THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Sep 012024
 

(Andy Synn somehow manages to pick just four albums from an overloaded August to talk about)

I feel like August was even more jam-packed with new releases than any other month this year so far… right?

And I don’t just mean all the “big” names – of which there were several – I’m talking about all the cool, more underground records and releases which came out during the last 31 days.

There was the intricate, immersive Prog-Death of Moonloop and the intense, in-your-face Deathcore of To The Grave… the disgustingly dark and devastating double-team of Teeth and Pneuma Hagion… as well as rites, both Vile and Modern in the form of Senescence and Endless.

And then there was the unquantifiable, uncompromising new album from Uniform – which I hope, one day, to get round to reviewing (just as soon as I’ve got my head around it properly) – plus several more which I might just end up covering separately at some point.

Until then, however, please enjoy this genre-crossing look back at the last month!

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AMIENSUS – RECLAMATION, PART 2

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 282024
 

(Andy Synn closes the circle with his review of part 2 of Amiensus‘s new double-album, out Friday)

There is, of course, no way to talk about Reclamation, Part 2 without considering it in the context of its already-released predecessor – the two of them forming both sides of a singular (in both senses of the word) coin.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Part 2 is incapable of standing on its own – far from it – it’s just that the group’s decision to release Reclamation in two parts, almost a full four months apart, offers us an opportunity to reassess the latter while analysing the former at the same time.

So, let us begin, shall we?

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GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, AUGUST 2024

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 282024
 

(With the month of August nearly over, our Denver-based writer Gonzo has brought us reviews of four albums released this month — by Summoning the Lich, Yanos, Generation of Vipers, and Zeal & Ardor.)

As we trudge through the final days of August into summer’s last inexorable gasp, there’s still a veritable battalion of quality new releases on the horizon. Hell, even by the time you read this, new albums from Amiensus, Anciients, Leprous, Nails, and Wintersun might even be out – all are set to hit streaming services this Friday.

Unfortunately, my upcoming travel schedule won’t be conducive to getting this Friday’s (August 30) releases included in this month’s roundup, but at least Andy Synn already offered a top-shelf review of the new Leprous last week.

All that being said, August had more than enough quality to kick up a circle pit or two. Dust yourself off and give these releases a spin. Continue reading »

BLACK BIRCH – BLACK BIRCH

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Aug 272024
 

(Andy Synn says the new self-titled album from Black Birch is one you need to hear)

Just recently I was chatting online with a bunch of Metal musicians – all far more famous and prominent in the scene than me – about how difficult it’s become, in an age of constant information overload and what seems like an ever-decreasing attention span, to make your band stand out.

Sure, I’ve seen and read all the well-meaning advice about jumping on the latest social media trends, optimising your “content” for platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and so on, but all of it seems so forced and performative and, let’s face it, has less to do with the actual music and is more about turning your band into a “brand”.

Still, there are ways to grab your audience’s attention that don’t involve doing silly dances or otherwise acting like a validation-hungry jackass… and getting yourself some eye-catching artwork is one guaranteed way of getting me to check out your album, at the very least.

And when said artwork (created by Black Birch vocalist/guitarist Gina Wiklund, in this particular case) is accompanied by some absolutely electrifying Black Metal?

Well, then you’ve really got my attention. Continue reading »

ABSENCE OF THE SACRED: “IV: THE HAND THAT WOUNDS”

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Aug 262024
 

(About 10 days ago the multi-national extreme metal band Absence of the Sacred released their fourth album, IV: The Hand That Wounds, and below we present NCS writer Vizzah Harri‘s enthusiastic and evocative review of this new achievement.)

There is a saying that we die every second we breathe, for each breath that we release back into the air is a small death. In French that translates to petit mort, which in no uncertain terms is slang for sexual release. The immensity of molecules exuded from just the collective sigh necessary to deliver a qualifiable work of art into the world… uncountable. It’s important to put in perspective sometimes where we are at, and how good we have it right at this minute.

In death there is life, yet we consume the art that can un-alive a packed venue for the amount of carbon dioxide released from the breaths it took to create. We consume without sometimes even thinking about that part, and we can masticate on that hard-won elegance made manifest in waves of sound as if it were nothing, but a thing it is. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ARKONA, GROZA, GAEREA, AETHYRICK, SVRM, EZKATON

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 252024
 


Arkona

(written by Islander)

Yesterday I read a story about a recent lobster-boat race across Casco Bay along the coast of Maine. It was won by a man and his 14-year-old daughter, with his daughter at the wheel of their 32-foot diesel-powered fishing boat. The man summarized their race strategy to a reporter: “Point it and punch it!”

Today’s collection includes new music from black metal bands who follow a similar strategy, but it also includes music that reveals a different strategy, something more like “slow it and sink it” (and maybe set it on fire first).

What ties all the music together is the presence of emotionally moving melodies and often the achievement of a certain scale and sweep (vast). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GIGAN, OLD MACHINES, FURNACE, SOLUS REX, ENDLESS CHAIN, LUSCA, KOBOLD, THE HYPOTHESIS, NARKOSE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 242024
 


Gigan

(written by Islander)

Poor you, I had lots of time on my hands yesterday, and so made my way through a lot more music than I’m usually able to do, and even had enough time to spill a bunch of words, like kernels from a violently ruptured grain silo.

With this much music in a weekly roundup, I often default to mentally un-taxing organizational strategies like alphabetization. But not today. I made these choices because of connections, and organized them in the way they connected for me. You’ll get it or you won’t, but as always, I hope you find one or more things you’re really glad you found, in whatever order it comes. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SAPIENTIA DIABOLI — “I OV THE DARKNESS”

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Aug 232024
 

(Written by Islander)

Despite the fact that the identities of the most infamous progenitors of second-wave black metal, including arsonists, murderers, and the murdered, are very well-known (famous now, as well as infamous), anonymity remains among the more defining characteristics of black metal.

More so than in any other genre of metal, black metal is home to creators who adamantly prefer to let the music speak exclusively for them, without the potential distractions of identity. It’s not just a rejection of “celebrity”, it’s an embrace of obscurity, not just a pervasive use of pseudonyms but a blank space un-filled by any details other than what can be heard.

This iron-clad embrace of an underground ethos where the people making the music allow no light to shine on themselves (and sometimes no light to shine through the darkness of the music) often complicates and almost always undermines the mission of spreading of the word about the music. People who choose not to talk about what they’ve done, or even to tell actual or potential fans anything about who they are, leave more to chance about whether their accomplishments will find an audience.

Which brings us to Sapientia Diaboli, whose name is Latin for “The Wisdom of the Devil”. Maybe it is the Devil’s wisdom they practice by concealing everything except the shuddering impact of their sounds. Continue reading »

SURRENDER TO DEATH: A HISTORY OF THE ATLANTA METAL UNDERGROUND VOL. 1

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 232024
 

(In the following article our contributor Wil Cifer, who spent a lot of years in Atlanta, comments on a compilation set for release on September 6th by Boris Records and Deanwell Global Music which serves as a retrospective of the Atlanta metal underground from 1982 to 1999. It includes remastered original recordings by more than 20 bands from the area.)

In the ’80s Norway was not the bustling mecca for metal the media tries to portray it as today, so even Atlanta, Ga was impressive to me at 12 years old when I began visiting my grandparents in the States for a few weeks in the summers at their Stateside home just outside the city limits of Atlanta. My first exposure to what the music scene in America was like in the flesh is captured in Surrender To Death: A History of the Atlanta Metal Underground Vol. 1, a compilation by Boris Records and Deanwell Global Music. For me, it’s a fun indulgence of nostalgia for those summers spent venturing into the city for all-ages shows. Continue reading »

LEPROUS – MELODIES OF ATONEMENT

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Aug 212024
 

(Andy Synn continues his on/off love affair with Leprous, whose new album comes out 30 August)

Being “heavy” is not the same as being “good”. We all know that, right?

But I must admit, as someone who first fell in love with Leprous back when they were still serving as Ihsahn‘s backing band, and who still believes that Bilateral is one of the best and most unique albums of the new millennium, I was certainly excited by the announcement that Melodies of Atonement was going to showcase a “heavier” side of the group than what we’d seen/heard in recent years.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve continued to be a fan (to a greater or lesser extent) of the band’s output – Coal and Malina are also still firm favourites, and there’s some great tracks on The Congregation, Pitfalls (including the outstanding “The Sky Is Red”), and Aphelion (whose cinematic highs more than make up for the record’s occasional lows) – but the idea that they might be bringing back some of the edginess and punchiness of their earlier work(s) certainly had me intrigued.

Of course, as any sensible person might have predicted, MoA isn’t just Bilateral, Part 2 – there’s some moments here that probably deserve that comparison, but overall the two albums really share only the most basic musical markers, enough to tell that they’re related but probably not enough to make them genetically compatible – as the Leprous of today is quite literally not the same band they used to be.

Even so, however, I can tell you now that the group weren’t lying when they said that this would be a “heavier” album… even if the story is a little more complicated than that.

Continue reading »

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