AN NCS PREMIERE: SANCTUARIUM — “ABHORRENT EXCRUCIATION IN REPRISAL”

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Aug 012024
 

Only in the most miserable domains of death metal could adjectives like “fetid”, “putrescent”, “repulsive”, and “utterly disgusting” count as high praise. Trying to explain that logic to someone who isn’t already an aficionado of extreme metal would be like trying to teach math to a golden retriever, though a retriever would just keep wagging its tongue instead of rolling its eyes.

But we should acknowledge that while great achievements in musical repulsiveness have drawn applause since the early days of death metal (and especially creeping and crawling death metal of doom), that’s really never been the full story. Acclaim (at least when justified) has always depended on much more than simply sounding foul and spawning visions of putrefying corpses.

The Catalonian death metal band Sanctuarium understand this, and they practice their understanding extremely well, having put their finger on what made the OGs timeless in their appeal and then expanding upon it in increasingly surreal and heart-palpitating ways.

One proof of that is in the Sanctuarium song we’re premiering today, an extract from a new album that’s set for release in September by Me Saco Un Ojo and BlackSeed. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VILE RITES — “SENESCENT”

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Jul 312024
 

As you can see above, Justyna Koziczak created a truly stunning piece of artwork for the cover of the debut album by the California-based progressive death metal band Vile Rites. It also reveals the inspirational source of the album’s name — Senescence — and it creates a connection to the album track we’re premiering today — “Senescent“. Here’s the explanation we have from Vile Rites‘ founder and vocalist/guitarist, Alex Miletich:

The inspiration for the title track, “Senescent“, as well as the general theme of the album came from the life cycle of the octopus. For those that might not know, octopuses are born with no parental guidance (that we understand at least) and are forced to wander the waters alone. Once they are mature and find a mate, the female will lay her eggs and stay with them protecting and caring for them until they hatch, starving herself and ultimately dying in the process of creating new life.

Not only is this a profound symbol for the sacrifices that mothers make to create new life, but for the endless cycle of death and rebirth in general. We are born into the world with nothing but a vessel, and we only leave behind the legacy of what we’ve created. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: OFFICIUM TRISTE — “ANNA’S WOE”

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Jul 312024
 

We are most honored today to premiere a song from Officium Triste‘s new album Hortus Venenum (which translates to “Poison Garden”). Few bands born in the obscure realms of doom/death metal have managed to live for 30 years, but this Dutch band have, and not merely whispering on life support but somehow gaining even greater strength and resilience of spirit on this, their eighth album overall.

Adorned with a magnificent Paolo Girardi painting, the album will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on September 6th. It includes eight songs, beginning with two of the three shorter tracks on the record (relatively speaking). Those two have previously premiered, and what we have for you today is the third one in the running order. More expansive than the first two, its name is “Anna’s Woe“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NIGHTWRAITH — “WHISPERS OF DRAGONFLIES”

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Jul 302024
 

Two years ago we opened the floodgates on a lot of enthusiastic words about the multi-faceted music of the Denver-based metal collective NightWraith. Back then, the subject was the band’s album Offering, which their leader Benjamin Pitts described as a combination of “the heavy parts from bands like Carcass, and Enslaved” and “the warmth of classic bands like Thin Lizzy, and Blue Oyster Cult“.

That album was so engaging and memorable that we eagerly looked forward to what NightWraith might do next. What they’ve done next is create a new album named Divergence that will be released on September 13th by What’s Left Records. It’s even more ambitious than the last one, and even better.

In addition to helping spread the news about the new record, today we’re also premiering a video for its first single, a song intriguingly named “Whispers of Dragonflies“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FATHER BEFOULED — “IMMACULATE PAIN”

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Jul 302024
 

Any year that witnesses a new release from Father Befouled is a year doomed to experience new terrors, as if all the other terrors of human existence weren’t sufficiently severe. In the context of their jaw-dropping last album, 2022’s Crowned in Veneficum (for which we were privileged to host two premieres), we wrote:

Father Befouled revel in sounds of unholy terror in this new album. They display frightening mastery in their ability to combine visceral rhythmic power with music and vocals that radiate unearthly eeriness, blood-congealing horror, and ravaging madness — and the songs’ macabre melodic hooks get stuck in the head too.

That was then, this is now, and now we have a new Father Befouled EP to blot out light on the horizon. Its perfectly descriptive title is Immaculate Pain, and Everlasting Spew Records will inflict it upon us on Friday the 13th of September. Once again, we have a premiere, presented with a lyric video, to help usher in this malignant new beast. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CARNOPHAGE — “UNTIL THE DARKNESS KILLS THE LIGHT”

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Jul 292024
 

As Transcending Obscurity Records has described, the Turkish band Carnophage do seem like some legendary mythical entity that arises every eight years, not slumbering as long as locust swarms but biding their time and making their plans for longer than most metal bands in between releases.

Their second album, 2016’s Monument, followed the first one, Deformed Future/Genetic Nightmare, by eight years, and eight years have again elapsed since then. Thus, it is time for a new Carnophage album to create havoc and wonder, and we will all have it via Transcending Obscurity on August 2nd.

The name of this new third album is Matter of a Darker Nature, and it’s the source of the song you’re about to hear: “Until the Darkness Kills the Light“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PHENOCRYST — “ASTONISHING DEVASTATION”

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Jul 292024
 

Even if you don’t know anything about the Portuguese death-dealers Phenocryst and had managed to miss out on their 2021 debut EP Explosions (briefly reviewed here at our site), you could take your cues about their tremendous debut album from its name — Cremation Pyre — and its brilliantly molten cover art, with skulls bobbing in the lava, eye sockets glowing.

Another cue comes from the name of the album track we’re premiering today in advance of the record’s August 30 release by Blood Harvest — the perfectly named “Astonishing Devastation“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WEALD & WOE — “WINGS OF HATE”

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Jul 282024
 

Last summer we had the great pleasure of premiering For the Good of the Realm, the second album by the Idaho-based black metal band Weald & Woe. Fiadh Productions, which released the album, summed it up as combining “the majesty of the medieval era with the ferocity of classic black metal inspired by Obsequiae, Véhémence, Darkenhöld, Immortal, Ensiferum and many others.” We provided our own preview, which included these words:

[T[he album as a whole, when experienced front to back, does seem like a mythic narrative. It includes episodes of dire conflict, driven by punishing drum-blasts, vicious thrashing riffage, and scorching, throat-ripping vocals, but the music also elevates into the magnificence of waving banners and steel shining in the sun, with dramatic synths unfurling above the host and solos that spiral upward and flicker like druid sorcery….

To be sure, the songs also create grim and grievous moods, and moments that might spawn visions of terrible mayhem or corpses strewn across ruined fields. But the overused yet still apt word “epic” keeps coming to mind, because there’s nothing remotely mundane about this music. It’s an elaborate and thoroughly ravishing pageant unfolding on a vast scale, in a time long lost to the ages.

Today we have an excellent occasion to revisit Weald & Woe as we premiere an exhilarating video for an equally exhilarating song named “Wings of Hate“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INGURGITATING OBLIVION — “THE BARREN EARTH OOZES BLOOD, AND SHAKES AND MOANS, TO DRINK HER CHILDREN’S GORE” (PART 1)

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Jul 252024
 

Today we embark on an unusual collaboration with the German band Ingurgitating Oblivion and Willowtip Records, the label that will release their new album Ontology of Nought on September 27th. What we’re doing is hosting the first of three music premieres for the album — and all three are for the same song.

That song can stand the attention. On its own it’s the length of a typical EP — roughly 18 minutes in duration. And it’s not just the song that’s long, so is its title: “The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore“.

Each of the three premieres features a part of this song, unfolding in the same sequence as the music unfolds. As it happens, “The barren earth…” is the final track on Ontology of Nought. The preceding four are also long, and so are their solemn titles: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EARTH SHIP — “BEREFT”

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Jul 252024
 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, one of our writers summed up the music of Earth Ship as “raw, no-nonsense sludge metal that would rather kick your teeth in than wow you with any fancy tricks, and because of that, it’s excellent.“

Back then, the subject was this German band’s second album, Iron Chest. Since then they’ve released three more albums and a pair of EPs, and now their sixth full-length overall is on the horizon. Entitled Soar, it’s set for release on August 9th by The Lasting Dose Records.

What we have for you today is a video for a recently released single from the new album, and its name is “Bereft“. Continue reading »

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