ASEITAS: “FALSE PEACE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jun 152020
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the sophomore album by Aseitas from Portland, Oregon, which will be released on July 10 by Lizard Brain Records and features cover art by Noah Cutter Meihoff.)

Is it me or does today’s Extreme Metal scene seem to be overflowing with a sense of epic ambition and experimentalism? Sure, there are those who always seek to return to Metal’s atavistic roots, but one can’t help but be inspired by the aspirations of so many bands nowadays. That being said, how many of these Avant Garde metallers actually succeed in bringing their vision to life? Aseitas not only possesses ambition in spades, but execute their vision perfectly on their sophomore album False Peace, due out on July 10th via Lizard Brain Records.

The group’s sound is extremely varied and wide-ranging, though at its core they tend to focus quite a bit on a mid-paced Death Metal groove, yet screwed and chopped into challenging new configurations. And there is an intense physicality in this approach, like trying to headbang but realizing your entire body is being pulled in multiple directions at once. Blast beats emerge from time to time, but the relentless mid-paced hammering takes center stage. Continue reading »

NOTES MADE WHILE LISTENING: HOLY DEATH AND MOONWORSHIPPER

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 132020
 

 

I am always behind in listening to what I want to explore, but have fallen further and further behind this week, chiefly due to the malaise that many of us have felt from the protracted lockdown, which is only just beginning to lift where I live.

In genuinely random fashion I decided to listen to only two releases this morning out of the hundreds I could have chosen, both of them peaking my interest for different reasons. And I made the gamble of recording in words what I was hearing as both releases unfolded, not knowing in advance whether that effort would be worth the time, because I wasn’t sure going into them how I would feel about their worth.

It was a gamble that paid off. Both of these choices proved to be very good ones, and well worth recommending to you. As it happened, both are also very dark and dolorous, albeit in very different ways. Along with the recommendations, I’ll share the notes I made, not that you need them, but because I generally hate to throw anything away.

HOLY DEATH

The first release I chose is a 20-minute song named Celestial Throne ov Grief by the death/doom trio Holy Death, who came to us out of the Nevada desert by way of Los Angeles. It was digitally released on June 5th. I picked it because (as I explained here) I was so impressed with the band’s second EP (released in March), Supreme Metaphysical Violence. And now for my notes: Continue reading »

JUSTICE FOR THE DAMNED: “PAIN IS POWER”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 122020
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Australia’s Justice for the Damned, out today on Greyscale Records)

Even though I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to write reviews over the past couple of weeks, I’ve still had a fair bit of time to think about reviews – particularly why, how, and who we write for.

Let’s face it, a lot of what’s out there is little more than a regurgitated press release masquerading as a review. Either that, or so mindblowingly generic that you could cut and paste in a different band name and neither the overall content nor context of the review would really change all that much…

This latter issue is particularly prevalent on the more “brutal” end of the spectrum, as there’s only so many ways you can write about a band’s “sick gutturals” or “killer riffs” before it basically turns into a game of Extreme Metal mad-libs where the formula never changes, even if the names do.

So when it came time to write a few words about Pain Is Power, the new album from Aussie bruisers Justice for the Damned, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to say, and exactly how I wanted to say it. Continue reading »

RAW: “LANGUISH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 122020
 

 

(This is Vonlughlio’s review of the recently released second album by the Indonesian brutal death metal band RAW.)

Today I am taking the opportunity to review the sophomore effort of RAW (Indonesia) entitled Languish, which was released via Brutal Mind this past March 31st.  The project mastermind is none other than Aditya, who is well-known in the Indonesian Brutal Death Meal scene for his other bands Gerogot and Brain Damage (both amazing).

RAW’s inception was back in 2015 and it released 2-song demo that year, and a single later in 2017. We had the opportunity to review the band’s debut album The Persecute Heinous here at NCS; it was one of my favorite 2018 BDM releases. Continue reading »

-(16)-: “DREAM SQUASHER”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 112020
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by San Diego’s -(16)-, which was released by Relapse Records on June 5th.)

With anger as the universal language and the Apocalypse looming, sludge is a fitting soundtrack.

This band continues to stand out from the pack. They are not a Neurosis tribute and more Anger closely aligned with noise rock than doom. Hardcore influence can be heard in their more explosive moments, and I like the effects on the vocals. Lyrically it reminds me of the Melvins in their chaotic musings. Continue reading »

BAIT: “REVELATION OF THE PURE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 112020
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Germany’s Bait, released by Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions on May 22nd, with cover art by Giovanni Raabe.)

Inspiration is a funny ol’ thing. Sometimes you have it… and sometimes you don’t.

Case in point, I’m currently sitting on a half-finished triptych of reviews for some very cool Black Metal bands – a mix of doomy and groovy, abrasively atmospheric, and straight-up weird albums that I’ve been spinning religiously for the past few weeks – but, for some reason, my wordstream has run a little dry.

So, to try and get things flowing again, I decided to switch tracks (mixing my metaphors here a little, but, hey, it’s not like anyone’s paying attention) and find something else to wax lyrical about.

As it turns out, none of us have written anything (barring a bit of preamble to accompany a video premiere back in April) about the new album from Germanic Blackened Hardcore crew Bait, so now seemed like the perfect time to correct this egregious oversight. Continue reading »

END: “SPLINTERS FROM AN EVER-CHANGING FACE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 102020
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the debut album by END, which was released on June 5th by Closed Casket Activities.)

For years the UK and the USA have enjoyed (and endured) something called a “special relationship”.

This strange, strained, frequently estranged, situation has – for better or worse – resulted in an ongoing, tit for tat, “anything you can do we can do better”, back and forth between the two nations that has led both to the creation of some amazing art… and some pretty terrible political decisions.

The latest entry into this co-dependant cultural exchange is Splinters from an Ever-Changing Face, the debut album from pseudo-supergroup END, a band who seem to have spent quite some time listening to the collective works of Anaal Nathrakh and thinking “oh yeah, we can do that…” Continue reading »

REVIEWS: CENTINEX (“DEATH IN PIECES”) AND NEXORUM (“DEATH UNCHAINED”)

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 102020
 

 

(In this post DGR reviews two new albums, one by Sweden’s Centinex released by Agonia Records on May 29th, and one by Norway’s Nexorum released by Non Serviam Records on March 6th.)

 

CENTINEX – DEATH IN PIECES

The path Centinex have charted since their return in 2014 has been an interesting one, if not one of the more uncompromising returns out there. They’re a band who are meant to be taken at face value, a death metal group playing the most stubborn version of it that they can, and benefiting from a renewed interest in that particular sound right around the time they came back.

The band exists partially as the other side of a death metal coin for bassist Martin Schulman (and at this point basically the last one standing of the earliest formations of the band) with the other half being a more modern-oriented death metal group with former Centinex members in the form of Demonical. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VALDRIN — “EFFIGY OF NIGHTMARES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jun 092020
 

 

On their new album Effigy of Nightmares the Cincinnati band Valdrin have used their music to illustrate an epic narrative, and as the title suggests, it’s a nightmarish one. Like their previous album, 2018’s Two Carrion Talismans, the new record focuses on the antagonist of the band’s self-created Ausadjur mythos, a being named Nex Animus. As the band explain: “The story chronicles the tour of a nameless narrator through the halls of Hosptium Mortis, the nightmare hospital below the Orcus underworld itself, where Nex tortures and lobotomizes the dissident gods of his domain.”

Even that brief verbal synopsis has a chilling effect. But the ways in which Valdrin‘s harrowing new music guides us through this frightening netherworld are even more chilling, more threatening to a listener’s sanity, and much more likely to haunt listeners’ dreams for a long time to come. Set aside half an hour and prepare yourself for an experience in electrifying audio terror as we present a full stream of the album in advance of its June 12 release by Blood Harvest Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BOB MALMSTRÖM AND DISPYT

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 092020
 

 

In this unusual year of 2020 the Finnish “borgarcore” band Bob Malmström are celebrating their tenth anniversary. In addition to popping champagne and blowing out candles they chose to commemorate the occasion by releasing a series of three split 7″ vinyl records.

In the first of those, Sälj Åland, they teamed up with the long-running Finnish melodic hardcore band The Enchained (whose history extends back to 1997). Bob Malmström‘s side of the split included two tracks, and in January we premiered the band’s video for the title song.

Two months after that first split, the band released the second one with Tvärnitad from Sweden (which we’ll comment on below, since we failed to do so in April), and now the time has come for the third split to be revealed, on the eve of its June 10 release. This latest split includes the music of the Finnish black ‘n’ crust band Dispyt (whose ranks include Mathias Lillmåns of Finntroll and …and Oceans fame), in addition to Bob Malmström‘s own contributions. Continue reading »

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