DEAD WRETCH: “HUG DIVISION DEAD WRETCH”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 312018
 

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Dead Wretch, released on April 27th by the Albuquerque label Ipos Music.)

Hug Division Dead Wretch may be the fastest I have ever gone from clicking around with the Random Band button on Metal-Archives to purchasing an album.

Hug Division Dead Wretch is the first full-length for Dead Wretch, a one-man project belonging to musician Daniel Jackson based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, that at one point counted amongst its ranks fellow band member “Definitely Not A Copy Of EZDrummer”. It is a tongue-in-cheek black/death/grind project that despite its less-than-serious origins has grown into something that not only has an acidic sense of commentary but also the musical bite to back it up. Having spent a few years launching EPs and a handful of joking singles, Dead Wretch released its previously mentioned first full-length this year, comprising mostly new songs and three tracks re-done from the project’s first EP, the tersely titled fuck it.

While most projects like this tend to make use of the plug-and-play nature of grindcore, Dead Wretch performs a much more difficult act — that of skewering various specific subjects (at one point claiming to be from Minot, North Dakota, so they too could seem more exotic) but also offering righteous indignation and social commentary (check out “Eat Shit” for an immediate example) while backing it up with excellent music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): JYOTISAVEDANGA — “THERMOGRAVIMETRY WARP CONTINUUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
May 302018
 

 

Although the subject is not free from doubt, the laws of thermodynamics can be understood to forecast a far distant future in which ever-increasing entropy leads to the heat death of the universe. Order devolves into disorder, chaos leads to extinction, and meanwhile the unexplored fifth dimension of our reality shadows the path of this lethal arrow of time.

These concepts have inspired the harrowing sounds of Jyotiṣavedāṅga, but mysticism holds a powerful attraction as well. This international entity, whose members consist of guitarist Sadist from the Indian band Tetragrammacide; H. from Russia’s Sickrites on synths, noise, and effects; vocalist AR, from the Kolkata band Banish; and Ukrainian drummer Dimitry Kim (Sickrites, Goatpsalm, Balance Interruption), is named after Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa, one of the earliest known Indian texts on astronomy and astrology. In their music and lyrics, they seek an intersection “between light and obscurity, between science and superstition, between good and evil”, a place “between the pit of all fears and the peak of all true knowledge.”

How they have done this you are about to discover. Jyotiṣavedāṅga’s new album, Thermogravimetry Warp Continuum, will be released by Larval Productions on June 6th, and now we give you the chance to hear the full album in advance of its release. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: CAVEMAN CULT — “SUPREMACÍA PRIMORDIAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
May 292018
 

 

Yesterday, while recovering from a metal festival over lunch with six haggard friends, we somehow got off onto summing up each other’s personalities. Looking at a few of them I observed, “Some people wake up angry.” One friend chimed in, “Some people wake up anxious.” Another said, “Some people wake up irritated — at being awake.” No one mentioned waking up with blood on their hands and fire in their eyes; that’s how I imagine that the Floridians in Caveman Cult usually greet the day.

I guess if you’re one of those delusional souls who wake up smiling at the wonderfulness of life, or happen to be suffering from a cataclysmic hangover, Caveman Cult’s new EP won’t be the right way to get your game face on. But if you want music that will fuel your rage, vaporize your anxiety, squash your irritation, and put the look of a wolf in your eyes, Supremacía Primordial is a damned fine choice. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: LELAHELL — “PARAMNESIA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
May 252018
 

On their new album Alif the Algerian band Lelahell continue a conceptual narrative arc concerning the evolution of a character named Abderrahmane that has carried through their debut EP Al Intihar (2012) and their first album, Al Insane​.​.​. The (Re​)​Birth of Abderrahmane. The new album focuses on a variety of philosophical and spiritual subjects through the lense of ferocious, technically impressive death metal, accented by influences from the band’s homeland.

Alif will be released on June 15th by Metal Age Productions, and today it’s our pleasure to present a video for the album’s opening track, “Paramnesia“. Continue reading »

A DIRTY HALF DOZEN: ACHERONTAS / ASCENSION / UADA / WIEGEDOOD / WILT / WOLVHAMMER

 Album Reviews  13 Responses »
May 242018
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn has combined reviews of new albums by a sextet of bands from both sides of the Atlantic.)

Phew, I’ve been trying to get this particular column written for quite a while now, but a cruel convergence of work, illness, and prepping for this year’s MDF meant that I’ve honestly been struggling to find the time to sit down and put finger to keyboard.

On the plus side, however, this has given me a little bit more time to absorb each album, and will hopefully result in a better overall product, so perhaps I/we shouldn’t complain too much.

Anyway, without further ado, here are six albums, all of them Black Metal, yet all subtly different and differentiated, originating from a variety of different locations around the globe (Greece, Germany, Belgium, Canada, and the USA), which I think are well worth your attention. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GHOSTBOUND — “ALL IS PHANTOM”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
May 222018
 

 

Given our usual proclivities at this site, perhaps it’s best to begin by paying attention to the elephant in the room: Roughly 99% of the vocals on Ghostbound’s debut album All Is Phantom are clean. And there’s another elephant standing in our room, too: Metal is only one ingredient in the music, and not even the dominant one. Nevertheless, we’ve agreed to present the full streaming premiere of the record here today despite the fact that it goes well off our usual beaten paths — because it goes off our usual stamping grounds so very well, blazing its own trails in such remarkably vivid and memorable ways.

The band’s name was well-chosen, and so is the album’s title. The music wears its passionate and very human emotions right out on its extravagant, embroidered sleeves, to the point of becoming theatrical at times, but almost none of it sounds completely earthbound. Ghost-bound, indeed it is — edged with angst, shadowed by sorrow, haunted by death. And it’s also beautiful, inspiring,  even joyous. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CURSE UPON A PRAYER — “THE THREE WOES”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
May 222018
 

 

(Wil Cifer wrote the following review of the new three-track EP by the Finnish black metal band Curse Upon A Prayer, which will be released by Saturnal Records on June 21.)

Saturnal Records is releasing an EP from this Finnish band who couldn’t give less of a fuck about the polite society of metal. On The Three Woes they lash out at Islam. People have complained for the last decade that Christianity is too easy a target. So they are taking aim at another religion. Strip this theme away and it boils back down to one question… What are these guys doing different that we’ve not heard other black metal bands do a hundred times?

The first song (“Let Thy Kingdom Come”) doesn’t give a clear-cut answer. It seems to be their level of hateful aggression. The standard tools of the black metal trade are all in place. Thundering double-bass, blast beats, and tremolo-picked guitar do their part to make this black metal as fuck. Hints of melody haunt the sometimes thrash-influenced guitar riffs. The passion with which they throw themselves into their music compensates for any time when they might not be the most original band on the planet. Continue reading »

THE KONSORTIUM: “ROGALAND”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 212018
 

 

(Agonia Records will release a new album by The Konsortium on June 1st in Europe and June 8th in North America, but you can read Andy Synn’s review of it today.)

Cast your minds back, if you will, to the heady days of 2011, which is when Islander stumbled across (and reviewed) the debut album by the mysterious Norwegian collective known as The Konsortium, in what would prove to be this site’s first (though by no means last) encounter with this group of memorable metallic misfits.

In the years since then we’ve covered the band a handful of times, whether it be appearing at Inferno Festival in 2012, or being picked out as one of my “Most Anticipated Albums of 2018”, but the truth of the matter is that pickings have been remarkably slim over the last seven(ish) years or so, as the various members of the band have all been busy with other projects and priorities.

Thankfully, Rogaland quickly makes it clear that all this time spent waiting has not been in vain, as it’s one hellishly addictive, ruthlessly aggressive, slab of Black/Thrash brilliance. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ROTTEN SOUND — “SUFFER TO ABUSE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 212018
 

 

(The Finnish grindcrushers in Rotten Sound released a new EP via Season of Mist on May 18th, and DGR gives it a detailed review here.)

Rotten Sound’s 2016 album Abuse To Suffer is one of the better examples of a neatly packaged album of grind out there to date, with the band having seemingly found a near-perfect length for their latest vitriolic blast-beast to unleash upon the world. Like many of their songs, Abuse To Suffer ends almost as suddenly as it begins with an almost perfunctory pop of the snare to finally send things off, neatly tying off the near half-hour you get with the Finnish speaker destroyers. Which means that the group’s latest EP — Suffer To Abuse — makes for an interesting proposition, arriving nearly two years after its predecessor and picking up right where the band left off, as if the Rotten Sound crew just couldn’t let go of that disc just yet and so dished out another eleven minutes (spread across seven songs) of hyper-fast and ultra-precise grindcore, leaning heavily on the circle-pit aspect of the -core sound.

The limited edition EP, which saw a staggered release between Europe and North America (for whatever nightmarish reasons, and not the first group this has happened to this year — Centinex also had a month between continents with their disc Chaos Manifesto), can be neatly summed up as exactly what you want you from the group — another quick expulsion of sound that remains relentless throughout, with just enough sludge around the edges to add a little dirt to the group’s latest sweat-fest. Continue reading »

DUNGEON SYNTH: A LIST BY NEILL JAMESON

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
May 212018
 

 

(In Part II of his 2017 year-end list for NCS, our friend Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) devoted attention to reissues of music from the realms of dungeon synth, but here that genre is the sole focus of the following recommendations.)

 

I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about the various synth subgenres that have popped up all around metal the last few years because they don’t have guitars or whatever excuse you give when confronted with something outside of metal. I know that kept me out of checking a lot of this shit out and gave me a lot of preconceived notions (mostly true when it comes to synthwave). I’ve been a longtime devotee of early (now Era 1) Mortiis but around the time he decided to try different genre pastures I was burned out by overly symphonic and honestly overly fucking melodramatic dark ambient and really only revisited the more ambient side of things when I put on old Mortiis records or if some black metal band had a good instrumental track (i.e., Lugubrum’s earlier stuff — totally underrated and mandatory band). That was until I listened to Old Tower out of curiosity, which caused a twelve-month binge on dungeon synth. I tend to obsess over these kinds of things and dungeon synth is a genre that’s constantly expanding so I always have something to check out. Like most genres, I don’t like 75% of it but what I do like, I really dig into.

Anyway thanks for sticking around for that needless exposition. The cliff notes version for anyone wanting to skip ahead is here’s another list I’ve submitted, this time with some dungeon synth you might not be too aware of and might be interested in checking out. Unlike most times I make these lists I’d actually love for readers to post suggestions for me to check out.

The best resource I’ve found for the genre is The Dungeon Synth Archives on YouTube, which seems to update every day. I’ve also noticed that Tour De Garde, Hollow Myths, and Out of Season generally knock it out of the park with their releases in the genre, plus Tour De Garde constantly releases black metal of high quality, which is a bonus if you have money to burn on something you won’t hate. Continue reading »

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