AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): STELLAR REMAINS — “WASTELANDS”

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Feb 132024
 

Let’s pretend you can’t listen to Stellar Remains‘ new EP right now, even though you can if you just scroll further down the screen you’re now looking at.

Let’s take our game of make-believe a move further and pretend you have no idea who this band is and have never heard a note of its music. That requires less suspension of disbelief, because Wastelands is in fact the first release of Stellar Remains, and only one song from the EP has been available for streaming before today.

Moreover, all that most of us know or could find out about the band (apart from that one song) is that it’s the solo work of Brisbane-based Dan Elkin, who has no resume on Metal-Archives yet.

So, if you indulge all this pretending, then you have to put some amount of weight on what we now have to say about Wastelands. How nice for us. Continue reading »

THE LAST TEN SECONDS OF LIFE – NO NAME GRAVES

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Feb 132024
 

(No Name Graves was released last Friday by Unique Leader Records, and Andy Synn reviews it today.)

Despite the many bands who’ve done great things with it, the term “Deathcore” is still a dirty word for some.

And while personal taste is always a major factor, I do happen to think that a lot of the inherent, knee-jerk prejudice can be traced back to the way the nascent genre was originally promoted by labels and the like who saw this “brand new thing” (although we can argue about just how new it was until the cows come home) and set out to make as much money off of it as possible, quickly leading to over-saturation and exploitation (you see, there is money to be made in the Metal scene… just not really by the bands, most of the time).

As a result a lot of potential listeners were put off by the excessive, artificially-inflated hype and the seeming lack of quality-control surrounding that early glut of guttural lovin’, breakdown-heavy bands who helped popularise the scene in the short-term but who, depending on their circumstances (and their resolve) either quickly fell apart or evolved into something different in order to survive.

But while we may quibble about the relative merits of the genre’s early years, the foundations laid by its early adherents have proven remarkably resilient and served as fertile soil for many different variants to bud off and bloom, meaning that even if the Platonic ideal of “Deathcore” that you have in your head doesn’t necessarily appeal to you there’s probably a version of it out there that will.

Which brings us, nicely, to The Last Ten Seconds of Life.

Continue reading »

PERSEFONE: “LINGUA IGNOTA: PART I”

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Feb 132024
 

(We present DGR‘s review of a new EP by the Andorran band Persefone, which was released not long ago by Napalm Records.)

A guarantee with Andorra’s Persefone is that you are going to get a lot of music. Persefone have made a career out of albums hybridizing progressive metal, melodeath, and as wide a smattering of other genres as they could into a form of tightly controlled chaos with multiple vocal approaches serving as the icings on the cake.

They’re a full-album band and very rarely, throughout a surprisingly long career, have done any sort of single or EP as part of their discography. Persefone have always dealt in releasing densely packed albums, and as of 2022’s Metanoia were up to a grand total of six.

With all of those elements making up Persefone‘s career it is surprising that the band have seen relatively little change on the lineup front – especially since they really found their groove with 2013’s Spiritual Migration. Since then, other than a re-recording of their first album Truth Inside The Shades in 2020, the band have refined upon the eastern sprituality subject matter and massive keyboard-wall approach to their writing style.

Which is why it is both fitting and very interesting that the group’s newest release is just an EP but also has a ‘Part I’ tacked onto its name. Continue reading »

JOB FOR A COWBOY – MOON HEALER

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Feb 122024
 

(Moon Healer is out on 23 February on Metal Blade Records)

2024 looks set to be an interesting year for comebacks, and few of those, I’d imagine, will attract as much interest – or generate as much divisive discussion – as the long-awaited new album from resurrected Death Metal revenants Job For A Cowboy.

That’s right, I said “Death Metal” rather than “Deathcore”, because it’s high time we all acknowledged that, whether you like them or not (and I’m sure there are many who don’t) the band haven’t been “Deathcore” since the release of Genesis way back in 2007.

Not only that, but in the years preceding their hiatus – culminating in the challenging technicality and churning intensity of the career-defining Sun Eater – it became clear that the band were more interested in pushing their sound in an increasingly unorthodox and unpredictable direction, rather than giving in to any outside pressures to conform to anyone else’s ideas of who they should be.

And although it’s now been almost (but not quite) a full decade since they last saddled up, there’s no question that on Moon Healer these cowboys have continued to ride even further down the proggy path laid out by its predecessor.

Continue reading »

GHOUL: “NOXIOUS CONCOCTIONS”

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Feb 092024
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of a new EP by Creepsylvanian splatterthrashers Ghoul, out now on the Tankcrimes label.)

If you’ve been trawling around the underground long enough, you’ve likely crossed paths with the crazed crossover thrash and death metal hybrid that is Ghoul; they’re a name that probably needs little introduction at this point – having battled out a career for years that is combination tongue-in-cheek shock horror, community theater, public-access TV, pirate radio, and puppet show.

The band, in all their murderous muppety glory, seem to appear out of the ether at shows and crank out crazed sets before vanishing into the night. You’d never know that they’ve been subsisting on a series of splits and singles since 2016’s Dungeon Bastards and prior to that had been on a slightly more sollid rotating albums/eps collection every three or four years.

The upshot of this is that Ghoul have five full-lengths to their name already, but their most recent EP Noxious Concoctions is the most substantial collection of material – four originals songs, one cover, for a grand total of eighteen and a half minutes of music – that the masked madmen have cranked out in almost eight years. Continue reading »

PRAISE THE PLAGUE – SUFFOCATING IN THE CURRENT OF TIME

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Feb 082024
 

(Andy Synn praises the new album from this German quintet, out Feb 16 on Lifeforce Records)

So far this week I’ve covered a moody “Doom-gaze” album and an ostentatiously melodic piece of bombastic Prog Rock by an ex-Death Metal band… and I’m worried people might be starting to think I’ve gone soft.

Well, to make up for it, here’s a few thoughts about the bleak ‘n’ blistering new album from German Blackened Sludge crew Praise the Plague.

Are you happy now?

Continue reading »

HULDER: “VERSES IN OATH”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Feb 072024
 

(This is Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review of the new album by Hulder, which will be released on February 9th by 20 Buck Spin.)

 It is the critics’ temptation to always glorify the radical and experimental, but sometimes it’s important to realize genius when it is executed within a genre’s traditional confines.  Such is the brilliance of Hulder. Their latest full-length, Verses In Oath, is an exercise in everything that has made black metal such an addictive sound. The embrace of ancient violence and forest mysticism is strong here and they don’t radically deviate from the template, they are just doing it better than almost anyone else right now. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME II: A QUICK BEGINNING TO 2024

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Feb 062024
 

(Daniel Barkasi returns today with the second of his monthly NCS columns devoted to spreading the word about musical obscurities. What you’ll find below are reviews and streams of 8 records released from around the globe in January.)

To begin, thank you to all who read the first edition of this monthly column. I’m glad folks seemed to enjoy the musical expeditions of my often wacky brain. May you discover something to your liking that’ll (hopefully) give you plenty of enjoyment and respite from the madness of the everyday hustle.

This edition covers records that were released in January, which is how we’ll be covering things month-to-month. This time, we have a cornucopia of flavors to indulge; from atmospheric, epic, and relaxing, to the downright filthy. True that the first month of the calendar is typically a relatively slow month in terms of memorable releases, but this year has started off quite favorably. Plenty of under the surface delights to tear into, so let us begin faster than Jerry Seinfeld’s supposed claim of being quite fleet of foot. We choose to run! Continue reading »

METH. — “SHAME”

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Feb 062024
 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s intriguing review of an album by the Chicago band meth. that was released last Friday by Prosthetic Records.)

Imagine a band that does not feel the need to adhere to any of the conventions we have heard a thousand times over from all the other bands that push the limits of heavy. Chicago’s meth. is such a band.

Less unsettling evil haunts their new album Shame than say a band like Portrayal of Guilt, who are not far removed from their sonic zip code. You can pinpoint the sub-genres they touch upon, such as the deliberate pound of dense distortion that could be called sludge. Most of their vocalist’s screams carry an anguish that is similar to what we hear from black metal vocalists. Yet unlike those bands, they do not just relegate themselves to doing it throughout the entirety of a song much less the entire album. Continue reading »

CHAPEL OF DISEASE – ECHOES OF LIGHT

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Feb 062024
 

(Andy Synn tries his best to embrace the new album from Chapel of Disease, out this Friday)

A lot of people, including yours truly, will tell you that Chapel of Disease‘s 2018 album, …And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye, is one of the best Death Metal albums of the last decade.

And even those who don’t agree with that statement generally have to concede that it’s definitely one of the most unique Death Metal albums they’ve heard in a long, long time.

But the band’s upcoming fourth album (the final recording of the group’s original line-up) is neither of these things.

Because it’s not really a Death Metal album at all.

Continue reading »

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