AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CURSE OF DENIAL — “THE TOWER OF SILENCE”

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Jan 172017
 

 

Cleveland’s Curse of Denial are a new band, but this isn’t the first rodeo for the people in the band. The line-up includes former members of Descend (whose roots go back to the ’90s) as well as vocalist Rob Molzan (also a member of From the Depths, whose tenure with Decrepit goes back to that same decade). Their debut album The 13th Sign reflects all that experience, and includes a slew of notable guest appearances that bring even more veteran seasoning to the carnage of this battleground. The album will be released on February 3 by Redefining Darkness Records, and today we have an excerpt to whet your appetite — an unusual lyric video for “The Tower of Silence“.

Apart from the sure-handedness that comes from experience, one other thing will become evident as soon as you hear this new song: The music isn’t easily pigeonholed, instead reflecting a range of extreme metal influences that have been combined in electrifying fashion. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOMBBATH — “SMELL OF LICE”

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Jan 172017
 

 

Until 2015, Wombbath’s last album was 1993’s classic Internal Caustic Torments, but two years ago the band made a remarkable reappearance with Downfall Rising. That new album made a big impact on lovers of Swedish death metal worldwide, and was the source of a song we humbly anointed one of 2015’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

Wombbath followed the release of Downfall Rising with a triumphant performance at 2016’s Maryland Deathfest (reported here), and two 2016 split releases, one with Revel in Flesh called Dragged Into the Obscure and another with Departed Souls entitled Embracing the Cold…. And now they’re participating in another new split release — and we’re fortunate to bring you the premiere of Wombbath’s side, a song called “Smell of Lice“.

The name of the new split is Upward On A Thousand Lies, and on this new release Wombbath are sharing the vinyl with Germany’s Obscure Infinity. The split was released on January 13th on multi-colored wax by Germany’s Brutal Art Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HELHEIM — “LANDAWARIJAR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  6 Responses »
Jan 172017
 

 

If you begin the task of educating yourself about the phenomenon known as “Viking metal” you’ll probably first see references to Bathory and perhaps Enslaved, soon followed by a group of famous Swedes with their longboats and drinking horns on stage, but it won’t be long before you see the name Helheim.

“Viking metal” is indeed a phenomenon rather than a genre of music, which quickly becomes evident when you consider that bands as diverse as those listed above, as well as other groups such as Unleashed, Manowar, and Moonsorrow, have all carried that label at one time or another. To the extent there is a unifying factor, it derives from a lyrical and thematic focus on ancient Norse culture, mythology, and paganism, rather than a consistent sound — and even there, the depth and focus of the themes can be significantly different.

Helheim go beyond the most familiar (and often caricaturish) thematic tropes of most bands branded as Viking metal, with a devotion to Norse heritage that treats it as still relevant to modern life, and still shrouded in mysteries of the Runes that are worth exploring, and perhaps best understood in the spirit they convey rather than through archaeological and linguistic dissection.

As you’re about to discover, Helheim’s music also goes light years beyond the most familiar tropes of “Viking metal”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SYK — “FONG”

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Jan 162017
 

 

In the wake of song premieres at DECIBEL and Revolver, the Italian metal band SYK released their second album I-Optikon via Phil Anselmo’s Housecore Records on December 2. What we have for you today is the premiere of an eye-catching video for one of the head-twisting bouts of savagery from the album, a track called “Fong“.

The band have explained the song with these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUNLIGHT’S BANE — “BEGRUDGING SOUL”

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Jan 162017
 

 

I’m not sure anyone can really prepare themselves to take a vicious beating, but that’s our advice to you before listening to “Begrudging Soul“, which is the song we’re premiering from the new album by Sunlight’s Bane from Michigan.

The album’s name is The Blackest Volume: Like All The Earth Was Buried (aka TBVLATEWB), and it will be released by Innerstrength Records on February 17. NCS writer TheMadIsraeli reviewed the album last month, summing it up as “an unrelenting powerhouse of feral ferocity and carnage and also an interesting exercise in sub-genre hybridization”: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VILES VITAE — “THE VORTEX OF DISHARMONY”

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Jan 132017
 

 

Viles Vitae are a new Portuguese black metal band, but one whose members are reputedly experienced and known within the Portuguese extreme metal underground. They’ve recorded a debut EP entitled IV, which is founded upon four elemental principles used in ritual magic and consist of four songs. In advance of the EP’s release next month by Caverna Abismal Records, we bring you the first streaming of one of the EP’s four incantations, a song called “The Vortex of Disharmony“.

To listen to the song is indeed like being pulled into a disconcerting vortex. It’s unrelentingly intense and disturbing, even though the fury of its arcane energies waxes and wanes like the blaze of the moon, and it exerts a tight grip on the listener’s attention from start to finish. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ENEPSIGOS — “PAGAN RITES”

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Jan 122017
 

 

We’ve learned that any band in which the Norwegian artist Doedsadmiral is involved will be worth checking out. Those bands include Nordjevel, Svartelder, and Doedsvangr, and now there’s one more to add to the list. Under his guise as V.I.T.H.R, he fronts a new group called Enepsigos, in which he is joined by Straff (ex-Sarkom) on guitars and bass and Italian drummer Thorns, who has worked with Blut Aus Nord, Deathrow, Fides Inversa, Frostmoon Eclipse, and Darvaza (among others).

The debut album of Enepsigos is named Plague Ov Plagues, and it’s set for release on January 15 by Drakkar Productions. Last fall we wrote about an advance song from the album named “Manifestum”, and now it’s our pleasure to share with you a video for another song called “Pagan Rites“, created by Hugo Aribart. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BALFOR — “BLACK SERPENT RISING”

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Jan 122017
 

 

This past November we premiered a video for an impressive song called “Serpents of the Black Sun” by the Ukrainian band Balfor, and today we follow that with a premiere stream of the entire album which includes that song: Black Serpent Rising. The album will be released on January 15, 2017, by Drakkar Productions.

Balfor’s line-up includes current and former members of such notable groups as Khors, Raventale, and Hate Forest, and this new full-length follows the band’s last album, Barbaric Blood, by a long six years, with the 2013 EP Heralds of the Fall dividing the wait and significant line-up changes occurring over that interval as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SHAARIMOTH — “TEMPLE OF THE ADVERSARIAL FIRE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  9 Responses »
Jan 112017
 

 

Within Temple of the Adversarial Fire, the Norwegian conjurors in Shaarimoth open a Pandora’s box of wicked marvels, delivering such a mind-bending display of esoteric extravagance that the album threatens to eclipse most everything else released in the early months of this new year. It will be disseminated by W.T.C. Productions on January 13, and today we’re privileged to bring you the premiere stream of the whole thing, in all its twisted magnificence.

More than a decade has passed since Shaarimoth’s last emergence, with 2005’s Current 11. In that time, Shaarimoth have not lost the spiritual sources of their musical inspiration; the fires of the Adversary unmistakably fuel the music. Through the course of all 11 tracks, it’s a wild and chaotic interdimensional trip, a fusion of death and black metal with a pronounced experimental bent and an exotic, esoteric atmosphere, and it’s so brazenly and exuberantly creative that it’s likely to leave you wide-eyed and gasping by the time you reach the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OSTOTS — “GAUEKO PIZTI (BEAST OF THE NIGHT)”

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Jan 112017
 

 

The Basque Country of Spain is home to Ostots, the solo black metal project of IA (also a member of Owl’s Blood) that began to take shape a dozen years ago and since then has released numerous demos, splits, and EPs, as well as two full-length albums. On January 12, Altare Productions (Portugal) and Skjold (Denmark) will jointly release a third Ostots album named Ezer Ezaren Araztasuna, and today we bring you a stream of its arresting first track, “Gaueko Pizti” (Beast of the Night).

“Gaueko Pizti” is made of contrasting textures and reflects contrasting sensations. It channels the ferocity of raw black metal in its moving waves of abrasive, distorted riffing and the harsh effect of the vocals, a conjoined pairing of gasping growls and strangled shrieks. But the song is also mystical and mesmerizing. In its atmosphere, it’s both isolated and defiant, somber and panoramic, ravaging and majestic. Its overall effect is captivating. Continue reading »

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