AN NCS PREMIERE: LISTEN TO A FULL STREAM OF ABORTED’S “NECROTIC MANIFESTO”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  6 Responses »
Apr 282014
 

(In this post BadWolf reviews the new album by Aborted — The Necrotic Manifesto — and we bring you for the first time anywhere a full stream of the album in its entirety.)

When you have a staff as wild as the NCS crew, it’s pretty difficult to arrive at anything approaching consensus. Between Islander, myself, Izzy and Andy, not to mention our various contributing writers, we like pretty much every style of metal (Note: that sentence, to anyone just casually reading this site, probably sounds completely absurd. You’re right. It’s totally absurd, but follow me). Concordantly, whenever there’s a record that every single one of us feels strongly about, it’s worth getting up and taking notice. One such record was Aborted’s 2012 rager, Global Flatline, which somehow wound up on every single one of our year-end lists. Maybe that’s why we have the privilege of streaming its successor, The Necrotic Manifesto, in its entirety for you below!

Aborted haven’t messed with their formula much in the last two years, which is good; why mess with perfection? The Belgian five-piece combines gory death metal with hardcore and grindcore influences as well as anybody else. If you wanted, you could call them a deathcore band, but why would you want to? Their approach doesn’t rely on big, meaty breakdowns to carry otherwise limp songs. Sure, there’s a massive bruiser at the end of “The Davidian Deceit,” but the three minutes leading up are chock full of squealing guitar runs and lock-step grooves as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ARCTURUS — “RAUDT OG SVART”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Apr 262014
 

Norway has been home to a very long list of groundbreaking metal bands, many of whom are sadly no longer with us. Arcturus are one of the survivors. Their roots go back to approximately 1990, and although their demise has been rumored more than once, they continue to forge ahead. As they have moved forward, they have evolved, transforming themselves through a persistent desire to experiment with the boundaries of metal, and with black metal in particular.

Their last release at this writing was a critically acclaimed 2006 DVD entitled Shipwrecked In Oslo, which captured the band’s 2005 live performance at the Sonic Solstice Fest in Oslo, Norway. The line-up for the performance consisted of Steinar “Sverd” Johnsen (keyboards), Jan Axel “Hellhammer” Blomberg (drums), Knut Magne Valle (guitar), Hugh “Skoll” Mingay (bass), Simen “ICS Vortex” Hestnæs (vocals), and Tore Moren (guitar).

Now, the Finnish label Blood Music has taken the soundboard recording of the concert and professionally re-edited and remastered the audio for release on CD and vinyl. Continue reading »

INFESTUS: “THE REFLECTING VOID” (A FULL ALBUM STREAM)

 Premieres  13 Responses »
Apr 252014
 

Earlier this month Andy Synn reviewed the stunning new album by Germany’s Infestus for us (here). In his concluding paragraph, he wrote:

“The beautiful, unforgettable cover art embodies the album so well – this is music from the darkest depths of the human mind, a black, malignant tumour of pain and anguish which spreads its tendrils widely to encompass a host of dark emotions and warped musical influences, creating a truly immersive, unforgettable experience.”

Today we’re pleased to bring you a full album stream of The Reflecting Void, which has just become available via Debemur Morti for both listening and download on Bandcamp. In addition, the album can also now be ordered on CD at this location or on 12″ gatefold vinyl at this one. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FALL OF THE ALBATROSS — “LIKE A GOOD TORNADO”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Apr 202014
 

(Austin Weber provides the following introduction to our premiere of a new song by New York-based Fall of the Albatross.)

Fall Of The Albatross are a band I’ve covered before at NCS, having previously witnessed their diverse chaos live and written about it here. The group used to have a vocalist but later became an instrumental-only band, as they were when I saw them. The music you will hear below is a taste of their new sans-vocal style from their upcoming full-length, Enormous Cloud, coming out on June 24th. This is wildly original, next-level instrumental metal, concocted from a plethora of different genres and styles, with the elements arranged against each other in unique, non-linear ways.

I’m a sucker for song titles that perfectly capture the essence of the music, and when you hear “Like A Good Tornado”, you’ll understand that the title expertly encapsulates the splendidly spastic, whirlwind nature of the song. That the title defines the music as a good tornado is a key point of distinction, since tornados are typically bad — and this is anything but! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WAXEN — “HOLLOW EYES”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Apr 172014
 

Waxen is the solo project of Wyoming-based Toby Knapp, who has steered his prodigious talents in a multitude of different directions with different metal bands (as well as his own solo efforts) since the early 90s. Waxen’s debut album, Fumaroth, appeared in 2006, and after eight years Moribund Records is now poised to release its successor, Agios Holokauston.

Today we’re bringing you the premiere of a song from the new album named “Hollow Eyes”. It’s a bit of an unusual choice for a premiere — and to be clear, we chose the song. Much of Agios Holokauston is a raging black metal conflagration, a firestorm of 6-string guitar pyrotechnics married to compelling melodic hooks, neck-snapping rhythms, and sulfurous vocal assaults. But after bouncing back and forth among our premiere choices, the haunting beauty of “Hollow Eyes” proved so compelling that it’s the one we wanted to share with you first. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RECIPROCAL — “ILLUMINATI”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Apr 172014
 

Late last fall Southern California’s Reciprocal self-released their second album, New Order of the Ages. It was an 11-track, 67-minute monster that drew the attention of Lacerated Enemy Records, which will now be releasing the album on CD this coming June 6, with new cover art by Jon Zig.

I missed the album when it first made the rounds last year, but because of this expanded label release I’m getting the chance to find out what I missed. And if you missed it, too, we’re giving you a chance to make amens — because today (along with Terrorizer in Europe) we’re helping to spread the word about a stream of the album’s fifth track, “Illuminati”.

Listening to “Illuminati” is like being unceremoniously parachuted into the middle of a war zone on some distant world where the weaponry is beyond our understanding and the combatants assault each other in highly accelerated time. All the instrumental performances are simply off the hook and tightly integrated despite the jet-fueled pacing and the dizzying course changes. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VALLENFYRE — “ODIOUS BLISS”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Apr 172014
 

We were early and avid supporters of A Fragile King, the 2011 debut album by the all-star UK group known as Vallenfyre. It was a very personal album for all involved but especially the band’s founder Greg Mackintosh (Paradise Lost), who started the band after the death of his father. It could have been a one-off kind of project, but the reception to A Fragile King was so positive and the experience was obviously pleasurable enough for the band members that they have come roaring back with a second album — Splinters (produced by Kurt Ballou of Converge). Here’s a hint: it’s even better than the debut.

We wrote about the first advance track from the new album (“Scabs”) last month, and today we’re happy as hell to premiere another new song — “Odious Bliss”. After a massively heavy doom-shrouded opening, it begins to rumble and rush like a demon freight train with the throttle wide open, driven by Adrian Erlandsson’s jolting drumwork and a load of skull-splitting riffage. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SERDCE — “QUASAR / NEWBORN”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Apr 162014
 

As anyone who has spent any time at our site well knows, I get enthusiastic about new musical discoveries on almost a daily basis, but rarely am I left pop-eyed and gape-mouthed in genuine wonder at a band’s achievements. But that’s what happened when I heard the two songs that we have the privilege of premiering today. And it didn’t happen just once — it has happened every time I’ve heard this music (I’ve heard one more song from the same album — and the same thing happened when I heard that one).

The band are from Belarus and their name is Serdce (a word that means “heart” in English). They released three albums between 2003 and 2009, and their fourth — entitled Timelessness — will be released for the first time by the cult Finnish label Blood Music this June. The album includes 10 songs, and what we have for you today are the 8th and 9th tracks — “Quasar” and “Newborn” — joined together as a single stream. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PSYCHOTIC GARDENING — “ORIGIN OF THE INFECTION”

 Premieres  9 Responses »
Apr 152014
 

Little more than two weeks ago I discovered the existence of Psychotic Gardening — not the wildly popular pastime in many mental institutions but the band from Winnipeg, Canada. The occasion was the band’s release of a music video for their staggeringly heavy cover of Death’s “Open Casket” from the Leprosy album — and I frothed at the mouth about how good I thought it was.

One thing led to another, and here we are premiering an original Psychotic Gardening song named “Origin of the Infection”. Like the “Open Casket” cover, it will appear on the band’s forthcoming album Hymnosis, which is due for release on May 13.

Based on the interesting spin this band put on “Open Casket”, you could make an educated guess that they would be talented songwriters as well as skilled performers, but “Origin of the Infection” removes the guesswork. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VOICE OF RUIN — “THROUGH THE EYES OF MACHETE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 132014
 

With a new album named Morning Wood, colorful cover art depicting nymphs bestowing their pastoral charms on a massive bull, and a description of themselves as Swiss farmers who “abandoned their shovels and harvesters to take on a different type of instruments, with the goal of becoming icons of sex, alcohol and rock’n’roll”, you might conclude that Voice of Ruin don’t take themselves too seriously. And you would be right. But their “horny farmer metal” kicks bushelfuls of ass, as you’re about to find out.

Today we have the pleasure of premiering the band’s official lyric video for the new album’s third track, “Through the Eyes of Machete”. Both the song and the video are an homage to the central figure of the Machete movies of Robert Rodriguez and a celebration of, well, killing and fucking. What could be more metal?

As for the music, it’s a high-voltage, jackhammering, heavy-grooved romp, with guitars that swarm like hornets when they’re not punching holes all over the landscape, and a vocalist who sounds like a timber wolf. Apparently, they harvest hops in Switzerland with chainsaws and heavy artillery, with occasional pauses for catchy melodic drinking songs. Continue reading »

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