AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NAWAHARJAN — “LOKABRENNA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 182020
 

 

Today we premiere the entirety of Lokabrenna, the hour-long debut album by Nawaharjan, the Berlin-based black metal band whose name reportedly was built from the proto-Germanic word for “Nawaz” (corpse) and “Harjaz/Harjan” (army). The album will be released by Amor Fati Productions on the 20th of February. While we have (as usual) impressions of the music to share with you, in this case it’s worthwhile to first share what has been disclosed about the album’s conceptual underpinnings, because that gives further depth to the abundant array of sensations provided by the songs. To quote from the press materials:

“Lokabrenna is a conceptual work based around the Thursian Brandawegiz system, which is built upon the nine locks of Sinmara’s chest within the dark, liberating side of Germanic mythology. Each of the songs on the album symbolizes one of these locks and acts as a devotional hymn to Loki and a way to unlock his potential within oneself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARONIOUS — “AN ASSEMBLED REALITY”

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Feb 172020
 

 

Having made quite a strong impression within the realms of technical death metal with their 2014 EP, Truth In Perception, the Wisconsin-based quintet Aronious are now poised to release their debut album, Perspicacity, which is set for release on March 13th via The Artisan Era. In the works for many year, and meticulously composed and recorded, this first full-length is a concept album — and a musically ambitious one that doesn’t follow all the standard tech-death tropes that you’ve become accustomed to by now.

So far, The Artisan Era has released three tracks from the album as signs of those ambitions and powerful accomplishments, and today we’re presenting the fourth and final advance track (among a total of 13 on the full album) before the record’s release next month. The song’s name is “An Assembled Reality“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PYRE OF DESCENT — “PEAKS OF ETERNAL LIGHT”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 172020
 

 

Crystalline notes echo across incorporeal spheres, soulful arpeggios ring out and reverberate, back-beats rock from the kit as a vibrant bass punches the pulse, the melody soars like an anthem, dour vocals present a gothic haunting gloom and turn to scarred howls, and spiraling guitar solos scintillate the senses. “Fyre” is a compulsive rocker, irresistible in its rhythms, but in its ethereal, chiming melodies it seems like a musical spell woven with threads made of light.

“Fyre” is the first song presented on the debut EP of the Berlin-based band, Pyre of Descent, and it makes for an enthralling introduction to Peaks Of Eternal Light, which will be released on February 24th by the Italian label Terror From Hell Records. But as compelling as that song is, the remaining three tracks are equally seductive, and equally aimed at transcendental goals — as you shall discover through our stream of the entire EP today.

Not for naught does TFH Records describe it as “31 minutes of enigmatic grace paired with sorrowful tension”, and not for naught do Pyre of Descent introduce their creations in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RUINAS — “FAUCES DE SATURNO”

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Feb 132020
 

 

“Grinding Death Metal, sometimes dismal, sometimes punkish, sometimes sludgy, sometimes with a fuck off attitude….” That is how Spikerot Records describes the music on Ikonoklasta, the new album by the Spanish death/grind duo Ruinas, while also drawing comparisons to such bands as Rotten Sound, Incantation, Wolfpack, and John Carpenter.

While you’re trying to wrap your mind around that combination of references, we’ll tell you that Ruinas is the union of Rober, a member of the deceased Death/Grind legends Machetazo, and Angel, both of them hailing from the remote Spanish region of Galicia. We’ll also tell you that the band have a fascination with worms, spiders, rats and skulls, and a bleak view of humanity’s future. As you’ll discover from the song we’re premiering today from Ikonoklasta, their music is also far, far away from paint-by-numbers death/grind, and delivers dramatic emotional power (while also kicking a listener’s blood stream into a torrent). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LIVE BURIAL — “THE CRYPT OF SLUMBERING MADNESS”

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Feb 132020
 

 

The UK death metal band Live Burial (whose five-man line-up shares members with Horrified, Plague Rider, and Rat Faced Bastard) demonstrated a lot of versatility over the course of their two early short releases in 2013 and 2014, and their 2016 debut album Forced Back To Life, prompting the people at Metal-Archives to characterize their music as “Death/Doom Metal (early)” and “Death/Thrash Metal (later)”. But after those people hear the band’s new album they will be left scratching their heads and wondering how to update that genre description. Maybe they’ll just sigh and write “Death Metal”, and leave it at that. It definitely won’t do to sum them up as “Death/Thrash” any longer.

The band’s new album, Unending Futility, displays a multitude of interests, most of them rooted in the early days of such bands as Asphyx, Morgoth, Death, Cancer, and Bolt Thrower (with doses of rampant grind-inspired savagery in the mix). But rather than a patch-work quilt of styles, Live Burial‘s songwriting produces dynamic songs that are cohesive, integrating their influences with remarkable assurance and gruesome style.

The first advance track revealed from the album in advance of its April 3rd release by Transcending Obscurity Records was “Condemned To the Boats“, which proved to be a roiling and rapacious gore-splattering assault that descended into gloomy depths of oppressive horror. The song we’re presenting today, on the other hand, is even darker and more horrifying, while also revealing an even more elaborate sense of dynamics in the (very impressive) songwriting. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ENSNARED — “INIMICUS GENERIS HUMANI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  9 Responses »
Feb 122020
 

 

To try to sum up the music of Ensnared‘s new album Inimicus Generis Humani as “progressive death metal” or “avant-garde death metal” would probably send the wrong signals. It might make people underestimate how vicious, how emotionally disturbing, and how mentally mutilating the music often is. But it’s definitely something very different from the kinds of death metal you come across on the usual beaten paths. Perhaps “interdimensional death metal” would be closer to the mark for music of such predatory spirit and such evil alien allure.

Inimicus Generis Humani is this Swedish band’s frightful and fascinating second album, following 2017’s excellent Dysangelium. The same two labels that released that first record, Invictus Productions and Dark Descent Records, will be releasing this new one on February 14th. Not long to wait, to be sure, but you won’t have to wait a moment longer to listen to the album, because we’re bringing the full stream to you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ALL MY SINS — “DALEKO AD JUGA”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 122020
 

 

The Serbian duo All My Sins devote themselves to the creation of atmospheric black metal as a journey on the path of southern Slavic mysticism. Following their 2018 debut album Pra sila – Vukov totem and a 2017 EP (Zov iz Magle) that we premiered and reviewed here  — both of which are well worth your time if you haven’t yet discovered them — the band will soon be releasing a new EP named Plamen i Led (Flame and Ice) through the partnership of Casus Belli Musica and Beverina.

The EP consists of three songs, two of which are the band’s interpretation of songs originally released by Luna (Yugoslavia) and Old Wainds (Russia), while the third is a re-shaped version of a song from All My Sins‘ second demo in 2004. Along with some further details about the EP, what we’re presenting today is the premiere stream of the Old Wainds cover, and an accompanying video. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SALTAS — “ASTRAL FUNERAL MARCH”

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Feb 112020
 

 

We had some favorable things to say about Death•Spirit•Continuum, the 2019 compilation of demos by Saltas that first brought this formidable Swedish duo to our attention. We also remarked about how powerfully it created a deepening, and almost suffocating, atmosphere of disease, decay, and desolation, while managing to achieve hypnotic effects despite how emotionally unsettling and unnerving the music often was.

We have been eagerly anticipating something further from Saltas, and now we have it — a debut album named Mors Salis – Opus I that will be released on March 15th by Nuclear War Now! Productions. Created by the same two members who first appeared through the pair of demos on that compilation — guitarist N.R. of Runemagick and The Funeral Orchestra, among others, and drummer C.J., known for his work in Irkallian Oracle — the album is an arcane death ritual, immersing the listener in an experience that draws upon death and doom metal but goes far beyond familiar conventions into other-dimensional realms.

The first preview track from the album, “Dimensional Seismic Waves“, was a profoundly eerie and head-spinning piece of bizarre sonic alchemy — intricate in its composition, twisted in its path, and blood-freezing in its effects. And now we have a second track to present: “Astral Funeral March“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CRYPT DAGGER — “THE GOD FUKK YOU”

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Feb 112020
 

 

It didn’t take long for Germany’s Crypt Dagger to rip their way into the consciousness of certain segments of the underground (the crevices inhabited by denizens who like their music blasphemous, belligerent, and brazen). They detonated a two-song demo last year and then soon followed that with the four-track EP Tales of Torment, which one publicist has aptly characterized as “filth-banging, black-as-pitch SPEED METAL with a heavy debt to punk, as well as such surprising influences as Devo, The Mummies, and early B-52s“.

Wasting no time in building on the nasty impressions made by that EP, Crypt Dagger have brewed up a new eight-song inferno entitled From Below, which will be released by Dying Victims Productions on March 27th. It includes those four tracks from Tales of Torment plus three brand new onslaughts, and a cover of Dead Moon‘s “5440 or Fight”, adding up to 24 minutes of mayhem.

Today we’re premiering a lyric video for one of the new songs, the one that indelicately opens the new release: “The God Fukk You“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAISSEM — “BLACK TIDE DOMINION”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 102020
 

 

Haissem is a melodic black metal band started by Ukrainian musician and vocalist Andrey Tollock in Donetsk in 2014. With him working as the sole performer, Haissem released albums in 2016 (Maze of Perverted Fantasies), 2018 (Panacea for a Cursed Race), and 2019 (Demonotone), as well as a pair of EPs in 2017 and 2019. Over the course of those releases, Haissem’s creativity has expanded from a stylistic affinity for melodic black metal rooted in the ’90s into music of greater variety and more diverse stylistic influence.

Haissem’s newest output is an album named Kuhaghan Tyyn (which means “The Evil Spirit”) that will be released by the band’s new label Satanath Records on March 22nd. As compared to previous records, this one includes a greater use of synthesizers (though they are still subtle) as well as guest performers on specific tracks, including female vocalist Alyona Malytsa, harpist D. Vander, and cellist Alexandra Zima — the latter of whom makes an appearance on the song we’re premiering today , “Black Tide Dominion“. Continue reading »

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