Oct 282024
 

(Andy Synn might be the biggest Fit For An Autopsy fan out of all of us, but he hasn’t let that stop him being critical of the band’s new album when necessary)

My first reaction to the new album from Fit For An Autopsy was, to be frank, one of disappointment.

Look, I know a lot of you are going to be mad that I wrote that, and you’ll probably be even more mad by the end of this review (though, please, do try and stay until the end, as there’s a few twists coming, and the added context will be important).

But the truth is that most of the pre-release tracks seemed fairly bland and toothless to me, and upon finally receiving the full album I quickly became concerned that the band had finally reached that point where they felt obliged to tone things down and play it safe in order to stay “on top”.

And, if we’re being honest with ourselves (and not just engaged in some sort of sycophantic parasocial relationship where the band can do no wrong), there’s probably at least a little truth to this – whether consciously or not – because much of the band’s new album, in line with their increasing status and popularity, feels like an attempt (whether a successful one or not depends on where you stand on these things) to capitalise on what’s already worked for them without necessarily moving things forward at all.

But, thankfully, that’s not all that The Nothing That Is… is.

Continue reading »

Oct 272024
 

(written by Islander)

I guess it’s obvious from the size of this weekend’s two-part Saturday roundup that I had more than the usual amount of NCS time yesterday and this morning, and therefore kind of lost my mind.

I have only a small amount of mind and time left at this point, so today’s SHADES OF BLACK is so brief it could be labeled a token effort. But I didn’t want to skip it altogether, especially because, although the recommendations are few in number, they still loom large in the remnants of my head. Continue reading »

Oct 272024
 

(written by Islander)

Moving on from yesterday’s Part I of the usual weekend roundup, I’m starting with the next letter of the band-name alphabet and continuing through W (no X, Y, or Z bands in this collection).

I mentioned yesterday that I had a few complete releases in this collection, in addition to all the singles, but I realized that one I thought had come out on Friday isn’t actually out yet, so I’ll push that one to a subsequent weekend.

But the first band today does have a complete release to their name, and it’s an interesting one. Continue reading »

Oct 252024
 

(Professor D. Grover the XIIIth rejoins us today with his review of Thy Catafalque‘s latest album, which will be released on November 15th by Season of Mist.)

Greetings and salutations, friends, and a happy impending Thy Catafalquemas to all who observe. It is at this point all but an official position of mine here at No Clean Singing as Guy Who Reviews The New Thy Catafalque album, a duty I relish. It is established canon at this point that Thy Catafalque are one of my favorite bands of the last two decades, an opinion bolstered by their consistently excellent output and clockworkesque album release cycle. Impressively, even with bandleader Tamás Kátai solidifying Thy Catafalque as a live entity, this new release (XII: A gyönyörü álmok ezután jönnek, or “The Beautiful Dreams Are Yet to Come”) comes only a year after its predecessor, Alföld. Continue reading »

Oct 232024
 

(written by Islander)

Every one of us follows a personal collection of bands who by our lights just never stumble. They may be ground-breakers or they may not. They may make bold steps from one record to the next or they may only iterate subtly. But over and over again, long enough to build our confidence, they create music that gets its hooks in our heads, rings our chimes (pick your own metaphor), reinforces the conviction that whatever they do next, the odds are high it will be well worth the time (and the money).

In my case the Bavarian band Blackevil are one of those groups. To borrow some words I’ve written before, their past music has been a black-thrashing devil-rush, high-grade adrenaline fuel but laced with an atmosphere of magic and menace. While drawing from well-springs of primal Teutonic thrash and the greats of speed metal, they also bring into play the epic fireworks of classic heavy metal and add mystic instrumental nuances, creating anthems of devilish glory and blood-rushing ecstasy.

They’ve been doing this long enough now, and getting better and better at it with each release, that people like me become greedily excited when seeing the news that they’ve got something new on the horizon. And the horizon is very near now, because on October 25th Dying Victims Productions will release the band’s spectacular third album, Praise the Communion Fire for the Unhallowed Sacrament, which you’ll be able to hear in full today. Continue reading »

Oct 232024
 

(This is DGR‘s review of the debut album of “Death Pop” by High Parasite, fronted by Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride, produced by Gregor Mackintosh of Paradise Lost, and released by Candlelight on September 27th.)

There’s an acceptance that comes with the idea that people aren’t required to listen to music the same way you do. You can bang the drum forever about how to experience something but in reality sometimes people just want to be able to throw something on and let it whip past them without a second thought.

The reality of which is perfectly fine. Not everyone needs to be able to fantasy-draft a death metal band together like Nader Sadek does with his releases. Not everyone needs to be able to fold an album over again, and again, and again, such that it eventually resembles a musical and intellectual rolled omelette. This of course being the long walk toward a simple question:

That being, have you ever listened to a release that has caused you to think about it way more than you could possibly justify any reason for? Thinking about it far more than the album might reasonably deserve? Because that may be what’s happening here with High Parasite’s debut album Forever We Burn. An album that has somehow caused the gears to turn here far more than one could intellectually justify. Continue reading »

Oct 232024
 

(We present NCS contributor Didrik Mešiček‘s review of the first album in nine years from the Egyptian metal band Odious, which was released earlier this month.)

Have you ever thought about how much of the metal you listen to actually comes from about five, or at most ten, countries? And while those countries are great at producing some quality bands, it’s a shame massive parts of the world have a poorly developed metal scene, and a lot of those nations have unique takes on music as well as cool instruments that could fit wonderfully within metal.

This is why I’m often very excited when there are bands popping up in various Asian or African countries and why I’m talking about the new album, Equilibrium Tool, from the Egyptian band Odious today. Continue reading »

Oct 222024
 

(written by Islander)

Today we premiere a full stream of Le Déclin, a new album by the veteran French band Ataraxie that will be released this coming Friday, October 25th, by Ardua Music and Weird Truth Productions.

To make it was an enormous undertaking. The results speak to that: Four songs, each of which is in the range of 16-22 minutes, and a total running time for the album of more than 80 minutes. You could think of it as four EPs released simultaneously, and you could choose to listen to them that way, but thematically they are all connected.

Before you reach the end of this article you’ll find extensive comments about the album from Ataraxie bassist/vocalist Jonathan Théry. As he describes them, the lyrics of the songs are about the negativity and sickness of the modern world — the descent of humanity into ignorance, absurdity, the rejection of science, the glorification of malignant fantasy, the rise of depression and disease, and an unwillingness to confront what could be done (or must be done) to prevent humankind from extinguishing itself.

Given the way that most metal bands make music, it’s unlikely that the lyrics (in French) were written first, and the music written to follow the lyrics. But there is still an undeniable unity between the themes and the sounds. The music itself channels anger, disgust, agony, isolation, and ruin on a global scale, as well as moments that seem to capture the value of what is being destroyed. Continue reading »

Oct 222024
 

(Andy Synn highlights two surprise releases from last week)

Don’t you just love surprises?

Well, the good kind anyway… you know, like the unexpected return of a musical project you thought was gone for good, or another new album from a band who already produced one of your favourites of the year?

Because that’s exactly what we’re looking at (and listening to) today.

Continue reading »

Oct 172024
 

(written by Islander)

In the nearly 15 years of our site’s existence our changing cadre of writers have listened to a mountainous quantity of metal, but if any of us have spent time with the music of the Romanian band Cursed Cemetery we must have kept our thoughts to ourselves. Because until last month, their name has not been mentioned in any of our 15,918 articles, despite the fact that since 2007 they released four albums.

But now Cursed Cemetery are on the eve of releasing a fifth album (on the Dusktone label), and finally we’re paying attention, and wondering what we missed across the years when the first four dropped.

The new album, Magma Transmigration, is a mountainous piece of music itself, a massive and daunting range with four imposing peaks, just four songs but each of them exceeding 10 minutes in length and two of them topping 15. Continue reading »