AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SUMMONING SATURN VOIDS (SELF-TITLED)

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 042024
 

(written by Islander)

What madness is this?!?

No doubt with grinning faces, Summoning Saturn Voids describe their lineup as an “intergalactic covenant” that features “clones and doppelgangers stolen from earthly bands like Aborym, Darkend, Drakkar, The Headless Ghost, and Daemoniac (plus a quite well renowned gentleman from Norway).”

Possibly still with grinning faces, but possibly not, they describe their musical mission this way:

“The Summoning Saturn Voids project was born from a desire to create a musical time machine.

“Bringing a black metal singer into the future, immersed in sidereal and cosmic sounds and then catapulting him into the 70’s, jamming with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler…. The potion thus evoked is at the same time spirited and punishing, grim and melancholic, reeking of 70’s era Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and… well, you will surely find out.” Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AXIOMA — “LIVE TOTALITY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 042024
 

(written by Islander)

In April of this year the Cleveland post-black metal band Axioma traveled to Lorain, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, to witness a solar eclipse. But they didn’t just witness it, they simultaneously provided their own soundtrack for it.

Building up to the eclipse and continuing through it, they performed an extensive instrumental piece on the lakeshore that they’d written for the occasion, aptly named “Live Totality“, and some friends filmed it, creating a video that includes gorgeous overhead scenes of the band’s setting and the lake.

On December 6th, through their label Stained Glass Torments, Axioma will release that song on a vinyl and digital EP that shares the song’s name. The EP includes three more subsequently recorded tracks, and we have all the songs for you to stream today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CZARNA MAGIA — “MORBID AFFECTION TO DARKNESS”

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Dec 042024
 

Almost three years after its last album, the Polish black metal band Czarna Magia is returning with a third album named Morbid Affection To Darkness, proudly presented as an uncompromisingly evil reflection of its sole creator Balrog‘s sickness and hatred.

The album will be co-released on December 13th by Symbol Of Domination and The End Of Time Records, and today we premiere its disturbing title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UNTIL DEATH OVERTAKES ME — “DIAGENESIS”

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Dec 032024
 

(written by Islander)

No matter how “niche” they may be, every genre of extreme metal includes variations on the themes that give them their names. That’s why, as time has passed, most of them have been categorically sub-divided, with an ever-increasing use of hyphenated naming conventions.

Few genres are more “niche” than funeral doom. No doubt, it has intensely devoted fans, but, with very rare exceptions, it has never been “popular” and probably never will be. In the imagination of most listeners, the music is too slow, too superficially simple, too appallingly bleak, and usually with track lengths that are too long for anything remotely approaching mass consumption.

Yet even in such a niche genre variations abound, though its popular reach is so limited that people haven’t reached very far for hyphenated or slashed sub-conventions. That doesn’t mean we can’t try, and for the sheer hell of it we will try to find one that suits Diagenesis, the latest album by the mysterious Belgian entity Until Death Overtakes Me which we’re premiering today in advance of its December 6 release by Aesthetic Death. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARTE-X — “Երազանք֊Նպատակ”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re about to venture off our usual beaten tracks (the ones we use to beat you with), but not too far off: there still seem to be devils roaming these dark woods where we’re going.

What we have for you now is a lyric video for a song from a debut album named Victory by the Armenian band ARTE-X. It will be released on December 12th by a new Armenian label, Holy Mountains Music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VEENLIJK — “GALGENBERG”

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Dec 022024
 

(written by Islander)

We’re now in that “in between” time of year, a time of holidays and year-end lists, a time for “turning the page” and hoping that the mere movement of the calendar from one year to the next will somehow improve life, a time of reflection and a time of looking ahead that’s unlike any other month of the year.

As such, if we’re honest, it’s the worst time of year to try to catch the attention of listeners about new music. But people should still try to be attentive, because otherwise they’ll miss some gems — such as the startling gem of a song we’re premiering below. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TERROR — “PÉOS THANÁTOU”

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Nov 292024
 

(written by Islander)

It’s always a challenge to write about the releases of Sentient Ruin Laboratories, not because the music leaves us feeling meh (far from it!), but because it’s tough to match, much less exceed, the way Sentient Ruin describes its records. Today’s example is a forthcoming debut EP named Hymni Belli Occultum, depicted by the label in these words:

Brazilian one-man bestial black/death commando Terror emerges with its first act of ritual terrorism, an eighteen minute EP of gruesome extreme metal warfare weaponized from the cult of Archgoat, Holocausto, Tormentador, Sarcofago, Bestial Warlust and Conqueror.

Across these five edicts of third world barbarism the totality of our new world dystopia is glorified and instigated down to its most antihuman and savage traits, with the cult of all crime syndicates, gangs, slums, warfare, violence, militarism and corruption thrown into an abyss of occultism and esotericism to embody the true lineaments of the modern world antichrist.

See what I mean? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TORMENTOR TYRANT — “CAPITAL OF PAIN”

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Nov 292024
 

(written by Islander)

One thing leads to another, and when the one thing involves alcohol consumption it might lead to a disaster or to a triumph, you never know.

This particular tale concerns a Finnish trio who took the name Tormentor Tyrant. Two of them — S. (guitar/vocals) and J. (drums) — had a history of playing together in such bands as Cataleptic and Solothus. To complete their lineup they brought in M. as bassist and vocalist, whose resume includes Corpsessed, Pestilent Hex, Tyranny, and Profetus.

The band was born in late 2020, but we’re told that the seeds of the idea can be traced back a few years earlier “to some obscure drunken nights when the trio had the innocent idea of ‘how cool would it be to just jam some early Deicide songs together.'” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DYING GROTESQUE — “CELESTIAL”

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Nov 282024
 

(written by Islander)

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., where our site is headquartered. Among other things to be thankful for, those of us who live here are grateful that we don’t inhabit a country torn by war. The people who live in Ukraine aren’t so fortunate, and they’re on our minds today as we present the premiere stream of a new album by the Ukrainian death metal band Dying Grotesque.

This band was first created in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine in 2018 as a one-man project by Vadym ‘Silvan’ Tsymbaliuk. With the addition of new members in 2020, the project became a band, they released their debut album Sunflower Tide, and they began performing live at a number of gigs and festivals throughout Ukraine.

The name of their new album is Celestial, and it will be released tomorrow by Archivist Records. Its themes are described as follows:

The story behind Celestial depicts the violent absurdity and the grim futility of human existence, which appears to be completely insignificant comparing to the endless darkness of cosmic void and all the undiscovered mysteries it conceals.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MANDROÏD OF KRYPTON — “COSMIC SARCOPHAGUS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 272024
 

(written by Islander)

From the fantabulous cover art adorning this Swiss band’s new album to their fantabulous name, I was inexorably drawn to Mandroïd Of Krypton‘s new album, and the record’s name was also an attraction: Cosmic Sarcophagus.

Those were the first hooks here, but not the band’s previous music, of which I was ignorant. Our humble site was in existence when Mandroïd Of Krypton released their first album and an EP in 2012 (Our Brilliant Embassies and Angry Space Zombies), and when they followed those with a second album in 2015 (Hyperkaossmarket), but we missed them despite the also-excellent names of those releases.

And that’s okay, because the nine-year gap between that last release and this new one is suggestive of the possibility, if not the likelihood, of musical changes, especially because of lineup alterations that occurred during that period. So, we can take Cosmic Sarcophagus on its own terms, and leave to others a mapping of the band’s nine-year musical evolution. Continue reading »

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