Jul 012016
 

Verbum=Processio Flagellates

 

I meant to post this yesterday, but my job continues to mess with me. What I did here was to collect some new singles and a couple of new EPs that I found two nights ago while using the internet  to crawl through the underground. I like all this stuff and thought you might also find something in here that strikes the right chord.

In this globe-trotting expedition the music consists mainly of various shades and phases of death metal (much of it “blackened”) by five bands, hence the title of this post.

VERBUM

Verbum are based in Chile, and their debut EP Processio Flagellates was originally released on tape by the Chilean label Penitenziagite Records, although it’s now also available as a download at Bandcamp. Continue reading »

Jun 302016
 

Zeit band
Zeit

 

I just woke up. Over the last couple of days my fucking day job has interfered with my ability to blog as much as usual (and it will do that again today), plus I’ve had some personal stuff to deal with as well. The net result is that we only had two posts yesterday, and I wasn’t able to write anything last night to schedule as our first post for today.

I do have an idea for a post collecting some excellent new abrasive sounds that rose up from the underground and battered my head over the last 24 hours, and we will have a song premiere today as well. But it will take me some time to get those ready.

In the meantime, I wanted to leave something here to entertain you. And I found just what I needed with my first glance of the day at our exploding e-mail in-box. Continue reading »

Jun 292016
 

Black Funeral-Ankou and the Death Fire

 

Well, I’m two days late with this post. My original plan was to follow Part 1, which appeared on Sunday, with this Part 2 on Monday. But I got busy posting other things both Monday and Tuesday, and so here we are. Having delayed too long already, let’s just get right to the music….

BLACK FUNERAL

The Texas band Black Funeral was born from the mind of Michael W. Ford (aka Akhtya Nachttoter) in the mid-’90s, and although other members of the line-up have changed over time, Ford has persevered, releasing 8 albums that began with 1995’s Vampyr – Throne of the Beast. And this year, roughly six years after the last Black Funeral full-length, another one will be upon us in September via Iron Bonehead Productions and Dark Adversary. Continue reading »

Jun 282016
 

Centinex-Doomsday Rituals

 

(DGR takes over round-up duties today, with a selection of new songs and videos that caught his attention over the last week or two.)

The torrent of music that has hit within the past month or so has been absolutely insane. It’s the summer festival season over in Europe, so I imagine that might have a large bit to do with it, but we’ve also hit the halfway point of the year and now it feels like everyone is dumping out as much as they can in order to get into the news before the year is out.

In the past two weeks or so, I’ve been completely derailed on reviews/various other forms of procrastination in an effort to try and catch as much as possible. I was only joking about being a news trash barge in my last two round-ups, but wow, this time around I’m serious. I’m actually making an effort to split these round-ups into two parts, because between them I have about twelve different news items — song streams, album streams, music videos, lyric videos, album discoveries, and the like — to share. Strap in folks, these next two are going to get real silly.

Centinex – Generation of Flies

One of my hidden joys of being able to attend Maryland Deathfest this year was actually being able to see Centinex — who play a very simple form of death metal. It’s incredibly traditionalist and about as steak-and-potatoes as they come, but somehow the guys in Centinex have locked into how to make a damned good song out of some often overused ingredients. Continue reading »

Jun 262016
 

Fistula-Longing For Infection

 

I enjoy hosting premieres of music here, but when those commitments accumulate in large numbers as they did over the last three days, they tend to restrict my ability to assemble round-ups of music appearing elsewhere. And so once again I find myself awash in new discoveries with not enough time to roll them all out for you. Hard choices must be made, and I’ve made them.

I confess that my decisions may have been influenced by the bleak feelings of dismay that I’ve been experiencing over the results of a certain referendum across the Atlantic coupled with the celebratory gasbaggery of a certain apricot-faced hellbeast hoping to capitalize on similarly ignorant, bigoted, and self-destructive impulses among the electorate on this side of the ocean. But I’ve also attempted to express my foul emotional state in a musically diverse way. Continue reading »

Jun 232016
 

Krieg-Photo by Hillarie Jason

 

(Neill Jameson (Krieg) returns to our site with some remembrances about under-appreciated albums from a formative period.)

Recently I did a piece for Invisible Oranges about discovering Alice in Chains and Nirvana as a young boy stuck in the shitty Pittsburgh suburbs in the late 1980s, and that got me to thinking about that period of time for music and how there’s some really great records that almost never get mentioned because people’s tastes generally stick to what they hear about, akin to how so much great early ’90s black metal is missed because of a lack of a controversial narrative to them.

So I figured I’d share a few records that never really got their due from that era in my continuing mission to be on your newsfeed as often as possible without it being for exposing myself at a playground. And we’re off! Continue reading »

Jun 212016
 

NOX Formulae-The Hidden Paths to Black Ecstasy

 

This is another day in which we have felt compelled to throw more new music at your head than any normal person has time to hear. Many abnormal people (other than us) won’t have time to listen to all of it either. I tell myself this is why I should continue writing some words about the streams we recommend, as a way of helping listeners choose what to play and what not to play, given their own tastes. Obviously, I’m choosing to ignore the likelihood that no normal person has time to read all the words either.

Between Part 1 and Part 2 of today’s round-up, we’ve furnished new or newly discovered music by 10 bands. Five more are featured below.

NOX FORMULAE

On the distant future day of September 16, 2016, Dark Descent Records will release the debut album of a Greek black metal collective known as Nox Formulae. The album’s title is The Hidden Paths to Black Ecstasy. Yesterday I received a Bandcamp e-mail alert that one song from the album had been set up for streaming, a two-part piece named “Hidden Clan NXN – Pt a. Eleven Rays of Sorat, Pt b. Black Magic Assault”, and that’s the first item in this round-up. Continue reading »

Jun 212016
 

Mindkult-Witch's Oath

 

I had an amazing listening experience last night. I compiled a list of new music I thought might be worth hearing, drawing upon messages that had arrived at the NCS compound via our intrepid pigeon aeronauts and links I had spotted in my Facebook news feed. And then I plowed through them — and found one gem after another, with nary a single meh reaction from start to finish. Perhaps equally remarkable, I had never heard of any of the bands before (I was interested in a journey of exploration, which is why I assembled the list as I did).

Not wishing to leave behind any of the songs I heard, I’ve divided these recommendations into two parts, which have become Parts 2 and 3 of today’s Seen and Heard feature, following DGR’s post earlier today.

MINDKULT

This first song is an exception to our Rule — there are no harsh vocals in it at all, and I thought the clean vocals were quite appealing. They remind me of someone I’ve heard before, but I’ve had trouble placing the resemblance. Yet what really hooked me about the song is the guitar performance; it’s essentially one long, terrifically good guitar solo anchored by a couple of compelling central riffs. Continue reading »

Jun 212016
 

Hannes Grossman

 

(DGR had so much fun stepping up for round-up duty last week that he’s already back with more new songs to recommend. And later today you’re humble editor will throw in Parts 2 and 3 of today’s round-up.)

Just as we managed to post our last series of huge collections of music, even more delicious goodies came to our attention span over the past week whilst we lay on rocks under the sun attempting to capture flies. This time around, music that leaked out within the past few weeks is what we’re hoping to cover — with one notable exception that is a bit more of an anthropology act waiting at the bottom.

Last week saw a handful of huge premieres — including one day at our very site that saw seven pretty huge ones — and we’re hoping to help spread the news. This installment is, again, pretty death-metal-heavy but moreso stuff that has been on the fringes of the genre than stuff that is straightforward blasts and sewage growls. We’re going to cover the tech realm, the thrashier side, the melodic side, and then into one band who covered a vast amount of ground before they went into hibernation. There should also be some pretty hefty names for you all to recognize as well, which made last week fairly exciting to say the least. Continue reading »

Jun 172016
 

Mr. Trash Wheel-Baltimore

 

(DGR takes over round-up duties today, featuring commentary and a wide array of recent song, video, and album streams. This would have been posted much earlier in the week if our editor weren’t so lame.)

If you’ve been reading the site recently you’ve no doubt noticed that quite a few of us shirked work and decided instead to go out to Maryland for the Maryland Deathfest shindig that the internet likes to talk so much about. However, the internet doesn’t take time off like we do and quite a bit of stuff came out during that period that despite our best efforts slipped right by us.

On top of that, since we’ve been playing catch-up for the last two weeks, a veritable pile of new music landed on top of us as well. And so I find myself opening my great maw wide in order to capture as much of it as possible — as well as using this as an opportunity to share some stuff that flew right past us long before we had MDF as an excuse for being terrible people.

Contained in this here news roundup is a veritable smorgasboard of new music, some of which came to us by the bands themselves and other times was discovered whilst I was spinning in circles on the internet. Either way, there’s a ton of stuff what floated down the river here — only to be captured by my net/boat/if only there was some sort of metaphor or object I could compare my news capturing ability to… ah well, maybe next time. Let’s get on with it. Continue reading »