AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOOMING CARRIONS — “SISTERS IN BLOOMING FLESH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 262019
 

 

Blooming Carrions is a beautifully chosen name for this Finnish band whose new EP we’re premiering today, as is the EP’s title — Sisters In Blooming Flesh. On the one hand, the music is a stunning display of blackened death metal obliteration and mind-abrading sonic toxicity, capable of completely suffusing the senses with horrifying sensations of sadistic violence, pestilence, rot, and the extinction of hope. On the other hand, within such terrifying encounters the music also seems to revel and to bloom, to reveal the chilling and hallucinatory gleam of rapture in the embrace of death and decay.

Iron Bonehead Productions has set November 28th as the international release date for this new EP, which adds to (and builds upon) a Blooming Carrions discography that includes two preceding demos, 2017’s Sparkling Rotten Dreams and 2018’s Necrosis Twilight (both of them also released by Iron Bonehead). Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AVSLUT — “TYRANNI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 252019
 

 

The Swedish black metal band Avslut waste no time revealing a big part of their mission on their new album Tyranni — which is to flood your bloodstream with adrenaline. On the title track, which opens the album, they hurl themselves (and their listeners) into an electrifying full-throttle assault, no-holds-barred, no-mercy-shown. The impact of the blistering drum work, the ripping, blaring, and jolting chords, and the flame-throwing vocals is immediately electrifying.

But while the band relentlessly scorch the senses with the unhinged ferocity of their attack, that opening song vividly reveals another aspect of their harrowing mission — the incorporation of intense melodies into their barbarous onslaught.

Osmose Productions will release Tyranni on November 29th, but you won’t have to wait that long to experience it because we’re premiering a full stream today.
Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH 2019: HARROWED/ OPIUM LORD / UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Nov 252019
 

 

(Andy Synn has again compiled reviews and streams of new records by bands from the UK.)

It was last week, I think, when I stumbled across another one of those weirdly throw-away lists purporting to feature “ten of the best up-and-coming UK Metal bands”.

Intrigued, and hopeful to discover some new names to help promote in turn, I gave the article a click, only to find that pretty much entire list was made up of bands who were already pretty well known, or made up of ex-members of other bands who’d previously received a fair bit of hype, and/or mates of the band responsible for the article in the first place.

Not only that, but pretty much every band featured played some variant of Death Metal/Deathcore, and clearly all came from a very similar clique. And while I get that it’s not always easy to think of other bands to recommend at the drop of a hat, the UK Metal scene is such a rich and vibrant cesspool of metallic morsels that this seems like a missed opportunity.

Not that I’m necessarily any better. Chances are you’ll all have heard of at least one of the bands I’m about to recommend. But, hopefully, over the course of the last 11/12 months I’ve presented a solid (though far from exhaustive) cross-section of the versatility and variety that represents “the Best of British” in 2019. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSAL VACUUM — “MMXIX”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Nov 252019
 

 

Beginning in 2018 the French black metal band Abyssal Vacuum has released two EPs, with a third one due for release by Egregor Records on December 1st. These three EPs collectively include nine tracks that have been identified in sequence by Roman numerals (and one cover song), with the most recent release — identified as MMXIX — consisting of tracks VII, VIII, and IX. And today we’re premiering streams of those three new compositions.

For those new to Abyssal Vacuum, it is the solo work of Sebastien B., although he is accompanied on this newest EP by drummer Enno P., and samples have been provided here by Moïse M. Perhaps one of the reasons why Abyssal Vacuum dispense with words in naming their songs is because the atmosphere created by the collage of sounds doesn’t seem quite human. Continue reading »

DECOHERENCE: “EKPYROSIS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Nov 222019
 

 

(Today Sentient Ruin Laboratories is releasing the debut album of the multinational black metal entity Decoherence, and to commemorate the occasion we have Andy Synn‘s laudatory review of the record.)

It still never fails to surprise me, although I probably should have learned by now, how conservative and parochial some Black Metal fans can be.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer that every genre (not just Black Metal) has certain key features, certain boundaries, which define them, but it’s not hard at all to find bands pushing and exploring and expanding these boundaries in a way which still maintains the fundamental essence of the style.

That’s not enough for some people though, especially in Black Metal, where the issue of what is “true” and what is “false” often gets simplified down to “whatever I happen to like is real Black Metal, and whatever I don’t like isn’t”.

Still, even the most obsessive and obdurate of refuseniks will have a hard time denying that Ekpyrosis is one of the best Black Metal albums of the year. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOTT — “4”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 212019
 

 

This makes the second time in as many years that we’ve hosted the premiere of music by the Italian black metal band Nott, which is the creative vehicle of the lone wolf Mortifero from Lombardy. Last year the occasion was a song from an EP named Vestigium Mortis, and today it’s the advent of Nott’s fourth album, simply entitled 4.

Like the album title, the eight songs presented here are identified by numbers — chapter numbers in a musical volume. And this particular volume of Nott’s works will be released on November 30th by Third I Rex, in advance of which we’re hosting this complete stream of the music. Continue reading »

OBSEQUIAE: “THE PALMS OF SORROWED KINGS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 212019
 

 

(Our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth (ex-The Number of the Blog) returns to NCS with a review of the new album by the Minnesota “castle metal” band Obsequiae, which will be released by 20 Buck Spin this coming Friday, November 22nd.)

Joyous greetings and salutations, friends. Evidently, it’s been four years since Obsequiae graced the metal world with Aria Of Vernal Tombs, an album that came more or less out of nowhere to become my favorite album of that year. Following that, rather than wearing out its welcome, Aria instead settled further into my consciousness, cementing its status as my favorite black metal album ever and seizing a likely spot as one of my ten favorite albums ever.

Friends, given the volume of music I listen to on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis, this is no small thing.

Really, though, even as Aria settled around my brain like a comfortable chair around your butt, I found myself craving more, and so when I discovered that they finally had a follow-up album in the works, my excitement was palpable. (Entertainingly enough, there exists a possibility that I may have offered favors of a sexual nature to Islander in exchange for the procurement of a promo copy of the album, although I will neither confirm not deny such rumors. I can admit, however, that once said promo was acquired, it became the only thing I listened to for at least a week.) Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE DRIFT — “SEER”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 202019
 

 

This coming Friday, November 22nd, the South African sludge metal band The Drift will release their third album, Seer, which forms the final installment in the Deluge trilogy that began with 2013’s Dreams of Deluge and 2015’s The Mountain Star. The new album is packed with ideas and diverse experiences, so much so that calling The Drift a sludge band is a great oversimplification, even if that label does accurately capture a part of their sound (but only a part).

The Drift sum up Seer as “the sound of introspection, with tracks ranging from claustrophobic and frenetic to open and expansive”, and that is accurate, but that too only scratches the surface of the broad spectrum of sounds and sensations that a trip through Seer reveals. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THIRD CHAMBER — “HARVESTING OUR DECAY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Nov 202019
 

 

Although Harvesting Our Decay is the debut EP by Calgary-based death metal band Third Chamber, this is another example of a band whose members have a long history in the underground scene, in this case having performed with numerous Calgary groups, including Culled, After Earth, Meddigo, False Flag, WAKE, Disciples of Power, Exit Strategy, and Razorwing. And as some of those names suggest, Third Chamber‘s line-up — drummer Dustin Hahn, guitarists Jamie McIsaac and Jay, bassist Russ Gauthier, and vocalist Shane Hawco — have brought elements of grindcore and hardcore into their death-dealing metal.

The result of their collaboration, as vividly revealed on Harvesting Our Decay, is music that’s explosively powerful, making ample use of pulverizing grooves, maniacal riffing, and hair-raising vocal ferocity, while also paying attention to tempo dynamics and incorporating an array of dark melodic flavors that help give the music a memorable character.

The band will release Harvesting Our Decay on November 22nd, but we’re giving you the chance to check out all 21 minutes of it today. Continue reading »

CATTLE DECAPITATION: “DEATH ATLAS”

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Nov 202019
 

 

(Andy Synn authored this review of the eagerly anticipated new album by Cattle Decapitation, which is set for release on November 29 by Metal Blade Records.)

As every amateur gambler knows, you never quit when you’re on a hot streak.

As every real gambler knows, however, hot streaks are an illusion, and it’s only the utterly naïve, or the foolhardy, who like to think that lady luck has, for some reason, taken a special interest in them.

Californian crushers Cattle Decapitation have been on their own little hot streak ever since 2009’s The Harvest Floor, with both the breakthrough/breakout release of Monolith of Inhumanity and it’s arguably even better follow-up, The Anthropocene Extinction, earning them a guaranteed place on pretty much every End of the Year list that mattered.

But what goes up must, inevitably, come down, and every bubble has to burst sometime.

So the question is, can Death Atlas continue the band’s winning ways, or is it time to cash out? Continue reading »

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