AN NCS PREMIERE: BEAUTALITY — “FROM THE ABYSS”

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Feb 252015
 

 

There’s nothing wrong with metal that wholly honors the purity of the particular sub-genre in which it dwells, whether it be black metal, death metal, thrash, or something else. But there’s still something particularly intriguing about bands who branch outside the traditional confines of individual genres and attempt  to integrate a variety of musical influences, creating sounds that can’t be classified with any well-defined purist labels. That’s what the London-based band Beautality have done on their new album Einfallen: A Tale Ov Torment & Triumph.

Even the band’s name signals their intent to dissolve genre boundaries and express ideas through a hybrid of moods, atmospheres, and styles, and that mission is reflected in the songs they’ve created. In this post we bring you the premiere of one of the new album’s tracks — an epic-length work entitled “From the Abyss” — which follows previous premieres at Metal Hammer and Invisible Oranges. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GODLESS ANGEL — “CONTAINMENT BREACH IN SECTOR 6”

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Feb 252015
 

 

This is a “feel good” story accompanied by badass music, which makes it a very metal story.

Derek Neibarger, who makes his home in Lawrence, Kansas, with his wife Chrissy and a menagerie of pets, began his musical life as a teenage bassist in 1984. In 1990 he added lead vocalist to his resume. He has recorded and toured with multiple bands covering every genre from punk and hard rock to jazz and blues. At one time or another he has shared the stage with such artists as Neurosis, Green Day, Local H, and The Urge. Beginning in 2012 he decided to start writing and recording music as a solo project that he named Godless Angel.

By that time he had become a daily reader and active supporter of this site, and we watched as he began turning out individual songs on a completely DIY basis, and eventually entire collections of songs in the form of two digital releases — the album-length Year One (2013) and the Dying Dead Undead Unholy EP (2014). And then, on January 20 of this year, we saw the happy announcement that Godless Angel had signed with the Finnish label Inverse Records for the release of a new album named Harvester of Shadows.

Inverse explains: “Drawing inspiration from horror and science fiction genres, the lyrics for Godless Angel paint portraits of everything from axe murderers, vengeful aliens, and zombies to demons, mutated rats, and a vile creature lurking in the shadows of an insane asylum.” And as you’re about to find out, the music is more than a match for the viciousness and brutality of the subject matter — because today we’re stoked to bring you the premiere of an official lyric video for one of the new songs: “Containment Breach In Sector 6“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EXISTENTIAL ANIMALS — “PRISM PRISON”

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Feb 242015
 

 

Existential Animals come our way from Oberlin, Ohio. They made some serious first impressions last year with the release of their debut EP Surrealith (which was graced by one of my favorite pieces of art by one of my favorite metal artists, Paolo Girardi, and also included a guest vocal appearance by Will Smith of NCS favorite Artificial Brain). Existential Animals are now back with a two-song single — “Prism Prison/Apopheniac” — that’s due for digital release on March 3. The artwork for the single, created by Cameron Almasi, Yuri Popowycz, and the band’s Mark M-R, is stylistically quite different from Surrealith’s cover, but it’s just as eye-catching. As you’re about to discover, the music’s eye-opening as well.

What we’re about to show you is a colorful and frenetic animated music video for one of the two new songs, “Prism Prison”, which is itself colorful and frenetic. It’s a purely instrumental form of technical death metal that may bring to mind fond memories of Blotted Science. There’s a lot of fret-wizardry on display, and as the song barrels along its brain-twisting course it becomes increasingly complex, blending start-stop rhythms, call-and-response interchanges between the bass and the guitars, and deranged note swarms that build to a frenzied crescendo.

But here’s perhaps the most surprising thing about the song: cunningly intertwined within the matrix of instrumental intricacy is an infectious melody that you may not even realize you heard until the song ends — and then it surfaces in your head and makes you want to go back and re-live the experience. That’s an impressive achievement. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOME OF THE UNREPLENISHED — “TAKE ME TO THE STARS”

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Feb 242015
 

 

In January we came across a musical teaser clip for a forthcoming album entitled Innerstanding by a Cypriot band named Tome of the Unreplenished, and featured it (here) without much commentary in a round-up of new discoveries. Since then we’ve had the chance to explore the album, and today we bring you the premiere of a full song, a work named “Take Me To the Stars”.

The sole member of this band, who calls himself Hermes, was at one time affiliated with the satanic black metal band Necrosadist (and the new album was mixed by Necrosadist’s A. Dictator), but Innerstanding is not an assault of raw black metal. Though it still makes use of black metal elements, it has different goals and follows different pathways, more a work of personal catharsis and experimentation than a re-treading of old, unhallowed ground. As the album’s title suggests, it is an exploration of one man’s inner self as well as a conception of an individual’s place in the immensity of the cosmos. Yet the music is also open to interpretation by the listener, the kind of sounds that inspire imaginings which will vary from person to person. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DRUDKH — “TILL FOREIGN GROUND SHALL COVER EYES”

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Feb 242015
 

 

On April 20, Season of Mist will release the first new album by Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh since 2012’s Eternal Turn of the Wheel. The name of the new album is A Furrow Cut Short, and today we have the pleasure of bringing you its first advance track — “Till Foreign Ground Shall Cover Eyes”.

The music races, but within the vibrating whirl of guitars and the bolting rhythms, huge waves of dramatic melody move like tides, slow and powerful. The pulsating bass notes, rapid-fire drum munitions, and wild, predatory howls get the blood pumping, but the non-stop intensity of the auditory assault only enhances the passion and staying power of the fiery, tremolo-driven melody. It’s an exhilarating cascade of black metal potency, both ferocious in the moment and memorable in the aftermath. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RISE OF AVERNUS — “AN ALARUM OF FATE”

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Feb 232015
 

 

Australia’s Rise of Avernus are following up their 2013 debut album L’appel du vide with a new EP entitled Dramatis Personæ. It’s a five-track, half-hour affair that includes a guest vocal appearance by Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson (on the song “Acta Est Fabula”) — and today we bring you a stream of the EP’s penultimate song, “An Alarum of Fate“.

The booming drums and darting orchestral strings that start the song provide immediate elements of intrigue, and they are strong attractions to the music throughout. But they’re not the only attractions. Take the vocals, for example: They’re an appealing blend of flesh-scarring growls, skyward-soaring clean vocals, and ghostly whispers. And just as appealing is the music’s integration of heavy riffs, hammering beats, mesmerizing piano notes, warm bass tones, and dreamlike strings. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WARDAEMONIC — “ENDLESS WAR”

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Feb 232015
 

 

On January 3 of this year I saw the remarkable artwork you’re now looking at, a piece named “The Cold Steps To Solitude” by the Australian artist Chris Cold that was then destined to appear as the cover of an album by a band from Perth named Wardaemonic. I remember the date because I wasted no time in posting it on our site’s Facebook page. And I thought to myself, if the music turns out to be as good as the art, the album is going to be an eye-opener, too.

The name of the album is Obsequium, it’s due for release on March 13, and we have the pleasure of premiering its first advance track, “Endless War”.

That’s a fitting title for this song, because it’s a full-force black metal blitzkrieg of blasting drums, storming tremolo riffs, and razor-edged shrieks. The boiling conflagration is punctuated by bursts of dual-guitar jabbing and it subsides in the closing minutes to make room for a slow, sinuous passage of atmospheric melody, moving like poison fog across the blasted battlefield. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE RITUAL AURA — “TIME-LOST UTOPIA”

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Feb 202015
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a new song by The Ritual Aura.)

Lately we have witnessed an off-shoot within the technical death metal sound, one more progressively focused than dedicated to sheer mind-numbing bouts of hitting listeners with hammers and bolts of sonic lightning. Acts such as Obscura, Fallujah, and most recently Beyond Creation, have exemplified this trend and taken tech-death in a new and higher-minded direction.

Joining these high-level acts are a group of Australian upstarts named The Ritual Aura who decimate with a focus and skill similar to that of the aforementioned bands. We at NCS are proud to showcase the considerable talents of this band with a premiere of their new song “Time-Lost Utopia”, which will appear on their upcoming full-length, Laniakea. Continue reading »

THE ORDER OF APOLLYON: “THE SWORD AND THE DAGGER”

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Feb 182015
 

 

In the five years since The Order of Apollyon released their debut album (The Flesh), the band’s former multinational line-up has undergone a near-complete makeover. Only the founder, guitarist/vocalist BST (Aosoth, ex-Balrog, ex-Aborted), remains, now joined by three other experienced musicians who are all members of the French extreme metal scene. Their new album, just released in Europe by Listenable Records, is The Sword and the Dagger.

The band’s debut album seasoned death metal with elements of black metal, and the new album again displays a blending of those styles, though I’d go so far as to say that the new record is more black than death.

Much of the music storms with intensity, driven hard by superheated blast-beat assaults and double-bass thunder, pulsating bass lines, and fleet-fingered riffs that swarm, writhe, and jab. But the rampaging aggressiveness is tempered with contrasting instrumental interludes and passages of sweeping, majestic melody. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MEPHORASH — “Sfaíra Ti̱s Fo̱tiás”

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Feb 162015
 

 

Mephorash are an occult black metal band from Uppsala, Sweden, with two albums to their credit, both released by Grom Records — Death Awakens (2011) and Chalice of Thagirion (2012). In 2013 they added to those works through a split release with Philadelphia’s Ashencult entitled Opus Serpens, and we had the pleasure of premiering the Mephorash track for the split, “Atramentous Ungod Aspect”, which included guest vocals by Acherontas V. Priest of the occult multinational band Acherontas.

Mephorash are now about to come roaring back with a new EP celebrating their five years of existence. It’s entitled Sfaíra Ti̱s Fo̱tiás, and today we have the pleasure of helping to premiere a lyric video for its title track.

For people like me, who have long admired the engraved illustrations of French artist Gustave Doré, the video is a feast for the eyes (and credit to Markus Hedelin for making it). The music is also a feast for the ears, and together, Mephorash and Doré make an inspired pairing. Continue reading »

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