SHADES OF BLACK: IMHA TARIKAT, ELEVENTH RAY, WALD KRYPTA, VARNHEIM, ANGLACHEL, GEMYND BEADU

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Mar 302025
 


Imha Tarikat

(written by Islander)

Today is my wedding anniversary (it’s a big one, with a number that ends in a zero). Today the Associated Press highlighted some other events that happened on this day in U.S. history:

  • In 1822, Florida became a United States territory.
  • In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”
  • In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
  • In 1923, the Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived back in New York after a 130-day voyage.
  • In 1939, Detective Comics issue #27 was released, featuring the first appearance of the superhero character Batman.
  • In 1975, as the Vietnam War neared its end, Communist forces occupied the city of Da Nang.
  • In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.
  • In 2023, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.

Let’s celebrate! Continue reading »

THRONE OF ROACHES: “CHRYSALIS”

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Mar 282025
 

(Straight outta Malmö, Sweden, Throne of Roaches released their debut album Chrysalis last month, and today our writer DGR gives it an extensive review… after some extensive thoughts about what’s going on with death metal in the modern era.)

For those who’ve been paying attention to the recent spate of reviews the site has run – and those by yours truly – ever-observant as you are, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had a recent string of album arts in which the predominant color has been blue. Well enough of that bullshit, it’s time for a change. Now, we’re going with the color green for an album or two.

Every year tends to bring with it some sort of theme – other than usual overarching abject misery – that picks at the brain until it finally unclasps like a louse killed and rots away into dust. This year in particular has been poking the cortex with ideas of how metal has grown and evolved each year, and its myriad changes and how newer groups must navigate a landscape that isn’t just shifting so much as it is turbulent enough that even the FAA these days might detect that there’s something happening with a particular plane before it hits the ground. They don’t have enough coffee in the world to keep that one guy fueled.

Metal has blended many times over its generations and death metal especially has time and time again found itself bisected, dissected, vivisected, septrisected, and intersected to the point of unrecognizability. Pantheons and towers erected and destroyed in one fell swoop and just as many merged together to resemble the security guard cenobite from Hellraiser: Bloodline. What is and isn’t has proven fertile ground for those who wish to engage in perpetual argument. The concept of death of the author becomes hilarious in this regard when dealing with a genre obsessed with the actual physical undertaking and not the philosophical aspect. Continue reading »

THY KINGDOM WILL BURN: “THE LOSS AND REDEMPTION”

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Mar 272025
 

(As of late our writer DGR has been leaning into melodic death metal, and that tilted him into the new album by Finland’s Thy Kingdom Will Burn, released in January by Scarlet Records.)

Any long-standing musical genre will develop its own regional flavorings over time. Many of them are echoes of the first handful of groups to break through in that particular style, later to become ingrained in the blood of any following acts. The tower of influences effectively comes crashing down to be compacted into a simple statement ‘this is recognizable as having come from…’ and so on.

This is how people end up specializing in styles from certain countries, and with a practiced ear and enough familiarity, you can conjure the basic tenets of a certain region simply by seeing it referenced in front of a genre listing. Some are way more prominent than others and those that fly under the metal detection sphere instead feel like an undercurrent and noticeable pattern.

Finland has been a fun country in this respect because the one genre they truly seem to dominate is the folk-metal and folk-song-inspired genre-sphere. There’s a plethora of groups all specializing in music that sways with the rhythm of drinking songs and veers hard on the edge of feeling like an extreme take on power-metal’s sugar-laden hooks. Were Finland to wear crowns, that would be one of a scant handful teetering precariously upon its head.

No shock then, that many of those melodic sensibilities – and even particular recognizable motifs – seem to have bled through into the country’s other musical aspirations, including what seems to be a recent revitilization of its melodeath sphere. Continue reading »

EUPHROSYNE – MORUS

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Mar 262025
 

(Andy Synn explores the depths of grief with the debut album from Greece’s Euphrosyne)

As someone who was a big fan of Euphrosyne‘s debut EP, Keres, back in 2022 – so much that it took a spot in my “Top Ten EPs of 2022” (and arguably would have climbed even higher had it been released a little earlier) – it was a given that I was going to be the one to write about their much anticipated first full-length, Morus.

Unfortunately, time and tide (and other things beginning with “t”) worked against me a little bit last week, so I wasn’t able to cover the record prior to release.

But, hopefully the band will forgive me for the delay once they read what I’m about to write.

Continue reading »

clipping. — “DEAD CHANNEL SKY”

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Mar 262025
 

(This is our friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth‘s review of the latest album by the clipping. trio from L.A. and their guests, which has been out on the Sub Pop label since March 14th. And it’s actually the second mention of them in our pages; the first time, almost six years ago, was here.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. There’s a very good chance that you’re not familiar with the noise hip-hop trio clipping., or if you are you may be wondering why they’re being discussed here on No Clean Singing. The answer to that question is because Islander said I could review their new album, mostly, but also because their music is uncompromising and esoteric and has plenty to offer to metal fans who are a little more open-minded.

The trio, comprised of multi-hyphenate rapper-actor-Broadway star Daveed Diggs (best known for filling the roles of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in the original stage production of Hamilton and the Snowpiercer TV series) and producers William Hutson (Rale) and Jonathan Snipes (Captain Ahab), recently released their fifth full-length album Dead Channel Sky, the album I am here to discuss. Continue reading »

ALLEGAEON – THE OSSUARY LENS

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Mar 252025
 

(Andy Synn takes a look at the new album from Allegaeon, where everything old is new again)

To misquote Oscar Wilde:

“…to lose one singer may be regarded as misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.“

Now, of course, I’m not blaming Allegaeon or saying they’ve done anything wrong, as the departures of both vocalists – with original screamer Ezra Haynes submitting his resignation in 2015 and his replacement, Riley McShane, handing in his marching papers in 2022 – seemed to be pretty amicable, all things considered.

But it’s certainly true that their vocal issues have a tendency to come at inconvenient times, just as the band are really hitting their stride (both creatively and commercially)… which is precisely why it’s understandable that the band would choose to bring Haynes back into the fold for another ride, as his instantly-recognisable voice and distinctive delivery definitely played a big part in putting the band on the map in their early years.

Of course, as we all know, trying to rekindle any sort of relationship after time spent separated is always a risk – what if you’ve simply grown too far apart to ever reconnect? – so the biggest question which The Ossuary Lens (out next week) has to answer is… is the chemistry still there, or is this rekindled romance doomed to fizzle out?

Continue reading »

NATTVERD: “TIDLOES NAADESLOES”

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Mar 252025
 

(Our Norway-based contributor Chile returns to NCS with the following review of a just-released  album by the Norwegian black metal band Nattverd.)

The change of seasons is upon us, that much is true. Mind’s undying love of wintry landscapes and frozen vistas will be put on hold for the next seven or eight months, while the physical form will be thankful for not needing the concentration and dexterity of an Olympic ice-skater just to get to the local shop so it could diverge resources on other needful things in the body. Also affected by this change are numerous black metal bands across Scandinavia famous for preferring to take their promo pictures in frozen, snowy environments. Soon enough, winter is, well, coming.

Until then, we work with what we have. And what we have is plenty of new metal from Scandinavia coming to these shores in their longboats wielding sharp riffs in our general direction. One such example is the outstanding Norwegian black metal band Nattverd whose releases so far may have passed under the radar of a wider audience, but their new album Tidloes naadesloes should be the one to take them further up the ladder of chaos. Continue reading »

AREIS – THE CALLING

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Mar 242025
 

(Andy Synn kicks off a brand new week with a review of fearsome French foursome Areis)

Last week featured an absolute bonanza of new album releases, at least some of which we’ll hopefully be able to catch you up on over the next couple of weeks.

But one name which jumped out at me – although I couldn’t at first put my finger on why – was Areis.

It didn’t take me too long, however, to remember that back in 2021 (which simultaneously feels like just yesterday and a thousand years ago) I stumbled across the band’s self-titled debut album and instantly took a liking to it, despite not knowing much about the band themselves.

And although I didn’t have a chance to give the group a full write up at the time, that’s something I’d like to correct with their second full-length, The Calling.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRAWLING CHAOS — “WYRD”

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Mar 242025
 

(written by Islander)

Wyrd is the third album, by the Italian death metal band Crawling Chaos, and it’s set for imminent release by Time To Kill Records on March 28th. As the label explains, “It is an anthology inspired by the role of feminine figures in European mythology and their connection to the concepts of fate and free will.” Crawling Chaos elaborate further:

Wyrd is our third full-length assault and it is a twisted journey through fate, destiny, and everything that lies beyond free will. Inspired by the ancient Northern European concept of wyrd, this record dives headfirst into the dark side of what it means to become.

Each of the ten tracks is a chapter in a mythological fever dream. You’ll meet some of the most powerful, terrifying female figures from mythology, folklore, and history: the Norse Norns, Macbeth’s witches conjuring chaos for Hecate, the relentless Greco-Roman Furies, and those wicked Thessalian necromancers who bend the dead to their will. It’s a damn coven of destruction. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AMENRA, NECHOCHWEN, BLOOD CHARIOT, STONE CROWN, BLOOD MONOLITH, THE GREAT SEA, WARFIELD, SLIDHR, JACK QUARTET

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 222025
 

(written by Islander)

As usual, I had an enormous number of things to choose from for today’s collection. As usual, I had no preconceived idea how to do it. I just put one foot in front of the other, stumbling along until I ran out of time.

As I sit here and look at what I chose, I see that I defaulted to some old favorites but also went with debuts from some bands I’d never heard of. (I also siphoned off a few that will make good shades for the usual blackening of the Sabbath tomorrow.) I also added a couple of live-performance videos at the end, one of which is a genuine brain-scrambler. Continue reading »

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