Reviews Archives - Page 187 of 607

CHOKE ME: “HAUNTOLOGY”

Sep 142021

(A Los Angeles band whose 2020 release hit the No. 5 spot on DGR’s year-end list has already returned with a follow-up, and he gives it an enthusiastic review below.)

If you were one of the unfortunate victims to cross paths with my end of the year tome/list – which somehow still managed to happen in the face of 2020 as a whole – then you likely caught my sincerely held belief in the final issue of the list that people had fucked up by letting Choke Me‘s debut release The Cousin Of Death fly under their collective radars.

All joking aside, as a piece of punk-fueled grind, The Cousin of Death was a furious album that wrapped up as shockingly fast as it started. Even were it just a proof-of-concept style release, it showed that there was a lot of potential to whatever spark ignited the Choke Me sound. That is why – even with reservations about the year-over-year churn when it comes to music – it was exciting to learn that the group had issued a follow-up release. We even gave it a brief shout-out in one of our weekend round up posts which archives everything that manages to hit in the back half of the week.

Entitled Hauntology, it consists of six songs and is still very much in line with what worked for the Choke Me crew in their debut. With six new songs – most around two minutes plus – Hauntology only comes in a couple of minutes shorter than its predecessor yet still manages to strike with the same sort of righteousness that blazed through that initial twenty-minute outburst. Continue reading »

EMPLOYED TO SERVE – CONQUERING

Album Reviews No Responses »

Sep 132021

(Andy Synn has followed the UK’s Employed to Serve through thick and thin over the years, so we knew he was the only choice to take on their upcoming new album, Conquering, set for release this Friday)

There’s a certain misconception that Metal/Hardcore fans don’t actually like it when the bands they love become successful.

And while I can understand where this misapprehension came from (there’s definitely a small but obnoxious cadre of loudmouths out there who act like this) the truth, as always, is much more nuanced.

It’s not that we don’t like bands becoming successful… it’s just that we’re tired of bands changing their identity, dumbing own their intelligence, and – yes, I’ll say it – selling out, in order to fit into whatever mass-produced, pre-packaged mould that the mainstream seems to think denotes “success”.

The caveat to this, of course, is that when a band manages to be successful on their own terms, doing what they want to do, rather than what others think they should do, we often love them even more, because they’ve shown that you don’t have to give up who you are in order to be make it “big”.

And, let me tell you now, Employed to Serve are exactly that sort of band, and while their new album looks set to raise their profile to a whole new level, they don’t seem to have had to sacrifice one iota of their intensity or integrity – or their core identity – in order to get there.

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 7 Responses »

Sep 092021

(Andy Synn would like to remind you – albeit a little later than usual – about a quartet of albums from last month he thinks you really should check out)

Is it just me, or was August just ridiculously busy?

Well, to be honest, I know it’s not just me, as I’ve seen/heard/read a lot of other people saying the same thing. And it doesn’t look like September is going to be any more laid-back (it’s only nine-days in and I feel like I’m already two weeks behind).

It doesn’t help, obviously, that I’ve been pretty damn busy myself over the last few weeks (as I’m sure some of you know), meaning that this edition of “Things You May Have Missed” is coming out much later than usual.

Still, its lateness doesn’t lessen the quality of the albums included by any means, which this month features three killer cuts from the blackened/deathly/dissonant end of the spectrum (at least one of which I’m sure will be a brand new name to most of you) along with one much proggier and much more well-known act whose latest album should, hopefully, bring some of their more wayward fans back into the fold.

So, without wasting any more time… let’s begin, shall we?

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DRITTMASKIN — “SVARTPØNK”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Sep 082021

From their outward trappings and the way they talk about themselves and their music, you might not be inclined to take the Norwegian band Drittmaskin as seriously as you should. They seem to relentlessly make fun of themselves and under-sell what their music is capable of accomplishing. But pay no attention to that — instead, pay attention to the 12 tracks on their frankly astonishing new album Svartpønk. You’ll have your first chance to do that today, because we’ve got a full stream of the record in advance of the album’s October 8 release.

Trying to pigeonhole these new songs in genre terms is a confounding exercise. Svartpønk translates to “Blackpunk”, and there is indeed a hybrid of d-beat punk and black metal strongly at work here. But that’s not nearly an exhaustive list of the ingredients that Drittmaskin have joined together. They also pull from the wells of old-school thrash, arena-ready “classic” heavy metal, crust, death metal, and more. Some ingredients are more pronounced in some songs than in others, i.e., they are definitely not interchangeable, and that’s part of what makes the full run through the album such a relentless thrill-ride, but every song is a genre-bender. Continue reading »

CHROME WAVES – THE RAIN WILL CLEANSE

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 6 Responses »

Sep 082021

(Andy Synn presents another fully justified exception to our usual rules in the form of the exceptional new album from Pittsburgh’s Chrome Waves)

It is always fascinating, often a little bit thrilling, and even occasionally slightly fulfilling, to watch a band achieving its true/final form.

This is not, in any way, an attempt to downplay the quality or value of said band’s previous work – which, in this case, includes an extremely solid debut in A Grief Observed and an even better (and emotionally deeper) second album in last year’s Where We Live, along with a couple of shorter, but equally intriguing, releases along the way – but an acknowledgement that growth, be it physical, emotional, or musical is an ongoing process whose end point we don’t always know in advance.

Case in point, even the most casual listener, on their first run through The Rain Will Cleanse, the third album in as many years from prolific “Post-Black Metal” group Chrome Waves, will quickly realise that the band have pretty much abandoned… or, perhaps it’s better to say, grown out of… their more blackened influences (the only real remnant being the scattered shrieks strewn here and there throughout cathartic closer “Aspiring Death”) in favour of a sound that favours the more emotive and expansive, Post-Rock, Post-Punk, and Shoegaze-inspired side of their identity.

It’s still recognisably the same band, yes, but is also just as clearly the next step, the next necessary step, in their ongoing evolution.

Call it the beginning of their post “Post-Black Metal” phase.

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS — “INFINITE UNIVERSE INFINITE DEATH”

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 072021

Almost a quarter-century passed between the debut album from Journey Into Darkness and the second one, Multitudes of Emptiness, that emerged in 2020. But the creative fires were clearly burningbright, because now the third one — Infinite Universe Infinite Death — is already on its way. It will be released on September 10th by Spirit Coffin Publishing, and today we draw the curtain all the way back on this astonishing piece of star-faring musical theater through our full streaming premiere. In addition, we’re presenting complete track-by-track commentary by the band’s sole member, Florida-based Brett Clarin.

For those who may be new to this symphonic black/death project, it’s worth knowing that Clarin‘s roots in extreme metal are deep. Between 1987 and 1993, he played guitar in the death metal band Sorrow (formerly Apparition), which released two records on the Roadrunner label. After Sorrow called it quits in the mid-’90s, Clarin started Journey Into Darkness as an all-synth solo project, having been inspired by the intros and interludes on extreme metal albums.

After releasing that 1996 debut album (Life Is a Near Death Experience), he put the project on hold for a long time. When he resurrected it with that second album, he made Journey Into Darkness sound like a full band, though the synths still played distinctive roles. The same is true of this new album, though it’s fair to say that the darkness in the music is even more pronounced. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GRIM FATE / THE SOMBRE — “FROM ANCIENT SLUMBER / THE HORRID SILENCE THUS BEGAN”

Album Reviews, Premieres No Responses »

Sep 062021

As amalgams of death and doom metal go, we’ll be so bold as to say that you won’t find a more formidable offering this year than the new album-length split by the Dutch bands Grim Fate and The Sombre. Entitled From Ancient Slumber / The Horrid Silence Thus Began (reflecting the names of each band’s side), it will get a CD and digital release by Chaos Records on September 10th, but we have a full stream of this ravishing experience for you today.

As you’ll discover, these two bands have different approaches in their explorations of death/doom, with Grim Fate‘s music more crushing and crippling and The Sombre‘s more entrancing (but still heavy as hell). This difference is part of what explains why the split is so tremendously good as a whole, and the rest of the explanation comes down to just how talented both bands are in the pursuits they’ve chosen for themselves on their sides of this split.

We have further thoughts about each band’s sequence of tracks (three from each of them), but of course feel free to skip ahead to the album stream so you will know more immediately what’s going on as you read. Continue reading »

IRON MAIDEN: “SENJUTSU”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Sep 062021

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new Iron Maiden album, which was released three days ago.)

The unholy trinity of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden spawned all metal since their influence trickled down to Metallica, Slayer, Bathory, and pretty much anyone wearing a bullet belt since then. Now with album 17, Iron Maiden comes back stronger than ever after a six-year hiatus from the studio. I assumed The Book of Souls was going to be their last album, and even after hearing the single for “The Writing on the Wall“ I was not expecting a double-album worth of material.

When I press play on any Maiden album since Brave New World my immediate worry is what shape is Bruce‘s voice going to be in? Now that he’s at age 63 this is an even more legitimate concern given the fact that his leather-lunged voice is a defining staple of their sound. This is put to rest after hearing how Bruce belts it out on the title track that opens the album. Given that the producer was Kevin Shirley, who worked with Rush, Dream Theater and Journey, another surprise is how beefy the guitar tone is — though Steve Harris co-produced, so I am sure breathing over his shoulder every step of the way. “Stratego” that follows is even more of an urgent headbanger and has its boot firmly on the monitor. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NUR RUN, NIFROST, ADOPERTA TENEBRIS, SATURNIAN MIST, SOREM, GLYPH, LURID, DEATHFUCKER

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Sep 052021

You want to know how the sausage gets made? Okay, I see one hand at the back of the room and that’s all I need even though the rest of you are recoiling.

When I woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning I had about half a dozen candidates I was considering for this column based on previous listening. But I didn’t stop with that. After feeding the cats, caffeinating myself, and smoking a couple cigarettes, I collected links to more than 20 other possibilities, some of them from tabs I’d opened on my computer during the past week and some I found from crawling through arrivals in the NCS email in-box over the last few days, which I hadn’t perused carefully until yesterday afternoon.

I then copied all those links into the NCS WordPress editor and opened them again at a computer in our house that has shitty wi-fi. The one with a decent internet connection is in the “family room” where the TV is, and my wife was in there catching up on the news (she wakes up ridiculously early too). Even with headphones on, I can’t listen to metal in that room when she’s there. I have to crank up the volume, and her ears are so sensitive that she can hear the sound leaking through the headphones. It annoys her because she can’t stand extreme metal. I strongly prefer that she not be annoyed. Continue reading »

BEER & LOUDNESS IN LAS VEGAS — THREE DAYS AT PSYCHO FEST 2021 (DAY 3)

Concert Reviews 7 Responses »

Sep 022021

(We’ve been enjoying the hell out of our friend Gonzo‘s reports on the 2021 edition of Psycho Fest in Las Vegas a couple weekends ago, and hope you have too. Today we present his third and final write-up, concerning his adventures on the fest’s last day.)

“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

–Hunter S. Thompson

Those words from the good doctor rang out in my brain the moment I opened my eyes on Sunday morning. My ears were still ringing in spite of wearing earplugs for the majority of Saturday, but like so much else, Vegas cannot be bothered with your feeble attempts at self-care. Continue reading »

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