeed still at the heart of the band’s creations, but this new album also represents a considerable divergence from what came before. The compositions are even more intricate, and now exhibit even greater technicality in the execution while also bringing into play scintillating keyboards and mesmerizing orchestrations, without stinting on bludgeoning brutality.

As a sign of these changes, and of the kind of experience that spawned all those adjectives in the opening paragraph, we present today a lyric video for an album track named “Heralds of the Formless One” in advance of the record’s release on April 23rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MALICE DIVINE — “IN TIME”

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Jan 062021
 

 

Malice Divine is a new solo project from Toronto, Canada. whose self-titled debut album is set for release on February 19th. It’s the work of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ric Galvez, who began composing the album’s music while he was a member of Astaroth Incarnate (whom we’ve written about here in the past) and was also studying as a music major at York University. After Galvez parted ways with Astaroth Incarnate, he finished the rest of the album by writing the guitar solos and the lyrics.

Stylistically, the music draws on a range of melodic black and death metal influences, including Dissection, Death, Wintersun, and Immortal, while also incorporating a lot of jaw-dropping guitar prowess.

As a demonstration of what Malice Divine brings to the table, today we’re premiering a guitar-and-vocal playthrough video for the album’s first advance track, “In Time“, which will be released as a digital single on January 8th. Continue reading »

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