AN NCS PREMIERE: NEOLITH — “OF THE ANGEL AND HIS ORISON”

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Jan 132015
 

About one week ago we included in one of our “round-ups” of new music a teaser video for a new album coming from Non Serviam Records by a Polish blackened death metal band named Neolith. At that time we noted the label’s announcement that a full song would be online soon. And sure enough, the full song is now here — and we’re bringing it to you!

The name of this new song is “Of Angel and His Orison” and it’s drawn from Neolith’s fourth studio album, Izi.Im.Kurnu-Ki.

The phrase “blackened death metal” isn’t terribly precise as a genre label; it covers a multitude of different sounds. What you will here in this song is completely electrifying. That’s not terribly precise either, so allow me to elaborate. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VIVUS HUMARE — “DER SCHMERZ WECKT”

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Jan 132015
 

 

The German black metal band Vivus Humare came together in 2007 and released their first demo, Prolog, in 2008. Now, the Eisenwald label is on the brink of releasing the band’s debut album, a five-track work entitled Einkehr. Today we bring you the premiere of the album’s opening song, “Der Schmerz weckt”.

Einkehr is an album that is best heard in a single sitting, from start to finish, uninterrupted. It’s a dynamic and atmospheric work that works the listener’s moods like clay in the hands of a craftsman, and its achievements aren’t fully realized until the entire process has run its course and reached its final, finished form.

Having said that, “Der Schmerz Weckt” is also a very strong stand-alone track that in itself reflects the dynamism and atmospheric power of the album as a whole. Continue reading »

AN NCS FULL-ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ARCHGOAT — “THE APOCALYPTIC TRIUMPHATOR”

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Jan 132015
 

 

(We bring you the premiere of a full-album stream of the new work by the primordial Finnish horde Archgoat, preceded by Will Cifer’s introductory review.)

This album is another argument in favor of the dominance of European black metal. This Finnish band have been spreading the unholy word since the church-burning second wave of black metal in the early nineties. They have left a trail of splits and EPs in their wake, but this is only the band’s third full-length… so it’s kind of a big deal.

Archgoat combine the more classic metal sounds of early black metal with elements of a more grime-coated flavor of death metal than an entity like Mortuary Drape does, even though the two bands circle a similar sonic landscape. Archgoat’s strength is in mid-paced and even crawling tempos, and the mood of the music is often shrouded in a heavy cloak of doom. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW AND A PREMIERE: VON — “BLACK LOTUS (BASS DEMO)” AND “EXTINCTION”

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Jan 122015
 

 

As those who dwell in the underground already know, the seminal U.S. black metal band VON has embarked on an unusual audiovisual project: They are releasing their third album Dark Gods: Birth of the Architects  (which is itself Part II of a trilogy that began with 2013’s Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves) in 12 CD installments, with each of the 12 tracks accompanied by part of a comic book named Dark Gods written and illustrated by VON’s founder VENIEN!!! Each CD includes not only a version of a track from the album — which will be released in its entirety in March — but also a bonus track exclusive to the comic book.

Today we bring you a special two-part feature: the premiere of a demo teaser for the album’s 7th track “Black Lotus” along with an instrumental B-side from the CD called “Extinction”, plus an exclusive interview with VON’s drummer “Dirty FvKn! Pistols” and the band’s guitarist “HangMan”. The interview, conducted by e-mail, comes first… the images you will see are preview pages from the comic.

THE INTERVIEW

“Dark Gods: Birth of the Architect” is an unusual project – 12 songs released on a weekly basis, with each song accompanied by an installment of a 12-part “Dark Gods” comic book, with a variety of variant covers. For people who are just learning about this, could you explain the concept behind the story and the music?

Dirty Fvkn! Pistols:
The idea was to take the story each song told individually and release them as though someone was giving you a novel, one chapter at a time. Conceptually we already intended to intertwine them so it just made sense to us. We wanted a record that was more than just a bunch of songs, but rather its own entity within itself. It was important that each piece be the correct fit to make one cohesive unit in the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AETHERIAN — “AS SEASONS PASS”

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Jan 112015
 

Aetherian is a fantastic two-man melodic death metal band from Athens, Greece, whose two previous singles I’ve already lavished with praise: “Drops of Light” (featured here in December 2013) and “Scar of Despair” (featured here last March). Today we have the pleasure of bringing you the premiere of the lyric video for a new Aetherian single: “As Seasons Pass”.

This new song will appear on a forthcoming debut EP entitled Tales of Our Times that will include four other brand new songs in addition to this one. The beautiful cover art (above) was created by Remedy Art Design.

“As Seasons Pass” is further proof of Aetherian’s talent in crafting songs that are immediately gripping and have staying power as well. The song is both a hard-driving gallop and a carrier of dark, entrancing melody, with riffs to die for and lead guitar arpeggios that spiral and shimmer. The song also includes an evocative, beautifully performed acoustic interlude, and powerful vocals that are both gargantuan and ghostly when whispered. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SICKENING — “THE PROPHECIES OF EIBON”

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Jan 092015
 

 

Last month we discovered that Sickening from Firenze, Italy, had completed a third album entitled The Beyond and had released an advance track called “…And then new light” — which turned out to be thoroughly obliterating. Today we have the pleasure of bringing you the premiere of a second song from the new album — “The Prophecies of Eibon”.

Before you hear it, you should be aware that this new full-length is a concept album based on the 1981 cult Italian horror movie The Beyond, which was directed by Lucio Fulci and filmed in part in and around New Orleans, Louisiana. In a vividly gruesome way, it tells the story of events at a hotel that open a doorway to death and lead to the invasion of our world by the dead.

One artifact that plays a role in the movie is an ancient book discovered in the hotel that bears the name Eibon (a name that should be familiar to fans of H.P. Lovecraft). And that brings us to the song you’re about to hear: “The Prophecies of Eibon”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: THORR-AXE — “GATES OF WINTER”

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Jan 082015
 

 

MetalSucks and American Aftermath have premiered individual tracks from Gates of Winter — the second album by Indiana’s Thorr-Axe — and those were tasty appetizers, but now we serve you the main course: a full-album stream.

When I first saw the cover of Gates of Winter, and coupled that with the band’s name, I’m afraid I got the wrong impression. I was expecting tongue-in-cheek, Viking-themed folk metal, with extra cheese. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

There is indeed a narrative concept that gives the album its structure — a tale loosely based on Norse mythology, with some high fantasy thrown in. As the band’s vocalist/guitarist Tucker Thomasson has said (here), “It’s full of frost giants, shit talking, a magic sword forged by a smith producing an incessant stream of f-bombs, and a metric fuckload of ice and snow.”

But the music, the music is something else again. It is no joke. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANCIENT WIND — “WITH HATE IN THEIR EYES”

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Jan 052015
 

Ancient Wind are from Glenwood Springs, Colorado, but you wouldn’t guess that from their music. The Chosen Slain is their debut album, but you wouldn’t guess that either — because it sounds like something produced by a band with multiple albums already under their belts. But judge for yourselves — because you’re about to hear the album’s first single, “With Hate In Their Eyes”.

Glenwood Springs may be nestled in the Rockies at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Roaring Fork River, a town where Doc Holliday spent the final months of his life and was buried, but there’s a lot of Northern Europe in Ancient Wind’s sound. They identify such bands as Amon Amarth and Immortal among their influences — along with the likes of David Alan Coe, Poison, and Anal Cunt. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “MELENA’S MASK” BY SEWER GODDESS

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Jan 052015
 

 

You can’t find the word “painlust” in any standard dictionary, but it should be a word. If you think about it, it sums up a material part of the human condition. It’s also the name given by Boston-based Sewer Goddess to their new album. Today we give you an introduction to the musical concept of painlust through our premiere of the album’s first advance track, “Melena’s Mask”.

Sewer Goddess made their full-length debut through 2010’s With Dirt You Are One. That was followed by a variety of tape, compilation, and live recordings, but this new song reveals a further evolution of the band’s sound.

Following an introductory fog of static-saturated noise, the band bring down slow hammer blows of fuzz-drenched chords and industrialized percussive pounding. Dissonant guitar excretions writhe through the tumult, and machine-manipulator Kristen Rose howls and shrieks like a banshee tortured to the point of derangement. The song is like a death march, with ranks of the wretched being fed into the teeth of a soul destroyer. Both harrowing and hypnotic, it seems to function as a statement of intent for the album, and as a convincing embodiment of the lust for pain. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY — “HUNTER OF THE CELESTIAL SEA”

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Dec 302014
 

 

The Australian musician Dis Pater has been involved in a multitude of many-hued projects (I’m still very much looking forward to hearing more from his work in Dissvarth, mentioned here), but perhaps his best-known creations have appeared under the banner of Midnight Odyssey. 2011’s Funerals From the Astral Sphere was a very impressive debut album of atmospheric black metal, and next spring I, Voidhanger Records will bring forth the second Midnight Odyssey full-length, an album named Shards of Silver Fade. As the old year draws to a close, we give you a glimpse of what the new year holds in store as we premiere a song from Shards: “Hunter of the Celestial Sea”.

The notes we received accompanying “Hunter of the Celestial Sea” included these words:

The funeral doom grandeur of Tempestuous Fall and the dark-wave vibe of The Crevices Below — Dis Pater’s past projects — have been successfully injected into Midnight Odyssey’s cosmic black metal body, redoubling the emotional intensity and dark majesty of its melodies. The result is nothing short of an epic masterpiece, a visionary night voyage of approximately 2 hours and 23 minutes connecting our ancient pagan past with the apocalyptic feelings of a cosmic death.

“Each song has taken an immense amount of time and energy, so much that I have been left with little to no desire to even listen to music over the last 12 months or so. It combines elements of all my previous releases, from all my previous projects, a true convergence of styles and musicality. If this were the last Midnight Odyssey release, I would be very proud for it to be so.” Continue reading »

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