AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SLUTVOMIT — “COPULATION OF CLOVEN HOOVES”

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Oct 012019
 

 

Seattle-based Slutvomit released their debut album Swarming Darkness six years ago through Invictus Productions, and left incinerated wreckage in their wake. Summed up by one prized reviewer (autothrall) as “dirty vest-slinging speed-death thrashing black madness”, it demonstrated a ton of high-octane energy, authentically barbarous and blasphemous spirit, and fiendishly impressive instrumental skill. In the years since then there have been some line-up changes, and as their new album proves, a lot of honing of their blades to an even sharper edge.

It’s commonplace for labels, publicists, and bands themselves to say that a group’s newest release is a step ahead of their last one, but here it’s verifiably true. Slutvomit‘s second album, Copulation of Cloven Hooves, again due for release by Invictus Productions (on October 4th), takes every good quality from their debut album and elevates it, while retaining the music’s capacity to set your hair on fire and race you ’til you’re out of breath. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CHAOS MOTION — “PSYCHOTIC SPASM”

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Sep 302019
 

 

Looks can be deceiving. At least as captured in this photo, the three members of Chaos Motion appear calm and serious, albeit a bit menacingly serious, as if planning something potentially dangerous to your health. On the other hand, their music is absolutely mad — fiendishly inventive, thrillingly adventurous, relentlessly unpredictable, and fully capable of flipping your brain upside-down and inside-out.

Not for naught is the band named Chaos Motion, nor is it happenstance that their debut album is entitled Psychological Spasms Cacophony. Likewise, “Psychotic Spasm“, the title of the song we’re premiering today, are not empty words. Their label’s references to the likes of Gorguts, Portal, Origin, Wormed, and early Cephalic Carnage are not misdirections.

But maybe you’ve already figured all this out, since our premiere is the sixth in line leading up to the album’s October 18 release date. But if you haven’t already taken a ride on the Chaos Motion pan-dimensional roller-coaster, or even if you have, you’re in for an electrifying experience. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NEKROSITY — “VOID GAZER”

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Sep 272019
 

 

After a decade-long life that until today had yielded only two demos in 2913 and 2015, the Swedish death metal band Nekrosity have at last released a debut album, the name of which is Void Gazer. It’s the kind of release that obviously reveals not only a deep affection and understanding of death metal’s golden age (as represented on both sides of the Atlantic) but also a level of song-writing and performance skill that displays maturity (three of Nekrosity’s members are also current or former participants in Sadistic Grimnness, whose roots go back 20 years)… and a hell of a lot of hard work. It’s such a damned good album, and so capable of appealing to even jaded fans of old school death metal in its differing formulations, that we enthusiastically seized on the opportunity to help spread the word through this feature.

The reference points are indeed varied — from Grave and Asphyx to Autopsy and Death, from old Entombed and Necrophagia to Morbid Angel and Slayer (and a mention of Demonical among more latter-day bands isn’t out of place either) — but the proficiency with which Nekrosity fluidly combine those influences in Void Gazer makes the album stand out in the vast pack of bands that have been part of the death metal revival over the last decade. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: VENEREAL BAPTISM — “REPUGNANT CORONATION OF THE BEAST”

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Sep 262019
 

 

On the surface (and it’s the kind of surface you don’t want to touch without wearing surgical-grade antiseptic gloves), the South Texas black metal band Venereal Baptism is naaaasty. From their band name to the outrageous song titles on their new album Repugnant Coronation of the Beast, they just blare filth and depravity (and a complete disregard for modern mores and tender feelings) straight out of a bullhorn. It’s all so over the top in its offensiveness that it might even make you dubious about listening.

However, if you choose not to subject yourself to the full album riot that we’re premiering today on the eve of the record’s release by Osmose Productions, you’ll be missing a balls-to-the-wall thrill-ride, and one that proves to be fiendishly addictive. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LAMBS‡ — “MALICE”

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Sep 252019
 

 

As we rapidly approach the last quarter of the year, 2019 has already proven itself to be the bearer of some tremendously good post-metal and sludge releases, but it’s far too soon to close those chapters of the year’s book. In particular, the debut album by the Italian band LAMBS‡ hasn’t been released yet — though it will be on Friday (September 27th), via Argonauta Records — and it more than holds its own with releases by more established and widely-heralded names.

Aptly entitled Malice, it combines elements of post-metal and sludge (along with black metal and hardcore) in ways that deliver catastrophic heaviness, unearthly atmosphere, unnerving tension, harrowing gloom, and absolutely obliterating violence. It’s relentlessly gripping, and unsparingly intense, and we have a full stream of it for you now. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HORROR GOD — “CURSED SEEDS”

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Sep 242019
 

 

After a seven-year hiatus (interrupted only by their 2017 split with Techne), the Russian dissonant black/death metal band Horror God are returning this year with their third album, and their most electrifying, unpredictable, and thoroughly explosive creation yet. Bearing the title Cursed Seeds, it will be released on September 27th by Lavadome Productions, but today we present a full stream of the record — and the following thoughts about the impact of listening to it.

The releasing label makes comparative references to Gorguts and Deathspell Omega, to Ulcerate and Aosoth, to Immolation and Sunless, among others. As those references suggest, the music is multi-faceted — delirious and devastating, technically extravagant and ruthlessly bludgeoning, hallucinatory and harrowing. In its rapidly changing and often riotous permutations, it has an experimental, avant-garde quality, yet is unmistakably bestial in its ferocity. Keeping your balance as you listen is difficult; tearing yourself away from it would be even more difficult. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OSSUAIRE — “PESTILENCE RAMPANTE”

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Sep 242019
 

 

Just as Ossuaire do in this song we’re about to present, we’ll begin without preamble:

Without delay, Ossuaire flood the senses with hellfire as the guitars immediately sear and roil in such an all-enveloping storm of sound that it makes one gasp. A solitary bass note can be heard, followed by the advent of rolling drum thunder and a scorching howl. The riffing continues in cyclonic fashion, broiling the ears and boiling the brain, as that howling demon continues to imperiously and viciously proclaim his poisonous message. The timbre of the superheated chords rises and returns, the drums take short breaths and detonate like cannon fire, then resume their extravagant pummeling and tumbling. The riffing never really relents at all.

The experience is damned intense and savagely glorious, like being swept aloft in a hellish chariot by gale-strength winds into skies that are on fire, split by lightning and shattered by thunder. It tests how hard your heart can beat without exploding, yet it also has a hypnotic, spellbinding effect. And even though it just goes and goes, without any real detour or diversion, it’s such an electrifying experience that it seems to end too soon. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HORSE DRAWN — “NONBELIEVER”

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Sep 232019
 

 

The Ohio duo Horse Drawn can trace their origin back a dozen years. But both members — vocalist Bryce Seditz (Plaguewielder) and guitarist Jonny Doyle (Coldfells) have been involved in other musical projects, as well as dealing with the usual travails of daily life, and so haven’t been prolific in their output. They produced a pair of EPs in 2012, when the project was known as Horse Drawn Death Machine, and a 2015 demo named Wilted that was released after the change to their current name — and that’s been it, until today. Now, they’ve released a two-song EP named Nonbeliever as a prelude to recording a new album, and we’re helping spread the word through this post.

The EP consists of two songs. The first of them, “Cursed“, is a brand new track. The other, “Early Graves“, first appeared in a different form on one of those 2012 EPs, but has been re-recorded for this new EP. Both tracks, Horse Drawn say, take “inspiration from their Midwest origins, depression, psychedelic experiences, and the raw anger of American Black Metal”. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OWL AND 0N0

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Sep 232019
 

 

It is our privilege and pleasure today to present, on the day of its release, a full stream of a new split recording by two bands we’ve been avidly following for years — the German duo Owl and the Slovakian trio 0N0. The split includes five songs by Owl and two by 0N0. Through each band’s Bandcamp page it’s now available as a digital download and as a cassette tape, limited to 111 copies, with eerie and immersive cover art by T.

As always, we’re sharing our own reactions to the music, as well as a few insights into the inspiration for all these songs, and some background about the bands for those who might not be familiar with them. But of course, if you want to just be completely surprised, skip down to the very bottom of this article and start listening now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND AN EP REVIEW): BLASPHEMOUS PUTREFACTION — “GRIEF”

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Sep 232019
 

 

The German duo Blasphemous Putrefaction staked their place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of underground death metal when they chose their name. Through their long-sold-out debut demo tape, 2017’s Abominable Premonition, and now the new EP which includes the song we’re premiering today, they’ve devoted their diabolical talents to the unapologetic creation of foul and festering musical horror — the skull-fracturing sounds of cruelty and the mind-mangling transmission of deviancy and derangement, devoid of hope (and not caring much for melody either), but capable of sending jolts of adrenaline through a listener’s bloodstream.

This new three-track EP of primitive, rotten death metal is appropriately entitled Festering Plagues, and it will be jointly released on tape by Death In Pieces Records and Macabre End Productions in early October. We’ll present a written preview of all three tracks, including the one we’re presenting, but won’t be offended if you just dive straight-away into the swirling cesspool of foul and fetid sensations via the stream of “Grief” below. Continue reading »

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