ANNIVERSARY REVIEWS BY WILLIAM SMITH: THE CLASS OF 1993

 Album Reviews, Listmania  6 Responses »
Jan 152013
 

(William Smith is the vocalist for Buckshot Facelift and a Long Island band named Artificial Brain that I’ve written about twice — here and here. He also writes a very entertaining blog called Vitos Squid Stop and Death Metal Museum. I asked him around this time last year if he would write something for NCS . . . and he gave us a 2-part list of “anniversary” albums — five albums recorded 10 years and 20 years earlier, respeectively. And this year he’s done it again. In this first part, he discusses some death metal gems from 20 years ago.)

Wow, time flies! I can’t believe another 12 months has passed and I’ve had my head in the thrift store record bins too long to be a credible judge of what came out since last year. Now, I could scrap together a hodgepodge of the random demos and albums I acquired in 2012, but it’s so much more fun to look through my personal vault and bring you all on a trip down memory lane to that most special of years in Death Metal – 1993.

We all know the story – bands such as Deicide, Morbid Angel, Sinister, Death, Carcass, and so on and so on, were proving their mettle in the worldwide markets, and tape trading was still the most viable and pragmatic way to get new music.  Here now, I present to you 5 of my favorite obscure gems that were just bubbling under the surface during this glorious period in Death Metal.

(In all honesty, I was 11 years old in 1993 and got into tape trading about 3 years later – what a poser!). In the (German-translated) words of Mangled Torsos, let’s “hold on the past”… Continue reading »

ANTESTOR: “OMEN”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
Jan 152013
 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new album from Norway’s Antestor — a band whose previous albums were the subject of a SYNN REPORT and who had the good taste to use a painting by Zdzisław Beksiński for their album cover.)

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Through years of strife and sorrow, we’ve remained vigilant for Antestor’s return and now finally… the time is here.

The logical progression of the blackened direction that ruled The Forsaken, Antestor’s latest manages to incorporate elements of all their previous records into a cohesive whole, in a perfect synthesis of their doomy past and their pitch-black future. Heavier, sharper, and more refined throughout, there’s a seamless mixing of the old and the new, with every member putting his own authoritative stamp on the individual performances.

To give you some idea of how to situate this album in your mind, think of the more aggressive assault of Dark Funeral, mixed with the more technical and atmospheric playing of Dark Fortress, and you’ll be in the right ballpark. But this is an Antestor album through and through, with all the clever nuances and subtle undercurrents we’ve come to expect, and in no way derivative of anyone else. I merely make the comparison to put you in the right frame of mind, oh dear reader. Continue reading »

MECHINA: “EMPYREAN”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Jan 122013
 

(In this post, NCS guest contributor Booker reviews the new album by Chicago’s Mechina.)

Well, after a bit of a wait, Mechina’s Empyrean finally dropped on the 1st Jan – after being originally slated for release a year earlier on 1st Jan 2012 – which they announced was also their 9th anniversary as a band (9 year wedding anniversary = pottery, 9 year band anniversary = new album! Yes!!).

I admit the first I ever heard from Mechina was a note on a blog (probably The Number of the Blog, since I can’t find it again and that site’s now down) alerting all followers to the release of their single Andromeda, which the band released free on their mechinamusic.com website.  So intrigued was I, I found myself immediately sourcing a copy of their previous album Conqueror, and boy was my inner Demanufacture/Obsolete-era Fear Factory fan in for a surprise.  Machine gun riffage and double bass drumming, but with intricate orchestration and sound effect backing, all tied together in an album-length sci-fi concept album.

Andromeda continued the storyline, and Empyrean, their third full-length by my count, forms its finale…. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 31: LILITU

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  11 Responses »
Jan 102013
 

(In this 31st edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn reviews the discography of a band from Georgia named Lilitu.)

Recommended for fans of: Green Carnation, Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium

Something of a mysterious and fluctuating entity, over the years the gothically-inclined melodic black/death metallers of Lilitu have gone from relative obscurity, to underground acclaim, to the cusp of mainstream (at least in metal circles) attention, and then right back again.

The brainchild of one Henry Derek Bonner, the band has gone through numerous line-up changes since its inception (including, in one of its most recent incarnations, current Arsis bassist Noah Martin), as well as steadily transfiguring its sonic identity from a more earthen, doomy sound, tinged with blackened melancholy, through a more progressive, gothically-influenced approach, to its final form of focussed, melodic death metal dynamism.

An entire album entitled White Nights In A Day Room, Black Sun In The Daytime was shelved around 2006, and the last known communication from the band confirmed that the group had become a two-piece — with all musical and vocal duties being shared by Bonner and his new partner in crime Justin Blake Stubbs — and that they would be taking their sound back towards its roots, with a darker, more primordial sound, with a more potent black metal influence, something which had steadily been pared back over the years. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ENSHADOWED / BURIAL HORDES SPLIT

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 102013
 

One of our first album reviews of 2013 was Andy Synn’s recent complimentary write-up on the new work by Enshadowed, Magic Chaos Psychedelia. With Enshadowed on my mind, I discovered by coincidence that they appeared on a recent split with another Greek band, Burial Hordes (whose discography is listed here). The split was released last October as a vinyl 7″ and on tape by a Greek label named Razorbleed Productions, though they’ve apparently sold out of the tape. Copies of the tapes still seem to be available through NoiseGoat Productions and versions of the 7″ can still be found here.

What caught my attention is that today Razorbleed uploaded both tracks from the split to YouTube. After listening to them, I tracked down the artwork for the split, and my eyes got really big when I found it. As you can see above, the cover kills.

The music kills, too.  I wish that the tracks could be made available digitally. Maybe if we all whine and beg loudly it will happen. Continue reading »

KATAKLYSM: “IN THE ARMS OF DEVASTATION”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

(TheMadIsraeli continues his reconsideration of the music of Kataklysm. To see what this is all about, check out his introduction to the series here. Previous installments can be found via this link.)

If I were to tell NCS readers which Kataklysm albums I consider essential listening, I’d name Temple Of Knowledge, Victims Of A Fallen World, and this one. In The Arms of Devastation (2006) is quite possibly the best album modern Kataklysm has produced. By retaining the core of the new sound while introducing new influences, this album is infectious, brutal, and full of rage.

It also benefits from the fact that it’s the first album since Temple Of Knowledge that contains the diversity that album did, mostly assisted by the fact the band takes influences from all over the map. You’ll hear the typical Grave influence that has stayed with this band (especially in the guitar tone on this particular album), but the music also reflects the sounds and styles of Vader, Hypocrisy, and Amon Amarth, among other bands.

This album also includes a lot of the best songs of this era of Kataklysm. “Like Angels Weeping the Dark”, “Crippled And Broken”, and “The Road To Devastation” are good examples. Continue reading »

KATALEPSY: “AUTOPSYCHOSIS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jan 082013
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Russia’s Katalepsy, which is being released today by Unique Leader Records.)

I immensely liked the advance song from Autopsychosis that this band debuted in November (“Evidence of Near Death (E.N.D.)”), which we shared with you all previously, and I was rather intrigued as well. It was excellent slam with brutal girth that crushed bodies and turned them into toothpaste tubes being run under a tank tread.  However, the fact that the single was an excellent song of stalwart brutal death doesn’t mean the whole album is simply a high quality salute to the tried and true.

It turns out that on Autospsychosis Katalepsy prove to be quite an interesting band, whether through their downright whacky and unorthodox ideas such as the harmonic scrapes in the verse riff of the opener “Lurking in the Depth” that give it an odd, yet appealing taste, or just some of the strange riffs these guys whip out even in a death metal setting. There are clean sections, straight-up melodic sections that can be downright neo-classical in nature, and more. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS

 Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus  25 Responses »
Jan 082013
 

(Like the title says, Andy Synn wrote this.)

You may have noticed that there are simply so many awesome albums released each year that even the nigh-omnipotent forces of NCS can’t cover them all. So in acknowledgement of this I’m inaugurating a new column, which will be produced whenever the hell I feel like it, in order to sneak in some mini-reviews of releases we’ve otherwise missed, or wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to review in full.

Welcome to “Reviews in Haikus”

 

GOD SEED – I BEGIN

Black prog vibrations

Savage sounds, strange atmospheres

Cultivate the seed Continue reading »

BURIED: “THE ONLY PROMISE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 082013
 

(We welcome back guest contributor BreadGod with his review of a late-2012 demo from a Redlands, California band named Buried, which is now available as a “name your price” download on Bandcamp).

Some time ago, I wrote a short blurb about Buried during one of my weekly strolls across Bandcamp. The frontman really liked what I said about his work, so much so that he sent me a free copy of the demo. I received the package a few days before Christmas and it turned out to be what the ancients called a “cassette”. My first reaction upon seeing it was, “What is this rectangular monstrosity?” Luckily, it came with a free download code, so that way I didn’t have to go on a quest to obtain a cassette player.

As the band’s name implies, this demo is a slow descent into the grave, a grand and morose display of blackened drone. The drums are monstrously slow, only one beat every ten seconds or so. The almost complete lack of percussion reinforces the bleak atmosphere. The bass strings are plucked only once every couple of seconds, giving the music a dank and cavernous feel.

The guitars are the backbone of this dark performance. By cranking up the distortion, they are able to play just one chord and let its black smoke drift across the plains, engulfing and suffocating all life in its path. The vocals consist of a rasp that’s pretty standard, but they’re made creepy by the fact that they show up very rarely, like a strange, gaunt creature that has emerged from the shadows. Continue reading »

GROT: “I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jan 072013
 

(Any band who names their debut EP after a 1967 Hugo-Award-winning short story by Harlan Ellison is alright in my book. But apart from having good literary taste, their music stacks up pretty damned well, too.  Here’s TheMadIsraeli’s review . . . and we also have a special treat: With the band’s permission, a free download of the music.)

We’re gonna take a bit of a break from year-end round-ups to go over a late 2012 EP I stumbled upon that I think is worth checking out.  GROT are, at their core, an Irish deathgrind outfit with a good bit of old fashioned Dying Fetus groove thrown in, but the membership actually reveals a more international collective:  GROT is composed of the mighty Kevin Talley on drums, John Roche of Gama Bomb on guitars and bass, and Eoin Broughal from Cold War and Warpath on vocals.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a no-bullshit collection of very mid-90’s deathy grime and venom.  The EP, at least as we have it, consists of five original songs and two covers (Napalm Death’s “Unchallenged Hate” and Misery Index’s “Pulling out the Nails”, though the Misery Index cover doesn’t come on the physical copies) that provide an immensely satisfying morsel of brutality and energy.  This band also has a shitton of meat, in the sense that their riffs, their grooves, their sections of chaotically fast double-bass saturation and grinds all have a massiveness to them that feels like a tonnage of toxic waste spill being shoved down your throat. Continue reading »

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