SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: CRANEIUM, SUICIDE WRAITH, ENDON, NAGA, MOSS UPON THE SKULL

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Mar 182017
 

 

I’m in a jam again. This was a busy week for me at my fucking day job, and I had a bunch of personal stuff to deal with that was unrelated to NCS, so I didn’t have time to post any round-ups of new music on top of the other things I did write and edit. I didn’t even have time to make my all of the usual daily forays through our clogged in-box or pay close attention to the music that friends and bands were posting on Facebook.

Even so, when I started listening to new things last night I had a large list of songs to check out. I liked more of those than I’ve got time to write about now. I picked the following five because they make a diverse playlist (and because they’re really good, of course).

CRANEIUM

I’m beginning with a track that absolutely floored me when I heard it, and it has continued to floor me every time I listen to it again. It’s the final song on an album named Explore the Void by the Finnish band Craneium. Continue reading »

REMEMBRANCE OF THE WRETCHED

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Mar 172017
 

 

Damn the Irish for fouling our pristine land. Great waves of them washed up after the potato famine of the 1840s, the most destitute national group ever to arrive on American shores. They couldn’t have been less desirable, a gaggle of morally depraved peasants with little education and equally meager resources.

And to make matters worse, they were Papists! Ignorant and superstitious, these mongrels took their orders from a foreign religious power and were bent on degrading and corrupting the moral purity of these great and Protestant United States. They dragged the culture of our homeland into the stinking troughs where they themselves wallowed by birth and breeding. They fled a wretched land and brought the wretchedness with them. Continue reading »

WELCOME TO LOVECRAFT COUNTRY…

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Mar 162017
 


“Cthulhu” by François Baranger

 

(To commemorate the anniversary of H.P. Lovecraft’s death, Andy Synn has assembled a playlist of great tracks inspired by the great man.)

 

The influence that the work of H. P. Lovecraft has had upon the Metal scene can’t be understated, with everyone from Metallica to Morbid Angel taking lyrical (and musical) inspiration from his work.

Now yesterday just so happened to be the eightieth anniversary of Lovecraft’s death and, in true NCS fashion… we completely failed to acknowledge it.

However, it’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon, and what is dead can never truly die, so here are a bunch of songs/albums which pay tribute to the author’s lasting legacy of eldritch, inhuman horror. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AU-DESSUS, FULL OF HELL, MOUNTAINS CRAVE, NERVOCHAOS, BEAST MODULUS, EMPHASIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Mar 112017
 

 

To begin our series of weekend posts I’ve assembled the following collection of diverse new songs, one of which comes with a video. Tomorrow we’ll have a premiere and an extra-large SHADES OF BLACK post. I might try to work in something else, time permitting.

Apart from the quality of the music, I also chose the following songs for this post because of the quality of the cover art for the forthcoming albums that will include them.

AU-DESSUS

I dipped my toes in the roiling dark waters of this Lithuanian band’s music when I impulsively selected their self-titled debut for an episode of the now nearly defunct MISCELLANY series two years ago. Now they are returning with a debut full-length entitled End of Chapter, which will be released on May 19 by Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: OF WOLVES, DEATH LIKE MASS, MALIBLIS, LONGHOUSE, ANIMUS MORTIS, UNDERGANG

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Mar 102017
 

 

I meant to finish this post and launch it yesterday, but as you may have noticed, we had a flood of premieres (all of them worth checking out if you haven’t), and time ran out. So I’m not quite as fast in turning you onto these things as I’d like, and with the delay I’ve accumulated even more good things that I’ll need to throw at you this weekend.

OF WOLVES

To begin, I have a piece of news that perked me right up, from a fondly remembered band whom I haven’t had an excuse to write about in a few years. They are Of Wolves, and they are of wolves. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: HATE, SUCCUMB, MAUSOLEUM, PHRENELITH, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, CRYPT ROT, SIGIL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Mar 072017
 

 

As I looked through my list of candidates for a SEEN AND HEARD round-up, and having siphoned off some of the more blackened entries for a continuation of the latest SHADES OF BLACK column, it dawned on me that many of the remaining songs were of a deathly variety. And so I’ve compiled them here with a different post title. Different forms of death, to be sure, but plenty of heaviness and savagery is to be found below.

HATE

Tremendum is the name of the new album by the Polish leviathans (note, I did not say “behemoths”) in Hate. It will be released on May 5 by Napalm Records. This morning the band debuted a lyric video for the first single from the album, a track called “Asuric Being“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: DOEDSVANGR, JOHN FRUM, FANGE, CULT OF EIBON, INFERNAL MAJESTY, SUFFERING HOUR, TELEPATHY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 042017
 

 

It’s been one of those weeks. As usual, I accumulated a big list of new songs and videos I wanted to recommend, but just didn’t have time to post any round-ups. And now I don’t have time to play catch-up either. I’ve made some fairly random choices from my list to include in this post, and will have some others in tomorrow’s weekly SHADES OF BLACK installment (we have a couple of Sunday premieres lined up as well).

I say “fairly random”, because in making these choices I did try to provide a variety of metallic sounds, and I also decided (with one exception) not to write about new songs that I think have already gotten plenty of attention elsewhere around the web this past week. And so, for example, other than the following links, I won’t be writing about the new songs and videos by Solstafir, Wolfheart, Svart Crown, Havok, Valborg, Vanum, or Windswept (among others) — though they’re all worth checking out if you haven’t done that.

DOEDSVANGR

Doedsvangr is yet another group formed and fronted by Norwegian artist Doedsadmiral. His other groups include Nordjevel, Svartelder, and Enepsigos. For Doedsvangr, he is joined by Finnish guitarist Shatraug (Horna, Sargeist, ex-Behexen, Nightbringer) and drummer Anti-Christian (Tsjuder, Beaten To Death). Their debut album Satan Ov Suns will be released by the Belgian label Immortal Frost Productions on March 27. Continue reading »

DOWNCAST: LOSS, FUNERAL TEARS, FUNERALBLOOM, ARCHITECTS OF AEON, BLACK TREMOR, SEA WITCH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Feb 272017
 

 

This weekend I did my usual rambling through the bowels of the interhole and our overstuffed in-box in search of things I might write about today. Among the worthy discoveries I made were the new songs I collected in this post, and they seemed to belong together. Although the music is in fact quite varied, they all invoke downcast feelings in different ways and degrees. But before turning to the music, let’s begin with a news item about another band who are quite adept at plumbing the depths of despondency and doom.

LOSS

Six years after releasing their debut album Despond, Nashville’s Loss have a new one on the way named Horizonless. Over the weekend, Profound Lore announced that it will be released on May 19th and revealed Adam Burke’s killer cover art. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 3): AL-NAMROOD, GODS, DIAMANDA GALÁS, PHLEFONYAAR, PIMEYDENTUOJA, INSIDIOUS REIGN, CRACKHOUSE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Feb 252017
 

 

This completes a new-music round-up I started early yesterday with Part 1 and a big Part 2. This concluding installment is pretty big, too.

AL-NAMROOD

Al-Namrood is an anti-religious Saudi Arabian black metal band, which has to be a dangerous way for them to spend their time. The first and last time I wrote about them was in 2012 when their third album Kitab Al-Awthan was on the brink of release. Now their sixth album is due for release on CD and vinyl by Shaytan Production on May 16. Its name is Enkar. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): EVOCATION, DISMA, CELESTIAL GRAVE, FORESEEN, SARCOPHAGUS, CEMETERY URN, FUNERALIUM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Feb 242017
 

 

One look at the title of this post will tell you that I’m drowning in new music that I want to recommend — seven bands are named, and this is already Part 2 of a SEEN AND HEARD collection for this Friday, and I’m already working on a third part, which I probably won’t finish and post until tomorrow. But, you know, it’s a good kind of drowning.

There’s always a risk of sensory overload when I let these collections get out of hand, or at least a risk of people running out of time before they’re able to sample everything (much less read all these damned words). But rather than retreat, I’ll just borrow the words of Shakespeare as expressed through King Henry V to his soldiers: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more….”

EVOCATION

I do my best to unearth good music from bands I’ve never heard of, but I also answer the bell like Pavlov’s dog when something new comes out from a band I’ve liked for a long time. Evocation are one of those bands, a group whose music I’ve been addicted to ever since ever since their resurrection in 2007 with Tales From the Tomb. Which is why I’m kind of embarrassed by not learning of these first two songs sooner than I have. Continue reading »

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