THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT: “TETRAGRAMMATON”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Apr 192013
 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album by The Monolith Deathcult.)

I think what upsets a lot of people (and trust me, there are a lot of angry internet folk out there) is this perception that The Monolith Deathcult don’t take things seriously enough. After all, this is metal goddammit, it’s a serious business, there’s no place for irony here!

That perception is, of course, entirely wrong – but there is a kernel of truth at the centre of it.

For, like the very antithesis of Manowar, The Monolith Deathcult are exceptionally self-aware, and thrive on confronting the potential absurdity that haunts the Death Metal genre. Yet they’re a band who write songs about Nazi death-squads, jihadist extremism, African genocide… you can’t say these aren’t serious subjects! But TMDC understand that no matter how heavy, how dark it may go, no matter how much you try to dress it up, to disguise it, Death Metal can only ever approximate the barest slivers of the horrors that mankind perpetrates upon itself. Yet it’s also the only genre that really goes to these places. The two so often go hand in hand, yet are always so far apart.

Yet instead of running from it, instead of denying it, the band embrace this central contradiction wholeheartedly. Their music is dark, oppressive, and brutal – but also relentlessly energetic, knowingly pompous, and impressively self-aware. If Tetragrammaton shows us anything, it’s that The Monolith Deathcult understand one simple truth – “It’s a joke, it’s all a fuckin’ joke…” Continue reading »

AN NCS EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: SURACHAI’S “SURRENDER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  8 Responses »
Apr 192013
 

(We are delighted to bring you the premiere of “Surrender” by Surachai, preceded by the following review by NCS writer BadWolf.)

Industrial black metal has not historically produced very many good bands or records—or that many records at all, for that matter—but 2013 is bucking that trend. I’ve heard several records that mix contemporary black metal with electronics and samples to excellent effect so far this year. Spektr and Altar of Plagues immediately come to mind, and now we can add Surachai’s new record, Embraced, to that list.

Ostensibly Surachai is another one-man black metal project, the brain child of Surachai Sutthisasanakul, who has been working as a sound editor by day and making experimental records by night for the past few years. Of course, he is working out of Chicago, home of many such avant-black metal projects such as Nachtmystium and Chrome Waves (and ex-Nachtmystium guitarist Andrew Markuszewski is one of many session contributors to this album).

Embraced sounds richer than your average bedroom black metal record. Surachai layers samples with guitar and various electronic effects to create an almost symphonic atmosphere. That mix is perfected by some of the most intricate black metal drumming I’ve heard since Cobalt’s Gin, courtesy of guest drummer Charlie Werber of Guzzlemug. That percussion absolutely makes the record whole. The magic of Surachai is his ability to make soothing music out of so much abrasive noise.. Continue reading »

NERVECIDE: “IMPERMANENCE”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit  1 Response »
Apr 182013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by Nervecide.)

The ever-growing reputation of the Italians to craft perfectly shaped caskets of technical evisceration is really starting to hit a fucking high point.  So many bands are coming out of there who can really shred that it’s almost like there is something in the water.  Nervecide is not a band, but a solo project by Giorgio Benedetti, a very talented multi-instrumentalist who’s put together an album that brings forth the non-stop, relentless, over-the-top assault of the likes of Behemoth, Cryptopsy, or Hate Eternal along with other elements such as Meshuggah’s ambience (particularly what was found on their first albums) and an overall harsh industrial character.  This first album by Benedetti, Impermanence, has made a staggeringly overpowering impression on me.  This is brutal, chaotic, technical death metal with a definitive character.  It’s kind of like the impact force of a steamroller at 100 MPH.

Giorgio has a voice with a perfect fit for his music, emulating the harsh, forceful, guttural style of vocalists like Corpsegrinder, Erik Rutan, and Glen Benton.  This is on top of his guitar acrobatics, which gracefully leap between bits of plague-rat-infested sludge, fret-board-blazing knife stabs, and Middle Eastern melody. Continue reading »

LASCAILLE’S SHROUD: “INTERVAL 01: PARALLEL INFINITIES-THE INNER UNIVERSE”

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Apr 182013
 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the latest album by Lascaille’s Shroud, who are based in the Eagle Nebula.)

How are you set for progressive death metal this year? Still looking for that ultimate fix? Well you’ve found it my friend. This is currently one of my top albums of the year, without a doubt.

Now as phenomenal as this album is (and it is), this review very nearly didn’t happen, for a couple of reasons.

1. I’ve been listening to this album a LOT. So I had trouble getting any critical distance from it (yes, I strive to at least pretend to have some sort of distance and “relative” objectivity when doing these things).

2. Other albums have come along and cut the queue. Now although we’re not slaves to the labels or PR companies here at NCS (note the conspicuous absence of banners and pop-ups) we do understand that putting out a review for a more prominent band can serve the greater good. Case in point – if we review a (relatively) big band with a new album out, then that band might get in touch with the site, maybe get asked if we want to premiere a song or a video… and when we do that we’ll attract more new readers, to whom we can then spread the word about other, less prominent bands. You dig?

3. A couple of weeks back a post suddenly appeared on the Lascaille’s Shroud Facebook page about how Prometheus was their favourite film, and if you’re aware of my… less than positive… opinion about that vapid clusterfuck of a film, then you can see why I immediately went and deleted all the band’s music from my itunes and vowed never to listen to them again.

Ok, not really. This album is WAY too good to let something as inconsequential as all that get in the way of things. Continue reading »

SCORNED DEITY: “ADVENTUM”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 172013
 

(Below, TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Detroit’s Scorned Deity, which was released yesterday)

Scorned Deity are an American blackened melodic death metal band I’ve been following for some time now.  I was a fan of their debut The Monarchy Memoirs for its commitment to blistering brutality combined with cheese levels of epically delightful proportions.  Sometimes you just need the theatrics.  Since then Scorned Deity have been working on a second album, Adventum, and it’s finally arrived.  The album as a whole is quite a bit darker and savage than The Monarchy Memoirs, but the signature combination of melodic death metal, black metal, and symphonic incorporations (including things like opera on this album) are still present and stronger than ever.  The result is an engrossing album, and an evolutionary step that I think warrants this band getting some notoriety.

The things that make Adventum a great album are its savage delivery, fantastic melodic texturing, and its tasteful use of symphonic elements, which are incorporated not as half-assed attempts to make a song sound epic, but to bring the songs into expansiveness.  It’s not often that a band succeed in using such elements to actually serve the song, distinguish it, and set it apart.  The electronic elements, the operatic vocals, the choirs and harpsichords — they all really lend a sense of majesty to the music despite the unrelenting beating that the album delivers.  There is nothing entirely new here, these guys just do what they do undeniably well and are skyscraper heights above a lot of their contemporaries. Continue reading »

EASTFRISIAN TERROR: “LEVER DOOD AS SLAV”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Apr 152013
 

There’s so much to like about Eastfrisian Terror’s debut EP, Lever dood as Slav, that I decided to make a list of the good things:

1.  Eastfrisia! Now there’s a name . . .

2.  Sounds grimy as fuck.

3.  Grinding, uber-distorted guitar tone.

4.  Skull-smashing groove.

5.  Old-school, maggoty death metal + brutal slamming death metal + death/grind mayhem = sweetness

6.  Eastfrisia! Continue reading »

THE BODY: “MASTER, WE PERISH”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 122013
 

You can’t say The Body fail to give warning about what’s coming on their new three-song EP, Master, We Perish. The broken, contorted, skeletal form on Manifester’s album cover provides the first clue. Further hints lie in the first two song titles — “The Ebb and Flow of Tides In a Sea of Ash” and “The Blessed Lay Down and Writhe In Agony”. And the first track does begin with the wailing sound of an air raid siren, in case you weren’t paying attention: It’s time to duck and cover.

Chapter 1:  “The Ebb and Flow of Tides In a Sea of Ash” drags doomed guitar chords across a scarred wasteland of distortion, with horrific howling and screaming as accompaniment and the screech of feedback as the climax. It’s relatively brief. For the sake of sanity, this may be a good thing.

Chapter 2:  Clanging notes reverberate at the outset of “The Blessed Lay Down and Writhe In Agony”, muttering is heard in the background, and a soprano’s voice soars skyward. Fuzzy electronic pulses beat a rhythm. Someone pumps a shotgun, and the drum blasts and cymbal crashes come down like meteor strikes. The song begins to rumble and roll with sludged-out riffs, the drumbeats lurching ahead, caustic cries coming from the deep distance. Distortion fills your head, black matter drowning your mind. Continue reading »

HEAVEN SHALL BURN: “VETO”

 Album Reviews  10 Responses »
Apr 112013
 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album by Heaven Shall Burn, which will be released on April 30 in North America by Century Media.)

Heaven Shall Burn… Heaven Shall Burn… what can I say? After 6 full length albums, countless split-releases, and one phenomenal live DVD, they still seem in no danger of running out of steam or righteous fury.

Heaven Shall Burn are what you get when you force Earth Crisis and Bolt Thrower to conceive a child, and then have that child raised by At The Gates and Carcass, while supplementing their intellectual development with a steady diet of Kant, Marx, and Baudrillard.

Their distinctive mix of death metal brutality, singular hardcore focus, and knack for captivating melody makes the band, to my mind at least, one of the most quintessentially “METAL” of all metal bands, with a foot (or a toe) in almost every sub-genre – yet retaining a sound that is both entirely their own and instantly recognisable.

Devastatingly metallic and furiously hardcore, without falling prey to stumbling cliché (no bone-headed breakdowns or tacked-on clean choruses here, thank you very much), their early work helped define what would become the European “MetalCore” (capitals very much intended) movement while simultaneously stepping beyond it. These days “Melodic Death Metal” or “Melodeath” are the most common terms attributed to the band, but above and beyond that they’re simply Heaven Shall Burn – with a well-defined and singular style all their own. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: PESTILENCE — “DYSENTARY” AND “THE PENANCE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 102013
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli continues his retrospective assessment of the metal contributions of Pestilence. To read the introduction, go HERE.)

So here we are, starting the Pestilence series in earnest.  Pestilence in their early years played surprisingly primitive death-thrash compared to what they would become.  Pestilence were also one of the first notable bands out of the Dutch scene, an area that has become a diverse hotbed of some of metal’s most interesting bands, evolving to the point where Textures may now be the best known.  Not having been around at the time when Pestilence released Dysentery and The Penance, I can’t say how well-known the band was at that time.

These two demo’s were released in the same year, and both had a sound that really feels like it has nothing to do with the band’s infamous debut Malleus Maleficarum.  With that said, let’s start with the very first recorded output, Dysentry.

If that tape cover isn’t old school as fuck I don’t know what is.  Dysentry appeared in 1987, a blossoming period for the burgeoning death-thrash movement that was beginning to erupt.  This was the era of Sepultura, Devastation, and Protector, an era of vomity putrid vocals of a raw primal nature, detuned guitars in most cases, and frantic riffing that paid more tribute in its tone and aesthetic to a grimy frantic hardcore mood that merely channeled the technicality and speed of thrash metal as it had developed up to that point.  Continue reading »

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE: “DISARM THE DESCENT”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Apr 082013
 

(TheMadIsraeli turns in this review of the new album by a revitalized Killswitch Engage.)

I’m going to be getting back to the br00tz here in a minute, but we need to take a moment and reflect on an album I think would be a shame to go on without mentioning here.

Everyone should know who Killswitch Engage are by now; they’ve become something of a household name and are the flag bearers of the early metalcore movement.  I’ve written about KSE once before, when I started my series on my top 20 albums of all time and covered the band’s acclaimed and treasured sophomore effort Alive or Just Breathing.  That album, as well as the band’s lesser known S/T debut, had energy, passion, and (at the time) a fresh combination of sounds that really served as a gateway into metal for thousands of listeners.  In my case, metalcore was what really motivated me to explore the spectrum of metal, due to the diversity its early proponents incorporated into their sounds.

Killswitch Engage have had an uneven career since the departure of original vocalist Jesse Leech.  Not only did they lose an iconic modern-metal front man, the replacement they acquired (Howard Jones) left much to be desired in the eyes of many fans who had been around since the self-titled debut.  As one of the people who were really disappointed with Jones, I can tell you that in comparison to Leech, many early fans felt he was technically excellent but lacking in the raw power, intensity, and commitment conveyed by Leech’s vocals. Continue reading »

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