Jun 222017
 

 

That’s Jinx Dawson’s coffin up there, rising above the stage at Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle last Saturday night. Trust me, she was about as far from dead as you could get, but that’s where she was, inside that box when the lights came up. The crowd went crazy when she came out, and didn’t stop until a while after Coven finished their headlining set on the festival’s last night.

Someday soon I’ll write about the festival, and maybe a little about the chaotic experience of actually helping put on a festival instead of just watching the show. That’s a box I’ve now checked off on the bucket list, even though it wasn’t on my bucket list before the planning for NWTF began last year. As I think back on the experience, I’m lucky I didn’t kick the bucket before the weekend ended. Nevertheless, we’re doing it again next year, and perhaps I will emerge less exhausted, having learned a few things from the first outing, but probably not.

Anyway, since about the middle of last week I’ve had no time to compile a round-up, and am thankful to DGR for stepping into that breach not once but twice (even though he too helped out with the heavy lifting at NWTF). In the meantime, my list of new things to check out became typically overwhelming. To make the job of choosing somewhat easier, I’ve focused on more recent revelations, and perhaps will dig deeper into the last week or two in the coming days. So, let’s begin…. Continue reading »

Jun 212017
 

 

(DGR once again takes over round-up duty, compiling a selection of nine items for your listening and viewing pleasure, culled from the last week.)

 

Clearly nobody got the email that we sent out announcing that we would be incredibly busy late last week Northwest Terror Festing, and therefore decided that it would be a good time to flood the heavy metal world with news. You wouldn’t know that by visiting NCS, because we slowed to a crawl, with writers Gorger and Andy Synn coming through as the heroes keeping the fortress guarded whilst the rest of us rotated between drunk and exhausted.

Now, though, DGR has come to collect his dues, so I have compiled a round-up with every single thing that I kept notes on from Thursday of last week ’til now, and I guarantee you that I’ve still missed a handful of things. Still, though, this collection of music videos, lyric videos, and live performance(s) is gigantic in its own right and it is certified NCS “Fresh”, which means it should only mildly smell like rotting beef carcasses.

Abhorrent Decimation – Conspire

When I first saw the artwork by Karmazid for the upcoming Abhorrent Decimation album The Pardoner, I declared that if the music on that disc could be half as cool as the artwork it bore or the concept behind it, then I would be a happy camper. Well, with “Conspire“, Abhorrent Decimation have shown that they are in good standing on that front — releasing a monstrous six-minute brutalizer. Continue reading »

Jun 152017
 

 

(DGR takes over our round-up rodeo for this Thursday, with a mix of news and new music from 8 bands.)

By the time you are reading this, I will likely be hiding like a coward underneath a fan set on incredibly high as this region of California experiences its first legit summer heatwave of one hundred plus temperatures. Considering that I am a soft wuss who has somehow survived many of these prior, you’d think that attempting to lose weight so that I may one day fit in my freezer with the door closed wouldn’t be the go-to gameplan, but alas, here we are.

You may have noticed by our recent slowdown post that a good chunk of the NCS crew plans to spend the weekend cooped up in a handful of venues in Seattle for the Northwest Terror Fest, enjoying a smattering of different groups. So in order to offset that I’ve made a hefty collection of new music and some album artwork that has slowly been cropping up on the web in recent weeks that have floated by us recently, to be caught in the patented super-porous DGR news net. At the very end I’ll even toss in an album that I came across recently for all of you to enjoy.

So let us sunder forth so that I can quickly go back to attempting to stuff myself onto the second shelf of the freezer next to the frozen lasagna boxes. Continue reading »

Jun 142017
 

 

Happy Wednesday. As I have mentioned before, No Clean Singing is one of the co-presenters and organizers of the first Northwest Terror Fest, which begins tomorrow and runs for three days in Seattle. As a result of my responsibilities in putting on the fest, I will have little time to devote to NCS until Monday.

I’m not sure whether our other writers will be contributing anything during my absence, but I still plan to post at least one new thing (and probably only one) both tomorrow and Friday. Not sure about the weekend. But before running off to take care of today’s festival-related tasks, I wanted to recommend some really good new metal I heard last night or this morning.

AKERCOCKE

Not long ago at the 2017 edition of Maryland Deathfest I had the pleasure of seeing Akercocke perform, and was especially taken by a new song they played. I didn’t know its name, but now I do — because it debuted today. Continue reading »

Jun 132017
 

 

(Andy Synn assembled this collection of recommended music.)

Greetings and salutations good people of the NCS hive mind. Today just so happens to be my birthday and, in a twist to the usual way of doing things, I’m here to offer YOU a bunch of presents in celebration of this momentous event.

So, after the jump, you’ll find some EPs and albums that are all on offer at “name your price” – if you like what you hear though, I recommend you give the bands some money, whatever you can afford, and/or pick up some merch while you’re there!

After all, if we don’t support them… who will? Continue reading »

Jun 132017
 

 

This is the third and final installment of a SHADES OF BLACK feature that I began two days ago. You’ll be shocked to learn that as long as this post has been, I added music from two more bands on top of what I originally planned for this Part 3 yesterday. If I hadn’t been placed in restraints by orderlies here at the asylum, I would have added more.

EREB ALTOR

The wonderful Swedish band Ereb Altor, who have taken their main cues (but not their only ones) from the mythic Viking metal of Bathory as established in Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, have a new album named Ulfven that will arrive on July 21 via Hammerheart Records. Earlier today they revealed a song from the album that’s simply magnificent. Continue reading »

Jun 132017
 

 

Raíz Amarga (Spanish for “Bitter Root”) is the first recording by a group of experienced Spanish musicians who have taken for themselves the name Moribundo (“dying” in English). The album’s four long tracks are based on four poems of death and despair, drawing upon traditions of cold, melancholy doom and craggy death metal to carve a musical course that’s intensely atmospheric as well as physically jolting. One song from the album has appeared previously, and we have another one today named “Suicidio Ilustrado” as a further prelude to the album’s release on June 18.

Suicidio Ilustrado” is in some ways a study in contrasts — in part a grim, crushing dirge, in part a ravaging juggernaut, and in part a mystical haunting. The riffs are mountainous; the drums hit hard enough to vibrate your spine; the vocals are usually the kind of cavernous growls that seem to emanate from some subterranean leviathan crawling toward the surface, or the shrieks of painful torment. Continue reading »

Jun 122017
 

 

This is the second part of a collection of new black metal recommendations that I began yesterday. There were eight bands whose music I included in Part 1, and originally there were eight more here. Yes, I know, I’ve gone overboard. But since that’s never ever happened before, I know you’ll be in a forgiving mood — especially when I tell you that I’ve siphoned off three of the second group of eight and have put them into a Part 3, coming later today or tomorrow.

ELFSGEDROCH

The debut album of Elfsgedroch (which is apparently Dutch for “mischief of elves”) was released on tape during the spring of 2016, but was released as a digital download and on vinyl in the spring of this year. The album’s name is Op de beenderen van onze voorvaderen (“on the bones of our ancestors”, if Google Translate is to be believed).

I’ve written twice before about individual tracks from the album as they appeared, and intended to write a proper review of the entire album. But now I’m afraid I may never get around to doing that — which makes me feel guilty because I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this record. Not only is the music exceptional, so is the care with which it has been packaged. Take a look: Continue reading »

Jun 112017
 

 

It’s been three weeks since the last time I compiled music for a Shades of Black post, mainly because I was away from home the last three weekends. To somewhat make up for lost time, I’ve picked recommended new music in a blackened vein from more than a dozen bands and have divided the collection into two parts. Not sure if I’ll get Part 2 posted today or Monday, but most likely the latter.

GRAVEIR / MAR MORTUUM

I decided to start this post with a new split release by the Australian bands Graveir (Brisbane) and Mar Mortuum (Melbourne) so I would have another excuse to prominently feature Jef Whitehead’s artwork for it (I already posted it on our Facebook page yesterday). The music is also very good. Continue reading »

Jun 102017
 


Daniele Valeriani: “Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni” (2017)

 

(Andy Synn wrote this thought piece — and provides some musical recommendations at the end.)

 

As part of a new initiative here at NCS, designed to give Islander some time off over the weekend (as well as serve as an intervention for his crippling blog addiction), I’m planning to put together a little something every Saturday – be it a review, an interview, or an opinion piece – to help tide over our readers until the inevitable Monday (editor’s intrusion: and Sunday!) rush of content comes back around.

So here goes nothing… Continue reading »