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

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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 »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GANONDORF — “ANCIENT RUINS”

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Nov 192019
 

 

Not all bands or their recordings immediately spring forth fully formed like Minerva from the brow of Jupiter. The album we’re presenting today, for example, is the culmination of creative work that began 13 years ago in an ancient mountain village in the northwest of Sardinia. Then and there, Nicola Piras began writing music as a one-man project. Over the many years that followed, he searched for and finally found a stable line-up of fellow musicians, and together under the name Ganondorf they recorded this debut album, Ancient Ruins, which will be released by Third I Rex through its affiliate Imperatrix Mundi Records on November 30th, along with Slava Satan Records, Nothing Left Records, and LiveviL Records. Based on what we hear, we can only hope that this long-coming first step will be followed by many more.

Ganondorf’s style of black metal is often explosive and ravaging, ferocious and furious. At its foundation are Nicola Piras‘ blazing blastbeats, thunderous double-bass fusillades, titanic kitwork detonations, and rapidly somersaulting fills. But rather than rely entirely on turbocharged assaults, he mixes in a variety of neck-snapping rock rhythms that amplify the head-moving grooves that regularly surface in these songs. And with Piras‘ riveting drumwork (paired an equally fleet and fiery bass performance by Matteo Usai) as the music’s propulsion, guitarists Giovanni Murgia and Riccardo Chessa weave a changing array of seductive and shattering melodies, while Alessandro Ventura‘s scorching vocals amplify the songs’ intense emotional power. Continue reading »

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

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Nov 182019
 

 

At least within the realms of extreme metal, Iceland is probably best known these days for black metal, with that charred chalice being carried high by a surprisingly large number of bands (many with interlocking line-ups) for such a small nation. But other cauldrons of musical extremity boil within the stark, dramatic landscapes of that remarkable country, and we get the sense that even across genres, bands set standards for each other to meet and surmount, if they can. That may be one reason why Iceland’s musical output has been so consistently good, despite the relatively small population.

As evidence that black metal isn’t the only exceptional music coming out of Iceland these days, today we’re presenting a full stream of the self-titled debut album by a group called Vofa, who with this release should make a rapid ascent toward the higher plateaus of funeral doom — even though the music itself seems like a horrifying descent into madness.

We present this complete stream on the day of Vofa’s release by Funere (Armenia) and Exhumed Records (Ecuador), and so you won’t have to wait to pick it up. And you won’t have to guess about whether it’s worth having. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMANDO PRAETORIO — “PIRE DI ERE INCENERITE”

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Nov 182019
 

 

Mount Soratte is a limestone mountain ridge roughly 45 km north of Rome. No less an authority than Virgil identified Apollo as its guardian deity, and in another age the mountain was used by ancient Italic and Etruscan peoples as a sacred place for for the worship of Soranus and then Apollo Soranus. The worshippers were firewalkers and were referred to as Hirpi Sorani (the “wolves of Soranus”). And it is this ancient fire cult that is the subject of the debut album of the formidable Italian black metal cult Comando Praetorio.

The name of the album is Ignee Sacertà Ctonie, which itself refers to fire and to the mysticism of the underworld, whose gods were also linked to the rituals on Mount Soratte. The music is in keeping with the album’s thematic inspirations, creating an array of dramatic sensations that are mystical and profound, ominous and dire, melancholy and doom-stricken, and — of course — incendiary.

We have already commented about the first strike from the album, a song called “Barbarie della Pietà” that was released in October, and now we present another one of the album’s four substantial tracks, this one named “Pire di Ere Incenerite“, as we approach the December 13 release of the album by ATMF. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BRAHMASTRIKA — “EXCARNASTRIAL COMMENCINATION”

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Nov 152019
 

 

Irradiated… armamentalized… sulphurous…. Those are among the words scattered throughout the five mouth-filling titles of Brahmastrika’s debut demo, the name of which is itself an overflowing platter of suggestive syllables: Excarnastrial Commencination. Those words, combined with others of more obscure and mystical meaning, foretell a sonic immolation of bestial warnoise that seems to draw as much from inhuman demonism as from the human demonology of catastrophic atom-splitting.

We will present all of these ritualistic manifestations of ruination in due course, just days before the demo’s November 18 release by Dunkelheit Produktionen, but can’t resist the temptation to first share more of the band’s bamboozling linguistic formulations concerning their inspirations and the mutilating sensations of their music: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NIGHTBEARER — “LYCANTHROPIC DEATH SQUAD”

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Nov 152019
 

 

Once upon a time our site had a recurring feature called “Eye-Catchers”, in which we chose music to explore based solely on the records’ cover art. Had that feature not been laid to rest, Nightbearer’s debut album Tales Of Sorcery and Death would have been an obvious and undeniable choice. Seriously, just look at that stunning cover art by the great Juanjo Castellano Rosado!

But in the case of these German death-dealers, we also would have been very interested in their new album based on the strength of their first release, the 2018 EP Stories From Beyond (which is definitely worth tracking down (here) if you haven’t heard it). There’s a song on that EP named “Ferocious Sorcery”, and that title captures much of what makes the band’s sound so transfixing.

Nightbearer’s penchant for interweaving paranormal themes and necromantic artistry into their brand of Swedish-style chainsawing brutality is lavishly displayed on the new album, which draws from the realms of fantasy and horror for its lyrical themes, influenced by the writings of such masters as J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and Stephen King. And today we have a prime example in our premiere of the aptly named “Lycanthropic Death Squad“, in advance of the album’s release by Testimony Records on Friday the 13th of December. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HORRIFIED — “FORGOTTEN THRONES”

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Nov 152019
 

 

Over the course of a career that began in 2012, the UK band Horrified have released three albums and a pair of shorter releases. and have continually pushed themselves in new musical directions. As the follow-up to their last album, 2017’s Allure of the Fallen, they’ve recorded an eye-popping 30-minute EP named Sentinel that’s perhaps best characterized as progressive death metal, but isn’t strictly beholden to that genre label, or confined by any other single pigeon-hole. Inventive in its composition and technically remarkable in its execution, it’s an adventurous thrill-ride that’s full of surprises.

Sentinel will be released by Testimony Records on December 13th, and today we’re presenting the second single from the record (following a previously released song called “The Pessimist“, which we’re also streaming below). The title of this new one is “Forgotten Thrones“, and it’s a great example of this band’s formidable talents. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NOVA — “NOI MAI VINTI”

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Nov 142019
 

 

My own exposure to the Italian pagan-inspired black metal band Nova came through their second album, 2017’s Soli Contro il Mondo (“alone standing against the world”), which we reviewed and premiered here, and which I proclaimed one of that year’s best and most exciting black metal albums.

It’s thus thrilling to know that these Venetians are returning with another album this year. Its title is Veniamo Dal Cielo (“we come from the sky”), and the same label (ATMF) that released the first two albums will be releasing this third one, too — on Friday the 13th of December. The title track from the album is already out in the world, and today we present a second one — “Noi mai Vinti” (“We, never defeated”). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LESATH — “A NEW LIFE – II”

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Nov 142019
 

 

On January 6, 2020, the label alliance of Casus Belli Musica and Beverina will release the debut album of a mysterious atmospheric black metal band named Lesath. The album’s name is Sacred Ashes. It consists of six tracks, but really four songs, because two of those four are divided into two parts in the track list.

In September of this year, Lesath (and subsequently the two labels) released one of those two-part songs, “Like the Wind“, which we reviewed here. Today we present the second half of the other two-part song, “A New Life“, which like the first single is presented with its own artwork. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TRAJETO DE CABRA — “SCYTHE OF PESTILENCE”

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Nov 132019
 

 

Just when I think, after many years of listening to mind-mauling assaults of war metal, that I’ve become inured to the violence, I come across something like the debut album of Trajeto de Cabra from British Columbia which causes my mouth to slowly drop open in astonishment and my eyes to glaze over in a thousand-yard stare. There might have been a bit of drool in evidence as well.

That album, aptly named Supreme Command of Satanic Will, will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on December 13th (yes, it’s a Friday the Thirteenth), and today we’ve got the premiere stream of a track called “Scythe of Pestilence“, which is a prime example the album’s stupefying impact. Continue reading »

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