AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OF WOLVES — “DEAD WAIT”

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Mar 012015
 

 

I discovered an album named Evolve by a Chicago band named Of Wolves in the summer of 2013, and it made a big impression, a lasting impression. As discussed in my recent interview of the band’s vocalist/guitarist Steve Sherwood, Of Wolves have been working on a new album that they’re hoping to complete and release before the end of this year, but in the meantime they have a brand new video for one of the songs from Evolve — “Dead Wait” — and we’re premiering it right here, right now.

As I attempted to explain in my review of Evolve, the album is an eclectic mix of music, but if there’s a unifying thread in the songs it’s the frustration and fury that drives them. Lyrically, Of Wolves have vented their anger at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and as you’ll see in a minute, they don’t mince words about it. Continue reading »

AN NCS FULL-ALBUM PREMIERE: FURIA — “NOCEL”

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Feb 272015
 

 

It’s a true pleasure to bring you a full stream of Nocel by the Polish black metal band Furia. The album was released last fall on CD by Pagan Records, and on March 6 the label will be releasing the album on double-gatefold-vinyl. It deserves that kind of treatment — in a word, Nocel is fascinating.

Furia’s name means “fury” in English, but the music on Nocel is not so easily summed up. “Fury” is only one of many moods expressed in this impressively creative and highly variable work. Over its hour-long course, Furia vividly convey alternating moods of wild freedom, slashing anger, cold isolation, hunger, meditative tranquility, and even despair. It’s so full of contrasts and surprises that it will remind listeners of the avant-garde exuberance of bands like Deathspell Omega rather than the warlike savagery of a group like Marduk. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GLOSON — “THE AFTERMATH / BEGINNING”

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Feb 272015
 

 

Alright, it might be a stretch to call this song a “premiere”, because some of the lucky ones among you have already discovered this music for yourselves. The debut EP Yearwalker of Sweden’s Gloson was self-released digitally last year, but it’s getting a proper international release on vinyl this coming March 23 by Art of Propaganda and Catatonic State Records. Apart from satisfying the vinyl hungers of Gloson’s fans, this new release achieves another admirable objective: It spreads the word of Yearwalker to the previously uninitiated — which included me. And I’m damned glad I’ve now been introduced to this surprising new band.

“The Aftermath/Beginning” is the final song on this four-track, 32-minute release. Entrancing guitar notes transform into pile-driving riffs, dreamlike melody is overpowered by an avalanche of rumbling darkness, caustic howls scrape against vulnerable flesh. As the song continues to unfold, yet another entrancing guitar melody spirals over the crushing low-end rhythms, like northern lights shimmering over mountain crags. The sludgy power of the song will get your head moving while it casts a spell at the same time. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: PORTA NIGRA — “KAISERSCHNITT”

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Feb 272015
 

 

Exactly one week ago we posted Andy Synn’s extravagant review of Kaiserschnitt, the extravagant new album by Germany’s Porta Nigra, which is being released today by Debemur Morti Productions. As of this moment, you can now download the album or purchase one of the beautiful physical copies — but perhaps most important, you now have a chance to listen to all of it before taking the plunge.

If you haven’t yet discovered the stream that just went live on Bandcamp, all you have to do is skip to the bottom of this post and there you will find it. And if you need any further encouragement to let it into your head, here are a few choice words from Andy’s review, with which I almost whole-heartedly agree: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND REVIEW): KURHAN — “GŁÓD”

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Feb 262015
 

 

Not long ago we included a feature about the title track to a new album by Poland’s Kurhan in one of our occasional round-ups of impressive new songs. Now we have the pleasure of bringing you a full stream of the entire album, the title of which is Głód (“hunger”).

When I first heard the title track, it really grabbed me by the jugular. I compared it to taking a ride on a whirlwind, or something like being caught in a swarm of bats embarking on a night of feeding at full speed.  But in addition to unleashing a plethora of technically impressive high-speed riffs and hard-hitting percussion, Kurhan made the song a rhythmically dynamic work and threaded appealing strands of dark melody into their blazing tapestry as well.

Now having heard the entire album, more metaphors come to mind. Listening to it is like being dropped into a war zone, with shrapnel flying fast and furious and bursts of adrenaline flooding the bloodstream from all the imminent peril. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEAUTALITY — “FROM THE ABYSS”

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Feb 252015
 

 

There’s nothing wrong with metal that wholly honors the purity of the particular sub-genre in which it dwells, whether it be black metal, death metal, thrash, or something else. But there’s still something particularly intriguing about bands who branch outside the traditional confines of individual genres and attempt  to integrate a variety of musical influences, creating sounds that can’t be classified with any well-defined purist labels. That’s what the London-based band Beautality have done on their new album Einfallen: A Tale Ov Torment & Triumph.

Even the band’s name signals their intent to dissolve genre boundaries and express ideas through a hybrid of moods, atmospheres, and styles, and that mission is reflected in the songs they’ve created. In this post we bring you the premiere of one of the new album’s tracks — an epic-length work entitled “From the Abyss” — which follows previous premieres at Metal Hammer and Invisible Oranges. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GODLESS ANGEL — “CONTAINMENT BREACH IN SECTOR 6”

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Feb 252015
 

 

This is a “feel good” story accompanied by badass music, which makes it a very metal story.

Derek Neibarger, who makes his home in Lawrence, Kansas, with his wife Chrissy and a menagerie of pets, began his musical life as a teenage bassist in 1984. In 1990 he added lead vocalist to his resume. He has recorded and toured with multiple bands covering every genre from punk and hard rock to jazz and blues. At one time or another he has shared the stage with such artists as Neurosis, Green Day, Local H, and The Urge. Beginning in 2012 he decided to start writing and recording music as a solo project that he named Godless Angel.

By that time he had become a daily reader and active supporter of this site, and we watched as he began turning out individual songs on a completely DIY basis, and eventually entire collections of songs in the form of two digital releases — the album-length Year One (2013) and the Dying Dead Undead Unholy EP (2014). And then, on January 20 of this year, we saw the happy announcement that Godless Angel had signed with the Finnish label Inverse Records for the release of a new album named Harvester of Shadows.

Inverse explains: “Drawing inspiration from horror and science fiction genres, the lyrics for Godless Angel paint portraits of everything from axe murderers, vengeful aliens, and zombies to demons, mutated rats, and a vile creature lurking in the shadows of an insane asylum.” And as you’re about to find out, the music is more than a match for the viciousness and brutality of the subject matter — because today we’re stoked to bring you the premiere of an official lyric video for one of the new songs: “Containment Breach In Sector 6“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXISTENTIAL ANIMALS — “PRISM PRISON”

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Feb 242015
 

 

Existential Animals come our way from Oberlin, Ohio. They made some serious first impressions last year with the release of their debut EP Surrealith (which was graced by one of my favorite pieces of art by one of my favorite metal artists, Paolo Girardi, and also included a guest vocal appearance by Will Smith of NCS favorite Artificial Brain). Existential Animals are now back with a two-song single — “Prism Prison/Apopheniac” — that’s due for digital release on March 3. The artwork for the single, created by Cameron Almasi, Yuri Popowycz, and the band’s Mark M-R, is stylistically quite different from Surrealith’s cover, but it’s just as eye-catching. As you’re about to discover, the music’s eye-opening as well.

What we’re about to show you is a colorful and frenetic animated music video for one of the two new songs, “Prism Prison”, which is itself colorful and frenetic. It’s a purely instrumental form of technical death metal that may bring to mind fond memories of Blotted Science. There’s a lot of fret-wizardry on display, and as the song barrels along its brain-twisting course it becomes increasingly complex, blending start-stop rhythms, call-and-response interchanges between the bass and the guitars, and deranged note swarms that build to a frenzied crescendo.

But here’s perhaps the most surprising thing about the song: cunningly intertwined within the matrix of instrumental intricacy is an infectious melody that you may not even realize you heard until the song ends — and then it surfaces in your head and makes you want to go back and re-live the experience. That’s an impressive achievement. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOME OF THE UNREPLENISHED — “TAKE ME TO THE STARS”

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Feb 242015
 

 

In January we came across a musical teaser clip for a forthcoming album entitled Innerstanding by a Cypriot band named Tome of the Unreplenished, and featured it (here) without much commentary in a round-up of new discoveries. Since then we’ve had the chance to explore the album, and today we bring you the premiere of a full song, a work named “Take Me To the Stars”.

The sole member of this band, who calls himself Hermes, was at one time affiliated with the satanic black metal band Necrosadist (and the new album was mixed by Necrosadist’s A. Dictator), but Innerstanding is not an assault of raw black metal. Though it still makes use of black metal elements, it has different goals and follows different pathways, more a work of personal catharsis and experimentation than a re-treading of old, unhallowed ground. As the album’s title suggests, it is an exploration of one man’s inner self as well as a conception of an individual’s place in the immensity of the cosmos. Yet the music is also open to interpretation by the listener, the kind of sounds that inspire imaginings which will vary from person to person. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DRUDKH — “TILL FOREIGN GROUND SHALL COVER EYES”

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Feb 242015
 

 

On April 20, Season of Mist will release the first new album by Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh since 2012’s Eternal Turn of the Wheel. The name of the new album is A Furrow Cut Short, and today we have the pleasure of bringing you its first advance track — “Till Foreign Ground Shall Cover Eyes”.

The music races, but within the vibrating whirl of guitars and the bolting rhythms, huge waves of dramatic melody move like tides, slow and powerful. The pulsating bass notes, rapid-fire drum munitions, and wild, predatory howls get the blood pumping, but the non-stop intensity of the auditory assault only enhances the passion and staying power of the fiery, tremolo-driven melody. It’s an exhilarating cascade of black metal potency, both ferocious in the moment and memorable in the aftermath. Continue reading »

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