Reviews Archives - Page 128 of 589

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND REVIEW): FELL RUIN – CAST IN OIL THE DRESSED WROUGHT

Nov 082022

(Andy Synn is here to host our premiere of the new album from Fell Ruin, out this Friday via Tartarus Records.)

One thing everybody knows about us here at NCS is that – in addition to our dashing good looks and stunning sexual prowess – we are loyal.

If we write about your band and like what you do then we’re prepared to wait as long as it takes to hear more from you.

Case in point, Fell Ruin‘s debut album, To The Concrete Drifts, hit me like… well… like a tonne of concrete when it was released back in 2017, so when we were asked if we wanted to host the premiere of the band’s long-gestating follow-up I immediately jumped at the chance to do so.

After all, I’ve had Cast in Oil… for a while now, and since I had already planned to review it this week it just made sense to take advantage of this offer.

A word of warning though – the band’s second album is a far different beast than its predecessor. So expect the unexpected.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DIĜIR GIDIM — “THE CELESTIAL MACROCOSMIC SCALE AND THE SHIMMERING PATH OF THE SUPREME REGULATOR”

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 Responses »

Nov 072022

The mysterious Italian duo Diĝir Gidim made their recording debut five years ago, bursting out of nowhere via the ATMF label with an album named I Thought There Was the Sun Awaiting My Awakening. Lacking any precedent for it, I was taken by surprise. As I wrote at the time when we premiered it, what I heard left me gasping and unnerved, emotionally stretched taut, and wide-eyed in wonder at what these two had achieved. I felt myself enthralled by the unsettling sorcery of masters practicing a very dark but transportive art.

Thinking back on that album now, I’m not shocked that it took five years for Diĝir Gidim to return. That previous record was astonishing in its complexity, in the care and ingenuity of its conception and execution, and in the deep and unpredictable emotional effects it produced. As I again wrote then, it resembled a musical odyssey, or the unfolding of an arcane pageant, or the sound of a labyrinthine ritual within a cosmic ziggurat — not an easy trip, not an experience that was intended to comfort listeners but one designed to up-end their view of reality.

And so, that it would take them this long to create a follow-up is unsurprising. I’m just very glad that they did it. Continue reading »

KAMPFAR – TIL KLOVERS TAKT

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Nov 072022

(Andy Synn has a lot to say about Til Klovers Takt, the new album from Black Metal icons Kampfar, set for release by Indie Recordings on November 11th.)

It is often true, in Black Metal as much as any other genre, that the “best” bands don’t always become the “biggest” bands (and vice versa).

That’s not necessarily an attempt to belittle those acts and artists who – whether by luck, graft, or demonic intervention – have risen to the top, but it’s patently obvious (to me, anyway) that quality and popularity aren’t always correlated.

Case in point, having seen Kampfar perform multiple live shows which, in a just world, would long since have qualified them as festival headliners, and having lavished well-deserved praise on their recorded output for years now, it still galls me – as a fan of the band, and a fan of good music in general – to continually see them overlooked and ignored in favour of (arguably) lesser acts who are simply better at “playing the game”.

Let’s face it, seemingly ageless frontman (and veritable force of nature) Dolk, both live and on record, possesses the sort of natural charisma that other, more attention-hungry figures (naming no names) have clearly had to practice and rehearse very hard to achieve (or, at least, to fake), while the entire band have continually, and consistently, demonstrated themselves to be undisputed masters at crafting epic, instantly-infectious Black Metal anthems whose intensity, and integrity, is beyond reproach.

But, for whatever reasons, it still feels like the Norwegian quarter don’t get anywhere near the respect, or the acclaim, that they deserve.

Let’s hope that Til Klovers Takt will change that. Because it’s about damn time.

HISS FROM THE MOAT: “THE WAY OUT OF HELL”

Album Reviews No Responses »

Nov 072022

(Distortion Music Group released a new album by the Italian marauders Hiss from the Moat in late October, and DGR now gives it an extensive review.)

The Hiss From The Moat story as it has developed over the years is an interesting one. The group started out straddling the line of -core and full-blown brutal death metal, before leaning heavily on the brutal death metal side on their debut album Misanthropy. On top of that, it was a disc that was also pretty indulgent in its own subject matter, packing a tremendous amount of skull-shattering into a little over a half hour]s worth of music.

It seemed for a bit that Hiss From The Moat were more than happy to hop into the wave of drum-kit destruction that was hailing from Italy during the mid-2010s, and drummer James Payne especially proved to be a machine when it came to answering the call. Layering over-top a heap of Satan and general anti-christianity and you’ve got the general recipe for Hiss From The Moat at the time. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SKYTHALA, GORYCZ, KAMRA, RITUAL DEATH, ALLES WIRD IN FLAMMEN STEHEN

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Nov 062022

If you live someplace that observes Daylight Savings Time did you remember to move your clocks back one hour last night? I did not remember. But when I opened my eyes at 6:30 a.m. today I somehow did remember that it was really only 5:30 a.m., and I fell back asleep.

That might not have been a smart move, because I didn’t wake again for a couple of hours. Rather than use the time-change to get a head-start on this column, I’m left scrambling to get it done before too much of the day disappears. Words, therefore, are sometimes in relatively short supply, though the music is abundant.

P.S. For those of us in the US this might be the last time we have to remember to “fall back”. In March of this year the US Senate unanimously passed a bill that would make Daylight Savings Time permanent beginning in 2023. But the bill hasn’t been voted on by the House of Representatives, and time is running out for that to happen in the current session. Who knows? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THY CATAFALQUE, HERON, OTUS, VARMIA, ILLUMINE

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Nov 052022

As you know if you’ve been here routinely, I make lists, lots of lists, of new music I want to check out. Last night when I began making my way through the latest one (an extremely long one), it happened that the first five selections were so good and fit together so beautifully that I decided to go no further, for fear of breaking a powerful pattern that had serendipitously taken shape. When I listened to them again this morning, it still made sense.

I’ve set out these songs in the order I heard them. I said they created a pattern, but they were also a journey, and one that ended in stunning fashion.

THY CATAFALQUE (Hungary)

Well of course I started with a new video from Thy Catafalque, especially because the video is for a performance of my favorite song from one of my favorite albums of 2011. Yes, more than a decade ago! But until senility encroaches I’ll never forget “Fekete mezők”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SALQIU, PALE KING, BAD MANOR

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Nov 032022

I know I sound like a broken record, but this has been yet another week when the job that pays me (not NCS) has rudely interfered with my ability to recommend new music via round-ups such as this one. Even today it will interfere, and so even though I’ve decided to fill this round-up with full releases rather than advance tracks, I’m unable to say as much about them as I’d like. But fortunately, you can heed the wisdom of your own ears.

SALQIU (Brazil)

To begin, here’s a new album named خماسين الوباء from Nuno Lourenço in his guise as Salqiu. We’ve already learned that although Salqiu is prolific, we’re not going to get the same thing twice from album to album, a conviction reinforced by this new one, which has themes drawn from places far away from Nuno‘s homeland. He explains: Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Nov 032022

(Andy Synn has four more recommendations of albums and artists you may have overlooked recently)

As we gallop towards the end of another year, the vast pile of albums that I haven’t found time to listen to has now become so threateningly large that I may well end up crushed under the sheer (meta)physical weight of all the music I’ve missed out on.

Still, I’ve tried my best to cover as much of this year’s musical crop as I possibly can, and I think that – come December – you won’t have that much cause to complain, as my current shortlist (actually, that should probably read “shortlist”, since there’s nothing “short” about it) of albums and EPs to include is several hundred long (though the final number will doubtless fluctuate a bit as new releases are added and some are removed because I don’t think I gave them enough time/consideration to form a proper opinion).

And four of those that will definitely be included – some of them pretty prominently, let me tell you now – are included here today.

DISILLUSION – AYAM

Album Reviews No Responses »

Nov 012022

(Andy Synn basks in the splendour of the new Disillusion album, out Friday on Prophecy Productions)

How exactly does one follow up an album which not only catapulted you back into the public eye after years of absence, but which was also – according to some people – on a par with the best thing you’ve ever done?

Well, the best course of action – if the upcoming new record from resurgent Prog-Metal powerhouse Disillusion is anything to go by – is that you don’t… or, more specifically, you don’t try to compete with yourselves.

Instead you take your time, follow your creative muse, and calmly (and confidently) continue to produce some of the very best work of your career.

GOATWHORE: “ANGELS HUNG FROM THE ARCHES OF HEAVEN”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Nov 012022

(Here’s DGR‘s extensive review of the new album by Goatwhore, out now on Metal Blade Records.)

There was a block of time during the decade that was the 2010s when it seemed like Goatwhore were unstoppable and ever-present. They released consistently good-to-great albums like clockwork and few bands out there embodied the concept of “professional homeless person” quite like this hard-touring group. It seemed like they were always on the road and ready to answer the call if there was a show that needed its ass saved from a last-minute cancellation. Hell, there were times when the band wouldn’t even be part of an event yet would somehow pop up within the area because what the hell else were Goatwhore going to do with their free time? Not play live?

That’s why sitting down and gazing over the numbers gap between the group’s 2017 Vengeful Ascension and their latest salvo in early October, Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven, and seeing the five-year mark just looks wild, especially for a band whose previous longest gap between releases was at best on the long side of three. One could only expect that we’d see a release from Goatwhore a whole hell of a lot sooner had we not had to effectively put the world on pause due to a worldwide plague, because otherwise the Goatwhore camp probably would have been out on the road and writing just as hard as they normally do. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries