AN NCS PREMIERE: VEX — “TO ANACREON (STRANGLING THE MUSE)”

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Jun 262014
 

If you’ve been lucky enough to catch the Southeastern leg of Agalloch’s current tour, then you’ve already had the chance to witness the live performance of Vex from Austin, Texas, who’ve been along with Agalloch for that ride. For those who haven’t had that chance, we’ve got the next best thing — a premiere of a new Vex song that’s destined to appear on the band’s third album, Sky Exile.

This really well-written, mainly mid-paced song employs the kind of heavy, hammering riffs and flesh-raking vocals that will be familiar to fans of classic Scandinavian melodic death metal, but as the song unfolds it moves in increasingly interesting and unexpected directions, becoming a sophisticated, multi-textured work with the power to draw you back again and again. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRIEG — “WORTHLESS NOTHING”

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Jun 252014
 

On July 15, Unholy Anarchy Records will release a four-song split by Krieg and Ramlord, and today we’re delighted to premiere one of Krieg’s two tracks, “Worthless Nothing” — a cover of a song from the 1993 LP The Greatest Invention by the seminal UK crust band Doom.

As I wrote in my recent review of this excellent split, Krieg’s decision to cover this particular song makes perfect sense in the context of this release. It’s a natural pairing with both Krieg’s other song, an original composition named “Mocking Dead Empires”, and the blackened crust-punk assaults mounted by Ramlord. “Worthless Nothing” drives hard and fast, propelled by a combination of virally infectious jumping riffs and doused in acid by one of the best voices in US black metal.

Krieg long ago cemented its place as one of the cornerstone bands of black metal in the U.S. After two decades in the trenches, Krieg has nothing left to prove — but the creative fires are obviously still burning hot and bright. Listening to Krieg turn back the clock to the spawning grounds of crust while putting the band’s own vicious stamp on the sound is proof of that, and it’s also an enticing tease for the Krieg full-length (Transient) that’s expected later this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EXXXEKUTIONER — “MANIAC ASYLUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 252014
 

I hadn’t even made it to the last song on my advance copy of Fear the Priest before I was blasting an e-mail to the publicist for Exxxekutioner, begging for the chance to premiere a track from this debut EP. I got my wish, and now you’ll get a taste of what got me so pumped up about this six-song main-line of pure mosh fuel.

This group of four twenty-somethings from the vicinity of Manchester in the UK have only been together since the spring of last year, but you’d never guess that from the music they make. They have mature skills and old souls — and by that I mean a direct channel to the early spirit of bands like Venom, Sodom, and Destruction, delivering a brash and authentic blast of thrash, black, and speed metal like they’ve been doing it for decades.

The hell-ripping songs on Fear the Priest fly like a horde of bat-winged demons, the kind of speed you’d reach if you were on fire and the nearest water source was three blocks away. The riffs are to die for — super-charged with adrenaline and loaded with irresistible hooks — and the tumbling, rumbling drumwork and booming bass will get their hooks in you, too. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: AVULSED — “HORRIFIED BY REPULSION”

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Jun 172014
 

The Spanish death metal band Avulsed have been slaughtering souls and raping ears for more than two decades, and the passage of time seems to have had no effect on the strength and immediacy of their powers — their latest album, 2013’s Ritual Zombi, is a classic undead crusher (and as you can see, it’s adorned by deliciously grotesque artwork).

Part of what makes Ritual Zombi such a potent album is the sound of Dave Rotten’s voice. To steal the words from one appreciative review, “his decrepit, rumbling, nihilistic growls remain an immense feature here…. [He] gurgles like a human sewer spewing forth flesh-eating plasma”. But although his vocal presence strides the album’s landscape like a titanic golem, the record is also loaded with grisly riffs and suppurating guitar leads that have a way of getting stuck in your head.

Speaking of grisly old-school riffs and morbid melodies, we’re pleased to bring you the premiere of Avulsed’s lyric video for “Horrified By Repulsion” from Ritual Zombi. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISKORD — “LETHARGIC REGRESSION”

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Jun 162014
 

(Austin Weber wrote the following introduction to our premiere of a new song by Norway’s Diskord.)

To metalheads, Norway is synonymous with black metal and all things grim and frostbitten. What metalheads don’t usually associate with Norway is death metal. So in that respect, the Oslo, Norway trio Diskord are a bit of an oddity, geographically speaking — and even more so when you consider that their brand of death metal calls to mind a largely American and old-school-influenced approach.

Hot on the heels of their 2012 disasterpiece, Dystopics, comes an appropriately titled new EP from the group: Oscillations. We at No Clean Singing are excited to bring you the first unholy taste of this upcoming effort with the premiere of “Lethargic Regression”.

“Lethargic Regression” is a schizophrenic entity, one that bounces uncomfortably between disorienting dissonant waves and split-second tempo shifts. The maddening assault hits like a calculated blend of Demilich on a bender with Atheist, Gorguts, and Immolation in tow, all the while frequently pulling you down toward the grave with Autopsy-esque lurches and pestilential pit-stops. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARCH ENEMY — “NO MORE REGRETS”

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Jun 102014
 

Arch Enemy live at Sweden Rock — photo by Am. Creations, used with permission.

The new album from Arch Enemy, War Eternal, is being released today in North America by Century Media and to celebrate the occasion we bring you the premiere of the band’s official video for the album’s fifth track, “No More Regrets”.

For a genre of music that at its core is about wrecking convention, metal has a surprising number of fans who tend to resist change. Arch Enemy, of course, experienced a big change this year with the end of the Angela Gossow era and her replacement by new frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz. That has led to some upheaval in the ranks of the Arch Enemy faithful — an upheaval that has sometimes seemed to overshadow the music on War Eternal itself, which happens to be excellent.

As our writer Andy Synn put it in his review of the new album, “[T]he recent changes to the band’s line-up really are a blessing in disguise. Throughout War Eternal the new Arch Enemy sound renewed and re-energised, a band firing on all cylinders and with something to prove – to themselves as much as to everyone else…. [The album] succeeds in taking the by-now familiar formula of the Arch Enemy sound and sharpening it, strengthening it, giving it teeth and claws and a fresh appetite for destruction.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PILLORY — “MASS ENMITY”

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May 302014
 

Boston’s Pillory will soon be releasing their second album Evolutionary Miscarriage via the Unique Leader label. If you’re familiar with other bands on the Unique Leader roster, then you’ll probably be able to make a good guess about the particular type of mayhem that Pillory deliver, but we’re going to remove the guesswork by premiering a stream of the new album’s second track, “Mass Enmity”.

If you aren’t intrigued by the instrumental introduction, I’ll be surprised, because it’s very enticing. But the song just grows more and more interesting, the kind of music that simultaneously activates the reptile part of the brain while engrossing the higher faculties as well. Parts of the track sound like a conflict raging on some futuristic battlefield. Parts of it surf on cosmic space lanes. Other parts sound like the soundtrack to the work of a big mainframe solving an immensely complex mathematical formula. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FALL OF THE ALBATROSS — “LIMERENCE”

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May 292014
 

(Austin Weber provides the following introduction to our premiere of a new track by Fall of the Albatross from Queens, New York.)

The bewildering experience of taking in Fall Of The Albatross is overwhelming at first, as they are masters of splicing chaos and calm to form intricate dynamic webs and make every bit of it fit together perfectly. For those who’ve missed my previous posts here regarding the band, they are a highly eclectic instrumental metal band with a focus on blowing your mind. The June 24th release of their new full-length, Enormous Cloud, draws ever closer, and thus another song premiere is in order.

Which brings us today to the adventurous journey contained within “Limerence”, a song that churns out planet-smashing math core, stuffs it with a fluffy jazz filling, and sneaks in sublime swelling post-rock builds as well. They arrange the opposing styles expertly to split-second ping-pong off each another brilliantly. From vicious tempo changes to unwinding solitude, this song encapsulates the essence of the record — no boundaries. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COPROCEPHALIC — “DESOLATION OF CONJOINED EMBODIMENT”

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May 232014
 

Coprocephalic are a multinational band, with two members in Taiwan and one in Southern California. Their debut album Gluttonous Chunks descended in 2013, and they have now signed with Lacerated Enemy Records for the impending release of their new album The Oath of Relinquishment, as well as a limited edition EP that will precede the album — Desolation of Conjoined Embodiment.

The new releases feature the eye-catching artwork of one of our favorites, Ken Sarafin (Sarafin Concepts), and both the EP and the album include guest vocal appearances by a trio of brutal heavyweights — Matti Way (Pathology), Angel Ochoa (Disgorge), and Jeremiah Blue Jensen (Guttural Secrete).

Today we bring you the debut of the EP’s title track, “Desolation of Conjoined Embodiment”, which features guest vocals by Angel Ochoa. Measured strictly by the commonly accepted defining standards of brutal slamming death metal, it is a highly accomplished piece of merciless thuggery. But more is going on in the song than a decimating beatdown. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM BLUT AUS NORD AND P.H.O.B.O.S.

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May 222014
 

Last month we reported the announcement by Debemur Morti Records that on June 20 (June 24 in North America) the label would be releasing a split by Blut Aus Nord and P.H.O.B.O.S. entitled Triunity, featuring artwork by Polish artist Katarzyna Urbanek (you can see one of the two paintings above). Today, we bring you one song by each of these French bands from the forthcoming split.

The offering we have for you by Blut Aus Nord is “De Librio Arbitrio”. As we have come to expect from this band, the music has an otherworldly quality, a dissonant, dimension-piercing ambience that surrounds some truly gargantuan riffs and bone-jarring percussion. The song is heavy as hell and rhythmically compulsive, while at the same time ringing with the reverberations of cosmic melody and clawing with the strangling sound of barbed-wire vocals. Fantastic. Continue reading »

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