AN NCS PREMIERE: SØRGELIG — “DIE IN VAIN”

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Nov 192018
 

 

The Greek black metal band Sørgelig, who share three members with another band we’ve written about before (Isolert), released their first EP in 2017 (Forever Lost) and then an excellent debut album (Apostate) this past spring. They have chosen to follow the new album with another EP, this one entitled Devoted To Nothingness, but it’s one that represents a few changes.

First, while Sørgelig‘s four-man line-up remains intact, the EP is the creation of only two of those members — vocalist Odious and multi-instrumentalist N.D. On this EP, N.D. performs guitars, drums, vocals, and bass on two tracks (and guest Konstantinos S performs bass on four others, including the one we’re presenting today).

Second, as compared to the music on Apostate (for example), this revised line-up has chosen to channel their hatred and malice toward life through a more raw and lo-fi expression of black metal — though they have not abandoned some of the key ingredients that made their debut album so seductive. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE: BESTIAL WARFARE — “GENOCIDE”

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Nov 162018
 

 

Those of you who have been lurking in the dankest, dingiest, and most dangerous recesses of the underground for more than a few years, at least in your listening habits, will guess right away the kind of music you’ll hear from a band named Bestial Warfare, especially when that band have named their debut demo Genocide. And it is indeed an assault of extreme black/death barbarism — tender ears and fragile minds should go elsewhere. But for those with a taste for slaughtering, who yet demand more than mere blasting pandemonium, Genocide should prove to be red meat for your ravenous hunger. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLADE OF HORUS — “OBLITERATION”

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Nov 162018
 

 

Blade of Horus is a murderously deranged five-headed cybernetic organism that first achieved sentience (and a taste for human flesh) in Sydney, Australia. It began its slaughtering campaign for superiority with a substantial and accurately titled 2016 EP named Monumental Massacre. Notwithstanding the ferocity of that opening assault, a few huddled enclaves of shivering humanity survived, and so Blade of Horus is returning to finish the job, with an album named Obliteration.

The new album is also accurately titled, as anyone who heard its first single already knows. That track, “Cyber Demon“, featured guest appearances by drummer Dave Haley (Psycroptic) and vocalist Duncan Bentley (Vulvodynia). It also revealed that Blade of Horus have sharpened their blades, stoked the fires of their lust for destruction, and managed to become even more strategically-minded in the deployment of their impressive technical skills since Monumental Massacre. As further evidence of these advances before Lacerated Enemy Records discharges the whole thing on December 15th, we present the album’s jaw-dropping title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INTERNAL CHRONICLES — “CRIMSON MAIDEN”

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Nov 152018
 

 

It seems a rarity to encounter underground metal whose conceptual focus is love, but that is indeed the subject of the second album by the Croatian band Internal Chronicles. Entitled Crimson Storm, it’s described by its principal member (who names himself NoOne) as “a metaphor for love, with all its beautiful, painful, incredible, awful, magical and violent dimensions that true love brings”, and also as “a statement against people who have given up or have decided that true love doesn’t exist”.

But if you’re expecting something lush, overtly romantic, sugary sweet, or naive, think again. At least as displayed on the song from the album we’re bringing you today through a lyric video, the music is a kind of blackened gothic doom that’s haunting, depressive, and wrenched with tension — though it has its moments of soulful, forlorn beauty as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEGRAGORE — “EATEN BY PIGS”

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Nov 142018
 

 

When I saw the name of the song we’re presenting here, my mind flashed to the horrifying scene in the movie Hannibal where the mutilated Mason Verger is dumped into a pen of wild boars who proceed to eat him alive. And speaking of horrors, how about that cover art? And of course there’s the band’s name — Degragore — which perhaps was conceived as a union of degradation and gore.

Naturally, I did not expect the music would be nuanced, graceful, or uplifting — and it definitely is none of those things. Instead, as is abundantly evident from “Eaten By Pigs“, this Hungarian duo have dedicated themselves to a particularly grotesque and remorselessly brutalizing form of un-gilded anti-Christian death metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RAUHNÅCHT — A MEDLEY OF MUSIC FROM “UNTERM GIPFELTHRON”

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Nov 142018
 

 

Rauhnåcht is the solo project of Austrian musician Stefan Traunmüller, who has been a presence in many other projects over many years, including Golden Dawn, A Portrait of Flesh and Blood, and Wallachia. Although he began releasing music under the Rauhnåcht banner as far back as 2010, with two albums, two EPs, and a split with Sturmpercht recorded over the next four years, it was Rauhnåcht‘s wonderful 2017 split with Hanternoz and Tannöd, which we premiered, that first brought the artistry of Rauhnåcht to our attention.

That split, which was released by the underground French label Antiq Records, was an hour-long concept recording about the legends of the Alps. It was not the first nor the last example of the ways in which the natural splendor of the Alpine peaks and valleys, through all their changing seasons, and the old cultures that have evolved in their presence, have inspired the music of Rauhnåcht. The most recent example is a new album named Unterm Gipfelthron, which will be released on December 7th by Debemur Morti Productions.

We’ve already written about the album’s opening track, “Zwischen den Jahren”, which at four-and-a-half minutes is shortest of the album’s fives songs. The two that come last — “Ein Raunen aus vergess’ner Zeit” and “Winter zieht übers Land” — are long compositions, at ten-and-a-half and more than 11 minutes, respectively. To provide alluring glimpses of what they’re capable of doing to your head and heart, DMP has prepared a medley of the music from those two tracks that we’re sharing with you today. Continue reading »

OSMED: “TERRITORY OF WARFARE”

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Nov 142018
 

 

(This is Vonlughlio’s review of the new album by OSMED from Jakarta, Indonesia, which was released this past weekend.)

It’s a Saturday and a great day to spend with the family and to plan for the small write-ups I have to do.  So in the midst of such planning I logged into FB and discovered that Brute Productions (a label based in Bangkok, Thailand) had released Territory of Warfare, the debut album by an Indonesian band (from Jakarta in West Java) named OSMED. And so yours truly stopped what he was doing and went in to listen to the release on Bandcamp. Twenty-eight minutes later, I bought the CD on the spot.

I’ve been waiting for this debut since the band’s 2015 EP Ultimate of Realms Ruination, which was released via Endless Torture Records and ended up on my list of favorite EP’s of that year here at NCS. After that they released a promo, and then silence. When I read the news that the album had finally arrived, I was really excited to see what this effort would sound like. And after I finished listening to it, I decided to revisit the EP and the promo, as a way of seeing how the band’s sound had evolved, for better or worse. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOODSOAKED NECROVOID — “DEMO II”

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Nov 132018
 

 

Even if Bloodsoaked Necrovoid had never recorded the kind of horrifying, necrotic death-doom that’s capable of turning your mind into a foul and rotting mess, they would still deserve an award for nightmarishly evocative creativity based on their song titles alone. Here are the names of the four tracks on their debut demo, which was released in July of this year:

1. Quintessence of the Colossal Cosmic Entity
2. Metaphysical Prolapse Through Purulent Detaching Nightmares
3. Dismal Catacombs of Eternal Flagellating Torment
4. Consuming Darkness of Void Towards Inconceivably Vast Insanity

Not to be outdone, they’ve concocted four more deliciously arcane titles for their second demo, which we’re premiering today in advance of its November 23 release by Caligari Records: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERAL — “BLACK COVEN SECRETS”

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Nov 132018
 

 

Once again, like Pavlov’s dog at the sound of the bell, I’ve started slobbering to the massive mauling tones of HM-2-powered Swedish death metal done right. And you can look long and hard among the current purveyors of such old-school slaughtering and find damned few who do it as well as Feral.

These Swedish veterans have already made a deep mark (choked with congealing blood) within the lineage of this undying style of metallic extremity with their first two albums, Dragged To the Altar (2011) and Where Dead Dreams Dwell (2015), as well as a handful of shorter releases, and their third album — Flesh For Funerals Eternal (which again features the instantly memorable eye-gouging cover art of Costin Chioreanu) — shows early signs of at least equalling, if not surmounting, the horrid excellence of their previous work.

The first sign was a track named “Horrendous Sight” that debuted on the first day of this month, and today we have a further sign as we premiere “Black Coven Secrets“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KORPSESOTURI — “MALUS CORPUS”

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Nov 122018
 

 

Korpsesoturi began as the solo death metal project of Juha Ahlfors from Kouvola, Finland, first releasing demo tracks last year (which were eventually captured on tape by Caco-Daemon Records and on CD via Death In Pieces Records). Now Korpsesoturi is about to deliver an explosive debut album named Malus Corpus through Rotted Life Records. You won’t have to wait long for it — the release date is November 16th — and you won’t have to wait even that long to hear it, because we’re presenting a full stream today.

On this album Juha Ahlfors composed the music and performed vocals and bass, and he was joined by a pair of astonishingly good musicians — drummer Oskari Viljanen and guitarist Isto Jänönen (who was also responsible for acoustic and ambient parts). And “explosive” really is the right word for what the three of them have done here. Continue reading »

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