ABIGAIL WILLIAMS: “WALK BEYOND THE DARK”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 082019
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Abigail Williams, which will be released by Blood Music on November 15th.)

Patience, as we’re so often told, is a virtue. As, perhaps, is perseverance.

If so, then Abigail Williams mainman Ken Sorceron must be practically a saint at this point, having spent over a decade weathering the slings and arrows of hostile critics and the ignorant public in equal measure.

Thankfully, all this time playing the black sheep of American Black Metal has had a paradoxically freeing effect on the band’s music, allowing it to adapt and evolve at its own pace without being shackled by commercial considerations or concerns for the critical consensus.

And nowhere is this more true than on Walk Beyond the Dark. Continue reading »

ESOTERIC: “A PYRRHIC EXISTENCE”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Nov 082019
 

 

(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by the British doom lords Esoteric, which is being released on November 8th by Season of Mist, along with a complete stream of the album.)

What I love about this band is their ability to take doom to places that have little to do with Black Sabbath. Nothing against Geezer and the boys, but I don’t need a genre of impersonators. I want the kind of sonic despair a band like Esoteric are capable of delivering. Eight years after Paragon of Dissonance, which is pretty much a perfect album. expectations are high. What is a band to do after such an achievement?

In the case of Esoteric, they decide to open the album with an almost 28-minute song. To put this in perspective, that is the length of the entire Reign in Blood album. Granted, Slayer were moving at the speed of punk, and these guys are a slow trudge through the apocalypse. With a song of this length I tend to approach it as if it is a symphonic work, written in movements rather than the compact verse-chorus formula. Continue reading »

ORDER OV RIVEN CATHEDRALS: “THERMONVCLEAR SCVLPTVRES BLACKNESS”

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Nov 072019
 

 

(We present DGR’s review of the new third album by the Italian technical death metal band Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, which will be released at the end of this month.)

The last time we checked in with the mysterious duo behind hyperspeed death metal band Order Ov Riven Cathedrals was as recently as last year, with their second full-length album Gobekli Tepe. That album arrived a little under a year after the group’s debut record, The Discontinuity’s Interlude, which is one hell of a creative pace to try and up-keep, and in some ways Gobekli Tepe reflected that, at times feeling like the duo were stretching themselves a little too thin.

That disc sought to expand upon the musical themes found within its predecessor and saw the group’s sound doing so as well, making usage of multiple samples, a myriad of electronics and synths working their way behind the group’s frenetic pace, about fourteen more minutes’ worth of music, and a new-found obsession with nuclear reactions that has become even more obvious with the group’s newest album – this time with a little more time in the hopper, close to a year and a half.

Thermonvclear Scvlptvres Blackness  – a title befitting the Dimmu Borgir school of “three awesome words as album title” method – seeks to pick up right where its predecessor left off and mostly does just that, with the band’s chosen tempo applying not only to their music but apparently to the release schedule as well. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CHARLENE BERETAH — “RAM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 062019
 

 

Nearly three years ago we premiered the debut two-track EP of the Swiss band Charlene Beretah, whose name is in part a tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and the appelation that Private Gomer Pyle bestowed upon his M14 rifle, the one he ultimately used as the instrument of his own destruction. At that time a duo who performed their music using only guitar and drums, the band deployed elements of crust, sludge, black metal, and doom to create sensations of wrenching devastation. We summed it up this way: “Negative, ruinous music for negative, ruinous times, both songs push you toward the abyss, but Charlene Beretah are good at what they do; you may go willingly.

In the years since then the original two-some, Charlene Petit and Thierry Beretah, have been joined by a third marauder, Jean Goisse, and they have also completed work on a debut album named Ram — which does indeed hit like a massive battering ram. It’s supremely destructive. And it also does really nasty things to your mind, and to whatever sense of emotional balance and comfort you might enjoy. It makes an enormous first impression, something like the bomb crater left by a megaton warhead in the midst of dirty urban streets, and the smoldering rubble it makes of a listener’s mental and emotional health isn’t easily reassembled or easily forgotten.

Ram will be released on November 8th by Division Records, but we’re detonating the whole damned thing right now. Continue reading »

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT / BAST / ABDUCTION – NOTTINGHAM 04/11/19

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 062019
 

 

(Andy Synn was fortunate to catch the Nottingham stop on Imperial Triumphant‘s current European tour, with support at the show by Bast and Abduction, and transmitted the following report along with videos of the performances.)

If you’re not at least a little bit concerned about the state of the underground Metal scene in the UK then you’ve not been paying enough attention.

It’s nothing to do with a lack of talent, by any means, as there are innumerable bands out there right now who are all more than capable of going toe-to-toe with the best that the rest of the world has to offer. No, the real concern is a combination of two factors.

First, there’s the ongoing gentrification of our inner cities, with rising rents and rapacious developers continuing to exert crushing pressure on our small-to-mid-sized venues (we’re losing two of my favourites, Temple of Boom in Leeds and The Flapper in Birmingham, very soon), which in turn results in both greater competition for dates between bands as the live circuit contracts and more and more promoters/venues pivot towards courting more profitable, mainstream-friendly fare.

Then there’s the ongoing travesty of Brexit which, regardless of the politics behind it, is going to make it much more difficult for small/medium sized bands to tour the EU, and is likely to also cause problems for foreign bands wanting to tour the UK (where the margin of feasibility, when all costs and logistics are summed up, is often razor-thin).

So please, make sure to support your local promoters and local venues whenever and wherever you can. Because without them gigs like tonight’s extraordinary experience just wouldn’t be possible. Continue reading »

HIDEOUS DIVINITY: “SIMULACRUM”

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Nov 052019
 

 

(On November 8 Century Media will release the new album by Italy’s Hideous Divinity, and today we present Andy Synn‘s review of the album.)

Italian stallions Hideous Divinity have been turning brutality into extreme art for over a decade now, with every album being that little bit faster, heavier, and more technical, than the one(s) before it.

The question now arises though – when your whole aesthetic is based on having everything turned up to eleven all the time, how do you sustain the same impact (and interest) as time goes on, without totally desensitising your audience in the process? Continue reading »

REFUSED: “WAR MUSIC”

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Nov 052019
 

 

(Seattle-based NCS contributor Gonzo has delivered this review of the new album by the Swedish hardcore punk legends Refused, which is out now via Spinefarm Records.)

Few album titles in 2019 have been as well-suited as War Music, the latest slab of anti-capitalist post-punk from Swedish icons Refused.

Never ones to shy away from politically charged subject matter, the Swedes have only seemed to build on the energy of their phenomenal 2015 comeback album, Freedom, and channeled it into a compact 10 songs of vitriolic angst that’s just waiting to be the soundtrack to the next time a protester throws a Molotov cocktail at a government building. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLACK BEAST — “NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 042019
 

 

On November 8th Primitive Reaction will release Nocturnal Bloodlust, the debut album of Finland’s Black Beast — which arrives a long 13 years after their last release (a split with Bloodhammer), so long ago that many of you may not be aware of their existence (I was not). But this debut full-length blazes like a meteor in the night sky, and should quickly elevate them from cult obscurity to a more exalted place in the Finnish black metal star-field.

Nocturnal Bloodlust presents a transfixing blend of bestiality, lust, and anthemic grandeur, with great song-craft to go along with the band’s unwavering devotion to rampant flame-spewing demonism. Continue reading »

SCHAMMASCH: “HEARTS OF NO LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 012019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Swiss band Schammasch, which will be released by Prosthetic Records on November 8th.)

I’m sure it hasn’t escaped the attention of our readers that there’s been a lot of discussion recently about what constitutes “art” – what art is, what it “should” be, who should be allowed to call themselves an “artist” – when it comes to cinema.

And, obviously, this is an issue which extends to the music world too.

I know many people are particularly concerned with what role the intended audience should play in the creation of any piece of art.

Should an artist remain totally disconnected from the wider world, focussing on their own thoughts and feelings, to the exclusion of all else, with no thought to who their viewers/listeners will be?

Or should they consider how people will engage with and interpret their work, and aim to play with the perceptions and expectations of their audience as a way of provoking a certain reaction?

One of these approaches treats art as a form of “pure” expression, the other as a form of “deep” communication, and though both have their defenders and detractors, the truth is that they have both led to the production of some great works of art over the ages.

Which brings us, finally, to Hearts of No Light. Continue reading »

CLOAK: “THE BURNING DAWN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Atlanta’s Cloak, which was released by Season of Mist on October 25th and includes cover art by Adam Burke.)

Cloak’s 2017 album To Venomous Depths showed a great deal of potential. I wanted to hear more of who they were than who they aspired to be. The album was dark and melodic enough for me to invest the time in their sophomore album.

This new album finds the band giving me what I originally wanted from their debut. They are still more committed to sounding Swedish than devoting themselves to black metal, and I am fine with this. After all, there are 100 blast-beaters sitting in my emails every morning. I want something fresh, not warmed up, even if it’s warmed in the fires of hell. Continue reading »

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