AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DJINN-GHÜL — “OPULENCE”

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Apr 262023
 

The last time we heard from this Denver/Bolíver axis was through their 2021 EP Mechalith, a record our own Andy Synn put on his year-end list of top 10 EPs, even though it had just come out the day before he finished the list. Why did it make such an impact (like a meteor crater)? Andy explained:

“[I]f you’re looking for something that exists purely to pulverise your ear-drums – blasting and bludgeoning and breaking-the-fuck-down without mercy or restraint – but also has a few clever cyber-synth tricks up its heavily armed and armoured sleeve (also drawing comparison, in places, to the extremophile excess of our old friends The Monolith Deathcult), then you should definitely give Mechalith a shot.”

About 2 1/2 years later, here we are, confronting another imminent meteor strike. Which is to say that Djinn-Ghül are back, this time with a full-length named Opulence. You’ve still got a little while to prepare — there might be time to build an underground bunker before the July 14 release date scheduled by Vicious Instinct Records — but you better not waste time. Dig deep and harden that shelter as if your life depends on it. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SUFFERING QUOTA — “GROW”

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Apr 262023
 

Adjectives like “terrorizing” and “explosive” have tended to surround the music of the Dutch grindcore band Suffering Quota like swarms of angry hornets. Of course, sensations of fury and violence are endemic to a lot of grindcore, but adjectives like those don’t always come to mind as frequently as they do with this band.

Yet those aspects of their music, while integral and vital to what they do, really aren’t all that sets them apart from a lot of their peers. What really sets them apart is the feeling that they’d get bored just blowing off the doors in listeners’ heads and wrecking the hell out of whatever’s inside. It’s got to be more interesting than that.

The stew of genre ingredients they incorporate — which include death metal, crust, and hardcore — can’t always follow the same recipe, song after song, or what’s the point of continuing to write and record? Better to make them fight for survival in different ways and see what happens. Better to keep the listener off-balance, because for sure, there’s no balance in the world either.

Well, that’s just armchair psychology from our little underground hovel, because we’re not telepaths. But when you listen to some of the music of Suffering Quota‘s new album Collide, maybe you’ll understand the point we’re trying to make. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FORMALIST — “MONUMENT”

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Apr 252023
 

Five years after our last premiere of a song by the Italian band Formalist we have been granted the opportunity to make another one.

Five years ago the occasion was the impending release of their debut album, No One Will Shine Anymore, which contained three massive tracks that were relentlessly multi-faceted and engrossing, yet also ruthlessly created waking nightmares.

Today the occasion is another impending album release, this one named We Inherit a World at the Seams, which will be out on May 25th via Brucia Records. It too consists of three epic-length tracks, collectively totaling 44 minutes of harrowing sound, and today we’re premiering the one that’s fittingly called “Monument“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SISYPHEAN — “THROUGH CORROSION”

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Apr 252023
 

Shakespeare is the author of the famous statement, uttered by a character (Antonio) in The Tempest, that “what’s past is prologue”. What he and his character meant is that history provides the context for what is about to happen in the present (in The Tempest, it was the opportunity for Antonio and his co-conspirator Sebastian to commit murder). Some might go so far as to assert that what happens in the present is fated to happen because of what has happened in the past.

In the case of the Lithuanian black metal band Sisyphean (themselves named for a legendary character), the past that is most powerfully prologue is their 2020 album Colours of Faith. That’s not to suggest that people should ignore their 2017 debut full-length, but it was Colours of Faith that really opened eyes and established high expectations. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SPEEDWHORE — “HOLOGRAM”

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Apr 242023
 

This is one of those times when it feels right to just dive headlong into the song we’re premiering, and then come back to fill in the details after you’ve had a chance to extricate yourself from those giant talons on the album cover and attempt to catch your breath.

It takes almost no time at all for “Hologram” to create a mood of feral, lusting exultation. The drumming is loose and raucous. The high-toned riffing writhes, jolts, and rises up in manifestations of diabolical glory. The bass tones feel like bubbling madness. When the vocals finally arrive, they sound like a big rabid beast that can’t be brought to heel.

The song rocks damned hard but it also takes off like a scampering devil-punk careening off the walls as the guitar screams, and the band also launch into a bracing gallop as the foundation for a delirious guitar solo that kicks the music’s diabolical energy further into the blood-spraying red zone. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DHISHTI — “MARUDEPAWILLA”

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Apr 242023
 

For most people reading these words the island nation of Sri Lanka is at least half a world away geographically, and many worlds away in its history, culture, and the roots of its internal divisions. Life Is Suffering, the forthcoming third album by the Sri Lankan black metal band Dhishti, is conceptually based upon ancient traditions and practices that still exist in the country, and current ills to which they are connected. Even the band’s name invokes ancient beliefs. Here is the explanation we have been provided:

“The name Dhishti is a Sinhalese term which holds the meaning of demonic possessions. In the ancient times the people of the small Indian oceanic island of Sri Lanka believed mental illnesses are in-fact demonic processions caused by evil spirits, or Dhishti, and conducted various occult rituals and ceremonies (Thovil) to treat the effected….

“The album speaks about these beliefs, rituals and prophecies which are still to this date followed by certain groups of people…. The album’s lyrics are written in an older form of the native language, which originated over 2000 years ago. The language was selected specifically due to these rituals being originally carried out in the language of Sinhala, and to translate it into any other language would take away its originality and authenticity.” Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASBEST — “CYANIDE FOR BREAKFAST”

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Apr 212023
 

The Swiss noise rock band Asbest have been moving toward the May 19 release of their new album Cyanide in leaps and bounds. Beginning last fall they dropped a single, and then leaped… coming to earth a month later with another one… and then landing with another one a few months later… and another one a few months after that. Each one has been made available digitally, and each one has been an eye-opener.

The most recent of the singles is “Cyanide for Breakfast“. It landed last month. It might be the last single before the album release by A Tree In A Field Records / Czar Of Crickets Productions, but there’s still one more Asbest landing before then — a fascinating video for that same song that we’re presenting today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CORPUS NECROMANTHUM — “CORPUS TACTUS”

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Apr 212023
 

Today we want to focus your attention on two new songs from the forthcoming debut album by the Costa Rican black/death metal band Corpus Necromanthum, an album described as a conceptual work that leads us “through the harrowing story of a necromancer and his forced transformation into nothing”.

The first of those songs, “Tar Uritharhain“, has been out in the world for a couple of weeks. Its overture is made of simple ingredients — the reverberation of deep booming drum, with the space between them filled with gasping sounds that might be breaths or may be the wind, and by haunted wailing tones that might or might not be human — but it very effectively creates an unearthly chill.

Having thus set their stage in a supernatural dimension, the band begin to kick the adrenaline into high gear with vicious, head-hooking riffage and neck-snapping beats. From there, things get even more unhinged. The guitars come in attacking swarms, the drums spit bullets at high speed; and monstrously imperious roars rise up from abyssal depths and elevate further into terrorizing screams.

The changes continue. The layered guitars, while relentlessly frenzied, send flames toward the heavens and create an atmosphere of frightening splendor. The drums relentlessly switch gears, and so do the spine-tingling vocals (but they sound even more insane). Melodies of despair and agony flow through the tumult in piercing tones. There’s structure in the songwriting, but the feeling of destructive chaos never really diminishes. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAEDEOUS — “MALUM SUPPLICIUM”

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Apr 202023
 

Our first in-depth exposure to the music of the Portuguese symphonic black metal band Caedeous was last year, when we premiered their third album, Obscurus Perpetua. When we did that, we advised listeners “to take your seats and get a firm grip on something solid before embarking on this journey”, because we found the album to be “a dazzling, diabolical, and disorienting trip through the imperiums of Hell”:

“The music is elaborate and unpredictable, theatrical and bombastic, sometimes breathtaking in its splendor but always as scary as your worst nightmares. Fascinating music, to be sure, but also demented and intensely unnerving.”

And now we’re re-connecting with Caedeous just one year later because they’ve made a new album, and once again we’re hosting its full streaming premiere. The name of the new one is Malum Supplicium. Like its two predecessors, it’s a concept album, one that “thematically tells horror stories inspired by Lovecraft, Barker and Alighierie‘s works — the eternal struggle between good and evil, angels and demons, heaven and hell”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SATANATH — “IMORARTO”

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Apr 202023
 

The solo project Satanath, formerly based in Russia and now ensconced in the nation of Georgia, is returning with a new album set for release on April 25th. It’s named Posthumous Album, which most people would interpret as a sign that Satanath has succumbed to death and that these tracks were left behind.

But it turns out that the meaning isn’t literal. As explained by the project’s creator Aleksey Korolyov (the owner of Satanath Records, a member of Abigorum, and former keyboardist of Taiga): “The album is posthumous in a figurative sense, since recently we all experienced death in one form or another, saying farewell to the past life.”

The title has another meaning as well. It signifies that Satanath has also moved away from the sounds of previous albums. The music on the new album is still electronic/ambient, and still carries forward the space themes of previous releases (all the songs, for example, have titles that “are made up in a complex language from the world of the Universe from where Satanath came to us”), but the style of the music is indeed markedly different, even as compared to Satanath‘s often evil and always frighteningly head-spinning 2022 album Metallized Arena – and pretty far away from anything else you’ll hear at this site Continue reading »

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