AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ASKESIS — “BLACK ONTOLOGY”

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Jul 122018
 

 

Roughly two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering The Path To Absence, a very impressive first EP by the Venetian band Askesis, which moved me to write: “The songs are dynamic and usually straddle the smoking crevasse between occult death metal and black metal, with a strong stench of doom in the mix as well. When the music is moving at full threshing speed, or bounding with punk-influenced rhythms, it gets the blood pumping… but the sense that something in the shadows hungers for your blood is never far away.”

Now it’s our good fortune to present a new Askesis EP, the name of which is Black Ontology, and it’s even more impressive than the previous one. The two women and two men in this band have succeeded in establishing their own distinctive “personality”, crafting a sequence of songs that continually brings the word “sorcerous” to the mind of this writer. It’s packed with physically arresting (and constantly changing) rhythms, yet it also creates atmospheres of brooding menace and of fiery infernal celebration, like the accompaniment to witches and warlocks cavorting around a pyre whose extravagant flames spear upward into the night sky. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NOCRATAI — “MISERIA 6.66 MHZ”

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Jul 112018
 

 

Nearly 20 years have elapsed since Nocratai was given birth as a solo industrial black metal project under the construction of an individual who took the number “4” as his identification. It continued as a solo project until 2008, when it became a full band, and in that year released an EP named Camera Chiusa. Three years later the band recorded their first album — Tormento — but it remained un-released until now.

And now, or rather on July 24th to be precise, it will be revealed through the cooperative efforts of GrimmDistribution (Belarus), The Ritual Productions (Netherlands), and Black Metal Records (USA).

We present for you today a track from Tormento named “Miseria 6.66 MHZ“, which on the one hand is cold and oppressive, but on the other, is a head-moving display of menace and madness. Continue reading »

SALTAS — “DEATH SPIRIT CONTINUUM”

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Jul 112018
 

 

It’s fascinating how just a few slowly picked notes on a guitar or bass, when tuned a certain way, corroded with distortion, and allowed to reverberate like a tank-sized Geiger counter, can so quickly create a sickening feeling of dread. That’s how “Death Spirit Continuum” begins, and it only gets more unsettling as it moves forward, revealing buzzing and moaning riffs, the clatter of demented snare patterns, the emergence of a persistent double-bass rumble, and long, blood-freezing howls and guttural roars. These ingredients combine to create a deepening, and almost suffocating atmosphere of disease, decay, and desolation.

Your head will also move… and your pulse will also quicken when the drummer kicks the energy up… and the continuing toxic reverberations of that opening note sequence may lead to blood poisoning. And somehow — paradoxically and magically — this thoroughly queasy and emotionally unsettling song becomes hypnotic as well as unnerving, which is an impressive accomplishment. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TEMPLE DESECRATION — “WHIRLWINDS OF FATHOMLESS CHAOS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 102018
 

 

We have been bred through evolution to desire order, and to develop the skills for imposing it, because for so many millennia we were at the mercy of chaos in the natural world, and that chaos often brought sudden death. Paradoxically, we also seem to have a taste for chaos, and a talent for creating it — and for inflicting it upon ourselves on a scale that’s unrivaled by any other species.

The manifestation of chaos in sound is a large part of what drives many of us to metal. Metal feeds the taste for chaos, which wars with the instinct for order, and fuels the rebellious spirit that pushes back against someone else’s idea of order. The music of Temple Desecration is that kind of manifestation. It captures the terrifying sensations of destructive chaos, but more than that, the music seems to wish for it, to summon it, maybe even to worship it. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRYPTIC HYMN — “THE VAST UNKNOWING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jul 092018
 

 

(Grant Skelton wrote the following review as an introduction to our premiere of the new two song EP by the blackened death metal band Cryptic Hymn from Louisville, Kentucky.)

Kentucky’s Cryptic Hymn have been known to lurk about the shadowed corridors of No Clean Singing. In 2015, I had the pleasure of reviewing their amazing debut EP Gateways. Now, we are pleased to present their latest bastardized offering, The Vast Unknowing.

Cryptic Hymn christen us first with “Wretched Stimulation,” a title which yields a truly revolting visual in my reprobate imagination. This song is a blistered and ashen frolic that should glut any devotee of death metal. While offering plenty of speed, the track shows that Cryptic Hymn are not the least bit afraid of tempo changes. I could say you’ll find the track stuck in your head, but more than likely it will find its way into your veins. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NEVERENDING WINTER — “NEW DAWN”

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Jul 082018
 

 

With their 2017 album Хиус, the Siberian Russian band Neverending Winter displayed their wide-ranging talents in startling fashion. As their name suggests, long and frigid winters may have inspired their creations, but they found grace and beauty, as well as darkness and tumult, in their conditions. As I explained in a very wordy review, it was one of the most vibrant and dazzling albums I encountered last year, one with a wonderful, organic sense of flow that moved through differing shades of darkness and light, and ranged from loud, barbarically aggressive attacks to soft and completely mesmerizing interludes. And while the music often exploded with primal, surging energy, it was also often quite intricate, revealing a level of technical skill that was impressive.

Early this year, Neverending Winter followed Хиус with a new EP named Сеногной. It consists of three songs of increasing length, beginning with “Новый рассвет (New Dawn)“, a two-and-a-half minute track, continuing with the four-minute song “Frost leash“, and ending with “Сеногной (Senognoy)“, which nearly reaches eight minutes. Once again, the music flows and evolves; once again, Neverending Winter manage to successfully braid together differing strains of black metal (both savage and atmospheric) and crust punk in a way that makes the EP a riveting listen from start to finish. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SKULLCRUSH — “VISIONS OF THE FIRESTORM ECLIPSE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jul 062018
 

 

Skullcrush? Yes… that name works… but so would SpleenRupture, SpineSplinter, KidneyPunch, JawFracture, SkinFlense… and I’m sure I’m forgetting other body parts that their music mutilates (figuratively speaking of course — you’ll survive the experience intact, probably).

Yes, Skullcrush is a fine name for the kind of death metal this Arizona band dish out on their debut EP, and the Conan-themed cover art is also fitting. So is the EP’s title — Visions of the Firestorm Eclipse — as you’ll discover when you listen to our full stream on this Friday, the 6th of July, the day of its release by the Glasgow-based label Camo Pants Records.

But we hasten to add that the brutalizing qualities of the music shouldn’t be over-emphasized; there’s a lot more going on in this EP than skeletal demolition and furious evisceration. The name SoulSlaughter would have worked, too. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ANGEROT — “RIVERS OF CHAOS”

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Jul 052018
 

 

I’m willing to bet good money that all metal addicts have that one kind of special sound lodged in their brains that, once heard, triggers a Pavlovian response — the jump in the pulse rate, the immediate wolfish grin, the reflexive drooling that comes at the sound of the dinner bell. Different sounds might do it for different people, maybe a Priest-ian riff here or a Sabbath-ian one there; maybe the resonance of a Bolt Thrower-like tank attack or a Testament-ary ripper does the trick.

In my case, the sure-fire trigger comes from the sound of Swedish death of the old school. And so in my case, Angerot bring forth the slobbering in a great, borderline-embarrassing flood. Their new album The Splendid Iniquity does that from start to finish. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RYAN C. SCHMEISTER — “VICTIM”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  4 Responses »
Jul 032018
 

 

In early August of last year, thanks to a recommendation from Rennie of starkweather, I discovered a song called “Legacy” by a solo project named Vorean. As I wrote then, I found it “little short of astonishing”. Rennie likened it to the sound of Florida’s Solstice, with a hint of black metal. It reached out almost immediately and seized me by the throat with the first instances of a bleak, twisted melody, and then erupted into an electrifying rush of hyper-speed riffing and blazing drum fire, with Vorean crying out in scalding howls.

That track displayed a lot of very impressive guitar work and a lot of compositional talent as well, becoming melodically memorable as well as just downright jaw-dropping in its execution. And part of what made the track — and the whole album from which it came — so astonishing was that it was the work of a single individual from Powell River, British Columbia (Ryan C. Schmeister) who had just turned 19 years old at the time of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GRAVES — “UNHOLY DESECRATION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jul 022018
 

 

From the catacombs of the Portuguese black metal underground Signal Rex has unearthed Graves, presenting their blasphemous debut demo, Unholy Desecration, on cassette tape as a prelude to the band’s debut album coming later this year — and we’re presenting a full stream of the demo today.

As the label says, Unholy Desecration triggers memories of the French Légions Noires, of the Portuguese Black Circle, and of raw Finnish black metal from the past couple of decades. But while devoted to certain recognizable traditions, Graves‘ devotion isn’t slavish. Their own talent shines through with mortifying vibrancy. Continue reading »

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