AN NCS EP PREMIERE: PA VESH EN — “CRYPTIC RITES OF NECROMANCY”

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May 022019
 

 

In the fall of last year we premiered the unnerving debut album, Church of Bones, by the Belarusian black metal entity Pa Vesh En. To borrow from the review that accompanied it:

“As the album’s title might suggest, these seven tracks sound as if they were recorded in a vast sepulcher far beneath the surface of the earth, all the shuddering and shattering tonalities drenched in reverb, the music profoundly haunting and deeply oppressive in the weight of the desolation it conveys. The album is sweeping in the scale of its apocalyptic grief and shattering in the intensity of the pain it channels into sound — an expression of emotional collapse so profound that it begins to seem majestic, an intense and immersive experience so all-consuming that it swallows up the listener, as if engulfed by the maw of a leviathan.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DAEMONI — “ABSTERSION’S RITE”

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May 012019
 

 

A long eight years have passed since the Colombian black metal band Daemoni released their debut album Stillborn Redeemer. They have not been idle in that time, having performed in Colombia in support of such bands as Mayhem, Suffocation, Dark Funeral, Krisiun, and Vader, among others, and having made their first European appearance with a show in Madrid last year. And they have turned their sinister talents to the creation of new music as well, with those efforts reaching fruition in a new 40-minute album ominously entitled Black Tyrant.

The new album is set for release on June 6th by Goathorned Productions, and today we present the second advance track to be revealed from the album, “Abstersion’s Rite“, which manages to be both blood-boiling and blood-freezing at the same time. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DÉLÉTÈRE — “MILITES PESTILENTIAE III — BABYLONIA MAGNISSIMA”

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May 012019
 

 

The last time I wrote about the Québec black metal band Délétère, when we premiered a song from their stunning 2018 album De Horae Leprae, the music un-corked a flood of enthusiastic adjectives from the cask in my head. It’s about to happen again, because we’re premiering another Délétère song.

Conceptually, that 2018 album was devoted to Teredinis, a simple leper whose calling it was to become a prophet of Centipèdes as well as an incarnation of the Plague. I wasn’t the only scribbler of words who received that album so enthusiastically. I enjoyed, for example, this block of praise from Stereogum, which put it at the No. 6 spot on the site’s list of The 10 Best Metal Albums of 2018: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THONIAN HORDE — “CATHEDRAL SPIRE”

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Apr 302019
 

 

Two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering a track from Inconnu, the second album by the Maryland black metal band Thonian Horde, which was released in September 2017 by Grimoire Records. That album proved to be a huge eye-opener for this writer, featuring the kind of surprising and multi-faceted music that stretched the boundaries of black metal without losing touch with the more feral and ferocious through-lines of the genre. It was thus exciting news to learn that Thonian Horde would be returning with a third album, and here we are again, grateful to be premiering a track from it.

The new album, Downfall, will again be released by Grimoire Records, with a due date of May 24th, and the song we’ve got for you today is “Cathedral Spire“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUNERAL STORM — “FUNERAL STORM”

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Apr 302019
 

 

The origins of the Greek black metal band Funeral Storm date back to 2001, when it began under the name Raven Throne as the solo project of Wampyrion Markhor Necrowolf. After a long period of inactivity the band re-surfaced with its first release in 2012 under the name Funeral Storm. Further line-up changes occurred, and the band then participated in a 2017 split release (Funeral Rite) with the Greek band Celestial Rite — which is when I first encountered Funeral Storm‘s music, and became an immediate fan.

For the two tracks on that split, the band’s founder was joined by vocalist Necroabyssious (of Varathron, Katavasia, and Zaratus) and by Nick Christogiannis of Deviser on keyboards. Eskarth of Agatus also performed acoustic guitars and a solo on the song “Martyr Of The Lake”. I thought both songs were tremendously good. They embraced the mysticism and might of classic Greek black metal from the early ’90s, and included immediately compelling riffs in addition to powerful drumming and voracious vocals.

And now here we are, at last, with a full-length display of Funeral Storm‘s formidable talents. Arcane Mysteries is a fantastic album, a monument of sinister and mythic heavy metal majesty whose appeal should extend far beyond devotees of black metal. I am very excited that NCS is hosting the premiere of a song from the record in advance of its May 31 release by Hells Headbangers, particularly because it’s a song that shares the name of the band. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD TONGUE — “PREJUDICE ON THE SYMBIOSIS”

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Apr 292019
 

 

Dead Tongue hail from Padua, Italy, and have embraced the likes of Autopsy, old Carcass, Abscess, and Necrophagia as their musical brethren. Their second album, Disgorge Through the Eyes, was released last fall and provided a livid, 16-track manifestation of diseased old school death metal done right. The album has been available digitally since its release but is now being made available on CD, and to celebrate the occasion Dead Tongue have produced a video that we’re happily introducing today.

I bought the album last fall after hearing only one track, the beautifully named “Ethics of the Jugular“, which buried its hooks in my brain from the first listen and proved to be so addictive that it took me a while to get past it and into the rest of the album. But I eventually discovered that my impulsive purchase decision was a smart move, because the rest of the album is also killer, and pulls from a rich range of influences, which are not limited to gruesome old death metal.

Another track on the album (among many) that proved immediately addictive once i got to it is the one we’re featuring in this new video, “Prejudice On the Symbiosis“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELLISH GRAVE — “HELL NO LONGER WAITS”

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Apr 262019
 

 

Writing about any song on Hellish Grave‘s new album, Hell No Longer Waits, inevitably involves spoilers, because they’re all so surprising. The music has a backbone of racing, riotous black thrash, packed to the gills with pulse-pounding riffs and head-hammering rhythms, but as good as this Brazilian band are at pulling out the stops and getting our adrenaline surging, they’re obviously not satisfied with that alone. They’ve obviously got other musical interests and influences, and in their songwriting they’ve given free reign to them, which makes this album stand out from the usual black thrashing barbarism of most of their peers.

Hell No Longer Waits will be released on May 31st by Helldprod. One song from the album, “Macabre Worship“, has already debuted. If you’ve heard it, you’ll already understand what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you’ll get your chance down below. And on top of that spectacular song we’re now adding another — the title track. If you want to be surprised (as well as invigorated, like stepping on a live power line), just go straight to the streams and enjoy them. If you don’t mind spoilers, read on. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HEATHE — “ON THE TOMBSTONES, THE SYMBOLS ENGRAVED”

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Apr 252019
 

 

On May 30, 2019, Wolves and Vibrancy Records will release the debut album of Heathe, a project born in Aalborg, Denmark, with a core of a single individual and an ever-changing line-up. The album, entitled On the Tombstones, The Symbols Engraved, is colossally heavy and about as physically compelling in its massive rhythms as anything you could find. It’s also intensely disturbing and disorienting, capable of making mincemeat of your brain and clawing at your emotional well-being at the same time as it metaphorically pounds the hell out of your body.

The album is a single 38-minute track composed of different repeating sequences which flow into each other. You can pick out elements of doom, black metal, and noisy hypno-rock in this evolving hybrid of corporal punishment, emotional abrasion, and mental hallucination, but everything is united in a way that makes the music seem to have been borne this way in an instant, rather than cobbled together from disparate pieces. To be carried away by it, without losing interest, is a natural reaction despite how harrowing the music becomes, even though it takes a while to recover from the whole trip. Continue reading »

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

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Apr 252019
 

 

In 2015 the enigmatic black metal duo Murg, who come from the rural mining areas of Bergslagen, Sweden, began a conceptual trilogy with their remarkable debut album Varg och Björn (“Wolf and Bear:), which delivered memorable, atmospheric melodies within thorned membranes of ripping savagery. Roughly 18 months later they continued their narrative with Gudatall (“Godpine”), an album that might have been even better, encompassing music that was both incendiary and staggeringly downfallen. And tomorrow they will complete their terrible tale with the release of Strävan, which is the most overpowering of all the albums (in more ways than one).

Murg’s narrative concept, which has inspired the three albums, is profoundly bleak, summed up in these excerpts from the press materials provided by Nordvis Produktion, which will release the new album on April 26th: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERWÜSTUNG — “GOSPEL OV FURY”

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Apr 252019
 

 

If performed live in a club, Verwüstung’s new album Gospel Ov Fury would leave most people ringing wet and gasping for air. Their brand of feral black thrashing mayhem is relentlessly propulsive and thoroughly evil, persistently capable of channeling berserker-level chaos and triggering all sorts of fast-twitch muscle fibers, including the ones in your neck (though most people can’t headbang this fast, even they’ll want to).

Gospel Ov Fury will be released by Handful of Hate on May 1st, though there’s way more than a handful of hate in these nine songs. But while viciousness and rage set these songs on fire, these demonic Belarusians also happen to be skilled song-writers and top-shelf technicians. Not content merely to fly like the wind, or even to pack their songs with one virally infectious riff after another, they’ve paid attention to the appeal of dynamism, as you’ll discover for yourselves through our premiere of a complete album stream at the end of this post. Continue reading »

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