AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ONE WITH THE RIVERBED — “INFESTED”

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Oct 022024
 

(written by Islander)

To be honest, “post metal” is an amorphous term (though maybe not as amorphous as metal genre labels such as “avant-garde” or “dark metal”). As such, it probably brings to mind different things to different listeners, in part because bands who helped spawn the term and others since then have often engaged in experimentation.

In my case, I tend to think of :post metal” as music that’s expansive, heavy, and atmospherically dark, with a tendency to build upon repeating cycles of sound, though I recognize that bands grouped under the post-metal label often sound very, very different from each other, in part because they draw upon differing ingredients from other recognized metallic genres, including sludge, doom, and black metal.

And that brings me to One With the Riverbed, a quintet from Kalamazoo, Michigan that first came together in 2017. Their discography to date, including their 2021 debut album Absence, has attracted the “post metal” label, and that will probably be true of their forthcoming second album Succumb, which is set for release on October 25th by the Dusktone label. Yet, for reasons explained above, that leaves questions about the nature of their new music unanswered.

But we have some answers today through our premiere of a visualizer for the new album’s opening track, “Infested“, for which the term “post-black metal” seems more specific. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASCIIMOV — “ASCENSION OF THE FALLEN”

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Oct 012024
 

And now, for something completely different.

What we’re about to present is a video for a song from a forthcoming album that’s the soundtrack to a dark fantasy first-person retro-shooter game developed for PCs. The name of the game, and of the album, is Hands of Necromancy II.

The project responsible for the music is Asciimov, and though you may not be familiar with that name, many of you will be familiar with the person behind it, the Spanish musical shapeshifter NHT (Oscar Martin), whose other creative endeavors (in the realms of metal) include As Light Dies, Garth Arum, and Deemtee (among others).

But what’s really different, especially in the context of our site, is the music. As a hint, here’s how the label that’s releasing the album (Darkwoods) describes it: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERAL FORMS — “SADISTIC INNER HATE”

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Sep 302024
 

When Everlasting Spew Records refers to the Italian death metal band Feral Forms as “one of the most vicious and ferocious bands we have ever released”, that gets our attention very fast, because this label has an extensive roster of vicious and ferocious bands. And it turns out not to be an exaggeration.

This quartet from Trieste, which features current and former members of Grime, The Secret, Claustrum, and Fierce, already made their ruthlessness plain for all to hear, through their 2023 debut EP Premalignant, but they were only warming up. If the EP was “premalignant”, their new album Through Demonic Spell is fully malignant — as you’ll discover today through our premiere of a song from the new record: “Sadistic Inner Hate“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CONJONCTIVE — “DYING MELODY”

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Sep 302024
 

More than seven years and seven months ago we hosted the premiere of a video for a song off In the Mouth of the Devil, the then-forthcoming second album by the punishing Swiss band Conjonctive. At that time the band were building upon both their debut album Until The Whole World Dies and their experiences in touring Switzerland and opening for the likes of Crowbar, Biohazard, and Aborted, among others. And now we’re hosting another Conjonctive video premiere in support of another album, a new one named Misère de Poussièr.

Seven years and seven months is obviously a long break. In Conjonctive‘s case, the interval was the result of a hiatus in 2019-2020 and significant lineup changes, including the addition of drummer Guido Wyss (formerly of Near Death Condition). But the band are ferociously making up for lost time, as you’ll find out when you listen to “Dying Melody“, because it’s nothing if not ferocious.

And the video you’re about to see? It’s a ferocious and brutal horror, so explicit in its blood-letting that it doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASHEN TOMB — “CAVE OF STARING EYES”

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Sep 272024
 

(written by Islander)

One good turn deserves another.

Near the end of last month we hosted the video premiere of a song suitably named “Catharsis Through Torture” from a new album by the Finnish death metal band Ashen Tomb that’s headed our way via Everlasting Spew Records. And now, near the end of this month, we’re bringing you another Ashen Tomb song premiere, this one named “Cave of Staring Eyes“.

Maybe we should say “one utterly ruinous turn deserves another”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELGE — “KEEP THE FIRE BURNING”

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Sep 272024
 

(written by Islander)

On November 1st the Danish metal band Helge will release their sophomore album Gidinawendimin. They explain that the album’s title “is an ancient word from the Ojibwe people that means ‘we are all related.'” If it seems strange that a modern-day Danish band would be drawing upon the culture of an ancient North American indigenous people for inspiration, you’ll learn today that it’s not the only non-European touchstone for the band.

And while it’s fair to say that most bands who perform amalgams of black and death metal (as Helge do) tend to focus on dark and even nihilistic themes, this group has a different bent: it seems they might actually be promoting positive spiritual uplift.

For example, the song from the new album that we’re premiering today, along with an exhilarating music video, is called “Keep the Fire Burning“. It’s the song that ends the album, and lyrically it exhorts listeners to “stand aside from ego”, to forsake anger and poison, to “return to the core of the spirit,” and thus to become reborn, and to rise. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TORREFY — “NECRONOMISONGS”

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Sep 262024
 

Beginning in late June of this year we began our own gradual march toward the release of Torrefy‘s new album Necronomisongs. At that point we premiered a startling song from the album named “Enslaved New World” (inspired by the Death Gate Cycle fantasy series), and also reprised a previously released single (equally startling) called “Of Wind and Worm” (inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune). And then in August we brought you the premiere stream of “Street Reaper” (inspired by Stephen King’s Christine).

And now we’re at the end of our march. Necronomisongs will be released tomorrow (September 27th) on the Germany-based Witches Brew label, and today we’re happily sharing a full stream of all the songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IGNOMINOUS — “THE COMING FALL”

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Sep 262024
 

(written by Islander)

The three seasoned Greek musicians who joined together to form the black metal band Ignominous — just in time to confront the Covid assault — have introduced themselves and their debut album Dawn With No Light through these striking words:

“Ignominous is the pain in our veins, the scream in our hearts, and the shadowed path in our souls — a journey we embarked on many years ago, even before we met each other. The dawn with no light symbolizes our endless struggle, the bleeding of our symbols, and the long journey we have taken together. We have entered the eternal night, and in embracing the shadows, we find true life as the dawn with no light approaches.”

No doubt, the turmoil expressed in that statement has deep and distant origins, but it was exacerbated by more recent events. As noted above, these three joined together in 2020 but the pandemic slowed their work, and by March 2021 all their rehearsals ceased due to severe Covid-related health issues that afflicted bassist Anestis Nekhromancer.

However, the band rose again at the dawn of 2022 and completed the writing of the songs that are now encompassed by their full-length debut, which will be released in early October. As a vivid sign of what they’ve accomplished, we now premiere a song from the album named “The Coming Fall“, presented with a lyric video. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MARCHE FUNÈBRE — “AFTER THE STORM”

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Sep 252024
 

(written by Islander)

“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget. That is how memory works. Pain and suffering etch themselves onto your soul, while joy seems to be a fleeting whisper you can barely hold onto. It is this paradox of memory that haunts us all, leaving us to wonder what we are, what we were, and what we might become.”
— The Road by Cormac McCarthy

“I stand beneath the open sky, at the setting of the sun. The still waters stretch before me to the distant horizon and the clouds drift slowly across the vast canvas of the sky – a brilliant blending of deepest blues, rich purples, vivid red and warm orange. Yet for all the open vista, the space and freedom, I am trapped; suffocating in a labyrinth of black desperation. The cold walls of insurmountable sorrows and confusion contain me and I am imprisoned by past scars that have become infected, poisoned by the cruel, slow venoms of grief, loss and guilt. I built this maze, but I have long since forgotten the way to freedom…”
— Marche Funèbre

I probably could have left those two quotations and moved right along, without further embellishment, to the premiere stream of Marche Funèbre‘s new album After the Storm (set for release by Ardua Music on September 27th) that we’re hosting today. I had the second one already. Purely by coincidence, I saw the first one shared on social media just as I was finalizing this premiere article. It’s from a devastating and unforgettable work by the late Mr. McCarthy, and seemed entirely suitable to the experience of the album, which is itself often devastating — and I suspect will be very hard to forget as time passes.

On the other hand, those quotations could also be a bit misleading, because it turns out that After the Storm is as vibrant and as heart-pounding as it is heart-aching. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WARLUST — “SOL INVICTUS IN UMBRAE SATANAE”

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Sep 242024
 

(written by Islander)

Warlust is the kind of name chosen by a band who want to broadcast that their main interest is sonic violence, without nuance or mercy, wholly devoted to musical experiences that provide the reptile-brain thrills of ugly and unrestrained barbarity.

But it turns out that even a band named Warlust is capable of more than that, and this German band who took that name prove it in spades on their new third album Sol Invictus In Umbrae Satanae, which we’re premiering today in advance of its September 27 release by Dying Victims Productions.

Hell, it even proves they’re capable of… progression (a dirty word in come circles, but not intended as an insult here). Continue reading »

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