APOCROPHEX: “SUSPENDED FROM THE COSMIC ALTAAR”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 092015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the debut album by Apocrophex from New Jersey, which is being released on March 10.)

They say variety is the spice of life, but in a musical context, it’s how you arrange that variety and spice that makes the difference between music that’s merely a rehash and something that’s varying degrees of remarkable.

Instead of mixing all their influences into one singular synthesis dispersed in the same manner across every song, as many derivative tech-death bands do, Apocrophex shift between countless styles and technical death metal influences in separate contrasting passages and songs. In isolation, this can make some moments come across as too obviously close to their influences and thus seem weaker, but when taken as a whole in terms of how the music is constructed, Suspended From the Cosmic Altaar is very interesting and varied for technical death metal. And that’s especially when you consider that this is the band’s debut album, coming very soon after their initial two-song EP, Wheels Within Wheels (which I wrote about last year here at NCS). Continue reading »

MALADIE: “…STILL…”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 062015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by the German band Maladie.)

My problem with bands such as Slipknot is not merely a distaste based on personal likes and dislikes, but one rooted in the fact that their music has never seemed to sound like the collective efforts of their many members. It seems limited and small, compared to what might actually be possible had a band with that many members truly tried to include and incorporate each player’s talents in a way that added richly to the band’s sound.

While they are worlds away from Slipknot, I think this is part of the reason why I love the German metal super-group Maladie. They truly make full use of each of their nine members, to create an ensemble effort that defies the norm in search of a highly progressive musical path that never loses its venomously monstrous aggressive edge in the pursuit of this enlightening and forward-thinking aim. Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “DORMANT HEART”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 

(DGR reviews the latest album by Sylosis.)

For a long time, there were few bands out there that I was willing to evangelize as much as Sylosis. Long before I ever got into the writing game, I would tell anyone who would lend me their ear about the band — a group I had initially checked out on a whim when my policy for checking out new music consisted of looking into albums that scored an eight and above on Blabbermouth.net’s review scale, a criterion that Sylosis’ 2008 release Conclusion Of An Age happened to satisfy.

To explain why the group held such a strong appeal to me, I have to own up to the fact that three genres were really my entryway into heavy metal, and they were melodeath, metalcore, and thrash metal. It’s probably a common event that those three tend to be the welcome mats, since a lot of what I view as “gateway bands” tend to fall into those genres, but I just had to highlight it, in part because, to be incredibly reductive, Sylosis‘ sound is a combination of those three genres. Continue reading »

EXGENESIS: “APHOTIC VEIL”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 042015
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the debut EP by Exgenesis, whose members are from Sweden and Columbia.)

As far as I can recall, it’s usually in the first quarter of every year when I discover one of my big new musical surprises. Previous examples of this (admittedly, rather vague) trend were my discovery of Restoration by Amiensus in 2013, and the self-titled debut by Ion last year. So, as you can imagine, I’ve been keenly awaiting this year’s discovery, whatever it may be… and Aphotic Veil is definitely it.

Exgenesis is the fruit of a collaboration between two men, Jari Lindholm (Sweden) and Alejandro Lotero (Colombia), which delivers a fantastically fresh and frankly rather ferocious take on Melodic Death/Doom metal a la Daylight Dies/Swallow The Sun/October Tide, breathing new life into this well-worn sound with little more than a keen grasp of dynamics and superior song-writing ability.

The five tracks which make up Aphotic Veil weave together an enviable series of groaning, titanic riffs and grim, torturous growls with punishing flourishes of bone-cracking drum work and touches of darkly beautiful melody, wrapped up in a claustrophobic atmosphere of brooding shadows and haunting half-light which hints at some blackened marrow in the band’s bones. Continue reading »

AN NCE PREMIERE: OCCULT 45 — “HUMAN ABHORRENCE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

After releasing a debut EP, a couple of demos, and a split with Drones for Queens, Philadelphia’s Occult 45 have signed with Broken Limbs Recordings for the release of a new EP named Human Abhorrence — and we’re bringing you the premiere of a full stream right now.

The seven tracks on Human Abhorrence will only take about 12 minutes of your time, but Occult 45 pack a lot of highly varied mayhem into those minutes. If you’re like me, your first impulse after finishing it will be to let it run rampant through your head all over again, just to pick up what you missed the first time through. Continue reading »

GHOST BATH: “MOONLOVER”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the debut album by Ghost Bath, which comes out on March 17 via Northern Silence, with a full-album stream at the end.)

The Deafheaven comparisons will overflow Ghost Bath’s ethereal tub, but at its heart Moonlover favors its depressive black metal side over any of the shoe-gazing it flirts with. The opening “Golden Number” uses more synths and piano than Sunbather had as an entire album. On “Happyhouse” the band make it even clearer that the depressive elements are more important to them than the shoe-gazing. They drill into the blasting section, their drummer attacking with more feral precision than Deafheaven.

The crystalline ringing of the guitars in “Beneath the Shade Tree” is darkly beautiful, though it is just an interlude that gives some breathing room before the first part of “The Silver Flower”. From this point on the album takes a turn away from more vocal-centered music into atmosphere and ambience, dragging you along for a session of melodic hypnosis before the blast beats kick you off the cliff. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND REVIEW): KURHAN — “GŁÓD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Feb 262015
 

 

Not long ago we included a feature about the title track to a new album by Poland’s Kurhan in one of our occasional round-ups of impressive new songs. Now we have the pleasure of bringing you a full stream of the entire album, the title of which is Głód (“hunger”).

When I first heard the title track, it really grabbed me by the jugular. I compared it to taking a ride on a whirlwind, or something like being caught in a swarm of bats embarking on a night of feeding at full speed.  But in addition to unleashing a plethora of technically impressive high-speed riffs and hard-hitting percussion, Kurhan made the song a rhythmically dynamic work and threaded appealing strands of dark melody into their blazing tapestry as well.

Now having heard the entire album, more metaphors come to mind. Listening to it is like being dropped into a war zone, with shrapnel flying fast and furious and bursts of adrenaline flooding the bloodstream from all the imminent peril. Continue reading »

SHROUD OF DESPONDENCY: “FAMILY TOMB”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Feb 242015
 

 

It has always been
It has come to this
Family mansion for this life
Family tomb for the next
 

Shroud of Despondency have done it to me again. Last November, not knowing much about the band, I decided to devote just a few minutes to their new EP, Defective Overpass, just to see what it was like. And the music promptly shoved all my other plans over the side and wouldn’t let me alone until I had gotten my thoughts about it up on this site.

I found out yesterday that the band’s final album, Family Tomb, is now available on Bandcamp. I thought I was better prepared this time, having heard the EP. But I wasn’t. And here I am again, unable to do anything else I had planned to do until I’ve spilled my thoughts all over this page.

I haven’t listened to the album as much as I should, and I haven’t spent as much time writing this review as I should — but I have to tell you about this album, and I need to do it now. Continue reading »

PORTA NIGRA: “KAISERSCHNITT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 202015
 

 

(Andy Synn penned this review of the new album by Germany’s Porta Nigra.)

Inspiration is an unpredictable mistress. You can never be sure when, or how, she’s going to strike.

I hadn’t planned on reviewing Kaiserschnitt, not consciously anyway. Even though I still have a lot of sick love for Fin de Siècle, Porta Nigra’s devilish debut, I initially intended to listen to their latest release merely to satisfy my curiosity. After all, I had other, more important things to be focussing on.

Or so I thought.

As I said, inspiration strikes at the oddest times and in the strangest of ways, and from my first listen to the album I found myself making up the disconnected mental notes and disordered comparisons which, ultimately, have come together to make up this review. I couldn’t have predicted it, I certainly hadn’t planned on it, but here we are anyway. Continue reading »

THE DEVIL AND THE ALMIGHTY BLUES: SELF-TITLED

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 202015
 

 

(Grant Skelton reviews the new album by a Norwegian band named The Devil and the Almighty Blues.)

Even a cursory listen to metal will reveal elements of two of its parent genres, blues and jazz. But metal’s kinship with these genres does not end with musical derivation and composition. Metal, blues, and jazz also share similar folklore. Long before parents were blaming Dee Snider and Rob Halford for their little hellions’ (see what I did there?) adolescent tyranny, jazz was called “the devil’s music.”

One might trace this attribution to the decadence of the “Roaring 20’s.” Alcohol was outlawed, and that meant no sales taxes. On the black market, anyone who could provide alcohol could make a pretty penny from a customer who wanted his choice poison. As it happened, the establishments that provided the booze provided the music. Jazz itself had nothing to do with the alcohol, cocaine, and hedonistic sexuality of this era. But in the minds of many, jazz was guilty by association. Sin sells. And in the 20’s, jazz was its soundtrack. Continue reading »

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