AN NCS PREMIERE: THORNESBREED — “DIVIDUA ANIMA PT I”

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May 292015
 

 

Last month we featured an advance track named “Horns ov Gaia” from GTRD, the second album by Germany’s Thornesbreed and their first in 12 years. Now we bring you the premiere of another track, “Dividua Anima Pt I“.

“Horns ov Gaia” was a very intense, gripping, dark piece of music, with slower, harrowing segments pulling you in, and then rapacious blasting segments proceeding to tear you apart. “Dividua Anima Pt I” makes use of similar weapons. Its beginning is slow, pitch black, and dissonant, the constant vibration of the riffs and the explosive drumbeats accompanying what sounds like the enraged howls of a demonic bestiary to create a supernatural aura of doom and derangement. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIABOLICUM — “SALVATION THROUGH VENGEANCE”

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May 282015
 

 

Fourteen years is a long time between albums, and that’s the span of years that has passed since Sweden’s Diabolicum released their last full-length. Now they are returning with a new work entitled Ia Pazuzu (The Abyss of the Shadows), with none other than Shining’s inimitable Niklas Kvarforth as vocalist, as well as a new lead guitarist (Likstrand) joining founding members Sasrof and Gorgorium.

It would be natural to wonder what changes 14 years have wrought in the sounds of Diabolicum, and we will now provide a glimpse into what the album holds in store as we premiere a track named “Salvation Through Vengeance“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SHINING — “VILJA & DRÖM”

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May 272015
 

 

The video we’re about to premiere from Sweden’s Shining, for the song “Vilja & Dröm” (“Will and Dream”) off their new album IX – Everyone, Everything, Everywhere, Ends, comes with a NSFW warning. Unlike most metal videos branded with that warning, this one doesn’t include salacious scenes of nudity. Instead, it depicts images of true obscenity — actual film footage and photographs of extreme violence inflicted upon the human body.

The video, beautifully filmed and edited by long-time Shining collaborator Martin Strandberg, also includes the band kicking the hell out of this electrifying song in a boiler room. It begins with the burning of “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 — and consistently honored in its breach by the savagery of humankind ever since then. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISTANT SUN — “ZERO TO HERO” AND “SHATTERED EMPIRE”

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May 262015
 

 

That cover art by W. Smerdulak is still just as awesome as when we posted it the first time. The first time we posted it was a couple of weeks ago when we premiered a song named “Kill the Fremen” from the new album Dark Matter by Russia’s Distant Sun, and today we’re happy to bring you the premiere of two more songs from the new album: “Zero To Hero” and “Shattered Empire“.

If you caught that first song, then you already have a sense of Distant Sun’s knack for fusing elements of speed metal, thrash, and power metal. And if you missed it, you’ll get another introduction right now. “Zero To Hero” is a complete head-rush of immediately infectious jolting riffs, bounding bass lines, and galloping drumwork, with a mix of ragged-edged and clean vocals. Of course, once you dig into the track you know there’s got to be a guitar solo coming — and it’s a blistering one. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VARGNATT — “GRAUSAMMLER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
May 252015
 

 

Listen to the first 90 seconds of “Weltverloren”, as it moves from a lilting solo guitar melody into a racing torrent that carries the same melody, driving it home, and then changes again to a rocking rhythm, never losing its fast grip on that brilliant melody — nor its grip on you. If you’re not hooked in the first 90 seconds, I’ll be surprised.

But “Weltverloren” is far from finished in 90 seconds. Before it ends, it staggers into a pool of tears, drenched in sorrow but no less transfixing in its emotional impact, and then accelerates into an even more intense, ravishing finish. And this is only the first song in a magnificent album — all of which you will be able to hear through our premiere of a full streaam.

The album is Grausammler. The band is Germany’s Vargnatt. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEW-SCENTED — “AFFECT GRAVITY”

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May 222015
 

 

Germany’s Dew-Scented have been discharging blasts of electrifying death/thrash since the early ’90s and they’re now about to unleash their tenth album, Intermination, via Prosthetic Records. Today we bring you the premiere of the new album’s fourth song, “Affect Gravity“.

The dismal, dissonant sounds at the outset of the song are immediately arresting, but the music becomes downright explosive moments later when the full band joins the fray in a tumult of jabbing riffs, booming drums, hammering bass, and scorching vocal howls. It’s a turbocharged rocket-ride of a track that also includes a completely electrifying guitar solo. Heavy, venomous, galvanizing music that will shoot a megawatt charge of energy straight down your spine… and a hugely appealing teaser for the new album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LYCHGATE — “AN ACOUSMATIC GUARDIAN”

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May 222015
 

 

In February of this year I came across the debut of a song from the new album by Lychgate — An Antidote for the Glass Pill —  that stopped me dead in my tracks. That song (“Letter XIX”) was so striking, and so strikingly different, that I became both intrigued and anxious to hear more. And now the time has arrived when we can all hear more, because we have the privilege of premiering a second track from the album: “An Acousmatic Guardian“.

Lychgate features the talents of vocalist/guitarist Greg Chandler (Esoteric) and guitarist/organist/keyboardist Vortigern (The One, Spearhead), as well as T.J.F. Vallely (Macabre Omen) on drums, A.K. Webb (Ancient Ascendant) on bass, and  guitarist S.D. Lindsley. Together they have created some very distinctive and unusually compelling music. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: UNMOTHERED — “UMBRA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
May 212015
 

 

I continue to have a weakness for metal bands from Austin, Texas, the place where I was born and spent my formative years and to which I still return a couple of times a year. But I’m not so weak-minded about bands from Austin as to lose a sense of perspective about the music — and I’m pretty sure Unmothered’s new EP would have blown me away even if I’d grown up in Bangkok.

This new three-song offering is entitled U M B R A and it’s being released by Crowquill Records on May 26. Today we give you the chance to hear the EP for yourselves before jumping for it on the release date. Since you can listen for yourselves, I’m not sure there is much to be gained by writing about U M B R A, but I can’t help myself. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CONNOISSEUR — “POT HOLE”

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May 212015
 

 

When you’d like to smooth out the start of your day with a bong-load of assistance and you discover to your shock that your stash is as empty as the void in your forgetful head, what the fuck do you do? Some people might let out a long sigh and begin quietly weeping. That ain’t Connoisseur’s style, as you’ll find out in the video we’re premiering today for a song called “Pot Hole“.

The song comes from the band’s new album Stoner Justice, which is being released in June by Tankcrimes Records. Stoner Justice was originally released as an EP last year but has been remastered and expanded to fourteen tracks, including a professionally recorded live set from the Tankcrimes Takeover show on February 13, 2015. As you can see, the new album also includes killer cover art created in a collaboration by Skinner (Mastodon) and Hal Rotter (Atriarch, Cough, Eyehategod, Skeletonwitch, etc.). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARUTA — “SLAYING JEHOVA”

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May 212015
 

 

Miami’s Maruta will soon see the release of their third album, and their first for Relapse Records — Remain Dystopian. In advance of the album’s street date, Relapse is rolling out five new songs from the album on five days in a row, and today we bring you the premiere of the fourth of those tracks: “Slaying Jehova“.

This is an absolutely savage minute-long assault of hyper-speed grind, an explosive rush of dissonant, raking riffs, near-inhuman drum fusillades, and beast-like roars. To be honest, it’s too much to take in on one listen, and the eerie guitar leads must have some psychoactive substance in them, because the first thing I wanted to do after hearing it the first time was to continue pressing play, without even consciously thinking about it. Continue reading »

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