AN NCS PREMIERE: ODYSSEY — “HIVE MIND”

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May 172019
 

 

(How long has it been since Professor D. Grover the XIIIth, he of The Number of the Blog, graced our pages with his presence? I could look it up, but how depressing would that be? Better to simply welcome back our old friend, who provides this introduction to an excellent premiere.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. It takes something special to break me out of me semi-retirement as it pertains to writing, and for the two or three of you who remember my older works, you might recall my love of Odyssey, the instrumental prog-metal trio from Spokane. Guitarist Jerrick Crites, bassist Jordan Hilker, and drummer Lukas Hilker have been going for over ten years now, despite remaining a mostly regional act, but one of the miracles of the internet is that even a smaller local band can reach a wide audience around the world.

I bring this up because, if the title of this article wasn’t already enough of an indicator, Odyssey have a new song, ‘Hive Mind’, to premiere from the forthcoming new album The Swarm. I have a full review of that coming in about a week, so I’ll save my thoughts on how ‘Hive Mind’ fits into the overall flow of the album, but I can still offer my perspective on the song itself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INTOTHECRYPT — “SI MAS VER”

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May 172019
 

 

Old adages aren’t wrong just because they’re old and you’ve heard them over and over again. Take this one for example (attributed to Will Rogers): You never get a second chance to make a first impression. You get one chance, so you’d better make it count.

Intothecrypt’s first chance came when they released the first single from their hour-long debut album, Vakor, about a month ago. And man, did they make a strong impression with “Leti, Voy Nash!“. On the other hand, it wasn’t shocking that the song was so good, given that the Intothecrypt trio were all members of the Russian cult band Scald, whose lone 1996 album Will of Gods Is a Great Power is still spoken of with reverence in doom circles.

Today we’re premiering another song from Vakor in advance of its June 21 release by Ordo MCM that only deepens the strong impression that the band have already made. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INERT — “VERMIN”

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May 172019
 

 

You’re about to witness one of those lyric videos (less common than we might hope for) that provides enjoyment for the eyes as well as the ears. Like many such videos, it’s based upon the album art, and in this case the cover artist Enric Sant has provided some great material to work with, but Scott Ruud did his usual masterful job and turned that wonderfully realized art into a film that grips the eyes, as the vividly rendered words flash by.

Of course, as good as the video is, it is mainly a well-crafted stage-set, and what really counts is what the performers give us. Here, the performers are the Spanish band Inert, whose members are split between Stockholm and Barcelona, and the music is the title track to their debut album, Vermin.

Despite the band’s name, the new album represents change — Inert have expanded from the original duo to a quartet, and the style of the music has shifted as well, and the results are powerful, and exciting, as you will soon discover. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LUX NIGRUM — “BURNING THE ETERNAL RETURN”

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May 162019
 

 

It’s fair to say that most of our premieres, even for genuinely underground bands who are seeking neither fame nor fortune, are arranged by PR agents and labels — but certainly not all. Our mission is only to spread the word about metal that makes a strong and positive impression, music that moves us and that we think might move you, regardless of how we learn about it. Here is an example of that, which came our way via a message from the band itself, and which we then sought permission to premiere.

The band is Lux Nigrum (“black light”), which is the work of Chilean solo artist Azerate, aided by session drummers. On this new EP, Burning the Eternal Return, the drums were performed (with extraordinary skill) by Holycaust, the man behind the Chlean black/thrash band Morbid Holocaust. Conceptually, the EP is about “the destruction of the cosmic order imposed by false gods through the sacrifice of the Ouroboros (when you can recognize it’s representation as a tyrannical form of eternal emptiness and absurd repression) putting an end to the cycle of life and death”, and thus it concerns “rejecting the life given (not denying it) and dissolving the ego that binds us in an earthly way, to accept the return to the Primordial Chaos”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE — ANTAGONY’S “KIP AND MITCH” — AND A REVIEW OF “ASHES”

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May 152019
 

 

It’s not uncommon for bands and labels to re-release older records. It’s less common, but still not unheard-of, for bands to re-record older songs in a way that burnishes their sound or updates them in other ways. Sometimes these things work, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes die-hard fans will grab up re-releases and re-recordings for the sake of having a complete collection, or because they’re so die-hard that they’ll reflexively seize on anything their idols might do, even if the music sounds like a relic of a lost age. For more discerning and less slavish listeners, whether such projects are worth the time (and money) depends on how well the music has held up over the passing years.

The Bay Area band Antagony, who carved their place in the history books of metal over the decade from 1999 to 2009, have embarked on just such a revival project. Older, wiser, and (it must be said) more skilled as performers, the original line-up has come back together again after a decade spent in other projects since Antagony’s disbanding. On their new album Ashes, they’ve re-recorded a selection of tracks that all date back to demos and EPs released from 1998-2000, plus one new song that shares the title of the album. Having listened to the album (which will be released on May 24th), the verdict for this writer isn’t a close call: This is one of those revival projects that is an extravagant success. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PREMATURE BURIAL — “CREATOR AND DESTROYER”

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May 152019
 

 

The Spanish multi-instrumentalist and vocalist JM Dopico has put his talents to good use on a small mountain of releases by almost two dozen bands since the early ’90s, including records by Machetazo, Dishammer, and Bodybag, as well as session work. But he now has a solo project in which he’s given himself free rein to mix and match beloved genre influences — “the darkest Heavy Metal, Doom Rock, and Punk from the glorious ’80s” — and the results are damned good, the kind of music that electrifies the pulse rate and poses a high risk of sore-neck syndrome.

Dopi has named this new project Premature Burial. On the debut album, entitled Antihuman, he pulls from influences that range from Black Sabbath to Celtic Frost, from Motörhead to Voivod, from Saint Vitus to Mercyful Fate, from Obsessed to Venom, Carnivore, and Amebix. To keep it real, he recorded everything live in the studio, with no triggers on his drumkit and no cut-and-paste pro-tool tricks. He did have outstanding help from virtuoso guitarist and music teacher Óscar Dafonte, who recorded all the solos on the album (which are spectacular), but otherwise Premature Burial is his baby. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IDOLATRY — “THE SERPENTINE POSSESSION”

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May 142019
 

 

We have been following the triumphs and travails of the Edmonton-based band Idolatry since the release of their first EP in 2014, a path that has produced both excellent, multifaceted black metal and more than a fair share of personal misfortunes. It is very good to know that the band have persisted, and that they have finally reached the point of readiness for release of a second album, which follows their 2016 debut full-length, Visions from the Throne of Eyes. The new album, In Nomine Mortis, will be released on May 31st via Humanity’s Plague Production.

Even from the beginning, Idolatry have shown themselves capable of both creating incinerating storms of unbridled ferocity and interweaving atmospheric moods of emotional depth that leave bleak memories in their wake. For want of a better word, there has been a “dramatic” quality to their music, a sign of the band attempting to dig deep into primal aspects of human experience and use those as feedstock for their creations, while also manifesting the presence of dark forces that aren’t part of our natural world at all.

These qualities are still evident on the song from In Nomine Mortis that we’re premiering today, but what’s also evident is that Idolatry have reached new heights of fearsome power. They’ve titled their album in the name of death, and death seems to be a vivid presence in “The Serpentine Possession”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EVIL ANGEL — “SACRIFICIAL SLAUGHTER”

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May 142019
 

 

Heavy metal, even in its most extreme forms, was never just one thing, even in its earliest formative years, but as the decades have passed it has flourished into nearly countless permutations. It may be impossible today to identify any common qualities that unite the sprawl of genres and sub-genres, but a case could be made that at its core metal conveys strength, defiance… and evil.

Even if those qualities aren’t universal across the current landscape of extreme metal, they are unquestionably hallmarks of Evil Angel’s brand of vicious black thrash. Founded in 1998 in Lahti, this Finnish band discharged a stream of demos, EPs, and splits beginning in 2002, leading up to their 2007 debut album, Unholy Fight for Metal. A long dozen years of near-silence have passed since then, but Evil Angel are finally returning (with a new rhythm section in place), and on May 31st Hells Headbangers will release the band’s second album, with a title that continues to brandish what Evil Angel have always stood for: Unholy Evil Metal.

One song from the album (“Nekro Black Mass“) has already been uncaged upon the world, and today we’re setting loose a second one — “Sacrificial Slaughter“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RXAXPXE — “HOLY FIRE (STRANGULATION)”

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May 132019
 

 

There you did offer them to the Prince of Devils
sitting upon his throne, and did draw off their fat to be kept
for your use, and cut off their heads, hands, and feet, and did
cook and stew their trunks, and sometimes roast them, and at
the bidding of your aforesaid evil Father did eat and
damnably devour them.

Those words were among the extravagant condemnations of witches included in a death sentence announced by the judges of Avignon in 1582. If you scroll down the Facebook page of RXAXPXE, you will see those same words, preceded by the pronouncement: “We are doing the Devil’s work.” And when you listen to the sounds created by RXAXPXE (a name more easily pronounced when you mentally remove the Xs), you will have little doubt of that.

The latest of RXAXPXE’s creations is an album named Death Trance, which will be released on May 31st by Dunkelheit Produktionen. It is a three-track, 30-minute audio rite that draws upon a mind-mauling mix of Terror Noise and Power Electronics. The first of those tracks has been previously revealed, and today we’re streaming the third, leaving one in the middle undisclosed. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORDBRAND — “DÖDEN / EFTER DÖDEN”

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May 132019
 

 

Gustaf Fröding, who died in 1911, is considered “one of the greatest poets of verse that Sweden has ever produced”. In his own life he struggled with alcoholism and mental illness, and according to the same source just quoted, “His poetry combines formal virtuosity with a sympathy for the ordinary, the neglected and the down-trodden, sometimes written with his own dialect. It is highly musical and lends itself to musical setting….”

While musical adaptations of Fröding’s verse have been wide-ranging, the range is even wider now because the Swedish death metal band Mordbrand have made two of Fröding’s poems the lyrical subject of songs that will be released digitally and in a 7″ vinyl format on May 15th, via De:Nihil Records — and today it’s our pleasure to present streams of both tracks: “Döden” and “Efter Döden“. Continue reading »

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