AN NCS PREMIERE: CANOPY AND HARASAI (AN ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES SPLIT)

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Jul 282014
 

I’ve been following the progress of the Elemental Nightmares project since before it became public, writing about it for the first time in July 2013. It began as an effort to raise money for a subscription series of 13 splits on 7″ vinyl (with digital download options) featuring one exclusive song each by 26 up-and-coming bands from around the world. As the project evolved, the format changed, so that it will now consist of 7 splits on 10″ vinyl, with each split containing four songs instead of two. And, because of the new format, there will be 28 bands instead of 26.

In addition, Elemental Nightmares has offered the splits for sale on an individual basis, as well as subscriptions to the series as a whole, and the digital-only option is still available. To see the names of all 28 bands and for more info about purchase options, go here. The first of the splits will be released in early August; you can find the entire preliminary release schedule later in this post.

Earlier this year Invisible Oranges) premiered four songs that will appear on the fourth installment of the series, featuring music from Porta Nigra (Germany), Membaris (Germany), Ashencult (Philadelphia), and Vuyvr (Switzerland).Today, we’re delighted to premiere two songs of melodic death metal from one more of the 7 splits. The bands are Sweden’s Canopy and Germany’s Harasai. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DYSANGELIUM — “LEVIAXXIS”

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Jul 252014
 

The World Terror Committee (aka W.T.C. Productions) is such an aptly named label. They have a knack for unearthing bands whose music is indeed terroristic, and they have done it again with the impending release of a three-song demo by Germany’s Dysangelium. At the risk of causing the derangement of our readers, we are pleased to bring you the premiere of all three songs on Leviaxxis.

Dysangelium mount a vicious assault, armed with rapidly racing riffs shrouded in dissonance and distortion and an absolutely galvanizing rhythm section. The charging phalanx of swarming, scything guitars and pummeling drum-and-bass munitions is led by a tyrannical commander whose vocals are absolutely wild — a thoroughly impassioned assortment of unhinged roars, howls, and yells. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOCCON — “IMPERMANENCE”

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Jul 252014
 

 

We were really impressed by the 2013 debut EP (The Wither Fields) by Athens, Georgia’s Woccon and we’ve been anxiously awaiting the band’s debut album Solace In Decay, which is now scheduled for release on October 21, 2014, by Deathbound Records.  Earlier this year, Decibel premiered the album’s first single (“Giving Up the Ghost”), and today we’re bringing you a second one — “Impermanence”.

Tumbling drums and spiraling guitar notes announce the multifaceted song, which moves between passages that are shimmering and crystalline and moments of jolting, hammering power. Tyrannical, gravel-throated vocals deliver harsh proclamations as the band build an atmosphere steeped in melancholy, with melodies that are both beautiful and bereft. It’s another fine offering of melodic death/doom from an album that promises to be worth the wait. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACKWITCH PUDDING — “GODS OF GRUNGUS”

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Jul 152014
 

 

There’s some kind of party going on at the beginning of “Gods of Grungus”, the song we’re premiering today by Portland, Oregon’s Blackwitch Pudding. It sounds like a party that’s about to get way out of hand — and then the pounding starts, bones begin to splinter, and the splash of viscera begins to paint the walls red. Or at least that’s what I was imagining while I banged my head ’til the vertebrae began to disjoint.

The song is one of four that will appear on the band’s forthcoming EP, Covered In Pudding Vol. 1, which follows the 2013 debut album by these three robed wizards, Taste the Pudding. It’s a methodically pulverizing concoction, loaded with craggy monolithic riffs, gut-jarring bass and drum hammering, and vocals that are choked with gravel, booze, and the contents of a full ashtray. As this demented and doomed party continues, the guitar begins to squall and wretch like the victim of a ritual sacrifice. The song is a putrescent mass of riff infection, and it’s really damned easy to catch the disease.

If you’re in the mood for some filthy stoner doom that you can carry around in your head all day, look no further. Bonus points if you can figure out the song that these doom wizards are parodying. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EMPIRE AURIGA — “JUBILEE WARLORD”

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Jul 112014
 

Millennia of evolutionary adaptation are supposed too have given human beings certain survival instincts, and yet we’re inexplicably drawn to explore dark, haunted places where hidden dangers lie in wait and comfort, warmth, and light have been banished. Michigan’s Empire Auriga have seemingly made it their mission to capture those frigid, bereft sensations in their music. Eight years after their debut album Auriga Dying, they’re about to deliver a new album named Ascending the Solarthrone, and today we bring you the premiere of a new song from the album: “Jubilee Warlord”.

The word “jubilee” connotes a kind of celebration, but there is no joy in this song, only a dense atmosphere of mourning and anguish. The music moves glacially across icy waves of eerie, distorted, ambient melody punctuated by cannon-blast drum beats and wretched, skin-clawing howls. Prolonged piercing notes rise up and fall again, like rays of light trying to escape a crushing gravity well — without success. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PRINCIPALITY OF HELL — “CODEX INFERNO”

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Jul 102014
 

Greece has long been a spawning ground of powerhouse metal in the underground scene, but 2014 is shaping up to be a banner year. It has already delivered excellent (and quite diverse) releases by the likes of Aetherian, Burial Hordes, Dead Congregation, Dodsferd, Hail Spirit Noir, Septicflesh, Spectral Lore, and Suicidal Angels. Now we must add to that list Fire and Brimstone by Principality of Hell — and we’re giving you a chance to discover its vicious pleasures by premiering a song from the album named “Codex Inferno”.

Principality of Hell may be a new name, but it’s composed of veteran musicians, including three members of Thou Art Lord: The Magus (also Necromantia), El (also Nergal, Soulskinner), and J. Maelstrom (also Dephosphorus, Dodsferd, Ravencult). In this new project, however, the trio have turned their obsidian energies to the creation of black thrashing hellfire. Continue reading »

A NEW NCS RELEASE IS NOW LIVE: “HOLD FAST! GRINDVIOLENCE COMPILATION”

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Jul 082014
 

We warned you yesterday that today we would be cooperating with Kydoimos Records in the Bandcamp release of a free 20-track compilation of music from 20 UK grind violence bands, featuring artwork by Mark Rennie — and it is now a live thing. Go here to listen and to download the music, either a track at a time or as an entire album:

http://nocleansinging.bandcamp.com/album/hold-fast-grindviolence-compilation

The album download also comes with a special 27-page zine created by Alex Layzell (of Grind to Death and Kydoimos) that includes band interviews and a lot of cool artwork.

Big thanks to Alex for doing all of the really hard work to make this a reality, and of course huge thanks to the bands for contributing their music. Eventually, the comp will be released on cassette tape with accompanying hard copies of the zine, and we’ll let you know when that happens. The album stream comes next… Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FÓRN — “SUFFERING IN THE ETERNAL VOID”

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Jul 072014
 

Boston’s Fórn hit our radar screen about a week ago when Invisible Oranges premiered “Dweller on the Threshold”, the first advance track from the band’s forthcoming new EP, The Departure of Consciousness. I’m still trying to recover from that obliterating experience; the recovery has taken longer than originally predicted because just when I feel about ready to get out of bed, I go back and listen to the song again. I’m going to be bed-ridden for a lot longer, because I’ve also been listening to a second song from the EP, which we have the good fortune of sharing with you today in this premiere.

The song you’re about to hear is “Suffering In the Eternal Void”. Chiming like bells, the slow, melancholy melody at the song’s beginning catches hold very quickly. Five or six minutes of that could prove to be thoroughly hypnotizing. But just as the music has succeeded in gently pulling you into its embrace, it then  tightens its grip and drags you bodily into a pit of deep, suffocating doom. That seductive melody becomes a crushingly heavy dirge, though no less seductive — this misery is mesmerizing. And the vocals, they sound like sulphuric acid eating through steel, or like some shrieking poltergeist that has become your companion for this slow fall into the void.

Yet another powerhouse song from a band whose name deserves to be spread like a plague. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVIDIOSUS — “EXACERBATED PSYCHOSIS”

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Jul 022014
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces a new song we’re premiering today from the debut album by Minnesota’s Invidiosus.)

An issue that seems to especially plague metal bands and impede their future is the high number of members many bands go through. It takes a hearty group with guts to stick through a revolving-door line-up, and few can understand this struggle better than Minneapolis, Minnesota natives Invidiosus. Since forming as a group in 2006, they have gone through 20 members, releasing a few demos and EPs along the way and now preparing for the imminent July 7th arrival of their debut full-length, Malignant Universe. It’s an album that includes an eclectic mix of powerful older compositions alongside bold new ones. It’s the silver lining to their unfortunate revolving door issue: With so many different people (collectively) having written the music contained on Malignant Universe, there is a healthy diversity to their generally grind-blasted death. Malignant Universe exhumes the past and yet doesn’t reside their. It takes restrained guidance from modern, more technical deathly forms, and yet doesn’t wholly reside there either.

“Exacerbated Psychosis”, the song we’re premiering today, is a putrid trip to the graveyard, with all the offal trimmings and horror intact. The opening riff and drum combo hints at a barrelling Origin-style sound, and yet the lacerating and churning build that follows gnaws at you with more primitive teeth and bestial vocal charm. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISPLAY OF DECAY — “OUTBREAK OF INFECTION”

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Jun 272014
 

Display of Decay roam the badlands of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. They released a self-titled debut album in 2012 and have followed that up with a five-track EP named Outbreak of Infection, due for release on August 26. Today we bring you the premiere of the EP’s title track.

“Outbreak of Infection” is a Deicide-al rampage of fast, rapacious riffing and spitfire soloing, with gut-punching drums and a gruesomely guttural vocal performance. These dudes do a good jump injecting the music with snake venom and radiating an aura of ravenous evil. They bring the death metal brutality, spiced up with insidious melody and high-voltage fretwork. Continue reading »

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