AN NCS PREMIERE: WILD HUNT — “PALINGENESIA”

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Apr 122018
 

 

We’re taught by daily disappointments and betrayals, by recurring defeats and the loss of people we hold dear, to see the world through jaundiced eyes. Life rides us with a heavy whip-hand, and hard lessons can lead to hardened hearts. When you listen to the music of Wild Hunt, it’s evident that they’re no strangers to the stings of life’s chaotic lashings. And so perhaps it’s all the more remarkable that their music also powerfully up-ends our defeatist worldview by injecting a sense of wonder and a feeling of irrepressible resilience.

Just about every writer at this site, at one time or another, has found reason to praise what this Bay Area band have accomplished, even if we (and others) can’t completely agree on what kind of genre labels to slap on the sounds. The word “progressive” always (understandably) seems to find a way into the stitched-together, multi-hyphenated descriptors, with black metal, doom, or post-metal sometimes in the jumble as well. But whatever Frankenstein-ian label might be most accurate, it’s probably best to just skip past that puzzle and allow the music to have its way with you.

Wild Hunt’s latest work is an album named Afterdream Of The Reveller. It will be released on April 20 by Vendetta Records. And what we have for you today is the album’s truly wondrous closing track, “Palingenesia“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISPLAY OF DECAY — “UNABLE TO IDENTIFY”

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Apr 122018
 

 

If you imagine Display of Decay as a big rocketing road machine with a roaring jet engine in place of the usual pumping cylinders (and that’s not hard to imagine at all), the brakes obviously failed a few hundred miles ago, to the vicious glee of the blood-lusting demons at the controls. When you listen to their new album, Art In Mutilation, it’s patently obvious that they’re having a howling good time, and their full-throttle, take-no-prisoners enthusiasm is highly contagious.

This is the fifth studio release by these Edmonton-based barbarians in a career that now spans ten years. It will be released by Gore House Productions on May 18th. One single from the album (“Forced Frontal Lobotomy”) debuted a few weeks ago at Metal Injection, and now we’ve got another one for you. Buckle up and take some deep breaths in preparation for “Unable To Identify“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEMONIC OBEDIENCE — “AWAKENING”

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Apr 122018
 

 

Roughly two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering a track from the second album by Demonic Obedience, Nocturnal Hymns To the Fallen. That was our own introduction to the band’s music, and it was a hell of a savage greeting. Now, Demonic Obedience are returning with a new album, and we again find ourselves in the fortunate position of delivering another premiere. The name of the new album is Fatalistic Uprisal Of Abhorrent Creation, and the track we have for you in advance of its April 17 release by Satanath Records and Sevared Records is “Awakening“.

Demonic Obedience has led something of a nomadic existence. Originally spawned in Greece by George Ntavelas and George Seremetis in early 2013 under the name of The Deepest, it then continued as the solo project of George Ntavelas after his move to Edinburgh, Scotland. On this new album, Ntavelas is the guitarist, but he was also joined in the recording by two new members of the band, Kruxator (vocals) and Mark Stormwhipper (bass). Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VOIDTHRONE — “KUR”

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Apr 112018
 

 

“By the end of Kur,” Voidthrone explain, “it is our intent to leave both listener and performer drained. Within this receptive exhaustion, we leave a spark — a seed of discontent that rejects normality. A hunger engendered for the other side of the veil. Beyond which — an absolute darkness, filled with Lions and Tigers and Bears. Oh my!”

The close of that last sentence may be the only time you smile at the experience of Kur, their new EP. Oh, maybe a somewhat crazed smile of appreciation for what this Seattle band have accomplished, but the music itself (which combines elements of black and death metal) is a disorienting, disturbing, and even terrifying experience, combining head-spinning intricacy, unsettling dissonance, and raw emotional intensity.

As for the band’s objective, it may not take a complete trip through all four songs to leave you feeling drained. The title track of the EP that we’re premiering today in advance of its May 4 release, especially when experienced along with the freakish music video that accompanies it, will probably take care of that all by itself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WYKAN — “THE GATHERING”

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Apr 112018
 

Wykan is a new Montreal trio founded by guitarist/singer Jeremy Perkins from the band Éohum (whose music we’ve featured before at our site) and completed by drummer Morgan Zwicker and bassist Daniel Paras. On their debut EP, Solace — which will be released on April 13 — they were joined by guest vocalists Matt McGachy (Cryptopsy) and Barrie Butler (Éohum).

Perkins‘ mission in starting Wykan was to explore a blending of musical ingredients from black metal, doom, psychedelic/stoner rock, and blues. The fact that Zwicker and Paras had backgrounds in jazz and the blues helped achieve that objective… and the results are quite compelling, as you’ll discover by listening to the song we’re premiering today: “The Gathering“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERVENT HATE — “EVIL TWINS”

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Apr 112018
 

 

The Peruvian band Fervent Hate launched their recording career with a 2013 album named Roads Of Insanity and followed that with a 2015 EP entitled Diablo. But I missed both of those, and so I had no expectations when I first encountered their new album Tales Of Hate, Lust And Chaos, other than the recommendation of Satanath Records that it would please fans of Entombed, Illdisposed, Grave, Dismember, At The Gates, and Gorefest — and that it was mixed and mastered by Dan Swanö.

Of course, for this listener those were all very enticing names, but even so, large questions remained. Many bands have chosen to toil in the fields furrowed by those groups, but not all have been successful in bringing forth the kind of abominable new growth that would feed and satiate the endless hunger of their many fans. How have those questions been answered by Fervent Hate? Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: STORTREGN — “SHATTERED UNIVERSE”

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Apr 102018
 

 

In May of 2016 we premiered a stream of Singularity, the third album by the Swiss band Stortregn. We found it to be an electrifying adrenaline rush from start to finish. Drawing upon the rich traditions of Scandinavian melodic death metal as well as Nordic black metal, Singularity reminded us of At the Gates at their most ferocious, accompanied at times by the wintry chill of early Dissection.

It was thus very welcome news to learn that Stortregn are returning with a fourth full-length. With the title of Emptiness Fills the Void, it will be released by Non Serviam Records on May 25th, 2018, and today we are very happy to host the premiere of a song called “Shattered Universe“, which is presented through a lyric video that makes effective use of the cover art by the great Dan Seagrave. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ABYTHIC — “BENEATH ANCIENT PORTALS (THE GATE OF GANZIR)”

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Apr 102018
 

 

Beneath Ancient Portals is the name of the debut album by the German death/doom band Abythic. It’s coming out on May 11th via Blood Harvest Records. When I heard the first single from the album, I expelled a few words here in an immediate rush of enthusiasm:.

“…gruesome tremolo-implemented barbarism, both seething and crawling… with a destructive rhythm section… a roaring monster behind the mic… and a thick, morbid atmosphere…”

And there’s more where that came from. As a further sign of this new album’s soul-plundering power, we present a second single, this one named “Beneath Ancient Portals (The Gate Of Ganzir)“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VOR — “BLACK GOAT”

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Apr 102018
 

 

There are only two people in VOR. One plays bass, one plays drums, one of them also shrieks like a man who’s being carved with straight razors. We’re lucky that arms-control authorities haven’t allowed them to use more than two instruments. With just those two they create an appalling level of sonic destruction.

VOR’s music is ugly, abrasive, a danger to the listener’s psyche — and irresistibly body-moving. It will scour out the inside of your skull, while it’s making your skull bang up and down like a piston.

VOR are based in Madrid, Spain. They have a new album coming out. It’s their second one. It will be released on May 19th by Third I Rex and a consortium of Spanish labels — Odio Sonoro Records, Nooirax Records, Noizeland Records, T-Shirts FUZZ, Base Record Production, and Sacramento Records. We’re premiering the album’s first single today — “Black Goat” — and I wish I could see your faces when you listen to it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLACK MASS PERVERTOR — “LIFE BEYOND THE WALLS OF FLESH”

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Apr 092018
 

 

With a history that can be traced back to 1998 and a sound that has evolved over the course of a demo, a previous EP, and a 2016 album (Phanerosis), the Finnish black metal band Black Mass Pervertor have reached an apotheosis of devilment with their new EP, Life Beyond the Walls of Flesh.

It’s a fiendishly infectious romp that, in the accurate words of the public relations campaign paving the way for its release, bows reverentially to “Belial, Barathrum, and especially early Impaled Nazarene whilst nodding to the early-Noughts work of Horna, Sargeist, and Behexen.”

It has, in short order, become a deliciously deviant pleasure of mine, a pleasure I get to share with you today in advance of its release by Blood Harvest Records on Friday the 13th of this month. Continue reading »

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