BLOOD RED THRONE: “UNION OF FLESH AND MACHINE”

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
Jun 072016
 

Blood Red Throne-Union of Flesh and Machine

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Norway’s Blood Red Throne.)

Eight albums in and it still feel like Norwegian wrecking crew Blood Red Throne never quite get the respect they deserve. I mean, by this point the band are effectively a Death Metal institution, and even their lesser albums (of which there aren’t many) are still more than capable of levelling a small town.

Maybe Union of Flesh and Machine will be the album to change that. Or maybe it won’t. Only time will tell. But it’s hard to deny that the band’s latest album is yet another top-tier terminator of crushing, grooving, blasting belligerence and cold, calculated aggression. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 14): EP SPECIAL

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 062016
 

collage

 

(We welcome you to the glorious 14th part of our Norwegian comrade Gorger’s highlighting of releases we haven’t previously reviewed.  To find more of his discoveries, visit Gorger’s Metal.)

I’ve got a few shorter releases to share with you today. I’m calling it an EP special, but for good measure, I’m tossing in a split and a graphic novel(!) too. I’ve also shortened down my ramblings to leave you sore-eared rather than sore-eyed. Enjoy. Continue reading »

NAILS: “YOU WILL NEVER BE ONE OF US”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 062016
 

Nails-You Will Never Be One of Us

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Nails.)

Over the years trends in metal come and go, leading up into 2016 when grindcore and powerviolence seemed poised to break through into the metal mainstream. What Weekend Nachos failed to deliver is now jackhammered into your face by this trio from California, who possess a guitar tone as nasty as the instrument can achieve while still being able to create riffs capable of holding together actual songs. For the purpose of this review, the word “song” is used to refer to sharp bursts of rage.

Grindcore has never been my forte, as the genre’s range of dynamic expression sonically feels like coloring with only the red crayon of anger. While this might limit what many bands do, Nails are savants at coloring with this crayon so well that your only choice is to hold on for the jolting ride. Continue reading »

WINTERHORDE: “MAESTRO”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jun 012016
 

Winterhorde-Maestro

 

(DGR reviews the new album by the Israeli band Winterhorde.)

In what has become a calling card, Winterhorde are a band for whom significant time has passed between the last two releases. Three years plus tends to be the point at which questions start arising about the band’s status, and when you start coming up on the front-end of six years as in the case of Winterhorde, you start to worry whether the band even still exist. The gap between the releases prior to the six-year breather was closer to four, so even by their standards the length of time between discs was reaching an extreme.

Maestro, the group’s most recent release, follows the group’s 2010 album Underwatermoon — a densely packed album that, while it had some faults in terms of running a little long in the tooth, had its fair share of interesting ideas and regional melodies that gave the whole album an air of maddening ritual. Continue reading »

POWER ELECTRONICS AND NOISE-LIKE OBJECTS (NO. 3)

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
May 302016
 

4PAN1T

 

(Todd Manning — formerly known as Allen Griffin — brings us a third installment of his series on power electronics and harsh noise  releases. The first two can be found here and here.)

Another transmission broadcast from the burning skyline at the end of the world, this time the filth bubbling up from the underground and that’s probably how it should be. Some of this filth is pretty thought-provoking, but that’s probably also how it should be. When you stare into that abyss, that abyss might stick a rusty butter knife in your grey matter and start stirring some shit around.

SWOLLEN ORGANS

First up is the new Annihilvs Power Electronix debut of NYC’s Swollen Organs. Noise in general has often delved into all sorts of extreme sexual behaviors for inspiration, and Swollen Organs does so as well, but on a more meta-level. Continue reading »

THE BEST OF BRITISH 2016, PART 2: FROM SORROW TO SERENITY / KING GOAT / LUNA’S CALL

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 272016
 

From Sorrow To Eternity- Remnant of HumanityKing Goat-ConduitLuna's Call-Divinity

 

(Andy Synn brings us Part 2 of a series spotlighting new recent releases by UK bands.)

Ok, so I may have gotten sidetracked in Germany somewhere along the way, but I promised you a second edition, and here it is.

This time around we’ve got another varied crop, featuring the burgeoning Deathcore delights of From Sorrow to Serenity, the expansive doomery of King Goat, and the indulgent Prog-Death of Luna’s Call.

So, without further ado, let’s get to it! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ILL OMEN AND SLAUGHTBBATH — “PESTILENTIAL HIEROPHANIES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 262016
 

Ill Omen Slaughtbbath split art

 

Two striking black metal bands separated by the Pacific have joined forces in a new split release coming out tomorrow on 7″ vinyl from Iron Bonehead Productions. The split’s title, Pestilential Hierophanies, is a conjunction of the two track names on the album, with Australia’s Ill Omen contributing “Whited, Pestilent Sepulchre…” and Chile’s Slaughtbbath providing “Inverted Hierophany”.

You can — and should — listen to both tracks below. I have a brief review first, and in a nutshell, this is one of the best splits I’ve come across this year.

ILL OMEN

The lone artist behind Ill Omen (“IV”) has quite a resume of participation in other groups, including his membership in Temple Nightside and previous work in Austere. Under the Ill Omen banner he has produced many short releases as well as three albums, including this year’s Æ.Thy.Rift. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WILDERNESSKING (KEENAN NATHAN OAKES)

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 252016
 

Wildernessking 2015-photo by Eckardt Kasselman
photo by Eckardt Kasselman

(We present Andy Synn’s interview of Keenan Nathan Oakes, vocalist for South Africa’s Wildernessking, whose new album Andy reviewed here.)

Spoiler alert: Mystical Future, the second album by South Africa’s most majestic of Metal exports, Wildernessking, is likely to feature very prominently on either my Critical or Personal lists of favourite albums at the end of the year (if not both). I’ve loved this album since the first time I heard it, and I was lucky enough to hear it far earlier than most.

I’ve also been lucky enough to grab the band’s vocalist Keenan Nathan Oakes for this interview, where we get to go deeper into the motivation and inspirations behind Mystical Future, as well as a bunch of other topics which I’m sure you’ll find most illuminating! Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: THE LONE MADMAN — “DREARY TASK”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
May 242016
 

The Lone Madman logo

 

(In this post Grant Skelton reviews the new EP by Finland’s The Lone Madman — an exception to our “rule”.)

“…Finland has perhaps the most heavy metal bands in the world, per capita…” If President Obama himself is aware of Finland’s contributions to heavy metal, then it would certainly behoove us at No Clean Singing to follow suit (and obviously not for the first time). Children Of Bodom, Ensiferum, Shape Of Despair, Amorphis, Omnium Gatherum, Swallow The Sun, Skepticism, Insomnium. And those are only a scant few!

I must give credit to the stellar blog The Shrieks From Below for my discovery of Helsinki’s The Lone Madman. In recent years, I’ve become quite a doom hoarder. You know what they say. “Listening to doom all day keeps the reaper at bay.” If you’ve enjoyed the recent resurgence in heavy, traditional, and/or epic doom from Crypt Sermon, Below, and Pilgrim, then The Lone Madman are the cushion for your proverbial casket. Continue reading »

IN MOURNING: “AFTERGLOW”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 242016
 

In Mourning-Afterglow

 

(DGR reviews the new album by Sweden’s In Mourning, with a full album stream at the end.)

On May 20th, In Mourning released the fourth album of their career with Afterglow. To lay all of our cards on the table up front, Afterglow is a great disc — but to really understand how and why Afterglow is great, you need to take a deep dive into In Mourning’s history so you can see what led the band to this point, because the album feels like the most natural evolution of their sound yet.

In Mourning are one of those bands for whom each album has sounded different from the others. A few genres have combined over the years to define their sound, and one of those key tenets has been a large swath of Euro-doom. The album that sowed the seeds of that was their first release, 2008’s Shrouded Divine. Shrouded Divine is also the disc where the group’s reputation as something of a critical darling was launched, drawing comparisons to bands such as Opeth — likely due to the occasional clean-sung break the group snuck in and the prevelant melo-death sound that wormed its way throughout Shrouded Divine’s run. Continue reading »

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