THE HOWLING WIND: “VORTEX”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 172013
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Tim Call and Ryan Lipynsky under their moniker The Howling Wind.)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. And although we may rarely think about it, it permeates the way we think, talk, and write about music.

When we use words like “heavy”, “crushing”, “dark”, etc., we’re drawing on the experience of our other senses in order to describe the musical experience. We talk about how it feels, how it tastes. We wax lyrical about colour and light and shade. We even assign emotion to the faintest of sounds. The language of music incorporates all the senses.

The duo who comprise The Howling Wind have – whether consciously or unconsciously – exploited this idea for years. Each of their albums is crowned with a distinctive colour scheme which serves both to reflect the music contained within and also to set each release apart from the others. From the rust and verdigris palette of Pestilence and Peril, through the cold, stark blues of Into The Cryosphere, up to the crimson occult shades of last year’s Of Babalon, the cover for each album has been both a promise and a warning of things to come.

So when you see the pitiless greys which grace the cover of Vortex you should prepare yourself for a truly bleak and unforgiving experience. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CASKET / SEWERCIDE SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 162013
 


Delicious cover art by Kator.

In early November, Maryland-based Unholy Anarchy Records plans to release a 7″ split by two young bands who are new discoveries for me — Philadelphia-based Casket and Sewercide from Melbourne, Australia. Each band contributes one song to the split, and both of them are good.

CASKET

Casket’s offering is “Armed To the Teeth”. It thrashes and lashes with a firm whiphand, raising welts with a blaze of head-snapping riffs before splitting the skin wide open with a an off-speed beatdown. There’s more than a little hardcore punk blood that courses through the thrash spine of the song, and a miasma of ghoulish death metal fouls the air in that breakdown. Good vocal foulness, too, in a mix of rancid, nails-on-the-chalkboard rants and guttural grunts. And finally, there’s just the right amount of gauziness to the production, because you need a wrapping of gauze to soak up the blood.

SEWERCIDE

Sewercide’s track is “Vector of Disease”, and it’s a romping, wrecking, open-throttle thrasher. You can smell the exhaust from this well-tuned engine, along with a strong whiff of sulphur, because it’s plenty evil. Rippling lead guitar lines, an eye-watering solo, and turn-on-a-dime tempo changes help make the song one worth coming back, too. Standout drumwork and unhinged vocal vehemence, too. Continue reading »

CIRCLES: “INFINITAS”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  4 Responses »
Oct 142013
 

(Victimized by technological unreliability, TheMadIsraeli has been absent from our pages recently, but returns with this review of the new album by Australia’s Circles, which is out today via Basick Records.)

I’m finally back after experiencing another hard-drive crash and trying to get back on my feet with school and all.  Thankfully I have all this week off, so expect fuck tons of shit coming your way.

This band, and this album, represent what may very well be the epitome of the dirty word/guilty pleasure/shit you just shouldn’t like as a metalhead.  I have three dreaded genre names, and these guys are in all three.  Ready?

Djent, Nu metal, and Alt metal.

I know. But bear with me.

I’ve talked about Circles before, when I reviewed their debut EP here on NCS.  For me to appropriately address this album I think I need to go into a bit of surmising.  It’s safe to say that a lot of metal heads, whether they want to admit it or not, can appreciate a good pop metal record once in awhile (think Mercenary’s Darker Days Ahead, which appeared earlier this year), though more often than not we tend to be unwilling to admit this.  Sometimes you just want something that’s heavy enough, but has the hooks and melodies that will stay in your head for days. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: BOG OF THE INFIDEL — “TO CORRUPT YOUR SONS AND LUST AFTER YOUR DAUGHTERS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Oct 142013
 

The mail came. It included a soft brown package with an unexpected CD inside, the CD adorned with the cover you see above. I gazed upon it, I read the band’s name and the album’s title, and the tumblers in my mind fell into a certain configuration. I felt sure I knew what the music would sound like: guitars like razors scraping glass, an unceasing barrage of muffled blasting drums, vocals sulfurous enough to kill all the insects in my house, a lo-fi torrent of raw and ripping black metal. And that would have been fine, but maybe not worth writing about.

But this four-song EP by Bog of the Infidel (from Providence, Rhode Island) proved to be more than I was expecting. It is indeed black metal, and the vocals did indeed save me the cost of an exterminator, though they are more in the vein of hoarse, harsh roars and howls than demonic shrieking. But I sure wasn’t expecting that the opening track would be a bright, vivid, classically influenced acoustic guitar instrumental. And that was just the start of the surprises. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: A PREGNANT LIGHT — “STARS WILL FALL”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Oct 132013
 

I knew nothing about A Pregnant Light before listening (repeatedly) to the band’s latest two-song release, Stars Will Fall.  What I had to go on, besides the recommendation of NCS supporter Utmu, was artwork consisting of a photo of Hedy Lamarr from Ziegfeld Girl, the band’s self-chosen genre label of “purple metal”, and lyrics that although poetic and mysterious were also emotional and angst-ridden, speaking of “panic and love”, falling stars, being caught between the sun and the moon. I nearly made a fast U-turn back toward the realms of the eviscerating and destructive music where I usually dwell, because I interpreted these signposts as warnings of a possible trainwreck ahead.

But I thought, it’s only two songs, and although they’re longer than average, I can make my U-turn at any point before getting far enough into the wreckage to do permanent damage. Forging ahead turned out to be a really smart move.

Those two songs blur the lines between black metal, hardcore, post-metal, punk, and post-punk — and who knew all those lines were close enough together to be blurred? The music rides on rocking rhythms, with “Stars Will Fall” the more hard-driving and rambunctious of the two and “My Life Outside the Party” somewhat moodier. But the key to both of them is that they’re tremendously infectious, with melodic hooks and compelling rhythms that exert a strong magnetic pull. Continue reading »

POISONBLACK: “LYIJY”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Oct 122013
 

(DGR reviews the new album by Finland’s Poisonblack, which is out now on the Warner Music Finland label.)

We’re in a weird back half of the year as releases taper off in preparation for the mighty internet explosion of Top Ten lists. At the moment, it’s been a quiet lull with the occasional thunderclap of strong releases (see, for example, recent reviews for Glorior Belli, Otargos, and Skeletonwitch), and on this end, it’s afforded me time to really look at stuff outside of the general sphere of metal that we usually cover. I’ve been a longtime fan of the Finnish band Poisonblack, ever since 2006, so when the group put out a new CD this year I couldn’t help but check it out.

The band are not the heaviest thing we’ve covered, but for some reason a review of their new disc Lyijy (according to Google Translate: finnish for “Lead”) has been half-forming in the back of my head for some time. The group have, as of their last few releases, become something of a heavy rock band with a large blues influence in their riffs, drinking music for depressed bikers with a heavy layer of sleaze on top of it. Even though they’ve been around for a decade now, the name may not be overwhelmingly familiar to this side of the net since they aren’t our usual niche. However, Poisonblack are really good at what they do, and I have enjoyed everything they have put out. They’re one of my go-to bands when I want something more rock-feeling and less of the crushing heavy metal to which we willingly submit ourselves on a day-to-day basis.

Previously, I’ve rotated between the group’s latest three releases — A Dead Heavy Day, Of Rust and Bones, and Drive — but with Lyijy out now, does it qualify to join those discs for that rock mood? Continue reading »

RIVERS OF NIHIL: “THE CONSCIOUS SEED OF LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Oct 102013
 

(In this post guest writer Austin Weber reviews the new album by Rivers of Nihil.  He also took the live photos included with the review.)

For the last few years, Reading, Pennsylvania’s own Rivers Of Nihil have seen their profile continue to rise through a combination of excellent EP releases and a lot of dedicated touring. Last year all that hard work payed off as Metal Blade Records decided to sign them, and now that October is upon us, their full-length debut The Conscious Seed Of Light arrives.

While Rivers of Nihil began as a hybrid of rich old-school and new-school death metal influences, they’ve wisely developed their sound further. On this debut the band have matured and are just as comfortable easing back on the aggression and letting reflective atmospheric moments develop and flourish. Unlike some other bands who have incorporated these kinds of sounds into their death metal framework, Rivers Of Nihil never allow them to become the focus for whole songs. They merely let those moments flavor and enhance parts of most tracks. So in the end you still get the experience of being bombarded by an angry wall of sound, and the songs don’t lose any aggressive appeal. Then, as an added bonus, their sorrowful excursions lend a gnawing melancholy to the music that is quite emotive. Continue reading »

GLORIOR BELLI: “GATORS RUMBLE, CHAOS UNFURLS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 102013
 

(BadWolf is back with a review of the stupendous new album by those swamp lords from France, Glorior Belli.)

I’ve gotten in a few discussions about Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls, the new album by France’s Glorior Belli—already a mark in the record’s favor. People seem to be of two camps regarding the band’s unqiue—and oftentimes infuriating—mixture of black metal and blues rock. Glorior Belli begs the question: where does meaningful experimentation end and gimmick begin? Their choice of blending ingredients doesn’t seem meaningful on the surface, or organic. It’s certainly hard to get right judging by their previous album, 2011’s The Great Southern Darkness, which suffered from an incoherent production that often reduced the band’s experimenting into mush. However, if this year’s iteration is any indication, Glorior Belli is no gimmick, despite an irreverent tone.

On Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls, the blues licks overpower the black metal foundation. Only the first leaked song, “I Asked For Wine, but He Gave Me Blood” has more grime than blue notes. A cursory listen to opener “Blackpowder Roars” reveals squealing Les Paul pentatonics and some swing time drumming. The album benefits first and foremost from some added clarity and a boosted bass sound—like Skeletonwitch did earlier this year, Glorior Belli show credence to the raw power of the Rickenbacker! Songs like the mostly instrumental “A Hoax, a Croc!” greatly benefit from the separated instruments, as for most of the record the bass and each guitar play distinctly different lines—it’s a rich, complex sound that somehow goes down smooth. Continue reading »

IN-QUEST: “CHAPTER IIX — THE ODYSSEY OF ETERNITY”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Oct 092013
 

(Andy Synn reviews the latest album by Belgian progressive death metal band In-Quest.)

Make no mistake, The Odyssey of Eternity is a fantastic album, punishingly heavy and furiously aggressive, yet at the same time coldly, hypnotically compelling – pulsing with razor-sharp death metal hooks and spell-binding sci-fi ambience.

Though the core of In-Quest’s sound has long been an amalgamation of monstrous post-Meshuggah mecha-groove and wrenching Darkane-style cyber-thrash – along with more than a hint of Decapitated-esque devastation– this time around the Belgian post-death metallers have further augmented their murderous robotic rampage with haunting layers of synthetic soundscapes, artificial atmospheres, and cyberspace dynamics, in a flawless fusion of beauty and brutality.

The clever, intricately precise way in which the album is constructed – each track flowing into the next with intelligent design– is testament to the care and creativity involved in its creation. Each track has something which makes it stand apart from the others, its own identity and method of attack, yet the fluid transitions between them are utterly seamless. This mesmerising, interwoven connectivity of sound and vision is incredibly rare, and ensures that the album is best experienced as one cohesive whole.

Continue reading »

SKELETONWITCH: “SERPENTS UNLEASHED”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Oct 092013
 

 (BadWolf reviews the new album by Skeletonwitch, which is slated for release on October 29 by Prosthetic.)

Hopelessness lives in Ohio. I was born here. My world is flat, industrialized, and divided by thirds into fields of GMO crops, seemingly bombed-out factory complexes, and dilapidated ghettos. (Very well, I’m being harsh to my home, but follow me.) Ohio’s metal scene stands in equivalent disarray, with a few notable exceptions—and the most notable is Skeletonwitch.

Hailing from college town and bar hopper’s paradise Athens, Skeletonwitch bring a home-grown and fun-loving attitude to their puree’d blend of old school heavy metal, thrash, death, and black metal. Their short albums and shorter songs pack in screeched vocal hooks and twin guitar leads at blitzkrieg tempos. Since roughly their 2007 album, Beyond the Permafrost, Skeletonwitch have been the little band that could, plowing uphill with a tireless work ethic and a knack for good songwriting.

They know their strengths—frontman Chance Garnett and furious guitar duo Scott Hedrick and Nate Garnette—and only modify their formula incrementally from album to album. Cynics might call it  a lack of imagination, but I call it good branding, and Serpents Unleashed will cement that brand for even more fans. After four years of replacement drummers and studio experimentation, this record feels like the defining moment for the band, the most assured record in their catalog next to 2009’s Breathing the Fire. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries