SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): THE CROWN, MANTAR, CONAN, WINDFAERER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 312018
 

 

As you can see, I have enough new songs and videos I’d like to recommend that I’ve divided them into two parts. I thought the first three in Part 1 belonged together because they all rock, albeit in very different ways. The first two are explosive, the third one crushes, and although the fourth one blasts instead of rocks, it reconnects with the energy of the first two and rockets it into the clouds.

THE CROWN

Our reviewer proclaimed Cobra Speed Venom as the best album by The Crown since the pinnacle of their career (which he identified as Possessed 13), and perhaps their best album, period, with the band “displaying a reckless sense of abandon” while putting “a lot of emphasis on fist-pumping anthemic melody”.

I also loved the album, and the song that’s the subject of the band’s new video is probably might favorite of all the tremendous ones to be found within Cobra Speed Venom. Continue reading »

ANOTHER AMBIENT MUSIC LIST (FROM NEILL JAMESON)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 302018
 

 

(Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) returns to our site with another list of music that’s off our usual beaten paths.)

I don’t know why I’ve taken such a sour turn on new guitar-based releases this year; maybe it’s because so much of the shit I’m seeing pushed everywhere is incredibly derivative and unnecessary, maybe it’s because I’m not looking in the right places or that 2017’s glut of greatness spoiled me for 2018. Or maybe it’s because I’m old. Regardless of the answer, I’ve spent a lot of time this year either clicking around to check out a lot of ambient (using the term as a general umbrella) material that’s being released by a growing number of eccentric labels or digging into the boxes of CDs I have crammed in various storage spaces in my apartment, much to the obvious joy of my partner.

My last self-indulgent excursion into this field was centered on dungeon synth but as I am a man of many hats I figured I’d diversify this list to include some more spacey or tripped-out pieces. Also I don’t wear hats, my head is too big and I look fucking ridiculous. So now that we’ve established that I’m a liar here’s some things to check out if you’re so inclined. Continue reading »

BENEATH A BURNING SKY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Jul 272018
 


Climate Reanalyzer Global Weather Map – July 27, 2018

 

(Andy Synn has compiled a collection of songs from seven bands suitable for the hell we find ourselves in.)

Depending on where you are right now in the world, there’s a good chance you’re enjoying/enduring (delete as appropriate) the same sweltering heat and blazing sunshine which is currently scorching us here in the UK, and perhaps you find yourself wondering, as the earth around you slowly returns to its molten, primordial state… what albums provide the best soundtrack to my current situation?

After all, while a lot of Stoner Rock/Metal bands have built a career out of an association with lazy, sun-kissed vibes and hazy, weed-fuelled riffs, the majority of the more Extreme/Underground bands we cover here at NCS tend to be more associated with darkness and shadow… heck, about 50% of all the world’s Black Metal bands are obsessed with snow and ice, regardless of where they actually hail from… and there’s a reason we so often use words like “dank” and “cavernous”, “chilling” and “frostbitten, to describe their music – it just fits!

As a result I had to think long and hard about what albums truly capture the sensation of being trapped and tormented by the oppressive weight of the burning sun in all its torrid and terrible glory, before finally settling on the handful of suggestions you’ll find below. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS (PART 2): DIRE OMEN, UN, BINAH, PARASITE INC., IN DEMONI, GASH

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jul 252018
 

 

This is the completion of a post I began yesterday, collecting new songs and videos that by coincidence all happened to fall under the vast umbrella of death metal, or were at least close enough in sound or spirit to merit the “DEATH RITUAL” heading of this post. Between yesterday and today, one more track appeared that I couldn’t resist including, and I also decided to begin with a review of a new EP that I should have posted sooner — but better late than never.

DIRE OMEN

Our history with Dire Omen goes back to 2011, when I came across their second promo and wrote it up in the 27th MISCELLANY post (and I’m wondering yet again why I let that series die of neglect). Since then, they’ve released a 2012 EP (Severing Soul From Flesh), a 2014 debut album on the Dark Descent label (Wresting the Revelation of Futility), and now a new EP (also through Dark Descent), Formless Fire Embodied. Obviously, these Canadians from Edmonton haven’t been prolific in their releases, but the care they’ve taken hasn’t been for naught, as you shall see. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS (PART 1): KRISIUN, ABYSMAL TORMENT, BLOODPHEMY, BURIAL SHRINE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 242018
 

 

This is basically a SEEN AND HEARD round-up of new music, but it dawned on me that a big portion of what I’d chosen either fits under the big umbrella of death metal or draws strength from the worship of death, so I’ve gone with a post title I’ve occasionally used before. And I picked so many new songs of this nature that I had to break it up into two parts. The second one will be up tomorrow, because we’ve cut a pretty wide swath through your head with new music today already.

KRISIUN

The cover art painted by Eliran Kantor for Krisiun’s new album, Scourge of the Enthroned, is so damned cool, and therefore it’s no surprise that Krisiun and Century Media chose a lyric video featuring the album art as a method for premiering the album’s first advance track, “Demonic III“. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: SENZAR AND ONTOGENY

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jul 202018
 

 

I really wanted to end this week with a big fat juicy round-up, overstuffed with new songs and videos that I’ve latched onto over the past week but couldn’t cram into other round-ups over the last two days. Alas, I’ve run out of time. But rather than just scuttle morosely out of sight, head down and small tears dribbling down my cheeks, I thought I’d at least give you a couple of quick hits.

SENZAR

Today the Irish band Senzar, which rose from the ashes of Coldwar and embraced a name reportedly based upon the works of different philosophers, including Ernst Cassirer and Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky, released their first EP, which has their name on it but has no title, through Hostile Media.

After seeing a press release I had made a note a few days ago to check out a new video the band had released, but it wasn’t until receiving encouragement from starkweather’s Rennie today that I did so, and then moved from there to the EP as a whole. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): SCORCHED, PREZIR, BOSSE-DE-NAGE, ROTTING CHRIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 192018
 

 

Continuing where I left off in Part 1 of today’s round-up (and I do plan on yet another round-up tomorrow, by the way), I’ve selected four more tracks that really can’t be grouped in any kind of logical order, and there’s really almost nothing that any of the songs have in common other than their appeal to yours truly. I’ve again kind of up-ended my usual tendency to move from better-known names to lesser-known names.

SCORCHED

This Delaware band is certainly better-known than they used to be, due in part to 20 Buck Spin’s release of Excavated For Evisceration earlier this year, which compiled the band’s non-LP material in one place, but they still need to become a lot better-known because THEY’RE SO GOOD! I have a feeling that will happen when the same label releases their new album on September 28th. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): UNIFORM, ANAAL NATHRAKH, VREID

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Jul 192018
 

 

Well, my fine fiends, yesterday was a very interesting day (and no, I’m not talking about the bizarro-world mind-fuck of American politics at its zenith of gob-smacking grotesquery). I’m talking about the flood of new metal, at least one wave of which proved to be crashingly controversial, and I’ll get to that.

Damned hard to figure out what to shovel into this round-up, which is a big reason why it’s so voluminous, but really not voluminous enough even though it comes in multiple parts today. As usual, I just let my mind percolate a bit, and trusted that whatever twisted thing lurks within it would make the right choices.

UNIFORM

I have a tendency to organize these posts in order from bigger names to lesser names, and sometimes because my subconscious mentation perceives a certain pleasing flow from one to the next, but this time I’m starting with a song by Uniform because last night it pounced on me like a wolf appearing in Aisle 9 in the grocery store — about that surprising, and about that effective in triggering a fight or flight response. The video is a mind-fuck too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VOID ROT — “ANCIENT SEED”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 182018
 

 

Consumed By Oblivion is both the name of the debut EP by the Minneapolis band Void Rot and a synopsis of the atmosphere created by the band’s titanic, soul-consuming brand of death/doom. When the title track surfaced earlier this month, it seemed to capture the sensation of being swallowed by a cold, hungry void and allowed to slowly rot. Massive and monstrous, heavy enough to crack bedrock and sickeningly morbid enough to sink all your hopes, it also transformed into a spine-shaking, head-hammering, skin-scissoring marauder, laced with buzzing riffs and squalling leads that sounded like pure evil.

That was a tantalizing (and mortifying) teaser for this new record, and today we have another, as we premiere a song called “Ancient Seed” in advance of the EP’s joint release on August 3rd by Everlasting Spew and Sentient Ruin. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PLAGUEWIELDER, AWAKENING SUN, HADAL MAW, ÆVANGELIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 182018
 

 

Here are four songs, two of which come with videos, from forthcoming albums that I’m pretty excited about. A slew of other songs have appeared since late last week that I’m also excited about, and no doubt more will appear today. The thorny garden of metal is riotously fecund. We poor harvesters with bleeding fingers and bleeding ears can’t keep up, try as we might.

PLAGUEWIELDER

Ohio’s Plaguewielder made an eye-opening debut with their 2015 album Succumb To Ash on Dullest Records. They followed that last year with a single named “Writhing In Mental Torment“, which I had some positive things to say about, and just a few days ago they released another new single, “In Depths of Cold Hell“, which is a prelude to a new album entitled Surrender To the Void that will be released on August 12th. Continue reading »

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