AN NCS PREMIERE: DISKORD — “LETHARGIC REGRESSION”

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Jun 162014
 

(Austin Weber wrote the following introduction to our premiere of a new song by Norway’s Diskord.)

To metalheads, Norway is synonymous with black metal and all things grim and frostbitten. What metalheads don’t usually associate with Norway is death metal. So in that respect, the Oslo, Norway trio Diskord are a bit of an oddity, geographically speaking — and even more so when you consider that their brand of death metal calls to mind a largely American and old-school-influenced approach.

Hot on the heels of their 2012 disasterpiece, Dystopics, comes an appropriately titled new EP from the group: Oscillations. We at No Clean Singing are excited to bring you the first unholy taste of this upcoming effort with the premiere of “Lethargic Regression”.

“Lethargic Regression” is a schizophrenic entity, one that bounces uncomfortably between disorienting dissonant waves and split-second tempo shifts. The maddening assault hits like a calculated blend of Demilich on a bender with Atheist, Gorguts, and Immolation in tow, all the while frequently pulling you down toward the grave with Autopsy-esque lurches and pestilential pit-stops. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ARCH ENEMY — “NO MORE REGRETS”

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Jun 102014
 

Arch Enemy live at Sweden Rock — photo by Am. Creations, used with permission.

The new album from Arch Enemy, War Eternal, is being released today in North America by Century Media and to celebrate the occasion we bring you the premiere of the band’s official video for the album’s fifth track, “No More Regrets”.

For a genre of music that at its core is about wrecking convention, metal has a surprising number of fans who tend to resist change. Arch Enemy, of course, experienced a big change this year with the end of the Angela Gossow era and her replacement by new frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz. That has led to some upheaval in the ranks of the Arch Enemy faithful — an upheaval that has sometimes seemed to overshadow the music on War Eternal itself, which happens to be excellent.

As our writer Andy Synn put it in his review of the new album, “[T]he recent changes to the band’s line-up really are a blessing in disguise. Throughout War Eternal the new Arch Enemy sound renewed and re-energised, a band firing on all cylinders and with something to prove – to themselves as much as to everyone else…. [The album] succeeds in taking the by-now familiar formula of the Arch Enemy sound and sharpening it, strengthening it, giving it teeth and claws and a fresh appetite for destruction.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PILLORY — “MASS ENMITY”

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May 302014
 

Boston’s Pillory will soon be releasing their second album Evolutionary Miscarriage via the Unique Leader label. If you’re familiar with other bands on the Unique Leader roster, then you’ll probably be able to make a good guess about the particular type of mayhem that Pillory deliver, but we’re going to remove the guesswork by premiering a stream of the new album’s second track, “Mass Enmity”.

If you aren’t intrigued by the instrumental introduction, I’ll be surprised, because it’s very enticing. But the song just grows more and more interesting, the kind of music that simultaneously activates the reptile part of the brain while engrossing the higher faculties as well. Parts of the track sound like a conflict raging on some futuristic battlefield. Parts of it surf on cosmic space lanes. Other parts sound like the soundtrack to the work of a big mainframe solving an immensely complex mathematical formula. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FALL OF THE ALBATROSS — “LIMERENCE”

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May 292014
 

(Austin Weber provides the following introduction to our premiere of a new track by Fall of the Albatross from Queens, New York.)

The bewildering experience of taking in Fall Of The Albatross is overwhelming at first, as they are masters of splicing chaos and calm to form intricate dynamic webs and make every bit of it fit together perfectly. For those who’ve missed my previous posts here regarding the band, they are a highly eclectic instrumental metal band with a focus on blowing your mind. The June 24th release of their new full-length, Enormous Cloud, draws ever closer, and thus another song premiere is in order.

Which brings us today to the adventurous journey contained within “Limerence”, a song that churns out planet-smashing math core, stuffs it with a fluffy jazz filling, and sneaks in sublime swelling post-rock builds as well. They arrange the opposing styles expertly to split-second ping-pong off each another brilliantly. From vicious tempo changes to unwinding solitude, this song encapsulates the essence of the record — no boundaries. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COPROCEPHALIC — “DESOLATION OF CONJOINED EMBODIMENT”

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May 232014
 

Coprocephalic are a multinational band, with two members in Taiwan and one in Southern California. Their debut album Gluttonous Chunks descended in 2013, and they have now signed with Lacerated Enemy Records for the impending release of their new album The Oath of Relinquishment, as well as a limited edition EP that will precede the album — Desolation of Conjoined Embodiment.

The new releases feature the eye-catching artwork of one of our favorites, Ken Sarafin (Sarafin Concepts), and both the EP and the album include guest vocal appearances by a trio of brutal heavyweights — Matti Way (Pathology), Angel Ochoa (Disgorge), and Jeremiah Blue Jensen (Guttural Secrete).

Today we bring you the debut of the EP’s title track, “Desolation of Conjoined Embodiment”, which features guest vocals by Angel Ochoa. Measured strictly by the commonly accepted defining standards of brutal slamming death metal, it is a highly accomplished piece of merciless thuggery. But more is going on in the song than a decimating beatdown. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM BLUT AUS NORD AND P.H.O.B.O.S.

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May 222014
 

Last month we reported the announcement by Debemur Morti Records that on June 20 (June 24 in North America) the label would be releasing a split by Blut Aus Nord and P.H.O.B.O.S. entitled Triunity, featuring artwork by Polish artist Katarzyna Urbanek (you can see one of the two paintings above). Today, we bring you one song by each of these French bands from the forthcoming split.

The offering we have for you by Blut Aus Nord is “De Librio Arbitrio”. As we have come to expect from this band, the music has an otherworldly quality, a dissonant, dimension-piercing ambience that surrounds some truly gargantuan riffs and bone-jarring percussion. The song is heavy as hell and rhythmically compulsive, while at the same time ringing with the reverberations of cosmic melody and clawing with the strangling sound of barbed-wire vocals. Fantastic. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATHKINGS — “MARTYRS (VOL I)”

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May 222014
 

Deathkings are from Los Angeles but you wouldn’t know it to hear their music. Surf, sunshine, and palm trees don’t enter into it. The local landmark that probably best suits the music’s atmosphere are the tar pits at La Brea.

Deathkings recorded their debut album Destroyer in 2011. It originally consisted of three long tracks, each song in the 10-15 minute range. The album has now been re-mastered for a vinyl release by LA-based Midnite Collective, with those three tracks converted into four. Today we’re premiering “Martyrs (Vol. I)”, which was originally part of one of the original long tracks that has now been divided.

The riffs in the song are thick, fuzz-bombed, tarry beasts that generate the kind of resonance you feel in your guts. They pound, hammer, and writhe in a mid-paced rhythm, and together with the crushing drum beats, they’ll make your head move. Vocalist Nicholas Rocha sounds like he’s in the throes of genuine agony, driving home the bleak, blasted atmosphere of this strangely seductive music. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HOUR OF PENANCE — “THEOGONY”

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May 202014
 

You would be hard-pressed to find another 2014 album more packed with super-heated fury than Regicide, the new album by Italy’s Hour of Penance. To borrow the words of our reviewer Andy Synn, it’s “utterly destructive”, loaded with a “wealth of punishing riffage, bloody hooks, and concentrated venom”, but with “subtle refinements and embellishments that the band have made to their familiar formula, tiny tweaks designed to increase its lethal virulence without compromising the ferocious core of their identity.”

In June, North American audiences will get a chance to see Hour of Penance decimate cities across the U.S. and Canada when the band embark on the Conquerors of the World tour with Septicflesh, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Necronomicon. Today you can get a preview of the band’s potent live show through our premiere of the official Hour of Penance video for “Theogony”, which was filmed live at their recent headlining gig in Wakefield, England. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: A SPLIT BY BENCHPRESS AND MARTYR’S TONGUE

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
May 162014
 

It’s time for audio mauling, with flair, as we bring you music from two metal-weighted hardcore bands who’ll slug you in the mouth and then kick you in the cojones before you have time to pick up your teeth.

The bands are Benchpress from Lewiston, Pennsylvania, and Martyr’s Tongue from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Get This Right Records has just released a split 7″ that includes two songs from each band. We’re premiering streams of all four songs after a brief introduction.

BENCHPRESS

As the band’s name signifies, the original members apparently came together with the tongue-in-cheek idea of making “beatdown anthems for gym-rats”, but the two songs on the new split aren’t joking around. “Penance” and “Pissed Away” rocket through the bloodstream in about six minutes. They inflict the punishment with thick, rebar-strength riffs delivered in both flashing jabs and brutal hammer blows, with squalling feedback leading to thunderous breakdowns. And you can feel the vocalist’s jugular veins coming apart violently as he vents his venom. Merciless and heavy-grooved, these tracks will make your bad moods murderous. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TORRID HUSK — “CUT WITH RAIN”

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May 142014
 

For an unpaid blog created by a small group of people on a part-time basis, I think we do a fair job of covering new releases across a broad spectrum of metal. But more metal is being created today than ever before, and we miss out on a lot of albums, EPs, and splits that deserve attention. Torrid Husk’s Caesious is a prime example.

Caesious is a three-song EP released in February of this year by Grimoire Records, and it was this West Virginia band’s second collection of music, following their 2013 debut album Mingo (yeah, we missed that one, too). It drew very favorable (and well-written) reviews from sites such as Metal Bandcamp and Invisible Oranges, but I still overlooked it. Fortunately, I’ve been given a chance to make amends by premiering the official video for one of the excellent songs on Caesious — “Cut With Rain”.

The video was directed and filmed by Tyler Davis (who is also the vocalist and guitarist for Maryland’s Barbelith) in the woods near Martinsburg, West Virginia, not far from the cabin where Caesious was recorded. It’s a beautiful setting, and the video is beautifully made. Continue reading »

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