AN NCS PREMIERE: ANTIVERSUM — “COSMOS COMEDENTI”

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Oct 032017
 

 

Two and a half years ago we premiered Total Vacuum, the debut demo by the Swiss band Antiversum shortly before its release by Invictus Productions. As we wrote then: “Whether crawling through a frigid pit of doom or spooling up to a blasting maelstrom, Total Vacuum has the capacity to engulf your mind — and bite down on it hard. It’s a potent, atmospheric offering of alien black/death that’s cold, hostile, and thoroughly gripping.”

The demo was so strong in so many ways that we have been eager for a further Antiversum release, and now the wish has been granted. On October 20th Invictus will release the band’s first full album, Cosmos Comedenti, and we have the pleasure of presenting the album’s title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GNAW — “RAT”

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Oct 032017
 

 

After the dissolution of Khanate, Alan Dubin went on to form Brooklyn-based GNAW, whose line-up includes Brian Beatrice, Carter Thornton (Enos Slaughter), Eric Neuser, Jun Mizumachi (Ike Yard), and now Dana Schechter (Insect Ark, ex-Angels Of Light) on lap steel guitar. With two albums behind them — This Face (2009) and Horrible Chamber (2013) — GNAW’s third full-length Cutting Pieces is now poised for release by Translation Loss on October 27th.

“Poised” is actually not the right word. It would be more accurate to say that the album is coiled back on its haunches, like some giant demon rat, twitching and about to lunge at our heads. “Rat“, in fact, happens to be the name of the album’s opening track, and the song that will be lunging at you at the end of this post. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SACRILEGIOUS RITE — “NOCTURNAL BLOOD CONSECRATION”

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Oct 022017
 

 

The discography of the German black metal band Sacrilegious Rite begins with the release of a 2011 split with Ungod, and another split four years later with Bestial Holocaust, followed by their own three-song demo, Black Curses of Death (2015) and a three-way split with Dethroned and Goatblood the following year. Yet the band’s origins can be traced further back in time, to a group named Captis Damnare that was spawned in the late ’90s; the dissolution of that band led to the birth of this one. And now at last they have recorded a debut album named Summoned From Beyond that will be released on November 13 by Dunkelheit Produktionen.

Two songs from the album have appeared already — “Sacrilegious Rite” and “Deathstalker“. We have a third one for you today, this one named “Nocturnal Blood Consecration“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNDERSAVE — “PEACEFULLY FLOATING IN PROSPEROUS ABYSS”

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Oct 022017
 

 

Fans of extreme metal know quite well that over time death metal has mutated and multiplied like a virus, and is now a vast ecosystem of aggressive life forms. Some are more disease-ridden, deranged, and destructive than others. Others have even managed to become beautiful as well as barbaric. The Portuguese band Undersave channel the cold, inhuman, voracious cruelty of death in their music — a terror beyond reason that can’t be stopped. Or at least that’s what I imagined as I listened to the song you’re about to hear.

Undersave have an out-of-the-ordinary way of naming their songs, This one, for example, is called “Peacefully Floating In Prosperous Abyss“. A previously released single from their new album is entitled “Press With Both Hands, Hold Your Breath and Collapse“. You’ll find the complete list of song titles below. The album, their second one, is named Sadistic Iterations…Tales of Mental Rearrangement. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRYPTIC FOG — “THE GRAND BERATOR WALKS AMONGST THE HALL OF MISERY”

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Sep 292017
 

 

As we near the year’s final quarter and thoughts begin turning to end-of-year lists amid a mad rush through the fall and winter holidays, we should still keep our eyes peeled for new releases, and the one that’s the subject of this post shows signs of being one of the final quarter’s best surprises — the debut album of Cryptic Fog, which will be released by Sweden’s Blood Harvest Records on October 27.

At the time of this recording, Cryptic Fog was a two-man operation based in the U.S. midwest consisting of guitarist/bassist Dave Bennett and drummer/vocalist Dan Klein. The name of the album is Staring Through the Veil. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CURSED MOON — “CREATURES OF THE NIGHT”

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Sep 292017
 

 

The first song I heard from Rite of Darkness, the debut album of Cursed Moon, was “Rise of the Antichrist“. When it began playing I thought I’d been transported back to the ’80s, when I listened (and danced) to my fair share of gothic new wave and post-punk. And then the vocals kicked in, and it became evident that an evil incursion had occurred in the dead of night.

“Deathwave” is the name that Cursed Moon has given to this hybridization of genres. As the project’s sole creator, Los Angeles musician Sal “Hellraiser” Yanez, has explained: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: WOE UNTO ME — “AMONG THE LIGHTENED SKIES THE VOIDNESS FLASHED”

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Sep 282017
 

 

When you see that a metal band is releasing a double-album, one thing you know without being told is that they must have had a lot of ideas. When you see that the total length of a double album is almost two hours, you’re inclined to resort to all caps, and at least one exclamation point: A LOT OF IDEAS! But what you won’t know until listening is whether there were enough GOOD IDEAS to justify the risks of such an imposing creation.

Because, let’s face it, in a fast-paced age plagued by famously short attention spans when many (if not most) single albums barely top half an hour, going THIS BIG can be a deterrent to listeners. Will they be as devoted in listening to the music as the band were in creating it?

The Belarusian doom band Woe Unto Me will learn the answer to that question, because they have taken precisely that risk. Their new album, Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed, will be released tomorrow (September 29th) through Solitude Productions, and we have a full stream for you today. It consists of two records, and together they are nearly two hours long. And they are indeed full of ideas — but they address big, timeless questions too, questions of such intrinsic weight and pervasiveness in the human conscience that you can better understand why they did what they have done. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXIMPERITUSERQETHHZEBIBŠIPTUGAKKATHŠULWELIARZAXUŁUM (EXIMPERITUS) — “DESHRET”

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Sep 282017
 

 

Seventeen months ago I posted a track from an album by a band from Minsk, Belarus, named:

Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum

Were it not for the copy/paste function, my hands would have been paralyzed trying to type that. My entire body would have become paralyzed if I had attempted to type the full title of the song, or the album title, which consists of a great volume of words and a seemingly endless string of letters. I had no clue what any of it meant, though a comment on our Facebook page at the time explained:

“The name of the record translates to ‘Projecting the singular emission ov the Doctrine ov Absolute and All-Absorbing Evil through the hexahedral prism ov Sîn-Ahhī-Erība upon the hypersurface ov zodiacal arc ov the cosmotechnical order ov paleocontact founders the utterly ancient hypostases ov pre-axes civilizations actuate the resonance transformer ov temporally similar to the eternity ov the future in the towers ov Nwn-Hu-Kek-Amon’s obcervatory embodying the ashes ov Alulim into the ethereal matter to the west ov exoplanet PSRB 1620-26b'”.

Thankfully, the title of the new release by… let’s just call them Eximperitus… is far briefer, though no less cryptic: W2246-0526. It will be discharged on October 20, and today we’re helping spread the word about a new lyric video for one of the new songs — also far briefer in its title: “Deshret“. Continue reading »

ODIOUS ICON: “PLANET OF IMMENSE DECAY”

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Sep 282017
 

 

How many killer riffs and tempo changes can be packed into three-and-a-half minutes of extreme music without wrecking its structural integrity as a song or undermining the dominance of its ravenous, slaughtering vibe? It seems that Norway’s Odious Icon decided to put that question to the test when they wrote and recorded the title track to their debut album, Planet of Immense Decay, which we’re premiering in this post. Maybe someone else has achieved a higher score, but this song grades very, very high.

The song’s compact length magnifies its intensity, sort of like venting pressurized water through a narrow opening: The striking force is impressive, especially given that the blast hits you in the face right from the start, in a high-speed torrent of razoring guitar work, machine-gun percussion, and maniacal, blood-thirsty howls. Electrifying stuff… and then the first change happens. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RUNESPELL — “UNHALLOWED BLOOD OATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Sep 272017
 

 

The first press release I saw for the debut album of Australia’s Runespell concluded by describing it as a “mesmerizing maelstrom of alternately grim/gorgeous frequencies”, presenting “flickering refractions of times distant and as yet lived, black metal wielded as weapon, totem, and portal simultaneously”. All those sentiments I’ve quoted are accurate, but the one that rang most true is the characterization of the music as a portal into the past.

In one sense that rings true because the music links arms with the venerated traditions of Scandinavian second-wave black metal, but it’s also true in another sense: The music has a mythic atmosphere, one that casts the mind’s eye back into distant centuries, to times (whether imagined or real) that have spawned sagas of warlike defiance and sacrifice, of bloodshed and bereavement, of heroic striving and irredeemable loss. To make your way through this vividly imagined and beautifully rendered album is to become moved, and enthralled.

And we will now give you a chance to make your own way through the album as we premiere a full stream of Unhallowed Blood Oath in advance of its September 29 release by Iron Bonehead Productions. Continue reading »

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