AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACK SORCERY — “GASPING FOR LIGHT UNDER A PETRINE CROSS”

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Jun 272023
 

When we heard the first single from Black Sorcery‘s debut album Deciphering Torment Through Malediction it occurred to us that the album was very well-named. That song, “Erinyes Slough”, is unmistakably hateful, from the caustic lunacy of the shrieked vocals to the gut-plunder inflicted by the bassist and the rude corrosiveness of the brazen and roiling guitars. The snare drum keeps time like a metronome that’s still somehow functioning in the midst of a vicious riot.

In addition to being feral and malign, however, a feeling of torment does come through in the riffing, and about halfway through, the drums break their chains and the song transforms into a searing cataclysm that will swallow you up. There’s still something anguished about that electrifying convulsion, but a kind of medieval grandeur emerges as well. In other words, there are more facets to the track than you might guess at first.

Now we’ve got a second excerpt from this new album in advance of its July 28 release by Eternal Death, and it reinforces the impressions created by that first one — that the band’s fury is white hot, that they’re capable of sounding like they’re in the throes of demonic possession, but that they have an affinity for melody that seems like a time machine spun back to an ancient age. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DER DÖBERMANN — “BURN YOUR FIRE”

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Jun 272023
 

Here in the U.S. Judge Judy would blanch at the idea: a Russian band naming themselves after a German breed of dog that’s so dangerous many home insurance companies ban them, refusing to insure against liability if they cause injury or damage in homes where they’re kept as pets. Sure, they have a reputation for fearlessness, alertness, loyalty, and intelligence, but look at that album cover.

True enough, this gang from Saint Petersburg chose the name Der Döbermann after deciding to start thrashing together in April 2021, and now they’ve got a debut album to show for their efforts, one with the reassuring title Don’t Be Afraid, You Already Dead. We’ve got a bite of what it offers, and a sign of how it bites, in the song we’re premiering today: “Burn Your Fire“. When you hear it you’ll understand why the band chose the name they did instead of, say, Der Dachshund. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOTHER BLACK AUTUMN — “RESPLENDENT APPARITIONS AT THE DAWN”

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Jun 262023
 

You’re about to hear an album that we hope you’ll find as stunning as we have. “Atmospheric Black Metal” is the simple label, but not an adequate one. It’s inspired and informed by Nature, but anyone who thinks that will lead to an experience of tree-hugging boredom will be shockingly mistaken.

The moods are almost uniformly dark, but the pathways constantly branch and the tonal ingredients, both instrumentally and vocally, are multitudinous. The music fires the senses in harrowing and thrilling ways, and it’s also capable of emotionally felling listeners in a multitude of ways, like trees brought down by both raging chainsaws and old hand axes passed down through generations. It creates sensations of confusion and distress, of chaos and terror, of loneliness and grief, and of haunting ancient mysteries that hide behind the world we see.

The two people responsible for this extraordinary experience are Meghan Wood from Crown of Asteria and Todd Paulson from Canis Dirus. They’ve taken the name Another Black Autumn for this project, and their debut album Resplendent Apparitions at the Dawn is what we’re now presenting in advance of its June 30 release by the always distinctive Fiadh Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WILT — “HUGINN”

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Jun 232023
 

Today the Canadian atmospheric black metal band Wilt and their label Vendetta Records are releasing a new album named Huginn (though some purists may prefer to label it an EP). It comes as something of a surprise, since it wasn’t preceded by a single or advance publicity, but it is a very welcome surprise.

It’s certainly a welcome development here, as anyone would know who has come across our previous writings about Wilt’s music, including our comments about their 2015 debut album Moving Monoliths or our review of their second album Ruin in 2018. To pick out just a few choice words from the latter:

“[T[he masterful blending of dark metallic melody and dreamlike serenity found on Ruin makes a very good case that this undeniably talented (though underwhelmingly named) Canadian quintet deserve serious consideration as potential heirs to Agalloch’s vacant mantle (pun very much intended). Of course it’s not so much that Wilt sound exactly like Haughm, Dekker, and co., it’s more that the group’s sombre, evocative style examines and explores many of the same musical themes and ideas, although never in exactly the same way”.

Five years on from Ruin, and Agalloch have reassembled themselves, but Wilt have returned as well. These haven’t been five good years for the world at large, and all the dire and dreadful experiences they delivered have influenced what you will hear on Huginn. Here is what Wilt have told us about it: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CREPITATION — “MONSTROUS ERUPTION OF IMPETUOUS PREPOSTEROSITY”

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Jun 222023
 

It will come as no great surprise to people who’ve been fans of Crepitation for the last 17+ years to see how preposterously wild the title of their new album is. It is, in fact, Monstrous Eruption of Impetuous Preposterosity. The trip through the new album’s song titles is perhaps an even more gonzo ride. When words recognized by dictionaries and phrases acknowledged by grammarians aren’t up to the task, just scramble the fuck out of them over a high flame and season with gobs of syllables and a heavy salting of hilarity. That’s how you get things like this:

“Vicious Entwattering of Obstinant Nepotistic Shithouses”
“Priapismic Whisking of Mucilaginous Concrete Slurry”
“Devourification of Skewerised Rottiserie Hominids”
“Superkalifragelisticexpibabyshakeus”

Even when you can find the words in dictionaries, Crepitation have a knack for stitching them together in evocatively foul ways. For example, “Methanated Propulsion of Gaseous Levitation“. What better way to name a song that was inspired by the kind of wet farts that provide a queasy recurring lift to your stride? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORMLESS OEDON — “CALCINE PURIFICATION”

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Jun 212023
 

Like other bands around the globe, Formless Oedon from the Philippines came to life in time to release their first recording (the Deathless Luminosity EP) just as the world began to be consumed by the ravages of covid in March 2020. Fortunately, the EP still made an impression among fans of death metal, and particularly those with a hungering for the old-school filth of the Finnish tradition.

Even more fortunately, the pandemic and its lockdowns didn’t snuff out the creative fires of this band, and they managed to record a debut album named Streams of Rot that’s now set for release on July 24th by the Memento Mori label. As a sign of what’s coming, today we premiere the album’s second advance track, “Calcine Purification“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASCENDENCY — “VICTORY – IN ALL ITS EPHEMERAL GLORY”

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Jun 212023
 

In July of 2020 the Danish band Ascendency released a debut EP named Birth of an Eternal Empire. It chronicled the rise to power of a despotic tyrant and was announced as “the first of a trilogy of short releases, with a continuous conceptual narrative, about the thirst for power and hegemony and the ultimate betrayal of ego and arrogance”.

That EP made a striking impression as a hybrid of death and black metal that featured skull-busting grooves, white-hot riffing, crazed leads, demonic vocals, and yet the capacity to create eerie and unsettling atmospherics from the other side of the veil rent by the music’s violence.

Now Ascendency are returning with another EP in the promised sequence. This one, A Manifest of Imperious Destiny, will be co-released on July 14th by none other than Me Saco Un Ojo Records and Dark Descent Records, on 12″ vinyl and CD formats, respectively, and today we have the privilege of revealing one of the four new tracks: “Victory – in all its Ephemeral Glory“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SLUDGE KEEPER — “WEED INCUBATOR”

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Jun 202023
 

From the name chosen by Andrea Tocchetto (of Inverted Matter) for his solo project Sludge Keeper you might be expecting, well, sludge metal. From the name chosen for the song “Weed Incubator” that we’re about to premiere you might expect, well, something weedian and woozy.

But take a close look at Mark Erskine‘s cover art for Sludge Keeper‘s forthcoming debut album Slough Of Despair and you’ll begin to understand the error of any such assumptions. Pay particular attention to the fiery maw that has opened up from the bowels of the earth, the ruined arches, and in particular the enormous toothsome horror that looms above it all.

These features point the way to music that’s supernaturally monstrous, frightening, and fueled by hellfire — and all those signs are a lot closer to the mark of the music, which is anything but weedian and woozy.

What you’re about to encounter instead is death metal of terrific ferocity — dire and devastating in its moods and exhilarating in its execution. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DÉMONOS — “YOUR ASCENSION IS A MERE ILLUSION”

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Jun 202023
 

At the end of April this year the Indian black metal band Démonos released their astounding debut album Anno Daemonium. Over the space of two consecutive Shades of Black columns we attempted to review it, in stages that aligned with the unfolding of the album’s tracks. Experiencing it that way created increasing surprises that were difficult to sum up. The path through the album is not a straight and narrow one. As we wrote in the second phase of the review:

“That trip sometimes feels like being caged with a feral beast and no way out. At other times it feels like someone slipped acid under your tongue without your knowing until it kicked in. At still other times, you might feel teleported into a burial ground as a piano plays a hopeless lament, with the wails of mourners in the background, or into a sonic aurora borealis that glitters and drifts in wondrous colors while the bass throbs.”

And all that happens in just the second song, “Vesper Evocation“, which further includes the solemn tones of a church organ at the end.

We spent several substantial paragraphs here attempting to describe the experience of the three-part opening track “Magma Stigmata“, and there are still five more to come after those two. With each one, Démonos manages to bring in something you haven’t heard in the preceding tracks, both vocally and instrumentally, and in their moods. In other words, there are surprises galore, some of them like sorcery, some of them frightening, some of them spellbinding, some of them ugly, none of them dull.

Today we have the chance to further highlight the album’s third song, “Your Ascension is a Mere Illusion“, thanks to a fascinating video for it that we’re now premiering. The song itself is fascinating, in both its inspiration and its effects on the listener. Here is what Démonos says about its subject: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ETERNAL ROT — “SWOLLEN CORPSE ADORATION”

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Jun 192023
 

When you gaze upon Mark Riddick‘s cover art for the new album by Eternal Rot, you know what’s coming. You know that little cross will provide no defense against the rotting horrors that have crawled from their graves to extract a ghastly vengeance. You also know, even if you haven’t previously encountered this band’s music, that their brand of death metal is murder most foul — diseased, disgusting, and depraved — but it’s also the kind of “ignorant, knuckle-dragging stomp” that’s calculated to crush skulls and wreck necks.

Those quoted words aren’t ours — they’re part of the PR previews offered on behalf of the two labels who will jointly release this band’s third album, Moribound, on July 24th — Memento Mori and Godz Ov War Productions. But don’t mistake those words as some kind of criticism. It’s just a way of highlighting the fact that Eternal Rot disdain pretension and favor the primitive — but we must quickly add that their rotten and ruinous brand of organ-rupturing and bone-smashing extremity is as catchy as it is bludgeoning.

As you can see from the title of the song we’re premiering today, Eternal Rot also have a way with words, the kind that brings devilish smiles to fiendish faces. Continue reading »

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