Album Reviews Archives - Page 8 of 478

HECATONCHEIR – NIGHTMARE UTOPIA

Mar 072024

(Nightmare Utopia, the debut album from Hecatoncheir, is out now on Total Dissonance Worship)

As we’ve said several times, one of the reasons we keep doing this is because we love discovering new music, and we love sharing our discoveries with people.

Hell, if we didn’t have this blog we’d probably just be running up to people in the streets and screaming at them about how good the latest Blackened Post-Progressive Doom-core release is… and, according to the authorities, we’re not supposed to do that any more.

So when I first stumbled across Nightmare Utopia, the debut album from talented Slovakian Dissonant Death Metal trio Hecatoncheir, last week I knew immediately that I wanted to write about it and spread the word.

And while it took me a little longer than I’d hoped to find space in my schedule, I’m hoping you’ll agree that the wait was more than worth it, as this is one of the most promising debuts I’ve heard so far this year.

AN NCS ALBUM AND VIDEO PREMIERE: NONE — “ALIVE IN SAN JOSE”

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Mar 072024

For those of you encountering None for the first time today, it began in 2015 as the solo musical project of Nicholas Mendiola from San José, California, now based in Los Angeles. The music is unconventional, and thus not easily pigeon-holed in genre terms. We can suggest that over time it has involved an alchemical interaction of black metal, neo-folk, industrial, and dark ambient ingredients, but for Nicholas “The Dark Gospel” is what he calls the music of None.

That term not only abjures explicit genre references, it also connects with None‘s conception of musical creation as a spiritual endeavor, as a never-ending search for the divine and an expression of its mystical presence both within ourselves as an animating force and external to us.

Last October None played their first hometown show in San José at The Caravan Lounge. There, Nicholas was joined in the representation of None by bassist and guitarist Nathan Nunes. They performed six songs, five of which were new and never-before heard. The show was recorded, and tomorrow (March 8th) it will be released as an album entitled Alive in San Jose. The show was also filmed, and today we’re premiering the video of None‘s live show, as well as the full album stream of the set. Continue reading »

PRISONER: “PUTRID | OBSOLETE”

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Mar 072024

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of Prisoner‘s sophomore album, due for release on March 15th by Persistent Vision Records.)

While certainly not the first to combine metal with industrial influences, Richmond-based unit Prisoner justifies their efforts with their excellent sophomore album Putrid | Obsolete.

Starting off as a quartet featuring Pete Rozsa on guitar and vocals, Justin Hast on bass, Dan Finn on guitar, and Joel Hansen on drums, they added Adam Lake as a full-time member to handle synths, samples, and programming, resulting in an immersive and hellish listening experience. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): APOGEAN –“CYBERSTRICTIVE”

Album Reviews, Premieres 1 Response »

Mar 062024

“Canadian tech/prog death metal group Apogean presents their inaugural full-length, Cyberstrictive, scheduled for 08 March 2024 via The Artisan Era on vinyl, CD, and digital. Marking the debut with the new vocalist Mac Smith (who recently served as the live vocalist of Decrepit Birth), the upcoming album poignantly explores the dark side of technology, shedding light on its poisonous effects on our lives.”

That’s the high-level introduction provided in the PR materials previewing this Toronto quintet’s first full-length, which follows their debut EP, Into Madness, released in June 2021. And here’s a further insight into the album’s conceptual themes, which is worth understanding in advance of listening to the album — which you’ll have a chance to do now: Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “UNEXTINCT”

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Mar 062024

(We present DGR‘s review of the new album from Italy’s Hideous Divinity in advance of its March 22nd release by Century Media.)

A new Hideous Divinity album will loom large in the distance. We’re now well into the group’s career as a generator of overwhelming and unrelenting death metal, for those who might think that standing at the bottom of a mountain while a crew does avalanche preparation during snow season is a fun way to experience music.

Hideous Divinity started with the intensity of their music ratcheted way past the standard red line and have effectively stayed there. Somehow, with each album, they’ve found new ways to twist and mutate that intensity into something different and malformed every time, often with enough there to make those releases a different experience from one another.

Yet for just as much as the band play mad scientist with their musical compositions there’s still the theme of whether or not their vocalist or their drummer is going to pass out from exhaustion first as the group continually push themselves harder and harder. Continue reading »

ABORTED – VAULT OF HORRORS

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Mar 062024

(Andy Synn plays armchair casting director with the new Aborted, set for release on March 15)

In the almost twenty-five(!) years since their first album, Aborted have proven themselves – on multiple occasions – to be one of the most relentlessly reliable purveyors of sonic shock and awe in the business.

But, as with any long-running franchise, audience-fatigue is always a constant concern, and while the group’s sound (and membership, with frontman Sven de Caluwé being the only original cast member left) has generally proven to be mutable and malleable enough to differentiate different entries in the series from one another, for the most part – for better or worse – you kind of know what you’re going to get with a new Aborted record.

On album number twelve, however, the band have opted to get some extra buzz – and maybe even a bit of a box office boost – by drafting in a plethora of guest stars, and while this isn’t exactly a new strategy by any means, the sheer number of famous names making an appearance this time around (one on each of the album’s ten tracks – none of whom are me, I’m sorry to say) can’t help but make me wonder whether this a case of shallow stunt-casting or a proper creative cross-over (although there’s no reason it can’t be both, I suppose).

So, with that in mind, instead of simply telling you whether it’s a good album or not (it is, don’t worry) or even how good it is (very, as it happens, due to an extra dash of “blackened” melody and brutish ‘core influences), I’ve decided – mostly for my own amusement, but hopefully for yours too – to take a slightly different approach with this review and focus my attention on how effective these guest features are and what they add (or don’t).

So let’s see who has chemistry and who’s been miscast, shall we?

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME III: MOVING RIGHT ALONG

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Mar 052024

(Daniel Barkasi returns with another collection of album reviews and streams today, focusing on records that dropped in February 2024.)

Surprise – we’re back like Legia Warsaw Ultras! What in the hell am I talking about? Quite simply the height of professional level trolling, performed by Polish football Ultras. These groups can be extreme (to put it mildly), but credit is due for a move this epic. Me returning for February can’t come close, but hopefully we’ll be able to leave you with some music that you won’t soon forget.

‘Tis been an excellent month, as you’ve seen by the plethora of quality releases covered here at NCS. The end of winter is slowly approaching, and the release schedule only gets more packed in from here. Counting Hours brought the dim melancholy, Keres crushed us with a death metal onslaught, Borknagar is still soldering on at a high level, and Solbrud put out the musical equivalent of a full marathon (way less physical exertion required).

This month brings quite a sampling that’s a tad heavy on the post-black atmospheric variety, but variety is indeed the spice of metal happiness, so there’s also a mix of progressive, death, black and doom in various forms to gnaw into like a Mackinaw Peach. Just don’t lose your taste buds when they’re in season. Buford’s got your back, though. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 042024

(Andy Synn presents four artists/albums from February that may have flown under your radar)

While I obviously love putting together these “Things You May Have Missed” columns and using them as an opportunity to highlight a handful of bands that you (and we) might otherwise have overlooked, one thing I don’t love is having to compromise and make hard choice about who to include, and who to leave out.

Sure, keeping it to just four entries is a lot easier on my typing fingers (and a lot less demanding of my time) but I absolutely hate the fact that I have to leave so many deserving releases off the list.

So, please, as well as listening to the quartet of releases I’ve selected to highlight this month, try and make some time to check out the latest records from Fange, Pyra, Stiriah, Devine Defilement, Vanta, Terramorta, Theophonos… and, well, I could go on!

SHADES OF BLACK: MISOTHEIST, DEATHLIKE DAWN, GLYPH, DARK PLAGUE, BLESTEMAT, BEHOLDER, VALRAVNE, PÂLEFROID

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Mar 032024

Here’s the way today’s collection of music goes: The first four choices include two albums and two singles that I thought fit well together. The music by all four bands is unmistakably harsh and hostile, but it’s also adventurously inventive and head-twisting, laced with the kind of unpredictable and unexpected elaborations that might invoke in some people’s minds the amorphous label “avant-garde”, or at least the term “unorthodox”.

After that I’ve included four other individual songs as bonuses. Later I’ll explain why I used that word to explain their presence here, if you make it that far (and you damn well should). Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PELICAN — “ADRIFT / TENDING THE EMBERS”

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Mar 012024

It’s another Bandcamp Friday today, and the electronic ether is flooded with new possibilities. I have dozens of recommendations I could make, in addition to the dozens my colleagues and I have been making every day since the last one of these Fridays. But the one I decided to pick out from the virtual deluge is here because… it takes me back….

In looking through our many past writings about Pelican, I found the first appearance in a list posted by one of the two other people who started NCS with me more than 14 years ago, a list posted just two weeks after we began (with no idea where we would go or for how long). And of course that wasn’t the last time we highlighted Pelican‘s music — many more features followed.

Even 14+ years ago, Pelican weren’t newcomers. Just a few weeks before that list I mentioned, they had released their fourth album, What We All Come to Need. Since then, two more albums have followed, and a few EPs, but the pace of the releases hasn’t been as intense as it once was.

That’s not shocking, given that the life of the band is now about 23 years, and the slower pace of output just makes the appearance of something new even more welcome. The new thing we have now, as of today, is a two-song EP named Adrift/Tending the Embers, and although nostalgia has admittedly played a role in why I decided to help spread the word about it, that’s not the only reason. Continue reading »

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