AN NCS PREMIERE: ASTRAL BLOOD: “FREE OF MY SCARS”

 Premieres, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 212016
 

astral-blood-free-of-my-scars

 

To celebrate the Winter Solstice today, the Minneapolis-based black metal band Astral Blood have just released the first single from their new album SYZYGY, which will be released in early 2017 by Throats Productions. The song’s name is “Free of My Scars” and it’s an irresistibly captivating track, one that’s both hauntingly atmospheric and electrifyingly vibrant.

SYZYGY is the band’s first full-length and follows the 2014 release of a self-titled EP. I started paying attention to the band when I learned that its line-up includes Joe Waller (ex-Amiensus, Adora Vivos, Sarasvati, Nuklear Frost) — who performed guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, and vocals on the new album — as well as vocalist/guitarist Andrew Rasmussen.

What you’re looking at above is the artwork for the single by Reuben Sawyer (Rainbath Visual), but also check out the wonderful cover art for the album by Jas Helena: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE MANX — “MYSTERY SKUM”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 202016
 

the-manx-1

 

We’re about to take a large step off our usual beaten paths, though maybe you’ll come to realize that it’s not as big a leap as first appearances might suggest.

What we’re presenting today is a music video for a new song called “Mystery Skum” by a band from Los Angeles who call themselves The Manx. The video was filmed during a 2015 tour with Nekrogoblikon and Crimson Shadows, though the song itself hasn’t yet been officially released. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): GRAVATUS, APOGNOSIS, ASH AND COAL, DARK PORTRAIT, ZAKAZ, TOTENWELT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Dec 182016
 

gravatus-cover-art

 

I’ve managed to complete the second part of a two-part post that I began earlier today, though it’s not as complete as I had hoped. This second installment includes five full albums or EPs, all of which deserve more words of praise than I have time to give them, but once the new week begins I’ll have even less time than I do today. And so I’ve decided it’s better to make relatively brief exclamations of excitement than none at all.

In addition to those five full releases, this post includes one new advance track. It’s only barely in the usual blackened vein of this series (if at all), but I like it so much that I’ve bent the rules.

GRAVATUS

We begin with a new album named LI_E by the one-man Romanian project Gravatus, which was released on November 12. This was my first exposure to the music of Gravatus, but I’ve found myself enthralled by LI_E. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): WIEGEDOOD, LE CHANT NOIR, DEATHFUCKER, THE LIFTED VEIL, AN HOMAGE TO SUMMONING

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Dec 182016
 

wiegedood-de-doden-hebben-het-goed-ii

 

Last Sunday was bereft of a Shades of Black feature, so today I plan to have two. Yes, I’ve obviously forgotten my oft-learned lesson about not announcing future plans when you’re a part-time, half-witted metal blogger who can’t predict the diversions of life. So the truth is, the second part of this post may or may not arrive today. But at least you’ll have two good advance tracks, two excellent full releases, and one wonderful tribute compilation to keep you company in case I go off the rails.

WIEGEDOOD

Here’s an excerpt from our man Andy Synn’s review of Wiegedood’s last album,

“The Belgian three-piece, whose name is also the Dutch term for ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome’ (way to keep it morbid, guys), possess an enviable knack for pumping out a ferocious torrent of rage and fury, whilst maintaining a keen melodic edge that’s neither weak nor overbearing. That may not sound like much, but it’s a hard balance to get just right, and these guys make it look like child’s play. Pun intended.”

Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: ZEAL AND ARDOR, GODCHILLA, MORS PRINCIPIUM EST, WOLVENNEST, INFERITVM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 172016
 

zeal-and-ardor-video-clip

 

We devoted ourselves largely to year-end LISTMANIA over the past week, but that didn’t stop the torrent of new metal from continuing to flow. I have a large list of interesting things I spotted during the week, and I’ve divided the best of them among several posts for this weekend.

In this first one I’ve collected five videos. Three of them are new and two are older. I picked these in part because they make for quite a varied montage of sights and sounds. I’ll mention that a new Kreator song and video also appeared yesterday, which you can find here, even though I decided not to include it.

ZEAL AND ARDOR

There have been some interesting discussions in our LISTMANIA comment threads about Devil Is Fine, the 2016 album by Zeal and Ardor. Some people think it’s too uneven and disjointed to deserve the acclaim it’s received this year (and in lots of year-end lists). While agreeing that it’s uneven, I’m in the camp of people who think the high points on the album are so creative and interesting that it deserves the attention — which is pretty much what I wrote within days of its release last June. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR — PART 19 (OVER THE TOP YEAR-END EDITION)

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Dec 162016
 

collage500

 

( The end of the year approaches, and to commemorate the death of 2016 our Norwegian friend Gorger has prepared a gargantuan installment of his series highlighting releases that we have overlooked.  To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

LISTMANIA is well under way. I still have some 2016 releases that deserve a mentioning at least. And that’s what I intend to do. Inspired by Islander’s overflowing-streams I’ll settle for a short conclusion of my own initial write ups. It’s not going to be easy, as I just don’t know when to shut my mouth. You probably got better things to do with your life than listen to me jabber, chatter, and preach all day anyway.

During December, I’ll probably gather enough material for a 20th round of this here series. When such a post will be published, is still up in the smoggy air. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IMMOLATION, ENGULFED, TOMB MOLD, EKPYROSIS, SHADES OF DEEP WATER

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 142016
 

immolation-atonement

 

For this mid-week round-up of new discoveries I have news about the next Immolation album, excellent advance tracks from three albums coming out early next year, and a full stream of one fine album released yesterday. This collection of items is heavy on the death metal, and it’s also heavy on eye-catching cover art.

IMMOLATION

In a September interview Immolation’s Ross Dolan explained that the band’s new album was finished except for the mixing, that the artwork was done except for a few inside pieces, and that the album would be released early in 2017. I haven’t seen any official announcements about the album since then, but yesterday Bristol Deathfest (here) and UKEM Records leaked some news and the cover art (above) by Pär Olofsson: The name of Immolation’s new tenth studio album is Atonement, and the release is expected on February 24, 2017. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): EMPTINESS, HYPERDONTIA, ZOLOA, WIZARD UNION

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

emptiness-not-for-music

 

As the title says, this is the second part of a round-up of new music I thought was worth sharing to begin this week. As often happens, in between posting Part 1 and this Part 2 I came across some more new songs I thought were very good, and I’ve added one of them at the beginning of this post.

As explained in Part 1, this particular Seen and Heard includes more minutes of new music than usual because of the presence of numerous full EPs — three of which are to be found below.

EMPTINESS

This morning brought the premiere of yet another track from the new album by Belgium’s Emptiness. I’ve enjoyed all of them so far, but I think this one is my favorite. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR, MESARTHIM, VENEFIXION, CENTENARY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 122016
 

the-flight-of-sleipnir-skadi

 

There are more total minutes of new music in this round-up than usual, and that’s because this compilation includes five EPs, one of which is a single 21-minute track. There are two individual songs in here, too. I thought I’d make up for the fact that my meager weekend posts included a grand total of one song. On the other hand, there’s so much music in this collection that I decided to divide it into two parts, with Part 2 coming a bit later today.

Sadly, I don’t have time to write decent reviews of those five EPs and will only froth at the mouth about them briefly, hopefully just enough to induce you to listen to them for yourself. But before getting to those, let’s start with the first of those two individual songs.

THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR

Skadi is the name of the new sixth album by Colorado’s genre-bending The Flight of Sleipnir. It will be released on January 20 by Eisenwald. The first advance song from the album was released a couple of days ago, and its name is “Awaken”. Continue reading »

BLOG BREAK (WITH SOME MUSIC BY AZELISASSATH)

 Off Topic, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 112016
 

azelisassath-total-desecration-of-existence

 

The last two days have been crazier than usual in the not-blog part of my life, the part that I usually succeed in squelching down into a tiny thing that whines for attention but doesn’t get it. Beginning two days ago, it became the mouse that roared.

The nastiness started when the web hosting service we use for NCS (Bluehost) somehow crashed their entire system around mid-day on Friday just as I had posted one premiere, with one more that I had still planned to post. I’m calm about it now, but I was punching walls for a few hours after that happened. Once it became clear that this debacle wasn’t going to be fixed any time soon I just said, Fuck It, and started drinking.

Ten hours later, Bluehost still hadn’t fixed the problem, NCS was still inaccessible, and I was pretty well hammered. Continue reading »

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