AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST — “FAUCI TRA FAUCI”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 202019
 

 

Who doesn’t enjoy an enormous surprise? I don’t mean the surprise of being T-boned at an intersection by a speeding semi-truck, but something like the surprise of stepping through your door and finding that a wild-dreamlike dimension has replaced the mundane comforts of home, with sights and sounds that are thrilling but also dangerous to body and mind. Fauci Tra Fauci, the new album by Laetitia In Holocaust (which will be released by Third I Rex on March 31st), is that kind of surprise.

I literally had no idea what to expect when I began listening to this album, having not heard this Italian black metal band’s preceding two full-lengths or even the single from this new one that premiered at Toilet Ov Hell. For all I know, Fauci Tra Fauci might prove to be a surprise even if I’d been familiar with the band’s preceding works (and for obvious reasons I can’t compare this one to the others). But I’m glad I didn’t know what was coming, because it made this journey of unexpected discovery all the more exciting. Continue reading »

CARVED: THE “HAGAKURE” VIDEO

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Mar 172019
 


Photo by Davide Marcesini

 

This song by Carved is a really good one, but it’s the sand artistry of Nadia Ischia that makes this video so especially appealing.

If you came to our site at this point expecting to find the usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column, it’s not ready yet. In fact, it’s far from ready. While I continue to hammer away on it, I thought it would be a good idea to have something else to occupy people who had already consumed the sights and sounds in Saturday’s round-up. The video for Carved‘s song “Hagakure” seemed perfect, even though posting about only one song or video around here is as rare as hen’s teeth. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: POSSESSED, ALLEGAEON, EMPLOYED TO SERVE, IDLE HANDS, WASTE OF SPACE ORCHESTRA, SHEOL BLANC

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 162019
 

 

I’ve gotten dramatically busier at my fucking day job over the last week (and unfortunately it’s going to get worse in the weeks ahead). I’m way behind in crawling through the hundreds of e-mails we get each day (no telling how many indie pop masterworks and ED treatments I’ve missed), and have had no time to do the other things I usually do in an effort to discover new music that isn’t being plumped by press releases.

Fortunately, a cadre of faithful allies had left messages for me, which collectively gave me the six songs and videos you’re about to see and hear. And so, I’m grateful (in order of their recommendations which appear below) to Rennie (starkweather), DGR, Andy Synn, eiterorm, Miloš, and Rennie again.

POSSESSED

On May 10th Nuclear Blast will release the first album from Possessed in over three decades.They lined up Peter Tägtgren to mix and master it, and enlisted Zbigniew Bielak to create the cover art. And, as Rennie wrote in his message to me, it sounds like they didn’t miss a beat, 33 years after Beyond the Gates. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): SCHATTENFALL, CRITICAL EXTRAVASATION, MALIGNANT ALTAR

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Mar 142019
 

 

Here’s Part 2 of today’s new-music round-up. Hope you dig what I’ve chosen.

SCHATTENFALL

I paid attention to (and wrote about) the 2017 debut album (Schatten in Schwarz) of the multinational band Schattenfall because their line-up included two former members (Vladimir Bauer and Yurii Kononov) of the band White Ward, whose brilliant debut album Futility Report I had the pleasure of premiering earlier that year. The third member at the time of that debut was vocalist/lyricist Ole Heidenblut. Now Schattenfall have finished a second album, Melancholie des Seins, on which Bauer and Kononov are joined by a new vocalist, Stefan Traunmüller (who also contributes additional solo guitar), whose work I’ve admired in Golden Dawn, Rauhnåcht, and Wallachia (among other groups). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): KAMPFAR, MORD’A’STIGMATA, APPALLING

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Mar 142019
 

 

I have more than enough new songs and videos to recommend to your eyes and ears to justify two installments of this Thursday round-up, and (barely) enough time to introduce them. So let’s get right to it:

KAMPFAR

It’s been a long four years since the arrival of Profan, long enough for the Norwegian black metal band Kampfar to be almost out of sight and out of mind, but not buried so deep in the memory that a new song wouldn’t provoke a sharp burst in the pulse at the mere mention of their name. After all, they’ve been plying their trade for almost a quarter-century so far, and filling that time with seven albums of substantial worth. And now an eighth one has been announced. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GRYLLE, KALA, DREAMS OF THE DROWNED, DISPYT, THREE DEAD FINGERS

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Mar 112019
 

 

There might be one or two people out there who landed on the second part of yesterday’s SHADES OF BLACK column within the first 60 seconds after I posted it, before I realized I’d forgotten to delete links to the music of two more bands I had intended to include in that segment. I ran out of time yesterday before I could write about those other two releases, but I’ve decided to go ahead and do that now, on this Monday morning.

And, because most of you probably don’t live by black metal alone, or at all, I’ve added a couple of other things I’ve been meaning to recommend from other genres. But before we get to all that, I couldn’t resist beginning this round-up with something I discovered at the last minute. Perhaps you’ll understand my impulsiveness once you’ve heard it.

GRYLLE

Fans of medieval black metal (of which I’m one) have a lot to be thankful for this year, though we haven’t even reached springtime yet. February brought us Par le Sang Versé by the French band Véhémence, which I described in my review and premiere as “one of the most thoroughly entrancing and gloriously vibrant metal albums I’ve heard in years”, and in May Debemur Morti Productions will release an exceptional new album by Sühnopfer (if you pay attention to us this week, you might get to hear something from it). And in April the same label that released Par le Sang Versé (Antiq Records) will bring us a new album by Grylle. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, MARTYRDOD, GOMORRAH, CIRITH GORGOR

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Mar 092019
 

 

I had a weird 24 hours that began Thursday night and ended last night. Not weird enough to be entertaining if described in detail (though it did involve me never making it home until Friday morning), but weird enough that it left me frantically scrambling just to write the two premieres I’d committed to do yesterday, and no time for anything else NCS-related.

Saturday morning arrived with no ideas about what I might do for a Saturday post (and no Waxing Lyrical from Mr. Synn), but it turned out that my NCS comrades had left various exclamatory pieces of news at our on-line meeting ground, and another friend had enthusiastically fired off a link in my direction, and all of that proved quite sufficient for this round-up.

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE

It would go too far to say that we are primed to reflexively shower every Fleshgod Apocalypse release with praise. We have pointed out a few mis-steps by the band here and there. But it’s also true that we get pretty excited whenever something new surfaces (years and years ago there was a running joke at the site that as soon as I finally received the great mountains of gold that Nigerian princes were offering me via e-mail, I would bribe FA to become the NCS house band and play at my home whenever I wanted, which might prove to be every other day). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EARTH, HELEVORN, QUALLUS, INTER ARMA, THE MODERN AGE SLAVERY

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Mar 072019
 

 

Last night, as I made my way through a batch of new songs that I noticed yesterday (almost all of which actually surfaced just yesterday), a pattern began forming in my mind, a bit disjointed at first, but then everything fell together as I began rearranging the pieces (one of the pieces that fell into place came my way via NCS contributor Grant Skelton, who also furnished some words to accompany it). The result is what you now have before you.

In an effort to present this musical pattern in a way that has the pieces falling into place for you as you go along, and because I’m short on time, I changed the usual format of this round-up. You’ll see what I mean (but if you like the usual format, don’t worry, the change isn’t permanent). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EYE OF SOLITUDE, AKROTHEISM, INCANDESCENCE

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Mar 052019
 

 

I’m kind of scrambling due to interferences from my damned day job, but I didn’t want too much time to pass before sharing with you a few items of interest — the first of which is an exclusive piece of very exciting news.

EYE OF SOLITUDE

Those of you who’ve been following the site for a while will probably be aware that we’re big fans of Eye of Solitude and their fearsome brand of funereal death/doom. We’ve been writing about these Romanian/British doom lords for well over six years now, and have featured articles on their work a number of times (such as here, here, here, and here), as well as one of Andy Synn’s Waxing Lyrical interviews of the band’s main man Daniel Neagoe (here).

Eye of Solitude’s most recent album, 2018’s Slaves of Solitude, presented (in Andy Synn’s words) “some of the best music we’ve heard from the band since their career-defining Canto III“, and was definitely one of the year’s doom metal high points, successfully achieving “that rare feat of providing a listening experience which is both utterly devastating yet eminently re-listenable.”

And now we are delighted to report that this year Eye of Solitude will be returning with another album named Godless, and to reveal the album’s cover art (above). Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY (PART 2): DAWN OF DEMISE, SÖNAMBULA, MAIRU, CHILDREN OF BODOM, THE KRONK MEN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 032019
 

 

This is the second Part of a round-up of new videos that I began yesterday. The usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column will be coming a bit later today.

DAWN OF DEMISE

We’re about 2 1/2 years down the road from the last Dawn of Demise album, and on April 19th we’ll get to see what these Danes been up to since then, because that’s when Unique Leader Records will release their fifth album, Into the Depths of Veracity. We have an early glimpse of what they’ve been up to through the first item in this collection, a lyric video for the first advance track from the album, “In Silence He’ll Arise“. Continue reading »

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