DISILLUSION: “THE LIBERATION”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
Sep 022019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the German progressive metal band Disllusion, which will be released on September 6th by Prophecy Productions.)

As we’re all aware, music isn’t a competition. But it’s hard, dare I even say impossible at times, not to compare and contrast artists/albums and pit them against one another, weighing up their relative merits, in order to conclude, subjectively at least, which is somehow “better”.

Consider, for example, the comeback album from German Prog-Metal sensations Disillusion.

For those unfamiliar with the band, over the course of these seven tracks you’ll encounter echoes of the cinematic style of Devin Townsend, the epic riffage of Insomnium, the moody melancholy of In Mourning, and the intricate songwriting of Opeth, all interwoven in a way that’s not only far more cohesive and coherent than the most recent release by the former, but which suggests that the latter three will have to produce something truly special in the next few months if they’re not going to be outdone.

For those who already know Disillusion, however… all I really need to say is that The Liberation isn’t just the long-awaited follow-up to their semi-legendary debut (sorry Gloria fans) but might just be even better. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EZKATON — “SHEEN AND MISERY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Aug 312019
 

 

We have a rare Saturday premiere, for a rare album, with a few words of introduction (okay, more than a few).

Building on the strength of three fine previous releases the Ukrainian atmospheric black metal band Ezkaton has completed a fourth one, a new album named Sheen and Misery. That’s what we’re presenting today through a stream of its 12 songs before the September 2nd release by Ashen Dominion. The title of the album itself reveals a great deal about the music, as does the record’s conceptual premise. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 112): WRVTH

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Aug 302019
 

 

(In this August edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn writes of all the albums released by the California band Wrvth, including a review of their most recent album, No Rising Sun, released on August 23rd by Unique Leader Records.)

Recommended for fans of: Fallujah, The Faceless, Bosse-De-Nage

It’s always sad to see a band hanging up their boots just as it seems like they’re hitting their stride. Such is the case with Californian Technical/Progressive/Post-Death Metal crew Wrvth (pronounced “Wrath”, not “Ruth”) who released their fourth and final (and finest) album just last week, before all going their own separate ways.

Beginning life as a much more straightforward Technical Death/core group and operating under the lengthier sobriquet of Wrath of Vesuvius, it wasn’t until 2015, when the band changed their name, upgraded their sound, and released their career-redefining eponymous album, that they really came into their own, having developed a new approach that was simultaneously both atmospheric and aggressive, chaotic and cathartic, ambient yet angular, and which they would go on to refine to near perfection on this year’s No Rising Sun. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS (PART 1): GRAVEVIEW, REEK, VITRIOL

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 302019
 

 

Today’s round-up of new music, divided into two parts, focuses on flavors of death metal (particularly destructive death metal, I should add), hence the title of this post. We begin with a stream of a complete new release (which includes a couple of exclusive song streams you’ll find only at NCS) and then move from there into advance tracks from forthcoming records. Look for Part 2 (which hasn’t yet been finished) a bit later today.

GRAVEVIEW

The first thing that struck me about Graveview after listening to only the first track on the recently released compilation of their two demos is how goddamn massive they sound — like being right up next to some giant excavation machine gouging out the guts of a stone quarry, operated by madmen who are ignoring all occupational safety and health regulations. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HORRID APPARITION, EXORCISME

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 292019
 

 

Not too long ago Redefining Darkness Records digitally released a pair of demos (and launched pre-orders for forthcoming cassette tape editions), and I caught up with them last night. They set my hair on fire. After dousing the flames and getting a bit of fitful sleep I couldn’t resist the urge to let them set my head on fire again this morning. It’s not a good look, but the music sure woke me up in a big damned hurry, and felt just as good the second time around (and by “good” I mean “raw and riotous”).

The two demos — by the French/Dutch marauders in Horrid Apparition and the Cleveland hellfire arsonists in Exorcisme — make very good companions for each other. Both of them thrash like demons, with elements of punk in the mix and a char of blackening.

HORRID APPARITION

Evil Reigns is the name of the two-song debut demo by Horrid Apparition, whose two members are also involved in the old school black metal band DungeönHammer (their debut album Infernal Moon was released last year). Redefining Darkness introduces the new demo with references to the likes of Midnight and Hellripper. Continue reading »

DISSENTIENT: “PORTAL III”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 282019
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Dissentient from Ottawa, Canada, which was released on August 23rd.)

It’s very easy these days to become jaded and cynical when one is confronted by the sheer amount of music out there, much (if not most) of which offers only the slightest variation on the same old tired themes.

It sometimes seems that, instead of the proposed “infinite variety, in infinite combinations” which the future once promised, we are instead assailed by an endless array of copycats and sound-alikes whose entire purpose seems to be simply regurgitating things we’ve already heard in ever more dumbed-down and easily digestible forms stripped of all their subtlety and nuance.

But, every once in a while, if you’re very lucky (or very persistent), you stumble across an album which reminds you that, sometimes, all it takes is a slight tweak, or a slightly different perspective, to make something otherwise familiar feel utterly vital and vibrant once again.

Thus, Dissentient. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE FIFTH ALLIANCE — “THE DEPTH OF THE DARKNESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 282019
 

 

In mid-July the Dutch genre-benders in The Fifth Alliance released a single named “Black”, the opening track on their new album The Depth of the Darkness. It made a stunning first impression on this writer (only a first impression, because I hadn’t encountered the band’s previous two albums, Unrevealed Secrets of Ruin (2013) and Death Poems (2015)).

“Black” amalgamates gigantic, heaving, low-end tones and bone-cracking drum beats; glinting guitar notes and wailing clean vocals; haunting atmospheres of shivering moodiness and building tension; and a thundering eruption of blackened ferocity that takes the seeds of pain in the music and makes them flower in thorns. In that eruption, the guitars buzz and boil in a grim torrent of sound as the rhythm section leaves wreckage in their wake, and the vocals vent scarring torment. After that storm of sound the music becomes spectral and chilling (the vocals even more insane), but seductive as well as disturbing. Those ringing notes you hear at the end don’t go away even after the silence falls.

Of course it is true, as most parents teach their obstinate children, that first impressions matter a lot. But what you do afterward can either undermine a brilliant opening gambit or prove instead that it was no fluke. So the question here becomes, did The Fifth Alliance build on “Black” across the remaining four substantial tracks on The Depth of the Darkness or deflate the lofty expectations created by that first single? You’re about to find out. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CEMETERY LIGHTS — “THE UNDERWORLD”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 272019
 

 

The debut album of Cemetery Lights is a bewildering experience, and a magical one. The sound is earthy, in fact so organic in its tones and so stripped-down in its elements that it brings to mind garage-band rock recordings from many decades past. At the same time it sounds unearthly, so sinister, mysterious, and exotically arcane that it fogs the mind and chills the skin — and conjures visions of otherworldy splendor. Those weirdly perilous and wondrous aspects of the music are in keeping with its conceptual inspirations, which are rooted in the Homerian epics of ancient Greece, in Hesiod’s Works and Days, and in several other complementary texts

This album, The Underworld, is the solo work of The Corpse, a Rhode Island-based musician who began his endeavors under the name Cemetery Lights with a pair of 2018 EPs, Lemuralia and The Church on the Island, which themselves drew inspiration from the history and mythologies of the ancient Mediterranean region — and also sounded like a throw-back to an earlier age of black metal from the same region. Written between 2009 and 2014, the eight songs on the album were recorded at the same time as those EPs, but unlike them include live percussion. Continue reading »

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE: “ATONEMENT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 272019
 

 

(In this post NCS contributor Gonzo reviews the new album by Killswitch Engage, which is out now via Metal Blade Records.)

Perhaps no band in modern American metal has been able to pull off what Killswitch Engage have in their 20-year career: Ascend to the Billboard charts with one vocalist (Jesse Leach), then weather the storm of his departure with a serviceable replacement (Howard Jones), then weather the storm of his departure with the return of Leach, all while never relinquishing their crown as one of the genre’s stalwart kings.

With Atonement, released on August 16th, the band have shown no sign of slowing down. This is the third installment in Leach’s return, and the combination of its blazing riffs, masterful songwriting, and standout individual performances on every instrument might make it the best of the three. Continue reading »

ENTOMBED A.D. : “BOWELS OF EARTH”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 272019
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by Sweden’s Entombed A.D., which will be released on August 30 by Century Media.)

There are a LOT of albums being released this week, from underground underdogs like Witch Vomit to mainstream monsters like Tool.

But, what with time being both limited and linear, we’re unlikely to be able to cover everything in the next few days, which means some difficult choices need to be made.

If there’s one album I wasn’t going to let pass by without comment though, it’s the new Entombed.

You’ll note that I said “Entombed” and not “Entombed A.D.” there because, despite all the ongoing legal shenanigans, I still consider this version of the band to be the legitimate one.

Put it like this, you don’t get to leave a band and then decide to reclaim the name later on (in some cases decades later) just because someone offered you some of that sweet, sweet reunion money.

Of course, you may not agree with me on that, which is your prerogative. But, after listening to Bowels of Earth you might just change your tune… Continue reading »

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