Cryptic Shift
(Andy Synn again focuses on releases from his home country, and today reviews two brand new albums and one that will be arriving soon.)
I’m not going to waffle on here about the state of the world, the way things used to be, etc. It’s all been said enough times already.
Instead, let’s get right to the matter at hand, and enjoy these three celebrations of the power of the riff, in all its unlimited glory! Continue reading »
Few episodes in French history, or indeed of world history, have captured the imagination of so many people, or proved as inspiring, as the short life of Jeanne d’Arc (or Joan of Arc, for us English speakers). Born to peasant parents in roughly 1412, she claimed to have received visions in her teenage years of the archangel Michael and various female saints commanding her to lend her support to the unanointed king Charles VII in an ultimately successful effort to rescue France from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War.
As part of a relief army, the king sent her to the Siege of Orléans, which was lifted only nine days later. But in May 1430, after further military triumphs, she was captured by a faction of French nobles allied with the English, who turned her over to the English. They tried her on a variety of charges, declared her guilty, and burned her at the stake on May 30, 1431. She was about 19 years old when the flames took her.
We’ve provided this truncated reminder because the new album we’re premiering today by the French black metal band Abduction is a concept album based on the life of Joan. Entitled Jehanne, it will be released by Finisterian Dead End Metal Label on April 29th, as a remembrance of the day on which Joan entered the besieged city of Orléans in 1429. Continue reading »
(In this review TheMadIsraeli catches up with the debut album by the French melodic death metal band Aesmah, which was released by Apostasy Records in February of this year.)
Quarantine has my sense of time and priority all fucked up dawg.
Doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping up with the musical landscape though, and today’s subject is a band who I definitely think needs more exposure. Melodic death metal, as we’ve so often talked about on this site, is almost a relic of extreme metal. It’s either been incorporated into something else, or the bands hanging onto it mostly are just not standing out. They ride the most rote of wavelengths in every aspect of their sound and the by-the-numbers, trying to be oh-so-slightly commercially appealing nature of it is pretty exhausting.
Aesmah, on the other hand, are a new band who get the style they’re playing. Continue reading »
More than 15 years ago Boreal, operating as a one-person project, wrote and recorded The Battle of VOSAD, a grand amalgam of dungeon synth, black metal, and doom that was released in 2006 by Eternal Warfare Records. All these years later, Boreal decided to resurrect that album and to re-imagine and re-record it, this time with a talented group of allies. In its new form, which includes mastering by Déhà and artwork by Inga Markstrom, it will be released on May 1st by Nebulae Artifacta (with a tape edition coming in July via Realm and Ritual).
The album, as it has been re-created, is the kind of immersive — indeed all-consuming — experience that kindles the imagination into a blaze, more like the stuff of dreams than of mundane earthbound days. And what magnificent and frightening dreams they are, transporting the listener into what seems like an ancient age or a mythic realm, there to bear witness to an otherworldly panorama of conflict, loss, and ascension on a vast scale. Continue reading »
(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the debut album by the multinational European band Sinistral King, which is being released today — April 24th.)
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men… how easily they go astray.
Case in point, I had, originally, intended to take today off from NCS work and leave this particular album until next week, where I planned to make it part of a six-album, Black Metal-focussed, round-up (which, just to be clear, I’m still going to do).
However at the eleventh hour I was struck with a sudden surge of inspiration, a compulsion to get this one written up as soon as possible, hence why I’m back again with my fourth review of the week.
The extra effort is all worth it though, because I can say, without a shred of hyperbole, that Serpent Uncoiling is one of the best Black Metal albums of the year so far. Continue reading »
(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Polish band Koronal, which will be out on April 29th.)
It’s pretty common knowledge by now that we here at NCS Inc. tend to focus more on the underground, and underappreciated, bands and artists from the Metal scene.
That’s not to say we have anything against the bigger or more well-known names (heck, I’ve reviewed several of them myself over the last few weeks) but igenerally these bands, for the most part, don’t really need our coverage – in most cases they’ve already got the benefit of a label’s PR machinery and resources behind them, and even when they don’t you tend to find that they’ve already crossed a certain threshold, popularity-wise, which makes them essentially “too big to fail”.
It’s different for the smaller bands though, and it’s here where I/we generally feel like we can do the most good and make the most difference by introducing our readers to new bands, bands who they might not otherwise have stumbled across on their own, to them grow and establish their fanbase.
Over the years we’ve all developed particular favourites of our own – personally I’m still waiting for new stuff from Martriden, Sanzu, and Sunlight’s Bane, to name but a few – but I know I’m not the only one of us who has been looking forward to hearing more from Polish post-Meshuggah crew Koronal, whose superb second album is scheduled for release next week. Continue reading »
Let’s get a couple of things out of the way, one obvious and another maybe not so obvious: Bastardizing the Purity is bestial black metal that’s unforgiving and unrepentant, and it will not appeal to great swaths of listeners, but rather will cut them down like wheat before the scythe. That’s the obvious point (and a point that could be made about everything we premiere — nothing will appeal to everyone, though admittedly the fanbase for this album is a much narrower cadre of adherents than usual). If it doesn’t appeal to you, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, but nor does it necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with the music of Blasphamagoatachrist (even though they do often sound psychotically barbaric). Different music serves different needs.
The less obvious point, or at least one less obvious to people who just have no taste for this kind of rampaging sonic warfare, is that it isn’t all alike. There are gradations of quality, just as there are for any other sub-genre of metal, not noticeable to people who want nothing to do with it but discernible to those whose needs this feeds. The rest of this introductory review is for the latter group of people. Everyone else can politely show themselves out, though you’ll be welcome to come back another day.
And by the way, if you’re perplexed by the band’s name, ask yourself this question: If you were members of Blasphemy, Goatpenis, and Antichrist, and you decided to join forces, what else would you call your collective endeavor? Continue reading »
(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Sweden’s Katatonia, which is set for release on April 24th by Peaceville Records.)
It’s probably worth pointing out, right at the start, that City Burials is not – despite what you might read elsewhere – the best album of Katatonia’s career.
Neither, however, is it their worst, as some others, angry that the band haven’t produced exactly what they wanted, would have you to believe.
What it is, is an intriguing, emotive, yet oddly uneven, collection of songs which vary in tone and texture – some erring more towards the band’s classic brand of metallic melancholy, others leaning more towards gleaming, gloomy goth-pop – but which are all, ultimately, tied together by the sublime vocals of Jonas Renske, who gives what could very well be a career-best performance. Continue reading »
(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by California’s Ursa, which was just released yesterday.)
While NCS may have a reputation for focussing mostly on Death and Black Metal, the truth is that we don’t like to limit what we cover to just a small sub-set of styles. As long as it’s got a sufficient metallic component, and a certain level of quality, we’ll be more than happy to give it a shot.
Over the years we’ve become particularly fond of the doomier side of Metal, in all its grim and gloomy varieties, to the point that you’re guaranteed at least one (or more) slot dedicated to dark, doomy goodness in every one of my/our year-end lists.
Last year it was the sublime Carnal Confessions by Fvneral Fvkk which took the honours, and in 2018 the medal went to Dor by Clouds, while 2017 saw albums from Loss, Foscor, and Paradise Lost all make the cut (and, FYI, I’m only just now realising how Doom-heavy that particular list was).
So far 2020 has already delivered its fair share of doom-laden delights, from the rugged, riff-heavy swagger of the new Solothus (which I touched upon briefly here last week), to the grandeur and gravitas of Loviatar’s Lightless (which hopefully I’ll get around to covering properly sometime soon), and several more which I’m sure I’m forgetting about.
And now it’s time for URSA to stake their claim with the release of Mother Bear, Father Toad. Continue reading »
Golden Light are a new band formed by E. Henderson (also of Njiqahdda), who handles all instruments and sounds, and vocalist Meghan Wood (Crown of Asteria). Their debut album, Sacred Colour of the Source of Light, will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on April 24th. William Blake‘s painting “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun” makes for a perfect cover, given the nature of the music.
Regarding that nature, Iron Bonehead’s publicist has written of these four songs (three of which are of significant length), “their spectral sorrows shoot a brilliance that’s blinding and bellicose in equal measure: a mystical, sun-drenched swarm of sound that embodies and defies black metal simultaneously, orthodoxy UN-done and recast”.
The tendency to portray the music in words used mainly for visual experience is irresistible (as you will see), but the music also has a near-relentless physical momentum that in itself becomes a method of creating a trance, as well as a multi-faceted effect on the emotions. Continue reading »