AN NCS PREMIERE: INTOLERANCE — “RITE OF PASSAGE”

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Jun 172024
 

The ongoing revival of “old school death metal”, which in fact is the refurbishing of many schools, continues apace with the impending release of the second album by the Spanish band Intolerance.

Intolerance are a Zaragoza-based group who have already proven their ability to breath new life into the hideous old genre, building their own throne of putrefying skulls with a 2016 demo, a 2020 EP, their first album Dark Paths of Humanity (2022), and now a new full-length monstrosity aptly named Waking Nightmares of an Endless Void which will be co-released on July 22nd by Memento Mori and Godz Ov War Productions.

For more concrete reference points, the PR materials for the album refer to a solid foundation influenced by early Bolt Thrower, Grave, Asphyx, Morgoth, Entombed, Convulse, Obituary, and Unleashed, but now embellished with “ever-darker hues and an almost-evil melodicism” that “puts them closer to the likes of classic Unanimated, Dismember, Hypocrisy, Desultory, and earliest Necrophobic“.

But as concrete reference points go, nothing beats the music itself, and we have some of that for you today as we premiere the new album’s fourth track, “Rite of Passage“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOLFDOM — “THE REAPER”

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Jun 142024
 

The last time we premiered music from the multi-national band Wolfdom we emphasized “the band’s talent for interweaving black metal terror and anthemic heavy metal”: “Wolfdom manage to punch the guts, to swagger like a feral beast, to attack with unbridled viciousness, and to send their music into high-flown realms of devilish glory”.

At that time, the occasion was the impending release of Wolfdom‘s 2022 debut album Moonlight Misanthropy, and now we’re happy to spread the news that Wolfdom are returning with a follow-up full-length, this one believably named I Belong To Satan, which is set for digital release on July 31st by the Ukrainian label GrimmDistribution.

And once again, today we’re the bearer of a song premiere, a fiendish and hook-filled romp named “The Reaper“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRYPTICY — “THE WATER STREET BUTCHER”

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Jun 142024
 

I have not seen The Poughkeepsie Tapes, the 2007 American pseudo-documentary horror film about Edward Carver, aka the Water Street Butcher. After doing some reading about it (e.g., here), I’m confident I never will, because I don’t have a strong stomach and would like to continue sleeping well at night.

I would guess, however, that the Spanish death metal band Krypticy have seen the movie, and probably more than once, given that the song from their new album which we’re premiering today is named “The Water Street Butcher“.

What have they done with this ghastly inspiration? And what kind of black hole is that tiny figure on the album’s striking cover being inexorably pulled into? Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABIGORUM — “EFFORTLESSLY INTO THE DARKNESS (MÜHELOS IN DIE DUNKELHEIT)”

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Jun 132024
 

Abigorum was founded by Aleksey “Satanath” Korolyov in Saint Petersburg, Russia more than a decade ago. Since then, much has happened to the band, both in its membership and location as well as its musical evolution, which could be called atmospheric black metal but has involved other genre explorations.

Abigorum now consists (as it has for some years) of Korolyov, who moved from Russia to Georgia in March 2022, and his German collaborator Tino “Fluch” Thiele. And their new third album, Foretaste of Justice, is a sign of further evolution. The band explains

Foretaste of Justice is an important chapter in the history of the project, whose genre has changed again, becoming even more melodic and epic. Comparing it to the previous works, the band’s departure from deliberate roughness and gloomy rawness in the music to well thought-out song structures and creating a spiritually uplifting atmosphere is clearly noticeable.

The sound itself did not become light, but retained anger and pain, especially in the lyrics. The album absorbed all the experiences and thoughts of the musicians over the years, which makes it truly philosophical. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MIASMIC SERUM — “INFECTED SEED”

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Jun 132024
 

Let’s ponder for a moment the name of the Italian band whose debut album we’re about to premiere. “Miasmic” is an adjective that refers to an unpleasant and oppressive atmosphere, or an odor that is noxious and foul. In this context “serum” would seem to refer to a fluid or exhalation that is itself foul, or when administered would produce the feeling of miasma, though perhaps it also might be interpreted as a means of treating miasma.

Of course, the serum being administered by this Italian death metal trio, whether noxious itself and/or curative, is music. Further clues to the nature of the musical serum might be found in the title of the album — Infected Seed — and in the names of songs such as “Near-Death Visions”, “Lethal Bite”, and “Lost Control”. Even one of the interlude tracks on the album is named “Neurotoxic Venom”.

Fittingly, the album will be released (on June 14th) by labels named Night Terrors Records and Chaos Records. In addition to all these clues about the inspiration for the music, we also have the following insights provided by Miasmic Serum, the band itself: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LIMINAL SHROUD — “MALASPINA”

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Jun 122024
 

Almost two years ago we had the pleasure of premiering Liminal Shroud‘s stunning second album All Virtues Ablaze. In an accompanying review I wrote:

Across four expansive tracks on their new album, the music itself is vast and towering, awe-struck and splendid, but also creates a sense of purging, of a kind of ruthless but necessary scourging, a furious confrontation against what’s dismal and discouraging.

In its changing moods the album at times seems daunted by the seeming futility of human existence, and at times it’s beautiful in its portrayal of melancholy, yet also seems to be a fierce rejection of beleaguered submission and an embrace of the horizon that might lie ahead. Like broken rocks buffeted by surging tides, people can withstand the assaults of life and endure, so it seems to say. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DARKEND — “VIATICUM”

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Jun 122024
 

(On June 14th Time To Kill Records will release the fifth album by the Italian black metal band Darkend, and today we’re premiering its full stream, preceded by an extensive review by our writer (and longtime Darkend fan) DGR.)

Even though it would be wonderful for every group we cover to achieve massive stardom, playng to gigantic crowds and existing as a perpetual part of the cultural zeitgeist – since that seems to be the only way we can completely guarantee someone is making a decent living playing music these days – a few artistic benefits are afforded to musicians who are currently dwelling in the underground, ever on the slow burn and amassing more and more notoriety over time, as opposed to a sudden viral explosion that sees them top of the world one week and then trying to maintain that for years afterward.

One of those is that you are free to move within the realms of an artistic spectacle far more than you might otherwise be given room to; every album becomes an opportunity to swing for the fences and execute upon ambitious and grand ideas while also giving room to reinvent oneself as much as you feel.

We bring this up in part because Italy’s Darkend have had a near-two-decade career at this point and it is one that has allowed them to be increasingly ambitious over the course of five albums, while remaking themselves into as much of a spectacle as they are a musical act within that time. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOLGOTHA — “SPREADING THE WINGS OF HOPE”

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Jun 112024
 

Over the course of a career that began in 1992 and has continued fairly steadily ever since (interrupted by one long break following their third album in 2005), the Spanish band Golgotha have remained devoted to musical renditions of melancholy and desolate sorrow. They remain devoted to their own traditions in their newest album, and yet, as the album’s title itself portrays, they have not lost hope.

That album, Spreading the Wings of Hope, comes from a place of maturity and the depth of emotional reflection that only many decades of daily experience can bring — experiences of deceit and pain, of inner psychological trauma and persistent injustice in the outer world, but also experiences of resilience and beauty.

For Golgotha, it is evident, as they say themselves, that they still carry “the flickering flame of hope”: “It burns low, but it burns still…” That comes through in both the lyrics and the music on the new album, though what also comes through is that Golgotha have not forsaken the need to express the doom and desolation that continues to plague human existence, as it always has.

Spreading the Wings of Hope will be released by Golgotha‘s new label Ardua Music on June 14th, and we’re privileged to let you hear all of it today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VORARE — “AMBER HUM”

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Jun 102024
 

Prepare yourselves for a nightmare armageddon of sound. No riffs, no melody, no reprieve, only derangement, devastation, and pain.

Truth be told, there really isn’t any good way of preparing for the sounds and sights in the video we’re premiering for the track “Amber Hum” off Atelier, an album released last month by the Finnish duo Vorare. Even the genre summing-up “avant-garde drone-doom/death industrial” doesn’t really do the job, and the track’s intriguing title only obscures the horror of what’s about to happen. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOODCROSS — “GRAVEBOUND”

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Jun 102024
 

We managed to overlook Abyssal Blood, the first demo of the Finnish heavy metal band Bloodcross, when it landed in 2021. And so their debut album Gravebound is hitting us like an enormous surprise. Maybe that’s for the best, because with Gravebound it feels like Bloodcross have musically found their best selves, with results that really are astonishing.

Whereas Metal-Archives stuck the simple “Black Metal” label on Bloodcross based on that demo, even then it really didn’t completely capture what Bloodcross were doing (something like “blackened melodic thrash” would have been more informative.) But with Gravebound they have more extravagantly and elaborately branched out, not totally forsaking the influence of such bands as Dissection and Necrophobic, but more prominently bringing into play elements of power metal, speed metal, and (for want of a better term) “classic” heavy metal. Continue reading »

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