AN NCS PREMIERE: ILLIMITABLE DOLOR — “HORSES PALE AND FOUR”

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Feb 252019
 

 

Illimitable:  without limits or an end

Dolor: a state of great sorrow or distress

In choosing the name Illimitable Dolor, this Australian quartet made their mission statement unmistakable, and their music lives up to the name, creating sensations of devastating loss in vast tides of sound that sweep toward horizons we’ll never reach. The title of their new album, Leaden Light, is almost equally evocative of what they’ve brought into being, a manifestation of funeral doom and death metal that’s crushingly heavy and ashen in its colors — not lightless by any means, but veiled by haunting vapors.

On the other hand, the album’s title is only partially evocative of the music’s moods, and perhaps a bit misleading, too — because there is nothing drab about it. To the contrary, its emotional power is immense, and it proves to be an immersive and completely enthralling experience. You’ll get a powerfully good sense of those qualities through the song we’re premiering today, in advance of the album’s March 20 release by Transcending Obscurity Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GOATKRAFT — “GOATKRAFT’S COMMAND”

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Feb 222019
 

 

Sometimes the wishes we send into the void are granted. Last month, after hearing the first advance track off the debut album of the Norwegian deviants in Goatkraft, I publicly proclaimed that such a sulphurous spell of black pestilence had left me hungering for more, and since then my hunger has been fed by a chance to hear the album as a whole. What’s more, I have the opportunity to infect your mind with another new song from the same record (spreading infection is such a rewarding experience).

The song we present today is “Goatkraft’s Command“, and it further confirms Goatkraft’s command over the weaponry of bestial black metal, as fully and ferociously revealed on Sulphurous Northern Bestiality, which will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on March 22nd. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LUCIFERA — “LA CACERIA DE BRUJAS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 212019
 

 

It wouldn’t be wrong-headed to label the music of La Caceria De Brujas as “black thrash”, but that label really doesn’t do it justice. For most of its 39-minute duration, this fourth album by Colombia’s Lucifera is a brazen race, fueled by the kind of feral ferocity that most people have come to expect from South American devil-thrash, but there’s uncommon depth to this music. As fierce and scorching as the music is, it’s also loaded with melodic hooks, and it achieves a feeling of divine Bacchanalian glory — summoning visions of wild exultation, of spirits set free by sorcerous conjurations.

La Caceria De Brujas will be released by the German label Dunkelheit Produktionen on February 25th (with a vinyl edition coming the next month), and today we’re presenting a full stream of this remarkable album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MUSKET HAWK — “HEXAGON”

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Feb 202019
 

 

March 29th is the date set by Unholy Anarchy Records for the release of Upside of Sick, the third album by the Baltimore-based sludge/grind annihilators Musket Hawk. At least in name, this seems to be a perfect match of label and band, since the music is itself unholy anarchy.

Musket Hawk‘s rampaging music pulls no punches, capable of fragmenting skulls like skillfully deployed crowbars, and just as capably running your head through a gauntlet of raging firestorm chaos. We have a prime example of the kind of devastating and electrifying assaults they mount on the new album through our premiere of a track called “Hexagon“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DOWNCROSS — “MYSTERIES OF LEFT PATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 202019
 

 

Sometimes the opportunities presented to us for premiering new music leads to the discovery of enormously good surprises — to become captivated by music we might never have otherwise found. And this is one of those startling instances.

Downcross are a duo from Belarus — vocalist/drummer Ldzmr and guitarist Dzmtr — and what we’re presenting today (only one day away from its release by Saturn Sector Rex) is their debut album Mysteries Of Left Path. The only description of the music we had before exploring it was “anticosmic”, plus whatever might be inferred from their ominous masked and torch-bearing visages on the album’s cover. This led to a few guesses about the music — which turned out to be largely incorrect. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEATHSWARM — “SHADOWLANDS OF DARKNESS”

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Feb 192019
 

 

Musicians who are passionate about the ravaging sounds of gruesome old school death metal face a constant challenge when they try to create such sounds themselves: How do you wade into such familiar territory, well-guarded by devoted fans of those traditions, and emerge with something that’s still really worth hearing? If we think we’ve heard it all before, what’s required to give us a fresh jolt of electricity, rather than just another formulaic emulation?

The Swedish band Deathswarm have compelling answers to those questions. To surmount the challenges requires (first and foremost) top-shelf song-writing, plus veteran performance skill matched with authentic spirit, and a grasp of tone and production technique that makes the music sound truly monstrous. And those are the answers that Deathswarm deliver through their fantastic debut album, Shadowlands of Darkness, which will be released on February 25th by Chaos Records — and which you can hear in its entirety below. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VESPERINE — “NOUS, SI PHOTOSENSIBLES”

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Feb 192019
 

 

Torment, turmoil, and tumult flow through the music of Vesperine, a sense of defiance and desperation, and glimpses of hope that are too often revealed as phantom dreams.

Vesperine have located themselves within a long lineage of French storytellers and poets, fueled by the spirit of such imposing national figures as Hugo, Lamartine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine, taking up “the eternal mantra of France and its passions”: “to hope, to sink”.

Musically, the sounds can be located within the darker spheres of post-hardcore and post-metal, with progressive and noise elements in the mix. References might be made to the likes of Amenra, Cult of Luna, Impure Wilhelmina, Neurosis, and Rosetta — but better than references, we have the music itself, one excerpt from their debut album Espérer Sombrer in advance of its March 22nd release through Apathia Records. The song we present today is “Nous, si photosensibles“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LEATHER GLOVE — “REFLECTIONS OF DESPAIR”

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Feb 182019
 

 

Expectations for Perpetual Animation, the debut album by Leather Glove (which will be released on March 8 by Sentient Ruin and Dawnbreed Records), have run very high in these quarters, based on nothing more than the descriptions of the people involved in its creation, and of the musical conceptions manifested through its eight tracks.

As for the people, Leather Glove is principally the musical vehicle of Greg Wilkinson, owner of the famed Earhammer Studios in Oakland, CA, known for his engineering work with such bands as Noothgrush, Necrot, Autopsy, Vastum, Acephalix, Mortuous, Undergang, and many, many others; a member of Brainoil, and Deathgrave; and a former member of Laudanum and Graves at Sea.

For this new album, he was aided aided by drummers Chad Gailey (Necrot, Vastum, Mortuous, Atrament, etc) and Dustin Ferris (Apraxic, Pleasure Cross, Engorged, etc), with guest guitar solos performed by Sean McGrath (Ghoul, Impaled), Shelby Lermo (Vastum, Ulthar, Extremity), Eric Cutler (Autopsy), and Danny Corrales (Autopsy, Abcess). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSIC — “HIGH THE MEMORY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 182019
 

 

At almost 80 minutes in length, Abyssic’s new album High the Memory is a demanding experience. And the demands it places on listeners go beyond the magnitude of the minutes. It is emotionally devastating — and uplifting — in ways that less intensely powerful music, and music less intensely devoted to darkness in its varying dimensions, can’t achieve.

In these complex and richly textured compositions, which draw upon ingredients of funeral death/doom, black metal, and prog, augmented by classical orchestration (and the use of Mellotron, Minimoog, and upright bass), Abyssic create combinations of crushing power and mystical evanescence, of oppressive gloom and fragile, gleaming beauty. Dread and devastation stalk this vast musical landscape, furrowing the earth with great troughs of misery and despair, while brilliant stars wink overhead, blazing comets streak the night sky, and the borealis shimmers in unearthly brilliance. The effect of these juxtapositions is harrowing and hypnotic, magisterial and monstrous. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE: OPHIDIAN COIL AND SEPTUAGINT — “VORTEX”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 152019
 

 

In the most rudimentary sense, split releases provide a vehicle for the participating bands to each release new songs in between more extensive releases of their own music, while allowing listeners the chance to sample the works of more than one band at a time. But of course there’s no assurance that the combination of songs from different projects in a single release will do any more than that. Whether the songs actually complement each other, and combine in a way that creates a holistic listening experience that’s greater than the sum of its parts, is a very different issue.

The split release we’re premiering today, entitled Vortex, is one that does go beyond a mere bolting together of singles from more than one group. The two up-and-coming black metal bands who are involved — Ophidian Coil from Serbia and Septuagint from Greece — do not follow identical paths in the music you’ll find here, but there is a “chemistry” between them. The songs of each band, though different in their strategies, exhibit a kind of “spiritual” union in which the different dimensions of Luciferian sound combine in a way that creates a near-30-minute experience that’s immersive — and chilling.

We invite you to listen to these four songs below, an opportunity that coincides with the release of Vortex by Deathhammer Records. And of course we have some thoughts about the music to share as well. Continue reading »

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