AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZEIT – “DRANGSAL”

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Aug 262019
 

 

“With frustration in their hearts, green lungs and Sternburg on their lips, ZEIT try to find their way through the great gray – The distress known as city: Inspiration, coercion, freedom and jail. In dark alleys full of delusions, doubtful souls roam, lost in addiction. No hood, no cult – no collective.”

With those words the Leipzig band Zeit introduce their second album, Drangsal (“distress”), which will be released this coming Friday, August 30th. Through a changing amalgam of black metal, sludge, and doom, they’ve created an album that’s relentlessly intense and brutally heavy in more ways than one, delivering music that captures the blighted urban existence described in those introductory words. Continue reading »

RIPPER: “SENSORY STAGNATION”

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Aug 262019
 

 

(Todd Manning wrote the following review of the new record by the Chilean thrash band Ripper, which is set for release on September 30th by Unspeakable Axe Records.)

For many, and myself included, Ripper’s 2016 full-length Experiment of Existence was a highlight of that year.  The songwriting on that opus was a deft combination of classic Teutonic Thrash and proto-Death Metal with hints of technical musicianship added in for flavor. Now these Chilean madmen are back with their newest release, Sensory Stagnation, once again with Unspeakable Axe Records. Continue reading »

A(NOTHER) DIRTY HALF DOZEN

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Aug 232019
 


Blackhelm

 

(Andy Synn wrote the following collection of six reviews.)

So it’s almost September, and the last third of the year already looks packed to the gills with new releases, both big and small (and that’s just the ones I know about).

Looking backwards is, if possible, even worse, with the list of bands/albums we haven’t been able to cover here at NCS having become so long I can’t even see the other end of it.

And, again, that’s just the albums we KNOW we’ve missed!

Truly, there’s just too much music to properly keep track of it all.

But that’s not going to stop us/me trying, obviously, so here’s a few words about half-a-dozen recent (or recent-ish) releases, running the gamut from some (relatively) big names to some underexposed underground acts. Continue reading »

GOD SAID KILL: “WRATH OF THE AWAKENED”

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Aug 222019
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this review of an album released in May, with cover art by Par Olofsson.)

There are lots of reasons why, logically speaking, I should hate Vancouver B.C. sextet God Said Kill.

They’ve got two singers (one of whom is entirely superfluous as far as I can tell, as there’s nothing here that requires two full-time vocalists), their bio reads like it was written by someone who googled a few smart-sounding words without fully understanding them, and their entire image (up to and including their embarrassingly bad music videos) feels like the band are simultaneously trying too hard, and yet not really trying hard enough, resulting in an overall aesthetic that’s not just weirdly inconsistent but which actively makes it hard to take the band completely seriously.

In fact I’m still not entirely convinced that the entire project wasn’t originally conceived as a bit of a joke, only for everyone involved to realise part way through that they were actually pretty good, so should probably think about getting serious.

And there’s the rub… despite everything I’ve pointed out above, God Said Kill are actually capable of being pretty damn good when they want to be. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ENEMY OF CREATION — “VICTIMS OF THE CROSS”

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Aug 212019
 

 

We’re told that the members of Indiana’s Enemy of Creation are veterans of the underground hardcore scene, and you can tell from listening to the music that they didn’t abandon those roots. But on their forthcoming sophomore EP Victims of the Cross they’ve spliced them with different forms of metal — mainly thrash, but with (as their label says) “the occasional nod to death metal greats Obituary and Bolt Thrower“. And as you’ll discover through our full streaming premiere of the EP, those references still don’t exhaust the differing elements that the band have integrated to create a wonderfully multi-faceted — and relentlessly electrifying — release. Continue reading »

FACELIFT DEFORMATION: “CYBERNETIC ORGANISM ATROCITIES”

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Aug 212019
 

 

(Vonlughlio returns to NCS with a review of the forthcoming second album by the slamming brutal death metal band Facelift Deformation.)

This time around I’m writing about Facelift Deformation‘s sophomore effort, Cybernetic Organism Atrocities, to be released on the 31st of August via Realityfade Records. To be honest, I had heard of this Hong Kong/Taiwan project last year when they released their debut album Domination to Extermination (with another label) but never got around to listening to it.

Realityfade Records made the announcement that they would be releasing this new material, and I was intrigued, to say the least. This label has amazing bands such as Interminable Corruptions, MDMA, Habitual Depravity, Ineffable Demise, Coprobaptized Cunthunter, Decomposition of Entrails, Dysmorfectomy, and ByoNoiseGenetator, just to name a few. I recall when Mr. Sagaidak started this label and it’s good to see the development throughout the years, with a roster that includes many slam/BDM bands I enjoy and some deathcore bands too.  While deathcore is not my thing, I can respect the fact that he is doing what he likes and is not afraid to expand his vision on his own terms. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH 2019: DĀMIM / KRYSTHLA / WARCRAB

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Aug 202019
 

 

(Here’s another installment of Andy Synn‘s occasional series devoted to reviews of new releases by UK bands.)

If there’s one thing I often find a little disappointing about the UK Metal scene it’s that many of our “bigger” underground acts seem content just playing it safe and being little more than a big fish in a relatively small pond.

The following three bands, however, are different, in that not only are they each more than capable of taking on the bigger names and more famous faces of the Metal world at their own game, but they also seem more than willing to risk doing so! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WELLS VALLEY, INDUS, HEKTIK, BURDEN LIMBS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 202019
 

 

It’s an eclectic mix of sounds that I’ve chosen for today’s round-up; an authoritative but not infallible source doesn’t consider any of them metal. As on other occasions, I’ve benefited from recommendations received from Rennie (starkweather), which are the first two bands in this selection. The first of those, Wells Valley, was already a known quantity to me, though I didn’t know they had a new album set for release. The second one (Indus) was a new discovery, as were the next two, which I learned about in other ways.

Hektik‘s new EP seemed to pair up very well with the recent Indus EP, which is why I’ve put them back-to-back in the middle. The music of Burden Limbs is a different breed of cat altogether, but I’ve found myself hooked on the song I’ve included here, and by the forthcoming EP from which it comes.

WELLS VALLEY

In June of this year Black Lion Records released a compilation CD (also available as a name-your-price Bandcamp download here) named Afterlife In Darkness I. It includes songs by 29 bands taken from past and future releases by Black Lion. I should have paid closer attention to it, because one of the five tracks from forthcoming albums on that comp is the new song (“Paragon“) by Wells Valley that I’ve picked to start today’s collection, which is also now streaming on a recently established Bandcamp page for their new album. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSMALIST — “REFLECTIONS OF HORROR”

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Aug 192019
 

 

“18 minutes of eldritch lurch ‘n’ crunch“. Sometimes it’s hard to improve on a good publicist’s summing-up, and in few words that is indeed a very good description of the “crushing ruminations” (another stolen phrase) displayed across the four tracks of Abysmalist’s debut demo, Reflections of Horror. A solemn and shivering bow must also be aimed in the direction of Abysmalist for their selection of a title for the demo, because electrifying horrors live and breathe within its supernatural confines.

Formed by two veterans of the Bay Area crust and hardcore underground, Abysmalist indulge their affections for Bolt Thrower, Obituary, and other “pre-blastbeat death metal” from the early ’90s (one more stolen phrase), as well as an attraction to such authors as Clive Barker and Patrick Süskind, whose works provided lyrical inspiration. And like authors such as those, the eerie reverberations and ghastly vocals in their music send chills down the spine even as the band pound and eviscerate or drag us through dank crypts like rotten but still breathing corpses. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS (PART 2): DIOCLETIAN, MORTIFERUM, ECTOPLASMA, RIPPER

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Aug 182019
 

 

Although Part 1 of this death-centric round-up (here) included a mountain of new music, the mountain is about to grow to greater heights as a result of continued vulcanism in the underground. What I’ve chosen for Part 2 are a new album released on Friday, and recent advance tracks from three forthcoming full-lengths.

DIOCLETIAN

In 2015, after the release of the uber-powerful Gesundrian, Diocletian split up, but the dissolution wasn’t permanent. Guitarist Atrociter re-formed this New Zealand war-metal strike-force with a new line-up that also includes Rigel Walshe (Dawn of Azazel) at bass and vocals, guitarist M.H. (ex-Heresiarch), E. M. at drums, and Impurath from Black Witchery as lead vocalist. That group has recorded a “comeback” Diocletian album entitled Amongst The Flames Of A Burning God that was released two days ago by Profound Lore. Continue reading »

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