PRIME MOVER: “UNDER THE PENUMBRA”

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Jan 192021
 

 

(What follows is Wil Cifer‘s review of the latest album by the Atlanta-area band Prime Mover, which was released near the end of December 2020.)

This band from Atlanta has kicked around the southeastern metal scene since 1997. Their second full-length unfurls the sound of a band fully realizing their sound and have sharpened it into a keen weapon.

Their arsenal of riffs are supported by smart songwriting. They know the value of a hook. Their melodic guitar lines work best when they are not charging full speed ahead. Despite being referenced as a black metal band in some corners of the internet, death metal seems to be their primary influence. Very melodic death metal at that. There is also a hefty dose of thrash in what these guys do. Continue reading »

BLACK SHEEP WALL: “SONGS FOR THE ENAMEL QUEEN”

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Jan 182021
 

 

(Here’s Todd Manning’s review of the new album by California’s Black Sheep Wall, which will be released on February 26th by Silent Pendulum Records.)

To say that the Sludge and Doom genres are oversaturated might be a bit of an understatement. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, but there’s only so much Sabbath-worship and weed fetish one can listen to before it all starts to blend together. On the other hand, L.A.-based Sludge band Black Sheep Wall have always stood apart, with a sound that pulls from a wide range of influences.

Songs for the Enamel Queen is the group’s first full-length in nearly five years and it’s a motherfucker, there’s just no other way to put. The album depicts a band and a mind on the edge, haunted by depression and addiction, and the 60-minute run time is nothing short of a harrowing journey. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: FOSSILIZED: “EAT OR BE EATEN”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 152021
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of a new EP by the Kansas-based death metal band Fossilized, which was released on the first day of this new year.)

There’s already been quite a bit of digital ink spilled this year about the latest batch of grimy, gravel-throated, grim ‘n’ gritty Death Metal to hit the airwaves courtesy of bands like Frozen Soul and Gatecreeper, and I can understand why.

The former, for example, have built up an impressive amount of buzz, and I for one definitely enjoy the sharper, more spiteful Carcass-isms of their recently-released debut album, while the latter’s new EP suggests that they’re finally ready to step outside of the OSDM ghetto in which they’ve been trapped for a while (but which they’ve now clearly outgrown).

But while all this has been going on Kansas-based killers Fossilized have been quietly chugging (and I do mean chugging) away in the background… although by “quietly” I don’t mean in the literal sense, more in the “he was a quiet guy, kept to himself…” way that you hear right before it’s revealed that they found the remains of multiple murdered transients in your neighbour’s back yard… waiting for the rest of the world to discover the bone-crushingly brutal delights of their new EP, Eat or Be Eaten.

So if you’re in the mood for something dense, dumb, and disgustingly fun (not to mention disgustingly heavy) then get ready to chow down on six songs of pure, primal punishment. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SACROCURSE – “SUPREME TERROR”

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Jan 142021
 

 

The EP by Sacrocurse that we’re premiering in full today is a streamlined nuclear missile, a four-track attack that’s just shy of 17 minutes in total. The length seems just about perfect — just long enough to feed a ravenous hunger for incendiary chaos, but stopping short of the point when a listener might go into a seizure, gasping for air, overcome by the speed, the madness, and the eviscerating ferocity of this audio apocalypse.

Supreme Terror is a well-chosen name for the EP, because it is indeed supremely terrorizing. But it won’t take long for you to appreciate that despite the violence and lack of sanity in the music, the technical skill of the performances is jaw-dropping, and the songs aren’t just howling storms. There is structure and dynamism within these outbursts, and more clarity in the production than you might expect from what is fundamentally an exercise in black/death warfare. Continue reading »

GRAVEHUFFER: “NECROECLOSION”

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Jan 142021
 

 

(We welcome Nathan Ferreira, who has been reviewing metal for close to a decade at various locations, including MetalBite, and whose first NCS review focuses on the new album by the Missouri band Gravehuffer, which is set for release by Black Doomba Records on January 15th.)

Remember when shows were a thing? Particularly the dim-lit, greasy dive-bar shows that you and maybe thirty other people attended, including the band members? Sure, some of the bands needed tightening up, or their songs were just unmemorable and all over the place, but there’s a certain personality that unknown locals have that resonates with you for some time. There’s something so endearing about local nobodies spending years together crafting their inaccessible, odd visions, creating something purely for their own love of all things loud and strange. That alone makes you want to like the music more, but I think it also serves as a better incubator to make something unique, free from the demands of the public or the need to satisfy anyone’s desires besides their own.

Gravehuffer is the apex of such scrappy local acts. They look like four dads who’ve been working the same soul-sucking jobs for 20 years, their band the only refuge from a bleak and monotonous reality. They slam genres together with reckless abandon and have a loose, jam-session feel to a lot of their songs, tying moments together with big, meaty riffs and stripping down the structures with crusty, d-beat heavy drums. Their building blocks are simple and you’d never call these guys virtuosos at their respective instruments, but the magic is in how they tie it all together. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MOLTEN — “DYSTOPIAN SYNDROME”

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Jan 122021
 

 

Among almost all die-hard metalheads the phrase “Bay Area thrash” immediately brings to mind a very well-defined and much-loved sound, but one that for many listeners has been done to death, to the point that for many fans clutching their old favorites the chance of finding something new seems hardly worth the time. But while Molten are a Bay Area band and thrash is a vital part of their DNA, their new album Dystopian Syndrome is very much worth all the time you can give it.

As you will discover through our premiere of the entire album stream today in advance of its January 15th release, thrash is the foundation but not the entire edifice of what they’ve constructed. As a function of the band’s varied musical interests, their music is a richly embellished experience that channels changing moods and energies and reveals a taste for instrumentation not usually found in the genre, while also delivering monstrous vocals and the kind of technical performance skill that drops jaws and pops eyes. Continue reading »

AZTLAN: “LEGIÓN MEXICA”

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Jan 122021
 

 

(Here is Andy Synn‘s review of the second album by the Mexican metal band Aztlan, which was released on January 1, 2021.)

As I was saying to my buddy Islander recently, the start of the new year generally feels a lot more relaxed and laid back than the months which follow. The regular release torrent has been reduced to a trickle, and there’s a lot less pressure to stay on top of all the “big” new releases… mostly because there aren’t that many of them.

The benefit of this, obviously, is that we’re free to browse and sample new bands and new albums more at our own pace, and able to give new discoveries the time they really deserve without feeling that we’re otherwise missing out or falling behind in the process.

Mexican septet Aztlan are the latest band to reap the rewards of this annual fallow period, as any other time of the year there’s a chance that Legión mexica, the group’s second album, might have gotten lost in the rush.

And that would have been a real shame, as it’s a brilliantly unorthodox blend of thrashy energy and folksy melody which combines both choppy metallic riffs and unusual, pre-Hispanic instrumentation into one impressively hypnotic whole. Continue reading »

CELESTIAL SWARM: “GATEWAYS TO THE NECROVERSE”

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Jan 062021
 

 

(Here is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Baltimore-based Celestial Swarm, which was released on January 4th.)

The beginning of any new year is always a time filled with anticipation of what delicious metallic morsels the next twelve months are going to bring.

But we don’t have to look too far, or too hard, to find the first of them, as the debut album from multinational Death Metal brutalisers Celestial Swarm just kicked off 2021 with a major bang. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020:  CONSTRUCT OF LETHE / EYE OF SOLITUDE / PERSEFONE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews three 2020 album “reissues” that in different ways gave the original releases a new lease on life.)

“Out with the old, in with the new!”

That has, traditionally, been the mantra that accompanies the end of one year and the beginning of another.

And so, in that spirit, I’ve decided to bit adieu to 2020 with a look back at three albums which originally reared their ugly heads in 2016, 2011, and 2004, respectively, but which were all given a new lease on life last year.

So I guess that opening mantra should have been “everything old is new again…”, shouldn’t it? Continue reading »

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