AN NCS PREMIERE: INGURGITATING OBLIVION — “THE BARREN EARTH OOZES BLOOD, AND SHAKES AND MOANS, TO DRINK HER CHILDREN’S GORE” (PART 2)

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Aug 212024
 

(written by Islander)

Four weeks ago we embarked here on an unusual collaboration with the German avant-garde death metal band Ingurgitating Oblivion and Willowtip Records, the label that will release their new album Ontology of Nought on September 27th. What we began doing four weeks ago was the rollout of a single long song from the album, a rollout divided into three segments. Today we present the second Part, with the third and final one still ahead next month.

The name of the song is also long, and unsettling in the vision it portrays: “The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore”. As we disclosed in Part 1 of this premiere, the rest of the song titles on the album are also unusual, and also evocative of dark moods — and all those other songs are also expansive in their duration. Here’s the track list: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVOCATION — “OPIUM THEBIACUM (SOMNIFERUM)”

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Aug 202024
 

So far, we’ve managed to comment (and comment favorably) about every release from the Chilean occult extremists Invocation, from their debut demo in 2016 through their 2020 EP Attunement to Death, and now we get to maintain our fidelity by premiering a song from Invocation‘s eagerly awaited debut album The Archaic Sanctuary (Ritual Body Postures).

The album is set for release on September 20th by Iron Bonehead Productions, who also released that Attunement to Death EP, as well as its predecessor, The Mastery of the Unseen EP from 2018.

The song we have for you, the second one disclosed from the album so far, is “Opium Thebiacum (Somniferum)“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASHEN TOMB — “CATHARSIS THROUGH TORTURE”

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Aug 202024
 

(written by Islander)

The band name chosen by the Finnish death metallists Ashen Tomb suggests visions of lifeless emptiness, a cold catacombs whose ruins enclose desiccated flesh and collapsing bones, blanketed in the ash of some long-forgotten blaze. Their music, on the other hand, ignites visions of the horrid catastrophes that left the dead in such a blasted place.

Take, for example, the song we’re premiering today (with an excellent video) from Ashen Tomb‘s debut album Ecstatic Death Reign, which is set for release in October by Everlasting Spew Records: Its name is “Catharsis Through Torture“. Like the album’s name, it portends a revel in violence rather than lifeless ruins, and the music does indeed prove to be an expression of monstrous murderous ecstasy. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HATCHEND — “SUMMER OF ’69”

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Aug 192024
 

(written by Islander)

The name of Hatchend‘s debut album is Summer of ’69. As you can see, the cover art is a collage of Charlie Manson’s face covered with what appears to be Marilyn Monroe’s hair, or maybe it’s Sharon Tate’s. It was in the summer of ’69 when Manson’s cult murdered at least nine people, including Tate.

Hatchend‘s drummer Rikard Wermén asks, “Where were you in the Summer of ‘69? You got any proof of that?” I know where I was. I was alive then in Texas, and sentient enough to remember learning about the Manson cult’s murders as they came to light, along with a lot of other things happening that summer, including the Apollo 11 moon landing, Woodstock, and the release of Bowie’s Space Oddity. Vanity prevents me from showing the proof, because it would reveal how old I was then and thus how absurdly old I am now.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, the members of Hatchend weren’t alive in the summer of ’69, though they’re definitely not young kids. Also interesting, I haven’t found anything which explains why they chose that title for their album. Now that I’ve written this, maybe it will be revealed.

But regardless of the title’s inspiration, the music on Summer of ’69 kicks a big boatload of ass, as wild in its own way as the wildness of the turbulent times some of us lived through in that summer of 55 years ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TORREFY — “STREET REAPER”

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Aug 162024
 

The last time we hosted a premiere from Torrefy‘s forthcoming fourth album Necronomisongs we used the album’s remarkable cover art as the jumping-off point. As you can see, it portrays the performance of a hellish orchestra, stripped of flesh but not stripped of their deathless desire to perform, and the song we premiered itself sounded like the demented revels of a devilish orchestra — fast and frenzied, brazen and baroque, and perpetually veering in a multitude of different but diabolical directions, creating an extravagant display of technical pyrotechnics and crazed yet sharply executed ebullience.

Today, as you can also see, we’re premiering another song by these unconventional Canadian black/thrashers from Necronomisongs, and this time our jumping-off point concerns the inspirations for the album tracks: Each of them is based on a favorite book of Torrefy vocalist John Ferguson.

The song we previously premiered, “Enslaved New World“, was inspired by a fantasy series called The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Before that, the band had revealed the album’s first single, “Of Wind and Worm“, along with an electrifying performance video. That song, as perhaps you might guess based on its title, was inspired by Frank Herbert‘s Dune.

And today we have a song incited by a Stephen King novel. As John Ferguson explains: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FLOSCULE — “A TREE OF LIFE”

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Aug 152024
 

The metal band Floscule, which features members from Silvern, White Ward, and Obrij, is based in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, a city with a shipbuilding history near the Black Sea in the southern part of the country, and an important transportation hub. As this source reports:

“In February and March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian military forces attacked Mykolaiv and placed it under siege. Ukrainian forces barred Russian forces from the city, though Russian artillery continued to shell it. By July, half of the pre-war population had left the city…. On 25 March 2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded Mykolaiv the title of Hero City of Ukraine due to the Battle of Mykolaiv.”

On September 27th, Vendetta Records will release Floscule‘s debut album, entitled Ї. Tomorrow, the band will release one of the album’s songs as a digital single, and we’re premiering it today with a lyric video. It has a history that connects with what Mykolaiv experienced in early 2022, and what the entire country has been experiencing as a result of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion, with no end in sight. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEINOUS EXSANGUINATION — “VILE ROTTING MASS”

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Aug 142024
 

Take a moment to reflect upon all you’ve done wrong in your life, or at least all you did wrong yesterday: The careless, stupid decisions. The petty jealousies. The pointless cruelties. The opportunities not seized, and the forgiveness not given. Think about all that, and maybe you’ll understand, as you bleed out, how well you deserve the merciless beating you’re about to suffer at the hands of Heinous Exsanguination.

This Los Angeles band clearly picked their name in an attempt to sum up the intent behind the music they decided to make — not just bloodletting, but odious and abominable bloodletting, both blistering and brutalizing.

And even if you don’t carefully ponder the meaning of their name, take a look at the artwork up there, which adorns their debut EP The Stench of Decaying Flesh, and you’ll get the message, a message not just reinforced by the EP’s title but also by the name of the EP track we’re premiering today: “Vile Rotting Mess“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FÖHN — “A DAY AFTER”

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Aug 132024
 

(written by Islander)

A few weeks ago the Greek band Föhn released a video for “Bereft,” the first advance track from their debut album Condescending, which will be released on August 23rd by Hypaethral Records in North America and These Hands Melt in Europe. I paid attention to it after seeing the album described as “avant-garde funeral doom” and realizing that the song included performances by two saxophonists. I then urgently wrote 330 words about it, just the one song.

Granted, “Bereft” is more than 13 minutes long, but even 330 words probably still didn’t do it justice.

When I spilled all those words I didn’t know we would be asked to host the premiere of a second song from Condescending, but that happened, and so I’m afraid you’re in for a lot more words. But mainly what you’re in for is yet another profoundly powerful piece of music, this one named “A Day After“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PNEUMA HAGION — “AEON”

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Aug 122024
 

Not long ago we published our Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Ryan Wilson, who is the musical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine and one of the two men behind the Texas-based death metal band Pneuma Hagion. The entire interview is well worth reading, but I found his comments about the Lovecraftian influence in Pneuma Hagion the most illuminating, especially in the context of the band’s new album From Beyond:

“I’ve been a huge fan of Lovecraft’s stories for most of my life. The key thing about Lovecraft is the sublime horror that he evokes; it’s a horror that can’t be seen, can’t be touched, and really can’t even be easily imagined. I love this; something that is beyond comprehension, but just graspable enough to be terrifying….

“Our minds have the power to create much more sinister and frightening ideas and images than anything the physical world can actually produce. The idea of extradimensional entities invading people’s minds is a huge theme in the stories of Lovecraft, and I enjoy trying to evoke similar feelings via the medium of music…. [M]usic is a great platform for the sublime, where the art lies in sound and not in visual cues so that your mind gets to handle all of the relevant imagery.”

Those thoughts resonate powerfully when listening to From Beyond, an album that truly does conjure terrible images of the listener’s own making, no two of them alike just as no two of us are completely alike. Everlasting Spew Records, which will release the new album on August 30th, fleshes out its thematic sources: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MNAJDRA — “IN THE NAME OF THE GODDESS”

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Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Last year the mysterious U.S. band Mnajdra made a splash with its self-titled debut album. Granted, it was a splash in a far corner of the small tributary of metal that spikes away from the vast ocean of music on a broader scale, but it still sent ripples, especially through devotees of terrorizing yet surprising musical extremity.

We attempted to review the album here, from which this is an excerpt:

The music isn’t easy to sum up, because it draws from scattered wellsprings of black metal, death metal, sludge/doom, post-metal, and psychedelia — whatever works to create wide-ranging sensations of catastrophe…. [B]e prepared to have your head spun and your dreams disturbed.

It is a relief that the secretive people behind Mnajdra, who clearly had done other things before that album, decided not to make the record a one-and-done effort. Instead, they’ve recorded a second album, and we’re thrilled to premiere it today — on the day of its release by Fiadh Productions and Snow Wolf Records. Continue reading »

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