AN NCS PREMIERE: IMBALANCED — “ASSIMILATION OF THE ENSLAVED”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  9 Responses »
Mar 192014
 

(Our man Leperkahn reviews the new EP by San Diego’s Imbalanced., and delivers a full stream of the EP to boot.)

If you’ve followed NCS for a decent amount of time, you may remember the Imbalanced name from when I covered them in my second post for the site, a San Diego death metal/Bob Filner-themed affair. Luckily for us, the trio have returned with a new mini-slab of their blistering technical death metal for us all, in the form of a new EP entitled Assimilation Of The Enslaved, replete with the intriguing cover art of David Correa.

When describing Imbalanced’s sound to interested parties, I’ve pretty much always used Arsis as a reference point, and that point still stays. However, the grittier production of this EP (as compared to most of Arsis’ output), whether by design or necessity, has helped these guys create a different sound, a sound that is wholly and uniquely Imbalanced. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “SATAN SPEAKS” BY A HILL TO DIE UPON

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Mar 172014
 

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the third album from the titanic blackened death metal entity known as A Hill To Die Upon, and now it’s nearly upon us. Entitled Holy Despair, it’s scheduled for release on April 22 via Bombworks Records. The album follows 2011’s Omens, which Andy Synn praised in this review on our site, and an excellent 2013 single called manden med leen (reviewed here). We’ve had the chance to hear the new album in advance of its release, and it’s really, really good. Today, we’ll give you evidence of its strength by premiering an official lyric video for the song “Satan Speaks”.

As the lyrical text for the song, AHTDU used a poem of the same name by noted British essayist and novelist C.S. Lewis. It appears in a collection of poems named Spirits In Bondage that Lewis wrote as a young man after returning from the horrors of World War I. As Lewis wrote to a friend in 1918, the book is “mainly strung around the idea that I mentioned to you before – that nature is wholly diabolical &
malevolent and that God, if he exists, is outside of and in opposition to the cosmic arrangements.”

As one writer described the bleak message of the poem, “Death, not life, is the victor. The spider catches the fly, creation returns all its creatures to the dust from where they came, even the sun will in the end be ‘consumed’ by maximum entropy.” To the end of Lewis’ poem, AHDTU added their own final couplet: “I am Satan, accuser accursed / Heed not my words, I was not first.” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: EPISTASIS — “WITCH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 122014
 

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of a song from the new EP by NYC’s Epistasis with this review.)

Change and evolution in a musical context is a mighty double-edged sword for artists and fans alike, with fickle listener attitudes and the artists’ desire to keep the fans interested providing both a reason to change and a reason not to change. If we are being honest, evolution is necessary for any artists to feel they are not stagnating, but we as fans often have a hard time accepting this. At this perilous point of intersection is where Looking Through The Dead Glass, the new EP from New York City natives Epistasis comes in.

When I wrote about their 2012 self-titled EP last year at NCS they were a quirky, adventurous group tackling a potent merger of classical influences, metal, and elements of rock to create a dense web of ever-shifting madness. Now they’ve added vocals, and evolved their sound to include a strong black metal undercurrent. Both are bold moves that pay off for Epistasis, allowing them to explore new frontiers musically, while not repeating what they have done before. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “I THINK I CAN” BY WTCHDR

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Mar 112014
 

When I reviewed the debut EP by Vancouver’s WTCHDR in 2012, I wrote: “WTCHDR brings together a bit of gory old Carcass, a bit of Dismember, a bit of crawling death/doom, a bit of crust-punk, a few nail-bombs, and some arson at a nursing home. Put all those bits together and you get an earful of chainsaw violence that will hold your interest from start to finish.” The comments were even better. One compared the band’s speed and fury to Trap Them. Another commenter wrote: “That guitar tone makes me want to do things with 4 liters of whiskey and half a mascot suit.” Only the top half, no doubt.

I also admitted in the review that I was kind of afraid to listen to the EP before I started, given the presence in the band of two marauders (Cam and Kevin) from the Vancouver grind band Burning Ghats. Perhaps you can imagine my trepidation when I learned that WTCHDR are about to release their debut album, which is entitled Triumph and Despair. But I girded my loins with sheet metal and even agreed to premiere a song from the album named “I Think I Can”, which features guest vocals by Andrew Drury of Southern Lord artist Baptists — as if WTCHDR weren’t hardcore enough on their own without a terrorist like that in the mix.

“I Think I Can” rumbles like a freight train and stomps like your spine is a snake that needs killing. Selfishly I would have preferred that the song were longer, but on the other hand I still had one working leg by the time it ended, so there’s that. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIRGE — “HYPERION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 112014
 

About three weeks ago we featured an advance song from Hyperion, the forthcoming sixth album by the Parisian band Dirge. Today, in cooperation with the band’s new label Debemur Morti, we’re thrilled to help premiere a stream of Hyperion in its entirety.

On Hyperion, Dirge prove themselves to be immaculate practitioners of a dark and beautiful art. They stand like potent spellcasters at the intersection of doom, sludge, and post-metal, a place cloaked in perpetual night, hemmed in by black thorns, lit only by a sliver of moon above and the shimmer of winking stars.

The songs are long, culminating in a 16-minute instrumental closing track. They manage to be both ghostly and very heavy, both ethereal and menacing in the power of their undertow, like the siren song and the bottomless whirlpool. Combining low distorted chords and massive drum strikes with rippling lead guitar lines, mixing raw howling vocals with ghostly, subdued, clean ones, they walk a line between pain and perseverance without ever losing their balance. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: GREY SKIES FALLEN — “RITUAL OF THE EXITER”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  6 Responses »
Mar 062014
 

Grey Skies Fallen are a New York band who trace their roots back to 1996. Since then they’ve released three full-length albums and two EPs, all of which are available for free download at the band’s web site (here). Along the way, they’ve made changes in their sound, as well as changes in the line-up, and they’re now set to release a new album entitled The Many Sides of Truth. Today we’re giving you a glimpse into the new work through our premiere of “Ritual of the Exiter”.

When I first heard this long song, I was left bedazzled, and grasping at straws in thinking about how to describe it. Just when I thought I understood what the band were up to, they crossed me up. As the title suggests, there is indeed a ritualistic quality to its progression, with the parts of the rite segmented by unexpected guitar interludes that break the building tension before the intensity begins to build again.

The song is anchored by a really good rhythm section, with both the bass and the drums getting their hooks into you. But the bleak melodic motifs in the music are the key to its success, along with the vocals, which are both clean and agonizing. Genre boundaries are ignored, with elements of doom, prog, black metal, and melodic death metal in the mix. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: POSSESSION — “ANNELIESE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  8 Responses »
Mar 032014
 

Possession’s 2013 demo, His Best Deceit, stirred up a buzz among underground aficionados of black/death bludgeoning, but this Belgian band’s forthcoming 7″ EP, Anneliese, should stoke the buzz to deafening levels. My only regret is that it’s only two songs long. Today, we’re giving you the chance to hear one of them in its entirety.

Possession achieve the kind of sound and aura that many newer bands strive for but few achieve as well. It’s the sound of primordial death metal, rising from the ooze and radiating an otherworldly malignancy.  It’s rough and raw, but there’s a lot more to its appeal than feral ferocity: Possession write some delicious riffs that are as infectious as they are morbid.

The gut-punching drum beats and reverberating chords that form the intro to the title track tell you that something wicked this way comes, but you may still not be prepared for the driving rock rhythms, slashing guitars, and feral howls that follow it. It’s an immediate headband trigger, and if you don’t get a charge out of the grinding bass solo in the song’s back half, there’s no hope for you. The horror-filled atmosphere of the song’s down-paced finish makes a killer of a song all the more lethal. Continue reading »

KAUNIS KUOLEMATON: AN NCS SONG PREMIERE AND AN ALBUM REVIEW

 Album Reviews, Premieres  9 Responses »
Mar 032014
 

We discovered Kaunis Kuolematon last August through their release of a striking song named “En Ole Mitään” (I Am Nothing) — so striking that it was the only track we named to our list of 2013’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs that didn’t come from an album or EP. That song was the advance guard of the band’s full-length debut album Kylmä Kaunis Maailma, which will be released through Violent Journey Records on April 25, 2014. Today we bring you the premiere of another song from the album — “Kivisydän” — plus a few words about the album as a whole.

In a nutshell, Kylmä Kaunis Maailma is just as striking as that first advance track that captivated us last year. Kaunis Kuolematon (“Immortal Beauty”) aren’t the first Finnish band to deliver melodic death metal drenched in doom, but they are one of the few to do it this well this fast. Blending gargantuan heaviness with a panoply of wrenching melodies, they’ve recorded nine powerful songs so well-written that they all have the capability of getting stuck firmly in your head.

The music is almost entirely mid-paced and almost entirely somber in its emotional atmosphere, yet the songs never lose their tight grip on the listener’s attention. Apart from all those reverberating melodic hooks, the band are masterful in their creation of contrasts.  They juxtapose jagged, jabbing riffs and booming bass lines with rippling lead guitar instrumentals that shimmer and soar. They’ll hammer your head like an anvil and in the next moment pierce you right in your anguished heart. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: A FULL-ALBUM STREAM OF “FLESH HAMMER” BY FOSSILS

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 272014
 

Less than a week ago we featured the official video for a new song called “Filet Horizon” by a Danish instrumental duo named Fossils. Watching a technician laser-etch a band’s logo and album title onto a slab of beef jerky (thereby creating the album cover) isn’t exactly a common occurrence. The song proved to be uncommonly good, too. And now we get to share with you the entirety of Fossils’ forthcoming second album — Flesh Hammer.

When a band’s instrumental attack consists of bass and drums only, you expect something stripped down, and that’s true of Flesh Hammer up to a point. Wielding only those two rhythm-section weapons, Fossils do create skull-splitting grooves, but they also generate a storm of hornet-swarm riffs that veer from feedback-drenched cacophony to some seriously spine-shaking rock ‘n’ roll. It’s more than slightly unhinged — it’s rude, raving, and radioactive. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COLOSSUS – “ENDLESS TORMENTS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Feb 142014
 

Deathcore is not dead, but it is evolving, and branching in different directions. With their forthcoming debut album Lobotocracy, the French band Colossus show us the direction they have taken, and we’ll be giving you a glimpse of it through our exclusive premiere of the album’s seventh track, “Endless Torments”.

Lobotocracy is non-stop warfare — a maiming, vicious, often technically acrobatic assault that’s far closer to Aborted-style death/grind than Colossus’ deathcore roots. It brings the punishment with pile-driving grooves, a plethora of guitar leads that squirm, skitter, and swarm, and rapid-fire, start-stop riff bursts that will leave flesh in tatters. The album reveals a noticeable step-up in technical proficiency, and the band infiltrate their brutal hammering with an array of bleak, insidious melodies that leave no room for hope.

There’s no solace to be found in the band’s dual-vocal barrage either. Those hoarse roars and hair-raising shrieks match the destructive intensity of the rest of the music. Continue reading »

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