AN NCS PREMIERE: REEK — “CONDEMNED BY THE HANDS OF PAIN”

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Feb 272020
 

 

Probably ’til the end of times, fans of old Entombed will debate the merits or demerits of the band’s movement from Left Hand Path through Clandestine and into the “death ‘n’ roll” of Wolverine Blues. But it’s clear that the Swedish band Reek don’t mourn that transition but instead celebrate it, as you’ll discover through today’s premiere of a track from their debut album, Death is something there Between, which will be released by Testimony Records on April 24th.

A debut album it may be, but the members of Reek are accomplished veterans. Leading the way are Håkan Stuvemark (Wombbath, Pale King) and Rogga Johansson (too many bands to name), who have collaborated before in the progressive death metal band PermaDeath. Here, Stuvemark and Johansson both play guitar, and this time Stuvemark is also the vocalist. They’re joined in Reek by their PermaDeath teammate Jon Skäre (also Defiatory, Wachenfeldt) on drums and by bassist Mathias Back (Fimbultyr).

With that kind of talent assembled under the name Reek, listeners will predictably have high expectations, and those expectations will not be disappointed. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HADOPELAGIAL — “AMUNRE”

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Feb 262020
 

 

Hailing from Leipzig, Germany, Hadopelagial is a two-man black metal strike force (vocalist/lyricist Ghoul and C.C., who does everything else) whose members were once bandmates in Humanitas Error Est. In their new formation they’ve recorded a self-titled debut album that will be released on March 18th by Satanath Records, and today we’re presenting one of its eight tracks, a wonderfully dynamic song named “Amunre“.

The tone of the song’s opening riff is as dismal and bleak as a mass grave, and the music methodically stomps and stomps as Ghoul utters his proclamations in a vicious and imperious voice. But while the oppressive qualities established by that opening movement don’t disappear, the music soon becomes a white-hot melee of turbocharged percussive obliteration, seething, swarming riffs, and unhinged vocal ferocity. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARCADA — “LUNAR POSSESSION”

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Feb 262020
 

 

It sometimes happens that we come across an eye-opening advance song from a forthcoming record by a band we aren’t familiar with, and then unexpectedly get the chance to present another song from the album ourselves, and that’s what happened here.

Earlier this month I encountered the tremendous title track from Projections, the first full-length by the Peruvian black metal band Arcada, which adds to a discography that includes three demos and an EP. The song is a multifaceted experience, one that includes elements suggestive of unearthly grandeur and reverence but also channels moods of anguish and hysteria. A wailing and weeping sound emerges in one of the recurring melodic motifs, and there’s a mournful moodiness in the bass tones. The vocals themselves seem wildly distraught (as well as vicious), and they’re wide-ranging in their expressions, though all the expressions are scarily intense.

And now we present further proof of Arcada‘s impressive talents in a song from Projections called “Lunar Possessions“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GOHRGONE — “WEAK ONES DECEIVED”

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Feb 242020
 

 

In the well-made video we’re about to present, an ancient warrior draws his sword and makes his way by torchlight into a deep and ominous cavern, drawing closer and closer to the three hooded figures he seeks, three blind sisters who share only a single eye among themselves. By stealth he steals the eye from the witches, holding it as ransom until they tell him what he wishes to know.

Also lit by torchlight, the French death metal band Gohrgone also appear in the video, performing “Weak Ones Deceived“, a song from their most recent album In Oculis, with increasingly harrowing intensity, matching the tension and frightfulness of the tale that’s also depicted in the film. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ETHIR ANDUIN — “LAST STRUGGLE”

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Feb 242020
 

 

Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky was a Russian poet who died in 1941 at the age of 37, and whose work is said to have had a formidable influence on “unofficial” and avant-garde art during and after the times of the Soviet Union, though his writing was little-known in Russia until long after his death. During his life he faced repeated arrest and died while being transported to one of Stalin’s Gulags.

One of Vvedensky’s poems, “Potets“, recounts the experiences and reflections of a dying man, including his last conversations with his sons. The poem inspired the Russian band Ethir Anduin to create the song we’re premiering today from Ethir Anduin‘s new album, Pathway To Eternity. The Agony. It is one of eight substantial tracks on the album (collectively they amount to 80 minutes of music), each one with its own concept, but in the aggregate forming a diverse yet unified whole.

The album, which will be released by GrimmDistribution on March 16th, also marks a turning point for Ethir Anduin. The band was formed in 2006 as the solo project of A.V. Fenrir, and while guest vocalists appeared among the seven albums preceding this one, Ethir Anduin now has an official vocalist named Luka, who makes her first appearance with the project on this new album. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INHUMAN — “CAREFUL WHAT YOU FEAR”

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Feb 232020
 

 

At some point in the past, I forget when, one of my NCS comrades argued within our group that we should be more careful in our description of a certain sub-genre of death metal, to make clear that it’s really not a single monolithic sub-genre at all.

If memory serves, he contended that the term “tech-death” should be reserved for bands (many of whom are in vogue these days) who rely on blizzards of frantically discharged, maniacally veering notes and hyperventilating drum work, i.e., the kind of stuff that seems mainly designed to showcase speed and dexterity, everything dialed up to 11, without necessarily producing anything coherent — and sometimes forgetting the DEATH METAL part of the genre descriptor.

On the other hand, he argued, the term “technical death metal” — or as I might call it, technical DEATH METAL — should be reserved for bands who are really death metal groups at heart, with all the gruesome savagery that term usually connotes, but accent their barbarism with technically impressive accents, and do so in service to actual structured songs rather than just putting on chaotic displays of instrumental pyrotechnics.

Which brings us to Inhuman from Costa Rica. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AODON — “L’INFIME”

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Feb 212020
 

 

The French metal band Aodon made an auspicious debut with their 2016 album Sharphood, but in the roughly four years since then, the band’s composer, lead guitarist, drummer, and screamer M-kha has clearly taken giant strides in the realization of his musical visions, as revealed on Aodon‘s new album 11069, which will be released by Willowtip Records on March 27th. The music here, which is richly textured, seamlessly combines black metal with elements of post-metal, creating immersive and emotionally evocative atmospheric sensations with harrowing intensity, blending mesmerizing melodies capable of both inducing uneasy reveries and soaring to epic heights while also channeling fury and despair with spine-tingling power.

The first single from the album, “Les Rayons“, was a rapid introduction to many of these aspects of 11069, and today we have further evidence of the album’s gripping dynamism through our premiere of the multi-faceted track “L’Infime“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CULT BURIAL — “SORROW”

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Feb 212020
 

 

One month ago we came across the debut release of a one-person project from London named Cult Burial. It was a single song named “Consumed“, and its amalgamation of black, death, and doom metal did indeed prove to be an all-consuming experience that enveloped listeners in the bleak and desperate sensations channeled by the music’s creator. Given the striking impression made by that first release, we jumped at the chance to present Cult Burial’s second single today, a track called “Sorrow“.

The lyrics of the new song are no more hopeful than those in “Consumed”, and the music is no less intense. Harrowing roars and mind-scraping shrieks reverberate above moody bass moans, head-hooking drum patterns, feverish riffing, and wailing ethereal tones which add a disturbing aura of eeriness to the music’s sense of inner tension and angst. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: ICON OF PHOBOS / KATHEKSIS — “PRIMAL DEATH RITES”

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Feb 202020
 

 

It’s always a pleasure to find reasons to install the artwork of Paolo Girardi at the top of our page, and we have that pleasure again today. It’s an even greater pleasure when we discover that the music his creations introduce is just as striking as the art, which is true here.

On this occasion Signore Girardi‘s eye-catching painting adorns a split release entitled Primal Death Rites that will be released by the Los Angeles-based label The Elegy Ensemble on February 20th (today!). It includes one track each by the black metal bands Icon of Phobos and Katheksis, and to help spread the word we’re streaming both of them for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NECROBODE — “SOB O FEITIÇO DO NECROBODE”

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Feb 192020
 

 

The music of Necrobode is as infernally bestial, as merciless, and as death-crowned as all their outward trappings would suggest, from the cadaverous horned lord on the cover of their new album to their own savage, inverted-cross-wearing, spiked-gauntlet-brandishing visages. Their brand of corrosive black/death is sadistically brutalizing, mind-mauling, and vicious. But as you’re about to discover, there’s a lot more to their debut album besides naked hostility and a fiendish disregard for your mental and physical welfare.

That album, Sob o Feitiço do Necrobode, will be released on February 21st by Iron Bonehead Productions, a label that clearly knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff in sifting through the vast harvests of extreme metal. And today we’re bringing you a complete stream of the record — preceded by the following introductory review. Continue reading »

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