AN NCS PREMIERE: BARING TEETH — “DRIPPING SUN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 052014
 

 

(Austin Weber wrote the following introduction to our premiere of a song from the forthcoming second album by Baring Teeth.)

While Willowtip continues to churn out releases by forward-thinking bands like it’s no big deal, Baring Teeth still stand out as a singular creative force on their roster. Their exponential growth and talent for exploration displayed on their soon to be released sophomore album, Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins, prove that their path is a rich and multifaceted one, albeit one that’s highly unsettling in the best way possible.

Their last album, 2011’s Atrophy, cemented the band as pioneers in the art of stretching boundaries and seeking out different methods and manners of interpreting death metal, creating new and inspired forms of the genre, giving it a new canvas on which to rot, and painting with a more sophisticated palette than mere straightforward aggression and simple headbangable riffs. They infuse their output with an alien presence that wanders amidst chaotic rhythms and moody peaks and valleys. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIRE OMEN — “FORETOLD UNTETHERING FROM EXISTENCE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 052014
 

The forthcoming debut album of Dire Omen from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, has proven to be a revelation — a stupendously powerful release that fulfills the promise that was evident in the band’s previous shorter releases. Not long ago BraveWords delivered the first advance track from Wresting the Revelation of Futlity, and today we bring you another: “Foretold Untethering From Existence”.

The music is at once destructively chaotic and fascinating in its intricacy. The grinding riffs, blasting snare beats, and echoing vocal horrors create an aura of heartless savagery, yet the somersaulting bass lines, frenzied guitar explosions, and rapidly changing rhythms prove to be thoroughly engrossing. On top of that, the morbid, otherworldly melodies have staying power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VARATHRON — “KABALISTIC INVOCATION OF SOLOMON”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 042014
 

 

Untrodden Corridors of Hades is the new album by the long-running, influential Greek black metal band Varathron, their first since 2009’s Stygian Forces of Scorn. In September we featured the album’s first advance track, “Realm of Obscure”, and followed that (here) with the lyric video for “Arcane Conjuring”. Now we bring you the premiere of a third song — which is the album’s opening track — “Kabalistic Invocation of Solomon”.

In this new long song Varathron gradually build an atmosphere thick with the potent vapors of the occult, drawing the listener ever deeper into the mysteries of a dark ritual. At the beginning and again later, a choral chant echoes as if being sung within a catacomb, accompanied by the massive booming of drums and the slow rumbling of the bass. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PSYCROPTIC, KHORS, GORELUST, PREY FOR NOTHING

 Metal News, Premieres  4 Responses »
Nov 032014
 

 

Happy fucking Monday. Here’s a quartet of recommended songs that I discovered over the last 24 hours, which I hope will prove a good way to help you start your new week.

PSYCROPTIC

As previously reported in these pages, Tasmania’s Psycroptic and Prosthetic Records have joined forces to bring about the release of the band’s new self-titled album worldwide next spring (EVP Recordings will be handling the release in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan). To begin paving the way for the album release, tomorrow (November 4) Prosthetic will release a digital single from the new album, a song named “Echoes To Come”. I’ve gotten to hear the song in advance, and I’m really liking it. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INTO ORBIT — “CAVERNS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 022014
 

 

(New Zealand-based metal writer and broadcaster Craig Hayes brings us something very special — the premiere of an album-length video, preceded by the following introduction.)

New Zealand instrumental duo Into Orbit released their debut album, Caverns, to rave reviews at home earlier this year. The band’s guitarist Paul Stewart, and drummer Ian Moir, craft vast and dynamic soundscapes that combine post-metal and post-rock with elements of progressive, drone, and ambient-rock. Caverns featured both tranquil and thundering passages, and plenty of soaring six-string detonations and crashing percussion too, but what the album brought most of all was a sense of epic journeying.

Caverns conjured up imposing landscapes, took deep dives into microscopic worlds, and befitting Into Orbit’s moniker, launched into the wonders and mystery of galaxies overhead. Of course, it’s one thing to summon all of those visions via the mental imagery of the mind’s eye, but Into Orbit have gone one better and released a full-length video, covering the entirely of Caverns’ tracks. That’s 40-plus minutes of mesmerising optical and audio journeying, and No Clean Singing is proud to be streaming the debut of Caverns right here. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BARBELITH — “MIRROR UNVEILED”

 Premieres, Reviews  13 Responses »
Oct 302014
 

 

In March of this year we had the pleasure of premiering one of the songs on a two-track single released by Baltimore’s Barbelith, which in turn followed the band’s 2012 debut EP. Today we get to bring you a full stream of the band’s debut album, Mirror Unveiled.

There may be a more explosive start to an album this year than “Beyond the Envelope of Sleep”, the first track on Mirror Unveiled, but if so it’s not coming to mind. The song displays one of Barbelith’s multi-faceted sides in no uncertain terms with a non-stop, jaw-dropping drum performance, a torrent of guitar noise and pulse-pumping tremolo waves, and scathing shrieks that sound like the agonies of a man being burned to the ground. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SAMSKARAS — “RED HILL”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Oct 302014
 

 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a new single by Montreal’s Samskaras.)

While song premieres at No Clean Singing are typically introduced with an article discussing the band and dissecting the song, I decided with today’s exclusive premiere of “Red Hill”, by two-man Montreal-based death metal act Samskaras, to do a short interview with band member Eric Burnet instead. Eric writes the music, plays guitar and bass, and performs vocals as the core member of Samskaras, and he is also a member of the well-known and justly praised technical death metal band Derelict (and if you don’t know about Derelict, listen here). In Samskaras he is joined by Unhuman drummer Alexandre Dupras.

***

What led you to create this project and what do you seek to achieve with it?

My main project for the majority of the last decade has been the tech death band Derelict. Inspiration and energy was running low after several tours and a lot of years of constant activity, so we decided to put it on ice for an indefinite period. This opened me up time-wise to other projects, so I immediately hatched the idea of starting Samskaras with whatever material I was writing. Since Derelict has its own specific sound, I had been writing in that vein for a long time. So with Samskaras my goal is really just to let my ideas flow and see what they become. No need for a pre-determined genre tag. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SLEEP OF MONSTERS — “HORSES OF THE SUN”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 282014
 

For the second day in a row we step off our usual beaten paths and bring you a song premiere that not only breaches the rule embodied in our site’s name but stands out in large part because of that transgression. And there are other connections between yesterday’s offering from The House of Capricorn and today’s striking debut from Sleep of Monsters.

Apart from the fact that both band’s’ new albums are being released by Finland’s Svart Records, The House of Capricorn pay stylistic homage in their music to Finland’s distinctive Babylon Whores, while Sleep of Monsters features that occult death rock band’s vocalist Ike Vil. In addition to his formidable presence, Sleep of Monsters includes guitarist and main songwriter Sami Hassinen (guitarist for Blake), drummer Pätkä Rantala (who played on HIM’s debut album), keyboardist Janne Immonen (who has toured extensively with Waltari and Ajattara), guitarist Uula Korhonen, and bass-player and backing vocalist Mäihä.

Sleep of Monsters’ debut album is named Produces Reason, and while the record was distributed earlier this year within Finland, it is now finally getting a global release by Svart Records, who also recently reissued the entire Babylon Whores back catalogue on vinyl. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE HOUSE OF CAPRICORN — “IVORY CROWN”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 272014
 

 

The House of Capricorn from Auckland, New Zealand, describe their music as “apocalyptic devil rock”. To date, they’ve released two albums — Sign of the Cloven Hoof (2010) and In the Devil’s Days (2011) — and on November 7 Svart Records will be releasing their third, Morning Star Rise. As a sign of what’s coming, we bring you the premiere of “Ivory Crown”.

A site with a name like ours might not seem the most obvious match for The House of Capricorn, whose vocals are usually not the growly or shrieking sort, but I’ve been thoroughly captivated by this album, and “Ivory Crown” is one of my favorites in a collection that’s very strong from start to finish. Ironically, the clean vocals have much to do with the music’s appeal.

Relatively speaking “Ivory Crown” is one of the more subdued tracks on the album — if you’re looking for tracks that drive harder on the mayhem end of the spectrum, then I’d recommend “The Road To Hell Is Marked” or “Our Shrouded King”. But “Ivory Crown” is built around such killer melodic hooks that it’s powerfully addictive. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: USNEA — “RANDOM COSMIC VIOLENCE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  8 Responses »
Oct 222014
 

In this post, we’re premiering the title track to Random Cosmic Violence, the new album on Relapse Records by Usnea from Portland, Oregon. If you’re smart and/or impatient, you’ll scroll down and just listen to it. But I have some things to say about the album as a whole, and I will have my say.

Almost everything about the album is huge. The human skeletal structure is sturdy, but it wasn’t made for the utterly crushing force of this music. It’s enough to collapse bone like an accordion. And the parts that aren’t cataclysmic are mostly disturbing, except when they’re entrancing.

The music is kindling for metaphors, if you’re given to that sort of thing, which I am. The album was named for a line by Carl Sagan in his book The Demon Haunted World, a line that explains our existence and that of the cosmos itself. We and everything around us, out to the limits of the universe, are the products of violence on a titanic scale. The music imagines all that cold, careless, destructive vastness. Continue reading »

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