AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SØRGELIG — “INEXORABLE GREY”

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Sep 172024
 

(Written by Islander)

“In the lightless darkness of the world below, where the cold, grey waves of the river of forgetting lap against the shores of unceasing, stygian night, there the nameless and the soulless, tragic and deplorable, gather to exchange tales of bleak eternity and whisper secrets born of blood and promises. With sickle and stone they climb the thousand steps to moonlit night, there to gather the dreams of the sleeping, to reap the screams of the foolish and harvest the spirits of those who have turned the world of legends into a world of decay and ruination.”

With those chilling words Tragedy Productions sets the stage for its release of a new album named Φθορά by the Greek black metal band Sørgelig, which the label further describes as “a tapestry of tragic tales and blackest magic”, “a glorious exposition of blasting ferocity and freezing wickedness”, but also as including “haunting sounds that invoke unsettling imaginings of broken ghosts in empty ballrooms, spinning forever in dusty, tear-stained waltzes”.

To help set the stage further, today we bring you the second song from Φθορά to be revealed so far. Its name is “Inexorable Grey“, and Sørgelig introduce it with these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GORGERIN — “GORGERIN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 162024
 

(written by Islander)

As trained self-defense advisers we urge you, before listening to the EP we’re about to premiere, to armor up with ballistic helmets and kevlar vests, and hunker down behind the thickest steal plating you can find. You might also want to have some antiemetics on hand, and a strong sedative available for the aftermath too.

Okay, we’re not trained self-defense advisers or medical professionals, but we do know gutting and gruesome goregrind when we hear it, and that’s what Québec-based Gorgerin catastrophically discharge on their self-titled mini-LP, now set for release by Gurgling Gore on September 20th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ODIUM HUMANI GENERIS — “IDÉE FIXE”

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Sep 162024
 

(written by Islander)

Our site is not a well-oiled machine. Everyone here pretty much does what they want, with very little coordination. And so it is a complete coincidence that today we’re premiering a song from a new album named Międzyczas by the Polish black metal band Odium Humani Generis AND publishing a very good interview with its vocalist/guitarist Biały. I didn’t know that our Comrade Aleks was conducting that interview, but it arrived out of the blue just as I was beginning to work on this premiere feature. Kismet!

Aleks‘ interview, which will follow this premiere in about one hour unless a meteor strikes my home, provides insights about what inspires this Polish band and how they approach their music. Among other things, it tells us that the band took their name directly from Mayhem‘s song “My Death” from the album Chimera, but Aleks also identifies its even older source, an expression by the famous Roman historian Tacitus in his work Annales, a Latin phrase that literally means “hatred for humanity”.

In the interview Biały, referred to the concept — “Contempt for humanity, society, disappointment in the world, disappointment in oneself, and a constant rush towards an inevitable end”. But he also further explained:

“Of course, we don’t constantly walk around angry at humanity and the whole world, but every day there are more and more reasons why it would be better to escape somewhere where there is no one. In the face of the ever-approaching end, nothing in human affairs has any significance. The lack of meaning in life and in the world, the constant passage of time, are very important elements of our lyrics and the meaning of our music.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EMERALD RAGE — “DRAGONBLOOD”

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Sep 132024
 

“Tolkien fans can bang their heads to this blistering speed metal track! With a dose of 80’s Megadeth and Testament, this song tells the Silmarillion tale of the dark lord Morgoth breeding his most lethal weapon and chief among Dragons, Ancalagon the Black.”

That’s how Ohio’s Emerald Rage introduce their song “Dragonblood“, for which we’re premiering a lyric video today. The track is from the band’s latest album, Valkyrie, which was released last year by Stormspell Records.

In keeping with the tale it tells, “Dragonblood” is a rush to hear, fast and flame-throwing, exultant and dangerous, and guaranteed to get your pulse pounding. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PILLAR OF LIGHT — “SPARED”

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Sep 132024
 

(written by Islander)

The members of the Detroit band Pillar of Light chose an evocative name for their group, one that describes an otherworldly image, suggestive of blinding wonder and perhaps even the appearance of divinity. Yet the image might also be perceived as daunting or frightening.

It turns out to be a name that’s fitting to their music, which is itself a multi-faceted experience capable of producing awe-struck reactions, but it must also be said that the musical edifice they’re constructing is as much supported by columns of obsidian rising from an abyss as pillars of light descending from on high.

That edifice, in its most fully realized form so far, is represented in the band’s debut album, Caldera, which will be released later this year by Transcending Obscurity Records. One single from the album (“Wolf to Man“) surfaced this past summer, and today we present another one as the fall encroaches. Its name is “Spared“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HUSQWARNAH — “PURIFICATION THROUGH SACRIFICE”

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Sep 122024
 

(written by Islander)

In December 2021 we premiered and reviewed Husqwarnah‘s debut album Front Toward Enemy. I also put one of the songs from that album (“Ignoto1”) on our list of 2021’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs (here), a recognition of how hook-laden and compulsive the music was — in addition to it being tank-like, ravaging, fire-breathing, and morbid.

Today we see what these Italian death metal marauders have been up to since then, as we again host a full stream of Husqwarnah‘s newest album, Purification Through Sacrifice, which is set for release on September 16th by the distinctive Time To Kill Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAMMERFILOSOFI — “SOLUS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 122024
 

(written by Islander)

Tomorrow, on the first Friday the 13th of 2024, ATMF will release a new EP by the Italian/Norwegian duo Hammerfilosofi. Its full name is SOLUS (Igne Natura Renovator Integra).

The EP follows by almost exactly one year the band’s first release and debut album The Desolate One, which we premiered here, calling it ” fanatical, fiery, and frightening,” but also “a harrowing esoteric process of liberation and elevation.”

ATMF portrays the new EP as “four psalms of relentless, multi-layered, and hellish madness,” and the band’s NKTFR describes it as “an inward journey of spiritual violence and cathartic soul-searching,” picking up from where The Desolate One left off: “Both musically and conceptually we want to bring back some of that rebellious pride, wrath, and danger – some Blood, Fire, and Death – that for us are mandatory ingredients in Black Metal.”

As we did for the album, today we present SOLUS… from beginning to end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERAL — “THE DEVOURING STORM”

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Sep 112024
 

Seventeen is a prime number, and seventeen is the number of years that the savage Swedish band Feral have lived so far. Their music has also proven to be prime, prime cuts for carnivores of massive and mauling but also dynamic and addictive death metal.

On October 18th Transcending Obscurity Records will add to an already impressive Feral discography by releasing the band’s fourth album, To Usurp the Thrones, and today we’re premiering a song from the album fittingly named “The Devouring Storm“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INGURGITATING OBLIVION — “THE BARREN EARTH OOZES BLOOD, AND SHAKES AND MOANS, TO DRINK HER CHILDREN’S GORE” (PART 3)

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Sep 112024
 

(written by Islander)

It’s a standard practice for bands and record labels to preview forthcoming albums by releasing a song or two (or more) in advance of the release date. It’s extremely uncommon for anyone to do what the German avant-garde death metal band Ingurgitating Oblivion and Willowtip Records have been doing over the last few months: releasing three segments of a single song, one after another.

On paper, it looks like a risky strategy. Wouldn’t most people lose patience or get frustrated, hearing only a part of a song instead of getting the chance to listen to all of it, especially when listeners have to wait a month in between each part? And because even at the end all you have before the album release is one song, instead of several songs?

Well yes, it’s risky. But this uncommon strategy works for Ingurgitating Oblivion because the long song they’ve been rolling out in segments is itself so unusual, and because each Part has been as long as (or longer than) an individual track on most albums, but mainly because each Part has so powerfully seized attention on its own.

Moreover, the first two parts have succeeded in building an eager anticipation for the third one, to find out how this uncommon extravaganza is going to end — and today we bring you the answer. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAND OF OMEGA — “THE END OF THE BEGINNING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 102024
 

(written by Islander)

We live in a world where Darwin’s radical old theory has been replaced and evolution is now determined by the survival of the shittest, a world in which some are sworn to the Mentat’s Oath and others have become cyberspace conscripts, with our lives supported by nothing but foundations built on shifting sands, watching the Amazon burning (and much of the rest of the world with it), our shapes determined by a wretched new convolution.

And there I’ve managed to stitch together all of the song titles from the debut album by the UK band Hand of Omega, the name of which is The End Of The Beginning.

I have no idea whether Hand of Omega would endorse this way of interpreting their thematic intentions, but their music seems consistent with it, because it’s both crushingly bleak and destructively enraged — as you’ll find out today through our premiere of the album in advance of its September 13 release by the Irish label Cursed Monk Records. Continue reading »

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