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GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, MARCH 2023

Apr 032023

(We’ve just barely breached the walls of April, and so our friend Gonzo makes a timely reappearance with a selection of five albums released in March that made a big impact in his listening.)

Before I get to writing this month’s helping of my choice cuts from last month, I gotta get something out of the way first:

I am still absolutely buzzing from last night’s Death to All show here in Denver.

To see the likes of Steve DiGiorgio and Gene Hoglan play music of any kind on stage, in person, is a treat enough by itself, but having them rip through selections from the inimitable Death for almost two hours was an experience that I plan to re-live in perpetuity. Possibly forever. Who knows?

It was an insane spectacle for the eyes as well as the ears, and I’ll get to writing up the entire thing soon enough. If you missed this tour, you have my condolences.

Let’s get to the good stuff from March.

CURSEBINDER – DRIFTING

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Apr 032023

(Andy Synn presents his thoughts on the new album from Cursebinder, out Friday on Avantgarde Music)

First things first, I’d like it to be noted that Cursebinder is a truly excellent band name.

Of course, the… ahem… curse of having such a good moniker like that is that you really have to live up to it, musically speaking. And if you don’t, well… you’re going to hear about it.

Thankfully, however, the band’s captivating concoction of pristine blackened power, dream-like melody, and doom-laden melancholy proves to be more of a blessing than a curse, and fans of of the introspective intensity of Der Weg Einer Freiheit or the darkly melodic majesty of Claret Ash in particular would do well to invite Drifting into their lives.

SHADES OF BLACK: GABESTOK, REVA, THY CATAFALQUE, DAUGHTERS OF SOPHIA

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK No Responses »

Apr 022023

Gabestok (2019) – photo by Adriana Zak

Every week we receive what mathematicians used to call a metric shit ton of black metal submissions. Maybe it’s because we tend to spend more time than many other metal sites focusing on that ever-expanding genre, and maybe because we try not to limit ourselves to well-known bands with substantial label backing or PR apparatuses.

But as some people still don’t understand, there are very few of us here, and our NCS time comes after paying work, family and friends, and every other demand and distraction that everyone else deals with on a daily basis. So, lots of worthy submissions just don’t get attention in our pages.

From amongst the worthy, there’s truly a high degree of randomness in what we choose to write about, and even more so on days like today when my own NCS time has gotten further compressed by unexpected events (including the Third World quality of internet service on the island where I live).

Yeah, I hear you — “Shut Up and Get On With It, you could have covered one more song in the time it took you to write that pathetic introduction!” I hear you, so let’s get on with it: Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS (SELF-TITLED)

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Mar 302023

What you’re about to experience is likely to be the most electrifying 18 minutes of your day, unless you lose control of your car, the brakes fail, and you’re surging toward a concrete pylon at Formula One speed.

Those 18 minutes of full-throttle, mind-boggling music are wrapped within the self-titled debut EP by the Chicago quintet Necronomicon Ex Mortis, which will be released tomorrow (March 31st). Their brand of death metal is so fast, so technically head-spinning, and so devilishly inventive that it allows no room for any calm contemplation. All you can do is hang on for dear life and enjoy the flame-throwing madhouse thrills while they last — and then yield to the impulse to throw yourself back in right away. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEMONSTEALER — “THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE”

Album Reviews, Premieres 1 Response »

Mar 282023

Sahil Makhija (aka “The Demonstealer“) began a long road to recognition in the global metal community roughly 25 years ago. At least in terms of recordings, the road began with Sahil’s band Demonic Resurrection, whose debut album Demonstealer saw release in November 2000. Four more Demonic Resurrection albums followed, along with opportunities to perform outside their native India, and for a time it’s fair to say that DR was India’s best-known and most-celebrated extreme metal band.

Along the way, Sahil activated other vehicles for his musical output, including Reptilian Death and his solo project Demonstealer, and he gained further recognition through hosting the online cooking show “Headbanger’s Kitchen“, which gave him a chance to rub shoulders with members of metal bands scattered far and wide across the globe. And that’s not to mention his founding of a recording studio, a record label, a PR agency, and a consultancy service.

The road to recognition hasn’t been easy. It still isn’t. As Sahil explained in a recent interview with our man Comrade Aleks, he has experienced a fair share of moments when he wanted to give up, not because of a lack of desire to continue creating music but because of all the shit constantly shoveled up by “the business side” of releasing music and performing. And then there’s the fact that metal music is still an alien art form in India — “culturally strange and also sonically not appealing” to the vast majority of the population. “Metal music, unlike in the west, is music that people of a certain privileged and economic background listen to. It’s not the music of the common man.”

Nevertheless, Sahil forges ahead, with music still the mainstay of his life as he approaches his 41st birthday. And more than ever, disturbing conditions in his native land (and around the world) became the subject matter of his songwriting as he returned to his Demonstealer project. Reflecting that subject matter, the name of the new Demonstealer album which we’re presenting today is The Propaganda Machine, which is now set for release on March 31st by Black Lion Records. Continue reading »

LEPRETHERE – TARNISHED PASSION

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Mar 282023

(Andy Synn takes a walk on the weird side with the debut album from Belarus’s Leprethere)

Right from the start, Tarnished Passion is not an easy album to pin down.

The duo who make up the band themselves refer to their sound as a mix of Dissonant Death Metal and Mathcore, and both those elements are certainly present.

But I’ve also seen them referred to as Progressive Metalcore, Technical Death Metal, and even Djent (though that one is really making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill in my opinion) by various different sources, so there seems to be some confusion about how to classify exactly what it is that Leprethere actually do.

And I can’t help but think that’s how they like it.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THØRN — “INFERNO”

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Mar 272023

For those of our visitors new to the band Thørn, they’re a Milanese group formed by members of the Italian hardcore DIY scene. And hardcore/crust-punk does provide a key ingredient to their music, but that’s only one of many, which also include black metal, grindcore, and more besides. Not for naught do they cite the diverse influences of such bands as The Secret, Trap Them, Baptists, Cursed, and Oathbreaker.

They released their first EP (self-titled) through Indelirium Records in 2018, and followed that with a split with the Estonian crust-punk band Ognemot. Now, they’re ready to hit the streets again with a debut album fittingly named Inferno, which will see a limited tape release on March 30th through the collaboration of Vita Detestabilis Records and Fiadh Productions — and today we present the album’s full stream. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART I): INTO DARKNESS, NATTEHIMMEL, BERGRISAR

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Mar 262023

Into Darkness – photo by Nicolette A. Radoi

As I began making my way through my list of new music I might want to recommend for this Sunday’s column I had one mental WOW! after another. Some actual exclamatory sounds might have escaped my mouth, but the headphones were clamped on too tight for me to tell. After realizing that I’d already found more than enough to occupy this installment I had to make myself stop listening, even with lots of things left to check out,

Maybe I didn’t stop soon enough. There’s a lot here — four advance tracks from forthcoming records, two complete EPs, and one complete albums. To make all this a little more accessiblke, I’ve divided the recommendations into two Parts. I hope you’ll find time to delve into all of it instead of feeling overwhelmed, and that you get a few WOW‘s yourself.

INTO DARKNESS (Italy)

After experiencing the weirdness of time seeming to slow down during the depths of pandemic lockdowns, it now seems that it’s speeding ahead faster than ever. That includes the release of new music, which whizzes by so fast that it almost becomes a blur. That makes it easy to overlook things, and I confess that as a result I missed the release of a new Into Darkness EP about 10 days ago. It certainly wasn’t for lack of interest, since I’ve written enthusiastically about every release by this Italian band since their first demo in 2012. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IMMORTAL, NIGHT DEMON, VULTURE INDUSTRIES, ALL HELL, PHANTOM LUNG

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Mar 252023

Demonaz – Photo by Leander Djønne

How long did I sleep last night? Hey, thanks for asking, it was 10 1/2 hours. You’d think I’d dug a mile-long ditch by myself before collapsing in exhaustion, but I did little more than sit on my ass and peck at a keyboard all day. It’s probably just a sign of how long I’d sleep every night if I didn’t have some binding commitment to keep early every morning (looking at you, NCS). I like sleeping.

Anyway, late start today, and therefore not as many picks in this roundup as I thought I’d have. I decided to pull in some bigger names, whose songs surfaced fairly early in the week, and then round things out with some hard-scrabble fighters from deeper underground.

IMMORTAL (Norway)

Dark northern armies go to battle across the ice under blood-red skies in Immortal‘s blazing and bombastic new song “War Against All“. It’s a hot-blooded scorcher, packed with both brazen and febrile fretwork, berserker screaming, and rumbling thunder in the low end. If you’ve just hibernated for 10 1/2 hours it’s as welcome and as effective as a jolt of pitch-black caffeine. Continue reading »

A DEATH METAL HAMMERING: MAZE OF SOTHOTH, BROKEN GLASS SANCTUARY, FORETOKEN

Album Reviews No Responses »

Mar 232023

Maze of Sothoth

(We have DGR to thank for the following trio of reviews, covering two records just released on March 17th and one that’s coming out on March 24th.)

As we draw closer to the end of March we find ourselves with a veritable bounty of music available to us, and while we do a commendable – cue rim shot here – job trying to keep up with the world of heavy metal, sometimes it’s fun to cast off the task of keeping up and just throw yourself into the river of discoveries as they wash over you.

That’s the case with the three groups here, as we travel to opposite coasts of the US after making a journey into Italy. The one big unifier is the constant death metal hammering, but hey, you’re on NoCleanSinging and that is one of our favorites to traffic in. Continue reading »

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