AMON AMARTH: “THE GREAT HEATHEN ARMY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 092022
 

(DGR has finally gotten around to reviewing the latest album by Amon Amarth, which was released last Friday by Metal Blade Records.)

While digging around in old files and folders I came across the old draft of my review for Amon Amarth‘s Berzerker, wherein the opening line – since scratched – was ‘fuck it, let’s do this’.

Even then, and especially around the release of Amon Amarth‘s Jomsviking album, it had become clear that the band that I’ve long referred to as one of a small handful of fantastic shuffle bands in the world were getting to be huge and had started to ascend in their career to the point of becoming more spectacle than music.

That’s fine but it just represents a shift in priority for seeing them live, much in the same way one might see Kiss, Iron Maiden, Gwar, or Tool. Yeah, you get a bonus and it feels great actually knowing the music, but you really don’t need to any more, because the band have become a spectacle to witness. The recent release of Amon Amarth‘s 12th album The Great Heathen Army hammers this fact home. Instead of Amon Amarth being the super-heavy melodeath-skirting Viking pillagers, they’ve become a spectacle themselves. Fewer runes and gravesites and a whole lot more medieval times.

However, since I’ve been the one to write about Amon Amarth releases here for a while now – though I skipped Jomsviking – l felt weirdly drawn to The Great Heathen Army. The traveling show that is Amon Amarth doesn’t really need our corner of the internet much these days, but there’s some amusing stuff happening within this album, so as the old draft for Berzerker said ages ago,

Fuck it, let’s do this. Continue reading »

SVART CROWN: “LES TERRES BRÛLÉES”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 082022
 

(NCS writer DGR has been on a roll, clearing out a backlog of reviews, and our plan is to publish them on a daily basis this week. We begin with his thoughts about the final recording from the French band Svart Crown, which was released in June by Nova Lux Production and Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions.)

In all honesty the events that took place after the release of Svart Crown‘s newest EP Les terres brûlées kind of took us aback when it came to writing about it. Granted, we were already late on reviewing it because it arrived in the post-MDF/pre-NWTF hangover period, but who would’ve guessed that in the time since its release the group would hang it up two weeks later? Yet here we are, now almost two months since its release, and the world is less one Svart Crown project.

Thus, writing about Les terres brûlées now is a little strange because it feels partially like we’re going to be praising the band for recognizing that it was time to call it quits and partially mourning the potential that Les terres brûlées promised, since the four songs and cover track here are some of the more ferocious material within the Svart Crown playbook.

Wolves Among The Ashes may have been divisive among the writers here (I enjoyed it, Andy ranked it as ‘disappointing’), but it’s hard to imagine anyone making it through even just the first song of this final EP without becoming convinced that Svart Crown sound absolutely mean this time around. Continue reading »

WEREGOAT: A DUAL REVIEW (“THE DEVIL’S LUST” AND “ORGIASTIC RAPE OF RESURRECTED REMAINS”)

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 052022
 

(Hope Gould prepared the following lusty review of two forthcoming releases that feature the deviant talents of Oregon’s Weregoat, a new full-length and a split with Eggs of Gomorrh.)

There’s a lot of merit in making love: Building the anticipation, savoring the smallest sensations, relishing in the way your partner’s body responds to your touch as the mutual hunger grows. Perhaps taking the time to create some ambience for the occasion, setting the stage for a beautiful exchange of energy and intimacy.

On the other hand, there’s a helluvalot of merit in hard ‘n’ fast fuckin’. With a career centered on unbridled, animalistic depravity, Weregoat know this all too well. Their forthcoming mini-album, coming in just shy of 23 minutes, packs all the punch they need to prove size may not always matter, especially when they know exactly how to use it. The Devil’s Lust, to be released on August 12th, is a crash course in bestial passion. Like a rendezvous with an old lover, fans will find a sick familiarity in revisiting the band’s reliable tricks and a jolting pleasure in their seasoned execution. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: BASTIONS / GRAVE LINES / IMPERIUM

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 042022
 

(Andy Synn presents three more fine examples of bombastic British belligerence)

Like I said yesterday… I’m more than a little swamped – both mentally and physically – right now, so I’m not going to waste what little time I have on a long preamble.

Instead I’m just going to urge you all to give each of these three albums – two from last month and one scheduled for release at the beginning of September – a shot. You might just discover something you like!

Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: BLEEDING THROUGH — “RAGE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 042022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of a new EP by Orange County’s Bleeding Through, their first new music in four years and out now on Sharptone Records.)

The fact that this site’s roots grew out of an in-joke born from early-aughts metalcore is always an amusing one, especially given the many pathways into things way, way heavier that we’ve taken in the decade-plus since. Yet we – and especially yours truly – would be lying if we said we didn’t still have a soft spot for a lot of those bands. That was partially why we found ourselves so oddly interested in the resurgence of MTV2 Headbanger’s Ball-era dominating bands beginning a few years ago as a lot of them decided that would be the time within the nostalgia cycle to mark their returns.

A few of those releases were legitimately good – we’ll still go to bat for The Agony Scene’s Tormentor release – and the rest at the very least were solid returns to what you’d always expect for that style of band. Bleeding Through‘s 2018 album Love Will Kill All somewhat stradled the line between the two, wherein there were a handful of truly ferocious and jaw dropping songs but also many other that sounded like Bleeding Through getting used to being Bleeding Through again.

They played what they’ve always done, and weirdly enough it made Love Will Kill All play out like an unintentional career retrospective…run backwards. It started out with their blisteringly fast and heavily chugged-out death metal leanings that colored their later releases and slowly became the more brawny and breakdown-filled style that made them a hallmark of the early 2000s. It was a weird dynamic for sure, but also one that made it perplexing to know what Bleeding Through‘s gameplan was for the future. Continue reading »

TEETHGRINDER: “DYSTOPIA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 032022
 

(The Dutch band Teethgrinder released a new album through Lifeforce Records in the latter part of July, and we follow that today with DGR‘s review of this new record.)

When it comes to the type of music Teethgrinder make there isn’t really a concept of ‘doubling down’ on anything. For three albums – including this newest release – and an introductory EP, Teethgrinder have already existed at maximum volume and intensity. There’s no doubling of anything left here. Every song is an explosion from the start. and a lot of times they sound like they’re on the edge of a frenetic internal collapse.

Both Misanthropy and Nihilism were already excellent examples of the sort of high-volume attack available to the band, and if you’ve been following NCS for a while you’ll know that we’ve been banging the drum about both for a while. This is probably why it actually came as a surprise to discover that the gap between Nihilism and the group’s newest album Dystopia is almost five and a half years; it really doesn’t seem like the band have ever stopped.

Nihilism had such a long-burning flame here that it only just now seems like it has embered out a bit, and so Dystopia arrives at a perfect time. Yet it’s in a weird position, since we now have to ask if ‘if there’s nothing for the band to keep hammering on, then what direction is Dystopia left to travel in?’ Continue reading »

WITCHERY: “NIGHTSIDE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 022022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the latest album by one of our site’s favorite bands, Sweden’s Witchery. It was released on July 22nd by Century Media.)

Witchery albums have a habit of sneaking up on us around here, which is strange given that they do have a collective among the staff that will go to bat for them to this day.

Granted, in the span of time since the site’s founding up until now there’ve only been three Witchery albums released, but they’ve existed as a steady undercurrent for the writers around here and have evolved in the background into a ‘house band’.

July 22nd gave us the fourth addition to the collective of Witchery albums that have been released since this site’s founding, with the recent unleashing of Nightside, closing up a near five-year gap between albums. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FERUM — “ASUNDER / ERODE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 022022
 

All fans of extreme metal know that Paolo Girardi is a painter who is capable of creating an extensive range of scenes and visions, albeit with a style that’s always immediately recognizable. What he has done for the cover of Ferum‘s debut album is a particularly ghastly and hideous visual nightmare. You can’t look away from it, though you might want to, and it’s hard to forget, try as you might. The question quickly presents itself: What will make your blood run more cold, that image or Ferum‘s music?

You’ll come to your own conclusion today, because we’re presenting a full stream of this debut album in advance of its August 19 release by Avantgarde Music / Unorthodox Emanations. The album’s name is Asunder / Erode. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 022022
 

(Andy Synn takes a look at four albums from last month you may have missed)

Due to stress and pressure from my work/life outside of the site (yes, it’s true, I do have a life beyond NCS) I’ve not been able to write as much as I wanted to in July.

Hell, to be quite honest with you I’ve been on the cusp of burnout for the last couple of months, so trying to collect my thoughts together into something resembling a cohesive article has been much more difficult than usual.

Music, however, remains both a passion and a panacea for the pain, and without it I think I’d be in a much worse place.

So let’s celebrate the healing power of music – and the fact that, hopefully, things look like they’re starting to settle down for me – with four albums which you may have overlooked last month.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LIMINAL SHROUD — “ALL VIRTUES ABLAZE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Aug 012022
 

 

Living in a dramatic natural setting can be a double-edged sword. Imagine a place bounded by the vast, untamed Pacific Ocean and the Salish Sea, and indeed by water all around, with a mountain range running through it, encompassed by dense, towering forests and sheltered by skies both daunting and glorious. In a state of despondency, such a place might seem like a calculated reminder of how small, insignificant, fleeting, and unattractive your own existence really is. On the other hand, a place like that can so powerfully overwhelm all ugliness as to provide inspiration and hope.

The place we happen to be talking about is Vancouver Island, officially a part of British Columbia in Canada, but really a kind of world all its own. The largest community on that enormous island is Victoria, and Victoria is home to the black metal band Liminal Shroud. It’s no wonder that their natural surroundings have an influence on their music, in ways both dark and blazing — a carefully chosen word, because their forthcoming second album, which you’re about to hear, is named All Virtues Ablaze. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries