AN NCS PREMIERE: ET MORIEMUR — “AGNUS DEI”

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Mar 012018
 

 

The Czech doom band Et Moriemur explain that their new album Epigrammata “represents our attempt to cope with the dying or death of those we loved.” Using lyrics in ancient Greek and also drawing upon the Latin mass for the dead, the band structured the album to follow the progression of a traditional Requiem, which of course has inspired numerous composers over many centuries, as it has for Et Moriemur.

The Requiem has always been an expression of grief, but more than that as well. It also includes, for example, an appeal for the granting of divine mercy to the souls of the dead, as expressed in the part of the mass that is devoted to the Agnus Dei: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, Grant them rest.”

Et Moriemur explain that in creating Epigrammata, they likewise sought to also incorporate feelings beyond bereavement over the loss of loved ones: “So apart from the inevitable grief there is gratitude as well for having had the chance to share our life with them and hope that they are well – wherever they are.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ERYN NON DAE. — “HALO”

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Mar 012018
 

 

Earlier this month we joined with other sites in revealing a song named “Astral” from the first album in more than five years by the French band Eryn Non Dae..  In light of that that roughly five-year break, it stands to reason that some people were being introduced to the idiosyncratic creative bent of of this band for the first time, and it’s kind of fun to imagine their surprised reactions to the unorthodox and unpredictable sound of that song. It’s going to be just as much fun imagining the reactions of listeners to the song we’re helping spread around today.

This newest revelation is named “Halo“. Like “Astral“, it will appear on the new END. album, Abandon of the Self, which will be released on March 9th by Debemur Morti Productions. Like “Astral“, it could be characterized at a high level as a multifaceted experience, blending compulsive physicality and disorienting atmosphere. In terms more suited to this specific composition, Eryn Non Dae. shake their listeners like rag dolls — we become loose-jointed playthings in their hands, heads bobbing and limbs flailing to the music’s heavy rhythmic grooves — but they’re doing other things to us at the same time. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CAVE BASTARD — “MASSACRE REACTION”

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Feb 282018
 

 

Are you sitting down? Have you got a firm grip on something that’s solidly anchored to the floor? Is your crash helmet in place, and some kind of bit between your teeth so you don’t bite off your tongue? If so, you’re probably good to go on this new song, but no guarantees. If not, call 911 for an ambulance before you press Play — because “Massacre Reaction” is pure audio murder, like a combination of riding an electric chair and being hit by a rushing freight train, or perhaps more appropriately, like being at ground zero in the crosshairs of a carpet-bombing campaign.

Perhaps there’s a slight exaggeration in those words, but not much. What Cave Bastard have pulled off on “Massacre Reaction” is genuinely electrifying, and stunningly brutal. The song comes from this San Diego band’s debut album, The Bleak Shall Devour The Earth, which is set for release by Accident Prone Records on March 23rd. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAR — “VISITATION”

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Feb 282018
 

 

Visitation is the name of the new EP by the Israeli band HAR, and it does indeed conjure the atmosphere of a terrifying intrusion into our own world by hungering forces from shadow realms where death reigns supreme. This ghastly offering of black/death terrorism will be released by Sweden’s Blood Harvest Records  on March 2nd, and to help spread the word we’re offering you a full music stream today.

The three songs encompassed by Visitation sound as if they were recorded in a sepulcher cut from basalt deep underground, everything reverberating as if bounced back and forth off massive dank walls and a vaulted ceiling lost in the darkness. The sounds are dense, unearthly, and inhuman. And those sounds give rise both to explosions of violent chaos and to a pervasive air of horrible grandeur. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: GALVANIZER — “SANGUINE VIGIL”

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Feb 272018
 

 

Let us speak first of the tones of the music on Galvanizer’s debut album, Sanguine Vigil, because they are so delicious. Two of them are prominent.

The first is the deep, gut-rumbling, smoke-spewing, chain-sawing grind of the guitar. You know that tone. It sounds as if you could set the speakers next to a block of concrete and watch with a smile as the music vibrates it into a pile of gravel. You might also imagine it sending a web of fine fractures through your skull, like the appearance of a windshield that’s been crazed by an errant rock kicked up from the highway in front of you.

The second prominent tone in the music is the snap and crack of the snare drum. It’s as sharp and hard-edged as the guitar tone is murky and corroded. It sounds like an ax biting into wood, or the rapid fire of a handgun. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CHAOS INVOCATION — “MENSKINDRUMS OF DOOM”

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Feb 272018
 

 

The invocation of chaos is a pillar of black metal — not the only one, but perhaps the central one, at least for those bands whose music is fueled by Luciferian flames and created in glorification of the Adversary. Yet the freedom granted by chaos has different dimensions, and so does the vast array of black metal that attempts to channel it. There is a difference, for example, between “music” that is itself simply chaos (and thus doesn’t merit the term “music” because it becomes painfully unlistenable) and compositions that cut the chains which bind us to a drab existence in ways that not only make connections to primal emotions but are also… interesting to hear. The song we present today is in the latter category.

The German black metal band Chaos Invocation proclaims its mission in its name. As time has passed, it has become more and more adept (and increasingly interesting) in the fulfillment of that mission. The progress becomes evident as you move from their second album, Black Mirror Hours (2013), and onward to the band’s 2017 split with Thy Darkened Shade (Saatet-Ta Apep) and now the new third album, Reaping Season, Bloodshed Beyond, which will be released by W.T.C. Productions on March 10th.

One example of Chaos Invocation’s increasing strength was revealed through DECIBEL’s premiere of a track from the new album (“Calling From Dudail“) earlier this year, and the one we have for you now — “MenSkinDrums Of Doom” — is a further impressive sign. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SIXES — “METHISTOPHELES”

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Feb 262018
 

 

There’s no typo in the title of this post. Methistopheles is indeed the name of the debut album by the Southern California band Sixes. Think for a moment about such a union, about the scourge of meth joined to a conception of Lucifer not as a fallen angel but as the master of eternal tortures. Imagine desperation, derangement, and pain without end.

To be clear, I don’t know if that’s precisely the linguistic suggestion that Sixes had in mind when they coined the album title. My imagination could simply have fallen prey to the influence of the album’s music, which draws from poisoned wellsprings of sludge, stoner doom, and black metal to express abject misery in particularly devastating but perversely entrancing ways.

The music may turn your imaginings in other directions… none of them very pretty or comforting… but the best way to find out is to listen to the album. And you can do that now through our premiere of the record a few days before its March 1 release by Black Bow Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOWARDS ATLANTIS LIGHTS — “GREETING MAUSOLUS’ TOMB”

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Feb 262018
 

 

The debut album by Towards Atlantis Lights, Dust of Aeons, consists of four tracks thematically tied together in a narrative that plumbs the subconscious to reveal a magical remembrance of civilizations long dead and wisdom long forgotten, a discovery shrouded in the pain of loss and pointing toward the embrace of death. The music itself is as magical, as dramatic, and as heartbreaking as these tales brought forward from history’s depths in a dream.

The skill with which the album captures and conveys such powerful moods comes as no surprise, given the array of talents who have joined forces in this new group. The multinational quartet consists of vocalist/keyboardist Kostas Panagiotou (Pantheist, Landskap), bassist Riccardo Veronese (Aphonic Threnody, Dea Marica, Arrant Saudade), guitarist Ivan Zara (Void of Silence), and drummer Ivan Olivieri. Employing the tools of funeral doom and death metal, they’ve crafted music that’s beautiful, bereft, and wholly immersive.

The four songs on the album are significantly different in their durations. The opening song, “The Bunker of Life“, for example, exceeds 30 minutes, while the closer — which is the song you’re about to hear — is less than five minutes long. Yet although “Greeting Mausolus’ Tomb” is the shortest of the four tracks, it’s nonetheless spell-binding. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNBIRTH — “TUMULTS OF COLLECTIVE ANGUISHES”

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Feb 262018
 

 

The connoisseurs of extreme metal brutality at New Standard Elite are poised to detonate an obliterating new destructive device, in the form of the second album by Italy’s Unbirth. Entitled Fleshforged Columns of Deceit, the album is projected for release in April, but we have an electrifying burst from the album today through our premiere of the record’s opening track, “Tumults of Collective Anguishes“.

This new song is a fine example of Unbirth’s capacity to mount sonic assaults that are both savagely brutal and technically eye-popping. Flying at rocket-fast speed and with razor-sharp precision, the band create a feeling of heartless, frenzied viciousness, combined with skull-fracturing explosions of power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SLUMLORD — “INTO BONE”

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Feb 232018
 

 

Last month we ushered into the world a music video for a track named “Patiently Waiting”, which will appear on the new album by Slumlord from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. That album, Preview of Hell, will be released on March 7th, and now we have another Slumlord track to hurl at your head, this one for the album’s fourth song, “Into Bone“.

There wasn’t anything patient about “Patiently Waiting,” and Slumlord weren’t holding anything back either. The song is a take-no-prisoners onslaught of pure fury in which these metallic hardcore brawlers mixed blazing drumwork and heavy, harrowing chords; brute-force, stop-start jolts and ravaging riffs; vocals that are raw and rampant in their uncut rage; and a breakdown that’s hard enough to cause severe neck trauma. The new song doesn’t show any mercy either Continue reading »

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