Album Reviews Archives - Page 373 of 557

VIRULENCY: “THE ANTHROPODERMIC MANUSCRIPT OF RETRIBUTION”

Apr 072016

(In this post our friend Vonlughlio (Blast Family and Reign of Death) reviews the new album by Virulency from The Basque Country.)

Here at NCS we premiered the song “Myriapod Constructology I” in early January, and last week Islander included Virulency’s full stream of their debut album The Anthropodermic Manuscript of Retribution.

So I was given the opportunity to give my thoughts on what happens to be my favorite BDM release so far in 2016. I know it’s early, but have to say that the album has been constant in my playlist.

As mentioned in the earlier posts, the band is from The Basque Country of Spain and formed around 2011, the year in which they released a two-song promo. The following year they released their EP Unbearable Martydom Landscapes. I must admit that when I heard about the band in 2013, I only heard a song from that EP, which I liked, but I never managed to listen to all the songs. It was when New Standard Elite signed them that I bought a copy of the EP (shame on me). Once I gave that release a proper listen, I understood why the best label in the genre decided to signed them. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT — “INCESTE”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Apr 072016

(Austin Weber reviews the new EP by NY’s Imperial Triumphant — who just released another new song from the EP.)

Watching Imperial Triumphant grow and morph in so many odd directions over the years has been pretty interesting. I first started covering these guys back in 2012 when Abominamentvm dropped, and even then I correctly foresaw them as being a group focused on deconstructing black metal into an otherworldly force of disturbing imagination and horror. True to form, they’ve really been giving it their all ever since then. First there was the two-song crushing blow of Goliath in 2013. Then came another phenomenal full-length just last year called Abyssal Gods. I’m still reeling from the experience that record delivered, yet the band is already back with a four-song EP named Inceste that comes out pretty soon — on April 15th.

After a release as batshit crazy and eclectic as Abyssal Gods, I was excited to hear what new realms of misery they cooked up this time. And damn, Inceste does not disappoint at all. It traps and delivers all their many forms of sonic tinkering and dissonant filth, with a healthy round of guests aiding in their eerie quest to musically hit rock bottom and become purely chaotic noise. At least this time they were kind enough to brace us for the coming storm with “Libertine” as a subdued opener. But as soon as track two, “Kaleidescopic Orgies”, unfurls its queasy, almost Gorguts-like off-kilter opening rhythm, and then seesaws between dark swirling chaos and surreal sensory overload, you know this ride will be just as wild as any the band have given us before. If there is one sensation that comes to mind when I sit through this, nausea would be it. Imperial Triumphant continue to deliver frantic odes to death that never rest and endlessly rage into fits of madness. Continue reading »

DEATH FORTRESS: “DEATHLESS MARCH OF THE UNYIELDING”

Album Reviews 10 Responses »

Apr 072016

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album by New Jersey’s Death Fortress.)

Eons ago… in the cold, dark days of 2014… I stumbled across a certain album. An album absolutely overflowing with raw, visceral power and truly venomous, electrifying energy. That album was Among the Ranks of the Unconquerable, by verbose Black Metal marauders Death Fortress, and it quickly rose in the ranks to become one of my favourite Black Metal albums of the last decade.

I’ll admit though, I was a little late to the party, and the album had been out for some time before I finally got around to reviewing it. This time, however, I’ve been much more on the ball, as the band’s new album, Deathless March of the Unyielding, was only just released earlier this week.

So I guess the big question is, how does it stack up to its predecessor, an album about which I comprehensively struggled to find anything to criticise? Continue reading »

BOSSK: “AUDIO NOIR”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Apr 062016

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Britain’s Bossk.)

Dream metal serves as a better sub-genre to file this British band’s debut full-length under, rather than dismissing them as post-rock or sludge gaze. Too often post-rock/metal has meant music influenced by Piper At the Gates of Dawn. Before God Speed You! Black Emperor raised their skinny fists, Voivod had already tested those Roger waters on “Nothingface. Instead of trying to re-invent the Floydian wheel, Bossk is giving it a new spin. They bang out a brand of bong-fueled aggression easily agitated into something more overtly metal. Like many of their mellower peers, an incredible guitar tone comes with the job description; it has just taken a decade to make sure it’s dialed in right on this album. Continue reading »

SUNNATA: “ZORYA”

Album Reviews 7 Responses »

Apr 062016

(Bill Xenopoulos, a guest writer from Greece who also writes for Rock Overdose and has his own music blog here, reviews the new album by Poland’s Sunnata.)

I like bands that put together slow, rolling, riff-laden, psychedelic, hook-laced, head-bobbing, transcending, sludge-crushing, spiritual-exploring, doom albums. I think I covered everything that may or may not appear within you, while listening to Sunnata’s sophomore album, Zorya.

Poland is known mostly for her black metal industry, and I like the foggy darkness that comes from there (there are more than 2000 bands from Poland, but I will leave the fog reference as it is). Darkness is good, but there is a different approach to the exploration of heavy electric music, and Sunnata are moving on that territory. They’ve been around since 2013 and have been working their craft, giving shows with some well-known bands, like Conan and Kylesa, and writing long and heavy songs that build themselves around psychedelic hallucinations. Continue reading »

GLORIA MORTI: “KUEBIKO”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Apr 062016

(DGR reviews the new fifth album by Finland’s Gloria Morti.)

There’s something to be said for setting extremely high expectations for a disc based off of the opening minute of your new album. Opening your new disc with a minute of Col. Kurtz’s (portrayed by Marlon Brando) monologue on the word “horror” from the film Apocalypse Now is certainly one way to do so. Gloria Morti’s mid-March new-album release Kuebiko does exactly that. I have to give it to the band, because in one aspect I actually haven’t heard that monologue used much in music before — though the band later use a sample in one song that I absolutely have heard before — and Kurtz’s ruminations on “what is….necessary” is one hell of a way to set a high bar for yourself when beginning a new album.

If you’ve been following NCS in the past few months, Gloria Morti’s name and cover art should actually be ringing a bit of a familiar bell with you, as we covered their release of the song “Foul Stench Of Vomiting Blood” and the video for the song “Execution” — as well as resident NCS guest bitter-person KevinP placing Kuebiko as one of his albums of the month for March. This review had been in the works before that, and there was a brief moment where I wondered if I should can it, as Kuebiko was by then well-represented on the site — but this is the sort of album that needs to be discussed, and what text we have dedicated to the disc doesn’t quite cut it. Because Kuebiko is one of few albums released this year that is relentlessly straightforward in its approach to death metal, the type that is so relentlessly singular in its gaze on its goal that you can’t help but enjoy it. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: EYES FRONT NORTH — “FROM SHAPE TO NAME”

Album Reviews, Premieres 4 Responses »

Apr 052016

This Friday, April 8, the Italian label Argonauta Records will release From Shape To Name, the debut album by the Parisian band Eyes Front North, and beginning today we give you the chance to stream the album in its entirety.

Listening to From Shape To Name can be a disorienting experience. Not only do the band incorporate a surprisingly diverse mix of musical styles into their songs, they juxtapose them in sharp, unexpected twists and turns. It’s an almost non-stop roller-coaster ride keeps you off-balance — but wide-eyed in wonder, waiting to see what’s coming next.

The ever-present question about music like this is whether the eclecticism works — whether the integration seems organic, even if surprising — or instead becomes a jarring jumble. Eyes Front North definitely make it work. Continue reading »

IHSAHN: “ARKTIS.”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Apr 052016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Ihsahn.)

A certain friend of mine (who will remain nameless) has an almost pathological obsession with pointing out the various points of intersection and cross-pollination between Metal and Pop music, to the extent where it sometimes feels he’s seeing what he wants to see, and not necessarily what’s actually there. Still, he must be having a field day with Ihsahn’s new album Arktis., as it’s easily the most gleamingly melodic, intimately accessible… and, yes, poppy, album that the ever-adversarial artiste has put his name to thus far.

Despite this distinction, however, it’s also possible to see this album as something of a return to form following the somewhat uneven nature of both Eremita and Das Seelenbrechen, both albums which the man himself characterised as being more of a musical diversion than a continuation of the main creative thrust of his solo work.

Though both albums definitely had their charms (and, in hindsight, Eremita quite clearly served as a testing-ground for some of the more overtly poppy ideas and influences which permeate this release – you only need to look at Prog-Pop anthem “Frail” for evidence of that) it’s clear in a number of ways – from the structuring of the songs to the return to the established naming convention (The Adversary, Angl, After, Artkis.) – that album number six is a step back onto the right path. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): REBAELLIUN — “THE HELL’S DECREES”

Album Reviews, Premieres 12 Responses »

Apr 052016

Rebaelliun are a band of Brazilian death metal marauders whose roots can be traced back to 1998. In 1999 the Dutch label Hammerheart Records released the band’s debut album, Burn the Promised Land, and then also released their second album Annihilation in 2001. Both albums made a big and lasting impact in the underground, but after touring in support of Annihilation the band broke up.

But now Rebaelliun have reunited, and they have again joined forces with Hammerheart Records to release their third album, The Hell’s Decrees. Although the release date for the album doesn’t arrive until May 5, we are privileged to bring you a full stream of the album today.

Our good friend from The Dominican Republic, Vonlughlio (Blast Family and Reign of Death) has been a Rebaelliun fan for many years, and has been as excited as anyone about the band’s reunion and the release of this new album. And so before the album stream, we bring you his thoughts about the music: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ASKESIS — “THE PATH TO ABSENCE”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Apr 042016

By all accounts, and from photos and films I’ve seen, Venice is one of the world’s most unique and beautiful cities, a magical place that seems to inspire art that is likewise not entirely of this world — though the art inspired by the city can take dark, supernatural shapes as well as sunlit ones. And that brings us to The Path To Absence, the debut EP by the Venetian black metal band Askesis — which we are premiering for you today.

The slow, morbid chords and banshee wails that begin “Prayer To the Void” begin to spread the cloak of darkness immediately, and the sense of ravaging pestilence only mounts as the band accelerate the pace. You’ll quickly notice that the music has a heavy, thundering low-end sound and that the jolting drum progressions not only move the rhythms and pacing in differing directions as the song progresses, but will also rattle your teeth. Meanwhile, the swarming tremolo chords and predatory growls deepen the sense of malignancy that those doom-shrouded opening chords announce. Continue reading »

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