PALACE OF WORMS: “CABAL”

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Jan 162023
 

(Our old friend Justin Collins returns to NCS with this guest review of a new album by Palace of Worms, which is set for release on February 3rd by Acephale Winter Productions.)

I’m going to say upfront that I’m not going to be able to do full justice to Palace of Worms‘ latest (and possibly last) album, Cabal. That’s because the very act of describing all of the sounds that have gone into it makes it sound slightly insane. Broken down to their component parts, a lot of these songs have no business being as good as they are, but yet, here we are. I wouldn’t be writing this if the album was a haphazard mish-mash.

Palace of Worms has always been roughly categorized as black metal, although that’s as much because we’ve all decided that’s the easiest way to categorize it, in spite of the fact that there’s always been a fair amount of outside influence. Even the last full-length, The Ladder, had a pretty solid core of black and post-black metal, but had plenty of other influences. The album’s very first track started out with a ripping hammered dulcimer riff courtesy of Botanist‘s Otrebor, after all. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GUTS CLUB — “CLIFFS/WALLS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 112023
 

It’s tempting to call NOLA’s Guts Club a musical chameleon, because their music has changed over time in such startling ways. But the analogy falls apart. Unlike those highly adaptable Old World lizards, Guts Club haven’t changed to blend in, but have changed to stand out. Maybe their latest change was itself a mechanism for their own emotional survival in especially harrying times, but their new music itself feels like a dangerous punch you didn’t see coming, and like the stuff of strange and stressful waking dreams.

In terms of history, Guts Club began as a lo-fi music video project and morphed into a weirdo dark country band with violent lyrics about butchers and murderers who dry their victims’ skin on the wall. Well, so the darkness has probably been there all along, but that was before the pandemic and the metastasizing of hateful fascistic politics and culture-war disease, including the cruel targeting of queer and trans people.

All that pushed the band toward considerably darker and more extreme musical expressions, now captured in an album named CLIFFS/WALLS that’s set for release on Friday the 13th of January. Continue reading »

TURBID NORTH – THE DECLINE

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jan 112023
 

(Andy Synn digs into the upcoming third album by long-time NCS favourites Turbid North)

Pick up a coin, any coin, and take a look at it.

Now, turn it over. What’s changed?

In some ways, not much. It’s still the same object, after all. Still the same size and shape, still composed of the same elements and materials.

Yet, at the same time, it’s now showing you a whole new side of itself, a whole other face that you couldn’t see before, even though you knew it was there.

And that’s a surprisingly fitting metaphor for what Turbid North have done on The Decline.

Continue reading »

CARMA: “OSSADAS”

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Jan 102023
 

 

(Axel Stormbreaker rejoins us today with a review of a concept album by the Portuguese band Carma, and an idea for a movie to watch along with it. Inspired by the Conchada Cemetery in Coimbra, the album will be released in March by the Monumental Rex label.)

Blending a music record with a Hollywood movie ain’t an easy task to go through. Even if the eerie performance granted by Christian Bale does assist a narrative comparison to Carma‘s funeral doom aesthetics. The trick is, you gotta let your emotions blossom, without revealing any actual spoilers to the plot. Or neglect the very ground rules that bind a music review’s construct.

And you also gotta remember, the screen part involves the prestigious character of Edgar Allan Poe. Which means it needs to be precise in regards to musical highlights, yet it can’t divert from the feeling the movie generates, nor be too abstract when image and sound are aligned. And… oh, it’s not a basic task to complete. You will need to both watch The Pale Blue Eye and listen to Carma‘s Ossadas to grasp how the scenes and the sound flow together. Continue reading »

…AND OCEANS: “AS IN GARDENS, SO IN TOMBS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 092023
 

(On January 27th Season of Mist will release a new album by the Finnish band …And Oceans, and in advance of that we present DGR’s extensive review and streams of all four singles from the album.)

It was only a scant three years ago – closer to two and a half so you don’t have to turn to dust and blow away in the wind yet – that Finland’s …And Oceans unleashed their album Cosmic World Mother, their first with their then newly reformed lineup with an eighteen-year gap between, during which time the group had existed under the name Havoc Unit, unleashed a string of splits and one full-length, and returned to the name …And Oceans with a two-song EP released in 2019.

It’s a complicated history for a complicated and wild band, who’ve traversed a lot of ground between black metal, a more melodic and keyboard-driven form, full industrial, and cycling back around to a current sound that seems to encompass all of those. You could get comfy in one particular sound and think that …And Oceans were going to just spend a whole song belching fire at you. only to hit a massive keyboard break right in the center. It’s why we enjoyed Cosmic World Mother so much around these parts, because there was always something hovering just off the horizon to catch you off guard. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2022: SHEDFROMTHEBODY – DESTRUCTION / BREATHING / HEALING

 SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 062023
 

(Andy Synn provides a short but sweet review of a mesmerising EP from last year)

As the grinding gears of another year begin to slowly spin once again, I’m going to be taking some time over the rest of this month – in between reviewing new and/or upcoming releases – to feature some of the albums and artists from 2022 that I wasn’t able to cover properly last year, beginning with an EP that I totally missed out on by dreamlike “Doomgaze” chanteuse Suvi Savikko, aka Shedfromthebody.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SUM LIGHTS, THUMOS, AORTES, LIMBES, AZKEN AUZI, VITAE CRUCIS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 042023
 

Like yesterday I found myself with a little extra time this morning before having to turn to other tasks that are un-connected to NCS. The music I chose to recommend goes in many different directions, but one thing they have in common (with one exception) is the terrifying intensity of the vocals.

SUM LIGHTS (Germany)

I’ve mentioned before that Rennie Resmini (starkweather), one of my constant sources of new musical discoveries, has a fairly new SubStack blog where he writes about his own new musical discoveries. I have found it to be a blessing and a curse, a blessing because it’s packed with good shit, a curse because I was already deluged with new music to check out before I started reading there.

I’ve decided to book-end today’s round-up with music I found via Rennie’s newest SubStack newsletter. The opening salvo is a song by the German black/death unit Sum Lights, who came roaring out of the gates in late 2021 with an album named Emanating Fulguration. I can only hope that the new song, “The Sense Of A Sun“, is sign of more to come soon. Continue reading »

ASHEN – RITUAL OF ASH

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Jan 042023
 

(Andy Synn kicks off 2023 with the highly-anticipated new album from Australia’s Ashen)

As I’ve stated before, 2022 was a good year for Death Metal. Occasionally a very good year for Death Metal. But not necessarily a great year for Death Metal.

That being said, there were definitely some albums which hit harder, and aimed higher, than others, and if Ashen‘s debut had been released in December of last year (as it was originally meant to be) it definitely would have ranked among them.

As it stands, however, Ritual of Ash has the distinction of being the first truly great Death Metal record of 2023.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CONTRARIAN, DECEIVETH, SKINEATER

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 032023
 

 

This round-up of new music will be short, but of course I think it’s also sweet. I have just enough time for three recommendations before my gilded carriage of a morning turns into the rotting pumpkin of my day job.

CONTRARIAN (U.S.)

Until I looked I had forgotten how many premieres we’ve done for Contrarian‘s releases (four of them, going back to 2015). What I didn’t forget was how head-spinning their music has been, and so I jumped at the chance to listen to the first single from Contrarian‘s new album Sage of Shekhinah. The remarkable cover art by Guang Yang just sweetened the pot. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK 1/1/23: LEIPA, KRINGA, BESNA, SONNEILLON, INFERNAL DIATRIBE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Jan 012023
 

Well goddamn it’s a new year. I hope this finds you alive and well, and not in a morgue, a jail, or a hospital ward as a result of whatever you did last night.

My only new year’s resolution is to keep breathing, though that’s not really a resolution because I have no control over it, the breathing or the ceasing to breathe. Que sera, sera. However, I do have a resolution to suggest that you adopt, which is to let no day go by without coming here to have your head rattled and ruined. (Maybe committing to engage in more acts of kindness and caring toward others wouldn’t be a bad idea either, and let some of the music do the hating for us.)

It’s a fitting coincidence that the first day of 2023 falls on a Sunday, allowing me to welcome the new year at NCS by beginning to char it to a crisp, building on whatever fires were started with gunpowder last night. Fitting, because one could argue there is no realistic hope that 2023 will be better than 2022. People will continue being shitty to each other, the Earth will continue taking revenge for the pomposity, the greed, and the negligence of humankind, and the temptation to just hunker down in a bunker for self-preservation will be strong.

On the other hand, some things will still make life worth living, even if the point of existence remains obscure, and one of those is the enjoyment of art in all its forms, even the kind of art that wants to turn the world black. Examples follow. Continue reading »

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