Aug 302023
 

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley, but they didn’t gang a-gley today: I succeeded in completing the second Part of today’s roundup of new songs and videos. If you missed Part 1, here’s a convenient link to that.

DAUÐARÓ (Iceland)

I couldn’t resist beginning with this first advance track from Dauðaró‘s new album Nýir Heimar because (a) the cover art is fantastic and I wanted it to be at the top of this page; and (b) the song is scary as shit and why should I be the only frightened person around here? Continue reading »

Aug 302023
 

Here we have another hump-day roundup of new songs and videos. This one is a little shorter than usual but that’s because I have ambitions to make this a two-part edition. Indeed, I’ve already picked the stuff for Part 2, but I didn’t have time to write up everything for a single post — I have to turn to an upcoming album premiere I haven’t quite finished.

However, I didn’t call this Part 1 because between now and when I can turn back to Part 2 some kind of shit could unexpectedly rain down on my plans. Time will tell….

JOB FOR A COWBOY (U.S.)

JFAC released their last album Sun Eater nine years ago. In his review, my colleague Andy opined that it saw them “taking some big leaps, and some big risks, with their sound, going proggier and more melodic overall, without pandering to notions of popularity and accessibility”. “That’s not to say it doesn’t absolutely crush when it wants to,” he wrote, “it’s just that it’s now more intricate, more layered, and more expansive in its vision, than ever before”.

Based on some of the surprised reactions to JFAC‘s new single, nine years later, you’d think Sun Eater had been forgotten. The band didn’t forget. They seem to have picked up almost right where they left off nearly a decade ago. Continue reading »

Aug 262023
 

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. this morning. No fucking idea why. I was wiped out last night and fell asleep by 8 p.m., but that still doesn’t explain it. I was thinking 4 a.m. would be the likely waking hour, a solid 8 hours later. Maybe it’s Mariners fever (baseball fans may understand.)

I hope my loss is your gain. The ridiculous waking hour gave me lots of time to catch up on music, and to compile a bigger than average roundup for this Saturday. In organizing this I decided to lead with the most prominent name in the collection, and then move in a more obscure and musically challenging direction before embarking on a pair of anthems and then concluding with nastier notions.

OCTOBER TIDE (Sweden)

When my compatriot DGR reviewed October Tide‘s last album, 2019’s In Splendor Below, he found it “a very different album from its predecessors,” “one of the fastest-moving albums they’ve created” and with a new emphasis on “death metal atmospherics and groove” — though he noted that the band had not completely abandoned “the beautiful and cold atmospheres” that had become a major part of their hallmark.

The new October Tide album, The Cancer Pledge, is likely to be in a similar vein as that last one. Indeed, guitarist Fredrik Norrman calls it “a direct continuation of the previous album — less doom and more death metal, yet melodic and with more layers”. That’s born out by the album’s first single, “Tapestry of Our End“, which arrived with an engrossing animated lyric video. Continue reading »

Aug 222023
 

A rare day with no premieres on our calendar, which means I had time to whip up a roundup of new songs and videos.

Lots of things to choose from, as usual, and in making those choices I decided to give you a musical carnival ride, one of those things that’s spinning in several directions at once and leaves you stumbling with vertigo by the end.

ALKALOID (Germany)

My comrade DGR alerted us to this first song, which he pithily described as “one of the more batshit songs from Numen,” Numen being the name of Alkaloid‘s new album. Saying that anything on an Alkaloid release is more batshit than others is really saying something, since everything tends to be in the batshit crazy category. But sure enough…. Continue reading »

Aug 192023
 

Well, no unforeseeable calamities befell me or our indomitable site in the last 24 hours, and so I’ve probably set a record for us today with the fourth roundup of new music in a row. If you include tomorrow’s Shades of Black column (barring a calamity), that will be five in a row.

The incredible thing is that even with so many daily installments, one after the other, there’s still a big pile of worthy new metal I haven’t managed to feature, and in that respect there’s nothing particularly unusual about the last week. Every week, the flood just keeps surging.

GREAT FALLS (U.S.)

I fibbed a little. Not everything in today’s collection surfaced during the last week. These first two songs, “Trap Feeding” and “Old Words Worn Thin“, are a tad older than that. They’re both from a new album by this devastating Seattle crew that will be out on September 15th through Neurot Recordings. Continue reading »

Aug 182023
 

It’s been a very long time since I was able to compile roundups of new music three days in a row, but lo and behold I have done so, mainly due to the absence of any premieres on our calendar for today. Barring some unforeseeable calamity I’ll add a fourth one in a row tomorrow in the usual Saturday Seen and Heard spot.

MALOKARPATAN (Slovakia)

To spice up the musical fall, and just in time for Samhain, Malokarpatan will release a new album named Vertumnus Caesar through Invictus Productions (EU) and The Ajna Offensive (NorthAm) on October 27.

We never really know what devils will come out to play when this band records something new, and that’s probably not entirely clear from listening to the first single from the album, which just surfaced. But that’s all we have so far, so what does it show us? Continue reading »

Aug 172023
 

Oh look! Another mid-week roundup of new music, and it’s even more voluminous than the one I managed yesterday.

To give you a bit of a roadmap to what’s ahead, I’m starting with a perennial NCS favorite from Australia, then moving into an absolutely devastating block of U.S. metallic hardcore, then veering off in all sorts of other different directions.

THE AMENTA (Australia)

The Amenta decided to record a bunch of cover songs by a very eclectic group of bands, ranging from the black metal of Nazxul and Lord Kaos to Alice In Chains, Diamanda Galas, Killing Joke, Wolf Eyes, Halo, and… wait for it… My Dying Bride.

As if the prospect of these covers wouldn’t be titillating enough on their own to pique our interest (because we know a band like The Amenta aren’t going to play it straight with any of those songs), the 40-minute “EP” that includes the covers also presents a new original song, which is the subject of a video that debuted yesterday. Continue reading »

Aug 162023
 

Happy Hump Day. To help you celebrate the crest of the week before we all fall down the other side, here’s a very short but pretty damned sweet roundup — just three brand new songs, but one of them is long.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM (U.S.)

To begin, here’s “Twin Mouthed Spring“, a breathtaking new track from a new EP by WITTR named Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge. Continue reading »

Aug 122023
 

What do you get when you mix a lingering cold, nighttime cold medication, and way too much wine on a Friday night? In my case I got 12 hours of sleep and coma-like brain fog when I woke up this morning.

Strong coffee has amazing restorative powers, but this morning was nearly all gone before it started to work, and unfortunately it’s not a cure for colds, nor is anything else. This infection just refuses to crawl away, and there’s nothing I can do to make it retreat. It even seems to have laughed off 12 hours of sleep.

On wrecked Saturdays like this one, which thankfully have been rare over the last 13+ years of NCS, I usually just throw in the towel and accept that we’ll have a day with nothing new on the page. However, I’m just obstinate enough today that I turned seething anger over the virus into a selection of angry music, even if it arrives here much later than usual.

RILE (U.S.)

A link to this first song, “Climb Out“, landed in our in-box three days ago, and the comparative references to Converge and Trap Them caused me to bookmark it. The reported fact that this Salt Lake trio includes members of Cult Leader and that the song is from a debut album which will be released by Church Road Records provided extra incentives. Continue reading »

Aug 082023
 

The time I have available for NCS activity today is rapidly slipping away, so this roundup will be relatively short — just three new songs — but I wanted to jump on these while they’re still “hot off the presses”.

KRIEG (U.S.)

Krieg haven’t been moribund since the release of their last album of new songs, 2014’s Transient. They’ve filled the intervening years with splits, compilations, and shorter releases, and we got the “Bone Whip” flexi-disc single just last month. But at last there’s a new Krieg album on the October horizon, and yesterday brought the first streaming single, “Solitarily, A Future Renounced”. Continue reading »