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.

Continue reading »

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

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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 »

BEST OF BRITISH: ALLFATHER / DAWN RAY’D / OHHMS

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Mar 222023
 

(Today’s edition of “The Best of British” features a bunch of old favourites)

While we absolutely love highlighting the work of new bands and artists, we’re also loyal followers of bands we’ve covered in the past, and make a point of keeping our ears to the ground about what they’re working on as best we’re able.

So today I’m going to be introducing (or reintroducing) you to three bands whose newest releases haven’t actually come out yet… but which will be with us very soon… with Dawn Ray’d‘s new album set for release this coming Friday, and the new albums from Allfather and Ohhms following next week.

This, of course, makes this a perfect jumping on point for new fans, and a great opportunity for existing ones to get a feel for what’s about to hit their ears!

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HELLCRASH — “DEMONIC ASSASSINATION”

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Mar 222023
 

When we premiered the second single from the new Hellcrash album in early February we introduced it this way: “It’s time for a rude ‘n’ crude celebration of filth, fury, and fun! Plus sickness, sleaze, and slaughter!”

It seemed like a fitting prelude to the hell-raising experience of Demonic Assassination, which is now racing toward a lavish March 24 release by Dying Victims Productions, but we also  observed, for those who might not have encountered the band’s debut album Krvcifix Invertör, that Hellcrash “follow in the cloven-hooved footsteps of such groups as Bulldozer, Slayer, and Venom, whipping up a gnashing and pulse-pounding convulsion of blackened thrash and speed metal”.

And we also pointed out that while all those ingredients revealed in the debut album still make up the high-octane fuel for the new album, Demonic Assassination provides even more variety and an even tighter execution. Today you’ll see what we meant for yourselves, because we’ve got the full album stream for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VISION DEPRIVED — “SELF ELEVATING, DEEP INSIDE THE VOID”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 212023
 

In a search for analogies it’s tempting to compare Milan-based Vision Deprived‘s new album to a musical roller-coaster ride. It’s packed with twists and turns, ups and downs; it gets the adrenaline flowing; it frequently pops our eyes wide open; and it’s scary. But it’s not the kind of trip that’s likely to leave riders laughing it off when it’s time to dismount, and the twists are… twisted… in ways that can become unsettling because they’re so unhinged. You can hear and feel the rails under a roller-coaster car, but what would happen if that sense of being attached were to vanish?

Self Elevating, Deep Inside The Void is the album’s name, and even the title suggests leaving the rails and any other tangible boundaries, which is pretty much what happens as you make your way through the record. What you might not expect from the title is that the music is usually firestorm-fast and decimating, as well as completely dazzling in its madhouse instrumental escapades through a dystopian hellscape. Continue reading »

SPIRIT POSSESSION: “OF THE SIGN…”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 202023
 

(Here we present Hope Gould‘s evocative review of the new album by Oregon-based Spirit Possession, which is nearing its March 31 release by Profound Lore Records.)

The year is 1987. You’ve got weekend plans to take your girl to see Dirty Dancing and the world isn’t even close to being sick of Rick Astley. Not long ago, Venom unleashed their brand of Satanic alcohol-sodden proto-thrash upon England. Soon after, a kid from Sweden built upon that sound by infusing the epic mid-tempos of Manowar and really hammered home the Satan-thing in a little project called Bathory. Hellhammer stripped it all down with their raw, punky approach, a German band called Sodom played speed metal riffs with a similar primitive execution, then Celtic Frost pushed all the limits with a more sophisticated songcraft that managed to keep all the bite.

It is this moment in time, upheld by raw aggression and suspended between definitive genres, that Portland’s Spirit Possession have set their flux capacitor. Continue reading »

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