Album Reviews Archives - Page 134 of 557

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THY CATAFALQUE, HERON, OTUS, VARMIA, ILLUMINE

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Nov 052022

As you know if you’ve been here routinely, I make lists, lots of lists, of new music I want to check out. Last night when I began making my way through the latest one (an extremely long one), it happened that the first five selections were so good and fit together so beautifully that I decided to go no further, for fear of breaking a powerful pattern that had serendipitously taken shape. When I listened to them again this morning, it still made sense.

I’ve set out these songs in the order I heard them. I said they created a pattern, but they were also a journey, and one that ended in stunning fashion.

THY CATAFALQUE (Hungary)

Well of course I started with a new video from Thy Catafalque, especially because the video is for a performance of my favorite song from one of my favorite albums of 2011. Yes, more than a decade ago! But until senility encroaches I’ll never forget “Fekete mezők”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SALQIU, PALE KING, BAD MANOR

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Nov 032022

I know I sound like a broken record, but this has been yet another week when the job that pays me (not NCS) has rudely interfered with my ability to recommend new music via round-ups such as this one. Even today it will interfere, and so even though I’ve decided to fill this round-up with full releases rather than advance tracks, I’m unable to say as much about them as I’d like. But fortunately, you can heed the wisdom of your own ears.

SALQIU (Brazil)

To begin, here’s a new album named خماسين الوباء from Nuno Lourenço in his guise as Salqiu. We’ve already learned that although Salqiu is prolific, we’re not going to get the same thing twice from album to album, a conviction reinforced by this new one, which has themes drawn from places far away from Nuno‘s homeland. He explains: Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Nov 032022

(Andy Synn has four more recommendations of albums and artists you may have overlooked recently)

As we gallop towards the end of another year, the vast pile of albums that I haven’t found time to listen to has now become so threateningly large that I may well end up crushed under the sheer (meta)physical weight of all the music I’ve missed out on.

Still, I’ve tried my best to cover as much of this year’s musical crop as I possibly can, and I think that – come December – you won’t have that much cause to complain, as my current shortlist (actually, that should probably read “shortlist”, since there’s nothing “short” about it) of albums and EPs to include is several hundred long (though the final number will doubtless fluctuate a bit as new releases are added and some are removed because I don’t think I gave them enough time/consideration to form a proper opinion).

And four of those that will definitely be included – some of them pretty prominently, let me tell you now – are included here today.

DISILLUSION – AYAM

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Nov 012022

(Andy Synn basks in the splendour of the new Disillusion album, out Friday on Prophecy Productions)

How exactly does one follow up an album which not only catapulted you back into the public eye after years of absence, but which was also – according to some people – on a par with the best thing you’ve ever done?

Well, the best course of action – if the upcoming new record from resurgent Prog-Metal powerhouse Disillusion is anything to go by – is that you don’t… or, more specifically, you don’t try to compete with yourselves.

Instead you take your time, follow your creative muse, and calmly (and confidently) continue to produce some of the very best work of your career.

GOATWHORE: “ANGELS HUNG FROM THE ARCHES OF HEAVEN”

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Nov 012022

(Here’s DGR‘s extensive review of the new album by Goatwhore, out now on Metal Blade Records.)

There was a block of time during the decade that was the 2010s when it seemed like Goatwhore were unstoppable and ever-present. They released consistently good-to-great albums like clockwork and few bands out there embodied the concept of “professional homeless person” quite like this hard-touring group. It seemed like they were always on the road and ready to answer the call if there was a show that needed its ass saved from a last-minute cancellation. Hell, there were times when the band wouldn’t even be part of an event yet would somehow pop up within the area because what the hell else were Goatwhore going to do with their free time? Not play live?

That’s why sitting down and gazing over the numbers gap between the group’s 2017 Vengeful Ascension and their latest salvo in early October, Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven, and seeing the five-year mark just looks wild, especially for a band whose previous longest gap between releases was at best on the long side of three. One could only expect that we’d see a release from Goatwhore a whole hell of a lot sooner had we not had to effectively put the world on pause due to a worldwide plague, because otherwise the Goatwhore camp probably would have been out on the road and writing just as hard as they normally do. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: …AND OCEANS, STRYCHNOS, IN THE WOODS…, AYYUR, FREEDOM OF FEAR, PARASITARIO, PEGZILLA

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Oct 292022

…And Oceans

I mentioned last Sunday (and again on Monday) that I wasn’t feeling well, as an explanation for why I didn’t get very much done for NCS last weekend. I also mentioned that I spent that weekend in southern California at a gathering of co-workers from different cities. Within days of everyone getting back home, a half-dozen people reported testing positive for covid, all of whom were fully vaccinated.

I had tested before going on that trip, took another test while I was there, and tested again five days after my last close contact with those people — all the tests were negative. But I’m still feeling sub-par, still congested, sniffling, and lethargic, for the second week in a row.

I don’t know what the hell I have, but there’s obviously a lot of respiratory virus blooming in the country besides covid, with different strains of cold and flu making a triumphant comeback after a couple of years of masking and quarantine restrictions left them lonely. You can take your own lessons from this, but I’d advise you to be careful.

It might be my hopeful imagination, but I think I’m marginally better today than before, or at least feeling well enough to go exploring new music and videos again. Here’s some of what I found (I ticked off a lot of genre boxes with this compilation, plus a couple of elliptical band names): Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LIGHTLORN, HELIANTHUS

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Oct 282022

Because it’s getting late in the day I’ll spare you the usual intro comments. Because it’s late in the day, I’ve also made fewer musical selections than usual. Tomorrow I’ll do better.

LIGHTLORN (Sweden)

Today this Swedish duo have released their debut EP These Nameless Worlds. I’ve already raved about the EP’s first two songs when they were released, “Unmapped Constellations” (here) and “Through the Cold Black Yonder“ (here). Now we have the other two. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABIGORUM, LACHRIMA CORPHUS DISSOLVENS, UNTIL MY FUNERALS BEGAN — “THE CALL TO SILENCE”

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Oct 282022

Seasons are a state of mind. Here in the U.S. Pacific Northwest where I live the rains have finally come, along with a chill in the air. After an unusually warm and dry early fall, normalcy has arrived, and The Big Dark is under way. Two days ago the sun set at 6:00 p.m., and that will not happen again until March of next year. From now on, for that many months, people will be waking up in the dark, going home in the dark, and sodden clouds will obscure the sun during many days even when it is above the horizon.

Throughout the Northern Hemisphere winter is approaching, or has already arrived, even if it will only bring a reprieve from heat in some places rather than the true feeling of nature dying or hibernating that pervades in the far north. But regardless of the locale, and even in the other half of the world where summer is approaching, we can send our minds into dark and daunting days through music such as you’re about to hear.

What we have for you is the full streaming premiere of an hour-long three-way split called The Call To Silence, and as its title suggests, “The release calls on humanity to return to silence, that harmony of the soundless cosmic vacuum that almost our entire Universe consists of”. Continue reading »

NOSTROMO – BUCEPHALE

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Oct 272022

(Andy Synn saddles up with Bucephale, the first full-length album in 20 years from Nostromo)

Better late than never, that’s what they say, right? Although, come to think of it, it’s mostly people who are chronically late who say that, so maybe they’re just trying to cover for themselves…

Still, in this case it rings true, as while I’m ashamed to admit I totally missed the boat on the first phase of Nostromo‘s career (during which time they produced three impressively intense albums), I’ve been hooked on them ever since I stumbled across their 2019 EP, Narrenschiff, and so felt that the impending release of their new record was the perfect time to make amends for overlooking them for so long.

If, like I used to be, you’re not familiar with the group, then l what you should expect from this album is a truly vicious, visceral assault on your senses (and your sensibilities) that sits somewhere between the more extreme proponents of “Metallic Hardcore” (aka the original “Metalcore”) like Integrity and Vision of Disorder, and the most furiously focussed form(s) of Grind a la Nasum, Napalm Death, etc.

But that’s not all, as – ever since their rebirth a few years back – the group have been exploring ever darker and more “blackened” sounds, with Bucephale being their darkest, harshest, and heaviest album yet.

BEST OF BRITISH: BATTALIONS / INGESTED / MOUNTAINSCAPE

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Oct 262022

(Andy Synn is back again with three more examples of home-grown British talent)

These “Best of British” pieces are a lot like buses… you wait ages for one and then two come along (almost) at once!

Does that joke/reference track? I hope so, because the underlying premise – that these articles were intended to be a much more regular thing, but tend to just come along at relatively random intervals – is pretty accurate.

If you haven’t checked out the previous edition of the “Best of British” from last week – where I covered the new albums from Everest Queen, Terra, and Vacuous – you might want to do so now, otherwise I invite you to settle in and get to know the latest offerings from Battalions, Ingested, and Mountainscape.

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