VHS: “I HEARD THEY SUCK… BLOOD”

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Nov 292021
 

 

(Here’s Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by Ontario-based VHS, which is set for a December 3rd release by Wise Blood Records.)

Halloween lasts all year long unless you’re a poser. So it doesn’t really matter that Canada’s death fiends VHS aren’t dropping their album I Heard They Suck…Blood until December 3rd, the shit is going to hit you the same regardless. Like Halloween, the influences VHS lean on feel eternal in Metal’s history. Take one part Scream Bloody Gore, mix in some early Autopsy, Repulsion, and more recently Exhumed, and you have a fist-pumping, gore-spewing recipe for old school death metal.

While not exactly breaking the mold, VHS take the sound of their predecessors and make it their own. They look to a time when death metal’s DNA still had a lot of thrash mixed up in it. Not the polished excellence of the Bay Area bands, but that nasty sound pioneered by Kreator and early Slayer. Oftentimes, such as on “Fake Blood and Push-Up Bras”, a track that features Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad, things take on an almost punk feel. For those sections, the Autopsy influence gives way to Abcess, yet when they do slow down, the evil melodies of Chris Reifert’s home base return. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABHORRATION — “AFTER WINTER COMES WAR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 252021
 

The Norwegian trio Abhorration (guitarist/vocalist Magnus, bassist Andreas, and drummer Øyvind) are a relatively new formation, having started life just last year, but their resumes portended quality, even before any of the music became public — because those members hail from such bands as Condor, Nekromantheon, Hecatomb, Resonaut, Purple Hill Witch, and Obliteration.

We hope that the foregoing list of bands has already peaked your interest in discovering what Abhorration‘s music is all about (it certainly peaked ours). The publicity distributed by Invictus Productions, which will release the band’s debut EP After Winter Comes War, makes further reference to death metal in the vein of such legends as classic Sadistic Intent, Morbid Angel, Possessed, and early Vader, which kindles even more interest.

All of this created high expectations in these quarters, and it’s such a pleasure to proclaim that those expectations were not merely met but exceeded. And thus it’s with genuine delight that we present a full stream of this heart-pounding EP for you today. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GODHEAD MACHINERY — “MONOTHEISTIC ENSLAVEMENT”

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Nov 242021
 

 

In tale June of this year we premiered and reviewed an EP by the Swedish band Godhead Machinery named Masquerade Among Gods, which added to a discography that then included two full-lengths, Ouroboros (2017) and Aligned to the Grid (2019). We offered these thoughts about it (among many others):

“Through the four songs on this EP, when absorbed straight through, Godhead Machinery have created a truly harrowing and haunting experience. The music is multi-faceted and intricate, revealing (in the simplest of genre terms) an amalgamation of black, death, doom, and progressive metal that’s capable of generating visions of frightening calamity, earth-shaking upheaval, and terrible grandeur, but also casting mesmerizing spells and plunging the listener into moods of soul-shaking sorrow”.

Conceptually, the EP was connected to a then-upcoming album, both of them spawned from what the band stands for in general, which is to serve as “a tool to analyze how religious beliefs infiltrate laws, policy, behaviors, and moral codes of today’s society”. Now that album is fast approaching its November 26 release by Black Lion Records. The album’s name is Monotheistic Enslavement, and today you’ll have the opportunity to experience all of its tremendous power. Continue reading »

DAKHMA – BLESSINGS OF AMURDAD

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Nov 242021
 

(Andy Synn steps off the beaten path once more to discuss the new album by Swiss extremists Dakhma)

Genre terms – Death Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, Doom Metal, and so on – are, ultimately, simply a tool like any other.

And, like any tool, they can be used productively, or counter-productively, depending on how (and how carefully) they’re employed.

For myself I find them to be very useful (especially when I’m trying to describe, in words, the experience of listening to music which many of my readers won’t actually have heard yet) but they’re certainly not the be-all and end-all by any means.

Case in point, the words “Blackened Death Metal” have become synonymous with the imperious, almost militaristic, blast-driven sound made famous by bands like Behemoth, Hate, Azarath, etc.

But there’s far more to this particular sub-genre than that, as demonstrated by the new album from Swiss duo Dakhma, whose more abrasive and arcane approach positions them more as sonic and spiritual cousins to the likes of Teitanblood, Vassafor, and Altarage.

Continue reading »

CONVERGE AND CHELSEA WOLFE: “BLOODMOON: I”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 232021
 

(Bloodmoon: I, the new collaborative album created by Converge alongside Chelsea Wolfe, her bandmate/writing partner Ben Chisholm, and Cave In vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky, is out now on CD and across all streaming platforms via Epitaph Records, with a vinyl edition coming next year. Wil Cifer provides the following review.)

When one of my favorite artists releases an album, you might assume I listen to it for the first time in a blissful state gushing how they can do no wrong. Perhaps this is what neuro-normative people do. I am not one of those. Instead, my expectations are so high that I go into it anxious that they are going to let me down and tarnish their pristine legacy. Why am I explaining this to you?

One, this is not merely one of my favorite artists but a collaboration between two of them. I have been listening to Converge since the ’90s so we have more history, but Chelsea Wolfe‘s career I have championed for over a decade now. One friend of mine sent me a link to their earliest collaboration at the Roadburn Festival where this collaboration first spawned from and said:

“Chelsea Wolfe jamming with Converge is one of the most Wil things ever”. Continue reading »

HORROR OF PESTILENCE: “ILLITERATE CONSTRUCTION // INAUDIBLE DETERIORATION”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 222021
 

(Ryan Dyer, who made his NCS debut touting the insanity of one-man bands in China and followed that by trumpeting the destructiveness of Calgary’s Whorrify, now returns to the Chinese scene with this new review.)

Guangzhou, China’s Horror of Pestilence are a group of metallic conductors who specialize in creating tech-deathcore savagery blended with symphonic elements, taking the genre beyond its preconceived limitations. Their new EP Illiterate Construction // Inaudible Deterioration marks a pivot for the band, as a new guitarist from Hong Kong-based Massacre of Mothman has recently joined up for further collaborations on their next full-length LP.

Still, there are some Dune-sized ear worms found on this EP such as Middle Eastern elements leading into the snarling “Exiled Revenant.” A tasty saxophone solo also shows up, bringing to mind the brass attack used by Japanese black metal masters Sigh. “God Given. Hell Risen” features some ear-catching dual vocal melodies – another surprise from the plague ragers. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOURMAND — “TO BRING TO NOTHING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 222021
 

 

Gourmand‘s new EP To Bring To Nothing is the kind of thing that demands to be heard repeatedly, in part because the experience is so electrifying and frequently head-hooking, but also because there’s so much to unpack. Every one of the three songs is so intricate and so surprising in its rapidly mutating configurations that it’s almost too much for the normal human mind to assimilate in just one run-through. And it’s such a kaleidoscopic rush that even after repeated listens it still sounds new — because the odds are you’ll detect something (or many things) for the first time that you missed before.

“Progressive death metal” might the closest genre label for what this collective from Kansas City, Missouri have created here, though the technical exuberance of the execution and the labyrinthine compositional approach suggests a more multi-hyphened hybrid. As their name implies, they are connoisseurs of many tastes. The music is certifiably savage, but also remarkably elaborate (and pleasingly groovesome just when you think you’ve become thoroughly discombobulated). Continue reading »

THÅRN – COLLISIONS

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 222021
 

(As a member of the UK Metal scene himself, our man Andy Synn likes to think he has his finger on the pulse – or at least, the prostate – of what artists and albums he needs to be looking out for, but the recently released debut album by THÅRN almost slipped under his radar)

Despite all the setbacks and difficulties of the last couple of years – or maybe, in a sense, because of them – the last twelve months have been an extremely strong and fertile time for the UK Metal scene.

From long absent legends making a killer comeback, to established fan-favourites stepping up their game, to new names and new faces making a serious impact, there’s been no shortage of blackened, deathly, proggy, sludgy, and atmospheric delights for fans the world over to enjoy.

And joining this still-growing list, right at the eleventh hour (or, at least, during the eleventh month) is the debut album from London-based duo Luke Booth and Jérôme Barré – aka THÅRN – whose prodigiously powerful take on the classic Post-Metal formula could easily go toe-to-toe with some of the genre’s biggest and best names.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (VERTIGINOUS EDITION): KAECK AND GOATCRAFT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Nov 212021
 

 

This morning I read an article concerning some recent books about H.G. Wells, and the article used the word “vertiginous”. It’s a word that refers to something that causes vertigo — the sensation that you or the environment around you is moving or spinning. Another word for vertiginous might be “dizzying”.

I searched all of our posts at this site and was surprised to find that I had used the word a few times before, but not in a long time. Because I think it’s a great word, and it was in my head, it pulled me in the direction of briefly reviewing and streaming music from the following two albums, which are both vertiginous, albeit in very different ways.

KAECK (Netherlands)

Kaeck’s new album, Het Zwarte Dictaat (released near the end of October by Folter Records), is war music — not because its lyrical themes are devoted to historical conflict but because the music is so often violently tumultuous. The low-end is thunderous and granite-heavy, and when the music mounts a mid-paced charge it sounds like the assault of a tank battalion. At higher speed, the drums pump like heavy-caliber weaponry and the bass vibrates in the marrow. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SGÀILE — “IDEALS & MORALITY”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 192021
 

 

In many ways, the album we’re about to present is strikingly different from our usual musical fare at this site. Most obviously, the songs include only singing. Blast-beats are a rarity, and distortion is either completely eschewed or applied to a mild degree. The music often has more in common with prog-rock and hard-rock than heavy metal, and pulls from wells of classic heavy metal when it does venture into metal realms rather than dabbling in the sub-genres of extremity that occupy most of our attention.

And so you might scratch your head about what the album is doing here. Maybe you will wonder less after you’ve heard it. What it lacks in throat-cutting viciousness or mind-scarring abrasiveness it makes up for in so many other ways — in ways that make it utterly captivating. It has visceral “physical” power as well as the power to both channel and alter emotional states in gripping fashion, and it reaches heights of splendor that are breathtaking.

The name of the album is Ideals & Morality, and it’s the debut full-length of Sgàile, the solo project of Scottish multi-instrumentalist and vocalist extraordinaire Tony Dunn, whose resume includes work with such other bands such as Falloch, Cnoc An Tursa, and Saor. It will be released by Avantgarde Music on December 10th. Continue reading »

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