AN NCS PREMIERE: HYRGAL — “CÉSURE”

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Sep 192018
 

 

When I first encountered the music of the French black metal band Hyrgal through their 2017 album, Serpentine, I was left stunned by its union of stupefying violence and mystical sorcery, shaken by its immensely powerful and dense cyclones of sound, moved by its dark, tormented melodies, and chilled by its haunted moods and apocalyptically grand vistas. And now Hyrgal are returning with new music through a very special split release with two other French bands, Bâ’a and Verfallen, who have proven through this split that they are formidable forces in their own right.

This new album-length split (more than 53 minutes in length) will be released on October 12th by the respected Les Acteurs de L’Ombre Productions. It includes two tracks by each of the three bands, and we present the first of Hyrgal’s two tracks today, a composition called “Césure“. Continue reading »

AN NSC PREMIERE: NIGHT CROWNED — “NOCTURNAL PULSE”

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Sep 182018
 

 

The night holds unmistakable allure for this Swedish band, whose name is Night Crowned and whose song “Nocturnal Pulse” we’re premiering today. But while feelings of isolation and gloom, and of the chilling presence of hungering shapes shifting in the darkness, come through in this intense new song, the music is also vibrantly and viciously explosive, like the incandescence of meteors (or wraiths) rushing through cold midnight skies.

“Nocturnal Pulse” is one of three tracks on Night Crown‘s debut EP, Humanity Will Echo Out, which will be released on November 30 by Black Lion Records. But while Night Crowned may be a new formation, its line-up includes current and previous members of The Crown, Dark Funeral, Nightrage, and Cipher System, with a combined catalogue of more than 20 albums to their credit, and thus this new record is far from a fledgling flight — which will quickly become apparent as you listen. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAMSKARAS — “ALIGNMENT”

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Sep 182018
 

 

We’ve been following, and helping spread the word about, the Montreal death metal band Samskaras since 2014, premiering both a track from their debut single Consecrate and a song from their 2017 EP, Asunder. Now this talented duo — vocalist/guitarist/bassist Eric Burnet (ex-Derelict, Unburnt) and drummer Alex Dupras (Unhuman, Teramobil) — have recorded a new EP, and once again it’s our pleasure to premiere a song from it.

The new EP, Lithification, is set for release on October 26th and includes four tracks recorded with Cryptopsy’s Chris Donaldson at The Grid Studio in Montreal. The music represents a further stylistic expansion of the sounds displayed on previous releases, adding doses of black metal, doom, and even deathcore into the band’s head-spinning framework of progressive tech-death. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VERMINLORD — “SOJOURN”

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Sep 182018
 

 

I was afraid something unfortunate had happened to Verminlord — death, dismemberment, or even worse, a decision to stop writing and recording music. An entire year had passed since this usually prolific musician’s last release (a track recorded for a Crushing Intolerance compilation), a year of silence after a string of impressive recordings (all of which I’ve enjoyed and almost all of which I’ve reviewed) that left me sadly resigned to the likelihood that the project had ended.

Fortunately, none of my fears was true. Neither death nor dismemberment befell Verminlord, and the man behind the project (Teo Acosta) hasn’t put aside music in favor of more mundane pursuits. He just needed some time to try to clear his head, and now, following a move from the Pacific Northwest to southern California, he has given us a new three-song EP, which we’re now sharing with you on the day of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AUTOMB — “CALL OF HEKATE”

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Sep 172018
 

 

Out of one death comes a new birth. The untimely passing of Frank “Killjoy” Pucci this past spring brought a halt to work on a new album by his long-running death metal band Necrophagia. Necrophagia guitarist Serge Streltsov then chose to turn his full energies to what had begun as a black metal side-project, a band called Automb that he had formed with vocalist/bassist/keyboardist Danielle Evans. They enlisted the aid of Morbid Angel drummer Scott Fuller, and have completed work on a debut Automb album named Esoterica, which will be released on October 22nd through Satanath Records (Russia) and Final Gate Records (Germany).

Whether there will ever be another Necrophagia album is an unknown, but what is abundantly clear is that Automb have created a new album (dedicated to Killjoy) that’s fueled by passion and delivered with immense dark power. One attention-grabbing track from the album has already premiered (“Into Nothingness”), and today we present another: “Call of Hekate“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NUISIBLE — “SLAVES & SNAKES”

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Sep 172018
 

 

One strong clue to Nuisible’s world-view could be found in the title of their last release, 2016’s Inter feces et urinam nascimur (“We are born between feces and urine”). Their new album is named Slaves & Snakes, and based on the music, it’s an easy guess that this title sums up the character of the human condition after birth. It’s a bleak perspective, and one that this French band channel into sound with traumatizing fury.

In describing their brand of brutalizing heaviness the band make references to Tragedy, Darkthrone, and Entombed. Crust and hardcore form the backbone of their assaults, which are undergirded by massive low-end weight and driven to heights of murderous blackened frenzy. The music is as merciless as the open mouth of Hell and meaner than a pack of rabid dogs, and yet the band have a knack for embedding both rhythmic and melodic hooks in these ten mauling tracks, and of switching gears often enough to keep you in harness for the whole bruising ride. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: TRUENT — “TO END AN ANCIENT WAY OF LIFE”

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Sep 142018
 

 

The Vancouver, BC, band Truent made their impressive recording debut last year with an EP entitled Faith in the Forgotten, and they’re following that one with an even more impressive EP, To End An Ancient Way of Life, which we’re highlighting today — the day of its release — through the premiere of a full stream.

The four tracks on this new EP provide a turbocharged thrill-ride, each song displaying flamboyant technical fireworks, but within a framework of tremendously punishing and head-hooking grooves, and threaded with through-lines of melody (both bleak and boisterous) that further stick the songs in your head. The impact is ferocious, frequently explosive, and persistently electrifying. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARBON COLOSSAL — “A GATHERING OF SERPENTS”

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Sep 142018
 

 

When Austin Weber reviewed the 2017 debut EP of Carbon Colossal for us he wrote, “The Disassembly of Earth is some sort of technical doom from hell, gone a death-metal-infused path, with fleeting blasts of black metal peppered in between all that… the three songs here forming an all-around vicious and ultra-dissonant heavy machine the likes of which show a ton of promise….”

This California duo (vocalist Llysywen and multi-instrumentalist Galaeth) have now recorded a debut album entitled Celestial Eels, which they have set for release on December 1st, and today we’re helping spread the word about a nightmarish album track called “A Gathering of Serpents“.

Although the track is nearly 10 minutes long, it never flags, nor runs any risk of losing its paralyzing grip on a listener’s sanity. It’s simply too shocking and too well-calculated to destabilize and invert rational thought for that. The music is a dissonant black/death fugue of madness and despair that both fucks with your inner ear and applies a hatchet to any sense of well-being that might comfort you in these dark times. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORBID MESSIAH — “GRAVEYARD HEADHUNTER”

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Sep 142018
 

 

The appearance of Morbid Messiah is deceptive. This death metal quartet from Guadalajara, Mexico, look very young — no doubt because they actually are very young, especially in comparison to ancient creatures such as this writer. But when you listen to their music, you realize that they must have old souls — the souls of corpses who perished in horrible fashion and have been reanimated into ghastly new lives.

Morbid Messiah‘s debut EP, In the Name of True Death Metal, was self-released in 2016 but was soon given a sold-out tape treatment by Godz ov War Productions. Their new album, Demoniac Paroxysm (adorned by the distinctive cover art of Mark Riddick), has attracted even more label interest, with a CD release coming on October 22nd via Memento Mori and a vinyl edition in the works from Unholy Prophecies.

One song from the album (“Howling From the Grave“) has crawled from the crypt already, and today we have a second one: “Graveyard Headhunter“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GNOSIS — “THE OFFERING OF SEVEN”

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Sep 132018
 

 

Ancient evil lives within The Offering of Seven, the new album by the Floridian black metal band Gnosis. The band twist their music into different cruel and often frightening shapes, through changing cadences and accented in different ways, but the atmosphere of the album is persistently and powerfully sinister.

The music is atavistic in more ways than one. It not only triggers primordial moods and primal reflexes, the music harkens back to the Greek black metal of the early ’90s, inspiring memories of such influences as Varathron and Thou Art Lord, as well as Mortuary Drape and Mystifier. And we have a full stream of the album for you today. Continue reading »

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