SEER: OUR PREMIERE OF “LUNAR GATEWAYS” AND OUR REVIEW OF THE “VOL. 7” EP

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 312022
 

We’ve been closely following the expansive musical odyssey of Vancouver-based Seer from their first release in 2015, writing about that first EP and everything that has followed since then. It’s been a fascinating trip, because the band’s sound has continually evolved and because even the tracks on a single release have never all sounded the same.

From the start Seer have followed a naming convention for their releases, beginning with Vol. 1 and continuing through Vol. 6, which was the title of their last full-length in 2019. Since then the band have released a pair of singles, and now they’re combining those singles along with a brand new song in a new EP entitled Vol. 7, which will be released on April 15th by Hidden Tribe. What we have for you today is the premiere of that brand new song, “Lunar Gateways“. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CENTINEX — “THE PESTILENCE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Mar 302022
 

(We present DGR‘s review of a new MLP by the Swedish death metal band Centinex. It will be released by Agonia Records on April 1st.)

We have our pillars of consistency on this website, the ones we go to because we know exactly what we’ll be in for from moment one. Surprises are welcome but for the most part these are the bands who’ve long found what works for them and are sticking to it.

Centinex are one such band, part of the wave of death metal that so rigidly adheres to old school philosophies that you could pull any release from their discography and it would feel more like a snapshot out of an older time than a modern release. They found their power in the classic thudding bass and snare drum rotation and the joyfully-stupid guitar riff that buzzes so hard your headphones sound like you might’ve kicked a bees’ nest without noticing.

Since their reformation in 2014, Centinex have released a handful of solid-as-hell death metal records and shifted lineups sizeably once, with bassist Martin Schulman remaining the main pillar of the group. Centinex are his classic death metal band and when he wants to aim for something more in line with the current gallop-and-blastfest style, then he shifts into Demonical mode.

Both groups, however, find themselves with releases prepared for 2022, and for Centinex that means a brand new four-song EP entitled The Pestilence, with the same lineup that made 2020’s Death In Pieces. Would you believe us if we said that, once again, Centinex have written music that is about as red meat for the crowd as red meat comes? Continue reading »

SUNDOWNING: “IN THE LIGHT OF DEFEAT, I CEASE TO EXIST”

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Mar 292022
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the first new album in a decade by the German post-metal band Sundowning, which is out now via Isolation Records.)

In today’s bleak world I have taken to leaning into that feeling of impending doom. Whatever you resist persists, so in seeking to cocoon myself in sonic darkness as the soundtrack for the road the world is going down I found this German band. Their hymns of hopelessness are a perfect fit.

They meet at the crossroads of doom, sludge and sometimes death metal. Less of the crust-punk recklessness sludge evolved from and a darker, more mournful sound. This sentiment leads them in more of a doom direction most of the time. Guitars weep against the pounding the rest of the band bring, while the vocals stay in more of a hypnotic chant. Though when the instrumentation ebbs back, growled vocals shift the narrative tone. Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH – IMMUTABLE

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 282022
 

(Andy Synn goes big with the new album from the inimitable, immutable, Meshuggah, out this Friday)

As you may know, if you’ve been hanging around this site for any length of time, we don’t always bother to cover the big names and famous faces.

After all, the big dogs already tend to get more than their fair share of attention and acclaim – since  they’re usually the ones with the bigger budgets, the best PR reps, and the most backing – so any coverage we might add would just be a drop in the ocean, relatively speaking.

Plus there’s the fact that, after a certain point, these sorts of bands just become “too big to fail”. No matter what the critics say – most of whom, let’s be honest, don’t want to risk rocking the boat by saying anything negative anyway – their fans are pretty much always going to pre-order their new stuff, so we’d be much better off dedicating our efforts to where, and who, they can actually make a difference.

There are exceptions to this rule, however, and I’m making one today for the new album by Meshuggah.

Not because, as some have already written, it’s “the band’s best album yet” (it’s not) or “a major step in their evolution” (it’s really not… though there are certainly seeds of something…) but because it’s a perfect example of an album which deserves a fair and balanced appraisal but which, due to the impenetrable aura of hype which surrounds the band these days, is unlikely to get it.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CHTHONIC CULT — “BECOME SEEKERS FOR DEATH”

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Mar 252022
 

Seven years ago the Polish duo Chthonic Cult seemed to appear out of nowhere, as if charging forth from a hideous nether-dimension through an invisible door suddenly flung open. It was then that their debut album I Am the Scourge of Eternity scourged the metal underground without previous warning. But almost as suddenly, they seemed to vanish back through that terrible portal, falling silent for a long span of time.

And yet here they are again at last, with a ravenous and mind-ruining new album named Become Seekers For Death that reveals different strategies and is all the better for that. While their full-length debut consisted of four monstrous and monstrously long songs, the new one assaults the senses with 8 more compact tracks of head-spinning blackened death metal. These are almost relentlessly explosive and, to a degree not achieved on the debut, they’re rapidly addictive. Continue reading »

SUPPRESSION: “THE SORROW OF SOUL THROUGH FLESH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 252022
 

 

(Next month Suppression will release their debut album via Unspeakable Axe Records (with vinyl coming later from Dark Descent), mixed and mastered by Colin Marston and adorned with artwork by Paolo Girardi, and today we present Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review.)

It’s hard to say what’s going on down in Chile, but there’s some killer metal emerging from there. Ripper seems to have been spearheading the movement in recent years with their brand of technical death-thrash, and now some of those members appear in Suppression, whose debut full-length, The Sorrow of Soul through Flesh, drops on April 25th courtesy of Unspeakable Axe Records.

While Ripper marries old school Kreator vibes with technical brutality in the vein of Atheist and Sadus, Suppression feels like a love letter to old school Floridian death metal. However, they sidestep many of the obvious choices of influence in favor of other no-less-deserving bands. Continue reading »

BÂ’A – EGRÉGORE

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 242022
 

(Andy Synn reflects upon good and evil while listening to the new album from French extremists Bâ’a)

We are, or so it appears, in the middle of yet another Black Metal boom period.

Last week alone saw the release of new albums from (amongst others) Black Fucking Cancer, Dark Funeral, and Slægt, this week we’ve got new stuff from Falls of Rauros, Kanonenfieber, and Kvaen (which I’ve already written about here) and just within the next month we’ve also got new albums from Vimur, Vanum, Feral Light, Suntold and more all on the way.

Of course, with such a blackened bonanza of killer concoctions coming out it would be easy for some of the less well-known, less (in)famous, artists to be overlooked, which is why today I’ve chosen to turn my attention towards Egrégore, the upcoming second album (set for release this Friday) from French firebrands Bâ’a. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NOISE AHOLIC — “NARCISSISTVÄRLD”

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Mar 242022
 

Man, have we got a wild and explosive experience lined up for you! And for that we give thanks to the veteran gang of Finnish crust-punk marauders who’ve joined forces behind the name Noise Aholic.

This project is the brain-child of Pedersöre crust-punk Owe Inborr, known for his work with Wolfthrone Studios, Dispyt, and Ondfödt. To help realize his savage visions on the new EP Narcissistvärld which we’re now premiering, he brought together a formidable group of guests who seem to have fully united behind those visions. They include:

Mathias Lillmåns (Finntroll, Dispyt, …and Oceans), KjellHell (Bob Malmström, Jarruketju), Dario Kåll and La55e Dog (Dogshit Boys, Trashcan Dance) on guest vocals; Jacob Björnfot (Kvaen), Otto Kaalikoski (Bob Malmström, S.A.A.B.) and Marco Lindholm (Marco Luponero and The Loud Ones) on lead guitars; Matias Löfman (Bob Malmström, Varoshan, S.A.A.B.) on bass, and the whole The Dogshit Boys and Bob Malmström on gang vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI — “INMORTUOS SUM”

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Mar 232022
 

 

“Sumptuous” might not be the first word that springs to mind in considering a new album by a band who proudly embrace baleful black metal traditions from the mid-’90s, but it actually suits the forthcoming third full-length by Germany’s Mortuus Infradaemoni.

For one thing, the band have loaded the new album Inmortuos Sum with more than an hour’s worth of music, which perhaps should be expected given that a long 13 years separated this new one from the band’s last full-length, Imis Avernis. But it is lavish in other ways, beyond its significant length, as you’ll discover through our complete premiere of the record today. Continue reading »

KVAEN – THE GREAT BELOW

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 232022
 

(Andy Synn checks out the new album from Kvaen, set for release Friday, to see if the band’s fire still burns as brightly)

I’d hazard a guess that most – if not all – bands, when they’re first starting out, do so with the dream that their first album is going to be the sort of massive breakthrough that instantly puts them on the map and establishes them as a force to be reckoned with.

What a lot of them probably don’t consider, however, is that this sort of instant, straight-out-of-the-blocks success can be both a double-edged sword and an albatross around your neck.

After all, I’m sure we can all name a number of bands whose debut immediately got them over with the fans but who, for whatever reason, never quite managed to achieve that same level of impact or intensity again.

Case in point, Kvaen‘s debut album, The Funeral Pyre, was unquestionably one of the best albums of 2020, one which seemed to come out of nowhere and immediately establish the band (in reality the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Jakob Björnfot) as a force to be reckoned with.

Two years have passed since then, however, and the impending release of the project’s second album, The Great Below, now has two major questions hanging over it… can lightning strike in the same place twice?

And, if so, can Kvaen capture it in a bottle once again?

Continue reading »

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