AN NCS EP PREMIERE: THY SEPULCHRAL MOON — “INCANTATIONS INCITING DEMISE”

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Dec 022016
 

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Today is the release date for Incantations Inciting Demise, the debut EP by an anonymous black metal collaborative who have adopted the name Thy Sepulchral Moon. Encompassing five aural “spells”, it’s being released by Signal Rex on black cassette, limited to 66 hand-numbered copies. We give you the opportunity to become ensorceled by them through our premiere of a complete stream of the EP.

I should warn you that these aren’t the kind of spells you might first imagine. They aren’t hypnotic or entrancing in any conventional sense. But for those interested in entering an adrenaline-charged fugue state brought on by unrelenting chaos and bestial violence, they do have their charms. Continue reading »

AN NSC EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW) MYLINGAR: “DÖDA VÄGAR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Dec 022016
 

mylingar-doda-vagar

 

Last month we premiered a song from the debut EP Döda Vägar by the mysterious Swedish band Mylingar. At that time I decided to defer my thoughts about the EP as a whole, with the idea of completing a review closer to the release date. That’s one plan I managed to complete, and just in the nick of time, because the EP is being released today by Amor Fati Productions and can now be heard in full.

The music on the EP is a nightmarish hybrid of black and death metal that seems designed with the objective of inflicting torment and terror on a thermonuclear scale. It ignites one violent hurricane of hate after another, each song ravaging the listener’s head with horrendous and even stupefying power. The effect is to produce the kind of adrenaline surge in the listener that I imagine is akin to a near-death experience in a midnight war zone, where you’re surrounded by combatants that aren’t fully human. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE REPLICATE — “EUGENICIDE”

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Dec 022016
 

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As a genre term, “technical death metal” covers a lot of ground. It’s applied to bands ranging from Suffocation to Spawn of Possession, from Cryptopsy to Atheist, from Decapitated to Behold the Arctopus. It has been applied to the band whose new song we’re premiering in this post, but despite the broad landscape of sounds the term has come to encompass, the music of The Replicate still seems out on the fringe of the territory — if it hasn’t crossed over into a new and strange frontier altogether, at least compared to the modern drawing of the boundary lines.

The Replicate is the solo project of an Indian musician named Sandesh Nagaraj. Before moving to Los Angeles where he now lives, Nagaraj was a member of other extreme metal bands in his native land over a decades-long life in music, including Myndsnare, Extinct Reflections, and Stranglehold. On The Replicate’s debut EP A Selfish Dream, he is accompanied by drummer Ray Rojo as well as a trio of vocalists and other “cunning pals”. But Nagaraj is a damned cunning ringleader himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: CHARLENE BERETAH — “DEPRAVED / A VERY LONG WEEK”

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Dec 012016
 

charlene-beretah-depraved-a-very-long-week

 

Let’s have a show of hands:  How many of you are fans of Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket? Well, quite a lot of you, though I can’t say I’m surprised. Now, raise your hand if you remember the name that Private Gomer Pyle gave his M14 rifle, the one he ultimately used as the instrument of his own destruction. Not quite as many… but those of you who remembered “Charlene” got it right.

The band whose debut EP we’re premiering today remember it, too — the name they chose for themselves, Charlene Beretah, is a tribute to that movie. And their music turns out to be just as dark, depraved, and depressive. In fact, the EP’s name is Depraved / A Very Long Week, which combines the names of the two songs you’ll find there. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HEREZA — “UNIŠTI, PALI, RUŠI”

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Dec 012016
 

hereza-i-become-death

 

“Uništi, Pali, Ruši” are the Croatian words for “destroy, burn, tear it down”. Those words are also the title to a song and video we’re premiering today from an album called I Become Death by the Croatian band HerezA. This is HerezA’s second album, which follows their 2015 debut full-length, Misanthrope. The new one will be released in mid-February by the Polish extreme metal label Godz ov War Productions.

Although I’m spoiling a jolting surprise, I have to applaud the moment in the first few seconds of the video that syncs the first sound of the song with an image of artillery going off. And the sonic bombardment of the song doesn’t relent from that moment to the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PARIA — “SO FAR FROM THE HIDDEN GOD”

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Nov 302016
 

Paria-Knochenkamp

 

The German black metal band Paria were spawned in the year 1995 and since then have grown ever more toxic and terrifying through a sequence of demos and splits, ultimately collected in a foul 2011 compilation (fittingly named 11 Years Of Blood, Cum & Satan), and then three full-lengths, the last of which was 2013’s Surreal Satanist.

On the 25th of December, W.T.C. Productions will add to Paria’s horrific legacy by releasing a new EP, entitled Knochenkamp, and today we bring you the premiere of its third track, “So Far From the Hidden God“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUPPRESSIVE FIRE — “NUCLEAR DISMEMBERMENT”

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Nov 302016
 

suppressive-fire-nature-of-war

 

If you’ve had enough of middle-aged big-name thrash bands who’ve lost the fire in their bellies and you’re left yawning by fledgling retro thrashers who sound like they couldn’t punch their way out of a paper bag, listen up: We have a track for you from Suppressive Fire with a song title that isn’t an exaggeration: “Nuclear Dismemberment“.

This isn’t the first time we’ve paid attention to this band from Raleigh, North Carolina. Near the beginning of this year, in one of our new-music round-ups, we featured a song off their debut album Bedlam, which was released in mid-January. And in mid-January of next year, the band’s second full-length, Nature of War, will be upon us. That’s where you’ll find “Nuclear Dismemberment”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SARKOM — “ANTI-COSMIC ART”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 302016
 

sarkom-anti-cosmic-art

 

On the 2nd day of December, Dark Essence Records will release the new fourth album, Anti-Cosmic Art, by the veteran group of Norwegian black metal barbarians known as Sarkom. Produced in a way that gives it the sonic power of a megaton detonation, it’s a compact, varied, and consistently addictive blast of fire and ice that will keep your head in a hammer lock from start to finish. You’ll see — because we’ve got a full stream of the album for you today.

At seven songs and 30 minutes, the album doesn’t overstay its welcome, but instead leaves the listener wanting more. The first time through it is like unwrapping one thorny, charred gift after another, each song a nasty surprise, and each track so well-written and so capably performed that it sticks in the head like a spike. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE GREAT OLD ONES — “MARE INFINITUM”

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Nov 292016
 

the-great-old-ones-eod-a-tale-of-dark-legacy

 

Numerous metal bands have drawn inspiration from the horrors spawned by the imagination of H.P. Lovecraft, but few have devoted themselves so single-mindedly to capturing the atmosphere of the stories as The Great Old Ones. They continue this mission on their new album EOD: A Tale of Dark Legacy, which will be released on January 27 through Season of Mist. The seventh track on the album is “Mare Infinitum“, and we’re helping to premiere it in this post.

In Lovecraft’s mythos the Esoteric Order of Dagon was the dark, terrifying religion brought to the benighted community of Innsmouth by Capt. Obed Marsh upon his return from the South Seas, seducing the townspeople with promises of prosperity, power, and through interbreeding with the amphibious Deep Ones, transformation and eternal life. Those listeners familiar with The Shadow Over Innsmouth will recognize the reference in the new album’s title, as well as the connections of the song titles to that horrifying tale — and that’s because the album conceptually represents an original sequel to that famous story. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BALFOR — “SERPENTS OF THE BLACK SUN”

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Nov 292016
 

balfor-black-serpent-rising

 

Serpents, fire, blood, and bone. Torches burning and bonfires blazing. A night lit by sparks and cloaked by wood smoke from the blaze. Invocations of power and praise to the drawing of steel. Remembrances of a barbarous past, consecrated in blood. The video we’re premiering captures such visions, but your mind’s eye could create them simply from the music.

The song is “Serpents of the Black Sun” and it comes from Black Serpent Rising, the third album by the Ukrainian band Balfor, which will be released on January 15, 2017, by Drakkar Productions.

Balfor’s line-up includes current and former members of such 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. Continue reading »

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