Album Reviews Archives - Page 135 of 545

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): IRONHAWK — “RITUAL OF THE WAR PATH”

Jun 282022

It’s time to raise hell and horns, to get hearts hammering, heads pumping, and voices snarling. To do that, we’re bringing you a full stream of the fierce and feral debut album by the Tasmanian devils who call themselves Ironhawk. Fittingly named Ritual of the War Path, and fittingly emblazoned with battle-ax imagery, it’s set for imminent release on June 30th by Dying Victims Productions.

By way of quick introduction to the particular kind of punk/metal rampaging embraced by this trio (who made their start covering Motörhead songs), we’ll first share an excerpt from the PR material: “We hear the cavernous crunge of early Bathory, the sooty surge of early Sacrilege, the burning spirits of prime English Dogs, and definitely (and uniquely for this style) the epic landscapes of mid ‘80s Amebix across the album’s surprisingly dynamic 37 minutes”.

So that’s one kind of preview, but of course we have our own…. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TUSCOMA — “GU-CCI”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Jun 272022

The title and lyrical themes of Tuscoma’s new album Gu-cci have little or nothing to do with the usual tropes of extreme metal. Anti-church tirades are missing, as are demonic invocations, troughs of gore, dank catacombs, the blaze of torches, or the brandishing of blades. They’re more poetic, more emotionally rooted, and never exactly spell things out.

Tuscoma‘s music on the new album is also itself unorthodox, bringing together elements from a range of genres, including black metal, post-metal, death metal, shoegaze, and hardcore. The results are monumentally heavy, powerfully turbulent, and emotionally fracturing. The songs become daunting, desolate, and deranged, coupled with rhythms that hit with concrete-splitting force. In other words, it’s not what you might expect from the album title or the lyrics.

Before elaborating on the sounds ourselves, we’ll begin by sharing a comment from Tuscoma bassist Craig Leahy: Continue reading »

BONGBONGBEERWIZARDS: “AMPIRE”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Jun 272022

(Last Friday the distinctively named BongBongBeerWizards released a new album through Electric Valley Records, and today we bring you a review of it by the distinctively named fetusghost.)

We here at NCS, the editorial “we” that really means “me” of course, we love Bong Metal. The subgenre you didn’t know existed until you clicked on my Bong Metal Round-Up by accident. Maybe it doesn’t exist. Do any of us really? If existence is faker than the moon landing, well then at least we got riffs in the Matrix. Fat, juicy, keyboard and fuzzy bass enhanced riffs. Appropriately stoned metal. The anti-grindcore.

But we’re just talking about an opposite, not an enemy. If you’d like to go fast, Godspeed! But Satan and BongBongBeerWizards’ meditative, skull-rattling tones are gonna take it slow as hell.

Even the smoke clouds in their logo seem leisurely, but peel back the layers and you too can reach the interstitial zone of bliss that is often found in fellow bong metal (bong drone?) merchants like Bong and Bongripper. Continue reading »

DARKANE: “INHUMAN SPIRITS”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jun 242022

(Today is the day when Massacre Records releases a new album by the Swedish band Darkane, and to celebrate the occasion long-time NCS writer TheMadIsraeli has returned from a long hiatus with the following review.)

Metal, in its current form, from where I observe it, is dealing with an arms-race problem. Specifically, a technicality problem. Obviously, I’m not saying that technicality is bad, or compromises the music, or is indecipherable, but THERE IS a trend with modern bands toward what is straight-up a lack of capacity to write an actual song with twists, turns, peaks, valleys, crescendo and climax.

I find myself being kind of stuck between what feel like two extremes. We’re dealing with the excessively technical to the detriment of everything else, while on the opposite end exists boring commercially line-straddling pseudo prog that barely qualifies under any semblance of the term or the philosophy of progressive style composition.

I had my phase of liking djent, and I certainly have my moments where I like Beneath The Massacre or Braindrill as much as anybody else, but as I’ve grown older I’ve realized the extreme metal that sits with me the best is a sort that has achieved this lunatic fringe, arguably near impossible, perfect symmetry of element and frame. If you asked me to name my top ten bands of all time up to the point of writing this, without any form of hierarchy intended here, it’d be Byzantine, Meshuggah, Textures, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Vader, Kreator, Sepultura, Dark Fortress, and last and most relevant, Darkane. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: CONJURER / GOZER / HUNDRED YEAR OLD MAN

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Jun 232022

(Andy Synn presents three more succulent slabs of metallic vim ‘n’ vigour from his home country)

Really good Sludge/Post-Metal albums from the UK are a bit like buses… you wait patiently for ages and then three come along at once!

Thankfully all three of these bands, each of whom are at a different stage in their career – Conjurer aiming to prove that all the hype around them is firmly, and fervently, justified with their major-label debut, Gozer establishing themselves as “ones to watch” with their highly-anticipated first album, and Hundred Year Old Man reaffirming their status, in the wake of tragedy, as one of the best bands in the British underground – together represent some of the very best Sludge/Post-Metal that you’re likely to hear this year.

Don’t believe me? Well, allow me a chance to convince you.

KRALLICE – PSYCHAGOGUE

Album Reviews No Responses »

Jun 212022

(Andy Synn continues his on again, off again, love affair with Krallice with their new album, Psychagogue)

I like Krallice, I really do.

But that doesn’t mean I like every single thing they put out… or, at least, it doesn’t mean I like everything they put out to the same level.

And that’s ok. Because being a fan of a band doesn’t mean you have to like absolutely everything they do, especially when the band in question are so disgustingly prolific, and cover so much musical ground, that simply trying to keep up with them is enough of a task in itself.

So when I say that I like the band’s new album, Psychagogue, you should know that I really like it… in fact, it may just be my favourite thing they’ve released since 2016’s Prelapsarian.

ZOUS: “NO GROUND TO GIVE”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jun 212022

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of a new album by the Los Angeles death metal band Zous, which was released at the end of May by Closed Casket Activities.)

This might seem weird since I am normally the guy who covers the darker more post-punk leaning bands or classic traditional metal. I do like more overtly heavy stuff as well, since during most of my teens I was into hardcore. By hardcore, I mean I saw the Cro-Mags on the “Age of Quarrel” tour while wearing my first pair of combat boots.

This solo project Zous from Nails drummer Taylor Young celebrates various shades of heavy that I love, as they are all nihilistic and dark in their wrathful pummeling. Young wrote, performed, produced, and engineered this entire album. He did enlist his buddies to come in and help out when it is time for the obligatory guitar solo.

This project was intended as old school death metal. It might never chug in the direction of the many Meshuggah worshippers or employ In Flames-inspired guitar harmonies; it does grind and crunch with more of a modern hardcore feel than anything in the zip code of Morbid Angel. Continue reading »

LIGHT DWELLER – LUCID OFFERING

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jun 202022

(Andy Synn kicks off a new week with the nasty new album from Light Dweller)

Over the years I have developed a bit of healthy scepticism when it comes to solo artists or “one man bands”.

That’s not to say I actively dislike them, by any means, it’s just that – generally speaking – I find that the collaborative process between band members tends to be more fruitful and fulfilling than simply having a single individual do all the work (often without anyone around them to curb their worst excesses).

There are, of course, many examples of where relying on an individual auteur actually produces amazing results – whether that person is working totally on their own or simply serving as the chief/main songwriter for a band – but it really comes down to a question of whether they have not just the creative vision but also the drive and talent to bring it to fruition.

And, make no mistake about it, Cameron Boesch (aka Light Dweller) has all of these things in abundance, as his latest – and greatest – album demonstrates.

SHADES OF BLACK: HIEROPHANT, LIMINAL SHROUD, ARALLU, VERBERIS, WRANG, HADIQAT

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK 6 Responses »

Jun 192022

After a lapse last week this column re-takes its usual place on the weekly calendar to blacken the sabbath. I’ll quickly confess that I bit off more than I can chew in the writing, and more than most of you will have time to hear in the listening: I’ve picked two complete albums and mixed them together with four new singles. Despite the challenges to myself and to you, I felt so strongly about all these choices that I couldn’t resist.

As is often the case, I haven’t lived with either of the albums long enough to do more than provide scattered notes about them. That’s the consequence of needing to write about something new every day. Settling in gives way to scurrying. But you’ll have a better chance to settle in with these releases, and I hope you will. All the singles sound fantastic too.

HIEROPHANT (Italy)

Death Siege is the fifth full-length from this talented band, who are charging toward us after a six-year interval following the last album. The new one is 40 minutes long, and the cover art by Abomination Hammer alone would make most people want to find out what’s going on in the music. My friend Andy‘s Synn Report about the band’s discography back in 2016 would provide more reasons.

What Hierophant say about the music is this: “”With Death Siege, we crossed the gateway to the abyss. Nihilism will overcome, when the sky will burn in fire. Death, Chaos, Annihilation.” Continue reading »

LAST WEEK… TODAY!

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jun 162022

(Here’s three albums released last week that Andy Synn thinks you need to hear)

As you may have noticed, we do a fair bit of “retroactive reviewing” here at NCS, mostly because… well, we only write about things that we like and sometimes it takes a while to work out how much we like something and how to express that.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still cool to be able to offer advance reviews of albums we think you’re going to love (both the new Exocrine and White Ward albums, for example, aren’t out until Friday but have already received glowing write-ups), but when we find something we really like and want to talk about it doesn’t really matter if it’s been out for a while – after all, it’ll be new to someone!

So here’s a triple-header of short-but-sweet reviews for three album released last Friday – some epic Doom from Monasterium, some crusty Death Metal from Neolithic, and some scorching Black Metal from Umbra Conscientia – that definitely deserve some extra love.

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