REFUSED: “WAR MUSIC”

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Nov 052019
 

 

(Seattle-based NCS contributor Gonzo has delivered this review of the new album by the Swedish hardcore punk legends Refused, which is out now via Spinefarm Records.)

Few album titles in 2019 have been as well-suited as War Music, the latest slab of anti-capitalist post-punk from Swedish icons Refused.

Never ones to shy away from politically charged subject matter, the Swedes have only seemed to build on the energy of their phenomenal 2015 comeback album, Freedom, and channeled it into a compact 10 songs of vitriolic angst that’s just waiting to be the soundtrack to the next time a protester throws a Molotov cocktail at a government building. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLACK BEAST — “NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST”

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Nov 042019
 

 

On November 8th Primitive Reaction will release Nocturnal Bloodlust, the debut album of Finland’s Black Beast — which arrives a long 13 years after their last release (a split with Bloodhammer), so long ago that many of you may not be aware of their existence (I was not). But this debut full-length blazes like a meteor in the night sky, and should quickly elevate them from cult obscurity to a more exalted place in the Finnish black metal star-field.

Nocturnal Bloodlust presents a transfixing blend of bestiality, lust, and anthemic grandeur, with great song-craft to go along with the band’s unwavering devotion to rampant flame-spewing demonism. Continue reading »

SCHAMMASCH: “HEARTS OF NO LIGHT”

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Nov 012019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Swiss band Schammasch, which will be released by Prosthetic Records on November 8th.)

I’m sure it hasn’t escaped the attention of our readers that there’s been a lot of discussion recently about what constitutes “art” – what art is, what it “should” be, who should be allowed to call themselves an “artist” – when it comes to cinema.

And, obviously, this is an issue which extends to the music world too.

I know many people are particularly concerned with what role the intended audience should play in the creation of any piece of art.

Should an artist remain totally disconnected from the wider world, focussing on their own thoughts and feelings, to the exclusion of all else, with no thought to who their viewers/listeners will be?

Or should they consider how people will engage with and interpret their work, and aim to play with the perceptions and expectations of their audience as a way of provoking a certain reaction?

One of these approaches treats art as a form of “pure” expression, the other as a form of “deep” communication, and though both have their defenders and detractors, the truth is that they have both led to the production of some great works of art over the ages.

Which brings us, finally, to Hearts of No Light. Continue reading »

CLOAK: “THE BURNING DAWN”

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Oct 312019
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Atlanta’s Cloak, which was released by Season of Mist on October 25th and includes cover art by Adam Burke.)

Cloak’s 2017 album To Venomous Depths showed a great deal of potential. I wanted to hear more of who they were than who they aspired to be. The album was dark and melodic enough for me to invest the time in their sophomore album.

This new album finds the band giving me what I originally wanted from their debut. They are still more committed to sounding Swedish than devoting themselves to black metal, and I am fine with this. After all, there are 100 blast-beaters sitting in my emails every morning. I want something fresh, not warmed up, even if it’s warmed in the fires of hell. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ORTHODOXY — “NOVUS LUX DOMINUS”

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Oct 302019
 

 

With fiendish pleasure we present a full stream of Novus Lux Dominus, the debut album by the Spanish band Orthodoxy, whose line-up includes members of Domains, Profundis Tenebrarum, and Whoredom. It’s a successor to the band’s 2015 demo, Shaarimoth, which we praised here., and is due for release on October 31st — to make your Halloween even more horrifying.

After the haunting atmosphere of “Evocative Darkness”, created by eerily gleaming guitar reverberations, Orthodoxy unleash “Key To Victory”, in which absolutely vicious low-tuned riffing creates a maniacal gouging and gnawing sensation while thunderous double-bass onslaughts rumble and blast, and ghastly roaring and near-gagging growls and snarls enhance the music’s aura of unchained cruelty. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 114): VACIVUS

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Oct 302019
 

 

(In this October edition of THE SYNN REPORT Andy Synn compiles reviews of all the releases by the UK death metal band Vacivus, including Annihilism, an album just released by Profound Lore.)

Recommended for fans of: Incantation, Teitanblood, Sulphur Aeon

Despite my current status as an all-seeing, all-knowing, font of metallic wisdom (…cough…) I still find it difficult to say which bands are going to get “big”, and why some of those bands do when others don’t.

Take UK death-dealers Vacivus, for example. Despite receiving a wealth of critical praise for their work over the last few years, the quintet have yet to have that one “breakout” moment that might put them on the fast track to stardom.

Quite why this is I’m not sure, as the band’s blending of guttural growls and gut-churning riffage, all tinged around the edges with a touch of murky atmosphere and poisonous blackened melody, instinctively hits all the right notes to appeal to an impressive cross-section of extremophiles.

So if you’re a dedicated disciple of Death Metal overlords like Incantation, Immolation, and Morbid Angel, a lover of more modern upstarts like Sulphur Aeon, Blood Incantation, and Tomb Mold, or the sort of person who enjoys wallowing in the Death/Black hybrid horror of bands like Abyssal, Portal, or Teitanblood, you owe it to yourselves to check these guys out. Continue reading »

MONTE LUNA: “DROWNERS’ WIVES”

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Oct 302019
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review of the new album by the Texas band Monte Luna, which is out now via Argonauta Records.)

In 2017, Monte Luna dropped their debut full-length on an unsuspecting world, a sonic concoction of crushing sludge and doom mixed with psychedelic tones of weird horror and fantasy. Now they have returned like a lost tribe of barbarians charging across the wasteland. Their follow-up, Drowners’ Wives, was released on October 4th. courtesy of Italian label Argonauta Records.

For those who heard the massive sweep of the duo’s self-titled debut, they will be glad to know that the band have held onto their previous ambition. Yet the path to Doom-ridden bliss is different than before. Where in the past guitarist/vocalist James Clarke pounded out massive Conan-inspired riffage while drummer Phil Hook hammered away at Godflesh-like beats, Drowners’ Wives lets the Melvins influence shine though, primarily through massive vocal hooks. At the same time, there is a thick layer of psychedelia applied liberally over the proceedings that contributes greatly to the overall character of the album. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DIE KUNST DER FINSTERNIS — “REVENANT IN A PHANTOM WORLD (QUEEN OF OWLS ADDENDUM)”

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Oct 292019
 

 

“Die Kunst der Finsternis plays Horror Metal exclusively.” So says this Sweden-based band, the macabre solo project of Deacon D. (also a fixture in Hetroertzen), and truer words were never spoken. There is equal truth in the title of the band’s third album, Revenant in a Phantom World (Queen of Owls Addendum), because the music does indeed sound like the expressions of one who has known death and returned from its domain to haunt the living, or to feed upon their blood. It also captures the transformation that listeners risk by becoming immersed in its deeply chilling sensations.

It’s the kind of album that kindles the imagination, in very discomfiting ways, and perhaps is best described by the visions it spawns rather than by a dissection of its ingredients, which include bits and pieces of black metal, death metal, gothic melody, and a cavalcade of demonic voices, all interwoven through the experimental and expressionistic imaginings of its creator. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LVXCAELIS — “MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ”

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Oct 282019
 

 

Now fourteen years into their existence, the Chilean black metal band LvxCaelis have produced their strongest work yet, a ravishing third album entitled Maher Shalal Hash Baz that will be released by Lamech Records, fittingly on October 31st.

Pursuing ancient occult and mystical themes across seven tracks, the trio of Irad (guitars/vocals), Nimrod (bass), and Frater B. (drums) create a sonic tableau of varying sensations, from plundering cruelty to chilling reverence, from crushing bleakness to carnal swagger, from terrifying splendor to chaotic ecstasy — and all of it cloaked with a mantle of menace and mystery. Today we give you the chance to hear all of it. Continue reading »

SARTEGOS: THE PREMIERE OF “AS DEVESAS SOM DOS LOBOS” AND A REVIEW OF “O SANGUE DA NOITE”

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Oct 282019
 

 

(On November 29th I, Voidhanger Records, in collaboration with Blood Harvest Records, will release the debut album of the Galician black metal band Sartegos. Today we’re premiering a song from the album, preceded by a review of the album by guest contributor Conchobar.)

 

“Behold, may that night be barren; may no joyful voice come into it.
May it be cursed by those who curse the day — those prepared to rouse Leviathan. May its morning stars grow dark; may it wait in vain for daylight; may it not see the breaking of dawn.…”

Job 3:7-9.

Darkness has an odd ontology; the metaphysics of night are pluripotent but also polysemic. Shadow has with it the dusky, twilit sense of a lessening, but also the waxing of a distance from daylit realities. There is, as night advances, a thickness and a viscosity in its tendrils – it stains and layers the fading of light. And as it advances, it consumes. Not ravenously, but purposively, relentlessly, indefatigably. The negentropic islands of solar reality are slowly blotted out by the obscurations of a lunar regime.That nocturnal density – its flows and coalescences, pulses and coagulations, are the blood of the night – o sangue da noite. Continue reading »

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