SEEN AND HEARD: ALUSTRIUM, FLUISTERAARS, JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS, SERMON OF FLAMES, SEEDS OF PERDITION, SHED

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Aug 102021
 

 

If a blogger like me could pull together roundups of recommended new music on a daily basis, it would be a lot easier to keep my head above the constantly rising musical tides. But sadly I don’t have enough time for that, and so I wind up doing things like this and this as the week ends and the weekend begins. Which is to say that what you’re about to embark on has become a rarity — a roundup early in the week. And this one, again arrangd alphabetically, turns out to be a real roller-coaster ride. Enjoy!

ALUSTRIUM (US)

The lead-off item is a new video (with a message) for a song that’s a head-spinner, one that melds barking growls and caustic screams, darting symphonics and scintillating drumwork, feelings of jolting hostility and jittery tension, a jazz-like interlude, and abundant flurries of flickering and fret-leaping guitar. Deep drilling tones give the music a cold, grim, and desolate mood as the song draws to a tragic and haunting end. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (STILL TOO MANY NAMES TO PUT IN A POST TITLE)

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Aug 072021
 

 

By some kind of industry consensus Fridays have become big days for the release of new music. When you stack a Bandcamp Friday on top of that, you get a deluge of biblical proportions. In an effort to keep up with the torrent, I compiled an extra-large roundup yesterday, but even though it included 14 new songs and videos that I enjoyed it still only scratched the surface. So I decided to do it again today, and to go even bigger, though I didn’t quite make it to Z in the alphabet.

Once again, there are a lot of bigger names in this collection, and once again I’ve injected some lesser-knowns as well. I’ve also included some playthrough videos. There’s not a lot of black metal in the mix, but that’s because tomorrow is Sunday, and you know what that means. Don’t you?

A THOUSAND SUFFERINGS (Belgium)

In this first song the dark, folksy, acoustic opening grabbed me, and then I felt both swept aloft and heart-stricken by the ensuing waves of bleak but grand melody and the shattering screams. The sounds are immense, stately, and emotionally crushing, even with the softer, haunting interstitials that arrive. The music boils over into sounds of torment and fury, and becomes almost hallucinatory in its agony, which makes this rendering of black/doom even more powerful. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP FRIDAY (TOO MANY NAMES TO PUT IN A POST TITLE)

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Aug 062021
 

 

Over the last few days my NCS comrades (well, mainly DGR) have been shoveling links at me for new songs and videos, in anticipation that I would put together a round-up by today — which is a Bandcamp Friday. Most of those links were for music by bigger-name bands. The thought was that I could also add more obscure names, and that the allure of the bigger names might help introduce the lesser-knowns to more fans.

The problem is that the pile of links has grown to gargantuan proportions, which has made it tougher for me to insert as many other discoveries as I might want and still write up some thoughts about everything. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow. Here’s the A-to-Z deluge I have for today, in alphabetical order.

ARCHSPIRE (Canada)

Prepare for relentless high-speed bludgeoning and crazed fretwork mania as a big rabid mastiff barks in your face at equally high speed. Exhilarating! Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: ISKANDR, GRAFSTROEM, EXISTENCE:VOID, OLYMPUS, THRAXAS

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Aug 022021
 

 

As you may have gathered from my two weekend posts, I spent a lot of time listening to new metal over the last 48 hours. I watched videos for new songs too, and have collected five of those here, which I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did.

ISKANDR (Netherlands)

This first video is a fascinating collage of images, with credit for the film going to Teresa Elizabeth Lobos. The music by Iskandr is equally fascinating. It’s the sound of a sinister dream, an embroidery of acoustic chords and ringing guitars, of gritty gargoyle snarls and flesh-flensing screams, of shimmering synths and eerie, mercurial arpeggios. It includes a slower and spellbinding break near the end that features choral vocals and a feeling of rising, ominous grandeur. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SUCCUMB, ELDER DEVIL, MAZE OF TERROR, IMPERIAL SLAUGHTER, VELO MISERE

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Jul 312021
 

 

I know I often sound like a broken record, but this is yet another Saturday following a week in which I fell way behind in listening to new music, other than what we premiered and bits and pieces of albums that other NCS scribblers wrote about. I spent hours this morning adding to my listening list and then only scant time darting around that list with the headphones on. Here’s what I landed on that I wanted to share… with a lot more listening lined up for this afternoon.

SUCCUMB (U.S.)

This first song, “Okeanos“, is such an intense squall of sound in all ways, from the brazen and mutating discordance of the riffing to the relentlessly riotous drumming, the bone-smashing impact of the grooves, and the stunning voracity of the vocals. Not so much like crouching indoors during a hurricane and more like charging outside in the midst of it. Continue reading »

DIRTY BLACK SUMMER III: SUMMER DYING FAST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jul 272021
 

 

(We’ve previously published (here and here) two installments of a “dirty black summer” playlist compiled and written by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood), and now we’re happy that he’s followed that with a third set of recommendations for your summer listening, presented below.)

I hadn’t really planned on revisiting this series quite so soon but there were a few releases I missed last time and a few coming up that I wanted to shed a little light on, so here we are. There’s a few gloomier bits and some hints of the upcoming autumn in here which should help those of you who get a pumpkin spiced hard-on right after the Fourth of July get a bit of a fix in. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: ABORTED, BLEEDING MALICE, BORIS, CARNIFEX, EX DEO, EYES OF PERDITION, FERAL LORD, INFERI, LOTUS THRONES, SARS, SCHIZOGOAT, SOMNURI, WORM SHEPHERD

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Jul 242021
 

 

Those of us in the metal trade know that Friday’s have become a dumping ground, or a deluge from above, or a flood tide… pick your metaphor for a day when a ton of new songs and videos drop. Yesterday was in that vein. With help from some other NCS slaves I made a giant list, and did a freestyle kick through it. Found a lot to like, and decided to grab a baker’s dozen of tracks for your entertainment, all of which happened to arrive with videos.

In terms of verbiage, I’m just going to ejaculate my immediate visceral reactions without fully formed sentences or consistent punctuation. Unless I just keep quiet I don’t know how else to manage commentary on so many songs and films, and of course keeping quiet would be sheer torture for moi.

ABORTED (Belgium)

A creepy, horror-drenched intro opens the book on a jolting and blazing calamity that soon goes berserk… despite its title, the song doesn’t really drag you to hell, it fires you into hell with a howitzer… and all the devils are there, ready to rip and ruin… but also to reveal the sweeping, bombastic glory of their awful domain…. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PROTOSEQUENCE — “BARONESS PT 1: A FALLING KNIFE”

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Jul 222021
 

 

Prepare to have your head spun all the way around and your pulse galvanized like stepping on a live power line, because we’re premiering a new single by Protosequence that’s being released today by Lacerated Enemy Records.

This new track, “Baroness Pt 1: A Falling Knife“, is the first to appear from a new album and follows up the band’s 2020 EP, A Blunt Description of Something Obscene, which we also had the pleasure of premiering. And if you happen to be newcomers to what these Canadian wizards do, an excerpt from what we wrote with that premiere might still serve as a viable introduction:

“Protosequence have created a genuine musical spectacle, a fusion of tech-death and progressive metal that manages to be both jaw-dropping and beguiling, both head-spinning and bone-smashing. It creates pyrotechnic displays of breath-taking instrumental agility that often seem completely deranged or utterly alien, accompanied by bestial vocal ferocity, but it also seduces the listener with elements of mesmerizing melody. And around every corner (of which there are many in these labyrinthine compositions), a new surprise awaits.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BASTARÐUR, CARONTE, NECRONAUTICAL, LOW FLYING HAWKS, DAGOBA, ZAKULA, ANNIHILUS

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Jul 212021
 

 

This is one of those days when we risk overwhelming even the most voracious listeners who visit our site. I’ve already posted a round-up of blackened metal and a full album stream, but can’t resist using some unexpected free time to pull together another collection. This one is rife with videos, most of them accompanying advance tracks from forthcoming releases, but there’s another full album stream in the mix as well. There’s a lot of stylistic variety in the mix too.

BASTARÐUR (Iceland)

This first track came as a big surprise (at least to me). It turns out that Bastarður is the crust punk project of Sólstafir singer/guitarist Aðalbjörn Tryggvason, drawing upon the influence of such bands as Entombed, Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Motörhead, and Disfear.

He made Bastarður’s debut album, Satan’s Loss of Son, with drummer Birgir Jónsson (Dimma), and the album also includes guest vocals by Marc Grewe (Morgoth, Insidious Disease) and Prmordial’s Alan Averill, as well as guest guitar leads and soloing by Ragnar Zolberg (who has performed live bass for Sólstafir) and Þráinn Árni Baldvinsson from Skálmöld, among others. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY (PART 2): INSOMNIUM, FIRST FRAGMENT, COGNITIVE, WORMWOOD, DROTT, DESALMADO, KEHLVIN, AETHEREVM, HAMMERHEDD

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Jul 172021
 

 

This may be the only NCS post of the weekend, and even this one is hurried. I have a work meeting this morning. There’s also a celebration planned for tonight that I have to prepare for. What the hell kind of party requires hours of preparation? One that involves speech-making. But it’s still a party, and has all the earmarks of one that’s going to keep me up past midnight, which means a very late awakening on Sunday and some unpredictable degree of mental incapacitation, which is why there may not be a SHADES OF BLACK column tomorrow.

As for today’s metal roundup: I posted a big one yesterday exclusively devoted to new songs with videos, but big as it was it still didn’t exhaust all the good new tracks that surfaced over the last week. And of course it didn’t include the usual Friday flood of new song reveals. A few of my NCS comrades made sure I didn’t overlook what that Friday flood flung up on the beach, and I’ve included a few of their suggestions as well as a few of my own picks that I left out of that video-only roundup yesterday. Coincidentally all the songs included here also came with videos, hence the title of this post.

What’s missing today, for the most part, is my own commentary. I’ll give you a minute to dab the tears from your eyes… and then on we go…. Continue reading »

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