LEBENSSUCHT: “-237,15°C”

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Apr 092020
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the anxiously awaited debut album by the German/Austrian/Belgian band Lebenssucht, which was released on April 7th through Thanatoskult.)

I don’t have kids (nor do I want them) but I have to imagine that the feeling I get watching certain bands develop is the same one which a proud parent must get when watching their child first learn to walk, or talk… or give up their dreams and settle into a life of soul-crushing drudgery.

Ok, maybe it’s not exactly the same, but it’s definitely rewarding to see bands you’re invested in, particularly ones you’ve been following since their very beginning, living up to their potential.

Case in point, multinational Black Metal collective Lebenssucht, who I/we have been following at NCS since their debut EP, Fucking my Knife, have finally released their first full-length album this week, and it’s one hell of a ride. Continue reading »

DERANGED: “DEEDS OF RUTHLESS VIOLENCE”

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Apr 082020
 

 

(Here’s Vonlughlio’s review and recommendation of the new album by the Swedish death metal band Deranged, who began life in 1991, and whose latest full-length is out now via Agonia Records.)

I am now here to write about a band I have been a fan of since the late ’90s and believe have always been consistent in their vision of BDM over the years. That band is Sweden’s Deranged and they just released Deeds of Ruthless Violence on March 27th via Agonia Records.

This is one band whose music I have enjoyed and still ask myself why it does not have the recognition it should. I mean, sure, they have fans around the world and are well-respected but I wish more for this project. They have been consistent with their art and vision and have released music that has transcended the test of time. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DOWNCROSS — “CURRENT TOWARDS END”

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Apr 082020
 

 

The Belarusian black metal band Downcross made a startling debut with their first album, Mysteries of Left Path. To paraphrase what we wrote in introducing our premiere of the album early last year, every one of the eight tracks on the album was emotionally powerful, and powerful in the production of their sound. They included magnetically attractive melodic hooks and shifts among contrasting moods within each song — from cold-hearted to glorious, from bereft to barbaric, and much more.

There was also heavyweight heft in the low end, and tremendous, penetrating, gleaming vibrancy in the guitar tones (without becoming completely “clean” in their tone). The drumming rocked and romped as often as it thundered, and there were as many hook-laden strummed chords as the dense wash of blazing tremolo vibrations.

The duo of vocalist/drummer Ldzmr and guitarist Dzmtr quickly proved that their debut was no fluke, because their second album (which we also premiered last fall), What Light Covers Not, was also tremendously good, and further vivid evidence that Downcross are gifted songwriters. Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: “VERMINOUS”

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Apr 072020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by The Black Dahlia Murder, due for release on April 17th by Metal Blade Records.)

If I were forced to select one word to describe The Black Dahlia Murder’s particular brand of high-stakes, high-adrenaline Death Metal that word would undoubtedly be… anthemic.

After all, one of the band’s defining features has always been their ability to conjure up a seemingly endless series of contagious, crowd-friendly choruses and red-hot hooks to balance out their molten metallic mayhem, with much of this burden often falling to lunatic-larynxed frontman Trevor Strnad, whose distinctive delivery – part predatory preacher, part Death Metal drill sergeant, part crazed carnival barker – is an inimitable part of the group’s sound.

The band’s last album, 2017’s superb Nightbringers, in many ways felt like the apotheosis of this, with songs such as “Kings of the Nightworld” and the titanic title track featuring some of the catchiest, most bombastic material the group have ever written.

The thing is… once you’ve peaked like that, there’s almost nowhere to go but down. So the big question now is whether or not Verminous is going to be a victim of the band’s success, or whether the gang have found a way to escape the curse of diminishing returns… Continue reading »

SYMBOLIK: “EMERGENCE”

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Apr 062020
 

 

(On April 10th The Artisan Era will release the debut album of California’s Symbolik, and today we present DGR’s detailed review.)

Stockton, CA’s Symbolik are a band I’ve been following for a long time. Seeing their logo pop up on a few local show flyers way back in the early 2010s led to me finding the group’s EP Pathogenesis and being so impressed by it that I wound up seeing the band live three times after that. They were one of those groups I had thought was going to really cut a swath through the hyper-speed tech-death scene at the time, long before it had started congealing around a handful of specific record labels that would later unwittingly codify an overall sound. However, things progressed slowly in their camp and barring a single entitled “Diverging Mortal Flesh” that came out in 2015, Symbolik remained fairly silent save for the occasional here-and-there show.

It wasn’t until earlier this year, over eight and a half years after the release of their Pathogenesis EP that we finally heard from the group — now signed to The Artisan Era and ready to release a full-length debut entitled Emergence. Continue reading »

ALTERNATIVE RELEASE DAY ROUND-UP: CATALEPSIA / ENDLESS FORMS MOST GRUESOME / HADOPELAGIAL / RELIC POINT / RITUAL CONTRITION / SKYEATER

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Apr 032020
 

 

(Andy Synn has again assembled reviews and streams of new albums for this release-day Friday that might not be getting the attention they deserve elsewhere.)

People seemed to enjoy this the last time I did it, so I thought to myself… why not keep the streak alive?

So here we go, trying to go two for two, with another quick round-up of releases which you may otherwise have missed! Continue reading »

BENIGHTED: “OBSCENE REPRESSED”

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Apr 022020
 

 

(We present DGR’s typically detailed review of Obscene Repressed, the new album by the French maulers in Benighted, which will be released by Season of Mist on April 10th.)

It probably doesn’t need to be stated that we’re fans of the French death metal crew Benighted and their brand of frantic mania, especially given that we’ve kept a pretty constant eye on the crew from release to release. Thus, we’ve been patiently waiting for the group’s newest album Obscene Repressed, a thematically twisted concept album that reads part horror story, part Pornhub top video statistics by State chart, and part gleeful exploration of insanity with the music stylings to back it up. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE AND REVIEW: DEATH WHORE’S SELF-TITLED EP

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Apr 022020
 

 

“Imagine a cross between the brutalizing grooves of Y2K-era Metal Hardcore greats like Terror, Xibalba, Nails or Rotten Sound, and old school Swedish Death Metal breakneck riffing”. That’s part of the introduction that Death Whore gave us to their self-titled EP, along with references to Harm’s Way and Entombed. That description of the band’s amalgam of punishing hardcore and bone-mangling, neck-wrecking Swedish death metal punched all sorts of pleasure-center buttons in our brains, and then it turned out that the music fully lived up to the descriptions. And thus we were eager to help spread the word by premiering a full stream of the EP today, in advance of its April 10 release on CD and digital.

Death Whore rampage through seven tracks in 20 minutes, and every one of those compact brawlers is explosively destructive and propelled by the kind of feral and filthy savagery that will light a fire under your pulse rate. Continue reading »

DARK FORTRESS: “SPECTRES FROM THE OLD WORLD”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 022020
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Germany’s Dark Fortress, which was released by Century Media on February 28th.)

This COVID-19 situation has really fucked with all of us in big and small ways.  That should go without saying, but it’s also my excuse for being so behind on NCS shit.  Quarantine prep, a tornado hitting close to home and putting me out of power for a bit, and other setbacks have kept me distracted from my NCS duties and it’s sucked. But now I’m back to full operational no-life quarantine activity and I can finally get to this.

I’m glad in the end that I’ve been held up, because it’s given me an absurd amount of time to spend with Dark Fortress in the interim.  They are definitely one of my personal favorite black metal bands, Old Mans Child and Keep Of Kalessin joining them in my top three.  Their dedication to doing a form of black metal that’s sort of amorphous while being incredibly disciplined, precise, and unafraid to consistently dive into other sub-genres of extreme metal is the kind of thing I love, just in principle.

Spectres From The Old World is a record in particular that I find fascinating, because if anything, it points to a band who are moving away from black metal as the foundation of their sound and want to re-purpose it as a flourish. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: BEGGAR / CALLIGRAM / VIDEO NASTIES

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Apr 012020
 


Beggar

 

(Andy Synn returns to a series in which he extols the virtues of new or soon-forthcoming releases by bands from the UK, and does that for three records here.)

Well, well, well… what do we have here then?

Ahem, cough, sorry, I turned into a nineteenth century cockney flatfoot there for a second.

Anyway, today’s edition of “The Best of British” features three albums which are bound to make quite an impact (and, in some cases, have done already) in the Metal world, both at home and abroad, and it’s my distinct pleasure to be able to do my small part to help raise their profile (even if just a little bit). Continue reading »

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