Nov 162023
 

Released in the summer of 2021, Brahmastra was the debut album of Altars of the Moon. It first turned some heads because of the identities of the people who made it: Nathan Verschoor (Uada), Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves, ex-Nachmystium), and Heath Rave (Lotus Thrones, ex-Wolvhammer). It probably turned heads again when it became evident that the music was several big steps away from what might have been expected given the nature of the participants’ main musical endeavors.

Like other collaborations, this one was born in lockdown times, one of covid’s precious few silver linings. As a plague child, some might have expected it would quickly perish, a one-and-done union of talents. But time doesn’t heal all wounds, nor does it always still restless minds or silence voices. As it turns out, Altars of the Moon had something more to say.

And so now we’re on the verge of Disorder Recordings releasing a second Altars of the Moon album, this one named The Colossus and The Widow. The three collaborators came together again by long distance — Rave on vocals, Verschoor on guitars and synths, and Wilson on bass, guitar, and synth — but this time they were joined by another notable name, Alan Cassidy (The Black Dahila Murder), on drums. In addition, the new record features guest appearances on saxophone by Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) and on trumpet by Mac Gollehon (Duran Duran, David Bowie).

We’re now putting the results before you in full, preceded by our own thoughts as usual but also by these from Heath Rave: Continue reading »

Nov 162023
 

(Andy Synn offers his humble thoughts on the first new Sadus album in seventeen years)

Some bands, as I’m sure you’re aware, are so seminal that fragments of their musical DNA still litter the genetic code of pretty much all their descendants, no matter how far removed.

For example, no matter how “extreme” or “avant-garde” or “genre non-conforming” you might be, there’s always going to be some Black Sabbath or Judas Priest or Motorhead in your music, in the same way that we all, deep-down, still have bits and pieces of our earliest ancestors swimming around in our primordial protoplasm.

But it’s not just the biggest and most notable (or notorious) names who leave their mark upon us. And chances are that if you’ve ever been a fan of the proggier side of Thrash or the more technical end of Death Metal then you’ve probably absorbed some Sadus into your system, even if you didn’t know it at the time.

And now, seventeen(!) years since we last heard from them – a time in which a whole generation of Metal fans may well have grown up having never even heard of them – Sadus have returned to retake their place in a Metal scene whose seeds they undoubtedly played at least some small part in sowing.

Continue reading »

Nov 152023
 

(What we have for you here is DGR‘s take on a new EP by the German band Sucking Leech, released in mid-October of this year and still ruining everything in its path.)

There’s a certain amount of filth to be expected from grind as a genre. For as much as we love the ultra-precise, teeth-shredding, and super-fast world wherein songs appear as musical flashpoints before exploding and then disappearing just as quickly, there is always a somewhat grosser side to that world. One wherein the slop of the music is part of the appeal and the plug-and-play aspect is taken quite literally, with recordings sounding like the band legitimately just plugged in their gear, only turned on the volume nob, and then proceeded to go to town for twelve or thirteen minutes bathed entirely in distortion and reverb.

It’s noisy and abrasive but that is also the point; you’re coming to it because the idea of the drums sounding like they’re falling out the back of a moving truck is enjoyable. The bands that comprise that world of grind aren’t just flinging their instruments around, and obviously the music can remain fairly conventional to the grind world, but it’s the barely contained and heavily constrained chaos that keeps things interesting.

It’s why Sucking Leech‘s Errordynamic EP in mid-October caught our eyes. Sounding like a cross-bred catastrophe of Napalm Death, Rotten Sound, and Pig Destroyer mid-fistfight, Sucking Leech don’t stray tremendously far from that chaotic and maddening world of grind, but for a four-piece manage to sound monstrous all the same. Continue reading »

Nov 142023
 

(Our old friend Austin Weber again returns to NCS, and this time he’s introducing our premiere of a new album by the technical/brutal death metal band Neurectomy.)

In the immortal words of Twin Peaks: “That gum you like is going to come back in style.

Outside of the overwhelming and well-warranted love Archspire has garnered in the scene, technical brutal death metal that both leans into and focuses on extreme shredding, chaotic tempo shifts, and is just all-in on not giving a damn about being “listenable” has largely gone out of style.

And again, I know/love Archspire, and technically, Archspire is still sort of doing this, as is Origin, but overall this type of sound is sort of a now-lost sub-genre within technical brutal death metal. For a while there, it was a very active style thanks to Viraemia, Beneath The Massacre, Anomalous, Brain Drill, and countless others. Continue reading »

Nov 142023
 

Four years after their debut album Redistribution Of Flesh, Portland’s ingeniously named Rank and Vile will detonate a new album named Worship on November 17th, with the pin pulled by Modern Grievance Records.

It really is an explosive weapon, this album, one that discharges a blast front of violent deathgrind but also inflicts bunker-busting grooves and is equally well-calculated to stir up electrified pits of sweat-soaked humanity in the pit.

The album is also well-timed, because its high-octane fuel is politically charged rage and its method is punishment. It is, first and foremost, a musical catharsis, a weaponized reaction that (in words from the label’s PR materials) “takes shots at flabby politicians, hypocritical religious fanatics, and fence-sitting sycophants”. Theocrats, autocrats, and plutocrats may not get the justice they deserve in the outer world, but they sure as hell get it in the inner world of this record. Continue reading »

Nov 142023
 

(Andy Synn offers his two cents on the new album from Texan troubadours Hinayana)

Common consensus would have it that 2023 has been a great year for Death Metal.

And while my thoughts on that assertion are somewhat… complicated… I will say this – if you’re talking about the gloomier, doomier, and more moodily melodic side of Death Metal then you’re definitely right, as the last twelve months has seen a number of illustrious releases from the likes of Aetherian, Fires In The Distance, Foretoken, and more (with a few more to come) which have, when taken together, led to a low-key resurgence of the more epic and euphonic side of the spectrum.

And now we have the new album from Hinayana to add to that list.

Continue reading »

Nov 132023
 

(This is DGR‘s review of the latest record by the Argentinian melodic death metal band Plaguestorm, out now on the Noble Demon label.)

Heavy metal fantasy draft is always fun and the proliferation of projects with the ability to do so has increased tremendously in recent years. No doubt a combination of musicians using the internet to find each other and the more likely possibility of constantly being trapped inside, you’re now seeing a ton of projects wherein musicians from all over the world are combined into one thing via session work and constant guest appearances.

We have musicians now who’re quickly approaching a point in history where they may have more guest/session appearances and releases to their name than they’ve got material with the band they’re most famous for being in. This has also been a pretty big movement within melodeath circles as we’re now multiple generations removed from the classics and old guard and well into an era of bands that were inspired by the keyboard/groove metal happy early-aughts of the genre that were built around big riffs/big choruses with just enough of ye-olde Gotenburg two-step to keep things ‘dangerous’. Continue reading »

Nov 122023
 


Caio Lemos

Welcome to another Sunday edition of this column dedicated to black arts. It’s not as extensive as I’d hoped this time, because after finishing yesterday’s very large “Seen and Heard” round-up of new songs and videos I had to do some paying work, took a two-hour nap (I did wake up at 4 a.m. yesterday), and then drank way too much wine last night with my spouse.

Also the Seahawks are playing right after lunch today and I want to watch, even though I have serious doubts whether they’ll win. Also I have to figure out how to change the battery in the key fob for my car, and the dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.

See, I do have a very exciting life outside of NCS. Continue reading »

Nov 112023
 

I have a lot to recommend today. I made some of these choices and wrote some of these words earlier in the week. I have to hurry through the rest of it this morning because a wind storm is in progress outside and the branches bombarding the roof are beginning to sound like a war zone.

Cozy inside, I can tolerate that, but where I live near Puget Sound the power lines are overhead, cradled by forest limbs, and when the limbs go down (as they will, somewhere on this little grid), the power and the internet will go out too. So, I’m hurrying now….

SATYASENA (U.S.)

The first song I chose is just gloriously wild, a high-speed roller-coaster for your mind that should leave it yelping with glee.

If I were a kinder person and more capable of self-restraint, which I’m not, I’d just stop there and not spoil the fun, much of which comes from being surprised by what happens in the song. On the other hand, I doubt that any preview words can really spoil the thrills of “My Passion“, so here goes: Continue reading »

Nov 102023
 

(With October now behind us and November well on its way, our friend Gonzo returns to NCS with reviews of some October releases that made a very positive impression.)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the ways music connects us as a people. The metal community is, more often than not, a refuge for this kind of thinking. It’s especially noticeable when everything else in the world starts to suck.

A couple of weeks back, I saw Blackbraid open for Wolves in the Throne Room. The former’s unapologetically indigenous approach to their music was, and always is, a great reminder of how heavy music isn’t just for one group of people. It’s for everyone. Hearing such music in a live setting, in the company of other like-minded humans, was refreshing. It reminds me why I make time to write about this shit in the first place.

And I know I’m not alone in saying that it’s all too easy to go down a doom-scroll rabbit hole these days. Between that sense of existential dread and the aforementioned gratitude for metal, I had plenty of inspiration for this month’s roundup. I was right – it turned out to be a real fucking doozy.

(As I’m typing this, at least one person is secretly jotting down “Doom Scroll Rabbit Hole” for the name of their one-man psychedelic black metal project.) Continue reading »