AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THULCANDRA — “THE SECOND FALL”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 

Munich-based Thulcandra have been a favorite of this site since we discussed their origin story and reviewed their debut album Fallen Angel’s Dominion back in 2010 (here). Their third album Ascension Lost was released in late January by Napalm Records, and today we’re proud to bring you the premiere of an official video for the album’s seventh song, “The Second Fall”.

The mid-paced song is both hard-rocking and threaded with an icy melody that proves to be as memorable as it is dramatic. The song is highlighted not only by magnetic riffs and a pulse-pounding rhythm section but also by a beautiful extended guitar solo that stands in stark contrast to the skin-flaying vocals of frontman Steffen Kummerer. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DORMANT INFERNO — “DELIVERANCE”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

Although the vast Indian subcontinent has its fair share of notable metal bands from across the musical spectrum, melodic death/doom isn’t a genre that first springs to mind when thinking about Indian metal. In that sense, Dormant Inferno from Mumbai are something of an outlier — but they clearly knew what they doing when they released their notable debut EP in 2011, entitled In Sanity.

Today we’re premiering one of the new Dormant Inferno tracks that will appear in early April via the Transcending Obscurity India label on a split release with Pakistan’s Dionysus. As good as In Sanity was, the new song reveals a band who have become even more self-assured and powerful. The name of the new split is Beyond Forgotten Shores, and the track we’re bringing you is “Deliverance”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NEOLITH — “IZI.IM.KURNU-KI”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 022015
 

 

We’ve had the pleasure of premiering two decimating new songs by the Polish band Neolith from their fourth album, Izi.Im.Kurnu-Ki. — and today we have the privilege of helping to premiere a stream of the entire album on its release day.

As good as those first two songs were (“Of Angel and His Orison” and “Enlil”), the album as a whole is equally good. It’s a dynamic combining of melodic death metal and black metal, both atmospheric in its creation of a chilling, infernal aura, and absolutely pulverizing in its frequent explosions of grinding/thrashing riffs and hammering grooves.

The band make effective use of keyboards throughout the album, principally to enhance the music’s eerie atmosphere, but also to help the guitars carry the infectious melodies that move like slithering serpents through the high-speed bombardments and strafing runs that Neolith unleash. Continue reading »

AN NCE PREMIERE: OCCULT 45 — “HUMAN ABHORRENCE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

After releasing a debut EP, a couple of demos, and a split with Drones for Queens, Philadelphia’s Occult 45 have signed with Broken Limbs Recordings for the release of a new EP named Human Abhorrence — and we’re bringing you the premiere of a full stream right now.

The seven tracks on Human Abhorrence will only take about 12 minutes of your time, but Occult 45 pack a lot of highly varied mayhem into those minutes. If you’re like me, your first impulse after finishing it will be to let it run rampant through your head all over again, just to pick up what you missed the first time through. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “INTERSTELLAR” BY SICKENING HORROR

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song from the new album by the Athenian metal band Sickening Horror, to be released by Deepsend Records on March 17.)

Like a lot of people, I first heard about the Greek technical death metal band Sickening Horror in 2007 by seeing the mention that drummer George Kollias (Nile) was in the line-up on their first record, When Landscapes Bled Backwards. He departed after the release of that album, but the band has continued on just fine without him.

We last heard from them when they released their worthy sophomore follow-up, The Dead End Experiment, back in 2009. Then the band seemed to drop off the map for a few years, finally emerging toward the end of last year with an announcement that their third album, Overflow, was on the way. Today we give you a tantalizing taste of what Overflow is all about with our premiere of a new song entitled “Interstellar“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OF WOLVES — “DEAD WAIT”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Mar 012015
 

 

I discovered an album named Evolve by a Chicago band named Of Wolves in the summer of 2013, and it made a big impression, a lasting impression. As discussed in my recent interview of the band’s vocalist/guitarist Steve Sherwood, Of Wolves have been working on a new album that they’re hoping to complete and release before the end of this year, but in the meantime they have a brand new video for one of the songs from Evolve — “Dead Wait” — and we’re premiering it right here, right now.

As I attempted to explain in my review of Evolve, the album is an eclectic mix of music, but if there’s a unifying thread in the songs it’s the frustration and fury that drives them. Lyrically, Of Wolves have vented their anger at everything from churches to governments to pervasive greed to the treatment of Native Americans to the mass of their fellow citizens (aka “sheep”) who allow themselves to be brainwashed, duped, and distracted from protecting their own self-interests — and as you’ll see in a minute, they don’t mince words about it. Continue reading »

AN NCS FULL-ALBUM PREMIERE: FURIA — “NOCEL”

 Premieres  16 Responses »
Feb 272015
 

 

It’s a true pleasure to bring you a full stream of Nocel by the Polish black metal band Furia. The album was released last fall on CD by Pagan Records, and on March 6 the label will be releasing the album on double-gatefold-vinyl. It deserves that kind of treatment — in a word, Nocel is fascinating.

Furia’s name means “fury” in English, but the music on Nocel is not so easily summed up. “Fury” is only one of many moods expressed in this impressively creative and highly variable work. Over its hour-long course, Furia vividly convey alternating moods of wild freedom, slashing anger, cold isolation, hunger, meditative tranquility, and even despair. It’s so full of contrasts and surprises that it will remind listeners of the avant-garde exuberance of bands like Deathspell Omega rather than the warlike savagery of a group like Marduk. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GLOSON — “THE AFTERMATH / BEGINNING”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 272015
 

 

Alright, it might be a stretch to call this song a “premiere”, because some of the lucky ones among you have already discovered this music for yourselves. The debut EP Yearwalker of Sweden’s Gloson was self-released digitally last year, but it’s getting a proper international release on vinyl this coming March 23 by Art of Propaganda and Catatonic State Records. Apart from satisfying the vinyl hungers of Gloson’s fans, this new release achieves another admirable objective: It spreads the word of Yearwalker to the previously uninitiated — which included me. And I’m damned glad I’ve now been introduced to this surprising new band.

“The Aftermath/Beginning” is the final song on this four-track, 32-minute release. Entrancing guitar notes transform into pile-driving riffs, dreamlike melody is overpowered by an avalanche of rumbling darkness, caustic howls scrape against vulnerable flesh. As the song continues to unfold, yet another entrancing guitar melody spirals over the crushing low-end rhythms, like northern lights shimmering over mountain crags. The sludgy power of the song will get your head moving while it casts a spell at the same time. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: PORTA NIGRA — “KAISERSCHNITT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 272015
 

 

Exactly one week ago we posted Andy Synn’s extravagant review of Kaiserschnitt, the extravagant new album by Germany’s Porta Nigra, which is being released today by Debemur Morti Productions. As of this moment, you can now download the album or purchase one of the beautiful physical copies — but perhaps most important, you now have a chance to listen to all of it before taking the plunge.

If you haven’t yet discovered the stream that just went live on Bandcamp, all you have to do is skip to the bottom of this post and there you will find it. And if you need any further encouragement to let it into your head, here are a few choice words from Andy’s review, with which I almost whole-heartedly agree: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND REVIEW): KURHAN — “GŁÓD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 262015
 

 

Not long ago we included a feature about the title track to a new album by Poland’s Kurhan in one of our occasional round-ups of impressive new songs. Now we have the pleasure of bringing you a full stream of the entire album, the title of which is Głód (“hunger”).

When I first heard the title track, it really grabbed me by the jugular. I compared it to taking a ride on a whirlwind, or something like being caught in a swarm of bats embarking on a night of feeding at full speed.  But in addition to unleashing a plethora of technically impressive high-speed riffs and hard-hitting percussion, Kurhan made the song a rhythmically dynamic work and threaded appealing strands of dark melody into their blazing tapestry as well.

Now having heard the entire album, more metaphors come to mind. Listening to it is like being dropped into a war zone, with shrapnel flying fast and furious and bursts of adrenaline flooding the bloodstream from all the imminent peril. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries