VACIVUS: “TEMPLE OF THE ABYSS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Aug 162017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the debut album by the UK death metal band Vacivus, set for release by Profound Lore on September 22nd.)

Here’s a seemingly simple, but actually incredibly complex, question – why are some bands good and other bands… less so?

Or, to be more specific, what makes some bands capable of spinning fresh gold out of a well-worn sound, while others are doomed to wallow in their own mediocrity?

This is something I’ve been wondering about quite a bit recently, after I came across a pair of Death Metal bands from the UK, both of whom have been receiving a fair bit of hype and attention online, whose albums couldn’t have more clearly represented the opposite ends of this spectrum.

You see, whereas one of these albums (whose name has been withheld out of respect to the victims) turned out to be one of the most painfully unoriginal and uninspired records I’ve heard all year, the other captured a certain freshness, a viciousness, a certain sense of drive and urgency, which made it an absolute joy to listen to.

So whatever this particular attribute, this special x-factor is, it’s clear that Vacivus definitely have it. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LIFETIME SHITLIST — “SLOW MARCH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 152017
 

 

With a name like Lifetime Shitlist and song titles on their new EP such as “Beach of Death”, “Infestation”, and “Death Rattle”, you don’t expect this band to make music that feels like a warm hug and a shoulder to cry on. And sure enough, Slow March will punch you in the kidneys and treat your head like a piece of sheetrock ready for the nail gun. But man, it’s a ton of battering fun — the kind of fun that leaves you with loose teeth the next morning and the kind of bruising that goes beyond black and blue and into that shade of yellow that makes you queasy to look at it.

Slow March manifests some changes from this Baltimore band’s last album, Pneumaticon, including a new vocalist (Ned Westrick), a new second guitarist (Corey Fleming), and an evolution in their sound. For the new EP they also tracked the drums, the bass, and the rhythm guitars live in the studio of Grimoire Records on a single April Saturday, with the vocals added the next day. The gods of the mosh pit must have been smiling on that weekend. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MALEMORT — “INDIVIDUALISM, NARCISSISM, HEDONISM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 152017
 

 

As I listened to this debut album by the French band Malemort I asked myself a question I’ve asked before — though to be clear, I haven’t heard many records in the league of this one: Why do our minds and emotions make such deep connections with music that’s so convincingly calamitous, so mercilessly stripped of hope, so sodden with misery and soaked in blood, so cataclysmically heavy, so frighteningly violent?

Perhaps it’s just the part of us that instinctively admires anything done with the meticulousness of a jeweler’s hand, even if it’s an efficiently organized demolition job. Maybe it’s because death looms over us all, the fear of extinction, the dread of all feeling and thought being snuffed out without warning, like a beautiful daughter torn to pieces in an instant by a machine rammed forward under the direction of a hate-filled lunatic… it’s always right there, hovering on the edges of daily life, and regulalry reminding us of its presence through some new tragedy.

I don’t know. I’m no psychologist. I only know what I feel, and for fuck’s sake I’ll just say it up front — this album is the most stunningly powerful, staggeringly horrific, blindingly apocalyptic doom album I’ve heard this year, and it has few peers in any year. Continue reading »

JOHN FRUM: “A STIRRING IN THE NOOS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 142017
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews an album that has made a deep impact on him, and many others — the fascinating debut by the quartet who’ve named themselves John Frum, out now on Relapse Records.)

Typically, if I run too far behind on turning a review in, I have to accept that my time is probably better spent moving on to something newer. For once, I’ve felt a pressing urge to break that self-imposed rule, because John Frum, and the demented form of death metal found on A Stirring in the Noos, are simply too brilliant not to provide a full and proper review here at NCS.

Like most people new to John Frum, I was curious what the album as a whole would sound like, and hopeful that their enormous combined talents would make for something special. I was not, however, ready to have my brain scrambled, and my expectations destroyed, to the immense degree that A Stirring in the Noos has managed to do for me. I’ll admit that during my initial phase of listening, I was unsure how I felt about this release, sensing weaknesses in some of the tracks that I’ve now come to appreciate as crucial and important within the context of the full experience they’re delivering. But we’ll touch on that point more in a bit. Continue reading »

A HILL TO DIE UPON: “VIA ARTIS VIA MORTIS”

 Album Reviews  19 Responses »
Aug 142017
 

 

(On September 15, Luxor Records will release a new album by A Hill To Die Upon, and here we present Andy Synn’s review of the album plus a stream of its first single.)

There are certain artists who have, for whatever reason, become very special to us here at NCS.

Artists with whom we’ve built up a certain relationship, a certain rapport, over the years, to the point where they become essentially one of our “house bands”.

Illinois iconoclasts A Hill To Die Upon are one of them.

Having been fans of the group – now comprising original members Adam and Michael Cook alongside the newly-indentured Brent Dossett and Nolan Osmond – ever since their debut, following them through all the ups and downs, calamities and controversies, it’s been our privilege to watch them grow and evolve from plucky contenders into the veritable Blackened Death Metal powerhouse they are today.

It should therefore come as no surprise, if you’ve been paying attention, that the band’s fourth full-length album sees them continuing to develop and mature, stepping outside of the shadow cast by their forebears by, paradoxically, more fully embracing the blackened roots of their sound.

So hold onto your hats, it’s about to get biblical in here. Continue reading »

ENFOLD DARKNESS: “ADVERSARY OMNIPOTENT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 112017
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album by Nashville’s Enfold Darkness, released on July 14 by The Artisan Era.)

Audacious, ostentatious, and more than a little ridiculous… the long-awaited (and much delayed) second album from Nashville metallers Enfold Darkness is either going to have you grinning from ear to ear, or wrinkling your nose up in distaste, depending on your tolerance for outrageous metallic bombast.

And although we’re not quite talking full-on Fleshgod Apocalpyse levels of OTT excess, the band’s kitchen-sink approach to blending elements from different metallic sub-genres – resulting in a sound which can, to the disgust of genre purists, probably be best summed up as “Symphonic Blackened Technical Melodic Death Metal” – definitely falls into the “love it or loathe it” camp.

So the question is… are you going to love it, or… not? Continue reading »

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

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 102017
 

 

(Tomorrow — August 11 — Relapse Records will release the debut EP of Poison Blood, a collaboration between multi-instrumentalist Jenks Miller (Horseback) and vocalist Neill Jameson (Krieg). On the eve of that release we’re fortunate to host the premiere of a full music stream, introduced by this review from our editor.)

1993 was a remarkable year in which the landscape of second-wave black was being shaped by the likes of Darkthrone’s Under a Funeral Moon, Enslaved’s Víkínglígr Veldí, Immortal’s Pure Holocaust, Burzum’s Det Som Engang Var, Dissection’s The Somberlain, Ulver’s Vargnatt, Varathron’s His Majesty At the Swamp, Emperor’s first (self-titled) EP, and Strid’s End of Life. In the midst of all that, Beherit released Drawing Down the Moon.

That album seems to have come from a blood-freezing netherworld different from everything else around it in those halcyon days of creative upheaval. Even heard today, it still sounds unlike almost everything else that claims the increasingly amorphous (and often abused) label of “black metal”. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ATRIARCH — “DEAD AS TRUTH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 102017
 

 

(Atriarch’s new album Dead As Truth will be released by Relapse Records tomorrow — August 11 — and today we present the debut of a full music stream, preceded by an introductory review from our Andy Synn.)

Here’s a fun story for you.

Not long ago, for whatever reason, I found myself attending a Goth club night, which afforded me an opportunity to observe some of our most unfairly maligned brothers and sisters strutting their funky stuff in their natural habitat.

What surprised me, however, was that, in amongst the expected medley of Fields of the Nephilim and Sisters of Mercy, I heard an awful lot of generic chart fodder as well.

Could it be that our infamously black-dyed brethren (and sistren) are actually just pop fans with a very specific taste in wardrobe?

Maybe so. Maybe not. What’s clear is that I’ll never fully understand what it means to be a Goth (not a judgement by the way, just a statement of fact).

But when it comes to music that inclines towards the darker side of things?

That’s something I can definitely get into. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CORMORANT

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Aug 092017
 

 

On August 11, Cormorant will release their new album Disapora. We are fortunate to bring you the premiere of a full album stream today, preceded by a review of the album by Andy Synn.

 

Let’s begin this review with a quick history lesson, shall we?

Back in 2012, shortly after the release of the band’s stunning second album, Dwellings, long-time Cormorant bassist/vocalist Arthur von Nagel elected to leave the band to pursue a career in video-game design.

Although this parting of ways was entirely amicable, many fans were understandably concerned that the loss of von Nagel’s distinctive voice and signature bass sound would undercut the band’s growing momentum and still-burgeoning creative potential.

Thankfully, 2014’s Earth Diver – which saw the debut of new frontman Marcus Luscombe – quickly put to rest any lingering doubts and fears about the band’s future, repositioning the group as a much more overtly “blackened” affair, and proving that change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.

Now, three years later, it seems the quartet are set to raise the bar even further with what is, quite possibly, their most extravagant and ambitious album yet. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BELL WITCH, SUMMONING, INCANTATION, OBITUARY, BOLT THROWER, BLASPHEMY, SXUPERION, SERPENTS LAIR, FIREBREATHER, ORBSEVEN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 082017
 

 

This is, obviously, a humongous round-up of things I’ve recently discovered. I’ve organized it in this way:

First up there are two news items that feature imagery and info about eagerly anticipated new releases but no music. Then I’ve got new videos and music streams by (or related to) a quartet of venerable and revered bands, followed by new advance tracks from two younger favorites who are returning with new releases this year. And then I’ll close this out with music from two bands whom I’ve just discovered.

BELL WITCH

On most days I post a piece of usually dark or surreal artwork on our Facebook page. I keep an archive of what I’ve posted over the years, as a way of trying to avoid repeating myself. In that archive I’ve counted 22 paintings by the Polish artist Mariusz Lewandowski that I’ve posted over the years since I began doing that, which I think is proof of how strongly I like his creations. But as far as I can recall, he has never created artwork for the cover of a metal album… until now. And his cover for the new Bell Witch album will surely stand as one of the best album covers of the year, if not THE best. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries