AN NCS PREMIERE: OSSAERT — “IV”

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Jan 312020
 

 

Ossaert is a new one-person Dutch band, hailing from the river-wreathed city of Zwolle in northeastern Netherlands. The band’s first full-length, which also includes the work of session drummer W., is named Bedehuis, and it will be released on February 14th by Argento Records. The four songs on the album (which total 35 minutes of music despite the small number of tracks) don’t have names, only numbers.

I came across the opener, “I“, on Bandcamp before listening to the album as a whole, and wasted no time writing about it in one of our weekly SHADES OF BLACK columns. The song saturates the senses, delivering full-throttle drumming, rapidly gouging riffs, insanely flickering leads, febrile bass lines, and a rich array of harsh and clean vocals, which collectively become astonishing. Near the middle, a new riff appears which conjoins feelings of bleakness and grandeur, and becomes magnetically attractive.

The song attacks and it soars, and its intensity is unrelenting. I found it tremendously exciting — maybe “breathtaking” is a better word. And so when we were given the opportunity to premiere another track from Bedehuis, that was an easy “Yes!” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARBLEBOG — “THE OBSCURED MIRROR OF INFINITY”

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Jan 312020
 

 

Marblebog was born as a solo project from the mind of Hungarian musician Gábor Varga in 1998. It began with a focus on black metal and ambient music composed under the inspirations of nature, and the results were three full-length albums and a significant number of splits leading up to 2010, when Marblebog was laid to rest. Ten years passed after the last Marblebog release, a recording of the band’s only live show, on June 5th 2009 at Matchitehew Assembly in Chicago, but now Varga has resurrected the project and created a new album named Kietlen.

This new album was first released by Dread Records on December 21, 2019, in a very limited run of cassette tapes, but on February 15th it will be given a more extensive release, on CD and digitally, by Cyclopean Eye Productions. Today we present the album’s fifth track, “The Obscured Mirror Of Infinity“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BOB MALMSTRÖM — “SÄLJ ÅLAND”

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Jan 312020
 

 

Nu Metal. Love it? Hate it?

Hold that thought.

This year the Finnish “borgarcore” band Bob Malmström are celebrating their tenth anniversary, and in addition to popping champagne and blowing out candles they’ve chosen to commemorate the occasion by releasing a series of three split 7″ vinyl records. The first of those, Sälj Åland, is with the long-running Finnish melodic hardcore band The Enchained (whose history extends back to 1997). Bob Malmström‘s side of the split includes two tracks, and today we’re spreading the word about the band’s video for the title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MOLOKEN — “UNVEILANCE OF DARK MATTER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 302020
 

 

Twelve years into their career, the Swedish genre-benders in Moloken, who hail from the cold climes of Umeå in the north, have completed their fourth album, Unveilance of Dark Matter. It represents the band’s most adventurous, most thrilling, and quite possibly their most unnerving, work yet. Attempting to pin down the style of the music is like trying to pin mercury to a wall. It constantly escapes any such futile efforts, and is all the better for it.

One might try to make a list of the ingredients — which range from modern hardcore to progressive rock, from sludge to post-metal, from doom and death to black metal (and funk) — but a mere list isn’t very elucidating as to how the band have interwoven such disparate traditions. You really have to just hear the album, and to marvel at all the surprising twists and turns, as long as you understand that Moloken are going to constantly challenge you, and to dismember any sense of comfort and self-satisfaction you might be feeling before you begin.

Wiser minds might just stop there and let you experience the full stream of the album we’re presenting on the eve of its release by The Sign Records, but of course no one will ever accuse us of being very wise, and so we’ll yield to the near-irresistible temptation to comment, in detail, on how these 11 ambitious tracks strike us. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WARDAEMONIC — “SUFFERANCE”

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Jan 302020
 

 

Wardaemonic’s new album Acts of Repentance unfolds in five Acts, and together they create an ambitious black metal pageant that’s grand in its scope, multi-faceted and technically extravagant in its presentation, and relentlessly electrifying. It creates emotionally powerful sensations of mystery and magic, of fearsome peril and rocketing frenzy, of wonder and wild abandon.

So far, Transcending Obscurity Records, which will release the album on March 20th, has made two of those Acts public, and today we’re presenting a third one, whose name is “Sufferance“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GLOOSH — “GROZA”

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Jan 292020
 

 

We are told that the name Gloosh is a transliteration of the Russian word “Глушь”, which means “Wilderness”. It was chosen by the band’s sole creator George “Foltath” Gabrielyan (Eoront, Frozenwoods) as a connection to the inspiration for the music, which expresses a reverence for nature and its phenomena. He tells us:

“The music of Gloosh is black metal of a classical form with interweaving of atmospheric roots. This is closer to the natural themes: it is nature in true guise, it is the order of things (change of seasons), it is a primeval admiration for the winds, clouds and thunderstorms; the absorption and destruction by nature of everything that man has ever created. This is a deep mossy forest. Gloosh invests in music ideas of animism and attitude to nature contrary to monotheism. There is a belief that there are innumerable non-anthropomorphic deities and creatures everywhere.”

Timewheel is the debut full-length of this Siberian band. It will be independently released on February 29th. One song from the album was revealed at the end of last year, and today we present a second one, the name of which is “Groza“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NATTVERD — “STYGGDOM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Jan 282020
 

 

In the summer of 2017 we had the good fortune to premiere a full stream of Vi Vet gud Er En Løgner (We Know God Is A Liar), the debut album by the Norwegian band Nattverd, which we introduced with these words: “Seemingly out of nowhere comes one of the best black metal albums of 2017, one that is simultaneously rooted in the decades-old traditions of cold Norwegian black metal and yet so vibrant and multifaceted, and so sure-handed in its songwriting and execution, that it breathes new life into the sounds”.

Today we are equally fortunate to premiere the remarkable full-length follow-up to that great debut. The new album is named Styggdom, and it will be released by Osmose Productions on January 31st. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TURIAN — “SPIRAL & THE HERMIT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 272020
 

 

On March 20th the Seattle-based grindcore band Turian will release their third record, which will be self-titled, adding to a discography that includes 2017’s Voiceless and 2018’s The Near Room. To give fans a preview of the new album, Turian are releasing a two-song excerpt — Spiral & The Hermit — and we’re helping spread the word through a premiere stream on the day of its release.

Turian’s brand of grind pulls from a lot of different strands of music, with thrash, punk, and noise rock in the mix (among other ingredients), and you’ll discover through just these two new tracks that they’re adept songwriters, delivering adrenaline fueled music that’s packed with twists and turns but also seasoned with head-busting grooves, and their creations turn out to be damned contagious as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUMMON — “HELIOS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jan 272020
 

 

If you have been searching for the soundtrack to your worst nightmares, you have come to the right place. What we have for you today is a full stream of Helios, the new EP by the three Portuguese black/death demons who call themselves Summon. Consisting of three horrifying assaults on the senses, Helios will be released on February 2nd under the hammer of Godz Ov War Productions.

For those unfamiliar with Summon, their two preceding releases were the Aesthetics of Demise EP in 2017 and the Parazv Il Zilittv full-length in 2018. As those records have already revealed, but this new EP demonstrates without question, Summon are not content merely to deliver barbaric assaults of battle-zone chaos (which they do quite powerfully). Their music equally creates atmospheres of unearthly malignancy and apocalyptic doom. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AEONIAN SORROW — “A LIFE WITHOUT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 272020
 

 

Lovers of enthralling musical misery and cathartic, crushing power have a prize awaiting them on the near horizon, because on January 27th the multinational funeral doom band Aeonian Sorrow will release a mesmerizing and majestically tragic new record named A Life Without, which we are streaming in its entirety today.

This new release follows the band’s 2017 single, “Forever Misery“, and their 2018 debut album Into The Eternity A Moment We Are, and reflects the work of a revised and solidified line-up. For this recording, the band’s founder Gogo Melone (singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and lyricist) was joined by harsh vocalist Ville Rutanen (Red Moon Architect), guitarist Jukka Jauhiainen (Red Moon Architect, Crimson Sun) and drummer Daniel Neagoe (Shape of Despair, Clouds, Eye of Solitude), in addition to previous guitarist Taneli Jämsä (Ghost Voyage, Hukutus) and bassist Pyry Hanski (Mörbid Vomit, Before the Dawn etc.).

While some might call the record an EP, its four tracks are each substantial in length, adding up to more than 35 minutes of dolorous and devastating sounds. And each track is an involving and overpowering experience, each one in its own way portraying (to quote the band) “the eternal sorrow and misery above the earth, the slow death of our souls plus our human nature and instincts under the ownership of grief and pain”. Continue reading »

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