AN NCS PREMIERE: MALCONFORT — “STAIN (FANTASY)”

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Jun 272024
 

Some of us, maybe only those of us with too much time on our hands, like to play guessing games about the music of a new band before hearing any of it. In the case of the UK band Malconfort, the game was irresistible, but also a bit perplexing.

First, they took their name from a Deathspell Omega song off the Paracletus album, a lyrically fascinating song that speaks of a God who came to Babylon in malevolence, in remembrance of whom “they shall pray backwards,” and whose congregation “was cast out of humanity… like an abominable branch!”

Then we found that Malconfort‘s otherwise undisclosed lineup includes members of Sea Mosquito and Amaltheia, a fact that strengthens the speculation that black metal is in the mix… at least to some degree.

And then there’s the track list on Malconfort’s debut album Humanism, where each single-word title is accompanied by an intriguing parenthetical: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BITTER WINE — “THE LIGHTING STARS”

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Jun 272024
 

Almost exactly one year ago the Portuguese label The Hills Are Dead Records released In The Soleness Of The Storm, the debut album by the Iranian band Bitter Wine. At that time, Bitter Wine was the solo project of Murray Arisch, which had its inception in 2021. Since the album’s release, the band has expanded with a full lineup that now includes guitarist Vahid Karimifard, bassist Amir Bonakdar, and drummer Hossein “Ermita” Zahedi.

And so begins a new chapter in the life of Bitter Wine, which has included them playing their first live show in Iran, with ambitions to play in other countries as well. To help remind people of the album and to help draw deserved attention to the band, today we’re premiering a lyric video (made by Mahyar Masoudi) for the song “The Lighting Stars“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CROCELL — “OF FROST, OF FLAME, OF FLESH”

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Jun 262024
 

The formidable Danish band Crocell released their debut album The God We Drowned in 2008, and then followed that with new full-lengths every two or three years, culminating in their fifth album Relics in 2018. Keeping to that pattern, we might have expected a new album in 2021, but that year they instead brought us a pair of four-song EPs on the same day (reviewed here).

Now, however, three years later, we do have a new Crocell album, and it will be coming out on June 28th via the band’s new label Emanzipation Productions. Its name is Of Frost, Of Flame, Of Flesh, and today we’re presenting it in its entirety. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOXIS — “VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM”

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Jun 252024
 

Almost four years ago we premiered Expanse of Hellish Black Mire, the debut EP of a Cleveland-based death metal band named Noxis. In an accompanying review, I attempted to sum up the music by saying that it was “thuggish in its bone-fracturing, organ-rupturing belligerence and disgustingly gruesome in its atmosphere, and yet also mind-boggling in its mad contortions and technical extravagances. Their music is thus thoroughly putrid and punishing but also a big adrenaline kick”.

Having experienced that EP, I wasn’t completely shocked by what Noxis have accomplished on their debut album Violence Inherent In The System, which we’re premiering today in advance of its June 28 release, but it still leaps beyond what Noxis achieved on that very impressive EP. And for those of you who might be encountering Noxis for the first time, you’re in for an enormous surprise, a surprise of genuinely explosive proportions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PNEUMA HAGION — “HARBINGER OF DISSOLUTION”

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Jun 242024
 

The Texas duo Pneuma Hagion made an inspired choice of artwork for the cover of their forthcoming third album, From Beyond: It is William Blake’s 1795 drawing The House of Death, which was inspired by lines from Book XI of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which the archangel Michael reveals to Adam in terrible detail the doomed fate of humans — a description of a “Lazar-house” filled with afflicted people suffering in their agonies, “and over them triumphant Death his Dart Shook….”

Pneuma Hagion‘s new album, which is set for release on August 30th by Everlasting Spew Records, conjures terrible images of its own:

“From Beyond explores Lovecraftian ideas of horrifying extra-dimensional entities forcing their way into the causal universe by infecting the minds of humans.

“Each song is from the perspective of some malevolent entity of unfathomable nature trying to influence the world of mortals and trying to infiltrate our universe in order to cause its ultimate destruction.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): REPLACIRE — “THE CENTER THAT CANNOT HOLD”

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Jun 202024
 

Behind every album there is a tale — of course there is. Sometimes the tales are mundane, but in the case of Replacire‘s new album The Center That Cannot Hold, the story brings to mind the  travails of Sisyphus, that benighted figure from Greek myth whom the gods punished for cheating death by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top.

In legend, the fate of Sisyphus is one of eternal toil. but fortunately Replacire did eventually manage to reach the summit and stay there, not only completing this new album but also achieving a new summit in their music.

We’ll give you an excerpt of information about why the completion of the album turned out to be such a struggle, but our main mission today is to present a full stream of the album on the eve before its June 21 release by Season of Mist. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CEREMONY OF SILENCE — “PRIMAEVAL SACRIFICE”

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Jun 192024
 

On July 19th Willowtip Records will release Hálios, the second album from the Slovakian death/black metal band Ceremony of Silence. The label’s introduction of it is very intriguing:

Hálios represents the unborn luminous radiance, the all-pervading immutable light of the Universe, and our fundamental inherent nature. It is the thousand-rayed Sun, always in motion, but unchangeable, the axis mundi manifesting the sacred within our temporal world and serving as a bridge to the mythical time. The album sets forth on an eerie journey to this sacred dimension, reenacting the old stories inspired by the essence of the ancient Indo-European mythology, entwined in the obscure visions and dreams.

This introduction suggests that the music will be even deeper in its development of profound, soul-stirring atmosphere than this band’s first full-length, 2019’s Oútis (reviewed here), and that is indeed true. But it’s also true that Ceremony of Silence are still capable (indeed more so) of mounting head-spinning shock-and-awe assaults on the senses. Both the first single from the album and a second one we’re premiering today with a lyric video are proof of all that. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ADELON — “RESURGENCE”

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Jun 192024
 

Metaphorically speaking, most metal bands have a core stylistic foundation around which they might then add other embellishments — or not. To switch up the metaphor, they might have a fundamental DNA, then spliced with other genetic strands to create a hybrid of sound — or not.

In the case of the Swiss band Adelon, whose four-song debut EP Resurgence we’re premiering today in advance of its June 21 release, they point to the strong influence on their music of Gojira and Decapitated, suggesting that their own foundations are themselves a multi-faceted structure of death-metal groove and technicality, even before they add additional embellishments and hybridized strands (which indeed they do, in abundance).

By the time all the hybridizing is in place, it becomes considerably more difficult to separate foundation from everything else that goes into the final edifice, which is in fact much less of an edifice than a constantly morphing dreamscape, in which prog-metal and even elements of jazz play significant roles, along with all the obliterating grooves and the tech-death fireworks. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAILLEACH BHEUR — “CAILLEACH BHEUR”

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Jun 182024
 

On June 28th Fiadh Productions will release the self-titled debut album of an unorthodox black metal band named Cailleach Bheur. They prefer to remain anonymous, but as their Scottish Gaelic name suggests (more about the name later), we’re told that all the members were based in Scotland 15 years ago, and one or more still are.

The themes of the album were also inspired by Scottish mythology and folklore, and the music has been in development for quite a long time – more than 10 years. Before we get to the music itself, in all its many eye-popping permutations, we’ll share with you a little more background about the album that we’ve been provided: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACK HOLE DEITY — “SWARM ATTACK”

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Jun 172024
 

For those of you who may be colliding with Black Hole Deity for the first time today, the band was formed in Alabama by Cam Pinkerton and Chris White, who were co-founders of the cult death metal band Chaos Inception. Cam then recruited Alec Cordero from the death metal bands Cruelty Exalted and Calcemia for lead-guitar duties and finally got none other than Mike Heller of Malignancy, Fear Factory, and Raven to handle the drumwork.

We had our first collision with them back in 2020, when they released their second single, “Railgun Combat” (writing about it here), and then had the pleasure of premiering their debut EP Lair of Xenolich the next year. As we wrote then, that EP (which was released by Everlasting Spew Records) was “an explosive assault that’s a pure adrenaline rush, as well as one that inflicts megaton levels of stunning destructiveness”:

“Listening to the EP, it’s very easy to imagine that you’ve been teleported straight into an alien war zone where advanced technologies are being deployed with both machine-like precision and breathtaking ferocity.”

Lair of Xenolich was such a breathtaking spectacle (and even more enjoyable for sci-fi nerds like us) that it was terrifically good news to learn that Everlasting Spew would at last be bringing us a Black Hole Deity full-length. Its name is Profane Geometry, and today you’ll have a chance to be assaulted by three of its tracks, one of which (“Swarm Attack“) we’re now premiering. Continue reading »

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