AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BTK (BIND TORTURE KILL) — “BANDAISON”

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Sep 092024
 

You’re about to see a violent short film in the company of violent music. The video doesn’t show us what the victim did to deserve his brutal punishment, if he did anything deserving of such a fatal encounter. We only get the headlong chase, a struggle in the mud, and the vengeance of the hangman’s noose.

Based on the name of the song presented through the video — “Bandaison” — the motivating factor may have been a perverse kind of sexual thrill, though whether the perversion took root in the victim or his assailant is ambiguous (the lyrics might shed light, but the expulsion of the words is so terrorizing that even those who speak French might face a challenge in deciphering them).

The perpetrators of the song are the French band BTK, which stands for Bind Torture Kill, and the source of the song is their forthcoming third album album Sauvagerie, which will eventually be released by a trio of labels on different formats. This one track will see digital release on September 12th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE — “LOSS”

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Sep 092024
 


(written by Islander)

On August 20, 2017, the day before a total solar eclipse I was about to witness in Wyoming, I wrote about a song I had heard the night before by a Canadian band named Hell Is Other People (it was the title track to their album Embrace, which came out about 10 days later). But over the course of many paragraphs before ever getting to the song I wrote about the band’s name, and about the alcohol-fueled discussion of it that took place among my friends and me under the stars that night.

I won’t put you through all those paragraphs again (they’re here if you want to read them), even though the discussion meant a lot to me then and still does. I’ll just mention that the band’s name is a famous statement from the play No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre, and it’s an assertion that’s subject to many interpretations, about the many ways in which other people can make life hell for us, or cause us to make our own lives into a hell.

Still grateful to this band for that night, today I’m going to get to their music a lot faster, because we’ve got a song to premiere from their new album Moirae, which comes a long seven years after Embrace. One thing that hasn’t changed over those many years is this band’s capacity to be thought-provoking — and to pierce through into the heart of where our emotions come from. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAGNETAR — “SCUM”

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Sep 062024
 

In learning about the musical influences of the British band Magnetar you might imagine the re-emergence of the three-headed Cerberus once more stalking at the gates of Hades. They describe the musical inspirations encompassed on their debut album There Will Be No Peace in My Valley this way:

Primarily the great melodic Black/Death Swedish bands of No Fashion Records in the early 90s. Then also the muscularity and speed of 80s North & South American thrash/death acts such as Slayer, Sepultura and Infernal Majesty. And last but never least, the hallowed British bands of the 80s including Judas Priest, Motörhead and Iron Maiden. Also, of course, is a passing nod to our Black Metal forefathers Darkthrone, Immortal & Bathory.

So maybe this hound has four heads instead of three. That’s a hell of a list of influences, to be sure, but may leave you wondering how in the world all those heads could work together in a coherent way. We’ll help you answer that question today through our premiere of the album’s opening track, “SCUM“, in advance of the album’s release by Vendetta Records on September 27th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KRVL — “ZIELENRUST”

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Sep 062024
 

The video prepared for KrvL‘s song “Zielenrust“, which you’re about to see and hear, is a beautiful but haunting piece of art. Slow-moving and only occasionally accented by color, it depicts a solitary figure communing in their own way with the expanse of the ocean and its gently rolling tides. Mysterious and mesmerizing, it’s an interesting setting for a song that proves to be… shattering.

The song is the first single from the forthcoming second album by this Belgian black metal band, whose name is a compacted reference to the Belgian forest named Kravaal. Entitled Donkere Paden (“Dark Paths”), it will be released on October 11th by These Hands Melt and has become available for order just in time to take advantage of another Bandcamp Friday. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EC{C}ENTRIC PENDULUM — “PERSPECTIVA INVERTALIS”

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Sep 052024
 

The Indian metal band Ec{c}entric Pendulum send all sorts of signals about the nature of their music before you hear a single note. Their name of course, which kindles images of a swinging thing that doesn’t swing like you expect it will, and the quirky typography they use in spelling it. And then there’s the title of their forthcoming second album — Perspectiva Invertalis — a Latin phrase which means “inverted perspective”.

And then there’s that cover art up above by Sam Ektoplasm, which is (to put it mildly) out of the ordinary for a metal band (or any band).

Undoubtedly some of you are aware of what Ec{c}entric Pendulum do with their music, because they do have a previous album (Winding the Optics) to their credit, and they’ve played at Wacken Open Air in Germany (the first band to represent India there), and shared stages in both Europe and India with the likes of Opeth, Textures, Meshuggah, Kreator, Orphaned Land, and recently Suffocation.

But it’s been more than a dozen years since that first album was released, and nearly seven years since their Tellurian Concepts EP, and so even if you’ve heard what they’ve done in the past, it’s best to now listen with fresh ears to what they’ve accomplished on this new album, which will be released tomorrow via Subcontinental Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DRAGSHOLM — “SORROW HEXEN”

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Sep 052024
 

(written by Islander)

“Blackened Death Metal for fans of Dissection, Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir, Sacramentum and Vinterland“. That’s how Horror Pain Gore Death Productions hails the music on the third EP from New Jersey’s Dragsholm, which the label will release tomorrow (September 6th).

That turns out to be a meaningful set of reference points for the four songs on Sorrow Hexen. And that title of the EP is a good reference point in itself, conjuring thoughts of both melancholia and the occult, both of which are features of the music’s atmosphere — though there are other features as well.

You’ll have an opportunity to experience everything Dragsholm bring to the table on Sorrow Hexen, here on the eve of its release, because we’ve got a full stream for you below. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SILVERN — “STARDUST SERMONS”

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Sep 042024
 

(written by Islander)

The creation of underground metal is a global phenomenon, more extensive and varied in some countries than in others but still ubiquitous. Ukraine is one nation with an extensive and fairly multi-faceted history in the field, yet even when considering the music that’s currently being generated, the first thought that comes to most of us now is… war.

Now more than 30 months after Russia’s unprovoked invasion, the conflict, which the aggressors thought would end quickly, has settled into a grinding devastation with no end in sight, still peppered with almost weekly atrocities inflicted on non-combatants; this week, for example, brought Russian ballistic missiles that killed more than 50 people and wounded almost 30 others in Poltava, followed just yesterday by a nighttime missile and drone attack on Lviv that killed 7 and injured more than 50.

Life goes on, of course, even under the grim shadow of a war that will reach its thousandth day in November, and part of that life is the making of music, a visible way of defiantly demonstrating that life does indeed go on despite a tyrant’s determined effort to grind it into bleakness and despair. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MARDOM — “SPOJRZENIE”

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Sep 022024
 

(written by Islander)

The titles of Mardom‘s releases seem to signify an inner conflict, a perception of life in the current age that wrestles with itself. They began with The Path of No Return, followed it with Longing for a New Dawn, and now grimly move from those EPs to a debut album named Dead Soul Age.

In their music this Polish black metal trio also seem to wrestle — passionately — with the milieu in which they and we find ourselves, a seeming unthinking directionless in human behavior that on a daily basis provokes frustration of hopes, anger, pessimism, nostalgia, and a plummet into grief.

What we have for you today is a sign of how Mardom grapple with this state of affairs in their music, as we premiere a song called “Spojrzenie” in advance of Personal Records‘ release of Dead Soul Age on October 4th. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACK MOLD — “TOWARD THE BLACK HORIZON”

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Sep 022024
 

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.

You would know that if you had caught their 2020 debut album The Inheritance of Evil or their 2023 EP The Unnatural Red Glow of the Night, or the two demos that preceded those releases. You will definitely know it when you have the chance to hear their second album In the Dirt of Oblivion, which will be released by Helldprod Records on September 20th — or even just the one song from the album we’re premiering today.

The label warns: “[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 warnings of our own. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PAGANIZER — “WORLD SCYTHE”

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Aug 302024
 

(written by Islander)

What better way to launch your weekend than to have Paganizer blast through the midnight barrier hours before it arrives? And to show us that what lies beyond the barrier is something much more thrilling (and frightening) than an early Saturday morning?

As you undoubtedly know, Paganizer have been seizing attention ever since the late ’90s. With Rogga Johansson continuously at the helm and a changing cast of allies alongside him, Paganizer have released a dozen albums and nearly two dozen shorter releases, and now there’s a lucky 13th album headed our way — entitled Flesh Requiem — with an arrival date of November 1st through Transcending Obscurity Records.

As you can see, it’s adorned by the distinctive artwork of Mariusz Lewandowski, which gives us a chilling glimpse of the other world that lies beyond the midnight barrier. It’s also a suggestive sign that what Paganizer are doing on this new album goes beyond the delivery of ruinous death metal might — and the song we’re premiering today is an electrifying demonstration of that. Continue reading »

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