AN NCS PREMIERE: MORDBRAND – “CONSUME THEM” FROM “KOLUMBARIUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 162012
 

Mordbrand is a three-man death metal juggernaut from Sweden whose work has appeared frequently at NO CLEAN SINGING and drawn considerable attention elsewhere, too. Consisting of vocalist Per Boder (ex-God Macabre), guitarist/bassist/backing vocalist Björn Larsson, and drummer Johan Rudberg, Mordbrand have chosen (so far) to release their music in small portions. There was a 2010 split with Evoke, an attention-grabbing EP in 2011 entitled Necropsychotic (reviewed here), and a split with Bombs of Hades released earlier this year under the title No Life (featured here).

Since the release of the No Life split, Mordbrand have recorded two more songs destined for release by Deathgasm Records as a 7″ vinyl bearing the name Kolumbarium. The two songs are “Consume Them” and “Let Them Slumber”. The second one features guest vocals by Nox from the excellent Swedish band Craft.

Originally expected this summer, manufacturing delays have pushed off Kolumbarium’s availability — the latest word is that it will be released by late September or early October. However, because we are awesome, we have been allowed to hear the two songs in advance. Because you are awesome, you will also get to hear one of them before you finish reading this post. Yes, in a moment of weakness, Mordbrand agreed to allow NCS to provide the world premiere of “Consume Them”. And man, does it rip hell. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HOT GRAVES / WHITEHORSE SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Aug 162012
 

That eye-catching cover art depicts an epic battle in the making, the zombie hell horse and the ferocious battle cat about to throw down. Hooves vs. claws (though it looks like the cat is trying to even the score by wearing the cat equivalent of brass knuckles — cats are ruthless when it comes to horse fighting).

The artwork (by Glenno) graces the cover of a split release by Hot Graves of Gainesville, Florida and Whitehorse from Melbourne, Australia. I was introduced to Hot Graves when they released their 2011 album Knights In White Phosphorus and it was featured in a guest NCS post by SurgicalBrute (here). He described their music as “crusty blackened thrash” and recommended them to fans of Possessed, Hell Hammer, and Sodom. I’ve been following them ever since.

Whitehorse, on the other hand, is a new discovery for me. They’ve put out two albums (the most recent of which was last year’s Progression), plus EPs and numerous splits. I’ll be following them now, too.

Hot Graves contributes two tracks to this split. “This Is For You” and “MetalBlaster”. The music sounds like mad scientists mixed thrash, punk, and d-beat, cooked it in whatever makes metal black,  and then spun it in a centrifuge at high speed until it exploded and spattered the walls with filth. It’s mainly fast, abrasively raw, and smokin’ hot. It’s the music of a demon moshpit at a dive bar in Hell. Continue reading »

INBORN SUFFERING: “REGRESSION TO NOTHINGNESS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 152012
 


(In this post, DGR reviews the new second album from French doomsters Inborn Suffering.)

And we’re here with the final of the three doom records (or records with doom elements, in the case of Barren Earth) that I’ve been listening to during this wonderful summer in Sacramento. I came across Inborn Suffering on a whim whilst bouncing around Bandcamp’s metal section. I looked them up and found out that this was only the French Melodic Doom Metal group’s second album and it had just been released after a six year wait. If you caught my Zonaria review, then you saw me musing on the fact that four years of waiting really sucked, so I can’t imagine what it was like to really be looking forward to these guys’ second release after six.

It seemed like their first disc was pretty well received and this one had been gathering positive press as well, so I checked it out. This is doom by way of groups like Daylight Dies, where everything sounds like it was recorded in an empty room with completely grey skies. It is heavily accented by some serious keyboard work and drags itself along at a slow, crawling pace. It swells at just the right moments to give the sense of drama that attracted me to this specific offshoot of doom in the first place. It’s also distressingly heavy when it needs to be.

Let me say this, I kind of wish I was one of the people who had to wait six years for this disc, because it is really good. To someone like myself, it is a pleasant surprise, and I can only imagine the sense of relief when a fan of the band finally gets their hands on this album and is gratefully  dragged along on the slow, plodding journey into utter misery on Regression To Nothingness. Continue reading »

ASH BORER: “COLD OF AGES”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Aug 132012
 

Though very much adhering to an underground ethos and relying largely on word of mouth and distribution by tape and vinyl, Ash Borer have nevertheless succeeded in spreading their name and their music in ever-widening circles. Their 2009 demo opened a lot of eyes, as did their excellent 2010 split with Fell Voices, but their 2011 debut album (self-titled) really put them on the map. It made many Best of the Year lists (including five that we posted here at NCS) and was praised by BadWolf in our review; in an extended metaphor, he compared it (repeatedly) to sex.

As good as their previous releases have been, however, it turns out they were all just preparation, a slow build to the band’s first album on the Profound Lore label, which is scheduled for release on August 14. On Cold of Ages, Ash Borer have mastered the art of immersion, creating a completely entrancing (if often disturbing) musical experience that should land them on even more Best of Year lists when 2012 draws to a close.

Black metal takes many shapes. Though usually united in certain readily identifiable instrumental and vocal techniques, or at least by a certain unbridled aesthetic, the music spans a continually expanding soundscape. It encompasses everything from black thrash to black ‘n’ roll, from hybridized black/death to avant garde shoegaze, from blasting evisceration to occult-themed psychedelic pop to caustic forms of post-metal. Ash Borer have devoted themselves to richly atmospheric, long-form music — the kind of black metal that tests the listener’s attention span, but when successful, is capable of establishing deep emotional connections and firing the imagination. In that respect, Cold of Ages is an unqualified success.

And Cold of Ages is definitely long-form, with four tracks ranging in length from more than 11 minutes to over 18. Attention is indeed required, but there’s a big payoff — and not much risk of your mind wandering away before you get to the album’s end. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: AUTARCH

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Aug 112012
 

Genre mixing and matching can lead to wretched results, with music that sounds like a forced integration of cats with dogs, or worse (if such a thing is possible). But it can also lead to interesting listening experiences where the genre crossing works even when you think it might not. Autarch’s new self-titled EP works.

This Asheville, NC, band say that they play what they want to hear, and it appears that what they mainly like to hear, based on this EP,  is crust/punk and post-metal. Those two genres may not seem like a natural fit, but Autarch’s four-song mash-up makes for an appealing listen.

The most interesting and most thorough combination of the styles occurs on the EP’s opening track, which is also its longest (at nearly 8 minutes): “Kings”. The song’s extended instrumental introduction makes use of gripping dual-guitar melodies and a tremolo-picked lead that rises and falls through a darkened scale, with enough distortion and hard-hitting percussion to give warning that something brutish lurks in the shadows.

When the guitars begin to growl and prowl and grow more dissonant, and harsh barking vocals join in, things take a turn toward the crustier, more aggressive side of the mix. Though the pacing is dynamic, the band stomp, storm, and gallop with a vengeance before the song ends, yet the atmospheric quality established by the intro never completely disappears. Continue reading »

RELINQUISHED: “ONWARD ANGUISHES”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 102012
 

(In this review, TheMadIsraeli introduces us to the music of an Austrian band named Relinquished — and there’s a full-album stream at the end, too.)

Alright, time to get off the anticipated and major releases and get back to the more under-the-radar shit.

Relinquished are a quite potent progressive melodic death metal band hailing from Austria. Honestly, I foresaw this as being some kind of shitty-ass deathcore judging from the cover, but was quite surprised.  Influences ranging from Into Eternity to Bloodbath, from The Faceless to even Daylight Dies are all here.  The guitar work is technical, intricate, and layered, and the songwriting does a  stellar job of integrating dynamics and drama.  The music also features a lot of harsh/clean vocal interplay, evoking memories of Opeth, Ihsahn, and the afore-mentioned Daylight Dies.  This is good stuff.

Today I’m reviewing the band’s sophomore album Onward Anguishes, released on April 8.  They have a debut entitled Susanna Lies in Ashes (an album I intend to hunt down now) and an EP by the name of Rehearsal Doom for those who like the music enough to check them out further. Continue reading »

“THAT’S MUSIC!” – BUT IT AIN’T METAL: SOEN – “COGNITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, That's Music -- But It's Not Metal  7 Responses »
Aug 092012
 

(In this post, DGR reviews the 2012 album by Soen.)

Talk about a disc about which it has taken forever to compose my thoughts. It’s been floating around since mid-February as a Spinefarm release in Europe but only saw digital release here in the States much later. Soen are a conflicting-as-hell band to discuss because one of the first things everyone does is drop a comparison to Tool. Given that I am a Tool fan and very familiar with their work, I can confirm that the comparison is definitely warranted, but you know what? Soen deserve to stand as their own band.

Yes, they have some elements of the aforementioned band’s spacey prog-rock tone attached to them, but very few bands do it as well; even those who are influenced by it and try to mimic it to a T usually fail. Soen have somehow managed to get close enough to that band’s sound without becoming them or even adopting the Philosophy-101-styled thinking buried in new age mysticism that I’m perfectly okay with Soen.

Yes, getting David Bottrill involved (famed producer, worked with a ton of groups, including Tool) feels like an incredibly shrewd maneuver, and he does his damnedest to give them the exact same mix, but so what, it sounds great. They’re really not mimics. Believe me, Soen are something of an all-star group who manage to do enough things on their own that they feel like a new thing. Cognitive is a really good bit of prog-rock with quite a lot of individuality buried in between echo-heavy bass lines and singalong-worthy choruses, much of which, surprisingly enough, is provided by the drumming work of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez.

I know it’s impossible to analyze this album in a vacuum, as if I had never heard some of what’s being done here before, but now that I have gotten that rant out of the way, let’s talk about Cognitive. Continue reading »

NILE: “AT THE GATES OF SETHU”

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Aug 082012
 

(Here we have yet another review by TheMadIsraeli, catching up on 2012 releases that have impressed him. Today, it’s the new one from Nile, which is out now on the Nuclear Blast label.)

As much as it may have sucked total ass in the mainstream, underground metal in the 90’s was one of the absolute definitive highpoints of the music’s evolution to me.  A huge component of this was the surge of brutal tech-death giants, most of whom (though not all) somehow have managed not to stagnate one bit, still putting out consistently killer albums while retaining the defining qualities that make these bands who they are.  I’m speaking of Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Immolation, Cryptopsy, and obviously in today’s case, Nile.

Nile, like almost all the bands listed above, have a virtually flawless discography.  I think the only guilty party in that list who turned out to be an exception needn’t be named, but Nile is definitely a band who’ve never committed such a gaff. Their new album,  At The Gates of Sethu, is a monolithic assault of Nile’s esoteric brutality that’s just as good as any of their other work (which is to say fucking excellent), though it seems to be drawing criticism via the tropes and trivialities of the modern metal crowd.

I digress briefly with a rant: I hate most modern metal.  I may find a modern metal band worth checking out here and there, and even more rarely, one that I deem fucking excellent.  However, I hate modern metal as a whole.  I hate the sentiments it comes with, what the crowd expects from the music, and the general idea that if something is not groovy, if it doesn’t have slick, pristine production that’s sterile and as stale as an open three-week-old bag of chips (even though it might very well capture the full spectrum of sound), if it doesn’t have lame, half-assed attempts at syncopation, and if it lacks clean vocals, then it’s bad. Even more obnoxious and condescending is the notion that music which fails these criteria is not relevant, not “with the times”, or some cockamamie horse shit like that. Continue reading »

THE CONTORTIONIST: “INTRINSIC”

 Album Reviews  16 Responses »
Aug 072012
 

(Here’s the second of TheMadIsraeli’s new reviews in as many days, the log jam having broken on his pent-up thoughts.  Today, the subject is the 2012 release by Indiana’s The Contortionist.)

Man, was there a fuck load of hype around this album.  I have to say, as much as I like this band and as good as I think their music is (I’m reviewing the album obviously), I didn’t know mixing djent, deathcore, and post-rock would be such a big deal.  Other bands have obviously attempted to bank off what The Contortionist have done since their stellar debut Exoplanet was released; probably most notably Substructure, whom I also love to death.

But now we’re here to talk about the band’s insanely hyped and eagerly anticipated sophomore release, Intrinsic.  The Contortionist have stepped up their game, expanded their sound, yet they have also refined it.  I will be frank and say the experiment here is not entirely successful, but rather that this should be viewed as an excellent, ambitious step forward in establishing an identity.  It could be argued, of course, that this band already stood out, but Intrinsic is definitely an album you couldn’t mistake for another.  It is for this reason, combined with Intrinsic’s solid ideas and concepts, that make it worthy of an NCS review in my mind.

The music has definitely changed quite a bit.  The trademark elements are still here:  Brutalizing death core grooves; mantic, technical, brain-hemorrhaging riffs; soothing ambience that makes one envision galaxies moving in space; and crescendos and drops in intensity that showcase extreme dynamic intelligence.

The prog level is definitely turned up on this album, though. The song structures are much more frantic, with little to no cohesiveness whatsoever.  A lot of the songs jump unexpectedly from part to part.  There may be a returning section at some point during the song, but even in those situations, the returning part is thrown in with the most unorthodox logic. Continue reading »

KARYBDIS: “FROM THE DEPTHS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 062012
 

(TheMadIsraeli returns to NCS after a break with this review of the new album by Karybdis, which we had the pleasure of premiering here.)

Ok, so I’m really fucking late on this and blah blah blah, really don’t give much of a fuck because I’m back now and NCS shall be restored to its former glory.  K?  We good with that?  Alright.

Talking about what is good music and what good music is in a public setting is near fucking impossible.  You’ve always got some post-modernist asshole wanting to tell you about opinions and about tastes who feels the need to remind you, condescendingly, that your opinion is only your opinion, as if it were their responsibility to keep your opinion in check.  Not theirs, of course.

Yeah, everyone has their own tastes, everyone has their preferences (as do I, for sure, tightly knit and strict ones), but I never have a problem finding things outside my own niche that I like.  At the same time, I think some music is simply undeniable, and that the only reason anyone would dislike it is because they care more about establishing and maintaining their identity rather than simply partaking in and enjoying the art.  Karybdis are a band I get such a feeling about.

Now, we already featured a stream of this album a couple weeks back, and if you all had good sense, you got on that shit pronto and broke your computer desks in half.  It’s just pure, unrelenting metal at its finest. Continue reading »

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