AN NCS PREMIERE: MADROST — “SUBTERRANEAN NIGHTMARE”

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Sep 122014
 

 

The artwork by Alejandro Leon for the new second album by SoCal’s Madrost is pleasing to the eye — colorful, alien, and gruesome. It’s an attractive kind of tease for the music, engendering curiosity in part because it doesn’t provide many clues about what the music will sound like. I mean, other than it’s not likely to be a Katy Perry clone.

Although guessing games are fun, we’re going to remove the guesswork by providing a glimpse Into the Aquatic Sector through our premiere of the new album’s sixth track, “Subterranean Nightmare”. And before you listen, you’d best buckle your seatbelt and strap on your crash helmet, because you’re in for a careening and destructive ride down the highway to hell.

Madrost fuel their engines with a full tank of high-octane thrash riffs and then jam the pedal to the floor. The drummer more than keeps pace, with a frenzied but controlled performance, and at the end of this barreling ride you’ll be treated to a very cool harmonized guitar solo (and the band are generous enough to let the bass share the spotlight, too). The song begins and ends with a hair-raising shriek, and in between, their howling frontman keeps the mayhem at full throttle with words you can actually understand.

In a nutshell, this is heavy-grooved, high-energy death/thrash that will get its hooks in you pretty damned quick. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OBSCURE BURIAL — “NIGHT QUEEN”

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Sep 122014
 

When I used to think of current Finnish death metal (not the melodic kind), I tended to think of crushing death/doom, or perhaps a few famous death/grind deviants. Mine eyes have now been opened wider.

Obscure Burial are a relatively young band from Turku, Finland, whose first demo was released in 2012 by Ireland’s Invictus Productions. Invictus, which has dependably refined tastes in filthy extreme music, is about to follow up that first abomination with a second one. The new demo is named Epiphany, and it’s due for release on September 15.

Anyone who shies away from raw, flesh-rending, berserker blackened death metal with a heavy emphasis on speed can stop reading right here, because that’s what you’ll get in spades from Epiphany — and from the song we’re about to premiere: “Night Queen”.

On the other hand, if you get a flooding adrenaline rush from ripping riffs, weapons-grade drumwork, and vocals that sound like a demon pantheon, you’re about to get a satisfying fix for that addiction. In fact, you may not need another fix for days or weeks, because this is potent, uncut, and borderline toxic stuff. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AS LIGHT DIES — “NEMESIS”

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Sep 112014
 

Not very long ago I mused about the benefits and risks of albums that incorporate a wide variety of musical styles. When successful, such albums can surprise and stand out from the sea of records whose creators choose to focus on basically the same kind of sound (save for the occasional instrumental intro or interlude). When a band’s reach exceeds their grasp, however, the result can be a jumble that lacks cohesiveness and becomes jarring instead of fascinating.

As Light Dies from Spain are an example of a band whose diverse musical interests and ambitions have pushed them into the realms of the avant garde — which to be honest is a nebulous phrase that often gets thrown around when we can’t think of a better description, one that encompasses both creatively exuberant, genre-jumping successes and the kind of jarring jumbles referred to above. The latest album by As Light Dies (their third) signals right in its title that normal metal conventions will not apply to what lies within its nine tracks and 35 minutes: The Love Album – Volume I.

And if that’s not plain enough, consider that the list of musical influences they identify ranges from Wim Mertens to David Bowie to Phillip Glass to Dead Can Dance, Borknagar, Ved Buens Ende, Mordbid Angel, and Gorguts.

While you try to wrap your mind around that, let me say a few words about “Nemesis”,  the song we’re about to premiere from TLA – Vol. I. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NIGHTBRINGER — “THE OTHERNESS OF BEING” (AND A REVIEW OF “EGO DOMINUS TUUS”)

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Sep 112014
 

 

Today we bring you the premiere of a song by Nightbringer from their fourth album Ego Dominus Tuus (I am your Lord).

The song can be understood and appreciated on many levels. Standing alone, as you will hear, it’s tremendously powerful. Yet it’s also the final track (and the longest) on a 10-track album that’s more than 70 minutes in length, the culmination of an intense listening experience that’s not merely powerful but overpowering. It brings to a dramatic close a work whose spiritual intent would be manifest even if you knew nothing of the lyrics: It is prayer, it is worship, it is exaltation. It’s a declaration of belief, a proclamation of fealty, a passionate expression of yearning, and an offering to Lucifer on a pyre of flames.

Ego Dominus Tuus sounds like a majestic black metal opera. It’s grandiose and bombastic, with an orchestral quality created not only by the soul-stirring riffs but also by the effective use of keyboards, and there is a narrative quality in the movement of the songs that bespeaks a story being told (even though the lyrics don’t form a continuous narrative). The enormously expressive vocals sometimes sound like exchanges between different characters, each of them driven by fervent and usually fierce emotions — sometimes to the point of madness — as they are buffeted by the tumult of life-shaking occurrences. The music storms and subsides, as if turning points have been reached as the story moves toward its inevitable climax.

As you listen you can imagine the unfolding of transformative events, from the stately processional of an infernal coronation, to the agonies of torture, to the conflagration of war. At the end, you feel drained and breathless. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SONS OF CROM — “RIDDLE OF STEEL”

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Sep 102014
 

There’s nothing wrong with albums that provide a steady diet of essentially the same kind of music from start to finish, as long as the music suits your tastes and is well-written and well-executed. Yet when an album takes the listener on a journey through dramatically changing musical landscapes, it has the potential to stand out in a way that more monochromatic albums can’t. Such ventures are always risky — doing more than one thing well is a talent that’s in short supply, and even when the skills are available, the results can often display a jarring lack of cohesiveness. In short, great ambitions and complete success don’t always go hand in hand, when a band’s reach exceeds its grasp.

The Swedish duo Sons of Crom obviously set their sights high when they created their debut album Riddle of Steel. They crafted the music around a narrative concept, following the torturous path of a lone warrior through a journey that is both physical and psychological — exposing him to savagery and bloodbath in the physical world while leading him ultimately to reflections about the true nature of his greatest enemy — which may be himself. But the band didn’t limit this concept to the lyrical narrative of the songs — they also attempted to tell the story in the music. And to do that, they threw genre constraints to the wind.

You know you’re in for a head-trip when you see tags on the album’s Bandcamp page that include such names as Bathory, Arcturus, Enslaved, and Falkenbach, and when you see descriptions of the music that include such phrases as “epic heavy metal”, “thrashing brutality”, “classical moods”, “folky interludes”, and “soaring melodies”. But it turns out that none of this is overstated or inaccurate. You don’t have to take our word for it, because after the jump you can hear the album for yourself in all its epic, multi-textured extravagance. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NOCTEM — “DIVINE XIB’ALB’A”

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Sep 092014
 

In the spring of this year our man DGR heaped praise on the new album Exilium by Spain’s Noctem, describing it as “the best work the band have done so far” — “an album forged by experts at their craft who knew exactly how to kick out music of fury, fire, and war”.

Now, Noctem have signed with Prosthetic Records for the release of a special edition of Exilium in America, Canada, and Australia. The new edition of the album comes with two bonus tracks, and today we bring you the premiere of one of them — a song named “Divine Xib’ab’a”.

It’s a short slashing assault of ripping riffs, militaristic percussion, and utterly bestial growls — the kind of high-speed conflagration that burns through much of the album as a whole, and a good tease for the blazing intensity that Exilium holds in store if you’re not already familiar with it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TORRID HUSK — “CRAWLING MOUNTAIN APOGEE”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  3 Responses »
Sep 022014
 

Next month Grimoire Records will release a split entitled Crawling Mountain Apogee, with new songs from two talented bands — Myopic from Maryland and Torrid Husk from West Virginia. Invisible Oranges recently premiered the Myopic tracks, and today we’re bringing you the two long songs by Torrid Husk that appear on the split.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had the pleasure of premiering a Torrid Husk creation. Last May we premiered an excellent music video for “Cut With Rain”, a song from the band’s last EP, Caesious. Caesious was my first exposure to the band’s music, and as impressive as it was, these two new songs prove that it was no fluke. They mark a further step ahead for a band who are proving themselves to be an emerging bright star in the firmament of melodic black metal from the U.S.

The music is dramatic and dynamic. It storms in a torrent of cascading riffs and blasting drums. It rings with shining guitar melodies and howls in its discordance. It drifts moodily and crashes like a river in flood. The instrumental work is tremendously impressive at every station, and the songs are filled with great vocal variety as well, from clawing shrieks to deep roars to impassioned yells to soaring clean vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FROM THE VASTLAND — “WRATH OF AESHMA”

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Sep 012014
 

 

From the Vastland began life as the one-man project of an Iranian multi-instrumentalist known as Sina, following the end of his involvement in the prolific Iranian black metal band Sorg Innkallelse. From the Vastland’s debut album, Darkness vs Light, The Perpetual Battle, was released in 2011. That was followed by Kamarikan in 2013 (which we reviewed here), and then by a striking live performance that same year at Oslo’s Inferno Festival (reviewed here), where Sina was joined onstage by a such luminaries as Thor Anders “Destruchtor” Myhren (Myrkskog, Zyklon, Morbid Angel) on second guitar, André “Tjalve” Kvebek (Pantheon I, Den Saakaldte, Horizon Ablaze) on bass, and Vegard “Vyl” Larsen (Keep Of Kalessin) on drums.

From the Vastland has now recorded a third album that we’ve been eagerly awaiting. Its title is Temple of Daevas and it’s scheduled for release by Non Serviam Records on October 6, 2014. For the new album Sina again composed all the songs, performed lead vocals, and laid down the guitar tracks. He was joined in the recording by Vyl on drums, Tjalve on bass, and by Terje Olsen (Chton, Khonsu) as a guest vocalist for backing vocals.

Today we have the pleasure of premiering a stream of one of the new album tracks: “Wrath of Aeshma”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SINGULARITY — “THRONE OF THORNS”

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Sep 012014
 

(Austin Weber wrote the following introduction to our premiere of a new song.)

Singularity are an unsigned, mega-talented act from Tempe, Arizona, I have covered here before at No Clean Singing. Recently they were able make their upcoming self-titled debut album a reality through a successful Indigegogo campaign. The album will be out September 23rd, and trust me, you’re going to want a copy. Today we give you the first glimpse of their upcoming rise with “Throne Of Thorns”.

Singularity have been perfecting a musical merger they dub “technical black metal”, and it’s hard to argue with that description. In a way reminiscent of Fleshgod Apocalypse, the band use a type of classical and orchestral approach in their often technical death metal sounding music, and the end result is catchy without being cheesy. The symphonic rush and pomp is strong on “Throne Of Thorns”, interacting expertly with the twin inferno of tremolo-picked vortexes and onslaughts of precise, galloping drums, which display a fine battering-ram quality. As its militaristic peaks and pauses meet warp-zone level shredding amidst squalid, throaty screams, the cohesion of styles move from headbanging heights to scarring stampedes. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STRYVIGOR — “MYSTERIES OF DARKNESS”

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Aug 292014
 

 

Ukraine has produced many outstanding pagan and black metal bands whose music is rooted in the native cultures and traditions that produced them — bands such as Drudkh, Khors, and Kroda. Now we must add one more name to the list: Stryvigor.

This new band, founded in 2012, take their name from a mountain river that flows through the Carpathians. Their debut album Forgotten By Ages will be released by Svarga Music next month. The songs, sung in Ukrainian, were inspired by the landscapes of the region and the warrior traditions of the people. Today we bring the premiere of the new album’s second track, “Mysteries of Darkness”.

Voiced by moving waves of tremolo-picked guitar, the song’s atmospheric melody turns like the firmament in the night sky, flowing like clouds passing the face of the moon or icy rivers coursing through snow-covered forest. Beneath the affecting melody, which exudes warmth as well as cold, the rhythm section provides a heavy foundation, and the scarring vocals add an extra dimension of passion to a song that comes across as genuinely heartfelt. Continue reading »

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