AN NCS PREMIERE: DAWN RAY’D — “THE ABYSSAL PLAIN”

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Aug 212017
 

 

The UK black metal band Dawn Ray’d made a stunning advent last year with their debut EP, A Thorn, A Blight, a collection of six songs that my comrade Andy Synn described as “vivid and visceral”, an onslaught of “pure, refined fury and anguish, stripped down to its most basic, most human, form,” manifesting “supreme confidence and ruthless aggression”. And now Dawn Ray’d are returning with their first full-length LP.

The Unlawful Assembly is the name of this new album, and it’s projected for release in October. It’s divided into two parts, The Wild Service and The Wild Magic, composed of “equal parts malice and spite, and ethereality and exultation”. And today we present the album’s second track, an immensely powerful and multifaceted song called “The Abyssal Plain“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND AN INTERVIEW): BOTANIST — “THE SHAPE OF HE TO COME”

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Aug 212017
 

 

It’s likely that after six unique albums and a trio of EPs, Botanist has become known to all discriminating and adventurous metal listeners, of whom you are likely one because you are visiting us now. But in case you are a curious explorer finding your way to Botanist for the first time, we’ll provide a brief introduction before sharing with you the title song from the newest Botanist album — Collective: The Shape of He Who Comes — which will be released on September 1 by Avantgarde Music (CD) and Favonian (LP).

As you will learn, this new album is different from its predecessors in some important ways (though every Botanist album has differed in important ways from its predecessors). And to learn about those differences, and much more about the creative process that produced it as well as Botanist’s future plans, we also present an interview of Botanist’s creator and alter ego Otrebor by an Italian examiner who we’ll call “Mene Frago.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KROSSFYRE — “BURNING TORCHES”

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Aug 182017
 

 

In April I came across the first single from Burning Torches, the debut EP by a Spanish black/death band named Krossfyre. I was eager to hear it partly because the line-up includes members of Sheidim, Graveyard, Körgull the Exterminator, Insulters, Suspiral, and Morbid Flesh, and in part because the press announcement made references to classic Nifelheim and Vomitor, early Tribulation, later Desaster, Gospel of the Horns, Bestial Mockery, and Nocturnal Graves.

That first song, “Fire Solution”, was as good as I hoped it would be, and definitely earned its name. The whole EP turns out to be a fire solution to whatever might be ailing you. It will be released by the ever-tasteful Hells Headbangers on September 15 (CD, 12″ MLP), and today we have the premiere of the title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NECROPHILE — “IRREPRESSIBLE DISCHARGE”

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Aug 182017
 

 

Death is deathless, in Japan as in most places. I’m referring to death metal in particular, and even more particularly to the Japanese death metal band Necrophile, whose music we’re premiering today.

The band’s origin story takes us back to 1987, which certainly qualifies them as one of the first Japanese death metal bands. They recorded two demo tapes in 1988 and 1989 ( The Terminal Derangement and Beyond the Truth) and then produced two further releases in 1991, the Dissociated Modernity and a split LP with Singapore’s Abhorer. And then, as happened to so many extreme metal bands from those formative years, they drifted away — but not forever. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PURTENANCE — “VICIOUS SEEDS OF MORTALITY”

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Aug 172017
 

 

In the last half-dozen years we’ve witnessed the rebirth of numerous death metal bands who got their start in the early ’90s, far more than you could count on the fingers of both hands. This has been a mixed blessing — participating in the birth of a movement is no guarantee that you’ll still be able to light a fire under people more than two decades later, and some bands honestly would have been better off if they’d been content to leave their fans with good memories rather than new music that doesn’t live up to their reputations. On the other hand, some of these resurgent bands seem to have become even more powerful with age, and Purtenance is one of those.

This Finnish band, who released their first demo under the name Purtenance Avulsion in 1990, recorded two enduring works in their 1991 EP Crown Waits the Immortal and their 1992 debut album Member of Immortal Damnation. And then the band became inactive for a long stretch of years before their revival in 2011.

Since then they’ve released two powerhouse albums in 2013’s Awaken From Slumber and 2015’s …to Spread the Flame of Ancients. Now, Dave Rotten’s Xtreem Music label is set to release the newest Purtenance work — an EP entitled Paradox of Existence — and we have the premiere of one of its four tracks for you today in advance of the EP’s September 12 release. This one is called “Vicious Seeds of Mortality“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NECROLYTIC GOAT CONVERTER — “ISOLATED EVOLUTION”

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Aug 172017
 

 

New York musician (and music writer) Chris Voss took some chances when he embraced Necrolytic Goat Converter as the name for his solo metal project. On the one hand, it’s such an off-the-wall moniker that once you see it, you won’t forget it. On the other hand, it’s so ridiculous that there’s a chance people will leap to the conclusion that the music is a joke, or maybe dismiss it as an offensive skewering of sacred black metal cows.

I’m here to tell you that either reaction would be a grievous mistake, because this debut album, Isolated Evolution, is really, really good. I’ll explain why I think that, and why the album has quickly become a personal favorite in a year already filled to overflowing with outstanding new albums, but you’ll also get the chance to decide for yourselves — because we’re premiering a full stream of the album in advance of its August 18 release. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NABAATH — “FIRESTORM BRINGER”

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Aug 172017
 

 

The name chosen by the Ukraine-based black metal band Nabaath for their new EP could easily be an alternate name for the band: Firestorm Bringer. It’s as close to a sonic hurricane of hellfire as one could hope for — utterly ferocious, completely electrifying, and immediately addictive.

Firestorm Bringer is also an archetype of how the EP format can be used to supreme effectiveness. There are only two songs here, both of which are themselves compact, plus an outro track that both contrasts with and complements the flamethrowing ferocity of those two songs. The three tracks don’t feel like a scattering of stand-alone pieces thrown together for want of a better place to put them; instead, they make for a cohesive representation of a particular kind of power, and if the EP had been longer it might well have lost some of its impact. It’s over almost before you know it, but it may still leave you wide-eyed and slack-jawed (as it did me). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OLD IRON — “VALERIAN”

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Aug 162017
 

 

There’s a movie out in theaters now that includes the name “Valerian” in its title, and it seems that more than half the people who’ve seen it think it’s terrible. Because the name isn’t one you see every day, some people reading the title of this post might make an association, but let’s be clear: This song has nothing to do with that movie.

This “Valerian” is a stunningly good song by Seattle’s Old Iron, and it comes from their second album, Lupus Metallorum. Emblazoned with unforgettable cover art by the band’s own guitarist/vocalist Jesse Roberts, it will be released by Good to Die Records on August 18, just days from now. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LIFETIME SHITLIST — “SLOW MARCH”

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Aug 152017
 

 

With a name like Lifetime Shitlist and song titles on their new EP such as “Beach of Death”, “Infestation”, and “Death Rattle”, you don’t expect this band to make music that feels like a warm hug and a shoulder to cry on. And sure enough, Slow March will punch you in the kidneys and treat your head like a piece of sheetrock ready for the nail gun. But man, it’s a ton of battering fun — the kind of fun that leaves you with loose teeth the next morning and the kind of bruising that goes beyond black and blue and into that shade of yellow that makes you queasy to look at it.

Slow March manifests some changes from this Baltimore band’s last album, Pneumaticon, including a new vocalist (Ned Westrick), a new second guitarist (Corey Fleming), and an evolution in their sound. For the new EP they also tracked the drums, the bass, and the rhythm guitars live in the studio of Grimoire Records on a single April Saturday, with the vocals added the next day. The gods of the mosh pit must have been smiling on that weekend. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MALEMORT — “INDIVIDUALISM, NARCISSISM, HEDONISM”

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Aug 152017
 

 

As I listened to this debut album by the French band Malemort I asked myself a question I’ve asked before — though to be clear, I haven’t heard many records in the league of this one: Why do our minds and emotions make such deep connections with music that’s so convincingly calamitous, so mercilessly stripped of hope, so sodden with misery and soaked in blood, so cataclysmically heavy, so frighteningly violent?

Perhaps it’s just the part of us that instinctively admires anything done with the meticulousness of a jeweler’s hand, even if it’s an efficiently organized demolition job. Maybe it’s because death looms over us all, the fear of extinction, the dread of all feeling and thought being snuffed out without warning, like a beautiful daughter torn to pieces in an instant by a machine rammed forward under the direction of a hate-filled lunatic… it’s always right there, hovering on the edges of daily life, and regulalry reminding us of its presence through some new tragedy.

I don’t know. I’m no psychologist. I only know what I feel, and for fuck’s sake I’ll just say it up front — this album is the most stunningly powerful, staggeringly horrific, blindingly apocalyptic doom album I’ve heard this year, and it has few peers in any year. Continue reading »

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