Sep 242024
 

(Andy Synn engages his inner art critic as he plays host to the premiere of the brand new album from Ingurgitating Oblivion, set for release this Friday via Willowtip Records)

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating – the word “masterpiece” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

While it’s often (all too often, in my opinion) used as an almost throw-away term to hype up whatever the latest flavour-of-the-month album happens to be getting the most buzz, the reality is that a true “masterpiece” is just that – it’s a piece of work demonstrating your mastery of your chosen artform, one which your peers all agree earns you the right to call yourself a “master” of your medium.

And, by any measure, Ingurgitating Oblivion already unveiled their masterpiece, in the form of 2017’s career-defining Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light, quite a few years ago.

But here’s the thing they don’t tell you about producing a masterpiece… once you’ve done it once, you don’t have to do it again.

Sure, some artists do, but a lot of them take the opportunity, now that they’ve proved themselves, to take more creative risks and experiment with both form and function, to push the boundaries and expand their horizons, with an almost devil-may-care attitude as to what might happen.

And that’s exactly what Ingurgitating Oblivion have done with their new album, Ontology of Nought.

Continue reading »

Sep 232024
 

(written by Islander)

Today, on the eve of its September 24 release, we premiere a full stream of Stargazer, the debut album by Crypt of Reason from Homiel, Belarus.

The road toward completion of the album was not an easy one. Five years after forming in 2008, the band released their debut EP Creation of Despair. But after completing the writing of their first full-length, the band’s main songwriter Pavel Minutin unexpectedly passed away in 2016.

Crypt of Reason ultimately decided to finish their work on the record that became Stargazer, and they have dedicated it to Pavel‘s memory. They introduce it with a line from Solaris, the fantastic science fiction novel written by the great Stanislaw Lem:

“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.” Continue reading »

Sep 202024
 

(written by Islander)

The 2022 debut album from the Faroese/Danish sludge/post-metal metal trio Grava was an unusually compelling union of visual and musical art. If you’ve seen the cover of Weight of a God (here) and then listened to any of the songs, you already know how well the image matched the crushing music and the album’s utterly bleak conception.

That cover was conceived with one track principally in mind, a song named “Crusher” about a man condemned to be trampled to death by a work elephant in front of a crowd of onlookers, told from the point of view of the condemned man, who sees the beast as the manifestation of a god — a perception that connects to the album title.

All the songs on Weight of a God portrayed different instances of a human being meeting death, seen through their eyes at the last moment. Grava continue telling such harrowing tales on their follow-up album The Great White Nothing, which we’re about to premiere in full, one week away from its release by a trio of labels.

Once again, the cover art (again created by Johannes Larsen) vividly connects to some of those terrible stories, and to the album’s title, as explained in introductory comments provided by vocalist/guitarist Atli Brix Kamban: Continue reading »

Sep 192024
 

(written by Islander)

“Having named themselves for a particularly nasty-looking, fast-spreading, difficult-to-remove, and potentially dangerous fungus, Portugal’s Black Mold churn out a nihilistic amalgam of black metal and punk that makes their disgusting namesake seem mild.”

That’s how we began our premiere of a song in the early days of this month from Black Mold‘s new album In the Dirt of Oblivion, which will be released by Helldprod Records on September 20th.

The label provided their own preview of what the album holds in store for unsuspecting listeners: “[T]hese true spirits of the underground only have one thing in their minds. To drain the soul out of your body and fill it with darkness, hate and despair”.

We have some more words of warning, or invitation, depending on your predilections, but the main thing we have today is a full stream of all the album’s dirt and oblivion. It proves to be a lot more interesting and varied than you might be expecting from what you’ve read so far Continue reading »

Sep 192024
 

(written by Islander)

All ardent and avid followers of music like to go exploring, in search of artists they’ve never heard before who might ring some previously un-rung chimes in their head. Of course, such listeners are also drawn to whatever new is propagated by artists whose previous releases have already primed their followers to expect some kind of joyful reaction, even when the music might sound wretched to un-schooled ears.

And then there are artists who simultaneously trigger both reactions, where past experience means you’re going to dive into whatever they decide to release, and where you also expect to find something unexpected.

In my case, Bonjour Tristesse is one of those bands. As you may know, it’s the solo work of Nathanael, who is also in Heretoir, and has been in King Apathy, Thränenkind, Agrypnie, and ClearXcut. Even the band’s name (“hello sadness”) signifies a focus on existential despair, and the music has historically delved quite powerfully into depressive moods, but it hasn’t been frozen in form. Surprises still lie in wait, and they do again in The World Without Us, the forthcoming fourth album of Bonjour Tristesse, which will be released on October 18th by Supreme Chaos Records. Continue reading »

Sep 182024
 

(We welcome French metal writer Zoltar to NCS, and he makes his debut here with the following introductory review of a new album by Thorium which we’re premiering in full today in advance of its September 20 release by Emanzipation Productions.)

Thorium is an interesting beast. Not exactly just another side-project nor a full band per se, they do rear their ugly head whenever their leader and main man Michael Andersen of Withering Surface fame feels like it. And as it turns out, looks like lately, the man does really feel like playing good old and no frills death metal. And it shows.

In a way, The Bastard isn’t just some kind of reaction against the few years and painful gestation of the last Withering Surface – although that did play a small role, but I digress. It’s first and foremost the 49-year-old Andersen‘s love letter to the classic sound he was raised upon back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when a less confident and juvenile, yet already passionate, version of himself started dabbling in the underground through tape-trading and his own Emanzipation ‘zine.

Early reports of an album meant to originally be titled Sverige (that’s ‘Swedish’ for you in, erm, Swedish actually) proved at first to be a tad misleading as suggesting a sound firmly stuck in the early ’90s Stockholm style of Entombed, Grave, and so on. Then again, whereas there’s barely any fuzzy outpouring of the famed HM-2 pedal to be found here nor any D-beat parts and though it was ultimately retitled, it still somehow makes sense. Continue reading »

Sep 182024
 

(written by Islander)

At the end of October, just in time for Samhain night, the Dutch black metal band Asgrauw will return with their sixth album, Oorsprong. It is unusual in more ways than one, including its conceptual storyline — and it is indeed an epic story that the album tells. Drawing upon Mesopotamian mythology, it is described this way by the labels that will release it:

“The album’s narrative is inspired by the Annunaki, the ancient deities said to have come from the sky. Through a blend of storytelling and music, Asgrauw weaves a tale that highlights the legacy of these celestial beings and offers a perspective on the modern age as seen through their eyes, culminating in a dramatic portrayal of humanity’s fate.

“Asgrauw takes you through the stories of Anu and Alalu, Enki and Enlil, but also those of Gilgamesh and Nergal for example. How centuries of struggle for land and gold drove exotic species to turn primates into a slave civilization and by portraying themselves as divine beings, could keep them under control.”

Each song on the album is a chapter in this narrative about gods and men, and the rise and fall of empires, and we’re premiering a video for one of those musical chapters today — a song called “Apada“. Continue reading »

Sep 182024
 

(written by Islander)

The first new album from Chicago’s Avernus in 27 years, which will be released at the end of this week by M-Theory Audio, is something like the closing of a circle (and the opening of other circles). Having been formed in 1992, and with a couple of early demos under their belts, they caught the attention of Marco Barbieri at Metal Blade, who became primarily responsible for including them on that label’s Metal Massacre 12 compilation, and would have signed them to something bigger on Metal Blade if Barbieri had had his way.

Avernus did go on to release their debut album …Of the Fallen on M.I.A. Records in 1997, and they followed that with a few more demos plus an EP, but the band fell away, releasing no new music after 2003… until this year.

Barbieri is now the president of M-Theory Audio, and thus the label’s release of a new Avernus album is a reunion that’s been decades in the making. Avernus has itself experienced a reunion, with a current lineup on the new album that includes three of the band’s original founding members (Rick Yifrach, Erik Kikke, and Rick McCoy), plus James Genenz (also a member of Jungle Rot), who joined the band in 1997.

Reunions of any kind are generally occasions for reminiscing and nostalgia, but this reunion has led to something new, an album of new music made by people who necessarily are very different people than the ones who made …Of the Fallen and all those demos in the ’90s — different because time re-makes everyone, in ways small or large.

What this particular reunion has accomplished, you will discover today, because we’re now premiering a full stream of the new Avernus album. Its name is Grievances. and it is stunning. Continue reading »

Sep 172024
 

(Andy Synn gives his first impressions of the opening track from Gigan‘s upcoming new album, which we are premiering below in advance of the album’s October 25 release by Willowtip Records.)

If you’re not familiar with the extra-dimensional extremity of Chicago’s Gigan then you might want to check out both my Synn Report on the band from way back in 2016 and my review of their fourth album, Undulating Waves of Rainbiotic Iridescence, from 2017 (which was the last time we heard from them).

Trust me, you’ll want to be fully prepared for what you’re about to experience.

Because going into this one blind could well be hazardous to your health.

Continue reading »

Sep 172024
 


hideous cover art by Lucas Korte

(written by Islander)

Reckless manslaughter is a crime that would send you to prison for a very long time, unless you’re listening to the music of Reckless Manslaughter, which isn’t a punishable offense in most jurisdictions — at least not yet.

It must be said, however, that the forthcoming fourth album of this German death metal band, aptly entitled Sinking Into Filth, often sounds like intentional homicide (and the mutilation of the victims) rather than the recklessly negligent taking of life — as well as a descent into horrid depths where souls stripped of flesh now suffer.

You’ll see what we’re getting at when you listen to the song we’re premiering today in advance of the new album’s joint release by Memento Mori and Fucking Kill Records. The name of this evil song is “Befouled Commandments“. Continue reading »