AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CHTHONIC CULT — “BECOME SEEKERS FOR DEATH”

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Mar 252022
 

Seven years ago the Polish duo Chthonic Cult seemed to appear out of nowhere, as if charging forth from a hideous nether-dimension through an invisible door suddenly flung open. It was then that their debut album I Am the Scourge of Eternity scourged the metal underground without previous warning. But almost as suddenly, they seemed to vanish back through that terrible portal, falling silent for a long span of time.

And yet here they are again at last, with a ravenous and mind-ruining new album named Become Seekers For Death that reveals different strategies and is all the better for that. While their full-length debut consisted of four monstrous and monstrously long songs, the new one assaults the senses with 8 more compact tracks of head-spinning blackened death metal. These are almost relentlessly explosive and, to a degree not achieved on the debut, they’re rapidly addictive. Continue reading »

SUPPRESSION: “THE SORROW OF SOUL THROUGH FLESH”

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Mar 252022
 

 

(Next month Suppression will release their debut album via Unspeakable Axe Records (with vinyl coming later from Dark Descent), mixed and mastered by Colin Marston and adorned with artwork by Paolo Girardi, and today we present Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review.)

It’s hard to say what’s going on down in Chile, but there’s some killer metal emerging from there. Ripper seems to have been spearheading the movement in recent years with their brand of technical death-thrash, and now some of those members appear in Suppression, whose debut full-length, The Sorrow of Soul through Flesh, drops on April 25th courtesy of Unspeakable Axe Records.

While Ripper marries old school Kreator vibes with technical brutality in the vein of Atheist and Sadus, Suppression feels like a love letter to old school Floridian death metal. However, they sidestep many of the obvious choices of influence in favor of other no-less-deserving bands. Continue reading »

BÂ’A – EGRÉGORE

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Mar 242022
 

(Andy Synn reflects upon good and evil while listening to the new album from French extremists Bâ’a)

We are, or so it appears, in the middle of yet another Black Metal boom period.

Last week alone saw the release of new albums from (amongst others) Black Fucking Cancer, Dark Funeral, and Slægt, this week we’ve got new stuff from Falls of Rauros, Kanonenfieber, and Kvaen (which I’ve already written about here) and just within the next month we’ve also got new albums from Vimur, Vanum, Feral Light, Suntold and more all on the way.

Of course, with such a blackened bonanza of killer concoctions coming out it would be easy for some of the less well-known, less (in)famous, artists to be overlooked, which is why today I’ve chosen to turn my attention towards Egrégore, the upcoming second album (set for release this Friday) from French firebrands Bâ’a. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOISE AHOLIC — “NARCISSISTVÄRLD”

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Mar 242022
 

Man, have we got a wild and explosive experience lined up for you! And for that we give thanks to the veteran gang of Finnish crust-punk marauders who’ve joined forces behind the name Noise Aholic.

This project is the brain-child of Pedersöre crust-punk Owe Inborr, known for his work with Wolfthrone Studios, Dispyt, and Ondfödt. To help realize his savage visions on the new EP Narcissistvärld which we’re now premiering, he brought together a formidable group of guests who seem to have fully united behind those visions. They include:

Mathias Lillmåns (Finntroll, Dispyt, …and Oceans), KjellHell (Bob Malmström, Jarruketju), Dario Kåll and La55e Dog (Dogshit Boys, Trashcan Dance) on guest vocals; Jacob Björnfot (Kvaen), Otto Kaalikoski (Bob Malmström, S.A.A.B.) and Marco Lindholm (Marco Luponero and The Loud Ones) on lead guitars; Matias Löfman (Bob Malmström, Varoshan, S.A.A.B.) on bass, and the whole The Dogshit Boys and Bob Malmström on gang vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI — “INMORTUOS SUM”

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Mar 232022
 

 

“Sumptuous” might not be the first word that springs to mind in considering a new album by a band who proudly embrace baleful black metal traditions from the mid-’90s, but it actually suits the forthcoming third full-length by Germany’s Mortuus Infradaemoni.

For one thing, the band have loaded the new album Inmortuos Sum with more than an hour’s worth of music, which perhaps should be expected given that a long 13 years separated this new one from the band’s last full-length, Imis Avernis. But it is lavish in other ways, beyond its significant length, as you’ll discover through our complete premiere of the record today. Continue reading »

KVAEN – THE GREAT BELOW

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 232022
 

(Andy Synn checks out the new album from Kvaen, set for release Friday, to see if the band’s fire still burns as brightly)

I’d hazard a guess that most – if not all – bands, when they’re first starting out, do so with the dream that their first album is going to be the sort of massive breakthrough that instantly puts them on the map and establishes them as a force to be reckoned with.

What a lot of them probably don’t consider, however, is that this sort of instant, straight-out-of-the-blocks success can be both a double-edged sword and an albatross around your neck.

After all, I’m sure we can all name a number of bands whose debut immediately got them over with the fans but who, for whatever reason, never quite managed to achieve that same level of impact or intensity again.

Case in point, Kvaen‘s debut album, The Funeral Pyre, was unquestionably one of the best albums of 2020, one which seemed to come out of nowhere and immediately establish the band (in reality the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Jakob Björnfot) as a force to be reckoned with.

Two years have passed since then, however, and the impending release of the project’s second album, The Great Below, now has two major questions hanging over it… can lightning strike in the same place twice?

And, if so, can Kvaen capture it in a bottle once again?

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DESOLATE SHRINE — “FIRES OF THE DYING WORLD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 222022
 

 

In 2017 our man Andy Synn reviewed Desolate Shrine‘s Deliverance From the Godless Void (along with the band’s preceding three albums), calling that fourth full-length in the group’s discography “another triumph of will and wickedness, and well worth getting hold of if you’ve ever had an urge for a truly masochistic metallic experience.”

With “a production that may be more powerful than ever”, Andy wrote, “the band are still as foul and filthy at heart as they have always been, at times bringing to bear a crippling sense of dissonance and discordance,” meshing together “neck-wrecking grooves”, “gnarly, guttural vocals,” “bulldozing riffs,” “strangling bass lines,” and “foul, demonic atmospherics” to produce a truly electrifying experience.

After a 4 1/2 year wait this devastatingly talented Finnish trio now return with their new fifth album, Fires of the Dying World, which Dark Descent Records will release on March 25th. The wait is now only days away from ending, but today you’ll get to hear the album without any further delay, as we present a full stream below. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH – HELPLESS / SIDIOUS / TUSKAR

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Mar 212022
 

(Andy Synn brings us three more examples of British brilliance)

It feels like absolutely ages since I’ve written one of these columns, but – after double-checking – it turns out I actually did do one just last month.

For some reason my sense of time has been all out of whack this year, to the point where the days either feel like they’re rushing by (meaning I simply don’t have time to write about all the things I want to) or else have been slowed to a mind-numbing crawl (meaning the wait for new releases seems interminable).

My terrible time-keeping, therefore, is ultimately what’s to blame for this particular edition of “The Best of British” covering such a wide spread, as one of the album’s featured here has been out for almost a full month, the other was released a few weeks ago, and the third isn’t out until Friday, making for a mixed-bag of older, newer, and unreleased records for you to wrap your ears around.

Thankfully one thing that isn’t mixed is the quality, as each of these albums represents the very best work yet by each of the three bands in question. So let’s start the show, shall we?

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NECROMANTE — “XI”

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Mar 212022
 

 

Most of our parents tried to educate us about the importance of first impressions, even the ones who didn’t seem to be very good about setting a useful example. Many of us didn’t take the lesson seriously, or tried and failed often enough that we stopped caring. Necromante, however, learned the lesson well.

The first track on their new album XI, “The Equinox of New Aeon“, seizes attention with a haunting melody of piano and strings and two speakers (one of them gloomily beseeching and one of them demonstrably demonic) fighting to be heard. Even people who don’t speak the language can make out the name “Lucifer”.

But this is only the first piece of their first impression, and they answer their own call with the rest of it when “Lucifer Rising” floods the senses with diabolical riffing that blares, jolts, skitters, and darts, backed by drums that pummel and clatter, overlaid with scorching goblin snarls. The aroma of sulphur is strong, the black magic is vivid, and Lucifer does indeed rise as the music itself rises in a vision of infernal grandeur. Continue reading »

GGGOLDDD: “THIS SHAME SHOULD NOT BE MINE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Mar 212022
 

(Our friend Justin Collins rejoins us with the following review of GGGOLDDD‘s new album, which is due for release on April 1st via Toronto-based Artoffact Records.)

The time many of us have spent in isolation during the pandemic has, not surprisingly, had a wide range of psychological effects. I’m kind of a recluse to begin with, so I enjoyed the chance to work from home and more or less be left alone. The downside to that is that whatever emotional weight we might have been carrying around can certainly demand attention, louder than before. The distractions are fewer, allowing more space for any obsessions, regrets, and fears that might have otherwise remained drowned out by the larger world.

Milena Eva, singer of the band GGGOLDDD (formerly known as GOLD–we’re all at the mercy of Googlability at this point), found that she needed an outlet for some of those dark thoughts. She was raped at age 19, and she took the opportunity to try to process that pain in a piece commissioned for the online edition of Roadburn 2021.

I’ve been a long-time fan of this band, and the Roadburn performance–what would become the album This Shame Should Not Be Mine–was revelatory. Not only had the band achieved new artistic heights, but they’d also created a piece that had specific resonance for me. I was sexually assaulted nearly 30 years ago, and perhaps like Eva, I struggled for many years for what to do with that information. I didn’t even manage to tell anyone until 25 years after the fact. Continue reading »

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