AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GILLIAN CARTER — “…THIS EARTH SHAPED TOMB”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 282018
 

 

Nor for the first time, Adam Burke‘s cover painting was the first source of intrigue about this album. The intrigue deepened when I listened to what was publicly available at the time I first saw the painting. The music in many ways was pretty far afield of what we usually cover at this site, and maybe that was part of its attraction — the allure of something stylistically different, and yet in its own way just as dark, as bone-bruising, and as emotionally super-charged as the metal extremity that takes up most of our time here. Little did I know, even then, how intensely involving the complete album would be.

The album in question is …This Earth Shaped Tomb by the Florida band Gillian Carter. It’s their fifth full-length, a 15-track, 35-minute affair that proves to be a constantly changing and perpetually surprising juxtaposition of sounds and moods. It will be released on August 31st by Skeletal Lightning in North America and Moment of Collapse Records in Europe — and we have a full stream of it for you right now, preceded by bunch of spoilers. Continue reading »

KRISIUN: “SCOURGE OF THE ENTHRONED”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 272018
 

 

(Here’s Vonlughlio‘s write-up on the new Krisiun album, Scourge of the Enthroned, which will be released on September 7th by Century Media.)

As I started to write this small review for Krisiun‘s new album Scourge of the Enthroned, I found myself thinking that this band needs no introduction. They have been active since 1990, releasing crushing Death Metal from their homeland of Brazil.  After this many years of activity, some bands tend to reduce the intensity and fury of their music, evolving into something more, or something less. Sometimes change is good, at other times not so much.

In the case of this band, they seem not to have aged one bit, still combining that fury and precise execution that I discovered back in my country. The year was 1996, and in the Dominican Republic this type of music was hard to get. But fortunately, there was a guy there who somehow got all the music (or knowledge) and would burn tapes, and one of those was Krisiun’s debut album. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MALIGNER — “ATTRACTION TO ANNIHILATION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  4 Responses »
Aug 272018
 

 

The Swedish death/thrashing power trio Maligner wear their late-’80s and early-’90s influences on their sleeves, blasting ahead in the footsteps of such bands as Sadus, Dark Angel, and perhaps most especially Human-era Death. But it’s one thing to draw influence from bands like those and it’s quite another to execute on a vision with the kind of supreme confidence and jaw-dropping skill displayed by Maligner on their debut album, Attraction To Annihilation.

They waste no time establishing their credentials, opening the album with a track (“Oath-bound”) that’s an explosive adrenaline-surge powered by lightning-fast fret-work and agile, rhythmically dynamic drumming with a propensity to turn on a dime. Serving up an array of blaring chords and frenzied riffs, this trio explode through the song in a way that’s surgically precise but capable of channeling bonfires of chaos. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 100): ANCESTORS

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Aug 272018
 

 

(We have arrived at the glorious 100th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, which Andy started back in January 2011 with a retrospective about Astarte. In this month’s column, he reviews all the albums released to date by L.A.-based Ancestors, including the just-released Suspended In Reflections.)

Recommended for fans of: Yob, Devin Townsend, Anathema

Selecting what bands to include in the “Recommended for fans of” section of each of these columns is sometimes really easy, sometimes really hard, and sometimes… a little more complicated.

In the case of Progressive Stoner-Doom sorcerors Ancestors it’s really not sufficient to like just one of the bands recommended above, you have to appreciate all three of them – the gruff vocals and expansive grooves of Yob, the dynamic soundscapes and soul-stirring riffs of Devin Townsend (particularly circa-Terria), and the melancholy moods and soaring melodies of latter-day Anathema – and be keen to hear what a crossover between these artists might sound like.

You also need to be open to some calmer, more introspective experiences, particularly since their two most recent albums – 2012’s In Dreams and Time, and the just-released Suspended in Reflections – find the group pushing even further down the Prog/Post-Rock pathway.

But if all that sounds intriguing… then this will definitely be the band for you. Continue reading »

MANTAR: “THE MODERN ART OF SETTING ABLAZE”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Aug 222018
 

 

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the German duo Mantar, which will be released by Nuclear Blast on August 24th.)

There comes a moment, in every band’s career (ok, not every band’s career) when they need to decide whether to “go big or go home”.

And it looks like that time has finally come for Mantar, as The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze is easily the biggest, boldest, and most shamelessly bombastic, album of their short but celebrated career, and is practically crying out to be performed on bigger stages and in front of even bigger crowds. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR: THE BEST NU-METAL RECORD OF ALL TIME?

 Album Reviews, THE REARVIEW MIRROR  11 Responses »
Aug 222018
 

 

(Our Rearview Mirror series, which used to be an NCS fixture on Sundays, has been eclipsed by black metal, but has been temporarily revived today as a vehicle for this retrospective by TheMadIsraeli.)

This is one of my favorite albums of all time.  I’ve never heard anything like it, not before it and not after it.  Nu metal was a weird, kooky-ass genre but it produced some gems, and this is one of them. For me personally, this is probably the best record ever made during nu metal’s reign.  The passion and the weird inter-sectional nature of the elements involved made this album, for me, basically perfect.

American Head Charge themselves are a weird band, releasing a 1999 debut (an underground, very rare release that mostly had songs from this album with much worse production and less fleshed-out sounds), this album where they hit an unreal stride, followed by a detour into just… kind of plain nu metal.  I’m not sure why they didn’t continue what they did on this album; it’s a mystery that bugs me to this day, but I genuinely do believe that The War Of Art is one of the best albums made in metal’s history, in addition to being the best of its entire sub-genre. Yeah, I said it. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HADAL MAW / IRON FLESH / TAKEN BY THE TIDE

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 212018
 


Hadal Maw

 

(In this post Andy Synn has assembled three reviews of three new EPs that deliver diverse forms of metal extremity.)

Not much of a preamble today, I’m afraid, apart from affirming that you should really check out these three EPs if you’re after a short, sharp fix of sonic savagery.

‘Nuff said. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ULVEN — “DEATH RITES UPON A WINGED CRUSADE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 212018
 

 

We’re so spoiled, those of us with a taste for the bitter, biting salts and the boiling acidity of black metal. We lift the old vintages to our lips, and the new ones; we feel the sting of sulphur in our nostrils and see the pale beckoning hands or the charging cavalries of death in our minds; we might feel transported to nether dimensions that seem poised to swallow and sever us without a backward glance of regret. Satiety can lead to cynicism for some, and even for the never-sated but not easily impressed among the rest of us, we do tend to greet new black metal with the same demand that became the motto of Missouri: Forget the rhetoric, you’ve got to show me.

The PR rhetoric around Ulven’s new album was that it would be “based on the worship of death and reaching beyond the shadows of the deep abyss”, and that as compared to Ulven’s first album, the sounds of this new one — Death Rites Upon A Winged Crusade — “have shifted and morphed to become an entirely new and unholy creature.” Okay, I thought, show me. And Ulven did.

And now we’ll show you, too. There’s a full stream of the album at the end of this post; the album will be released on August 24th by Fólkvangr Records on tape and CD, with a vinyl edition coming from Death Kvlt Productions. Continue reading »

INFERNAL COIL: “WITHIN A WORLD FORGOTTEN”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 212018
 

 

(This is Todd Manning‘s review of the new album by Infernal Coil, which is set for release on September 14th by Profound Lore Records.)

Profound Lore is an underground label that has always enjoyed a certain amount of critical acclaim, with bands like Agalloch, Pallbearer, and Subrosa (to name a few) enjoying coverage across the entire Metal spectrum and even attention from such outlets as NPR, Rolling Stone, and Spin magazine. What is truly heartening for the underground fan is the label’s continuing commitment to releasing albums from some of the nastiest underground Death and Black Metal bands in the business.

The latest offering of unadulterated Death Metal from the label comes in the form of Idaho-based killing unit Infernal Coil. Their debut full-length Within a World Forgotten is due out on September 14th. Continue reading »

DEBRIDEMENT: “DROWNING IN A CESSPOOL OF MALFORM AND MALADY”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 202018
 

 

(NCS contributor Vonlughlio reviews the new album by Debridement from Northern Ireland, which will be released on August 23rd by Rotten Roll Rex.)

The music of the band that’s the subject of this small write-up is just pure and filthy fun. Yes, you read that correctly, and why do I say that? ‘Cause it’s Slam/BDM done right, and that is intended to make you smile (even though you shouldn’t) and enjoy the music for just that: It’s fun and entertaining.

That band is a one-man project called Debridement, run by Mr. Brown (guitarist from the band Oncology) from Northern Ireland. I discovered this project back in 2016 with their EP Reduced to a Pile of Putrefying Slop and thought to myself, with a big smile, this is indeed filthy and disgusting, and sloppy (production-wise). It showcased the musical ability of Mr. Brown, who performed all the instruments, while envisioning how this style of goregrind should sound. It was 18 minutes of pure entertaining, horrible music, executed precisely and leaving the listener wanting more. Continue reading »

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