KONTUSION: “KONTUSION”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 102022
 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the self-titled debut EP of Kontusion, which will be released on March 25th.)

For many, the tidal wave of old school death metal bands that have saturated the scene for the past decade or so has been an embarrassment of riches. My formative musical teeth were cut from ‘89 to ‘95 or so, meaning that I can listen to this stuff all day long. Admittedly, this means that if a band nails this sound, even if they are pretty average, they will easily grab my attention. But when a band is really freakin’ good, rising above the hordes, well then I’m all in. Such is the case with Kontusion, These guys absolutely rip. Continue reading »

CULT OF LUNA – THE LONG ROAD NORTH

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Feb 092022
 

(Andy Synn takes a journey with Cult of Luna on The Long Road North, out Friday on Metal Blade)

Like I said in my review of the new Immolation album yesterday, writing about a band with a long and much-loved career comes with several inherent complications.

In the case of Cult of Luna, the band are so beloved by their fanbase that it’s hard to get people to admit that they’re not infallible, as I found out when I suggested that both their last two releases, 2019’s A Dawn to Fear and last year’s The Raging River EP, had some significant (although not insurmountable) flaws.

The thing is, I’ve always tried to be as honest and objective as I can be with all my reviews – while acknowledging, of course, that true objectivity is an impossible goal – which means providing as clear and as complete an impression of the music, its highs and its lows, its good points and its bad points, and it seems to me like it would be doing the band a disservice to treat them any differently than anyone else.

So let me state this clearly – The Long Road North is not a perfect album. Nor is is “the best album of the band’s career”, as I’ve seen it described elsewhere (in some cases seemingly before they’d even heard it). But it is still, for all that it occasionally loses its way, a road well worth taking.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CORRUPTER — “DESCENT INTO MADNESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Feb 092022
 

 

Only hindsight gives us the ability to speculate about why a band or their label chooses one particular song as the first single from a new album. In the case of Corrupter‘s full-length debut Descent Into Madness, that chosen song was “Darkest Light“.

The opening riff of that song, which has a dismal and diseased aura, seizes attention quickly, but no more so than the eruption of thunderous battery, miasma-like riffing, and gory, gargled vocals that follow it. The guitar work has a dense and writhing quality that’s frightening, and even when the drumming slows and Corrupter send off grand but deeply disturbing fanfares of sound it’s enough to put a cold sweat on the back of your neck.

The second time the music explodes in violence, propelled by a crazed solo, might be even more exhilarating than the first time, an experience in ferocity and fear, madness, and malignancy that’s not soon forgotten. Continue reading »

PERSEFONE: “METANOIA”

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Feb 092022
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album by the Andorran extreme progressive metal band Persefone, which was released on February 4th by Napalm Records.)

We’ve been following the progressive metal group Persefone for a very long time now. If you’re curious just how long, we dedicated time for both a Synn Report and a review of their album Aathma, which has resulted in us covering nearly everything the band have done up to this point.

There’s been almost a five-year gap between Aathma and the group’s newest release Metanoia, which hit last Friday via Napalm Records, yet it seems as if there’s been no time at all between them; Metanoia picks up right where Aathma let off, which was itself an album that continued walking down the same path that 2013’s Spiritual Migration took. That specific path, in a roundabout way, brings us back to Metanoia. Continue reading »

MASS WORSHIP: “PORTAL TOMBS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 082022
 

(We present Gonzo‘s review of the new album by Sweden’s Mass Worship, which was just released by Century Media.)

If there’s an award somewhere out there for “best music to listen to while using an industrial-strength sandblaster,” then I think the new album Portal Tombs from Stockholm’s Mass Worship would be a top contender. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HAMMR — “ETERNAL POSSESSION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 082022
 

 

I still have burn marks, slash scars, and giddy memories from Hammr‘s first album Unholy Destruction. That was four years ago, long enough to heal the wounds but not long enough to quell the feelings of dizziness and thrill-filled mayhem that come back in thinking about that blast of proto-black metal, hardcore punk, and evil speed metal. And so I got a surge of adrenaline from just thinking about the advent of a new Hammr album, and an even bigger surge in listening to it — which you’ll get a chance to do right now.

Eternal Possession is the name of the new one, and it’s a valid title, foreshadowing both the experience of being overtaken and overwhelmed by it as a listener and the conviction that the person who made it was himself under the throes of diabolical possession, with a take-no-prisoners, give-no-fucks, spirit that shows no signs of surrender, now or ever. Continue reading »

IMMOLATION – ACTS OF GOD

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Feb 082022
 

(Andy Synn passes judgement on the new album from Immolation, out Feb 18 on Nuclear Blast)

If there’s one thing we’re known for here at NCS it’s our focus on celebrating and supporting the underdogs.

So when the promo for Acts of God, by up-and-coming New York death-dealers Immolation dropped into our inbox I quickly snatched it up, as I’m all about giving struggling young bands a helping hand.

What’s that?

Eleven albums, you say?

Over thirty years as a band?

Well, that changes everything…

Continue reading »

A DOOMED TRIO: INFIRMUM, EVADNE, EIRÐ

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 072022
 

 

(We present a trio of album or EP reviews by DGR, delving into music of the doomed variety.)

One of the more reliable things about heavy metal outside of a yearly re-issue of Death‘s catalogue is that the end of year turnover/beginning of another is where a lot of doom releases like to insert themselves into the fray. It’s not surprising, given that it’s the cold season for sections of the world. With everything being painted as if it were covered in snow anyway, it makes sense that one of metal’s more melancholy genres steals a bit of the limelight.

Also not surprising, then, that the early part of my year was weirdly doom-dominated and not just by the three present in this write up but also with Author & Punishers Kruller hovering just outside the ring as well. I’m not the doom guy at the site – more often comfortable in my realms of death and grind – but that doesn’t mean I’ll make the genre draw the short straw all the time when it comes to focus. I just think there are people here that are way better at covering this style than I am.

You’ll note though that with these three, not all of them are from 2022 proper. Even though we’re making a valiant attempt to keep looking forward we still find ourselves ocassionally dragging ourselves back to the previous year with some of our discoveries. In this case it’s because one album came out on December 24th, 2021, and another is an EP containing three songs, two of which were singles released throughout the previous year. The third comes as a random stumbling while on break at work and may be one of the deeper journeys I’ve made into the ambient funeral-doom worlds that I’ve done in some time, especially since the last two that come to mind for me are Texas’ The Howling Void and Italy’s Void Of Silence. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): WĘDRUJĄCY WIATR, KLANEN, THE HOWLING WIND, SAPIENTIA DIABOLI, DREAD MAW

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Feb 062022
 

 

If you tuned in to Part 1 of this column earlier today you know that I had compiled an absurd amount of music to write about. In Part 1 I cut down the number of advance tracks I wanted to highlight from 9 to 6. That left 4 new albums, 3 new EPs, and 1 new split still on the proverbial table, and a vanishing amount of time to write about any of them today. I made some difficult choices, and am only able to provide short sketches of the ones I picked, but at the end of this post I’ll give you links to the ones I painfully omitted.

WĘDRUJĄCY WIATR (Poland)

Wędrujący Wiatr don’t move in a hurry. Six years have passed since their last album, O turniach, jeziorach i nocnych szlakach, and there was a three-year interval between that one and their debut full-length, Tam, gdzie miesiąc opłakuje świt. Their past music was so strikingly good that we don’t really need constant reminders of the band’s existence, but still, six years is a long time — which made the appearance of a new album last week even more thrilling. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THEOMACHIA — “THE THEOSOPHIST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 022022
 

We are pleased to introduce you to an unusual black metal project from Rome. Born from the mind of instrumentalist/vocalist F.M., who is joined in the project by lyricist and visual artist I.G.Tataru, Theomachia crafts an idiosyncratic and mercurial style of music defined as “gnostic black metal”. As revealed through a debut EP named The Theosophist, it draws inspiration from such prominent Norwegian bands as Emperor and Ulver (as well as Sisters of Mercy), but undeniably marches to the beat of its own mad and mysterious drummer.

In its lyrical themes, The Theosophist poetically visits vast and daunting questions, building upon elements of Greek philosophy that range from Socrates to Neoplatonism. In its sounds, which change constantly within each of the EP’s three songs, it is both ceremonial and violent, haunting and harrowing, dismal and dazzling. It juxtaposes sharp and riveting contrasts, in the vocals as well as the instrumentation and melodies. The music is head-spinning and unsettling, and exerts a strange but strong grip on a listener’s attention.

On February 4th The Theosophist will be released on cassette tape by Xenoglossy Productions and on CD by Onism Productions, but you can explore it in full today through our premiere. Continue reading »

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