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 »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ABYSMAL DAWN — “NIGHTMARE FRONTIER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 012022
 

 

(On February 4th Season of Mist will release a new EP by Abysmal Dawn, and today we present DGR‘s review of the record, accompanied by a full stream that premiered today.)

Nightmare Frontier, the newest release from death metal crew Abysmal Dawn via Season of Mist, is an odd duck. Like many single releases that have been expanded into smaller EPs over the past few years as groups dig through their archives for value add-ons, Nightmare Frontier is a thematic grab bag that, thanks to its second song, makes a wide journey across the band’s career.

Containing one new song in the form of “A Nightmare Slain”, Nightmare Frontier then reinforces its first track with a new take on one of the group’s earliest songs, “Blacken The Sky”, and then further adds to it with two covers from surprising corners for the band with “Behind Space” and “Bewitched” – one interesting choice and one massively iconic song – for a total of a little over nineteen minutes worth of music.

Now granted, were this release just the single and the badass cover art by Pär Olofsson, you’d have a solid recommendation off the bat. But the other fifteen some-odd minutes of music make this one an oddball journey at the least. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KRALLICE, ANIMA HERETICAE, CHTHONIC CULT, “THRALL OF THE WINTER MOON” SPLIT, ENDLYSET

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 312022
 

You may have seen that I prepared a long installment of our Most Infectious Song list yesterday. That effort cut into the time available for me to finish the column you’re now embarking upon, especially because I had to leave the house by mid-morning to keep another commitment. So, I’m a day late with this.

What you’ll find here is a recently released complete album, a new video from a previously released EP, a new advance track, a new split, and an album released almost two months ago that I just discovered. There’s more death metal in the mix than usual for this column, but it would be fair to call those entries blackened death metal.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KRVVLA — “X”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 282022
 

 

As we approach the end of 2022’s first month we bring you a full stream of one of the most relentlessly intense and unnerving albums that the new year has presented so far, The album is simply entitled X, and it’s the sophomore full-length by the Belarusian post-black metal band KRVVLA, which will be released on February 4th by Brucia Records.

Previously, the band had self-released one album and four EPs, but with X they have twisted their sound into even more harrowing directions, and have also added vocals for the first time, which only adds to the music’s terrorizing impact. As compared to what has come before, X is a more atmospheric work, but the atmosphere is one of utter calamity. The experience is like being engulfed almost non-stop in an overpowering maelstrom of dissonance and devastation — of rage, despair, oppression, and downfall. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VICIOUS KNIGHTS — “ALTERATION THROUGH POSSESSION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 272022
 

 

Vicious Knights‘ debut album — Alteration Through Possession — is exceedingly well-named. The band sound possessed, and their music will indeed create both chilling and exhilarating alterations in your mind.

They produce these effects by invoking the old spirits of early Kreator, Destruction, Possessed, and Sepultura, and creating both lyrical and musical themes that conjure ancient horrors. It takes little time at all to realize that this Greek trio are both formidable songwriters, with an almost preternatural talent for crafting hooks while establishing atmosphere, and top-shelf instrumentalists.

And thus it’s with great pleasure that today we present a full stream of the album in advance of its imminent January 28 release by Dying Victims Productions. Continue reading »

CELESTE- ASSASSINE(S)

 Album Reviews, Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 262022
 

(Andy Synn sharpens his knives for this incisive review of the new album from Celeste, out Friday on Nuclear Blast)

We have all long been fans of France’s Celeste here at NCS – myself in particular, as I’ve been an avid follower and collector of their music ever since their first album – and we’re clearly not alone in that, as the band’s profile has risen, slowly but surely, with each new release, culminating in this, their “major” label debut.

Of course, changing labels hasn’t actually changed the band themselves, and you’ll be pleased to know that Assassine(s) is just as aggressive, atmospheric, and addictively abrasive as the rest of their catalogue.

It does, however, raise a familiar quandary… how exactly does one categorise a band like Celeste?

Looking back over their career thus far you can see that they’ve been called a lot of different things over the years – Black Metal, Post Hardcore, Blackened Sludge, Post Metal, and so forth – none of which are necessarily wrong, even if they’re not totally right either.

But, a rose by any other name, right? After all, they’re still the same band, no matter how they’re tagged, and it seems to me that what you choose to call them says a lot more about you, the listener, than it does about them.

And, if that’s the case, then it’ll be interesting to see exactly what this review says about me once I’ve done writing it.

Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, JANUARY 2022

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 262022
 


Confess

 

(Gonzo returns with his first 2022 end-of-month group of recommended new releases.)

With the craze of Listmania 2021 now in our rearview mirrors and January already on its way out, this edition of my monthly roundup took me by complete surprise for a few reasons:

  1. The unstoppable storm of amazing music we saw in ’21 has not slowed down a single bit
  2. January by itself has blindsided me with a slew of unexpectedly awesome new releases
  3. I was going to do a “things I wish I included in my top 20 of ‘21” post, but the above reasons compelled me to change my plans.

I could’ve made this post way longer, but in the interests of not droning on into a rambling ocean of incoherent enthusiasm, here are five albums that should be on your radar as we jump into a new year of metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEEPER GRAVES — “THE COLOSSAL SLEEP”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 252022
 

 

We’re about to venture off our usual beaten tracks, lured away from the usual ferocity by music that beckons like ghost lights on the other side of our midnight walls of thorns and vipers. It conjures spells and splendid visions, and it often irresistibly quickens the pulse, but the lights are ephemeral and hopes are dashed where these alluring wraiths reside.

The allure of the new album by Deeper Graves that we’re about to premiere in full is powerful. The Colossal Sleep combines visceral rhythms and mesmerizing soundscapes that shine like moon-lit mists and reach heights of even greater splendor, but it harbors harsher aspects as well, and it doesn’t go too far to say that there is a deep and haunting darkness at its core. It often makes you want to bounce, but the gloom of sorrow persists. Continue reading »

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