Album Reviews Archives - Page 128 of 562

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VISION DEPRIVED — “SELF ELEVATING, DEEP INSIDE THE VOID”

Mar 212023

In a search for analogies it’s tempting to compare Milan-based Vision Deprived‘s new album to a musical roller-coaster ride. It’s packed with twists and turns, ups and downs; it gets the adrenaline flowing; it frequently pops our eyes wide open; and it’s scary. But it’s not the kind of trip that’s likely to leave riders laughing it off when it’s time to dismount, and the twists are… twisted… in ways that can become unsettling because they’re so unhinged. You can hear and feel the rails under a roller-coaster car, but what would happen if that sense of being attached were to vanish?

Self Elevating, Deep Inside The Void is the album’s name, and even the title suggests leaving the rails and any other tangible boundaries, which is pretty much what happens as you make your way through the record. What you might not expect from the title is that the music is usually firestorm-fast and decimating, as well as completely dazzling in its madhouse instrumental escapades through a dystopian hellscape. Continue reading »

SPIRIT POSSESSION: “OF THE SIGN…”

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Mar 202023

(Here we present Hope Gould‘s evocative review of the new album by Oregon-based Spirit Possession, which is nearing its March 31 release by Profound Lore Records.)

The year is 1987. You’ve got weekend plans to take your girl to see Dirty Dancing and the world isn’t even close to being sick of Rick Astley. Not long ago, Venom unleashed their brand of Satanic alcohol-sodden proto-thrash upon England. Soon after, a kid from Sweden built upon that sound by infusing the epic mid-tempos of Manowar and really hammered home the Satan-thing in a little project called Bathory. Hellhammer stripped it all down with their raw, punky approach, a German band called Sodom played speed metal riffs with a similar primitive execution, then Celtic Frost pushed all the limits with a more sophisticated songcraft that managed to keep all the bite.

It is this moment in time, upheld by raw aggression and suspended between definitive genres, that Portland’s Spirit Possession have set their flux capacitor. Continue reading »

BLASPHEMY, PRAYERS, AND THE CALLOUSNESS THAT FOLLOWS: TRIBE OF PAZUZU, SARCOPTES, AND TONGUE SCUM

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 4 Responses »

Mar 202023

(Sacramento-based writer DGR pulled together the following reviews of albums that surfaced over the last 30 days.)

The tour through the world of heavy metal continues, this time covering a good portion of the planet as we carve our way from Canada through the States and land in Australia for three suitably intense and mind-scarringly mean experiences that saw recent release. We begin with names familiar to longtime NCS readers and end on someone new but a group that’ll instantly appeal to the wall-punchers as decorative artists among our readers.

Tribe Of Pazuzu – Blasphemous Prophecies

It hadn’t occurred to us around here that it had been close to three years for the Canadian crew Tribe Of Pazuzu when it came to the gap between releases, nor the fact that Blasphemous Prophecies represents the group’s official first full-length album.

For those who haven’t been wandering around these fetid halls for a while, Tribe Of Pazuzu unleashed two EPs in late 2019 and early 2020 entitled Heretical Uprising and King Of All Demons. With the year-over-year churn on those particular EPs and each of them clocking in at a stocky five songs and near-twenty minutes each, it felt like the combination of the two together – which the band would eventually release in 2021 – was their debut full-length. Continue reading »

TELOS – DELUDE

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Mar 202023

(Andy Synn has had his face ripped off by the new album from Telos… and now it’s your turn)

We’re now a little under a quarter of the way through 2023 and so far the “theme” of the year has yet to reveal itself.

Last year, for example, was a very Hardcore-oriented year for yours truly, with an extremely varied and visceral assemblage of bands – Beyond the Styx, CLEARxCUT, Get the Shot, Helpless, Ithaca, Nostromo, Spill Your Guts, Spiritworld, and so on – helping to remind me just how much power and potential the wider genre has, in all its different forms, and why I’ve always loved it.

Of course, it doesn’t always happen like that – not every year is clearly a “Death Metal year” or a “Black Metal year”, etc, etc – so we’ll just have to wait and see what the rest of 2023 has to offer.

But, let me tell you, if the eight tracks of abrasive, anxiety-inducing Blackened Hardcore which make up Delude had been released in 2022 they’d have fit in perfectly alongside the year’s very best.

SHADES OF BLACK: OLD FOREST, AFSKY, UKĆ, LE PROCHAIN HIVER, MOTSTAND, HYRGAL

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK 2 Responses »

Mar 192023

Old Forest

I often rely on the recommendations of friends in deciding how to spend my listening time, and then deciding what to recommend to you. I like rooting around myself, like a truffle-sniffing pig, but after pouring a fair amount of time into yesterday’s big roundup I wasn’t left with a lot of sniffing and rooting time, and therefore took my lead from friends for much of what’s coming below. They didn’t let me down, and hopefully I won’t let you down with these choices either.

OLD FOREST (UK)

I had to start today’s collection with a new song by Old Forest because I found it so immediately captivating. I’m not steeped in the band’s extensive discography (seven albums and a bunch of shorter releases going back to 1998), but Neill Jameson is, and he introduced Decibel’s premiere of the song last week with a brief history.

The new track, “Master of Arachnids”, is from a forthcoming album named Sutwyke, which Neill lauded as “easily the band’s best full length since their phantasmagoric re-materialization” in 2008 following a long hiatus: “Taking elements from all eras of their discography (including the clean vocals, though somewhat more subdued) this is also their most jet-black record showing that there is still plenty of (un)life in these bones”.

Well, that was more than enough temptation to dive into “Master of Arachnids”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SHAKMA, KAAL AKUMA, ÓREIĐA, SPORAE AUTEM YUGGOTH, MIASMA OF OCCVLT LIMBS

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Mar 182023

Shakma – photo by Kristian Eikeland

Anyone who visits here on a regular basis knows I like to host premieres of new songs and complete releases. Other people seem to like that too, since our daily calendar of premieres is full from now through April 21st, which is about as fully stocked and as far out-front as I can remember we’ve ever been with our premiere schedule.

The downside of this for me is that it cuts deep into the time I have for something else I enjoy — roundups of new music like this one. Lately, I’ve been lucky if I can get one done on the weekend. Doing them on the weekdays has become a rarity, especially since the job that pays the freight around here has been pressing me more than usual too.

I know I sound like a broken record, constantly expressing disappointment and frustration that I can’t highlight more bands and their music in this way. But none of these records is broken…. Continue reading »

HOST: “IX”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 172023

(What you’ll find below is Axel Stormbreaker‘s review of the debut album by Host (the duo of Greg Mackintosh and Nick Holmes), out now on Nuclear Blast.)

My connection to Paradise Lost’s music resembles the terms of a permanent relationship. Its integral qualities may revitalize your body and thought, to a degree you feel capable of achieving nearly everything. While, on different occasions, it can turn out as an ordinary mess that’s so fucking disappointing.

Before you feel the need to educate me, lemme state here I am fully aware the album in question belongs to a side-project, a work put together by its core members mostly for their personal fun. But since the main people are present in an endeavor named after their most “infamous” album, what’s to expect? Plus, the music itself strongly reminds of their alt-metal era. Do we need further boxes to check?

DISSENTIENT – LABYRINTH

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Mar 162023

(Andy Synn guides you through the twists and turns of the new album from Ottawa’s Dissentient)

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the corruptive influence of the profit motive… how difficult it makes it to believe that anything that’s written can ever be impartial (and I know there’s a whole other argument to be had over objectivity, or the lack thereof, in reviewing music) once you realise that every feature, every review, every cover photo, comes with a potential price tag attached.

It’s one reason (among many) that I consider myself lucky to write here. None of the three of us who still form the core team – Islander, DGR, and myself – make any money from the site, nor do we have any advertisers to please or specific print deadlines to meet, and so we’re free to write about what we want, when we want.

Now, to be clear, I’m not trying to tear down print media wholesale – as someone who used to write for a physical magazine I’m fully aware of the complexities which need to be balanced in order to both serve your readers not just what they want, but also what you think they need, while still remaining solvent (or not) – I’m simply laying out a case for why you can (and should) trust us.

Hell, we don’t even write to please the bands themselves (there’ve been a few times when people have gotten pissy with us because we didn’t blindly praise them enough) and have, in fact, alienated a few labels and PR firms in the past with our refusal to just dole out perfect scores to anything and everything that comes our way.

Long story short… believe me when I say that you won’t regret checking out Dissentient‘s new album.

BIG O(AK): OAK, OMEGA INFINITY, OAK PANTHEON

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 152023

(DGR was inspired to pick three particular albums from his backlog to review together, which is what you will find below the anime image above.)

Look, sometimes you lay out your “to listen to and potentially review” archives in such a way that the moment strikes you. This is one of those times where the exercise is likely to appeal to just me, and me alone, so indulge me, will you? as I crawl backwards to catch up with even more stuff that has managed to hit throughout the first quarter of this year. Sometimes you do it because the idea you had for the article photo is, in the long run, more than enough.

OAK – DISINTEGRATE

Portugal’s Oak are likely to grab people’s attention with their sophomore release Disntegrate. Their first for Season Of Mist – after debut Lone was handled by Transcending Obscurity – Disintegrate is a near forty-five-minute traversal through the roiling collision of the worlds of death and doom.

Ever-dedicated to their world-building, the two-piece comprising Oak have spent much of the lead-in to the release of Disintegrate painting their music with the visages of lumbering giants, collapsing mountains, and enough Misery to make a 1987 Barnes & Noble jealous. While the lyrical inspirations may be purposefully vague and presented as one large archival screed, the music is recognizably suffocating and slow, at times fitted more as “mood” than artistic piece. When the two lead videos for the album have the group drenched in either snow or fire – with little room for subtlety in between – then you certainly know that there is “something” present here that is going to grab people. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LATE NIGHT VENTURE — “V: BONES OF THE EXTINCT”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Mar 152023

On March 17th, the Danish post-metal band Late Night Venture will release their new album V: Bones Of The Extinct via Trepanation Recordings and Vinyltroll Records, and today we present it in its entirety, along with many words of introduction.

But before we get to our own words, we want to share what the labels and the band themselves tell us about the album’s conception, because it adds useful insights into the multi-faceted power of the music. For example, this:

“‘Bones Of The Extinct’ is a text excerpt capable of containing all the album’s songs, which individually are images of unforeseen occurrences with irreversible consequences. The lyrics cast their gaze upon the world and can be characterized as grounded doomsday stories about conditions, which more or less concern all beings on the planet. This gaze is directed towards mankind and its nature, all our efforts in this world – and the consequences of our urge.” Continue reading »

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