GRIS: “À L’ÂME ENFLAMMÉE, L’ÄME CONSTELLÉE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 302013
 

(Guest writer BreadGod contributes this review of the latest album by Canada’s Gris.)

I can’t believe it’s been almost six years since Gris released Il etait une foret…, one of the best depressive black metal albums ever recorded. As I said in my review of Thy Light’s No Morrow Shall Dawn, the depressive black metal scene became oversaturated with shitty bands shortly after the relese of Austere’s magnum opus To Lay Like Old Ashes. The scene then collapsed under the weight of all the shitty music and everyone moved on to the next, latest trend. This means that Gris just released their latest album, À l’âme enflammée, l’äme constellée…, to an empty house.

However, they’re not going to let this discourage them. They’re so confident in their musical abilities that their latest endeavor is ninety minutes long and comes on two discs. That’s ambitious. It’s almost as ambitious as Elysian Blaze’s Blood Geometry. Let’s just hope it was worth the wait.

The first thing I noticed was just how powerful the production is. It is so bold and powerful, and every instrument comes in as clear as day. Gris are making it obvious that they’re not a group of teenagers recording half-assed black metal in their parents’ basement. What they’re doing is a labor of love. This album is a true display of professionalism. Continue reading »

SPHERON: “ECSTASY OF GOD”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Aug 302013
 

(While attending the NCS Confab in Seattle, TheMadIsraeli managed to write this review of the debut album by Spheron, from Ludwigshafen in the south of Germany.)

It’s been awhile since any of us have turned in anything here except for Andy and DGR managing to scrape some shit together earlier this week, and I started to feel overwhelming Catholic guilt about my lack of effort.  I was wishing there was good shit coming out that we all hadn’t heard yet.   But in an odd move, it looks like what’s left for me now is to go back earlier in the year and pick up some things that we missed.

Our Best of 2013 So Far readers’ poll ended up providing me with a real treat.  I had seen the cover art for Spheron’s debut album before, and then saw  them mentioned in the aforementioned post.

Spheron are really the argument for the idea that finally seeing another Necrophagist record would amount to nothing more than complete and utter disappointment.  So many bands have taken what that band has done and stepped it up so much, and are much better songwriters to boot.  Spheron definitely have the songwriting down, as well as the technical chops and overall sound to match up with death metal greats. Continue reading »

THE DEVIL: “THE DEVIL”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 302013
 

 (Booker comes through for us in our inebriated time of need with this guest review of the debut album by The Devil.)

Hello fellow readers. Well, with our dear leader and his brethren (or, according to some conspiracy theorists, just Islander and his multiple online personas) otherwise occupied indulging in copious liquid refreshments (or, worried about butt chastity, it’s not clear which…), I thought I’d make myself at home and spam you all about one of my favourite surprise finds this year – The Devil.

Sometimes the greatest finds are ones you know nothing of, where you just hit play and randomly stumble across some aural goodness, which is just the case for my experience of this little gem: officially a November 2012 release, I found this album through Candlelight Records’ Bandcamp page sometime early this year, and after the initial shock of realizing there was no band previously claiming the all-metal moniker of ‘The Devil’ (“hey, who’s that you’re listening to?”….. “I’m listening to the devil!! Muah-ha-haa”  \m/), I hit play and found myself strangely intrigued at what this band had to offer….

This is The Devil’s first album, in which they offer up a kind of instrumental doomish slab of riff. I say ‘kind of instrumental’ as there’s no vocals as such, but the vocal elements are instead replaced by audio samples to provide the thematic, lyrical, and conceptual content; and boy does the album cover some conceptual ground: from that favourite of metal topics – the prospect of nuclear war (see ‘Extinction Level Event’ video below) — to the military-industrial complex, alien invasion (“Universe”; video below), life after death, long-gone civilizations, 9/11, and more. Continue reading »

TOMBSTALKER: “TOMBSTALKER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Aug 302013
 

(NCS supporter Black Shuck answered our call for guest posts with the following review of the debut EP by Tombstalker from Lexington, Kentucky.)

Hello, boys and ghouls. You may or may not remember, but a year or so ago I wrote a little piece on bands from Kentucky. One of those bands was named Tombstalker, and I’ll be reviewing their self-titled EP for you today. So sit back, relax, and enjoy as I fling my poo at the keyboard, much like the noble chimpanzee, and call it writing.

I included a stream of the EP in last year’s write-up, so if you listened to that you’ll have some idea going in of what this band sounds like. If you didn’t listen, or if too many nights sitting at home drinking to forget have erased most of your long-term memory, this will be a somewhat more in-depth look at the record.

Tombstalker are a mix of extreme metal and hardcore punk, describing themselves as “hammer crushing death crust.” While Anton Escobar’s vocals run mid- to low-range, which could be indicative of death metal influence, the EP has much more of a black metal feel to me. I mentioned their “grimy” atmosphere in the earlier piece on them, and coming back to this record a year later, that is still a large part of what makes it for me. The production is suitably low-fi; while not quite as stripped down as, say, early Darkthrone, it still doesn’t really look like they bothered with any sort of sleekness or polish, which is absolutely a strength of the album. Continue reading »

THY LIGHT: “SUICI.DE.PRESSION” AND “NO MORROW SHALL DAWN”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 292013
 

(Guest writer BreadGod returns to NCS with a review of two releases by Brazilian band Thy Light.)

Thy Light is a depressive black metal band that formed back in 2005 and released their first demo, the rather awkwardly named Suici.De.pression, two years later. It became quite popular in the depressive black metal scene, and after listening to it, I can see why.

The album begins with the title track, which is a beautiful and wondrous piano piece. It sounds rather joyous, which stands in stark contrast with the black metal that is to follow. I am unable to adequately put into words just how amazing the piano piece is. You’ll just have to listen to it for yourself.

Not only is the piano superb, but so is the black metal. Since this was all recorded by one guy, I’m pretty sure he used a drum machine, but the drum machine is pretty well-programmed. They keep to a moderate-to-slow pace and their structures are simple. One thing I really like about them is how prominent the snare is. This helps make the drums sound so real. I also like the double-bass they play on occasion. It doesn’t sound mechanical like it does in so many other bands. The double-bass here gives the music much more impact. Continue reading »

DEATH COURIER: “PERIMORTEM”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 282013
 

(TheMadIsraeli has found time to whip up a few quick reviews while participating in the Seattle NCS Confab, and this one seemed like a good pick for today.)

So, here we have a band who have been inactive since fucking 1992. They have been reformed by the bassist/vocalist (who seems to be the songwriter) with two new guys (being a three-piece seems to be the Death Courier “thing”). The original guitarist is dead, and I don’t know why the drummer didn’t come back.

I don’t pay much attention to Greek death metal — I usually find it underwhelming — but Death Courier’s brand of deathgrind is a fucking beastly affair, and Perimortem is both savage and catchy as shit. Short songs (the album is only 19 minutes long), chainsaw guitars tuned down to B, old-school vomity death vocals, grinds, slow drags out the ass, classic Swedish style riffing that brings forth memories of bands such as Bloodbath and Hypocrisy, and devastating Suffocation-style breakdowns: it’s a pretty satisfying meal for its insanely short duration. Continue reading »

PSYCHOTIC PULSE: “PSYCHOTIC PULSE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 272013
 

(DGR provides this review of the debut album by Toronto’s Psychotic Pulse.)

At some point, I would love to see someone try to take on a collection of discs that they feel absolutely nail the opening minutes, especially from bands where it was some of their first output. There is nothing to be denied about the strength of a strong intro track working, and when it is some of the first music anyone has heard by a band, that strength amplifies exponentially.

Personally, I’ve encountered countless examples where the best song by a band has been within the opening minutes (right after an obligatory intro track), and that ‘best song’ usually holds on to that title for an excessively long time. Case in point: Soilwork knew exactly what the hell they were doing by putting “Spectrum Of Eternity” as the second song on The Living Infinite — because that song locks you in. It’s so strong that you’re even willing to forgive a couple of the less individualistic mid-pace stompers that lie in wait about halfway through disc two.

All this rambling is prompted by the song “Asylum” off of Toronto, Canada-based group Psychotic Pulse’s 2013 self-titled release. They’ve previously done one small release called Handcrafting The Apocalypse that hit in 2010, but my first experience with the band lay in this year’s collection of music, and one of the songs that really locked me into their industrial death and groove brand was the song “Asylum”, which comes right after the intro guitar bit of “Diagnosis”. It was enough to sink its teeth into my brain and sit me down for what would be a hammering, heavy, almost piston-like percussion-filled disc of high screams, fast grooves, and enough adrenaline-rushing tempo to make one yearn nostalgically for the days of everything extreme being spelled sans letter ‘e’ and capital X. Continue reading »

HEY LOOK! SOMEONE LEFT THE DOOR OPEN

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Aug 262013
 

(In response to our pleas for help, our friend Ben C. of Church of the Riff is helping out the currently nonfunctional staff of NCS by contributing this guest post, for which we are pathetically grateful.)

Hey guys. So quite a while ago Islander left me a key to the office (in cinderblock form) and told me to swing by whenever I need a place to sleep or free food (there is a restraining order and a messy legal battle). Seeing as everybody is out carousing for the next week, I figured it would be a good time to take him up on this very generous hospitality.

Sadly, I got bored pretty quickly and with no food in the fridge (Sorry), all the toilets plugged (Sorry again), and a mysterious acidic ooze starting to form in the dining room (Ok, this one wasn’t actually my fault), I decided I should probably write something before, y’know, starting a quasi-legal hobo fight club in the living room (Sorry).

In the last couple years I’ve been slowly drifting away from the standard array of “standard” metal genres, instead finding myself bouncing along to a scathing selection of sludge, ‘cores, posts’, and a variety of other not-quite-metal-but-still-falls-under-the-umbrella genres.

With no particular order here are four albums that have been giving the ol’ earholes a tickle for the last couple months. Two come from relative newcomers and two from long-time underground stalwarts. Continue reading »

CARCASS: “SURGICAL STEEL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

(BadWolf reviews the new album by Carcass.) 

My age was in single digits the last time Carcass released new material, but Surgical Steel does not feel like a comeback album. Carcass never exited the zeitgeist. Their first four albums have remained fresh and relevant since their release, and remain touchstones to which all other extreme metal releases are compared. 1988’s Reek of Putrifaction may still be the best overall grind album on the market. 1991’s Necroticism is one of the only technical death metal albums I can name that boasts actually memorable songs. 1995’s Heartwork—praise it—is one of only a handful of melodic death metal records that still sounds good after puberty’s end.

Carcass will never leave the market—since I’ve been interested in extreme metal, their work has been rereleased and re-rereleased in increasingly indulgent and deluxe packages. The most mainstream of extreme metal acts—The Black Dahlia Murder, for example—routinely sing Carcass’s praises in the pages of glossy print ‘zines.

Keeping that in mind, calling Surgical Steel a comeback album rings false. It’s just an entree I ordered at a popular and crowded restaurant that took a long time—17 years long—to cook. So long I forgot ordering it. Well, I’ve eaten my long-delayed entree. It came to my table still piping hot. The waiter is getting a 50% gratuity. I’m going to walk into the kitchen and congratulate the chef—The Master Butcher—personally. It’s fucking delicious. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: DENDRITIC ARBOR — “SYLVAN MATRIARCH”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Aug 172013
 

The most important cells in your brain are called neurons. They send and receive signals from other cells throughout the body, including other neurons. Dendrites are branching filaments that extend from the body of most neurons, and can be thought of as the pathways by which the neurons receive electrochemical stimulation, via synapses, and then transmit them to the body of the neuron (the soma).

The branching of dendrites extending outward from the neuron’s body is sometimes called “dendritic arborization”. Because they look like fuckin’ trees, as in trees in an arbor. The more you interact with the world around you, the more engaged and interested and stimulated you are by it, the more lush and leafy and dense your dendritic arbors are.

Actually, I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just regurgitating bits of what I read when I tried to figure out what the name of this Pittsburgh band was all about. What I’m pretty sure about, however, is that their debut EP Sylvan Matriarch caused my own dendritic arbors to grow in rampant fashion, and then burned a lot of them to the ground. (Sylvan, by the way, is a word that refers to something associated with forests.) Continue reading »

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