THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 092022
 

(Andy Synn offers up four more recommendations of albums you may have overlooked last month)

Boy howdy, did we ever miss a lot of stuff last month.

But, then, you could say that about every month really, as I’ve come to accept (after many, many years in denial) that it’s impossible for us (that’s the royal “us”) to catch and cover everything that’s released.

Accepting this fact, however, has definitely helped me to relax a little bit, as while I still feel a smidgen of guilt that I’m/we’re not covering more bands (or, at least, more underground bands, because, let’s face it, the big dogs don’t need our help or attention quite so much) I’m more at ease with the fact that whoever we do end up writing about will definitely/maybe/probably/hopefully benefit from it.

And, if worst comes to worst, there’s always my annual series of year-end round-ups to help bring attention to some of the more unsung artists and albums.

Speaking of… here are four albums from May that you might just have overlooked (but really shouldn’t).

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EGGS OF GOMORRH — “WOMBSPREADER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 082022
 

The new album by Eggs of Gomorrh is lyrically devoted to a general disgust for humanity (or at least the Christ-worshiping segments of it) and to blasphemous occult visions of sadistic punishment and merciless retribution — scenes of mutilation, degradation, inhuman monstrosity, ruinous violence, and sexual perversion, all of it frothing in oceans of blood and semen. They revel in the foul riot of their words, and the music within Wombspreader is a fucking riot too, carrying the band to new heights of terrorizing excess.

But this should come as no surprise. Over the course of their 2016 debut album (Rot Prophet), a 2019 EP (Outpregnate), and a 2019 split with the Turkish blasphemers Sarinvomit (Encomium of Depraved Instincts), these Swiss fiends have already established a reputation for delivering astonishingly savage forms of jet-speed sonic annihilation with impressive technical skill — and slipping in some grooves and eerie melody in the midst of their slaughtering tirades.

As you’ll discover from our premiere of their forthcoming second album on the Godz Ov War label, all these qualities are again explosively displayed Continue reading »

EXOCRINE: “THE HYBRID SUNS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 082022
 

(On June 17th Unique Leader Records will unleash a new album by the French technical death metal band Exocrine, and in advance of that we present DGR‘s extensive review.)

French tech-death group Exocrine‘s 2020 release Maelstrom landed pretty hard with me here at the site. Up to that point the group’s albums had always been a particular highlight of the given year of their release but Maelstrom really felt like the stars aligning for them. Their combination of head-spinning songwriting and sheer musical heft mixed well with the group’s experimentation throughout the album with varying synth lines, clean backing vocals, occasional brass and trumpet section solos for scene-setting, and atmospheric works, which oftentimes was more excessive than necessary.

It all worked for Maelstrom though, and made that album into an adventure, more than just the latest headspinner from a group known for making headspinners. Once you reached “Wall Of Water” on that album, you’d essentially reached the top of the roller-coaster and were now ready to accelerate downhill into whatever Exocrine had in store for you. That’s why the announcement of the group’s newest album, The Hybrid Suns – nearly two years later – was an exciting one. Continue reading »

ØLGOD: “ØLGOD”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 072022
 

(Our riff-loving dope/doom maven fetusghost has returned to NCS with the following lively review of a new album by Germany’s Ølgod, which was released in late May.)

Kiel, Germany puts THC in the water. What other explanation could there be for such great dope-loving doom calling the city home? Ok, fine, maybe a sample size of two is too small, but Earthbong (more on them in a moment) and Ølgod traffic in the sort of resinous riffage that stoners love, and aside from unchill war-themed black metal from Endstille, I can’t name any other bands from Kiel. So it’s decided! “Kiel: Get High-drated” will be the new city motto. That one is on the house, City Council.

Ølgod‘s sound is appropriately rock ‘n’ roll, loud and loose, like a practice-space jam with a bit more post-production polish. If you love loud, slow riffs and plodding, heavy drums, and German dudes yelling at you, you’ll have a fine time here. This is where the underground thrives. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABOVE & BELOW — “SUFFER DECAY ALONE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 072022
 

Some dreams take a long time gestating before they come screaming into the world. Many others die in the womb. Suffer Decay Alone is a dream realized, but it did take a long time for that to happen.

We’ve written often over the years about the Ohio band Plaguewielder, whose fantastic latest album Covenant Death we had the privilege of premiering here last year. What we didn’t know until more recently was that Plaguewielder‘s primary member Bryce Seditz has harbored a desire to make industrial music ever since the first time he listened to NIN‘s 1994 album The Downward Spiral. It took the covid quarantine to begin making that dream a reality.

Above & Below is the name Seditz chose for this plague-spawned project, and Suffer Decay Alone is the title he gave to its first fruits, an album that will be released on June 10th by Jeff Wilson‘s Disorder Recordings. The title has meaning, a sign of the times in which the music was made. It reflects some of the overarching moods of the music as well, but anyone familiar with Seditz‘s work in Plaguewielder could have already guessed that despite a change in genre-style this would be confrontational music with a raw and intense core — and so it is.

By the same token, anyone familiar with Covenant Death might also guess (correctly) that although Suffer Decay Alone is frequently dark as midnight, it isn’t a monotone, either emotionally or in its sonic textures. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, MAY 2022

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jun 072022
 


Nechochwen

(With another month now in the history books, we welcome back Gonzo, who again has recommendations for you of wide-ranging albums released in the preceding month – somewhat delayed only because our editor completely lost track of time while at Maryland Deathfest.)

When doing the legwork that goes into these monthly columns, there are some months when I have to reach deep into the metal underbelly to extract whatever hidden gems I stumble across, and there are others where the onslaught of new releases just looks downright overwhelming and perhaps menacing.

May turned out to be the latter. I actually had to trim this one down from what I had originally planned out, if for no other reason than the fact that I’m disappearing into the mountains for most of the weekend without many plans to be in front of a computer. Fuck that nonsense, I say. I get enough of that during my 9-5 job, and any excuse to hit the road for an escape is a good one.

Read on and prepare to abuse your eardrums with the best of what I stumbled into through May. Continue reading »

TERMINAL NATION/KRUELTY – THE RUINATION OF IMPERIALISM

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 062022
 

(Andy Synn drops some heavy thoughts about the heavy new split EP from Terminal Nation and Kruelty)

Let me tell you something, I have always wanted to do a split with another band. I’ve just never been able to get the timing right or find the right collaborators.

And “collaborators” is certainly the key word here, because the very best of these sorts of releases (and some are definitely better than others) have a real collaborative spirit to them – whether that’s in the form of bands covering each others’ songs, guesting on each others’ tracks, or simply inspiring each other to be better.

Case in point, the new split from the USA’s Terminal Nation and Japan’s Kruelty certainly showcases both bands at their very best, offering up five phenomenally heavy tracks of caustic, crushing and cathartic “Hardcore-influenced Death Metal” (or “Death Metal-influenced Hardcore”… the difference is largely academic) which are practically guaranteed to inspire both neck-wrecking bouts of headbanging and some serious civil unrest.

Continue reading »

SOREPTION: “JORD”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 062022
 

 

(We present DGR‘s review of Jord, the new album by the Swedish death metal band Soreption that’s due out on June 10th via Unique Leader.)

If current trends hold true then in about eight years from now Soreption will be releasing a new album – their second removed from their upcoming, for six total full lengths – and there will be one member left in that band and that person will be me.

It’s strange, considering how I’m not currently a member of the group nor do I – competently – play any instrument, but there has to be some strange magic happening, that for the last few releases Soreption have somehow slimmed down their lineup every time and yet every four years have managed to put out an album. Not only that, but an album of eight songs and about thirty to thirty-five minutes worth of music. Every time.

Clearly, the machine-like nature of the band’s music extends beyond just the Swedes’ songwriting ability and has become part of the overall band operating procedure. That’s how we land at an album like Soreption‘s upcoming Jord, a release that maintains the band’s core as a three-piece and pulls out all the stops in regards to guitarist appearances for one of the most clock-work mechanical riff avalanche style Soreption albums out there. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BURIED REALM — “BURIED REALM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 022022
 

 

Colorado-based Buried Realm has returned to the fray with a self-titled third album that’s just as much of an eye-popping attack as the Pär Olofsson artwork that blazes off its cover. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise for those who experienced the band’s startling debut album The Ichor Carcinoma (2017) or the very impressive sophomore full-length Embodiment of the Divine (2020), but even if you know those records, this one is still a spectacularly head-spinning and electrifying jolt to the system.

Once again, the band’s alter ego Josh Dummer has enlisted an impressive array of iconic names as guests to add their own fireworks to a show that’s already loaded with fireworks. Those names by themselves (which we’ll come to eventually) would be sufficient enticement for any newcomers to give Buried Realm a chance, but they really are just bit players (albeit famous ones). It’s Dummer‘s songwriting and performances that carry the main weight here, and he carries it easily — as you’ll discover through our premiere stream of the entire action-packed record on the eve of its release. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries