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AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VESANIA — “NOTION”

Dec 152015

In advance of the 2014 Metal Blade release of the latest full-length by Poland’s Vesania, our writer Andy Synn concluded his review of the album with these words:

“As darkly dramatic as it is devastating, Deus Ex Machina, if pushed hard enough and marketed right, could be a real game-changer for Vesania. It demonstrates their songwriting, and their skills, at their absolute sharpest, and takes their sound and vision to the next level.”

Today we are privileged to bring you the debut of a video for a song from Deus Ex Machina named “Notion”, a track Andy characterized as “half blackened blitzkrieg, half glorious symphonic majesty,” a song that “for all its orchestral excess and metallic thunder, takes time to reveal its secrets, telling a story through sound and verse, shape and colour, which unfolds naturally and organically as the song progresses”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VOIDCRAEFT — “UNDER THE SUN” AND “I AM NOTHING”

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Dec 142015

In February of next year, I, Voidhanger Records will be releasing the third album (and the first on this label) by the one-man German black metal project known as Voidcraeft. Its title is Ἕβελ and it’s unusual in many respects, not the least of which is that all of the lyrics are in either Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek. There’s a reason for that, which we’ll come to in a moment, but here’s the main point of this post: We’re giving you the chance to listen to two songs from the album, the English translations of which are “I Am Nothing” and “Under the Sun“.

For people who follow our site (religiously), Voidcraeft will not be a new name. Our man Andy Synn featured the band in a post here in October, recommending the music to fans of Deathspell Omega, Ævangelist, and Portal, while noting the experimental nature of the music and its creator’s tradition of writing his own self-critical analysis of his prodigious output. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CONAN — “REVENGEANCE”

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Dec 112015

They look so friendly, don’t they? Sitting there in front of that wall of green as if they hadn’t a care in the world. But once they put their game faces on, crank the power, and begin dropping riffs and drum beats as big as meteor strikes, it’s a different story.

I’m a relative latecomer to Conan. What really sold me was their performance at last May’s Maryland Deathfest. It may have been the heaviest set I saw at the whole festival. I certainly can’t remember any other band that delivered a more pulverizing performance. By the time they finished, I think I had something like the concert-goer’s version of PTSD. My teeth vibrate just thinking about it again.

They’ve called their music “Caveman Battle Doom”, and they’re right in this sense — Conan’s music exerts a primal appeal, as if they’ve figured out how to wake up elements of our DNA that have been dormant since the last ice age. Their new album is named Revengeance, and it’s set for release on January 29 by Napalm Records. Today we bring you the premiere of a lyric video for the album’s title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MONOLITHE — “EPSILON AURIGAE”

Premieres, Reviews 5 Responses »

Dec 112015

Today is the release date of Epsilon Aurigae, the fifth album by the remarkable Parisian doom band Monolithe, and in cooperation with Debemur Morti Productions we have for you a full stream of the album.

Epsilon Aurigae is divided into three tracks — “Synoecist”, “TMA-0”, and “Everlasting Sentry” — each of them exactly 15 minutes in length. All three are massively heavy, atmospherically chilling, and ultimately spellbinding in their effect. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ATLANTIS CHRONICLES — “BACK TO HADATOPIA”

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Dec 102015

Atlantis Chronicles may come from France, or they may come from deep beneath the waves, where they learned the stories of a lost civilization and now communicate them to us through the medium of their music. I grant you that it’s most likely they come from France, but it’s nice to imagine that the question is still an open one.

This band’s second album, Barton’s Odyssey, is still deep in the depths, surfacing slowly, projected for emergence on March 25, 2016, via Apathia Records. But we do have a glimmer of the album for you today, a song called “Back To Hadatopia” presented in the form of a lyric video. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLADE OF HORUS — “DESCENT INTO THE COSMIC REALM OF EVERLASTING MADNESS”

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Dec 092015

Blade of Horus have emerged from Australia with a debut album entitled Monumental Massacre that’s scheduled for release on January 29 by Lacerated Enemy Records. They enlisted the masterful Kevin Talley to record drums for the album, and as you can see, it’s also introduced by some eye-catching cover art. Today we’re helping premiere the album’s first advance track, “Descent Into the Cosmic Realm of Everlasting Madness”.

With Talley’s able assistance, Blade of Horus inflict plenty of head trauma in this new song, both the physically bludgeoning kind inflicted by pile-driving riffs and booming bass work and the kind that disrupts neural connections with deranged lead guitar excretions. And speaking of excretions, the vocal tag-team deliver an amalgam of deep growls, incinerating shrieks, and vomitous gurgles — all the better to complete the job of dismantling whatever was working normally inside your skull. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TEMPLE OF EVIL — “THE 7TH AWAKENING”

Album Reviews, Premieres 5 Responses »

Dec 072015

Today it’s our pleasure to help premiere the debut album by the black metal band Temple of Evil from Nicosia, Cyprus. Entitled The 7th Awakening, it will be released in a 6-panel digipak of 500 copies on January 7, 2016, by Deathhammer Records, and it’s available now on Bandcamp as well. And as you can see, it is accompanied by the striking artwork of Khaos Diktator Design — not only for the album cover but also for individual songs.

Temple of Evil’s unholy ranks consist of an agile bassist who doubles as a blood-freezing vocalist, a pair of riveting six-string guitarists (one of whom doubles as the keyboardist), and a drummer who is both acrobatic and a lethal blaster. Together they have created a dark and dramatic full-length, one that is esoteric and unearthly in its aura, both solemn and savage, grim and gripping. Continue reading »

BAKOS ATTILA: “ARANYHAJNAL”

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Dec 042015

This album is an exception to some of our “rules”, including that main one reflected in our site’s title. I doubt that I would have delved into it but for the fact that I knew the name of its lone creator, Attila Bakos, because of his striking vocal contributions to two exceptional albums by the Hungarian band Thy Catafalque — Róka hasa rádió (2009) and Rengeteg (2011) — and even more specifically, because of his contribution to a song from the latter album that to this day remains one of my most-listened-to metal songs — “Fekete mezők”.

But Aranyhajnal (which means “golden dawn”) is not only exceptional as a subject for commentary at our site, it is also exceptional as a collection of music — as spellbinding and beautiful as the artwork by Gyula Havancsák that graces its cover. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABORTED — “TERMINATION REDUX”

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Dec 042015

Given the diversity of our tastes in metal, there aren’t many bands that all of the old-timers on our staff can unanimously unite behind with enthusiastic devotion, but Aborted is one of those. And so you can imagine, then, we’re almost beside ourselves with glee over what we’re about to deliver unto your unprepared eyes and ears — a brand new Aborted song and a brand new video to go with it.

The name of the song is “Termination Redux” and it will appear on a special 20th anniversary EP by the same name that will be released in January as a prelude to the band’s next full-length album

I said “unprepared” on purpose, because seriously, you’re not ready for what you’re about to see and hear — unless you’re a fan of horror and gore, in which case you’ll… eat this up. As a prelude to the slaughter banquet, let’s consider this statement by the band: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SEER — “ANTIBODY”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 4 Responses »

Dec 042015

In the spring of this year I came across an extremely impressive debut EP by a band from Vancouver, British Columbia, named Seer. Entitled Vol. 1, it was self-released by the band late last year and consisted of two songs, “Glimmervoid” and “Hive Mind”. By the time I encountered the music (and praised it here), the Art of Propaganda label had announced that it had signed Seer for the release of a full-length debut that would include not only Vol. 1 but also four new songs under the name Vol. 2. Now we know that Art of Propaganda will release Vol. 1 & 2 on January 22, and we’re pleased to bring you the premiere of a song from Vol. 2 named “Antibody“.

I confess that one of the reasons I was first drawn to Seer’s music was the fact that they live in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by the same combination of mountains, evergreen forests, rivers, lakes, and ocean that surround my own home base of Seattle, albeit about 150 miles further north. Like many bands in this region, the spectacular natural setting has influenced their music — along with an interest in fantasy, sic-fi, and the occult. And so while music reflects in certain ways the distinctive Cascadian atmosphere of this region, the band’s lyrical focus ventures beyond the bounds of what we see around us. Continue reading »

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