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 »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RISE OF AVERNUS — “AN ALARUM OF FATE”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  23 Responses »
Feb 232015
 

 

Australia’s Rise of Avernus are following up their 2013 debut album L’appel du vide with a new EP entitled Dramatis Personæ. It’s a five-track, half-hour affair that includes a guest vocal appearance by Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson (on the song “Acta Est Fabula”) — and today we bring you a stream of the EP’s penultimate song, “An Alarum of Fate“.

The booming drums and darting orchestral strings that start the song provide immediate elements of intrigue, and they are strong attractions to the music throughout. But they’re not the only attractions. Take the vocals, for example: They’re an appealing blend of flesh-scarring growls, skyward-soaring clean vocals, and ghostly whispers. And just as appealing is the music’s integration of heavy riffs, hammering beats, mesmerizing piano notes, warm bass tones, and dreamlike strings. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WARDAEMONIC — “ENDLESS WAR”

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Feb 232015
 

 

On January 3 of this year I saw the remarkable artwork you’re now looking at, a piece named “The Cold Steps To Solitude” by the Australian artist Chris Cold that was then destined to appear as the cover of an album by a band from Perth named Wardaemonic. I remember the date because I wasted no time in posting it on our site’s Facebook page. And I thought to myself, if the music turns out to be as good as the art, the album is going to be an eye-opener, too.

The name of the album is Obsequium, it’s due for release on March 13, and we have the pleasure of premiering its first advance track, “Endless War”.

That’s a fitting title for this song, because it’s a full-force black metal blitzkrieg of blasting drums, storming tremolo riffs, and razor-edged shrieks. The boiling conflagration is punctuated by bursts of dual-guitar jabbing and it subsides in the closing minutes to make room for a slow, sinuous passage of atmospheric melody, moving like poison fog across the blasted battlefield. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE RITUAL AURA — “TIME-LOST UTOPIA”

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Feb 202015
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a new song by The Ritual Aura.)

Lately we have witnessed an off-shoot within the technical death metal sound, one more progressively focused than dedicated to sheer mind-numbing bouts of hitting listeners with hammers and bolts of sonic lightning. Acts such as Obscura, Fallujah, and most recently Beyond Creation, have exemplified this trend and taken tech-death in a new and higher-minded direction.

Joining these high-level acts are a group of Australian upstarts named The Ritual Aura who decimate with a focus and skill similar to that of the aforementioned bands. We at NCS are proud to showcase the considerable talents of this band with a premiere of their new song “Time-Lost Utopia”, which will appear on their upcoming full-length, Laniakea. Continue reading »

THE ORDER OF APOLLYON: “THE SWORD AND THE DAGGER”

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Feb 182015
 

 

In the five years since The Order of Apollyon released their debut album (The Flesh), the band’s former multinational line-up has undergone a near-complete makeover. Only the founder, guitarist/vocalist BST (Aosoth, ex-Balrog, ex-Aborted), remains, now joined by three other experienced musicians who are all members of the French extreme metal scene. Their new album, just released in Europe by Listenable Records, is The Sword and the Dagger.

The band’s debut album seasoned death metal with elements of black metal, and the new album again displays a blending of those styles, though I’d go so far as to say that the new record is more black than death.

Much of the music storms with intensity, driven hard by superheated blast-beat assaults and double-bass thunder, pulsating bass lines, and fleet-fingered riffs that swarm, writhe, and jab. But the rampaging aggressiveness is tempered with contrasting instrumental interludes and passages of sweeping, majestic melody. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MEPHORASH — “Sfaíra Ti̱s Fo̱tiás”

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Feb 162015
 

 

Mephorash are an occult black metal band from Uppsala, Sweden, with two albums to their credit, both released by Grom Records — Death Awakens (2011) and Chalice of Thagirion (2012). In 2013 they added to those works through a split release with Philadelphia’s Ashencult entitled Opus Serpens, and we had the pleasure of premiering the Mephorash track for the split, “Atramentous Ungod Aspect”, which included guest vocals by Acherontas V. Priest of the occult multinational band Acherontas.

Mephorash are now about to come roaring back with a new EP celebrating their five years of existence. It’s entitled Sfaíra Ti̱s Fo̱tiás, and today we have the pleasure of helping to premiere a lyric video for its title track.

For people like me, who have long admired the engraved illustrations of French artist Gustave Doré, the video is a feast for the eyes (and credit to Markus Hedelin for making it). The music is also a feast for the ears, and together, Mephorash and Doré make an inspired pairing. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT — “KROKODIL”

 Premieres  10 Responses »
Feb 162015
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a new song by NYC’s Imperial Triumphant from their forthcoming second album, Abyssal Gods.)

Imperial Triumphant are not only one of the most important U.S. black metal acts currently active, truly carving their own stylistic path, but they are also important to the future of black metal. Not only do I not give two shits how presumptuous that sounds, but I am also very confident (as an overall largely un-confident person) in my assertion of both their unique skill and their liquefying intensity as musical operatives.

While their latest approaching album, Abyssal Gods, is overall a thoroughly vicious act of blasphemy packed with more memorable moments than many bands accumulate in a lifetime of albums, the song we are premiering today, “Krokodil”, is an even stranger and more off-beat track than the rest of the intricately composed yet grotesquely unfolding siren wails from hell that make up the rest of this ruthless record. Imperial Triumphant have always had a queasy, slower, droning counter-balance to their fury, infusing it with a needling sickness and a blackened nuance of psychedelia that puts you in a trance comparable to none. It’s exactly this facet of their sound in which “Krokodil” traffics. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: AETHYR — “CORPUS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 162015
 

 

Five years after their debut album Messio and three years after their last release of any kind, the Moscow doom band Aethyr have returned with a new full-length entitled Corpus. In advance of its February 19 release by Cimmerian Shade Recordings, we’re pleased to being you a full stream of the album in all of its staggering immensity. But I need to immediately apologize for calling Aethyr a “doom band”, because the music on Corpus is not so easily summed up.

Across the seven tracks and 50 minutes of music that make up Corpus, Aethyr integrate elements of black metal, sludge, and ambient noise into their core framework of titanic doom. The musical landscape changes as the album unfolds, but never leaves the blasted territory of hopelessness and ruination. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NEOLITH — “ENLIL”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 162015
 

 

One month ago we had the pleasure of premiering a decimating new song by the Polish band Neolith, a song named “Of Angel and His Orison” from the band’s new album (their fourth), Izi.Im.Kurnu-Ki. One good turn deserves another, and so today we are equally happy to bring you one more taste of this new record — an official lyric video for a song named “Enlil“.

The new song is yet another example of Neolith’s ability to deliver completely pulverizing blackened death metal. It begins slowly, with enormous groaning riffs and an immediately palpable atmosphere of frightful oppressiveness. And then the song erupts — a volcanic explosion of flailing riffs, hammering grooves, and primal roars and shrieks. The drumming punches holes through flesh at the speed of an automatic weapon, and just when you think the song can’t get much more destructive, a guitar solo ignites like a flamethrower. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BELOW THE SUN — “ENVOY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  10 Responses »
Feb 162015
 

 

On a September morning more than 37 years ago, the Voyager 1 spacecraft rose from the Earth on a mission that may have no end. In August 2012 it entered interstellar space, traveling father than anyone, or anything, in human history. Hurtling ahead at a speed of 38,000 mph (61,000 km/h), it passes further beyond our reach with each passing second, pushing forward deeper and deeper into the void.

From their own vantage point in the city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberian Russia, an enigmatic band who call themselves Below the Sun have taken the solitary journey of Voyager 1 as their inspiration, crafting a concept album entitled Envoy that stands as their musical introduction to this world. Today we bring you a full stream of this unusual and unusually accomplished debut work, preceded by this review.

Hearing the album, it’s difficult to believe that it’s the first musical output of this quintet. It has the earmarks of people who already know their craft quite well, and perhaps they do — they wear masks and they go by names they weren’t born with (Vacuum, Quasar, Entropy, Lightspeed, Void), so their histories are hidden. And thus the music speaks for itself. Continue reading »

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