AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MOLTEN — “DYSTOPIAN SYNDROME”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 122021
 

 

Among almost all die-hard metalheads the phrase “Bay Area thrash” immediately brings to mind a very well-defined and much-loved sound, but one that for many listeners has been done to death, to the point that for many fans clutching their old favorites the chance of finding something new seems hardly worth the time. But while Molten are a Bay Area band and thrash is a vital part of their DNA, their new album Dystopian Syndrome is very much worth all the time you can give it.

As you will discover through our premiere of the entire album stream today in advance of its January 15th release, thrash is the foundation but not the entire edifice of what they’ve constructed. As a function of the band’s varied musical interests, their music is a richly embellished experience that channels changing moods and energies and reveals a taste for instrumentation not usually found in the genre, while also delivering monstrous vocals and the kind of technical performance skill that drops jaws and pops eyes. Continue reading »

AZTLAN: “LEGIÓN MEXICA”

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Jan 122021
 

 

(Here is Andy Synn‘s review of the second album by the Mexican metal band Aztlan, which was released on January 1, 2021.)

As I was saying to my buddy Islander recently, the start of the new year generally feels a lot more relaxed and laid back than the months which follow. The regular release torrent has been reduced to a trickle, and there’s a lot less pressure to stay on top of all the “big” new releases… mostly because there aren’t that many of them.

The benefit of this, obviously, is that we’re free to browse and sample new bands and new albums more at our own pace, and able to give new discoveries the time they really deserve without feeling that we’re otherwise missing out or falling behind in the process.

Mexican septet Aztlan are the latest band to reap the rewards of this annual fallow period, as any other time of the year there’s a chance that Legión mexica, the group’s second album, might have gotten lost in the rush.

And that would have been a real shame, as it’s a brilliantly unorthodox blend of thrashy energy and folksy melody which combines both choppy metallic riffs and unusual, pre-Hispanic instrumentation into one impressively hypnotic whole. Continue reading »

CELESTIAL SWARM: “GATEWAYS TO THE NECROVERSE”

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Jan 062021
 

 

(Here is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Baltimore-based Celestial Swarm, which was released on January 4th.)

The beginning of any new year is always a time filled with anticipation of what delicious metallic morsels the next twelve months are going to bring.

But we don’t have to look too far, or too hard, to find the first of them, as the debut album from multinational Death Metal brutalisers Celestial Swarm just kicked off 2021 with a major bang. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020:  CONSTRUCT OF LETHE / EYE OF SOLITUDE / PERSEFONE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews three 2020 album “reissues” that in different ways gave the original releases a new lease on life.)

“Out with the old, in with the new!”

That has, traditionally, been the mantra that accompanies the end of one year and the beginning of another.

And so, in that spirit, I’ve decided to bit adieu to 2020 with a look back at three albums which originally reared their ugly heads in 2016, 2011, and 2004, respectively, but which were all given a new lease on life last year.

So I guess that opening mantra should have been “everything old is new again…”, shouldn’t it? Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 129): MALADIE

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  3 Responses »
Dec 302020
 

 

(For the final SYNN REPORT of 2020, Andy Synn reviews all the rcords in the significant discography of the unorthodox German black metal band Maladie.)

Recommended for fans of: Solefald, Sigh, Dødheimsgard

Well, it’s the end of the year as we know it and I feel… well, to be quite honest I’m not sure how I feel.

After all, it’s been a very strange (not to mention challenging) twelve months for most of us, with this site being one of the very few constants capable of brightening the bleak monotony of daily life in 2020.

So, I thought to myself, why not end the year with a feature on a band who are, in their own way, just as strange, and just as challenging (though far more rewarding)? Which is why you’re about to read my in-depth analysis of the still-expanding discography of the multi-headed metallic entity known as Maladie.

Musically-speaking the band’s sound is rooted in Black Metal, sure… but it’s also wilfully Avant-Garde, wickedly Progressive, jazzily indulgent, turbulently Technical, and everything in between, running the gamut from strafing blastbeats to swirling saxophone to groove-heavy riffs to grandiose synths, all topped off with a cacophonous chorus of shrieks and snarls, barks and bellows, sonorous croons and high-toned harmonies delivered in a polyglottal mix of English, French, Spanish, German, and Latin!

As complex and chaotic as all that sounds though, Maladie aren’t afraid to deploy hooks and/or heaviness to keep their listener(s) engaged, and – as a result of the band’s kitchen-sink-in-a-blender approach – there’s a good chance that there’ll be something here to appeal not just to fans of the three bands mentioned above (Solefald, Sigh, and Dødheimsgard) but to people who love Satyricon, Sear Bliss, Arcturus, Ne Obliviscaris, Vintersorg, In Vain, Ihsahn’s solo work, and more. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD FOR A CHRISTMAS DAY (PART 2): CASAVIEJA, KNIVES, I AM A PREACHER, SKY PIG, HUMAN SERPENT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 262020
 

 

Time has become ill-defined for me as for everyone else this year, but I do realize that it’s not still Christmas Day. I just couldn’t get Part 2 of this round-up finished in time to post it yesterday before having a virtual get-together with close family members. Probably just as well, because stacking this much new music on top of what was in Part 1 might have drowned you, especially on top of another installment of DGR’s mountainous year-end list, which (by the way) ended today without caving in the site’s foundations, though that was a risk that left me in a cold sweat all week.

For Part 2 I’m starting with an album and then moving onto a couple of EPs and a couple of singles.

CASAVIEJA (Guatemala)

When Rennie (starkweather) first urged me to listen to this band a week ago, their new second album had just come out. He said they were from “South of the Border, South of Heaven”, but I didn’t realize until later that they hail from Guatemala. Without intending to be condescending, that’s not a nation that spawns typhoon waves of extreme metal bands, a fact that just made me more eager to hear them. Continue reading »

CORRUPT MORAL ALTAR: “PATIENTLY WAITING FOR WONDERFUL THINGS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 222020
 

 

(We welcome NCS guest contributor James Parry-Smith , who brings us his review of the new album by Corrupt Moral Altar, which was released in late November by APF Records.)

In a year as irreversibly horrendous as 2020 has been for most of us, a short, sharp injection of white-hot anger and riff-heavy grindcore is exactly what is needed to spruce up the terrible day you may very well be having. Liverpudlian group Corrupt Moral Altar have previous experience in the aforementioned areas, with a pair of EPs and full-lengths to their name over the past decade that have established them as one of the UK’s preeminent grind bands and, with a penchant for delving blithely into sludge metal realms and the battering distortion that characterises such a sound, one of the most interesting to boot.

With 2014’s Mechanical Tides and 2017’s Eunoia both allowing space for the band to stray off the beaten, grinding track and fully explore their collective creative vision, their EPs are by no means one-dimensional in comparison – something that is as clear on latest release Patiently Waiting for Wonderful Things as it has ever been. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020: GROWTH / OBSIDIAN MANTRA / YASHIRA

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 222020
 


Growth

 

(As the year limps to the finish line Andy Synn continues to recommend 2020 albums we haven’t yet covered in detail, bringing us three more reviews today.)

For today’s edition of “Unsung Heroes” we’re looking out towards the edges of the nascent (and slightly controversial) “Post-Death” scene, with three bands who – each in their own way – have taken a sound rooted in the firm foundations of Death Metal and nurtured it, cultivated it, in a much more expansive and progressive direction, cross-breeding it with outside elements and influences in an attempt to produce a new, hybrid-strain of heaviness which is more than just the sum of its varied parts.

Have they been successful? Well that, to an extent, is in the eye of the beholder, but I’d say that each of the three bands featured here shows a lot of promise and potential (in some cases a frankly incredibly amount), to the point where some of them (perhaps even all of them) may one day become future leaders and trailblazers in this slowly evolving sub-scene. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020:  ECCLESIA / LETHIAN DREAMS / SHORES OF NULL

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Dec 182020
 


Ecclesia

 

(Andy Synn follows yesterday’s installment of “Unsung Heroes” with another one, this time presenting reviews and streams of new albums by two French bands and one Italian group, all of which provide well-deserved exceptions to our “Rule” about singing.)

As I’ve tried to stress several times – not just this year, but every year – it is literally impossible for any “Best of…” list to be totally comprehensive and/or definitive.

There’s only so much listening time available, and so many, many albums released each year, that the most you can ever really hope for is a representative sample of the year’s “best” releases.

It’s in acknowledgement of this unfortunate, but incontrovertible, fact of life that I first started writing these “Unsung Heroes” articles in the hope of providing some well-deserved, albeit retroactive, coverage for a bunch of artists and albums which I/we didn’t get chance to cover in proper detail before now, and which you, our readers, may well have missed out on too.

Today’s article has a particularly doomy focus although, as you’re about to find out, each of the three bands featured here has a distinctly different take on the genre.

Of the three artists I’m about to (possibly) introduce you too, one of them is a very recent discovery that I didn’t stumble across until my week-long list-a-thon was almost finished, while the other two I was hoping to be able to write a paragraph or two (or five) about prior to “List Season” commencing, but just never found the time. Continue reading »

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