AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEATH OF GIANTS — “ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG”

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Aug 292024
 

Cover songs usually fall into one of two categories: Either they’re straightforward and faithful renditions of the original (though vocal variations inevitably introduce some differences), or they’re efforts to re-imagine and re-configure the originals, sometimes creating truly new originals.

The latter type of cover song is risky because listeners who are fans of the original may continue hearing it and thinking about it as they listen to the cover, which is a distraction, and at worst they may be annoyed at the changes. But when a cover song “works”, it’s far more interesting than a faithful repetition.

Death of Giants‘ cover of Iron Maiden‘s “Only the Good Die Young“, a video for which we’re premiering today, unmistakably falls into the second category — a striking reinterpretation of the original that turns it into a very different song, and one that works supremely well. It’s even more interesting and moving when you understand how the cover was inspired, though it would be powerfully moving even if you didn’t know. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BORNBROKEN — “HOW STRONG YOU ARE”

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Aug 282024
 

If you’re born broken, what do you do? Do you succumb to the idea that you’re fated to failure and become motionless or manipulative, or do you put away excuses and find out how strong you really are?

The Montreal band BornBroken have their own clear answer to that question, and provide it in the song we’re premiering today — “How Strong You Are” — from their forthcoming album (which seems to ask its own related question), Am I Invisible. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INFERN — “UNDERTOW”

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Aug 282024
 

Let’s dive right into this one — but be forewarned: This “Undertow” will powerfully pull you under and crash you against the rocks.

As the words to this song reveal, the waters here aren’t earthly in origin. Rich in references to ancient mythology, the lyrics shown in the video (and growled monstrously but intelligibly in the song) portray a boat-less journey down the Styx and the harrowing underworld curses it brings.

Like the vocals, the music is also monstrous — monstrously heavy, ruthlessly bone-smashing, irresistibly neck-wrecking, and shrouded in an insidious atmosphere of evil and death. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DISTANT DOMINION — “WE’VE COME FOR YOUR SOULS”

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Aug 272024
 

Let’s be honest: When some of you metalheads (or at least those who are a bit jaded), see a band advertised as one whose Philadelphia-based members combine more than a collective century of experience, you might think, “Oh, a bunch of old dudes, probably playing tired old music.”

But when you see that their resumes include names like Krieg, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, Polterchrist, and Mortal Decay (among others), maybe you’ll start reconsidering your assumptions.

And then when you hear what these people have done in their band Distant Dominion, you’ll really feel foolish — as you scramble for fire extinguishers and wonder where your teeth went after the music punched them out. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ISOLERT — “HERALD OF DEMISE”

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Aug 272024
 

(written by Islander)

I spilled a lot of words about the “devastating magnificence” of Isolert’s last album, 2020’s World In Ruins — words such as “soaring”, “sweeping”, “near-celestial”, “blazing”, and “tumultuous”, but also “crushing”, “stately”, “dolorous”, and “sublime”. It created ruinous maelstroms but also reached epic heights of glory.

It has therefore been quite exciting news to see that Isolert have a new album on the way, the work of a lineup that now includes new guitarist George S. (Kosmovorous, Herald) in addition to Panagiotis T. (vocals), Nick S. (drums, vocals), and Apostolos K. (guitars, bass). The name of their new album is Wounds of Desolation, and it’s set for release on September 13th by the band’s new label Non Serviam Records.

One song from the album has premiered so far, and today we’re fortunate to host the debut of a second one, a song called “Herald of Demise“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANCIENT MALIGNITY — “DYSTOPIAN SUBJECTION”

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Aug 262024
 

(written by Islander)

I’m as infected by laziness as everyone else, but I do have my limits. For example, I almost always steadfastly refuse to quote what PR agents write in promoting the music of bands and labels, because copy/pasting that stuff is just… LAZY… even though lots of other metal sites do that routinely.

But today, I can’t resist quoting from the press materials for Ancient Malignity‘s new album Dehumanization Dawn, even though I’m going to eventually follow it with my own garbled verbiage:

Like a lost relic from the mid-to-late ’90s, Ancient Malignity‘s second album surges and slices with both palpitating precision and gangrenous gnarliness.

Those maniacs out there who hold high the torch of such old gods as Order From Chaos, Imprecation, Sacramentary Abolishment, America’s Crucifier, old Vital Remains, and earliest Kataklysm should find red-eyed solace in the blitzed & bleary decibels on display across Dehumanization Dawn.

Even the production itself sounds era-authentic — dank, dingy, and dungeoned, but no less muscular…. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SAPIENTIA DIABOLI — “I OV THE DARKNESS”

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Aug 232024
 

(Written by Islander)

Despite the fact that the identities of the most infamous progenitors of second-wave black metal, including arsonists, murderers, and the murdered, are very well-known (famous now, as well as infamous), anonymity remains among the more defining characteristics of black metal.

More so than in any other genre of metal, black metal is home to creators who adamantly prefer to let the music speak exclusively for them, without the potential distractions of identity. It’s not just a rejection of “celebrity”, it’s an embrace of obscurity, not just a pervasive use of pseudonyms but a blank space un-filled by any details other than what can be heard.

This iron-clad embrace of an underground ethos where the people making the music allow no light to shine on themselves (and sometimes no light to shine through the darkness of the music) often complicates and almost always undermines the mission of spreading of the word about the music. People who choose not to talk about what they’ve done, or even to tell actual or potential fans anything about who they are, leave more to chance about whether their accomplishments will find an audience.

Which brings us to Sapientia Diaboli, whose name is Latin for “The Wisdom of the Devil”. Maybe it is the Devil’s wisdom they practice by concealing everything except the shuddering impact of their sounds. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SINISTRO — “ELEGIA”

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Aug 222024
 

We’re about to premiere a video for the second advance song from Sinistro‘s new album Vértice. But before we get to it, let’s take a few steps back.

This Portuguese band’s last album, 2018’s Sangue Cássia, made a big and favorable impact around our crumbling and gore-streaked halls, and a very distinctive one given that their music was a very big exception to the permeable “rule” in our site’s title.

Our Andy Synn named Sangue Cássia to his year-end list of 2018’s “Critical Top 10” albums, calling it “one of the most intensely intimate, moodily mesmerising releases of the year.”

For us (and for many others) it was therefore very exciting and intriguing to learn that Sinistro would be returning this year with a new album, with a new singer (Priscila Da Costa) and a new label (Alma Mater Records), masterminded by Moonspell singer Fernando Ribeiro. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATHLESS VOID — “PURPLE TRIAD”

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Aug 222024
 

(written by Islander)

The Dutch extremists Deathless Void burst upon the scene in 2022 with a debut demo that Iron Bonehead Productions wisely picked up for release on vinyl and tape. Its experiences of dread and delirium spawned comparisons by the label “to later Katharsis or Antaeus or especially turn-of-the-millennium Thorns“.

Deathless Void opened that demo with an instrumental piece, and followed it with “The Shattered Realms of Man Become the Abyss” and the stupendous “Crossing the Threshold“.

Not the usual dispensable intro track, “Ignis Fatuus” created an authentically flesh-creeping sonic hallucination, building layer upon layer of dismal, diseased, and demented sensations, both haunting and nightmarish.

In the subsequent two songs Deathless Void maintained the intro track’s connections to hostile beyond-our-world dimensions but escalated into mind-warping paroxysms of violence. Even more elaborately layered than the intro but orders of magnitude more orgiastic, those songs scathed and screamed, hurtled and heaved, and twisted themselves into a multitude of unexpected directions — including episodes of blaring and boiling grandeur, thrilling exoticism, and bottomless descents into the ice-cold void of their name.

Now, Deathless Void are poised to release their first album, The Voluptuous Fire of Sin, again ushered into our world by Iron Bonehead. It includes those latter two tracks from the demo, plus seven other songs, and we have one of those to share with you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COFFIN ROT — “HANDS OF DEATH”

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Aug 212024
 

When we last devoted attention in our pages to the works of Coffin Rot from Portland, Oregon, the occasion was the impending release of their split with Molder in 2018. Much has happened to the band since then, including the release of their 2019 debut album, A Monument to the Dead, and the expansion of their lineup from founders Hayden Johnson (vocals) and Derek Johnson (drums) and guitarist/bassist Tre Guertner to also include bassist Brandon Martinez-Woodall and second guitarist Jonathan Quintana (from Decrepisy, Thanamagus, and Ascended Dead).

Now, this quintet has prepared a second album. Fittingly entitled Dreams of the Disturbed, it’s set for release by Maggot Stomp on September 20th. As you’ll discover, it’s not just the lineup that has changed since 2018, but the array of ingredients Coffin Rot have brought into their sound, and the array of skin-crawling moods they’ve thereby created on this new full-length.

As proof of this, today we premiere the new album’s second single, “Hands of Death“. Continue reading »

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