CYNIC: “ASCENSION CODES”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Dec 072021
 

 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Cynic, which is out now on Season of Mist.)

It was surprising to find Paul Masvidal carrying on the torch of Cynic after the death of both Sean Malone and Sean Reinert. It seems this is how he is coming to terms with it.

The tone of this album suggests he took some DMT and used aliens as his support group for this sonic therapy. Normally lineup changes of this magnitude give me pause when going into an album but a few things regarding this one gave me more reassurance, such as the fact that drummer Matt Lynch who plays on this album was recruited by Masvidal and Malone, before Malone’s death. Rather than replace Malone, the bass lines are played on a bass synth, since his style of playing was untouchable. This picks up closer to where they left off with Traced in Air as it is a return to the heavier sounds that preceded the elf-like prog of Kindly Bent to Free Us. Continue reading »

A DIRTY HALF DOZEN: CHOIR / GENOCIDE PACT / KAVRILA / KHNVM / PLAAGDRAGER / SHEDFROMTHEBODY

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Dec 062021
 

(Andy Synn is a busy man but he still found time to craft some short reviews and recommendations)

It won’t be long now until I’m fully immersed in “List Season”.

As a matter of fact, I plan to have my “Top Ten EPs” article published by Friday as a little taster of what sort of thing to expect throughout the whole of next week.

Until then, however, I’ve got just enough time to sneak in a few short, succinct reviews (we’re talking 100-200 words max.) about a few more albums that I really think more of our readers need to know about.

So let’s get to it, shall we?
Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: COFFIN DUST, EREB ALTOR, ASENATH BLAKE, REEK, SUBSERVIENTDOMINANCE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Dec 042021
 

 

I’m going to dispense with an elaborate introduction to this Saturday’s round-up of new and newly discovered songs and videos. I’ll say only that it includes one complete album, one complete EP, and an assortment of tracks from forthcoming releases — and that the music bounces around quite a it, so don’t think you’ll be allowed to lock in to any one stylistic groove.

COFFIN DUST (U.S.)

Five years is a long time between releases, but save for a very short 2019 split, that’s how long it’s been since we’ve had something new from this enormously impressive Philadelphia band. But the ticking clock got re-set yesterday when Coffin Dust released a new album (their third), the name of which is Nightmare Vision. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 032021
 

(Andy Synn presents three albums from last month which he thinks you may have overlooked)

You know what times it is… well, what time it almost is… it’s almost time for my annual week-long round-up of the year in Metal.

But, before that, there’s still time for a few more reviews of things which you may have overlooked last month (and, don’t worry, I’ll also be doing some more of my “unsung heroes” posts later this month in order to catch you up on some of those albums you may have missed earlier in the year too).

Until then, however, enjoy these three succulent morsels of Progressive Death Metal.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HUSQWARNAH — “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 022021
 

This is the time of year when ardent fans of metal, or at least the ones who enjoy bestowing accolades via year-end lists, are thinking hard about what they’ve been listening to over the last 11+ months. As all such list-makers know, it’s a time of year when December releases tend to get overlooked, even though the release schedule does tend to slow down some as we barrel ahead toward December 31st.

We’re probably as guilty of this as anyone else, but we’re still making an effort to keep at least one of our eyes focused on the horizons ahead, and the truth is that some very good records are still set for release this month, and Husqwarnah‘s debut album Front Toward Enemy is one of them. It’s so good that devoted fans of death metal might want to check it out before putting the finishing touches on their year-end lists.

And although we’re still a day away from the album’s official release, you can check it out right now, because we’re now hosting the premiere of Front Toward Enemy in its entirety. Continue reading »

MUSTAFA GÜRCALIOĞLU: A RETROSPECTIVE

 Album Reviews, Interviews  No Responses »
Dec 022021
 

(NCS contributor Nathan Ferreira prepared the following exhaustive retrospective concerning the work of Turkish musician Mustafa Gürcalioğlu (a current or former member of such bands as Decaying Purity, Burial Invocation, Engulfed, Diabolizer, and Hyperdontia), which includes extensive discussions with the artist.)

I’m back with another way-too-ambitious deep-dive project, inspired by my excursions into The Ruins of Beverast’s body of work earlier this year. I was hoping to get this out in time for the premieres of either or Hyperdontia, but alas, that proved to be too lofty a goal. I may have bit off more than I could chew. Either way, it’s finally ready for all your music nerd-related pleasures, just in time for you to add those two bands to your year-end lists – if they’re not on there already.

The discography of Mustafa Gürcalioğlu was one that I wanted to give in-depth coverage to for a few reasons. One, it’s incredibly consistent – I don’t think the guy’s put out a stinker yet, and even the ones you don’t think you like tend to grow on you over time. Two, it starts out good, slowly gets better, and it sounds like the best is yet to come, since the most recent albums by all four of his projects are the strongest. Three, there are enough small differences between albums and different bands that you can tell them apart, but because of the aforementioned consistency, you’re still guaranteed a solid listen while also getting something new along the way. No one has given his discography the appreciation it deserves – if you didn’t get the hint yet, pound for pound it’s one of the best in metal.

Since Mustafa is a more accessible and/or approachable character than Alexander von Meilenwald proved to be, I was able to flag him down and ask him a ton of questions, so with each venture into one of his bands, I’ve included some information straight from the creator’s mouth (keyboard?) to add extra context and colour. In addition, I’ll kick off the article with some more general questions so you can get to know the man behind the music a bit more before fully taking the plunge. Enjoy! Continue reading »

DORMANT ORDEAL: “THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 022021
 

(DGR provides both a very short and also a much longer review of the new album by the Polish band Dormant Ordeal, which will be released tomorrow [December 3rd] by Selfmadegod Records.)

Do not sleep on Dormant Ordeal‘s newest release The Grand Scheme Of Things.

There’s your review.

Seriously.

By following the site for a while you’ve been subjected to the absolute torrent of music that we’ve reviewed over the years. We do this on purpose, partially because we collectively have tastes that spread far and wide, and by maintaining the cadre of writers that we do it pretty much insures we’ll cover a tremendous amount of ground throughout the year. However, when we do sync up around a certain band we tend to bang the drum for that band hard and take them up as one of our causes.

Poland’s Dormant Ordeal are one such group and have been for a while now, at least since the release of their previous album We Had It Coming all the way back in 2016. That album’s take on relentless death metal was so filled to the brim with sharp grooves, hammering drums, and non-stop guitar assaults that it was kind of shocking it didn’t seem to make as much of an impact as it should have. We shouted out the disc constantly, even including it amongst our various end-of-year lists that year and awarding it one of our ‘most infectious song’ awards before that list inevitably managed to suffocate under it own weight.

Hell, during one of our GimmeMetal invasions we even closed out one of our programs with the two-parter of “Derangement Zone pt 1′ and ‘Derangement Zone pt 2’ from that disc.

Needless to say at this point, our history with Dormant Ordeal runs pretty deep – which is why the group’s newest album The Grand Scheme Of Things has been in damn near constant rotation since the moment it landed on our fire-charred desks. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLK OPS — “THE HEROIC DOSE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 012021
 

 

Austin-based BLK OPS haven’t been prolific. Until now, following their formation in 2014, their discography consisted of a pair of 2017 splits (with Cave Bastard and KRVSHR) and a live album released just at the start of the pandemic in 2020. But though their output has been limited, their abrasive but cathartic amalgamation of hardcore, metal, and harsh noise has made a crater-sized impact, harrowing to hear but impossible to forget. And now, at last, we have their debut album, The Heroic Dose.

From what we hear, getting the album to the point of release — which will happen via Roman Numeral Records on December 3rd — has itself been a harrowing and frustrating ordeal. But the considerable time that BLK OPS spent working and re-working the record, that time shows itself in the outcome. The Heroic Dose builds upon all the qualities that made BLK OPS‘ splits so striking, and creates an even more daunting, elaborate, and demanding edifice of sound, which you’ll get to experience in its entirety today. Continue reading »

REDEMPTOR – AGONIA

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 012021
 

(Andy Synn has a long history with Redemptor, so we knew he was the only man for the job when it came to writing about their new album, Agonia, which comes out Friday on SelfMadeGod Records)

I love Death Metal. And, if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you do too.

But, as someone who loves Death Metal I do find myself wondering sometimes… where is the genre going?

Let’s face it, there’s only so far, and so fast, that the more “Technical” and/or “Brutal” strains can push things before giving themselves whiplash, crippling arthritis, or an aneurysm, and only so many times that the corpse of “Old School” Death Metal can be dug up for yet another revival before it starts to smell, well, a little off.

What I’m really looking for, then, what I’m hoping for, is a new generation to step up and refine/define a form of Death Metal that’s actually new – call it “Post-Death Metal”, if you’re so inclined – rather than simply presenting something that’s just a flashier or more “extreme” variant of what we already know.

We’re not quite there yet – not as far as I can tell anyway – but it seems to me that there’s several bands already moving in this direction, capturing both the vibe and atmosphere of the genre without precisely fitting in with any one particular sub-style, and Redemptor are clearly right at the forefront of this movement, if the evidence presented on Agonia has anything to say about it.

Continue reading »

SWALLOW THE SUN: “MOONFLOWERS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 012021
 

 

(DGR continues an extensive series of reviews this week with the following take on Swallow the Sun‘s new album, which is out now on the Century Media label.)

Swallow The Sun are at a point now in their careers that they’ve become an institution in the realms of all things moody and melancholic. It’s been a journey too, one that has been exceedingly well-documented and at times absolutely heart-wrenching – and not just musically – and in my own personal case, one dating all the way back to 2007’s Hope album. The band are already at two decades of slow, frozen, and moody doom music and it has been interesting watching their trajectory into and out of funeral doom, fuller-sounding death metal, and even moody-rock music. Here at NCS we are very well acquainted with all of those journeys – especially since yours truly is now on the third review for the band with this most recent release.

Moonflowers arrived on November 19th via Century Media Records and comes to us nearly two and a half years after 2019’s When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light. Granted, when you consider that seven of Swallow The Sun‘s eight mainline releases have hit during a period between November and February, you could argue that the group have carved out quite a niche for themselves in the colder months of the year. Continue reading »

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