CONAN: “EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY”

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Aug 292022
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Britain’s Conan, released earlier this month by Napalm Records.)

Conan the Barbarian from Cimmeria is one of my favorite fictional characters, so a band named after him did not sit well, nor would I want a band called Bruce Banner or Frankenstein’s Monster sitting in my iPod. This set my mind against this British band when I checked out their first album. It felt like burly but otherwise nondescript sludge that did not impress me. Now, four albums worth of time has passed and I have put that behind me and was ready to listen to their newest album objectively.

It carries a great deal of thundering thump that resonates with more sonic heaviness than their first album. The vocals are howled with more conviction. Often labelled as doom, rather than a depressed plod, they lunge into an aggressive tempo for “Levitation Hoax” , and have a rawer, more sludged-out apocalyptic darkness to their sound. They even delve into more traditional, almost modern metal, grooves on songs like “Ritual of Anonymity” to create a flowing pulse of menace. “Equilibrium of Mankind” has a heavier weight to its throb. The tempo is less aggressive than the previous song. Continue reading »

REVOCATION – NETHERHEAVEN

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Aug 292022
 

(Andy Synn gets to grips with the new album from Revocation, due out 09 September on Metal Blade)

It’s always seemed odd to me that some people seem to equate “being a fan” of a band with “never, ever criticising or questioning what they do”.

Maybe it’s because they’ve invested so much of their identity into their fandom (which is never healthy), or maybe it’s because that’s just what they’ve been told by “the internet” and don’t want to rock the boat, but some folks act as though even entertaining the mildest of criticisms about a band is tantamount to a full-blown betrayal.

That’s obviously not the case, of course, and I’d argue that it’s not at all helpful for a band’s fans to just blindly praise them, since honest feedback from their audience potentially provides one of the best ways for an artist to learn and improve (but that’s an issue for a whole other article).

Case in point, while I think most would agree that Revocation have at least two top-tier classics under their belt(s) – namely 2011’s tech-tacular Chaos of Forms and 2014’s bombastically burly Deathless – it’s worth acknowledging that not every one of their seven (soon to be eight) albums hits quite the same heights (the self-titled in particular is a real clunker), and the band definitely aren’t perfect (nor do I think they’d claim to be).

But if all that has you worried about what I’m going to tell you about their newest album… don’t be, because this preamble has actually just been a clever bait-and-switch, since Netherheaven is easily on par with the band’s very best, and might even be the new standard by which all their work will be judged going forwards.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ENSLAVED, THE LOOM OF TIME, PANYCHIDA, ASGRAUW, CAÏNAN DAWN, IMPLORE, TRUP

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Aug 282022
 

I had a lot of uninterrupted listening time over the last couple of days. For this column, that proved to be both a blessing and a curse — a blessing because it enabled me to wade through a broad swath of new music, a curse because what I found that I wanted to recommend after a lot of winnowing was still A LOT. So, today’s collection may test your endurance.

Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally), there’s a lot of sheer dazzling madness in this collection. I tried to interweave some less insane but still gripping experiences, but it’s nevertheless likely that if you do make your way through everything here, your head will be spinning for a long time after. Today’s music also demonstrates why I called this column “Shades” of black, because there’s not much black metal orthodoxy here.

ENSLAVED (Norway)

I was dubious about the idea of starting the column with a new Enslaved song, because they’re rightfully famous and don’t need any help from us, and because I’ve not fallen in love with their more recent releases to the extent I did with earlier ones. But those doubts were in place before I listened to this new single. After hearing it I thought, how can I NOT begin with it? Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: MALAURIU — “DE NATURA OBSCRURITATIS”

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Aug 242022
 

The Sicilian band Malauriu have been a prolific source of black metal and dark experimental sounds for almost a decade. As detailed in an interview of mainman Schizoid published here at the beginning of 2022, Malauriu have tended to release their music mainly through EPs and splits. In March of this year they departed from the tradition by releasing their second (self-titled) full-length, but they now return to shorter works with a new EP named De Natura Obscuritatis that’s set for release on September 15th by the Italian label Black Mass Prayers.

To help spread the word about this new EP, we have already premiered a profoundly disturbing yet also frighteningly spellbinding song from it named “The Locust“, and today we reveal the whole soul-staggering work. Continue reading »

DOWNFALL OF MANKIND: “VILE BIRTH”

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Aug 242022
 

(DGR catches up with another release from last spring, and this time it’s a new album by the Portuguese maulers in Downfall of Mankind that was released by Lacerated Enemy Records in April.)

Blame it on the combo of Hurakan and Sensory Amusia both releasing on Lacerated Enemy, blame it on the absolute need for something that doesn’t really challenge the listening tastes, blame it on work. Whatever the reason is, I’ve found that lately the shorts/muscle-shirts scene of the prefix-core genre has been incredibly kind to me.

Granted, there are a few of us at NCS who are pre-disposed to having a taste for this sort of stuff, and while we happily highlight some of the more artistically challenging bands out there and our premieres can cover enough sub-genres of the metal world so as to orbit the planet seven or eight times, there’s a case to be made for a well-followed blueprint. That, and having a triplicate of beatings from that scene and also knocking another off the April releases that found its way into the personal review archive. We all have our reasons.

You can guess pretty easily what sort of circles Portugal’s Downfall Of Mankind run in just by glancing at their logo, but also from the rotating list of guests that join this particular batch of bruisers on their latest release Vile Birth. This is an album where the only challenger in terms of loud breakdowns would be a recording of the side of a highway. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: EMASCULATOR — “DEPRAVED DISFIGUREMENT”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Aug 232022
 

(It appears that DGR has become captivated by the recently released debut demo from the brutal death metal band Emasculator, and he explains why in this review, hopefully with gonads still intact.)

Let’s try something shorter for a little bit, huh? Especially since we seem to have been caught in a vortex of hour-plus releases recently.

The world of brutal death metal remains as lively as ever, with musicians willing to forever add to the endlessly squelching pile of musical gore that is the endless barrage of drumming, literal guitar shredding, car-engine bass tone, and earth-rumbling vocals that the genre entails. Emasculator represent a recent addition to the pile, comprising musicians based out of the US and Czech Republic, issuing forth their first demo Depraved Disfigurement at the beginning of August. Continue reading »

AB·EST – MOLTEN HUSK

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 232022
 

(Andy Synn has words to share about the new album from Germany’s Ab·est, out now on Monument of Collapse Records)

Here’s a little fact that “they” don’t want you to know… all the very best Sludge/Post-Metal bands (a distinction which, at the apex of both sub-genres, largely dissolves into nothing) are Hardcore bands at their core root.

That’s right, in a scene awash with pretentious Post-Rock pretenders (most of whom seem to think that buying a distortion pedal and learning a few dischords makes them “the future of Metal”) it’s at the uglier, uncompromising end of the spectrum where you’ll mostly find the real gems… and Ab·est are more uncompromising than most.

So strap yourselves in, my friends, this is not going to be an easy ride.

Continue reading »

BLACKBRAID – BLACKBRAID I

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Aug 222022
 

(The highly-anticipated debut album from Native American Black Metal artist Blackbraid is set for release this Friday, and our very own Andy Synn has some deep thoughts to share about it)

Hype… whether it’s the organic, grass-roots, free-range variety, or the artificial, astro-turfed, paid-for by your parents, kind… is a major part of today’s media landscape, whether we like it or not.

It’s not always a bad thing, by any means, but it sometimes becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy where, once a narrative about a band is established by an author or an outlet (or, increasingly, someone with sufficient twitter influence), that becomes the only story that gets any traction.

Case in point, Blackbraid I is not – as some have claimed, and even more have amplified – the “best Black Metal album of the year”, but it is a very good, occasionally unabashedly great, example of how Black Metal can serve as the perfect medium for anyone with a strong enough vision to express themselves.

Continue reading »

ABSTRACTED: “ATMA CONFLUX”

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Aug 222022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of the new album by the Brazilian band Abstracted, which was released by M-Theory Audio this past April.)

It’s hard to remember how I came across Brazil’s Abstracted and their 2022 release Atma Conflux. The best guess would likely be the eye-catching cover art with its hues of blue and green. Cover art has often served as an impetus to looking into a band we probably wouldn’t have crossed paths with, though we are also the sorts who constantly dig around the underground for new music. I’ve dived head-first into releases for dumber reasons, and my review history here is a record of my atrocities.

Atma Conflux is an interesting prospect for Abstracted. Officially, it’s their first full-length but also feels like a new debut overall. Prior to the April release of this album, the band had put out a debut EP called Ophidian in 2015 and since then, a small sprinkling of singles – all of which have found their way onto the album.

With such a time-gap between releases you get the sense that this is a group who’ve spent a long time in the musical forge, working on their songs and playing with what direction they wanted to pursue musically. You also get this idea when you look at Atma Conflux‘s run time, divided up between seven songs and clocking in at nearly an hour and five minutes. If nothing else on Abstracted‘s first full length, they are clearly ambitious as hell. Continue reading »

DUSK: “THE RELIC”

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Aug 222022
 

Amidst a time when industrial black metal regains considerable ground in the urban surroundings of COVID isolation, Costa Rica’s DUSK attempt to offer a peculiar recipe of their long-lost youth. An in-depth review by Axel Stormbreaker.

I always enjoy a good scavenger hunt. It’s tricky, spicy and refreshing in ways that contradict the mundanity of a busy city life. Same reason why I tend to avoid people who don’t like, or even appreciate, the first three chapters of the Indiana Jones film series. They lead lives of stolid mediocrity, yet shall revolt hastily when real change is imminent. They desire excitement, yet feel complacent in the safety of the norm. They don’t quite get it’s not the destination, but the journey itself, that broadens one’s horizon. Especially since everything could become the same bland fare, when provided to one a bit too freely.

All in all, Costa Rica’s Dusk do meet the said criteria of an exciting discovery waiting to be made. Especially when the vast majority of listeners either prefer to stick to the classics, or follow the bands others seem to enjoy. Certain metal labels also do pay attention to trends, or even a band’s country of origin, as their investment requires some ground fertile enough to cultivate a growing fanbase. Add to that how Costa Rica is known to mainstream metal for… basically nothing, and you can’t help but appreciate a (hypothetical) dose of well-concealed sarcasm. Continue reading »

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