SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: ANTECANTAMENTUM, CRAWL, ENDLESS BORE, NOTHINGNESS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Dec 112022
 


Antecantamenum – Melpomenë

For people who showed up here expecting to find SHADES OF BLACK on this Sunday, you will find some black and “blackened” metal in this round-up, but I decided to expand the musical boundaries. I try to compile music across many metal sub-genres on Saturdays, but couldn’t manage it yesterday because of a Zoom meeting for my fucking day job that began at 8:30 a.m. and lasted until almost 1:00 p.m. It felt like the Bataan Death March except without actual deaths (though when someone dies in a Zoom call it’s not always immediately apparent).

It’s a shame that happened, because even though we’re getting very close to the end of the year, a ton of new metal continues to roll out and I really could have used two weekend columns to highlight some of the new songs and videos instead of just this one. But this one will have to do, at least for now. However, I do believe I can follow it with another one tomorrow. Continue reading »

HEADGORE: “A MEAL FIT FOR GOD”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 092022
 

(Christopher Luedtke reviews a new EP by the Vegas band HeadGore, which just dropped yesterday. Prepare to have your head gored.)

The state of music today is a frankly daunting and overwhelming landscape. In the last few years alone so many sounds have been converged, soldered, and brought together by odd arcane alchemy in very quick succession. And as this internet experiment slouches onward at lightspeed it becomes increasingly more impossible to hear it all at once, much less in individual doses. It is a thought that crosses my mind as I listen to Las Vegas, NV nocore unit HeadGore. There is a lot going on and going down, and their latest EP A MEAL FIT FOR GOD is a snapshot into the alchemy of everything.

HeadGore has been putting out bizarre iterations of grind, cybergrind, death metal, and electronic music since their 2019 split with Shitnoise Bastards. At once they are primarily a band that fits into the grind category. They do blasts, and the music is fast and noisy, but they very easily transition into the noisecore/noisegrind categories, but then will also flip a track into an electronic break or turn it into an uncomfortable, swampy melodic section. The nature of things seems to be not confining or boxing oneself in, hence nocore. And this latest release A MEAL FIT FOR GOD is the band at their most experimental yet. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LAERE, I THE INTRUDER, WITCH RIPPER, THE SECOND FOVEA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 082022
 

The best of intentions often fall like wheat before the scythe of life. No plan survives contact with the enemy. The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley. And other hoary maxims.

I thought I would get one of these round-ups done before now this week, but events conspired against it. I barely have time to squeeze this one in. It’s shorter than I would like — this week was filled with good new releases, of which these are only a precious few — but it will give you a lot of stylistic twists and turns. I’ll have to try to pick up the list this weekend.

LAERE (Germany)

In hunting for new music I’m often the beneficiary of recommendations from other people, and I’m beginning with Laere‘s stunning new EP because it was the subject of lots of those from internet pen-pals whose opinions I respect. And, well, I also got a Bandcamp alert about it because I bought the band’s debut EP Solve in 2020 (and wrote about it too). Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SARCOPTES — “TET” (AND A REVIEW OF “PRAYERS TO OBLIVION”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Dec 072022
 

Everyone who visits NCS regularly knows full well that when I come across music that really electrifies me I have a pronounced tendency to get carried away with words as the music carries me away. I was reminded of that when I re-read what I wrote about Plague Hymns, the 2020 EP by Sacramento-based Sarcoptes:

In the most brutally shorthand way of describing these two songs, they’re a fashioning of blackened thrash, but that label really under-represents how remarkable they are. They do indeed blaze like hellfire driven by gale-force winds, but they also feature beautifully chosen symphonic accents as well as the kind of glorious guitar-work that brings to mind bands from the forefront of classic heavy metal.

And from there the words went on and on and on, with references to the music as “black magic alchemy — sinister and vicious, ecstatically wild, a breathtaking, turbocharged thrill-ride through sulfurous, fire-bright nether-regions”, “diabolical harmonies and the skittering voracious sensation of demonic feeding frenzies in the midst of possessed screams”, “head-spinning dementia leavened with a panoply of sorcerous leads and the shine of supernatural, phosphorescent majesty”, and the kind of “crazed, darting ebullience” that made the music “sound like bats on after-burners, flying with abandon from caverns lit by the blaze of burning souls”.

And there was more, but you get the idea. And it’s about to happen again, because Sarcoptes now have a second album (Prayers to Oblivion) set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on
February 24th. Continue reading »

DØDSENGEL – BAB AL ON

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 072022
 

(Andy Synn dedicates what may be his last review of 2022 to our old friends in Dødsengel)

Let’s face it, I may not be great at predicting what bands are going to become big and successful… but I’m pretty good at predicting which bands are going to become great.

Of course, by the time I discovered Dødsengel they were already great – I might even go so far as to call their titanic 2012 album Imperator a “masterpiece” if only that word hadn’t been bastardised beyond repair – but I’d be lying if I said that a part of me wasn’t always hoping to see them achieve the same level of acclaim and appreciation that bands like Batushka and/or Zeal & Ardor have received in their stead.

That was, honestly, never going to happen though. Dødsengel have always been a little too weird, a little too out-there (despite their increasingly melodic, borderline gothic, tendencies and uncanny vocal charisma) to ever achieve that sort of cross-over success. But that hasn’t stopped them continuing to be great, even if they’ve had to do it in (relative) obscurity.

Continue reading »

OUIJA: “FATHOMLESS HYSTEROS”

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Dec 052022
 

I discovered the Spanish black metal band Ouija last year, thanks to their EP Selenophile Impia, which left me moonstruck (as I wrote in a review here). That was not Ouija‘s first recording. In fact, they released their first album in 1997 and a second one in 2013. From those dates you can deduce that Ouija don’t hurry things, and so their forthcoming third album comes nine years after the second one, though it follows fairly quickly on the heels of that fantastic 2021 EP.

The title of the third album is Fathomless Hysteros and its release date is December 26th. Arriving on that particular date, so late in the year, it will elude the attention of year-end list makers, and maybe many other listeners. That would be a tragic outcome — for listeners — because this album is a triumphant achievement, one of the best this writer has heard in 2022, and one that shows all signs of becoming a long-lasting favorite. I’ll try to explain why. Continue reading »

OBVURT – TRIUMPH BEYOND ADVERSITY

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Dec 052022
 

(Andy Synn sneaks in another review prior to his annual year-end round-up week)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… “Technical Death Metal” and “Tech Death” aren’t the same thing.

Sure, they’re related – no-one is denying that (well, almost no-one) – but “Technical Death Metal”, in my book, refers to bands that build on a more traditional Death Metal framework while adding an extra dose of technicality, whereas “Tech Death” tends to incorporate more influences and inspirations from Prog and/or Melodic Death Metal and/or Deathcore to create more of a hybrid sound with the technicality at the centre.

Of course, then there’s also “Brutal Technical Death Metal”… but let’s not go there right now.

All of this, in the end, is a long-winded way of getting round to saying that while the debut album from Obvurt is being released on a label most people probably associate more with “Tech Death” the record itself is technically much more of a Death Metal album, with all the massive heaviness and merciless aggression that implies.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SARPA, GRÁ, JOURS PÂLES, EMPYREAN VESSEL, STELLAR DESCENT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Dec 042022
 


Sarpa

The usual Sunday routine, waking up and not preparing for church, like some unfathomable number of people around the world do, but instead knowing that I’ll spend the next couple of hours listening and re-listening to nothing but variants of black metal, including the Satan-worshiping, Christ-hating variants.

It’s a habit I’m quite comfortable with, at least when I get a decent Saturday-night sleep and keep the Saturday-night drinking at a moderate level. The task of picking and choosing from what I’ve heard creates an inner tension I could do without, but it’s the need to choose that drives the listening. I wouldn’t be making choices if I weren’t writing this thing, and if I weren’t writing this thing I doubt I’d be spending Sunday mornings listening to black metal.

But I’d probably just be making other choices, and less pleasurable ones — wash the dishes? do a load of laundry? pay some nagging bills? heat up the leftover pizza or eat it cold? dig deeper into why 1,700 seals have been found dead on Russia’s Caspian coast?

Nah, I don’t want to make those choices. I made these instead: Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, NOVEMBER 2022

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
Dec 022022
 


Elder

(Our friend Gonzo returns to NCS with another monthly round-up of recommended albums, this one focusing on releases during November.)

Well, here I go, slacking off again.

Truth be told, it’s been a busier than usual time in the life of this NCS contributor, with frequent travel and a day job that seems intent on demanding all my attention. It doesn’t help that that job is also in writing, so writing about a subject I’m more passionate about (heavy music, in case you’re new here) can be draining when it should be pleasurable.

There’s lots to look forward to in the coming months, though – Decibel Metal and Beer Fest, Denver starts this weekend (Dec 2-3) and I’ll be there for all of it, and Amon Amarth will be stomping into town a few days after that. And then, of course, there’s our favorite time of year here at NCS with Listmania.

So, my friends, this will be my final monthly roundup of 2022, but the releases I cover here are some of the best I’ve written about all year. Join me, won’t you? Continue reading »

VOLENTE BEACH: “SOUNDS OF THE OCEAN”

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Dec 022022
 

(Here we present Christopher Luedtke‘s review of a debut EP that’s being released today by the Austin, Texas band Volente Beach.)

As the world burns and breaks before our eyes, there’s a constant desire to want to run away from problems, especially when they’re out of our control. And while some of us simply can’t look away from an apocalyptic train wreck, there are plenty who will. Thankfully we have music, and when the human race isn’t horny fixated, we can fall into despair and our eyes connect with the issues once more. Which perpetuates the horny cycle, honestly. Today though, we’re on that path to the apocalypse with Sounds of the Ocean, the first release from Volente Beach.

The Texas four-piece Volente Beach are on a mission to keep us from getting too comfy in our ennui. Featuring members of Deaf Club, Glassing, Exhalants, Vampyre, and Honey & Salt, the project is an exercise in the dichotomy of serene beach sunsets and Skynet dystopias. The sound hovers in the hardcore/punk but has more than might be expected. Continue reading »

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