SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: VASTATUM, A PALE DECEMBER, NEUROTECH, DEATHCULT

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Jan 082022
 

 

I had grandiose ambitions for this Saturday round-up, but remembered at the last minute that I had to join a Zoom meeting this morning for the job that pays the bills around here. After that ended I didn’t have time to pull together any more music than what you’ll find here from a quartet of bands. But these four have enough high-energy intensity to keep your heart-rate elevated from start to finish (and probably for a while afterward too).

VASTATUM (Canada)

The whining sounds of this first song swells over turbulent drumming and throbbing bass notes, and then swirls like wind-driven flames. Fiery vocals join the fray as the riffing generates a sound that’s both tormented and glorious. The incendiary intensity of the music subsides, and it becomes more mysterious and hypnotic, and then it roils again, with a feeling that’s beleaguered and desperate, as the vocals become even more shattering in their tortured extremity. The lead guitar whirls once more in a mad dance as the sound fades away…. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: HUMAN HARVEST, AEVITERNE, ARKAIK, MESLAMTAEA, PESTILENGTH, CORRUPTER, HYDRA, LOATHE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 062022
 

 

There was a modest but noticeable slowdown in the release of new songs and videos over the holidays, but things have kicked back up into high gear again, as evidenced by the enormous number of tabs I’ve opened up for new music and video streams just since last weekend. I’ve made my way through many (but not all) of those and made the following selections across many metal sub-genres in the hope of brightening (and darkening) your day.

HUMAN HARVEST (Sweden)

A dozen years after the release of their second demo this death metal band (now the formidable duo of Jonny Pettersson and Jon Rudin) has crawled from its crypt again and fashioned a debut album named Flesh Sermons that’s been set for release on January 31st by Iron, Blood and Death Corporation. Last Monday saw the discharge of the album’s first advance track, a macabre monstrosity called “Blasphemy“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD APPROACHING NEW YEAR’S EVE: ARCHITECTS OF AEON, SURFER JAMES, DE GEVREESDE ZIEKTE, SEVEN NINES AND TENS, SNAUM

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Dec 312021
 

 

“Next year’s gonna be better than this year!” Yes, the chorus of that not-metal song I put at the end of the last round-up is still in my head. In fact I woke up this morning with it ringing in my head. I’m still highly skeptical about the message, and decided the best way to push the damn song out of my mind was to replace it with some other things — which I’m sharing with you now.

It’s a weird time for anyone to be releasing new music, a time when die-hard metalheads are perusing year-end lists or making their own, i.e., looking backwards. But weird as the timing may be, new metal is still coming out. In fact, we ourselves will be premiering a new Druid Lord song a bit later today to help beat the life out of what’s left of the soon-to-be-cold-corpse of 2021.

We also have a few more year-end lists to present next week, including lists from Austin Lunn, SurgicalBrute, and a combined list from our friends at Brutalitopia, and then, to complete our annual Listmania series, I’ll start rolling out our annual Most Infectious Songs list. So I guess we’re doing our part to help distract from the new music that’s still surfacing.

All of us here also want to wish you a Happy New Year. I might wish you a Happy New Year tomorrow too, but I’m not sure I’ll be posting anything tomorrow so I’ll convey the wishes now. We also hope you have a nice New Year’s Eve and that however you’re spending it you won’t be rubbing shoulders with omicron as an uninvited guest. Now, for some music…. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: NIHIL KAOS, NON SERVIAM, FERNWAH, BANK MYNA, GREY MOTH, LAANG, NIGHT HAG, BLOOD COUNTESS, VINTERDRACUL, HELLFIRE DEATHCULT, VENATOR, OCEANHOARSE, MACKLEMORE

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Dec 292021
 

 

A baker’s dozen of new songs and videos is a lot to take in, but that’s what I’ve compiled here, and since we’re in the middle of Dead Week it seems entirely fitting for me to throw it your way now.

This 13-band round-up is the result of me going deep down a music-listening rabbit hole last night, a topsy-turvy underground descent in which I didn’t encounter any metal bands other than relatively obscure ones. My head was spinning by the end, and I hope yours will be too.

I did attempt to arrange the following items into “blocks”, but I make no promise that the arrangements will always make sense to you. Sometimes they barely made sense to me. I do promise you a real musical roller-coaster ride, and hope you’ll not jump out before you get to the end. And of course I had to pitch a curveball at the end.

P.S. I picked up the name “Dead Week” from this recent essay in The Atlantic, which perfectly sums up the oddities and attractions of this blank space that stretches between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

NIHIL KAOS (International)

While I think the entire journey through today’s round-up will prove to be head-spinning, I’ve chosen to lead with a trio of songs that are within themselves head-spinning. And I’ve begun with the track that for me had the most jaw-dropping, eye-popping impact of them all. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: JUST BEFORE DAWN, KATTLIK, MUERT, SENTIENT HORROR

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Dec 282021
 

The high temperature in Seattle on Monday was 23 degrees, making it the coldest day in 31 years according to the National Weather Service. I live close to Seattle, and I feel like I’m in the Arctic, even though I’ve never been to the Arctic. Snow and ice have covered everything in my community and the roads are dangerous, in part because no one here fucking knows how to drive in treacherous conditions.

The upside is that there are attractive snow-covered views out the window in the forest where I live, and I’ve had enough shut-in time on my hands to compile the selections of music you’re about to encounter. If you live someplace where the temps are in the ’70s or ’80s F., or in a frigid place where local governments and residents actually know how to deal with it, please just keep that to yourself.

JUST BEFORE DAWN (Sweden)

About 10 days ago this Swedish death metal war machine discharged a new EP named In the Realm of Ash and Sorrow, as a a tribute to their fallen brothers Sven Groß and L.G. Petrov. For this EP the ever-busy JBD riffmeister Anders Biazzi wrote four new original songs and recorded them with vocalist Remco Kreft (Graceless, Soulburn) and drummer Jon Rudin (Wombbath, Pale King), with guitar solos provided by Kreft and Björn Brusse (Graceless).

In addition, the band recorded a cover of the Entombed song “Drowned” in remembrance of L.G. Petrov, and that one features Gustav Myrin on guitars and bass, with Myrin and Daniel Gustavsson doing the solos. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: GONZO’S YEAR-END LIST OF HONORABLE MENTIONS AND TOP TEN EPs

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Dec 282021
 

 

(NCS contributor Gonzo has assembled a 3-part series of year-end lists, and today we present the first one.)

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again, in which I’m generously afforded a place in cyberspace to yell about the music I’ve been listening to for the past 12 months. Really though, all banal generalizations aside, this has become my perennial favorite month to be an NCS scribe, no matter what variety of aural decimation in which I’ve chosen to immerse myself throughout the year.

Regardless of your tastes or nuanced obsessions with subgenres (blackened post-glam doomgaze polka-core, anyone?), I think we can all agree 2021 had something for everyone when it came to heavy music. I spent hours upon hours this year digging into the grimiest corners of underground for new sounds to obsess over; it even inspired me to start writing my own monthly heavy roundup of whatever I found and liked enough to write about.

So, this post will begin the crux of all of that: My year-end wrap-up. It’s the first installment of a three-part series that I’ll be posting through the rest of the week, until my happy ass heads to Mexico to drink mojitos until I have to wheelbarrow myself back to the airport a week later. Ah, Christmas traditions.

With that, we’ll kick things off with 10 EPs I loved (because this was the year of the abundantly awesome EP), and then some honorable album mentions that didn’t quite crack my top 20 overall but I still really liked. Onward! Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: MOSSGIVER, DARK MEDITATION, NEKROVOMIT, SYLOSIS, CTHULHUSS, IRONMASTER, ET MORIEMUR, EISFLAMMEN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 242021
 

 

Whether you celebrate Christmas because of its religious significance, or simply indulge in its old pagan trappings, or only try to keep your head down and get through it like running a gauntlet, I hope you have a joyful holiday. Of course I’m about to try to make it more joyful by sharing some dark, dreadful, and exhilarating tunes that have recently surfaced in the manifold realms of metal. Before doing that I’m going to digress in a way that I don’t think I have ever done before at NCS.

Some of us who can afford it at this time of year look for ways to make charitable contributions, and I want to suggest one. It arises from a severe misfortune that has befallen my friend Dustin Carroll.

I knew him first as the bassist for the Seattle-based metal band A God or Another, and later has a member of the bands Addaura and Bréag Naofa. But the context in which I got to know him better was through his volunteer work for Seattle’s Northwest Terror Fest, which I’ve been involved in producing and supporting since its inception, and which we’re planning to resume (covid willing) next year. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: NAPALM DEATH, WIEGEDOOD, THULCANDRA, DESTRUCTION, DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER, CHOROSIA, SHAMBLES, DEAD CHASM, FURIS IGNIS

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Dec 182021
 


photo credit: Jelena Jakovljevic Photography

 

We had a very good week here at NCS, with a sharp increase in visitors largely driven by Andy Synn‘s five-part of year-end lists. It has warmed our cold dead hearts to see the positive responses and the gratitude expressed to him for the ton of work he devoted to developing those lists. Maybe we would be better off just stopping there rather than risk drowning our visitors in more lists (or rather, those visitors who weren’t already drowned during the week that just ended), but we have a lot more to share in the next couple of weeks.

Next week we’ll have DGR‘s lists, plus lists from Neill Jameson, Wil Cifer, Professor D. Grover the XIIIth, and Seb Painchaud (of Tumbleweed Dealer), and I’m expecting to receive even more lists from other NCS writers and old friends which we’ll publish before the year expires. And let’s not forget that our big collection of year-end reader lists continues to grow (you can see those, and contribute to them, in the comments to this post).

Meanwhile, I’m beginning to figure out what will go into this year’s list of Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, and of course I’m continuing to make a (largely unsuccessful) effort to keep abreast of new songs and videos — which continue to emerge every day despite the rapid approach of the holiday season and the expiration of 2021. Which brings me to today’s gigantic collection….

NAPALM DEATH (UK)

I’m probably the last metalhead on Earth to check out the new Napalm Death single, “Narcissus“. I knew it was out there, but kept forgetting to hit it. It’s on a forthcoming ND EP named Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw Of Throes, which includes previously unreleased material and cover songs. Barney Greenway described the new song thusly: Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: IMMOLATION, ABYSMAL DAWN, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, WHITE VOID, LUNAR TOMBFIELDS, TYHJÄ, HELLFROST AND FIRE, EXIMPERITUS, SILENT LEGES INTER ARMA, VERMISST, THORN, KRALLICE, GERYON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 132021
 

 

I guess you noticed that we didn’t post anything new at the site on Saturday or Sunday. In 12+ years of our existence that has happened only a couple of other times. I went to holiday events on Friday and Saturday nights, got trashed at both of them, and spent the days after in a state of crippling mental and physical disability. So that’s the explanation in a nutshell.

There’s obviously a lot of catching up to do in the race for staying on top of new songs and videos, which explains why I’ve resorted to this OVERFLOWING STREAMS format. I made a conscious effort to include a fair share of black metal since I failed to post a SHADES OF BLACK column yesterday. Speaking of which, if you haven’t noticed I’ll mention the good news that a new Funeral Mist album is set for release on December 17th HERE (it appears that it will be released in its entirety that day, without any advance song streams).

IMMOLATION (U.S.)

I thought about alphabetizing this collection, as I usually do, but I have to begin with Immolation. Last week one of the best death metal bands of all time divulged a video for the first single from a new album, and it’s a breathtaker — explosive, blazing, bludgeoning, exotic, and crazed. Here’s a band who seem immune to the deleterious effects of aging. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: [4672] AND HEMELBESTORMER

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Dec 052021
 

 

Those of you who stopped by today expecting a SHADES OF BLACK column may be disappointed. For the second Sunday in a row, unforeseen but self-inflicted mishaps prevented me from getting it done. Like last week, my plan (I should say my hope) is to complete it in time for posting tomorrow.

Unlike last Sunday, however, I’m not going to leave a gaping hole in the site today. To avoid that I’ve prepared this very small round-up of new songs and videos, chosen in part to keep you off-balance. The first selection will put a big jolt into your cranium and nerve endings. The second one will help you calm down, and might even put you under a spell.

[4672] (Poland)

Here’s the part of this short post that will stab a high-powered voltage generator into your neck. The video is a mind-exploder too.

Both the video and the song just premiered today. The track, “[cluster_B]“, includes vocals by Łukasz Myszkowski from Antigama and Dante, and it’s destined to appear on [4672]’s upcoming sixth album, [paradigm_blindness], which is projected for release in late 2022, assuming the world lasts that long. Continue reading »

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