AN NCS PREMIERE: SVARTGRAV — “I”

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Oct 102023
 

“Deep out of the forests of Lower Saxony, where once the Görde murderer was up to mischief, Svartgrav was created on an icy winter night.”

And so begins an introduction by four labels who will jointly release Svartgrav‘s debut album I on October 27th.

They also disclose that the band is the solo project of Thorkraft, who has also gained some attention through his atmospheric black metal project Sieghetnar, and they further characterize the music as “the icy, Nordic coldness of Immortal with the epic and sublime symphonies of Emperor and Troll, and stone-shattering vocals in the style of Obtained Enslavement“.

We have our own introduction to the album today, as we premiere the new record’s substantial opening track, also named “I“, because all the songs are only denominated by Roman numerals. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WALKING CORPSE — “NOTHING GROWS HERE”

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Oct 092023
 

To be honest, we’re used to over-the-top exaggeration when we get descriptions of music from PR agents, labels, and even bands. It comes with the territory, when the territory is so deluged with releases fighting for attention. At times, however, over-the-top descriptions turn out to be accurate.

Take, for example, what Transcending Obscurity Records has written about the Swedish grindcore band Walking Corpse and their new album, the beautifully named Our Hands, Your Throat:

Walking Corpse step on the accelerator till your hair starts to tear off, deviate from the path abruptly, and before you know it, jump back on the track with increased neck-snapping speed. There’s a twisted, dissonant edge to the music here as it rampages with abandon, borrowing elements of death metal and even a bit of sludge, and throws everything at you faster than you can flinch…. This is cerebral grind delivered with spine-rupturing mayhem.

Sounds over-the-top, right? Yeah maybe, but if anything, it turns out to be an understatement, as you’ll discover from the song we’re premiering today: “Nothing Grows Here“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SUOL — “OVER DE GEUTE”

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Oct 092023
 

The two Dutch musicians J. and P. have had no shortage of personal projects and bands through which to express their creative impulses, usually channeled in variants of black metal. Between them they have made music under the names Shagor, Ossaert, Dinbethes and Weerzin. But they’ve also joined forces in a new entity named Suol.

What inspired this new union? The answer is that J. and P. have a shared passion for local myths, sagas, and historical stories surrounding the Dutch town of Zwolle and the nearby river IJssel, which ultimately discharged into a shallow bay in the North Sea once known as the Zuiderzee.

Suol became their vehicle for exploring these old tales and historical events through black metal, and the results are captured in a self-titled debut album (which included participation of other musicians from their local region) that will be released on October 27th via Swarte Yssel.

What we have for you today is the premiere of a lyric video for a song from the album named “Over de Geute“. Given the nature of Suol‘s inspiration, it’s no surprise that the lyrics are in Dutch, not English, but we do have Suol‘s English explanation for what the song is about: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PATHOGENIC — “DEAD BUT NOT AT REST”

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Oct 062023
 

Massachusetts-based Pathogenic have been active since 2004, with a discography that includes a pair of albums, a trio of EPs, and a handful of singles, including two released last year. And today we’re helping them spread the word about yet another single, “Dead but Not at Rest,” which comes with an official video.

This new song is described as “a musical foray into the depths of pandemic-induced isolation”. For some of us, those times are already beginning to seem like ancient history, while others may still live with the debilitation and death spawned by the virus (and it’s a history that could easily repeat itself with the rise of a new pathogen). For some of us the dark days had silver linings, while for others it was a sinkhole of disconnection and depression.

In the case of Pathogenic‘s newest single, the eloquent lyrics are harrowing, perhaps finding in the depths of the pandemic a metaphor for other forms of depletion and hopelessness. No silver linings here. The music also has its own harrowing aspects, but turns out to be a multi-faceted experience, an amalgam of melodic and progressive death metal that’s much more electrifying than grim. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TEMPLE OF SCORN — “BEGOTTEN BY THE ENVENOMED”

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Oct 062023
 

What we have for you here today is the advent of the third single from Funeral Altar Epiphanies, the debut album by the Danish death metal group Temple of Scorn. While it’s a debut for this collective, it’s no first start for the band’s members individually. Their resumes include previous participation in these other well-known bands:

Baest
Bloodgutter
Dawn of Demise
Exmortem
Horned Almighty
Invocator
Kampvogn
Sylvatica
The Arcane Order

That list is a good clue that this quintet know what they’re doing. But what have they done together in Temple of Scorn? Continue reading »

REVENANT MARQUIS: AN INTERVIEW BY NEILL JAMESON AND THE PREMIERE OF “ALL THE PLEASURES OF HEAVEN”

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Oct 052023
 

(On October 6th Death Prayer Records will release All the Pleasures of Heaven, the final album by the Welsh black metal band Revenant Marquis. Today we are privileged to present an interview by Neill Jameson (of Krieg) with S., the person behind Revenant Marquis, followed by a premiere stream of the new album.)

It becomes difficult, after being involved in a scene for so long, to overcome that jaded, nearly apathetic feeling and truly lose yourself in someone’s music fully. For the last few years I’ve felt this way about Revenant Marquis. Truly unique and disturbing black metal, created alongside an unnerving aesthetic, Revenant Marquis stands as one of the most authentic voices of horror in a cacophony of lesser acts vying for attention.

Manifesting his first recording in 2019, Revenant Marquis has cast a long shadow across twelve public releases, with his newest, All the Pleasures of Heaven being the final, and darkest, spell he has brought to life. Today we have the honor of presenting this record to you as well as the final words from the man himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ONE OF NINE — “THE SILENCE OF HEAVEN”

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Oct 042023
 

“Listen. Here is One of Nine. An image Shrouded in Unlight.
A sound Enchanted by the Mother of Strangling Doom.
One of Nine. Unfaced, & unlit. They present here their efforts, a collection of tales. An offering to the perilous realm and the Great Tyrant of Utumno!”

That is how the Wolves of Hades label introduces an album named Eternal Sorcery by the mysterious black metal collective who call themselves One of Nine. They also characterize it as “a vortex of Black Medieval Sorrow”.

What this means is revealed in part through the album track we’re premiering today in advance of the record’s release on October 27th: “The Silence of Heaven“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRYMYCH — “SONGS OF SISTRUM”

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Oct 042023
 

The mysterious Welsh band Crymych are one of a small handful of secretive bands called the Pembrokeshire Black Circle, so named because of their location in the county of Pembrokeshire in the southwest of Wales, bounded on three sides by the ocean. Apart from Crymych, the best known member of the Circle is Revenant Marquis (who will be the subject of an interview by Neill Jameson and an album premiere we will publish tomorrow).

Crymych made their second release last year with an album on Death Prayer Records fittingly named Endless Fucking Winter (available here) (their first album Du Bach came out the year before that). This writer tumbled to Endless Fucking Winter thanks to its appearance on Neill Jameson‘s year-end list at Invisible Oranges. He wrote this about it:

If Voivod were mostly an ambient band when they recorded but also rooted in black metal and also had Jouni Havukainen sit in and contribute then you’re close to how I would describe Endless Fucking Winter and I’d still be off the mark. Coming from the same circle as Revenant Marquis, this Welsh collective aesthetically fell in line with their compatriots but managed to craft an atmosphere unlike almost anything I’ve ever heard. Deranged, challenging and yet very memorable, Endless Fucking Winter seemed to fly under the radar for many this year, which is a shame as it’s pure excellence.

Having heard that album, we were quite excited to learn that Crymych had followed it up fairly quickly. And it will be in your hands and heads very quickly too, with a release date on October 6th via the same Death Prayer Records — preceded by a full premiere stream right now. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WARCRAB — “SWORD OF MARS”

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Oct 032023
 

I’ve previously written that when I listeneded to WarCrab‘s music I used to think of the kind of whumping sound that would be produced by a giant battering ram pounding against concrete pylons and ejecting the rebar out the other side. I also sometimes thought of Bolt Thrower and Crowbar, and not just because Transcending Obscurity Records refers to those bands in the context of describing WarCrab‘s forthcoming album The Howling Silence.

But this new album requires a reconsideration, or at least a partial reconsideration. Although WarCrab are still quite capable of punching holes through concrete, they’ve brought out other armaments and moods in The Howling Silence and created a shape-shifting amalgam of death metal and sludge that formidably expands their musical horizons.

That much was evident from the first three singles that emerged from the album, and the conclusion is reinforced by the fourth song that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TETRAGRAMMACIDE — “SPECTRAL HYAENAS OF AMENTA HOWL, THE VULTURE OF MA’AT DESCENDS, AND TAHUTI WATCHES WITHOUT HIS APE”

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Oct 032023
 

We can confidently predict that the forthcoming second album by Kolkata-based Tetragrammacide will drop jaws, boggle minds, and pop eyes wide open among fans of black/death metallic extremity. That prediction won’t come as a complete surprise to people who’ve heard the band’s previous releases, but even for those people this album may strike like a revelation.

As before, Tetragrammacide‘s new music is one violent audio vortex after another, creating an overarching experience of explosive sensory overload. Yet it truly is also head-spinning, not merely ruthlessly assaulting but also remarkably intricate and technically lights-out, which are dazzling qualities that become vividly apparent thanks to the album’s professional production.

As fan have also come to expect, the band’s fondness for song titles of extravagant length and esoteric meaning is also jaw-dropping. You can see that in the name of the song we’re premiering today — “Spectral Hyaenas Of Amenta Howl, The Vulture Of Ma’at Descends, And Tahuti Watches Without His Ape” — and in the album’s title: Typho-Tantric Aphorisms From The Arachneophidian Qur’an. Continue reading »

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