A DECADE OF DARKNESS

 Album Reviews, Listmania  12 Responses »
Nov 092020
 


artwork by Alexandra V. Bach

 

(In this post Andy Synn presents a listing of recommended black metal albums (or at least blackened ones) for each of the last 10 years, focusing on records and artists that he hasn’t written or read enough about.)

Wonder of wonders, Kerrang (yes, it’s still around) recently published a list of “The 13 Best Black Metal albums of the New Millenium” and… it was actually pretty solid?

I know, I was (pleasantly) surprised too!

And it got me thinking that, since I recently celebrated my tenth anniversary as a writer for NoCleanSinging, now might be a good time to publish my own thoughts on how the black (or, at least, “blackened”) arts have evolved, and endured, over the last ten years.

As far as possible I’ve tried to stay away from the biggest/most notorious names and focus more on those artists/albums which either I didn’t manage to cover myself, or which I feel didn’t get enough wider coverage/attention overall, but that doesn’t mean this article should be interpreted as an attempt to prove who is more “kvlt” (because it’s certainly not me).

What this is is simply a way of celebrating the art of Black Metal, in all its endless vitality and variety while also bringing some much-needed attention to some bands who richly deserve it. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH 2020: BA’AL / COUNTLESS SKIES / CULT BURIAL

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Nov 052020
 

 

(Here’s another installment in Andy Synn‘s long-running series of reviews devoted to releases by bands from the UK, where he’s based.)

Oh, what big plans I had for this week. I was going to write so much more for the site, about so many different bands/albums, some new, some old, that it was going to take most of you another whole week just to get through it all.

But, as it is wont to do, life got in the way, with work pressures and some last-minute setbacks in preparation for filming our next music video taking up more and more of my time (and adding more and more stress) with every passing day.

Still, things have slowly started to ease off now, meaning I’ve got just enough time to sneak in a brand new entry of “The Best of British” for you all to enjoy going into the weekend. Continue reading »

NCS PREMIERES FOR USTKARA GHOST’S “CONSUMING THE ABYSS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 052020
 

 

What do you think would happen if two such doom maestros as Daniel Neagoe (Clouds, Aeonian Sorrow) and Shaun Macgowan (My Dying Bride) were to join forces in a new musical project? Well, you need not engage in too much speculation, because that is in fact what they have done, and we have the results for you right now.

Under the name Ustkara Ghost they have completed work on a debut album named Consuming The Abyss that’s being released today, and to help spread the word we present a full stream of the album, as well as the debut of a lyric video for its longest and most multi-faceted song. Continue reading »

ABHORRENT CASTIGATION: “ON THE SHORES OF HELL”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 052020
 

 

(This is the final installment in a seven-record review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. Today’s subject is a new EP by the German band Abhorrent Castigation, which was released in late August.)

It has been a little while since I’ve found a band by falling into the social media vortex of going from band to band to band, exploring who was playing shows with whom, who is showing up in various band recommendation segments, etc., and Germany’s Abhorrent Castigation were a result of such an adventure.

I’ve mused a few times in reviews this year about groups that I feel get slid across my metaphorical desk because someone listened to them and went ‘oh, I know exactly who to give that to’. Well, the opposite happened with Abhorrent Castigation. I listened to their new EP and knew that had it not crossed my desk, they would’ve eventually found their way on here anyway because they have appeared on this very site before – granted, way back in the yonder days of 2014, but still. It’s a good bet that eventually they would’ve appeared fully formed out of the mist once again, bringing their hybrid of brutal death, grind, and slam as all hell. Continue reading »

CARACH ANGREN: “FRANCKENSTEINA STRATAEMONTANUS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Nov 042020
 

 

(This is the sixth installment in a seven-album review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. With one exception we’ve been running these on consecutive days, and today’s subject is the latest album by the Dutch metal band Carach Angren, released in June by Season of Mist.)

Carach Angren armed with a budget is proving to be a dangerous thing indeed.

I can’t claim to have gotten in on the ground floor with these ghouls, but I can say that I showed up pretty damned close to it and have been following the group since then. It’s been fun to watch as they’ve grown in stature and advanced their career while at the same time maintaining a fair share of ‘camp’ in their music. Continue reading »

SCARAB: “MARTYRS OF THE STORM”

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Nov 032020
 

 

(This is the fifth installment in a seven-album review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. With one exception we’ve been running these on consecutive days, and today’s subject is the third album by the Egyptian death metal band Scarab, released last spring by ViciSolum Productions.)

It isn’t the most intuitive thing in the world, but I could’ve sworn that I learned about Scarab’s early-2020 disc Martyrs Of The Storm via ViciSolum Productions at this very site. We’d covered them previously so the Egyptian death metal group were already on my radar. But this specific album is one where I’m swearing up and down that we already wrote about it here – so much so that I’m somewhat scared that I may already be stepping on someone else’s turf by writing about it again.

That’s especially true when you consider that an album like Martyrs Of The Storm will generally find a solid foothold around these parts – partially my fault – because it’s a giant fifty-minute bear of a disc that plays well within the realm of the low and hammering brutal death traditions. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SHATTERED HOPE — “VESPERS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Nov 032020
 

 

In much of the northern hemisphere there is a chill in the air today as the seasons shift into winter, but not solely for that reason. You probably know other reasons for the intensifying chills across our skins that have nothing to do with air temperature, rain, wind, or snow. We live in a frightening and perilous time. The conjunction of the misery and anxiety spawned by what goes on around us and the inexorable sinking into winter makes this day a nearly perfect occasion for the revelation of Shattered Hope‘s new album Vespers.

And it truly is a revelation, one of the most completely immersive and emotionally powerful albums you’re likely to encounter this year. It consists of five extensive tracks that collectively exceed an hour in length. Despite their length, each track is so brilliantly crafted, and embodies so many gripping changes, that getting lost in them is almost inescapable. The entire experience is tragic, as one might expect from this Greek band, who have become so well-known in the halls of atmospheric doom-death and funeral doom, but the album’s monumental visions of devastating moods are magnificent.

And we are thus tremendously fortunate to present a full stream of Vespers today, just days before its November 6 release through the esteemed Solitude Productions. Continue reading »

WHITE STONES: “KUARAHY”

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Nov 022020
 

 

(This is the fourth installment in a seven-album review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. We’ve been running these on consecutive days — except we missed Friday — and today’s subject is a debut album released last spring via Nuclear Blast by the Spanish band White Stones.)

The March 13, 2020 album Kuarahy by the band White Stones is such a fascinating release for a number of reasons. This far out from its release, it’s been interesting to see how things have played out for the group’s debut release via Nuclear Blast. On the homefront, we covered the music videos in the lead-up to the debut of this project led by Martin Mendez (of Opeth bassist fame), but upon full release it kind of full off the site’s radar. We’ll rectify that here.

This is a record I’ve listened to a multitude of times since its release, and by the end of multiple listening sections and a seven-month writing delay it remains stubbornly ‘interesting’, in part because what keeps grabbing me seems to nebulous. Every time I think I have a hold on it, it wriggles away and moves just slightly out of vision again. It’s a bizarre creature that seems to exist permanently ‘elsewhere’, even though  at first glance it never seems to garner much more than ‘that’s some prog-death music alright’. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 126): DYSYLUMN

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Oct 302020
 

 

(In this Synn Report for the month of October 2020, Andy Synn assembles reviews of all the albums released by the French band Dysylumn, the most recent of which appeared earlier this month via Signal Rex.)

Recommended for fans of: Schammasch, Sinmara, Blut Aus Nord

I know, I know, this is the third time in a row where The Synn Report has zeroed in on a band playing some form of Black Metal. And, I promise, next month’s edition will break the pattern. But I honestly couldn’t let October pass by without taking the opportunity to completely immerse myself in the pitch-black back-catalogue of French duo Dysylumn, whose latest album was released earlier this month.

If it helps matters, the band’s earliest works erred much more towards the Blackened Death Metal side of things  albeit with a heavy, borderline hypnotic, atmospheric presence on top of all that, so this edition of The Synn Report is still set to be strikingly different to the ones which preceded it.

But what I’m really looking forward to here is an opportunity to chart the band’s evolution from their imposing Black/Death early output through to their more atmosphere-intense, poisonously “progressive” Black Metal of their more recent work, as it’s only be understanding where they came from that we can truly appreciate what they’ve become. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ATOMIC WITCH — “DEATH, SEX, AND SATAN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 302020
 

 

When we last checked in with Atomic Witch at our putrid site, about 14 months ago, the occasion was a premiere of the title track from their first EP, Void Curse. It caused us to conclude that the long-time disciples of the Cleveland metal and hardcore scene who formed Atomic Witch picked a damned good band name. As we wrote then, that EP “couples the wild radioactive energy of a runaway nuclear meltdown with the weird and witchy feeling of a supernatural orgy”. Together, those four tracks were supercharged with furious, pulse-pounding energy, head-spinning instrumental changes, and unhinged vocal intensity. The genre-bending music created a maniacal atmosphere, whole-heartedly indulging in a musical blood-spraying riot from beginning to end.

Now, 14 months later, the band’s label Seeing Red Records is on the verge of releasing a new Atomic Witch EP, entitled Death, Sex, and Satan. They picked Halloween as the release date (tomorrow!), for reasons that will become obvious when you find out what they’ve done — and yes, you can find out right away, because we’re premiering a full stream of the whole thing. Continue reading »

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