AN NCS PREMIERE: AORNOS — “FROM A HIGHER REALITY”

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Apr 232018
 

 

Anvil Kvlt’s artwork for the new album by the Hungarian black metal band Aornos signals important aspects of the music, as does the album’s title: The Great Scorn. The song we bring you today in advance of the album’s April 29 release by a consortium of labels provides a further gripping representation of what the album holds in store.

That track — “From A Higher Reality” — is rich in arcane atmosphere and bursting with poisonous, blood-rushing energy. It bruises the mind, but also practices a devilish form of sorcery that leads to a perilous hypnosis. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DJEVELKULT — “ATOMIC HOLOCAUST”

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Apr 232018
 

 

Although black metal has morphed into so many different shapes that its most fervent adherents have continuing cause for disgust that the genre has become too diffuse and watered down, even the most dedicated fanatics will have no cause to question the authenticity (and bloodthirstiness) of Djevelkult’s new album, Når Avgrunnen Åpnes, which follows their 2014 debut record, I Djevelens Tegn. It will arrive on May 25 via Saturnal Records, and today we present the premiere of an album track that could hardly be better-named: “Atomic Holocaust“.

This Norwegian cult devote their devlish energies to the creation of boiling black metal chaos, and “Atomic Holocaust” is a prime example of that. It channels feral, uncaged ferocity in a way that triggers the kind of adrenaline surge which comes from rampant lust, sudden violence, righteous fury, or the simple primal joys of losing your mind in the whirl of disorder. The song also gets its hooks in your head damned fast Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CON — “REST IN THE ARMS OF THE DRAGON”

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Apr 222018
 

 

CON is a black metal project started by Swedish musician Pontus Norman in 2009. The project’s name consists of the first three letters of the Latin word Conscindo, which means “To tear into pieces”, and we’re told that in this context it is intended as a representation of the command “To tear the earth into pieces”. A demo whose sound was consistent with that edict appeared long ago, but now, almost a decade later, CON’s debut album In Signo Draconis will be released this year by Dumah.

We have been given the opportunity to share this news, and to share a song from the album, the name of which is “Rest In the Arms of the Dragon“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VURVARAT — “WAKE OF THE FOUL MIND”

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Apr 222018
 

 

The French label Atavism Records is devoted to black metal, and its owner has a proven discerning taste for sinister music. Among the label’s releases, we have devoted attention to recordings by Cult of Extinction, Invehertex, St. Barthelemy’s Temple, Funeral Desekrator, and Lvx Hæresis.

While it might be unfair to generalize about the label’s tastes, given the diversity of the music created by the bands listed above, there is annihilating savagery to be found among those releases, as well as unearthly atmosphere, of the kind that reflects an occult spirituality.

One of Atavism’s more recent discoveries is the obscure French project Vurvarat. It is one of those black metal bands that does not disclose the identity of its member (or members), provides no photographs, does not indulge in live performances, and has no social media presence. As the expression of their creative impulses and objectives, the music alone will have to be enough. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE BLACK SORCERY — “TRAITOR BOMB THREAT”

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Apr 202018
 

 

The arms race of terroristic metal extremity has a new entrant, a band of unhinged barbarians from the cold north who’ve taken The Black Sorcery as their name. Their debut album And The Beast Spake Death From Above will be released on May 29th by Krucyator Productions and Hammer of Damnation. From that album we bring you the premiere of “Traitor Bomb Threat“.

The annals of black/death war metal are filled with other Canadian bands who have done a damned fine job converting the quivering minds of listeners into shattered wastelands. But while The Black Sorcery are certainly indebted to their countrymen in such groups as Blasphemy, Conqueror, and Revenge, they aren’t clones, and they’ve found some ways to push the bulging envelope of violence even further, while providing music that’s more of a thrill ride than a turgid hurricane of distortion. As proof, we bring you the premiere of “Traitor Bomb Threat“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LET IT BREATHE — “BUCKET OF BULLHEADS”

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Apr 202018
 

 

We’re about to make a couple of exceptions to our usual rules around here. As the site’s title proclaims, we usually steer clear of vocals that aren’t ugly and abrasive. And it’s a rarity when we pay attention to stoner and psychedelic rock. But it’s 4/20 today, and besides that, this song by Let It Breathe that we’re about to premiere through a video is so… damned… good!

These three dudes — guitarist/vocalist Randy, bassist Rob, and drummer Jason — make their home in Mankato, Minnesota, a town located along a large bend of the Minnesota River at its confluence with the Blue Earth River. Through those waters swim massed schools of bullhead catfish. Some people fish for them, some use them for bait. They’re an ancient oddity, spiny and be-whiskered, with a taste for dead and rotting sustenance, nearly blind but with a keen sense of smell and taste buds packed throughout the skin of its body. They live in the darkness; they’ll probably outlive our own species.

So yeah, they’re weird creatures, but they’re also very much a part of the culture where Let It Breathe make their home, and maybe both aspects played a role in the band’s choice of the bullhead for the cover of their self-titled debut album and for the name of the song we’re premiering: “Bucket of Bullheads“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LLNN — “DEADS”

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Apr 202018
 

 

Deads, the new album by the Danish band LLNN, is a sonic super-weapon, one that operates on multiple levels, inflicting both psychic and physical trauma on a shattering scale. It fires the imagination on multiple levels as well, bringing to mind terrifying vistas of apocalyptic obliteration as well as unnerving diaphonous visions that gleam with astral light. Not surprisingly, given the vast scale of the music and its relentless intensity, the band have explained: “The overall album theme of Deads is about births and downfalls of civilizations in other worlds throughout the universe, from creation to final decay, the depletion of the host….”

Pelagic Records will release the album on April 27th, but we have a full stream of it for you today, preceded by some further thoughts about what LLNN have accomplished on this staggeringly powerful record. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SUPREME CARNAGE — “MORBID WAYS TO DIE”

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Apr 192018
 

 

There’s garden-variety carnage, with cracked bones and mangled flesh, and then there’s Supreme Carnage, with exploded heads and torsos stomped into a chunky unrecognizable mess. You could expire peacefully in your bed at a ripe old age, and then there are especially Morbid Ways To Die. Supreme Carnage will teach you some of them.

This German old-school death metal band, who have taken their prime influences from the likes of Gorefest, Entombed, Bolt Thrower, Asphyx, and Bloodbath, have already discharged an impressive discography, which includes their 2013 debut album Quartering the Doomed and 2015’s Sentenced By the Cross, but on their forthcoming third record — which of course is entitled Morbid Ways To Die — they sound like they’ve reached a new zenith of audio slaughtering.

The first premiere from the new album (“The Fire Prevails”) was launched at DECIBEL, and we’re very happy to be the bearers of the second one through a lyric video — which is the album’s striking title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GODLESS ENTHROPIA — “PALACE OF FORNICATION”

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Apr 192018
 

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Palace of Fornication. Please remove your clothes, lubricate yourselves from those vats of blood you see before you, drink from the goblets of bestial desire, and prepare for action.

Alternatively, keep your clothes on, find a comfy chair, and press play below. Godless Enthropia will welcome you to the Palace of Fornication in their own way. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SERENE DARK — “DUALITATEM”

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Apr 182018
 

 

The Ottawa band Endemise, whom we’ve covered at NCS before, have a new name — Serene Dark — and a new album in the works which is projected for release in the fall of 2018. And what we have today is the premiere of a lyric video for a new single named “Dualitatem“, a song that integrates elements of black, death, and symphonic metal to create an emotionally powerful experience.

After 12 years operating under the name Endemise, the band had undergone so many line-up changes and alterations of musical direction that the time seemed right for a new name. The band chose their new moniker, as guitarist Dale Sauve  has explained, to reflect the band’s current musical approach — it “can be soothing and melodic at times, and dark and heavy at other times, so Serene Dark was a perfect fit.” He also shed some light on what lies ahead on the new album: Continue reading »

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