SHADES OF BLACK: DØDSFERD, DARKEND, LIMINAL SHROUD

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  9 Responses »
May 052024
 

I don’t have as many different things to share with you in this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK as I usually do, mainly because I’ve devoted most of my time to expressing detailed thoughts about a forthcoming record which I’ve found to be one of the most gripping black metal albums I’ve encountered so far this year.

After that, I’ve included a couple of recent singles that I also hope you’ll enjoy, both of which are fore-runners to eagerly anticipated albums that I haven’t yet heard in full.

DØDSFERD (Greece)

We’ll begin with the first two songs you can now hear from Wrath, the forthcoming 12th album by Dødsferd. The album’s title shares the name of the band’s founder and also describes the emotional energy that fuels much of the music. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND REVIEW): NAXEN – DESCENDING INTO A DEEPER DARKNESS

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
May 022024
 

(Andy Synn descends into the depths of the new album from Germany’s Naxen, out tomorrow)

As I’ve said before, the Black Metal scene today – in all its myriad forms – is in such rude health that it seems like you can’t go more than a day without stumbling over a fantastic new artist or album to fall in love with.

The downside of this, however, is that with so much quality material on offer – from the rawest to the proggiest, and everything in between – it’s getting harder and harder for bands to stand out and make themselves heard.

But it’s clear that Naxen have been hard at work themselves over the last few years, carving out their own particular niche – somewhere between the hypnotic intensity of Mgła, the infectious energy of Woe, and the gloomy despondency of Ultha – where they can plant their seeds, nurture them, and watch them grow.

And the fruit of their labours – which we have the distinct pleasure of premiering for you all today – is their new album, Descending Into a Deeper Darkness.

Continue reading »

MY DYING BRIDE: “A MORTAL BINDING”

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May 012024
 

(About 10 days ago Nuclear Blast released the 15th studio album from My Dying Bride, and DGR has sat with it long enough to now provide his thoughts below.)

My Dying Bride‘s newest release A Mortal Binding is a surprisingly turbulent album by My Dying Bride standards. Though My Dying Bride have been an adaptive beast over the course of a long-running career, the group have cycled back around into an interesting amalgamation of modern day doom and their early miserable forms.

Yet My Dying Bride have been the civilized and staid older-sibling of the doom scene, awash with despair yet seeming more ‘refined’ than their cohort bands. No stranger to longform song writing either, it hadn’t been until 2020’s The Ghost Of Orion that they forged themselves into a stately yet concise version of what they’d been before. Granted, they almost immediately followed that up with Macabre Cabaret, an EP with a ten-minute song as its opener, but it seemed like My Dying Bride had found a strong comfort zone with the fragile and mournful atmospheres of The Ghost Of Orion.

Which is what makes A Mortal Binding quite the followup. Continue reading »

GLASSING: “FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR”

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Apr 302024
 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Austin-based Glassing, which was released last week by Pelagic Records.)

Twin Dream was a perfect album. Glassing are perfecting the art of perfection with From the Other Side of the Mirror. The heaviness here is more biting. The melodies are more textured and haunting. These are conclusions I came to only four songs in.

Granted, a piece like “Sallow” is more of an ambient interlude, but “Defacer” has serious sonic teeth, and can have you head-banging before your second cup of coffee. With Twin Dream what they were doing was more easily defined. It had hardcore kids making atmospheric sludge. This time around more colors of sound are being explored. Continue reading »

STORM UPON THE MASSES – CRUSHER OF SOULS

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Apr 292024
 

(Andy Synn invites you all to get crushed by the new album from Belgian brutalists Storm Upon the Masses)

Did you know that, according to leading medical professionals, just 30-40 minutes of brutality a day can lead to drastic improvements in your physical fitness, me(n)tal health, and even your sex life?

It’s true!

So, if you were put off by Aborted‘s slight turn towards the ‘core end of the spectrum (I wasn’t, but I know some of you were), or felt that the new Hour of Penance needed a bit more bite and are looking for something to fill the void then the new album from Storm Upon the Masses should be just what the doctor ordered.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INCONCESSUS LUX LUCIS, LIFVSLEDA, BLACNK, LILLA VENEDA, GLACIAL MASS, CRYPTIC CHORUS

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Apr 282024
 

Once again I had enough free time this weekend to make today’s collection from the black spheres a large one. I picked two recently released albums, preceded by one new video and songs from three more full-lengths that are on the way.

As you’ll discover, there’s considerable variation in the music today, but there is a through-line as I perceive it, a pervasive eeriness, a feeling that we’ve left this world and are communing with dangerous, daunting, and deceptive entities in the chilling and incendiary realms they call home.

INCONCESSUS LUX LUCIS (UK)

A painfully long seven years have staggered by since the last album from Inconcessus Lux Lucis, so long that the news of a new album was startling, but a very welcome development for sure.

The new album, Temples Colliding In Fire, is one of three set for release on June 7th that I, Voidhanger Records announced in one fell swoop last week (I wrote about another one, the debut of Thanatotherion, yesterday). And along with the announcement, I, Voidhanger published the album’s title track. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: CAINITES, DUSKWALKER, ENEMY XIII, FULL OF HELL, GOREBRINGER, HAUNTED PLASMA, THANATOTHERION, ZELENAYA (AND THREE COMPILATIONS)

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 272024
 

In considering what to do for this weekly roundup of new songs and videos I felt like a rabbit surrounded by wolves at every point on the compass rose, scrambling and darting this way and that. Too many wolves, not enough space to escape. Wild-eyed, here’s what I decided to do.

CAINITES (Italy)

The cover art for Cainites‘ new album is a very good clue to the music in the album’s first single, “Darkness Awaits“. The feverish riffing, which rings and swarms, is an evil, hungering manifestation, and you can feel its famished heart beating in the drumwork as it snarls and gasps.

But the song is a shapeshifter. The music mysteriously soars and haunted singing (haunted, but still sinister) comes around the corner, and around another corner the music rings like chimes and the creature sings again, forlorn. More changes come, with fast-throbbing guitars and beleaguered doom-ish chords. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): OLAMOT — “PATH OF DIVINITY”

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Apr 262024
 

We’re about to premiere a complete debut album of modern death metal from the Italian band Olamot, one that’s brutish and bludgeoning but also a whirligig for the head and fuel for nightmares.

We’ll explain in more detail what we mean by that, but let’s begin by quoting some of the background information furnished in the press materials offered on behalf of the Lethal Scissor label, which will release the album on April 29th:

OLAMOT started in 2021 from the minds of Daniele Boccali (FICTIO SOLEMNIS) and Edoardo Casini (XENOFACTION, DESOURCE), eager to create a musical concept which develops a story lyrically and conceptually ideated by Edoardo Casini. Continue reading »

THE VISION BLEAK: “WEIRD TALES”

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Apr 262024
 

(Two weeks ago Prophecy Productions released a new album-length song from the German horror metal poets The Vision Bleak, their first new music in 8 years, and below you’ll find DGR‘s attempt to make a review of it.)

The halls of NoCleanSinging are no stranger to groups with a large amount of time passing between releases. Upon awakening from a deep slumber, the halls of this site are many times the first thing that the slowly-awakening-back-to-consciousness groups see. We’ve premiered bands that’ve had decade-plus times of inactivity to their names while members ventured elsewhere, explored with other bands, or even enjoyed the more mundane side of things by maintaining a stable day job.

The resurrected’s first few hesitant steps can be flat-footed and precariously balanced but it has happened enough that it’s a familiar sound by the NoCleanSinging doorstep. That’s why we’re familiar with how a project like The Vision Bleak could’ve entered a near-eight-year hibernation following the release of a pretty goddamned good album in the form of 2016’s The Unknown and how after all this time the project could return to us with something equally as crazy sounding, a forty-one minute single song known as Weird Tales. Continue reading »

INFESTUS – ENTZWEIUNG

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Apr 252024
 

(Andy Synn dives into the darkness of the new album from Infestus, out now)

I like Black Metal. I’m pretty sure everyone around here knows that by now. But what kind of Black Metal I want to hear varies with my mood.

Sometimes I want it raw and nasty. Other times I want it dripping with orchestral excess. Heck, there’s even times when I want it so proggy and unorthodox that it barely even sounds like Black Metal at all.

But right here, right now, I want it dark, I want it moody, and I want it so sharp that you’re in danger of losing a finger every time you push “play”.

So it’s a good thing a new Infestus album dropped last week.

Continue reading »

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