HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 5) — “REIGN IN BLOOD”

 Album Reviews  22 Responses »
Sep 202019
 

 

(This is the fourth installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. Links to the preceding installments are at the end of this post. Our plan is to continue posting the remaining Parts on a daily basis until the series is completed.  NOTE:  Through an oversight, the assessment of Hell Awaits got skipped in the sequence, but we’ll have that installment after this one.)

Reign In Blood is rightfully considered the breakout album for Slayer in terms of their really becoming noticed in a more widespread sense.  I say rightfully, but while Reign In Blood is a good album, it’s not great. I think for me this shortfall is due to the fact that it distinctly lacks much of what would hook me about Slayer as I explored the rest of their discography.

Kind of odd, right? Considering this is the record that exposed me to the band.  But my exploration of Slayer’s entire body of work ended up reshaping my perception of this album.  While I like it, I’ve come to think that it’s overrated. Continue reading »

DARKEND: “SPIRITUAL RESONANCE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 192019
 

 

(Here’s DGR’s review of the new album by the Italian black metal band Darkend, which was released by Dark Essence Records on September 13th.)

This website’s fascination with Italian black metal group Darkend began in 2016 with the release of their cameo-packed third album The Canticle Of Shadows. It made a handful of our year-end lists and even landed a song on the 2016 Most Infectious list when that time came around. Admittedly, we have not been the most up to date with the band as of late, and in fact the last time we really posted about the group’s newly released album Spiritual Resonance was way back in June in a news roundup that included amongst its various bands Blood Red Throne, themselves ahaving received a recent writeup here as well.

The three-year gap between Darkend’s previous album The Canticle Of Shadows and the new one has seen the band gain a few more eyes on them, so Spiritual Resonance arrives with some steam behind it. It’s an interesting disc in comparison to its predecessor, less reliant than before on immediate star-power to grab eyes, and also a shorter disc than before – something that has been a trend for the band, since Canticle itself slimmed down to under an hour versus its older sibling’s hefty hour-and-twelve minutes.

Though one track and about seven minutes shorter than Canticle, Spiritual Resonance retains that previous album’s lofty ambitions (which is clearly a Darkend trademark), with its initially deceiving six tracks each clocking in between six and eight minutes. Wrapped within is a swirling mass of black metal that makes a heavy play for the atmospheric and spiritualistic, while also displaying the group’s knack for grand and sweeping theatrics within each song. Continue reading »

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

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Sep 192019
 

 

The broad genre of doom metal bears that name for a reason. In different ways, the sub-genres under that banner summon sensations of dread, despair, gloom, and grief, sometimes of supernatural origin and often deriving from the familiar afflictions of daily human existence and the ultimate one that awaits us all at the end. But while the genre label of doom may have the naming rights for all our woes, it has no monopoly on the channeling of those feelings through extreme music.

Certain schools of atmospheric black metal are equally devoted to soul-crushing sensations, and arguably are even better suited to capturing the severity of intense suffering and the madness it can produce. The self-titled debut album by Iffernet that we’re premiering today in advance of its October 2nd release is a prime example. It presents emotionally wrenching music that penetrates deeply, relying on continuing cycles of squalling and searing riffs and severely tortured vocals to saturate the mind with changing moods of abandonment, fear, pain, delirious agony, and crushing grief. The album is a colossal panorama of despondency and despair that’s unrelenting in the intensity of its devotion to those visions, and so powerful in its achievements that it won’t leave most listeners unaffected. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 3) — “HAUNTING THE CHAPEL”

 Album Reviews  15 Responses »
Sep 192019
 

 

(This is the third installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. Our plan is to continue posting the remaining installments on a daily basis until it’s completed.)

I really want to know what inspired Slayer going into the writing of Haunting The Chapel.  It’s such an overnight transformation that the question of what caused it to occur boggles the mind. This EP is one of the best ever created in the history of metal.  It’s a top 10er at minimum.  It’s concise, vicious, and unrelenting, and the song-writing and riff-craft speak to a release that had obsessive amounts of loving attention and detail put into it. Everything about this EP is in that sweet spot between speed, technicality, drama, and unrelenting brutality. Continue reading »

CULT OF LUNA: “A DAWN TO FEAR”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 182019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Sweden’s Cult of Luna, which will be released by Metal Blade Records on September 20th.)

It’s only natural for any fan to want a band’s new album to be the best thing they’ve ever done.

Partially it’s because we’ve all been conditioned to believe that if an artist’s newest release doesn’t sell more, get a higher score, increase their exposure, etc, that it’s somehow a failure, but there’s also the simple fact that, as fans, we want the bands we love to keep getting better, to keep impressing and surprising us and making us feel that electric frisson of excitement every time.

As a writer/reviewer you’ve got to be doubly careful about this. After all, if you start throwing around 10/10 scores every time a band’s newest release drops, what does it mean when their next one is even better? Do you pull a Nigel Tufnel and go up to eleven? And does every subsequent album get a higher and higher score?

I suppose that’s one benefit of not using numerical scores here at NCS. Our readers are forced to actively engage with what we write in order to find out what we really think about an album, rather than just lazily relying on context-less numbers that never give you the full picture.

So when I say, as a huge fan of this band, that their latest album ultimately falls a little short of the stupendously high bar set by both Vertikal and Mariner, you shouldn’t be disheartened. Because this is still Cult of Luna we’re talking about, and A Dawn to Fear remains a thrillingly heavy, emotionally resonant journey regardless. Continue reading »

CHELSEA WOLFE: “THE BIRTH OF VIOLENCE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Sep 182019
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Chelsea Wolfe, which is out now on the Sargent House label.)

Metal is a sound. Heavy is a feeling. There are plenty of bands that on paper are metal, but when played are not heavy. There are some entire genres of metal that might be suited for the Friday night D&D game or drinking mead with your mates, but are not heavy. Then there are artists who are not metal, but given their sense of darkness, despair, or pure sonic gravity, are heavier than a great number of metal bands. Artists like Swans, Diamanda Galas, and The Birthday Party come to mind. Chelsea Wolfe is also one of those.

Her Burzum cover brought her to the attention of metal fans early in her career before she caught the ear of the indie rock crowd. I have obviously covered her here before, since I tend to prefer sonic heaviness and melancholic heaviness over metallic heaviness. This album falls more under melancholic heaviness and is less sonically heavy than her past three albums. Continue reading »

SAMMATH: “ACROSS THE RHINE IS ONLY DEATH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 182019
 

 

Over the last 30 years many metal albums have taken inspiration from the two World Wars, and have used episodes from those terrible conflicts to form lyrical themes, but few records have so breathtakingly channeled the unchained ferocity, the horrifying decimation, the mind-shattering fear, and the oppressive bleakness of total war as Sammath’s new album, Across the Rhine Is Only Death.

As the title suggests, and as the band explain, this new release (Sammath‘s sixth studio album in a career that now spans 25 years) is “a true tale of death and destruction”, conceptually focused on the final months of World War II when Germany desperately tried to hold the Rhine as its western border. Far from a celebration of war, it represents an effort — and a very successful one — to summon the horrific annihilation that humanity is capable of inflicting on itself. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 2) — “SHOW NO MERCY”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Sep 182019
 

 

(This is the second installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. With luck, we’ll manage to post the remaining installments on a daily basis until it’s completed.)

The thing about these early proto-thrash albums is, frankly, that a lot of them kind of sound the same. Obviously, this isn’t a fault of the musicians, as this was a developing style at the time and a lot of people fail to remember that these bands all came up in the same area and no doubt fed off each other creatively.

For a proto-thrash record, however, Slayer’s Show No Mercy remains distinctive even for it’s time. While Metallica had a simplistic, straight-forward approach and Megadeth rejoiced in excessive technicality, Slayer knew how to write songs, and this record makes that fact more obvious than any other when placed in the context of when it came out. It’s brimming with energy, its mix is incredibly good for its era, and some of the song-writing ideas here were ahead of their time. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANCIENT MOON — “BENEDICTUS DIABOLICA, GLORIA PATRI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Sep 172019
 

 

Two tracks. One of them nearly 17 1/2 minutes long, the other one just over 20 minutes, each of them denominated as a Part of a single work. That’s the new album by the black metal band Ancient Moon, Benedictus diabolica, Gloria Patri, which will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on September 20th. Two very long pieces composed and performed by anonymous artists, locations unknown, but apparently crossing continents.

Music of such daunting length can be… daunting to listeners, and to people such as myself who feel compelled to wrestle with words as a means of communicating sound. But don’t be daunted, or deterred from listening. Patience is obviously required, but in this case it will be richly rewarded. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 1)

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Sep 172019
 

 

(This is the first part of an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. With luck, we’ll manage to post each installment on a daily basis until it’s completed.)

I fucking love Slayer. The blasphemous flesh flayers are no doubt legendary in metal’s history and its evolution, for good reason. The speed, sheer technicality, outright viciousness, and the new wave of dark tonality they brought was absolutely, existentially crucial in the birth of what we now know as extreme metal.

However, there’s always been a lot of conjecture around this band. Lots of fluff about legacy, how they influenced metal, etc., but no one (that I’ve seen) has applied a hard critical eye and evaluated this band’s entire catalogue of albums as a work of art. Not as a piece of history, not as an influence, not as an example of innovation, but as an assessment of how Slayer have performed as musicians across their body of  work over time. Continue reading »

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