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

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Nov 262019
 

 

Hamelin is a new Belgian band, but when you listen to their debut self-titled EP (which could also be called an album, given its half-hour run-time), it will come as no surprise that the band’s members have worked in other bands and projects. Their experience shows, and so does the breadth of their interests. Every one of the six tracks is wide-ranging, often in unpredictable ways, interweaving elements of black metal, post-metal, and progressive metal (and that’s not an exhaustive list) to create music of tremendous emotional power and dynamic intensity, music that’s melodically rich and atmospheric and also viscerally ravaging. When a band’s creative ambitions not only aim high, as Hamelin’s do, but also result in a cohesive and compelling experience, that makes a debut such as this one stand out even more.

The EP will be released on November 30th through Wolves of Hades, and today we’re presenting a full stream of all the tracks, preceded by thoughts concerning each of them. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOOMING CARRIONS — “SISTERS IN BLOOMING FLESH”

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Nov 262019
 

 

Blooming Carrions is a beautifully chosen name for this Finnish band whose new EP we’re premiering today, as is the EP’s title — Sisters In Blooming Flesh. On the one hand, the music is a stunning display of blackened death metal obliteration and mind-abrading sonic toxicity, capable of completely suffusing the senses with horrifying sensations of sadistic violence, pestilence, rot, and the extinction of hope. On the other hand, within such terrifying encounters the music also seems to revel and to bloom, to reveal the chilling and hallucinatory gleam of rapture in the embrace of death and decay.

Iron Bonehead Productions has set November 28th as the international release date for this new EP, which adds to (and builds upon) a Blooming Carrions discography that includes two preceding demos, 2017’s Sparkling Rotten Dreams and 2018’s Necrosis Twilight (both of them also released by Iron Bonehead). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AVSLUT — “TYRANNI”

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Nov 252019
 

 

The Swedish black metal band Avslut waste no time revealing a big part of their mission on their new album Tyranni — which is to flood your bloodstream with adrenaline. On the title track, which opens the album, they hurl themselves (and their listeners) into an electrifying full-throttle assault, no-holds-barred, no-mercy-shown. The impact of the blistering drum work, the ripping, blaring, and jolting chords, and the flame-throwing vocals is immediately electrifying.

But while the band relentlessly scorch the senses with the unhinged ferocity of their attack, that opening song vividly reveals another aspect of their harrowing mission — the incorporation of intense melodies into their barbarous onslaught.

Osmose Productions will release Tyranni on November 29th, but you won’t have to wait that long to experience it because we’re premiering a full stream today.
Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSAL VACUUM — “MMXIX”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Nov 252019
 

 

Beginning in 2018 the French black metal band Abyssal Vacuum has released two EPs, with a third one due for release by Egregor Records on December 1st. These three EPs collectively include nine tracks that have been identified in sequence by Roman numerals (and one cover song), with the most recent release — identified as MMXIX — consisting of tracks VII, VIII, and IX. And today we’re premiering streams of those three new compositions.

For those new to Abyssal Vacuum, it is the solo work of Sebastien B., although he is accompanied on this newest EP by drummer Enno P., and samples have been provided here by Moïse M. Perhaps one of the reasons why Abyssal Vacuum dispense with words in naming their songs is because the atmosphere created by the collage of sounds doesn’t seem quite human. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HVILE I KAOS — “GRAND DARKNESS ENGULFS”

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Nov 222019
 

 

The music of Hvile I Kaos is, in some very obvious ways, radically different from what you’ll encounter on most days at NCS. But in other ways it is very much in keeping with the kind of music that typically gets us excited. It seems to function almost like a version of spiritual black metal from an alternate dimension, even though it is predominantly performed with an instrument from the dimension we know. It just happens that the instrument is a cello.

Self-identified as “black ritual chamber musick,” the creations of Hvile I Kaos (which is Norwegian for “to rest in chaos”) occupy a space that is in between extreme metal and classical music, an abnormality in both worlds, creating a world of their own as they unfold. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say “a world of his own”, since those creations are the work of a single California-based multi-instrumentalist (with a bit of vocal assistance here and there) who goes by the name Kakophonix.

We’ve written about Hvile I Kaos on multiple occasions, most recently in June of this year when the subject was a remarkable cover of “Strange Gateways Beckon” by Tribulation (which you can find here). At that time we reported the exciting news that Hvile I Kaos was putting the finishing touches on a new EP entitled Black Morning, Winter Green. That work, which was nearly 10 years in the making, has now been completed, and the EP will be released on December 6th by Red Nebula. One of its three main tracks (“An Inviting Afterglow“) has already been revealed, and today we present another: “Grand Darkness Engulfs“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SERPENT EATER — “DEAD SPIRITUALIST SILENT”

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Nov 222019
 

 

Lord Mantis, All Pigs Must Die, Cult Leader, Disfear, Converge, God Mother… those are the names used by the collective of labels who are releasing the German band Serpent Eater‘s second album as a way of catching the interest of fans. They certainly caught our interest, and it turns out that the harrowing formulations of blackened hardcore that Serpent Eater discharge through this new album do indeed make such references relevant.

That collective of labels — 7Degrees, Wooaaargh, and Alerta Antifascista — will release Vanitas on January 17, 2020, and while that distant release date requires patience, we think you’ll agree that the first song from the record that we’re presenting today will make the wait well worth it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOTT — “4”

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Nov 212019
 

 

This makes the second time in as many years that we’ve hosted the premiere of music by the Italian black metal band Nott, which is the creative vehicle of the lone wolf Mortifero from Lombardy. Last year the occasion was a song from an EP named Vestigium Mortis, and today it’s the advent of Nott’s fourth album, simply entitled 4.

Like the album title, the eight songs presented here are identified by numbers — chapter numbers in a musical volume. And this particular volume of Nott’s works will be released on November 30th by Third I Rex, in advance of which we’re hosting this complete stream of the music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE DRIFT — “SEER”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 202019
 

 

This coming Friday, November 22nd, the South African sludge metal band The Drift will release their third album, Seer, which forms the final installment in the Deluge trilogy that began with 2013’s Dreams of Deluge and 2015’s The Mountain Star. The new album is packed with ideas and diverse experiences, so much so that calling The Drift a sludge band is a great oversimplification, even if that label does accurately capture a part of their sound (but only a part).

The Drift sum up Seer as “the sound of introspection, with tracks ranging from claustrophobic and frenetic to open and expansive”, and that is accurate, but that too only scratches the surface of the broad spectrum of sounds and sensations that a trip through Seer reveals. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THIRD CHAMBER — “HARVESTING OUR DECAY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Nov 202019
 

 

Although Harvesting Our Decay is the debut EP by Calgary-based death metal band Third Chamber, this is another example of a band whose members have a long history in the underground scene, in this case having performed with numerous Calgary groups, including Culled, After Earth, Meddigo, False Flag, WAKE, Disciples of Power, Exit Strategy, and Razorwing. And as some of those names suggest, Third Chamber‘s line-up — drummer Dustin Hahn, guitarists Jamie McIsaac and Jay, bassist Russ Gauthier, and vocalist Shane Hawco — have brought elements of grindcore and hardcore into their death-dealing metal.

The result of their collaboration, as vividly revealed on Harvesting Our Decay, is music that’s explosively powerful, making ample use of pulverizing grooves, maniacal riffing, and hair-raising vocal ferocity, while also paying attention to tempo dynamics and incorporating an array of dark melodic flavors that help give the music a memorable character.

The band will release Harvesting Our Decay on November 22nd, but we’re giving you the chance to check out all 21 minutes of it today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PIST — “FOOLS GAVE CHASE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 202019
 

 

With their new album Hailz, released not long ago by APF Records, the UK band Pist took some significant steps away from the “stoner doom” label that had become affixed to their previous releases, even though the band had never been comfortable with that label in the first place. As vocalist David Rowlands has explained, “in our eyes we’re a heavy metal, rock ‘n’ roll band who listen to a fair bit of Black Metal and Punk”. Those interests come through loud and clear in the seven tracks on Hailz. As David has further said, he and guitarist John Nicholson had loads of ideas for riffs and basic structures, but when “we entered the jam room with these ideas and the four of us put our heads together it started growing and growing. I feel this record reflects more of our personal influences from shit like Darkthrone to Elder, Orange Goblin to Uada“.

“Fools Gave Chase“, the album track we’re presenting today through the premiere of a lyric video, bears out these descriptions of how the music took shape, and  is a great example of the hybrid of sensations that the album as a whole so powerfully delivers. Not for naught is the album described as a release that will appeal to fans of Orange Goblin, Kvelertak, Motörhead, Entombed, Uada, and Black Breath. Continue reading »

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