AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FAIL TO DECAY — “ALL SEEING EYE”

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Aug 192014
 

 

We don’t write much about deathcore at this site, which may be why we’re not exactly a “go to” location for bands in that space who are interested in getting some increased exposure for their music. But Fail To Decay from Rochester, Minnesota, happen to include James Benson of Amiensus in their ranks, and that’s a band we’ve written about more than once in glowing terms. So when he asked us to check out Fail To Decay’s new music video, that got our attention — and now we’re bringing the video to you as well.

It was directed, filmed, and edited by Rico Roman Productions (The Human Abstract, Born of Osiris), and it’s for a song named “All Seeing Eye” off Fail To Decay’s 2014 EP, The Black Book., which was mixed and mastered by another favorite of this site, Roman “Arsafes” Iskorostenskiy (Kartikeya, Arsafes). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EMETH — “AETHYR”

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Aug 192014
 

 

The Belgium death cult Emeth were the subjects of Andy Synn’s 18th SYNN REPORT for NCS, in a series that’s now approaching its 50th edition. Back then, in August 2011, the band had produced three albums of striking savagery mixed with seismically shifting tempos, technically immaculate instrumental work, and incisive hooks. Now Emeth are on the verge of releasing their fourth album through their new label, Xtreem Music, which has proven to have a reliable eye for brutality that’s a cut above the ordinary.

The band’s new album is entitled Aethyr and it’s expected to hit the streets in September of this year, with pre-orders coming soon. Given the passage of six long years since the band’s last full-length (Telesis), one might well wonder whether time has pacified Emeth’s ferocity or dulled the edge of their blades. Well, wonder no more, because today we’re bringing you the premiere of the new album’s title track, and it should banish all fears. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRIEG — “RETURN FIRE” (AND A REVIEW OF “TRANSIENT”)

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Aug 192014
 

 

There’s a song premiere at the end of this post. It’s a really good song. Those of you who are squeezed for time or afflicted with attention deficit disorder, I won’t blame you if you jump to the bottom and press Play. But I’m going to have my say about the whole album, because Transient is one of the most interesting I’ve heard in 2014. It might even be the best album Krieg has yet produced in a career that’s coming up on two decades. And if you think that any one song on this album will faithfully represent all the rest, even the one we’re premiering, you might want to read on.

Increasing age is a double-edged sword for all of us, and it’s a particularly unpredictable blade for musicians, one that’s just as liable to cause self-inflicted wounds as to carve new trails through the underbrush. On the one hand, skills can improve and the accumulation of life experiences can add maturity and new depth to an artist’s creativity. But goddamn, it can also make you boring, or lazy, or both. Some bands are content to tread water, some of them try to force-feed a fire that died out long ago, and the sparks sputter instead of blaze. Transient is about the furthest thing you could imagine from that.

Neill Jameson (aka Imperial), the man behind Krieg, cemented his place in the black metal underground a long time ago. He’s older now. By the sounds of Transient, he might not be any happier, but he sure as hell isn’t treading water. What he’s done instead is to feed the smoldering fires of the black metal vehemence he has tended so well with an array of new and different fuels, producing flames of different colors, though the overarching emotional hue of the album as a whole is still mostly bleak, blasted, and broken. Continue reading »

THE STRIKE OF MIDNIGHT: A REVIEW AND FULL-ALBUM STREAM OF “NO MERCY FOR MAYHEM”

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Aug 182014
 

 

Fortune (or Satan) has smiled on us, because today we have been chosen to deliver unto you a stream of the new album by Midnight, from beginning to end, from “Penetratal Curse” to “Aggressive Crucifixion”, and beyond. And we introduce you to No Mercy For Mayhem with this review of the album by our brother BadWolf:

 

Jamie “Athenar” Walters spent a long time recording demos, 7-inches, and splits as Midnight before he released his debut album, much like many other solo black metal musicians in America. But that long gestation period, I’m afraid, is where the similarities end. Midnight is nothing like Krieg, Xasthur, or Weakling. Bedroom black metal? More like satanic sex dungeon metal-n-roll. The only thing atmospheric about Midnight is the thin film of grindhouse sleaze that permeates its propulsive stew of old-school black metal and cock rock.

Further far afield from midwest black metal, Midnight has a distinct look and aesthetic. With painted cover art featuring hooded executioners and scantily clad women, the band has a sense of style, all wrapped up in violence, delinquency, and BDSM naughtiness. For a pretty anonymous, gender-indifferent genre, Midnight deals with sexual subjects, while sporting a strong, theatrical sense—something that used to be a big part of black metal until everyone but Immortal forgot about it. Live, Midnight comes across like a crust-punk KISS, albeit with hoods instead of platform shoes (an upgrade, if you ask me).

Walters’s 2011 debut, Satanic Royalty, wound up being one of my favorite albums of that year—too bad I didn’t get a chance to hear it until 2012. That record mixed Venom-and-Motörhead-isms with arena-ready hooks. For the past two years, I’ve been frothing at the mouth to get a taste of its followup, and the Complete and Total Hell compilation album (reviewed here), though incredible, just did not scratch the itch. Seeing Midnight’s energetic performance at Maryland Deathfest 2013 only made the wait more unbearable. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PHOBOCOSM — “KNIVES IN THE SENATE HOUSE”

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Aug 182014
 

 

Last spring I discovered the existence of a Montréal death metal cult named Phobocosm, who had just recently signed with Dark Descent for the release of their debut album, Deprived. In the spring, one song had been posted for streaming. Its name is “Solipsist”,  and it’s a monster. The dreadful chiming chords that begin the song are like the bells that herald the final doom, and the rest of the song provides a reasonable approximation of that world-ending event. Today we’re lucky to bring you the premiere of a second track from Deprived. This new one is named “Knives In the Senate House”. It, too, is a monster.

The music creates an atmosphere of choking, poisonous miasma with bleak, ripping riffs that grind and vibrate as if emulating the super-heated process of radioactive decay. Huge bass and drum hammers punctuate the storming onslaught with concrete-splitting force, and a sinuous melody slithers through the toxic storm, giving the music character as well as a potent aura of dread and imminent destruction. The drum performance throughout the song is both acrobatic and brutally effective, and the deep, gargantuan vocals enhance the music’s message of utter catastrophe.

Phobocosm are practicing a very dark art, one that displays mastery in the creation of both oppressive atmospherics and sensations of physically compulsive power. Like “Solipsist”, “Knives In the Senate House” heralds the advent of an album that will be a must-listen experience by all true acolytes of lethal death rituals. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NICK VASALLO (WITH THE LIVING EARTH SHOW AND FRICTION QUARTET): “OZYMANDIAS”

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Aug 142014
 

Long-time followers of our site will be familiar with Nick Vasallo, but for any newcomers in the audience, he is the lead vocalist and songwriter for the excellent technical death metal band Oblivion — and he has a Ph.D. in Music, he is an assistant professor at Cal State Polytechnic University (Pomona), and he is a composer of contemporary classical music whose works have been performed internationally.

When last we featured him in these pages (here), the subject was the composition that earned him his Ph.D., a unique collision of heavy metal and classical music entitled Black Swan Events. Now we’re delighted to bring you the on-line premiere of another composition that incorporates elements of both musical genres.

The title of this new work is “Ozymandias”, and it comes in the form of a remarkable music video. Accompanying the video we also have a brief interview of Nick Vasallo in which he discusses the music and the way in which it has been presented in the video.

As the name suggests, the music was inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem “Ozymandias”, an allegory for the impermanence of empires, and at a deeper level, of most human achievements; perhaps only art survives, the poem suggests, and even then in a state of gradual decay. The music is an unpredictable work — sometimes dissonant, distorted, and disturbing, sometimes quite head-bangable, and sometimes dramatically powerful. And it ends with the sound of singing bowls! Continue reading »

UNWILLING FLESH: “BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE DEAD” (A REVIEW AND A SONG PREMIERE)

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Aug 142014
 

Death metal of the old Swedish school, especially in its more melodic forms, is my metal comfort food. It proved to be my own gateway into ever-expanding realms of extreme music, and it still puts a smile on my face no matter how many times I revisit the classics. There’s something genuinely timeless about the style.

Of course, as every student of metal history is well aware, the decades that have passed since the early 90s have spawned increasingly diverse variations on the original template, with a steadily increasing tendency of many bands to pack their music with technical acrobatics or drown it in a murky, polluted, soul-sucking atmosphere of pure evil.  To find a new band who have directed their creative impulses back to the well spring is thus ironically refreshing, especially because what they’ve created is so tremendously good.

The band’s name is Unwilling Flesh, and its membership will come as a big surprise to most: It’s the brainchild and alter ego of multi-instrumentalist Andrew D’Cagna, who is better known for his work in such groups as Brimstone Coven, Obsequiae, Nechochwen, and Infirmary. It turns out that he, too, harbors a love for Swedish death metal. Fueled by inspiration from such old-school progenitors as Carnage, Eucharist, and Excretion, he has created an album under the Unwilling Flesh moniker entitled Between the Living and the Dead that’s due for release by Eihwaz Recordings (the sister label of Bindrune Recordings). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LAIKA — “THE IMMORTAL”

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Aug 142014
 

When Laika from Winnipeg, Manitoba, named themselves after the the stray dog from the streets of Moscow who became one of the first animals to travel in space and the first to orbit the Earth, they explained: “In the beginning we were quirky dudes full of pretty insane ideas, much like sending a dog to space, so it seemed fitting”.  While poor Laika the dog did not survive her historic venture into the unknown, Laika the band have been growing stronger and more accomplished since their inception in 2009, and they’re now on the brink of releasing their second album, Somnia. One song from the album has already premiered, and today we bring you a second one: “The Immortal”.

The music is energetic and soaring, building to an impassioned crescendo, but although it’s propelled by a flurry of jabbing, pulsating riffs, it also includes elements that aren’t exactly standard fare for melodic death metal — rock beats instead of blast beats, and a conjoining of rippling keyboards and grumbling bass notes that provide a captivating accent. Jordan Dorge’s mid-ranged, feral howls also provide a venomous edge without obscuring the lyrics. But what really seals the deal is the band’s knack for writing memorable melodies: “The Immortal” will stick in your head and beckon you back for more. It’s a strong teaser for a strong album. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INTERNAL SUFFERING — “VANISHED FROM COSMOS”

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Aug 142014
 

(Austin Weber brings us the following introduction to our premiere of a lyric video for the first new music from Internal Suffering in eight years.)

Like all genres (and subgenres) of metal, death metal has an abundance of “classic” albums and legendary bands, many of which still remain unheard of by current fans of the genre. The advent of the internet has helped bring many of these killer underappreciated bands to light. Internal Suffering are exactly this kind of band, head and shoulders above most; and, thankfully, the internet has helped spread their name around massively.

The band was started way back in 1996 when they were based in Columbia, though they have since relocated a few times and are now operating out of Madrid, Spain. In 2006, with several eye-popping releases under their belt, Unique Leader signed them and they released a bestial masterpiece entitled, Awakening Of The Rebel, an album that still sounds years ahead of its time. As a result of the group going on hiatus from 2007-2011, Awakening Of The Rebel turned out to be their last recorded material — until now. It’s been 8 long years of waiting for dedicated fans, a torment of fervent awaiting for their next feverish torrent of torment.

Now we are proud to premiere a new lyric video containing a pre-production version of “Vanished From Cosmos” off their next record. This pre-production track perfectly captures the explosiveness and energy of death metal with an appropriately evil flair that at times comes across like Cryptopsy. With “Vanished From Cosmos”, Internal Suffering have taken their blastbeat-barrage-meets-finger-cramping-riff style into a higher strata of ravenous existence. Meanwhile the lyrical side of their equation continues to revolve around Thelema, Magick, and Ctulthu-esque demon beings.  Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SACROCURSE — “RITES OF PERVERTED IDOLATRY”

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Aug 122014
 

 

The cover art for Unholier Master, the debut album by Sacrocurse from Monterrey, Mexico, gives you fair warning: What lies within is pure aural hellfire summoned from the deepest sulfur pits of the underworld. It’s a scorching conflagration of bestial black/death that inflicts its punishment with unbridled ferocity and gut-wrenching speed, but matched with the kind of powerhouse grooves that will give the neck muscles of listeners a vigorous workout.

Unholier Master is scheduled for release on CD and vinyl by Hells Headbangers on August 19, with Germany’s Iron Bonehead handling the European vinyl release. The presence of those two labels behind this album probably tells you all you need to know about what the album holds in store, but today we’re bringing you an immediate taste of its poison through the premiere of its fourth track, “Rites of Perverted Idolatry”.

Together, vocalist/guitarist Zolrak Montes aka ZK (Nodens, ex-Unholier, ex-Morbosidad) and drummer LZ push this diabolical music into the red zone on “Rites”, delivering a storm of razor-edged riffs, relentless drum blasts, and inhuman proclamations that leave no doubt who is master of this domain. Continue reading »

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