AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BESTIALIS — “RITUS”

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Nov 132020
 

 

Just yesterday I was confessing that one of the reasons I’m so open to hosting premieres every day is a selfish motivation — because it affords the opportunity to discover new music from new bands that I might otherwise miss (and that you might miss too!). Sometimes those opportunities bring thrilling surprises, and today it has happened again through the discovery of a fascinating German black metal band named Bestialis.

What you are about to hear, on the day of its release by Vendetta Records, is the debut recording of this group, an EP named Ritus. The formidable success of the EP will be less surprising if you understand that Bestialis is the result of of a long-term artistic and spiritual conspiracy between two artists — vocalist Lastaurus and guitarist Absorber — who have been making music for 20 years; both of them are part of northwestern Germany’s Culthe Collectiv/Culthe Fest (Münster).

What they’ve achieved is both conceptually and musically tantalizing. In their lyrical focus, Bestialis focus on a concept “whose basic premise is to understand humans as – primarily and in the most positive way – animal beings, and thus, at its essence, to explore, proclaim and worship the bestia or beast in man.”. Ritus thus offers an introduction to this concept and puts into its narrative tales of prehistoric bull cults and Persian mythology (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, provided in the band’s own reinterpretation). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): YSGAROTH — “STORM OVER A BLACK SEA”

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Nov 122020
 

 

It’s well-known that we host a lot of premieres at our site — every day, in fact. It requires a lot of effort since we always accompany them with reviews, and that can detract from other things we might be doing instead. But one reason we’re so open to them is the opportunity they provide to introduce not just you, but us as well, to music we might otherwise overlook. And sometimes, those opportunities prove to be rapturous discoveries — which is the case with Ysgaroth’s album Storm Over A Black Sea, which is set for release tomorrow.

Simply put, the album is an enormous surprise, an unexpected gem that arrives without much advance fanfare. It is, after all, this Vancouver trio’s debut album. But they’re not taking tentative steps here. The songs are remarkably ambitious in their construction and remarkably demanding in their execution. Fortunately, the instrumental skill displayed here is at a very high level, and the songcraft, while elaborately multi-faceted and wide-ranging in its stylistic scope, is thrilling to behold. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: RAMCHAT — “ZNELO LESOM”

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Nov 112020
 

 

There is a risk that Znelo lesom, the new album by the Slovak pagan metal band Ramchat, will fly under the radar of lots of listeners, when it should instead come across it like a comet in flight. It certainly made that kind of astonishing impression on this writer, who didn’t know what to expect going into it, having failed to pay attention to any of the band’s previous releases. But now this album is one that won’t soon be forgotten.

The songcraft of Ramchat is, for want of better words, idiosyncratic and mercurial. At a high level, it could be described as a fascinating amalgam of folk-influenced blackened metal and devilish rock that’s capable of generating (among other things) orchestral levels of grandeur, barbaric levels of savagery, bewitching episodes of sinister sonic sorcery, and heart-breaking moments of melancholy. In each song (no two of which are quite alike) the band pack an ingenious array of sonic sensations and moods, and while the changes are often unexpected, there is still a natural flow and integration among them which makes the progressions cohesive rather than jarring.

It’s thus a real pleasure to help put Znelo lesom on your radar screen through our full album premiere today in advance of its imminent November 13 release by Slovak Metal Army. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUCK THE FACTS — “AN ENDING”

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Nov 112020
 

 

A well-educated metalhead friend once told me that the term “grindcore” wasn’t coined to capture the parts of grind songs where the bands chase you around like rabid barbarians, but for the slow sludgy parts where they catch you, pin you to the ground, and methodically beat you with hammers. He didn’t use those metaphorical terms — those are my own embellishments — but you probably know what I’m talking about.

I think at one point I probably researched the origins of the term, but I’ve forgotten what I found. Regardless, grind fans know this dichotomy between high-speed mayhem and down-shifted thuggery, and sometimes it’s tough to predict which aspect will generate the most violent mosh pit at a show (you remember mosh pits, don’t you, even if just barely?).

But in the case of the veteran Canadian band Fuck the Facts, it’s been evident for a long time that “dichotomous” egregiously under-represents their remarkably distinctive and multi-faceted approach to grind. In fact, there’s usually so much more going on in their music that some ingenious word-smith needs to come up with a different genre term for their music altogether. “Grind” really just doesn’t cut it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HORSEHUNTER — “NUCLEAR RAPTURE”

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Nov 102020
 

 

In November 2019 Magnetic Eye Records celebrated its first decade of existence by hosting the “Day of Doom” label showcase at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus Bar. That event featured nine bands on the label’s roster performing back-to-back, and the four headline sets were captured live by engineer Chris Johnson (Deafheaven, Summoner). On December 11th, Magnetic Eye will release those recordings in a series of four records entitled Day of Doom Live, each one devoted to the headlining shows from a year ago at Saint Vitus Bar.

The bands featured in the series are Elephant Tree, Domkraft, Summoner, and the Australian sludge-metal destroyers in Horsehunter, whose discography includes two full-lengths so far, 2014’s Caged In Flesh and their self-titled album released in 2019. Today we present one of the live tracks from Horsehunter’s Day of Doom Live release, and it proves that the band are just as devastating live as they are on their studio recordings — maybe more so. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE SOMBRE — “A TERRIBLE SILENCE FROM ABOVE”

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Nov 102020
 

 

The Dutch musician Maurice de Jong has become well-known as the man behind such projects as Gnaw Their Tongues, De Magia Veterum, Cloak of Altering, Hagetisse, and Golden Ashes, among many others. Each of these entities has its own identity, but it’s fair to say that despite their stylistic divergences they’re often unpredictable, disturbing, and even frightening, and just as often represent de Jong pushing at musical boundaries, or simply punching his fist right through them. And then there is The Sombre, which surprises in a different and mesmerizing way.

For those of you who are discovering The Sombre today for the first time, it is a vehicle through which de Jong pays homage to such early-’90s pioneers of doom/death as My Dying Bride, Anathema, and Paradise Lost. Compared to many of his other projects, the music is more traditional, yet if you might be expecting a formulaic clone of the sounds that inspired the music, perish the thought. De Jong still finds ways of putting sparks into the sounds, and there is also much to be said about the mastery displayed in the carefully crafted sonic ingredients within the music, and the emotional power of the downcast melodies.

The Sombre‘s first album, Into the Beckoning Wilderness, was released last year via Kapmes Records, and just in time to greet the pall of winter, a second album is coming soon. Entitled Shapeless Misery, it will be released on November 20th by Brucia Records. Several songs from the new album have already been revealed, and today we bring you one more — “A Terrible Silence From Above“, which is the song that opens the album. Continue reading »

ANN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PLASTICBAG FACEMASK — “SHE’S THE COUSIN OF THE CHAINSAW”

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Nov 092020
 

 

By sheer coincidence the two video premieres we’re hosting at NCS today (the other one is here) are devoted to the music of two-person bands. But the music could hardly be more different. In the case of this one, imagine your mind as a pane of glass, and then think of the song as a hammer smashing it into shards.

The song in question is “She’s the Cousin of the Chainsaw“, and it’s off a forthcoming album named Content by PlasticBag FaceMask from Fresno, California. A two-man head-wrecking machine, it consists of Jacob Lee (Keeper, Elder Devil) and Patrick Hogan (Time Bomb, Shrug), who in this project have devoted themselves to creating a schizophrenic hybrid of math metal, grindcore, and death metal. The album will be released on on November 27th via PlasticSkull Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WITHIN NOSTALGIA — “DESIDERATUM”

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Nov 092020
 

 

Void & Decay is the forthcoming second album by the Canadian band Within Nostalgia from North Bay, Ontario. Since the release of the first album, the band has down-sized to become a duo, combining the talents of Alyssa Broere (Rhythm Guitar/ Bass/ Vocals/ Drum Programming) and Kye Bell (Lead Guitar/ Bass/ Drum Programming). In addition to the changed line-up, fans of the band will discover that the music has morphed as well, and as represented on the new album it resists easy classification. The song we’re premiering today (through an official video) proves that, and it also proves what powerfully good songwriters Within Nostalgia have become.

That song, “Desideratum“, closes the album in stirring fashion, and both the song and the video connect as well with the themes of the album as a whole. As the band explain, “Void and Decay portrays the two extremes; the void is the destined path of our society whereas the decay represents the result of the chaos in the world we live in. The lyrics come from a personal expression that encompasses many forms of emotion and observation as well as relating these things to nature. The inspiration comes from self-reflection and the reflection of the world around us, turning negative events and emotions into something relatable.” Continue reading »

NCS PREMIERES FOR USTKARA GHOST’S “CONSUMING THE ABYSS”

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Nov 052020
 

 

What do you think would happen if two such doom maestros as Daniel Neagoe (Clouds, Aeonian Sorrow) and Shaun Macgowan (My Dying Bride) were to join forces in a new musical project? Well, you need not engage in too much speculation, because that is in fact what they have done, and we have the results for you right now.

Under the name Ustkara Ghost they have completed work on a debut album named Consuming The Abyss that’s being released today, and to help spread the word we present a full stream of the album, as well as the debut of a lyric video for its longest and most multi-faceted song. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GOATCRAFT (A TRACK FROM “MEPHISTOPHELIAN EXORDIUM”)

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Nov 042020
 

 

We first began writing about Goatcraft at our site nearly seven years ago, and have continued following the progress of the music ever since. But the story of Goatcraft’s musical evolution began long before that. The project’s sole creator, who goes by the name Lonegoat, was trained as a classical pianist. As a young teenager he was guided into extreme metal by an older friend, taking the first steps on a long journey that eventually led to his creation of the “necroclassical” sounds of Goatcraft.

Along the way, at the age of 20, while living in Tampa, he played with Mike Browning (Morbid Angel, Nocturnus) in a project called After Death. Due to changed circumstances, he decided to join the U.S. Air Force. After his honorable discharge (and a time being stuck in Japan due to bureaucratic snafus), he returned to Tampa and delved deeper into the metal scene. After moving to Texas, where he had spent time in his earlier years, he began working with musicians from the San Antonio bands Plutonian Shore and Emperial Massacre. As he has explained:

“It was here that I realized that my idiosyncratic style had advanced into something entirely different than what most band formats would permit. Mike Browning had advised me to create an all-keyboard project, and this advice is what ultimately birthed the idea of Goatcraft. I came to terms with the fact that in order to reach my vision of piano- and keyboard-driven of music, I would need work by myself to turn that vision into a reality.” Continue reading »

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