SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ENTHEOGEN, JASSA, DAEVA, UR, NIGHTGRAVE, INFERNOTION

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Jan 022018
 

 

This is the second part of a post I began here on the last day of the old year, delayed by one day so that I could recover from a cataclysmic hangover produced by unforeseen New Year’s Eve revels; the old year died, and then I felt as if I had, too.

I’ve collected streams of six albums here, all of them released in December or November, accompanied by nothing that would justify the term “review”, only a few inadequate words of description and praise that I hope will induce you to explore the music. This won’t be the last of my efforts to catch up with music released last year, though inevitably we’ll start paying increasing amounts of attention to the march of metal in 2018.

ENTHEOGEN

Andy Synn already included this record on his listing of 2017’s “Great Albums”, and it recently appeared on Brendan Sloan’s list (here) as an Honorable Mention — but only because he thought it would be greedy to put more than one Alex Poole project in his Top 17 list (the other being Chaos Moon). Yet despite this attention, both at NCS and elsewhere, I wanted to give my own nudge to those who haven’t yet heard Without Veil, Nor Self. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EUCLIDEAN, BALMOG, BHLEG, SAMMATH, BLACK KNIFE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Dec 272017
 

 

I’m three days late with this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK, and still woefully behind in sharing new music in a blackened vein that I’ve discovered over the last month. I’m bound and determined to do at least one more of these features before 2017 is interred in a moldy grave, as long as I’m sufficiently unbound by other distractions.

This particular collection includes one complete new album, advance tracks from two more, some new live videos, and a new single.

EUCLIDEAN

To begin this selection of music, I want to strongly recommend Quod Erat Faciendum, the debut album of the Swiss band Euclidean, which was released on December 21 and came strongly recommended to me by starkweather and by Miloš. Continue reading »

POST-CHRISTMAS NECROSIS: ATOMWINTER, LIMOS, REX DEMONUS, HUSK

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 262017
 

 

I hope everyone had a good Christmas Day, even if the day itself is nothing special to you. As you may have seen, NCS was alive and kicking despite the holiday, with three premieres yesterday. And we’ll continue to kick for the rest of the week with a rollout of more year-end lists by NCS contributors and invited guests, plus assorted other posts.

I wasn’t able to get a SHADES OF BLACK post done for Sunday, but it’s coming soon… and may be a two-parter, because there’s a lot I want to write about. But to start the six days that remain before New Year’s Eve, I selected three recent songs and one new EP that sound like the antithesis of peace on earth, good will toward men, because I can only take so many demonstrably impotent platitudes of that nature before I have to dose myself with flesh-eating music.

ATOMWINTER

The consumption of flesh commences with a track from Catacombs, the new third album by the German harbingers of total death in Atomwinter. The album will be released by Trollzorn on February 9 (digital, CD, and gatefold LP). And isn’t that a hellishly fantastic album cover? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PESTILENCE, ATARAXY, WHOREDOM RIFE, TALSUR, VIELIKAN, HOLYARROW

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Dec 222017
 

 

After a nearly two-week vacation in which I blogged very little, I returned to Seattle late last week and was promptly slammed by my fucking day job, unforeseen personal obligations, bad weather, and a whole bunch of NCS articles to write or edit, including the continuation of our LISTMANIA series, interviews, reviews, and a bunch of premieres. I can’t really say I need another vacation already… but I kind of do.

Anyway, I haven’t written one of these round-ups in 12 days, and I’m way behind in even listening to all the new songs that have appeared since my vacation began 19 days ago. I started working on this collection early this week but decided to include a couple of songs that have appeared more recently. I hope to do more catch-up round-ups this weekend, including a Sunday SHADES OF BLACK feature, because holidays don’t mean shit around here.

PESTILENCE

Roughly four and a half years after their last album, Pestilence will release a new one via Hammerheart Records named Hadeon, and earlier this week Hammerheart previewed the album with a single called “Multi Dimensional“. It didn’t take long for my NCS comrade TheMadIsraeli to send me an alert about the song, wth a positive message. Continue reading »

SHINING – “X: VARG UTAN FLOCK”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Dec 222017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Sweden’s Shining, which will be released by Season of Mist on January 5, 2018.)

 

Wubalubadubdub! What up, my glip-glops?

That’s right, it’s time for another album of musical misery from everyone’s favourite alcoholic, misanthropic, existential nihilist Rick Sanchez Niklas Kvarforth and his merry band of Mortys… aka Shining! Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: SONIC POISON — “COMBAT GRIND”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 212017
 

 

It’s fair to say that Caligari Records has had a banner fucking year in 2017, releasing extremely well-received albums and EPs by such bands as Rope Sect, Boia, Devoid of Thought, Ziggurat, Shaman Ritual, Uttertomb, Funeralium, and Amnutseba (among others). But the year isn’t (quite) over yet, and Caligari has one more release for us, one that will help bring the year to an end in a pile of smoking rubble. And that one last release is the second EP by the Finnish grinders Sonic Poison, which it’s our pleasure to premiere on its release date — which is today!

Entitled Combat Grind, this is Sonic Poison’s second release, following their 2016 debut (also released by Caligari), Harsh Demonstration…, and it reveals the work of a band who have surged ahead to new heights of mauling destructiveness. Continue reading »

BLASTEROID: “UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 212017
 

 

(Andy Synn prepared this review of the new EP by Blasteroid from Athens, Greece.)

 

List season may be over (for me at least), but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop covering new music, so you can expect to see a bevy of new reviews – some from 2017, some from 2018 – popping up here and there over the next couple of weeks.

And what better way to begin than with the debut EP by progressive Tech Death fret-wizards Blasteroid – a band with simultaneously the greatest and worst name of any band ever. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 30): AEGRUS, HEIR, CAÏNAN DAWN, STAHLSARG, LUNA, SAR ISATUM

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 202017
 

 

(This old year is gasping its last breaths — and even fewer are left than the last time we welcomed our friend Gorger from Norway — but he has found time for one more collection of 2017 releases that we haven’t previously reviewed before the death rattle. To find more of his recommendations, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

 

Welcome to Part XXX in this here attempt at filling the gaps left by the runaway NCS high-speed rail. Last time around, I wrote about “four new picks” in the ingress. I obviously can’t count for shit. Also, Islander’s prequel indicated that BtNCSR pt.29 was my last endeavour to finish off 2017. Well, I never told him that I was hoping for one more, and truth be told, I wasn’t betting on it either.

I do have more 2017 metal to share, but that’ll have to wait ’til next year. In the meantime, my top 20 will emerge amidst the Listmania® madness. I’ve narrowed down my candidates from more than 60 to 30 at the time of writing. The finals will be tough as hell. Continue reading »

A DOOMED DESCENT (PART 5): NORILSK, OPHIS, PROCESS OF GUILT

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 192017
 

 

(In the fall of this year we posted a four-part series of reviews by Comrade Aleks, who usually brings us excellent interviews from the manifold realms of doom, and now we have a fifth part, in which Aleks spreads the word about 2017 albums by Norilsk, Ophis, and Process of Guilt.)

 

Autumn 2017 brought three big releases to followers of the extreme doom metal scene. Of course there were many more, but I want you to pay an attention to these three today.

I greatly enjoyed the first album of death-doom Norilsk (Canada) in 2015 and was pretty excited to listen to their second work Le Passage Des Glaciers. The new Ophis (Germany) became a real trial for me with its sick and deranged atmosphere embodied in their own darkest nihilistic way. And Process Of Guilt (Portugal) made another step further from their death-doom roots and have recorded interesting and intensive sludge-focused music. Let me sum up my impressions. Continue reading »

MIST OF MISERY: “FIELDS OF ISOLATION”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Dec 132017
 

 

(Norway-based writer Karina Noctum reviews the new EP by Sweden’s Mist of Misery, set for December 15 release by Black Lion Records.)

I have kept an eye on Mist of Misery ever since I listened to Absence, which was released in 2016. I spent that year focused on Black Metal. I remember it was after a painful journey through lots of underground bands who were too simple and pretty basic that I finally found Absence. I enjoyed the excellent song structures, as well as how they handled the changing moods, and really liked the drumming as well.

After Absence they released Shackles of Life last summer, and a song from that EP was premiered here. The EP wasn’t reviewed, but I can blame it on me being busy and 2017 being a year where Death Metal consumed me; I was pretty much in the Neanderthal spectrum of metal things.

Now MoM are releasing a new EP called Fields of Isolation though the Swedish label Black Lion Records from Umeå, and I couldn’t let it pass without reviewing it: Continue reading »

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