Album Reviews Archives - Page 53 of 545

MIND MOLD – EROSIVE

Sep 162024

(Andy Synn highlights one of his favourite new discoveries of the year)

One thing I’m sure you’ll notice, if you spend any amount of time online, is how often people complain that “there’s no good new music any more“.

They’re wrong, of course, but it occurs to me that there’s a cruel (and dispiriting) irony to the fact that the proliferation of streaming services, which should – in theory ay least- grant their users access to a seemingly endless and almost infinitely varied array of new artists and albums, has ultimately, through the use of increasingly solipsistic and artificially-unintelligent algorithms, ended up stifling a lot of peoples’ ability, or willingness, to actively go out and look for new music themselves.

If you’re reading this, however – congratulations, you’re probably not one of those people.

And your reward for that is that you get to listen to the disgustingly doomy, dissonance-drenched Death-Sludge of Canada’s Mind Mold and their new album, Erosive.

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PINCER CONSORTIUM, OTTONE PESANTE, DÖ, OUTER GRAVES

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Sep 142024

Another Saturday, another opportunity to help spread the word about new music. It’s always difficult to decide what to include in these roundups, and a bit more difficult than usual because I’ve spent a fair amount of time addressing the first item below, which is a new album released at the end of last week.

In deciding what to do with my meager remaining time, I decided not to include new songs and videos I came across from bands whose profiles are high enough that most people probably already know about them, i.e., Mastodon and Lamb of God (collaborating), Defeated Sanity, 1349, and Ensiferum. But if you don’t know about those songs, now you have the links that will take you to them.

But now, let’s get to that new album, and then follow it with just a few other worthy new songs from forthcoming records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HUSQWARNAH — “PURIFICATION THROUGH SACRIFICE”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Sep 122024

(written by Islander)

In December 2021 we premiered and reviewed Husqwarnah‘s debut album Front Toward Enemy. I also put one of the songs from that album (“Ignoto1”) on our list of 2021’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs (here), a recognition of how hook-laden and compulsive the music was — in addition to it being tank-like, ravaging, fire-breathing, and morbid.

Today we see what these Italian death metal marauders have been up to since then, as we again host a full stream of Husqwarnah‘s newest album, Purification Through Sacrifice, which is set for release on September 16th by the distinctive Time To Kill Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAMMERFILOSOFI — “SOLUS”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Sep 122024

(written by Islander)

Tomorrow, on the first Friday the 13th of 2024, ATMF will release a new EP by the Italian/Norwegian duo Hammerfilosofi. Its full name is SOLUS (Igne Natura Renovator Integra).

The EP follows by almost exactly one year the band’s first release and debut album The Desolate One, which we premiered here, calling it ” fanatical, fiery, and frightening,” but also “a harrowing esoteric process of liberation and elevation.”

ATMF portrays the new EP as “four psalms of relentless, multi-layered, and hellish madness,” and the band’s NKTFR describes it as “an inward journey of spiritual violence and cathartic soul-searching,” picking up from where The Desolate One left off: “Both musically and conceptually we want to bring back some of that rebellious pride, wrath, and danger – some Blood, Fire, and Death – that for us are mandatory ingredients in Black Metal.”

As we did for the album, today we present SOLUS… from beginning to end. Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER – SERVITUDE

Album Reviews No Responses »

Sep 122024

(Today our man Andy Synn steps up to tackle one of the most difficult reviews he’s ever written)

How exactly, let me ask you, does one even begin to talk about – let alone judge – an album like this?

Let me be clear, the untimely demise of the band’s infamous (and seemingly irreplaceable) frontman Trevor Strnad hit a lot of us here at NCS very hard – hell, I was the one who volunteered to pen a few words in tribute after his passing – but it obviously hit his bandmates harder than almost anyone, and I don’t think anyone would have blamed them if they’d chosen to hang up their spurs in the aftermath.

But, as it turns out, giving up wasn’t in the cards for these Detroit death-dealers, who are set to solidify their return with the release of their tenth album – the first one to feature long-time guitarist (and last-remaining original member) Brian Eschbach taking over as the group’s vocalist, as well as the recording debut of the newly-formed guitar-duo of Brandon Ellis and the returning Ryan Knight – in just over two weeks from now.

With all that in mind then, perhaps the best thing I can do with this review is simply set your expectations appropriately, as while many (if not most) of us may have been hoping that the band’s big comeback would be an unqualified success and an unparalleled triumph over tragedy… the truth is that Servitude is not that.

Or maybe it is. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong. Maybe its very existence – it’s still a good album, just not a great one, after all – is enough of a triumph on its own… especially considering that it almost didn’t happen at all!

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAND OF OMEGA — “THE END OF THE BEGINNING”

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 102024

(written by Islander)

We live in a world where Darwin’s radical old theory has been replaced and evolution is now determined by the survival of the shittest, a world in which some are sworn to the Mentat’s Oath and others have become cyberspace conscripts, with our lives supported by nothing but foundations built on shifting sands, watching the Amazon burning (and much of the rest of the world with it), our shapes determined by a wretched new convolution.

And there I’ve managed to stitch together all of the song titles from the debut album by the UK band Hand of Omega, the name of which is The End Of The Beginning.

I have no idea whether Hand of Omega would endorse this way of interpreting their thematic intentions, but their music seems consistent with it, because it’s both crushingly bleak and destructively enraged — as you’ll find out today through our premiere of the album in advance of its September 13 release by the Irish label Cursed Monk Records. Continue reading »

KANONENFIEBER – DIE URKATASTROPHE

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Sep 102024

(Andy Synn goes back to the front with the new album from German fusiliers Kanonenfieber)

War… war never changes.

And neither, in some ways, do Kanonenfieber, whose long-awaited and highly-anticipated second album, Die Urktatastrophie (transl. “The Original/Primal Catastrophe”) comes out next week (September 20, to be exact).

And yet… and yet… those of us who’ve been marching alongside the band over the years, slogging through the mud and blood of Menschenmühle (2021), then going on to join the Yankee Division to fight against Der Füsilier (2022), only to find ourselves staring deep into the abyss as a U-Bootsmann (2023), will know from experience that although the band (strictly speaking a solo project, I know) may not have changed, their tactics have definitely, albeit subtly, evolved with each new engagement.

In particular, there’s been a slow but steady shift in focus to incorporate more of Death Metal’s riff-centric heft and rhythmic hookiness with each and every release, with the result being that the group’s career has, up to a point at least, followed a similar arc to their Dutch cousins (and similar WWI scholars) God Dethroned.

But whereas the latter’s most recent album ended up falling a little (or, more accurately, a lot) short of achieving its objectives, the anti-war anthems of Die Urkatastrophe have no such problems hitting their target.

WOLFHEART: “DRACONIAN DARKNESS”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Sep 102024

(Below we present DGR’s review of the new album by Finland’s Wolfheart, which was released on September 6th by Reigning Phoenix Music.)

Much as we joke about it – yours truly in particular has created enough material to 3-D print a house – Finland’s Wolfheart have become a hallmark of consistency on a near unchallenged level since their inception. Save for a brutal year-over-year album schedule a few discs ago, Wolfheart have been a band you could set your watch by. Every two years, without fail, ballpark eight or so songs and about forty minutes of music. In fact, it wasn’t until the band’s Napalm era that Wolfheart flipped their career paradigm on its head by putting out albums with seven and nine songs.

It won’t shock then that a discussion of Wolfheart‘s newest album Draconian Darkness is going to contain a lot of familiar shades to it, because with consistency comes familiarity, and familiarity leads to an odd approach in reviewing their discs wherein you almost reset-to-zero with them every time and approach a new album at face value.

Which is interesting, because in a lot of ways you could view Draconian Darkness as a double-album with the one that preceded it, King Of The North. Continue reading »

THE HOWLING WIND – THROUGH THE EYES, PAST THE SUN

Album Reviews No Responses »

Sep 092024

(Andy Synn is ready to be swept off his feet again by The Howling Wind)

Look, by now I’m sure we’re all aware of the big surprise revelation of last week… that’s right, I’m talking about the unexpected, world-shaking return of ~~Linkin Park~~ ~~Pyrrhon~~ The Howling Wind!

Sure, it’s only been two years since their last release – 2022’s Oak EP – but it’s been eleven years since the duo of Tim Call and Ryan Lipynsky actually created a full-length album together (with 2019’s Shadow Tentacles being a solo effort by Lipynsky under the THW moniker).

So, with that in mind, the pair’s new album, Through the Eyes, Past the Sun, has a lot to live up to.

SHADES OF BLACK: ANTE-INFERNO, ANTIKVLT, SKOGNATT, ANOMALIE, YOTH IRIA

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Sep 082024

Yesterday I bemoaned the trouble that weeks ending in Bandcamp Friday’s create for me in trying to compile the usual Saturday roundup for NCS. It creates similar troubles for picking music to recommend in these Shades of Black collections: just way too much potentially interesting stuff to check out.

Yesterday I tried to compensate (only slightly) by stuffing a greater-than-usual number of new songs into the roundup. For better or worse, I don’t have time to do that today — below you’ll find only four advance tracks and one new EP. I hope you like all of it, or at least find some one thing to brighten (i.e., darken) your day.

ANTE-INFERNO (UK)

In the fall of this year Ante-Inferno will release their third album in what is developing as a steady every-two-years sequence (our own Andy Synn reviewed their first two albums here and here). Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries