AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GUTSLIT — “CARNAL”

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Jul 062023
 

Almost six years ago the Indian extreme metal band Gutslit released their eye-opening second album Amputheatre, and now we’re on the eve of release of their third album Carnal. As we did roughly six years ago for Amputheatre, today we’re hosting a premiere for the new album by these brutal death/grind marauders, but this time it’s the whole record you’ll have a chance to hear, all eight neck-wrecking and eviscerating tracks —

Carnal is the name of the new full-length, and as the band explain, it “explores the intricate struggles of the human psyche and the conflict between good and evil,” and features tracks that draw inspiration from infamous serial killers, offering a unique perspective on the human experience”. Carnal also marks the return of Aditya Barve (Skewered in the Sewer) on vocals and features guest vocals by Benighted‘s Julien Truchan on the track “Bind Torture Kill.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UAMH — “AT THE EDGE OF THE LOCH”

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Jul 052023
 

On July 7th, Fiadh Productions will (with considerable delight) release At the Edge of the Loch, the debut full-length by the Montana-based atmospheric black metal artist Uamh. As the album title itself suggests, Uamh‘s music draws inspiration from Celtic traditions, and subtly interweaves old folk instruments, along with drumming that sounds more stripped-down and even primitive than flashy (but still makes a visceral impact).

On the other hand, with one prominent exception, the vocals take the form of raw black metal screams, and the music, which derives its greatest strengths from the ravaging and ringing power of the carefully layered guitars, is capable of searing the senses and melting hearts as well as opening the mind’s eye to breathtaking panoramas.

We have a lot more thoughts about each of the album’s five compelling tracks, all of which we’re sharing with you today in advance of the album’s release this Friday, but we ought to begin the introduction with Uamh‘s own words: Continue reading »

NOTT: “HIRAETH”

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Jul 052023
 

(What we have here is Todd Manning‘s review of Hiraeth, the new album by the duo Nott that’s set for release on August 18th by Silent Pendulum Records.)

It’s probably not helpful to call an album ‘heavy’ on a website such as No Clean Singing, but what I want to get across is that the new release by Nott, Hiraeth, is immensely, cosmically, insanely heavy. This duo, consisting of Julia Geaman on drums and Tyler Campbell on guitar, bass, and vocals, now hail from the Pacific Northwest and play a brand of death-doom that will surely cause California to fall into the ocean.

Starting with the opener “Torn”, Nott unleashes riffs that sound like a boulder being dropped off a skyscraper. They deal in a similar vein of apocalyptic atmosphere as Ulcerate but there exists an additional dimension of darkness here that sets them apart. When the occasional blast beat surfaces, there’s a darkness not unlike early Immolation. Continue reading »

BLACKBRAID – BLACKBRAID II

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 032023
 

(Andy Synn takes a second look at Blackbraid and their new album)

The thing about overhyping a band, or an album, is that it doesn’t really leave you much room to manoeuvre in the future.

After all, if [Record A] was so perfect how is it possible that [Record B] – which we all agree is an altogether superior and more mature piece of work – is somehow better?

Case in point, while Blackbraid II undoubtedly improves upon its predecessor in a myriad of subtle ways it’s also not without its flaws, which I’d imagine presents certain writers/reviewers with a difficult decision to make.

Because either they acknowledge that II is the better album despite its imperfections – in which case they have to admit that they went a little overboard with praising I – or they have to continue to pretend that the band can do no wrong… in which case, how is it possible to improve on perfection?

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KRIEG, DEATHMOOR, PORTA NIGRA, ZIGOTA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Jul 022023
 

Here we are again, ready to blacken the Sabbath with some new things you might not have heard, the kind of things that would ruin most people’s days but I hope will turn yours into warming bonfires. Well, maybe not warming, more like incinerating, but still welcome I hope. What’s ahead is a new stand-alone single, a couple of tracks from a forthcoming album, and two just-released full-lengths.

KRIEG (U.S.)

Neill Jameson has made a name for himself as a music writer, often wise-cracking, irreverently cynical, and creatively foul-mouthed but with a finely-honed and widely respected taste that makes lots of people pay attention to his recommendations of underground gems. We’ve benefited from that here ourselves, usually through his year-end lists for our site but also at other times when he’s been moved to send something our way.

But before he made a name for himself in those ways, he and his band Krieg made a name for themselves in the annals of U.S. black metal. Krieg‘s musical output, beginning with their debut album in 1998 (recently reissued by The Devil’s Elixirs Records), ran in a hot, year-after-year torrent through 2018, mostly splits and EPs but with 7 more albums also scattered along the way. Then there was a four-year pause before 2022 brought forth a split with Crucifixion Bell, which demonstrated in electrifying fashion that although Time may have aged Krieg‘s members, it definitely hasn’t dulled their knives or moderated their musical savagery.

And now we’ve got a new Krieg single named “Bone Whip,” which is captured on one of those flexi-discs in the new issue of Decibel magazine (the one with Mizmor on the cover, available for purchase here). As disclosed at Decibel’s site, the song was recorded during the sessions for Krieg‘s next album (the name of which is Ruiner), but won’t be included on that album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: INCANTATION, KATAKLYSM, OSSUARY, CRUCIBLE OF HATE, GHOST HOLLOW

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 012023
 


Incantation

When I started this blog 13 years, 7 months, and 10 days ago (but who’s counting?) I had very few ambitions. One of them was to continue posting about metal straight through the weekends for as long as this NCS lark might last, no days off.

Back in those days of the internet’s infancy, blogs devoted to metal were few in number (none of them were fancy enough to call themselves “web sites”), and I thought being the only such place with something new on the weekends would attract a few more visitors. But my main motivation was to tangibly demonstrate that NCS wasn’t a business, and writing for NCS wasn’t a job, and never would it be. Because if it were a job you’d get the weekends off, right?

13 years, 7 months, and 10 days later, I’m still not pausing NCS on the weekends. In all that time we’ve had some weekend days where nothing new went up, but not many. Maybe a dozen days, certainly not more than two dozen. Illness, injury, and apocalyptic hangovers have taken their tolls, but not nearly as often as you might think. However, weekends like this one pose a special challenge. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GROTESQUERIES — “VILE CREMATORY”

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Jun 292023
 

In their current promo photo the members of Grotesqueries look serious, quiet, maybe a bit withdrawn — but that’s what the neighbors always say about the serial killers who lived down the block after the awful truth comes out. Grotesqueries probably didn’t actually kill anyone in the making of their debut album Vile Crematory, but it sure as hell sounds like they did, and in the most horrible ways you can imagine.

As they did on their debut EP Haunted Mausoleum from last year, this Boston-based quintet devote themselves on the new album to a particular kind of death metal, the kind where almost nothing is clean and almost everything is vile. The kind where the guitars are tuned to sound like manifestations of flesh-eating disease, the vocals are possessed by monstrous horrors, the grooves are calculated to inflict bone-smashing trauma, and the moods are malign, maniacal, and miserable.

But as you’ll also discover for yourselves through our premiere of the album today, on the eve of its release by Caligari Records, Grotesqueries are also very adept at getting the blood of listeners racing, as well as causing it to congeal. Continue reading »

EKOSA – EYE FOR I

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Jun 292023
 

(Andy Synn travels back to early May to heap praise upon the debut album from Australia’s Ekosa)

Although I do sometimes miss writing for print (despite everything that happened I did genuinely enjoy my time writing for Terrorizer back in the day) I must admit… the sheer freedom afforded to me here at NCS is something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

Case in point, the debut album from Progressive/”Post-” Death Metal quintet Ekosa was released at the beginning of May, but I only discovered it a week or so ago.

Anywhere else, anywhere that focusses more on hard deadlines and keeping on top of the endless release schedule, and we’d probably have missed out on writing about it – but while we do love getting a good scoop now and then, there’s no insistence that we only write about up-and-coming albums, which means I’m free to tell you how much I enjoy Eye for I even though I’m coming late to the party.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOTHER BLACK AUTUMN — “RESPLENDENT APPARITIONS AT THE DAWN”

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Jun 262023
 

You’re about to hear an album that we hope you’ll find as stunning as we have. “Atmospheric Black Metal” is the simple label, but not an adequate one. It’s inspired and informed by Nature, but anyone who thinks that will lead to an experience of tree-hugging boredom will be shockingly mistaken.

The moods are almost uniformly dark, but the pathways constantly branch and the tonal ingredients, both instrumentally and vocally, are multitudinous. The music fires the senses in harrowing and thrilling ways, and it’s also capable of emotionally felling listeners in a multitude of ways, like trees brought down by both raging chainsaws and old hand axes passed down through generations. It creates sensations of confusion and distress, of chaos and terror, of loneliness and grief, and of haunting ancient mysteries that hide behind the world we see.

The two people responsible for this extraordinary experience are Meghan Wood from Crown of Asteria and Todd Paulson from Canis Dirus. They’ve taken the name Another Black Autumn for this project, and their debut album Resplendent Apparitions at the Dawn is what we’re now presenting in advance of its June 30 release by the always distinctive Fiadh Productions. Continue reading »

KRIGSGRAV – FIRES IN THE FALL

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Jun 262023
 

(Andy Synn would like to recommend this gourmet feast from long-time NCS favourites Krigsgrav)

Recipe for success:

  • Start with a base of moody, atmospheric Black Metal – ideally with overtones of Agalloch and undertones of Enslaved
  • Add a dash (and a half) of doomy darkness of the post-Paradise Lost or Daylight Dies variety (other, equivalent substitutes are acceptable)
  • Top it off with liberal layers of majestic (ideally Finnish-flavoured) Melodic Death Metal melancholy

And then, if you’re very lucky, you might just end up with something half as good as Fires in the Fall.

Continue reading »

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