AN NCS PREMIERE: GRAVEHILL — “THE PROFANE”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Feb 132018
 

 

In the summer of last year Dark Descent Records released a sampler of music that consisted of nothing but previously unreleased tracks from forthcoming albums — 11 premieres in one fell swoop. One of those was a song called “The Unchaste” by the veteran Southern California death metal band Gravehill. I was sold immediately, fired up like a Roman candle by that grisly, gruesome, up-tempo dose of barbarity, which included both spectral and face-melting solos and a highly headbangable interlude.

“The Unchaste” is one of 8 tracks on a new Gravehill album, The Unchaste, the Profane, & the Wicked. It’s now set for release by Dark Descent on March 16th. Pre-orders have just gone up today, and to help spread the word, we get to bring you the premiere another track from the album. To go along with “The Unchaste”, today we present “The Profane“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SETSUKO — “CHILD WITHOUT BRAIN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 122018
 

 

The Stockholm group Setsuko think it’s fine for screamo bands to move more in the direction of metal (and grindcore in particular), and for grindcore bands to move more toward screamo as well. They’ve chosen to position themselves in the middle between those two camps, with a laudable objective:  “to combine the most violent sounds of both hardcore and metal and play the fastest, angriest stuff we possibly can”. And these Swedes do mean what they say, as you’re about to find out.

Setsuko’s debut album is The Shackles of Birth, which will be released in March on the UK label Dog Knights Productions. The song we’re bringing you is “Child Without Brain,” which according to Setsuko follows a “theme of paranoia and living in a world somewhere between lucidity and psychosis”. In fact, most of the songs follow that theme as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEDNJA — “DOLINE SU OSTALE IZA NAS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 092018
 

 

The Bednja is a river in northern Croatia that rises in the mountainous forested areas near Macelj and follows a winding path until it flows into the larger Drava River. Bednja is also the name of a small village located near the river’s spring, well-known for the hard-to-understand dialect of its people… and for being very cold. And Bednja is also the name of the three-man Croatian band whose debut album, Doline Su Ostale Iza Nas, we’re now premiering.

When the band contacted us about the possibility of a premiere, I began listening to the album, as I always do before deciding whether to host a premiere. By the end of the second song, I was completely captured by the music and hurriedly wrote YES! before the third song began. As I eventually discovered, the rest of the album is every bit as good as the way it begins, striking like an unexpected bolt from the blue. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NORTH HAMMER — “AVATAR”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 092018
 

 

Andrew James from Edmonton, Canada (and a member of Eye of Horus and Shotgunner) is completely open and forthright about the passions that have inspired his creation of the solo project North Hammer and the music on the debut album Stormcaller, which is set for release on March 16th.

He names the mighty Quorthon as well as Wintersun, Ensiferum, Amon Amarth, Aether Realm, and Blind Guardian as the revered sources of his musical inspiration, and ancient Norse legends as the wellspring from which he has drawn the new album’s thematic and lyrical concepts. The name of the project itself was meant to invoke winter (as well as his native Canada) and of course Thor’s formidable hammer, Mjölnir. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SOUL DISSOLUTION — “FAR ABOVE THE BOILING SEA OF LIFE”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Feb 092018
 

 

The photograph that appears on the cover of Stardust, the new album by the Belgian black metal band Soul Dissolution, is beautiful, otherworldly, and haunting. You can imagine standing on that cold, craggy shore, gazing in wonder as the sea becomes illuminated by a column of celestial light, as if a window on the cosmos has been mysteriously opened and what was once inexpressibly distant has now been brought near.

It’s not the cover art alone that might make listeners feel a sense of wonder, or to become rhapsodic in their reactions to the album. The music has a similar effect, as you’ll soon discover: Today we open a window into Stardust’s own celestial vistas in advance of its March 25 release by Black Lion Records through our premiere of the album’s closing track, “Far Above the Boiling Sea of Life“. Continue reading »

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

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

When you have followed, enjoyed, and praised the work of a band for as long as our site has been doing in the case of Eryn Non Dae., there is some risk that objectivity will be lost, or at least as much objectivity as can play a role in the appreciation of music, which some might argue isn’t very much at all.

Our site has been alive since November 2009, and one of our earliest reviews, only two months later, was of this French group’s debut album, Hydra Lernaïa. Since then, we’ve written about them more than a dozen other times, the last of which was a post in which my comrade Andy Synn named the band’s new album, Abandon of the Self, one of his most anticipated albums of 2018. It has been one of mine as well.

Eryn Non Dae. do not hurry themselves. More than five years have passed since their second album, Meliora; and it took roughly three years for Meliora to arrive after Hydra Lernaïa. If you’re a fan, you must be patient, but we’ve learned that the patience is rewarded. We’re about to learn that again. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ALL MY SINS – “ZOV IZ MAGLE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

(We present the premiere of a new two-song EP by the Serbian duo All My Sins, which is now available on Bandcamp, preceded by a review of the release by Andy Synn.)

 

There are some people out there who would have you believe that there are only really two types of bands – “innovators” and “imitators”.

But this is a vast, and misleading, over-simplification of how things really are.

The truth of the matter is that most bands will never be the next Mayhem/Opeth/Meshuggah… or whoever… but that doesn’t mean their music doesn’t have value.

In fact I’d contend that it’s more important to be distinctive, rather than “innovative”, in your chosen field, and that the willingness and ability to truly pour your heart and soul into your music, to twist and tweak established facets and features into something that truly represents your vision, is the most vital thing of all. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AUTOKRATOR — “AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

The first two Autokrator albums — the self-titled debut in 2015, and The Obeisance To Authority in 2016 — were senses-shattering experiences. On my own senses, the first album (reviewed here, with an interview) probably had a more stupefying impact, because I didn’t know what was about to hit me. For the second one, I had the good sense to wear body armor and flame-resistant head-gear before listening; but it wasn’t enough. It blew right through me like a howling hurricane.

I’m speaking in a figurative sense, of course, but only barely. The almost unmitigated savagery and destructive power of Autokrator’s death/industrial assaults are overpowering. But the music also exerts a powerful primal appeal; you can become easily intoxicated by this brand of violence. And so, with steeled nerves but with a trembling mix of fear and excitement, I confront the fact that Autokrator are about to unleash hell again.

The band’s new album is Hammer of the Heretics. It will be released on April 10 by Krucyator Productions. It consists of five tracks, including one mind-scarring interlude, and today we present the album-opener, a piece called “Against Flesh and Blood“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORMALIST — “ARSON”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 082018
 

 

If you have not yet heard a note of music from the Italian band Formalist, there are still ample reasons to expect that Formalist will be formidable. Four reasons, to be more precise: Their vocalist is Ferdinando Marchisio, frontman of Forgotten Tomb; their bassist Nicola Casella and drummer Riccardo Rossi (also in charge of electronics) come from Malasangre; and guitarist Michele Basso has been the central figure in Viscera///.

One would expect that an alliance among those four would produce an amalgam of doom, black metal, sludge, and ambient/drone capable of opening “new gates to total sonic horrors”, “with a completely hostile, nihilistic approach to vocals and lyrics” — just as the labels who will jointly be releasing Formalist’s debut album on March 16th have claimed. Those labels are Third I Rex (UK), Wooaaargh (Germany), and Toten Schwan Records (Italy). The name of the album is No One Will Shine Anymore.

Yes, these are completely legitimate expectations. But we will see for ourselves whether they prove true. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RITES OF THY DEGRINGOLADE — “ABOVE THE HIGHEST”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Feb 072018
 

 

“Above the Highest“, the track we’re premiering today from the new album by Rites of Thy Degringolade, is a strange kind of looming obsidian monolith, twisted and cracked yet glowing with the shimmer of a perilous and otherworldly light. It is a jarring and jolting experience on many levels, and yet for all that it has an undeniable charisma. How can something so unearthly and disorienting be so addictive? You shall see….

Of course, anyone familiar with the previous creations of this Canadian band will not be surprised to read that last paragraph. Over a 20-year span, Paulus Kressman and his eventual ally J. Wroth have been responsible for a collection of striking, and strikingly distinctive, works. Now, after a hiatus of more than a decade, they are returning with their first new full-length since 2005’s An Ode To Sin, and are joined on the record by new members — guitarist N.K.L.H. (Antediluvian, Weapon, Amphisbaena) and bassist C.W.

The name of the new album is The Blade Philosophical. It is being released on CD today by Nuclear War Now! Productions, with digital and vinyl editions coming in March. Continue reading »

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