Jun 042024
 

(Andy Synn catches up with four albums from a mammoth May that you might have overlooked)

It was my immense good fortune to spend a good chunk of May travelling and seeing bands, first with a trip to Seattle for another excellent edition of North West Terrorfest, and then a jaunt to Baltimore to sample the delights of another Maryland Deathfest.

And since my travels gave me an opportunity to read and listen to music, I decided to make the most of it by re-immersing myself in a few of my favourite albums from the last few decades, with the result being that I probably ended up listening to fewer new releases last month than you might have come to expect.

That doesn’t mean I’ve been completely out of the loop, by any means (just give that handy “Andy Synn” tag a quick click and you’ll see that I still wrote a bunch of reviews, including several designed to cover our down-time during both the above festivals), it’s just that there’s probably going to be a few more “catching up” pieces to come after this one as well (most notably a review of the new Árstíðir Lífsins, whenever I get around to it).

As always, however, I’d like to begin a new month with four favourites from last month which I think deserve a bit more attention and acclaim, so let’s not waste any more time and just get right down to it, shall we?

Continue reading »

Jun 022024
 

After a bit of a festival-induced hiatus in these Sunday columns, I’ve returned, and have had time to pull together a pretty good-sized selection of new blackened sounds today.

I’m leading off with three veteran bands who have managed to withstand the ravaging gales of time, and then I’ll move into newer collectives. I’m not sure there’s any organizing principle in what I chose, other than my own strong positive reactions to each choice. They include advance tracks from five forthcoming albums, some of them accompanied by videos, and one recently released full-length.

HORNED ALMIGHTY (Denmark)

The mighty Horned Almighty are returning to strike fear into the hearts of men, women, beasts, and probably plant life. Their new album, the seventh in a 20+ year career, is Contagion Zero. The first frights from it come in the form of a daunting and extremely dire song named “Ascension of Fever and Plague“. Continue reading »

May 312024
 


Hull of Light

As you may know, the core cadre of NCS slaves (including me) spent chunks of May attending metal festivals in Seattle and Baltimore. In my case, this disrupted my usual efforts to pull together roundups of recommended new music. The backlog of missed opportunities is now gargantuan, leaving me confused about how in the world to pick things for this Saturday’s SEEN AND HEARD column.

Somehow between now and then I’ll figure out what to do, but I decided to get a modest head-start today by writing about two fairly recent EPs. I had thought I might get this done before becoming immersed in festival revels, but alas, I didn’t. Rather than just abandon the idea, however, I’m returning to it now. Continue reading »

May 312024
 

The German symphonic black metal band Suffering Souls first sprang to dark life in the distant year 1994 under the name Dismal, but soon embraced its current name. From the beginning its founder Tobias Micko (aka Lord Esgaroth) has been at the helm, at times accompanied by other participants either in recordings or on stage.

At the end of 2019, after a quarter-century of the band’s existence, Tobias Micko started songwriting for the fifth Suffering Souls album, and it was recorded at the history-making Hertz Studio in Poland. Micko is responsible for everything on the album, other than the session drums, which were performed by Michiel Van Der Plicht (Pestilence).

Today the album is being co-released by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Fetzner Death Records (Germany). Its name is An Iconic Taste Of Demise, and we’re premiering it in full right now. Continue reading »

May 302024
 

Metal band names, when considered either in isolation or in conjunction with the bands’ music, span a range from terrible to perfect. The name Beaten To Death is damn-near perfect, both in isolation and especially in the context of this Norwegian group’s ferociously brawling brand of grindcore.

The name creates expectations, perhaps especially to someone who’s never encountered the five albums Beaten To Death have put out beginning in 2011. But then such a stranger could take one look at the fantastical cover of their forthcoming sixth album Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis and begin to get the idea that maybe those expectations aren’t going to be entirely accurate, or at least they’re going to be incomplete.

But those of us who have encountered one or more of Beaten To Death‘s previous releases won’t be entirely surprised, because while this band are indeed fully capable of beating their listeners to death, they are equally capable of adventurously turning conventional grind expectations upside-down — and as you’re about to discover, they do it again on this newest album. Continue reading »

May 302024
 

(Andy Synn walks the path of perdition with Vástígr, whose new album is out now)

Let me begin things today with a short aside, if I may?

The subject of this particular review is one of several excellent bands playing Ascension Festival in Iceland in July, which various members of the NCS extended family will be attending again this year.

Unfortunately, the festival is currently struggling with higher-than-usual costs and lower-than-average ticket sales, the combination of which have put the future of the event in serious doubt.

So if you’re still going back-and-forth about whether to pick up a ticket this year, now is the time to do so… and, to help encourage you even more, here’s some fantastic music you can expect to hear from Vástígr at this year’s festival.

Continue reading »

May 302024
 

(Our Hanoi-based contributor Vizzah Harri prepared the following review and recommendation of the latest album by Tennessee-based black metal band Saidan, which was released about a week ago.)

Realizing that my writeups are overlong in this age of mass-consumption and shortening attention spans, I attempted writing with a number in mind. I’m a simple soul, so I went for 666 words on an album worthy of a master’s thesis.

Continue reading »

May 292024
 

The dramatically unconventional Italian band Laetitia in Holocaust haven’t quite reached the quarter-century mark of their existence, but they’re not too far away. In that time they’ve created a discography that is a cavalcade of aggressive surprises, and their latest addition is a forthcoming fifth album (not counting an early album-length demo). Entitled Fanciulli D’Occidente, it will be released by the Dusktone label on May 31st, and we’re premiering it in full today.

The album’s name translates to “Children of the West”, and we’re told that conceptually it’s intended as a memoriam to ancestors of European peoples and a wish that today’s children may prove themselves worthy of blood shed by those long-gone predecessors. It would seem to connect to the band’s own name, which stands for “happiness in sacrifice”. Continue reading »

May 292024
 

(On May 31st Sound Pollution/Black Lodge Records will release the closing album in a trilogy about death by the Swedish band Wormwood, and today we provide Didrik Mešiček‘s review of the new record.)

There are not a lot of bands who haven’t made any bad records but I’d say Wormwood is one of them. The Swedes are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year and releasing their newest album, The Star, on May 31st, 2024, on Black Lodge Records. Their previous release, Arkivet, delved a bit into post-metal and came with a rather melancholic, misanthropic view, suggesting mankind deserves death for its role in the current events on the planet, but they’ve been known to involve folkier and more melodic elements in their tracks before that as well, so now it’s time to see what the new release offers. Continue reading »

May 282024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by the U.S. metallic hardcore band Candy in advance of its June 7th release by Relapse Records.)

It’s cool for a metallic hardcore band like Knocked Loose to be able to ride the hype machine on their way to becoming the next big thing, but Candy’s new album kicks you in the face harder with the kind of experimentation I expected to find on You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To. This should not be a surprise as Candy’s 2022 album Heaven is Here was one of my favorite heavy albums of that year. Continue reading »