OMNEROD – THE AMENSAL RISE

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 152023
 

(Andy Synn has a few words to share about the new album from Belgium’s Omnerod)

I pontificated a little while ago about what type of year this was going to be… was it going to be a Black Metal or a Death Metal year? Or maybe a Hardcore or Sludge one?

What I didn’t expect was that 2023 might be all about Prog!

The release of genre-b(l)ending, boundary-pushing albums from Hypno5e, Dødheimsgard, The World Is Quiet Here, Nebulae Come Sweet, et al, all make the case for this being a proggier year, and if you include even more melodically-rich releases from the likes of Witch Ripper, Klone, Ohhms, etc, then the argument gains even more weight.

And, hell, I haven’t even mentioned some of the absolutely killer new records which you haven’t heard yet, including (but not limited to) outstanding new records from Rannoch, The Anchoret, and Grant The Sun, all of which I plan to cover here at some point soon.

But before we get to those albums we’ve got the outlandish new album from Omnerod to dig into.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BURY THEM AND KEEP QUIET, FEMINIZER, SOMBRE CIEL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 142023
 

Happy Mother’s Day. I felt the need to say that because a few of you might be mothers and others might have been born of mothers, as opposed to some other form of spawning.

I’m typing this with one hand. The other hand is around my own throat, trying to choke off my tendency to explain why I haven’t accomplished more with this column today. It’s a struggle, so I should get on to the music before my choking hand succumbs to fatigue.

BURY THEM AND KEEP QUIET (U.S.) / FEMINIZER (U.S.)

The 2023 debut demo by the German band Kuolevan Rukous quickly became one of my favorite black metal releases of the year. I might never have listened to it if the Spanish label Vita Detestabilis hadn’t asked if we might premiere it — which I eagerly did here after listening to it. If you still haven’t checked it out, I urge you to bookmark this Bandcamp page and make time for it soon. Continue reading »

CLOAK: “BLACK FLAME ETERNAL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 122023
 

(What follows is Wil Cifer‘s review of Black Flame Eternal, the new album by Cloak which will be released on May 26th by Season of Mist.)

The Atlanta metal scene exists within a 9-mile radius of hipster filth pits. During my time in Atlanta I found myself woven into the fabric of this PBR-stained seediness. From that vantage point I watched Cloak claw their way past the battle vests and IPAs to become the gloomy black metal band capable of writing anthemic symphonies of shadow found on their third album Black Flame Eternal.

The praise I bestow on these guys is hard-fought, as I have warmed up to them a little more with each album, due to me being a huge Watain fan. Rather than win me over with the sonic similarities, it made me ask why should I listen to this when I own everything by both Watain and Dissection? Continue reading »

HALIPHRON: “PREY”

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May 112023
 

(We present DGR‘s extensive review of the debut album by the Dutch band Haliphron, a big album that was released at the end of March by Listenable Records.)

Prey – the first full-length release from the Netherlands-dwelling group Haliphron all the way back in March- caught eyes for a few reasons. One of the main ones being the artwork attached to said release since – if our site background hasn’t tipped you off yet – we do enjoy us some skulls round these here parts. But there were a few others that managed to align the planets just right that, so even one of us keyboard mashers managed to take notice.

One of the other reasons was that solo artist/guitar wizard/former Aborted member Mendel did some work on this release, and the other, which is just as somewhat out in the weeds that only those of us who find amusement in pattern matching and statistics will enjoy, is that the God Dethroned circle seems to continually spread ever further.

In addition to that band’s guitarist popping up in Ghost Of Mirach last year, it will interest some to know that their current drummer also happens to sit behind the kit for the aforementioned symphonic black metal shenanigans of Haliphron.

Like we said, it’s certainly a whole lot of weight to throw behind a debut album and definitely a lot of stuff that NoCleanSinging afficianados are going to take notice of. If nothing else, it is certianly a testament to the various internet music holes that we love to fall down around this corner of the net. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ANTI-RITUAL / KEZIAH / OCULAR TRAUMA

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May 102023
 

(Andy Synn has had a busy year so far, and has largely taken this week off to recharge, but couldn’t resist the urge to write about these three EPs while he recovers)

To my great shame I haven’t written about many short-form releases so far this year.

Why? Well, long story short… which is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling… I just haven’t had time.

Ironically, however, it’s this very lack of time which leads me to write about these three EPs today!

Continue reading »

DEVANGELIC: “XUL”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 082023
 

(In the following review our writer DGR provides impressions of the latest discharge of brutality by the Italian death metal band Devangelic. Adorned with cover art by Nick Keller, the album is out now on Willowtip Records.)

We don’t really have much of a mission statement at NoCleanSinging. We have an About page that delves into some of the things that drive us but overall, as we’ve aged, the ideas that fuel this site have either matured or become, as one of our fellow writers coined it, “well intentioned chaos”. That means for all the agents in the world, all of the PR pushes, and all of the news aggregation that we do privately, it’s very hard to tell what may actually make it through the net.

Sometimes we cover a well-known and popular band and other times a group whose social media reach may be in the single digits due to literally just starting out and one of us morons happened to be wandering by the apartment they were recording in that day. However, if there were a band you had to nominate as falling well within the NoCleanSinging wheelhouse you would probably do well by picking Italy’s death metal brutalizers Devangelic. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KRALLICE, ODZ MANOUK

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
May 072023
 

To lay my cards on the table: I slept 4 hours longer than usual last night and then spent more than an hour moving in a dense mental fog. I guess my body and/or mind needed all that extra sleep, gluttonously so. A couple of large Manhattans over dinner Saturday night might have had something to do with it.

So here I am, with noon rapidly approaching and some paying work still ahead of me, so I’ll have to make the number of selections in this column shorter than usual, despite the vast abundance of new blackened metal sitting in front of me.

KRALLICE (U.S.)

Like many other people I have a compulsion to quickly check out anything new from Krallice, and not just because the members are so talented but also because they don’t do the same thing twice in a row. I didn’t have time to pounce upon their new album Porous Resonance Abyss on Friday when it was released. Although there might have been some kind of advance notice, it came as a surprise to me. Even today, I’ve only made one trip through it, and it’s not a quick trip. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ERDVE, ADVERSVM, COFFIN MULCH, KORPVS, KILL DIVISION, THE NEANDERVERBS, MNAJDRA

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 062023
 

Less than a week into May and it’s already damned hot in many places around the world, even in some far northern latitudes. A news report yesterday said that at least 78 wildfires are burning across the Canadian province of Alberta, 19 of which are burning out of control, and that more than 13,000 people have already been evacuated from where they live.

Where I live, near the 47th meridian in the Pacific Northwest (and about 800 miles southwest of the Alberta fire zone), it’s now 47° F and the gray sky is drizzling rain, as it did all day yesterday. I love it. It might have influenced some of the picks in this large roundup of new songs and videos, though some sonic firestorms and a few vigorous beatings found their way into it too.

Actually, I’m very proud of how varied this collection turned out to be. Which means you probably won’t like all of it.

ERDVE (Lithuania)

Despite my opening commentary about the weather, the new single from Erdve sounds like a different natural phenomenon — like a mid-paced avalanche of stone, with giant boulders rumbling down. Along with all the jarring jolts, the sizzling riffage is also frightful, creating tension and fear, while the raw yells channel rage. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, APRIL 2023

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
May 052023
 


VoidCeremony

(Another month has passed into the moldy history books, and almost like clockwork Gonzo has arrived to spotlight three albums that made a better April for him, and might make a better May for you.)

April came and went, and here I am, sitting around at 5:39 p.m. on a Thursday, trying to figure out what the hell we’ve already covered during that month so I can avoid redundancy on these pages.

And holy shit – we’re just three weeks away from Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle, where I’ll be joining a significant percentage of the NCS staff for a weekend of work and revelry. If you haven’t scored tickets for that one yet, be sure that you do. The lineup this year looks positively ferocious. I’ll be the guy in the “FUCK THE D.E.A.” shirt periodically drunk on hazy IPAs. Come say hi.

Until then, here’s some new music to keep your eardrums occupied. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BOARGAZM — “ARMAGAMMON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
May 042023
 

With their new album Armagammon, the South African band Boargazm have reached the end of their Aporkalypse trilogy. A twisted sci-fi narrative accompanied by comic books, it tells the story of a rebel band of time-travelling freedom fighters known as “The Pig Whisperers”, who warn the world of the impending Aporkalypse, through the Baconing, all the way to Armagammon.

And if that sounds like some weird fun, wait ’til you hear this new album. As the band’s founder Heine van der Walt has explained: “We wanted to shift our focus on doing something highly experimental and weird, yet true to our sound. So, lots of freneticism, while still retaining groove, and to see if we can balance that in a coherent method. It was a fun exercise and experience, figuring out how to do all that.” Continue reading »

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