AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MYRONATH — “THE VORACIOUS SPHERE”

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Apr 302024
 

The Swedish black metal band Myronath made their debut in 2019 with the full-length Into the Qliphoth, and two years later followed that with another album aptly named Djevelkraft. Now they’re returning with album number three, their most ambitious one yet, and it too has a very fitting title: Inferno, fitting not only because of the sensations of the music but also because the album is a conceptual work inspired by Dante‘s Inferno.

Inferno again features the work of former Ragnorak members Hellcommander Vargblod (vocals, bass) and Bjarkan (guitars), joined this time by guitarist Bathim and studio session drummer Calle Larsson.

In advance of Inferno‘s May 30 release date by the Dusktone label, they’ve already released a first single (with a lyric video) named “Purity Through Indulgence“, and today we present a second one, “The Voracious Sphere“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE BLEEDING — “CHEMICAL LOBOTOMY”

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Apr 292024
 

Monokrator is the third album by the UK band The Bleeding, and their best yet. Released last summer by Redefining Darkness Records, it garnered heaping helpings of praise across the metalsphere, including from our own Andy Synn. In his review, he wrote that the album “bursts out of the speakers with the frenetic riffs and frenzied blastbeats of ‘Chemical Lobotomy’ and then proceeds to kick ass and take names like the bastard child of The Crown, Cannibal Corpse, and Goatwhore“.

He further acclaimed it as a record that succeeds in “marrying thrashy, galloping rhythms with streams of strangulating tremolo riffage and passages of lurching Death Metal heaviness, all topped off with some seriously sharp, snarling vocal hooks” — “the sort of record – lean, mean, and taking no prisoners – that may well put The Bleeding on the global metallic map where they belong.”

As a reminder of what a kick-ass album Monokrator truly is, or as an introduction to people who might have overlooked it, what we have for you today is the premiere of an official video for that song that launches the album in such exhilarating fashion — “Chemical Lobotomy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SATANIC PRIEST — “WOLVES AMONG SHEEP”

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Apr 292024
 

Consider the name chosen by the Salvadoran band Satanic Priest. Then consider the name they chose for their forthcoming debut album: …Of Blasphemies and Lust, which fittingly will be released by a UK label named Vicious Witch. Then add to that the album’s cover art, and the fact that their brand of music is a flame-throwing, turbocharged amalgam of black thrash and speed metal.

All these signs point to an unpretentious old-school devotion to all things 666 and an equal devotion to alcohol-fueled, pedal-to-the-metal sonic barbarity geared toward giving listeners an adrenaline rush. What you might not guess so far, but what you’ll figure out when you listen to the song we’re premiering today with a lyric video, is that Satanic Priest are also fiendishly good songwriters. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OLAMOT — “PATH OF DIVINITY”

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Apr 262024
 

We’re about to premiere a complete debut album of modern death metal from the Italian band Olamot, one that’s brutish and bludgeoning but also a whirligig for the head and fuel for nightmares.

We’ll explain in more detail what we mean by that, but let’s begin by quoting some of the background information furnished in the press materials offered on behalf of the Lethal Scissor label, which will release the album on April 29th:

OLAMOT started in 2021 from the minds of Daniele Boccali (FICTIO SOLEMNIS) and Edoardo Casini (XENOFACTION, DESOURCE), eager to create a musical concept which develops a story lyrically and conceptually ideated by Edoardo Casini. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NOBODY — “PERPETUAL TORMENT”

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Apr 252024
 

The Ohio-based duo Nobody made their advent last year with a pair of EPs (Fading Into Obscurity and Lifeless and Still), and have now recorded a debut album named Despair is Where My Thoughts Swim, which will be released on May 17th by End My Life Records/Tragedy Productions. For the album, the founders Troll and Ulver are joined by new vocalist Void.

You may see the genre labels of “post-black metal” or “post/depressive black metal” affixed to Nobody‘s music, which might be as good a way as any of trying to summarize versatile songs that really don’t fit neatly into any boxes and that draw inspiration from a host of sources, including sources outside of metal altogether.

But it might be better to just forget about labels, because the ones above might prove to be as misleading as they are predictive once you begin listening to the album. Even the terrible sadness and sense of regret and abandonment that the song titles and lyrics convey isn’t the sum total of the moods, and so even the “depressive” label isn’t a complete portrait.

To help you understand this, we’re premiering a lyric video for one of the album’s new songs, “Perpetual Torment“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELL:ON — “HE WITH THE HORSE’S HEAD”

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Apr 252024
 

Long ago the Ukrainian extreme metal band Hell:On established their musical philosophy, and in the nearly two decades since their formation in Zaporizhzhia they have stayed steady, only sharpening their swords and their magicks and magnifying the power of their delivery.

“Atmospheric death metal” is one way of describing their music, a way of trying to capture their union of high-powered death metal ferocity, oriental melodies, and “tribal” ingredients, which create mystical, shamanic shades of light and darkness.

This union is on full display in their new album, which fittingly is named Shaman. It was intended for release two years ago, but then the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupted those plans, and of course life as a whole in their country. But now they have a May 17th release date via Archivist Records and we begin to see the fruits of their creative endeavors. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOMUNCULUS — DEMO MMXXIV

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Apr 242024
 

As you can see, we’re premiering a demo today, the first two songs to be revealed from a Seattle band named Homunculus, a word that most dictionaries define as “a very small human or humanoid creature”. It’s an interesting choice of name because, as you’ll soon discover, the music is anything but small, though it most definitely is inhuman.

To begin our introduction of the demo, we’ll share some of the evocative words provided by Cestrum Nocturnum Recordings, which will release the demo on May 1st and brands it “experimental black/death”: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMBAT NOISE — “STALINGRAD IN BLOOD”

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Apr 242024
 

The Cuban death metal band Combat Noise first emerged in 1995 in La Habana, inspired by both Floridian death metal and a desire to render tales of war through their music. Beginning in 1996 they steadily released a sequence of demos, an EP, and eventually three full-length albums, with the last of those appearing in 2013.

There then followed a decade-long hiatus in recordings, a gap that will now end with To the Heart of Battle, a new album set for co-release by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Sanatorio Records (Costa Rica) on May 21st. Today we premiere one of its 12 anthems of war, a song entitled “Stalingrad in Blood“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WINGLESS — “ASCENSION”

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Apr 232024
 

Wingless is a great name for a band who’ve chained themselves with the heavy links of doom and death. It seems to encapsulate the core reality that human beings struggle to soar, land-bound and crawling toward a bitter end beneath the distant gaze of winged creatures that have always seemed more free.

And yet the new album from this Krakow-based band, their fifth full-length since forming in 2012, is named Ascension. The title raises questions: ascending toward what? and when? and how?

The music suggests answers, though they are likely to vary with each listener’s interpretation of the experience. What’s not likely to vary is the inevitability of becoming submerged in the music, and to rise with it. You’ll have that chance today, as we premiere a full stream of Ascension in advance of its release on April 26th by Selfmadegod Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO AND ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEPLORABLE — “SHATTERED LAMENT UNMOORED”

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Apr 222024
 

In this article we’re presenting two premieres — a full stream of Shattered Lament Unmoored, the debut album by the Costa Rican band Deplorable, which will be released today by the Dutch label Breathe Plastic, and a video for one of the album’s six songs. Perhaps the best one-word description for both of them is… HARROWING. But of course we’ll try to flesh that out with more words.

It might be best to begin with the video and the song it presents, “Apparition In The Ether“, even though that song appears second in the album’s track list, because it provides such a soul-shattering introduction to the black chasm of dread and despair that the album opens up beneath us as listeners. Continue reading »

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