INANIMATE EXISTENCE: “UNDERNEATH A MELTING SKY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 292017
 

 

(DGR is experiencing the opposite of writer’s block. After a review and a round-up yesterday, he returns with another review. Today the subject is the new album by California death metal band Inanimate Existence, released on August 25 by The Artisan Era.)

Releasing an album a little bit under year after your last disc is a tall order for a lot of bands. There are a handful of prolific artists out there who seemingly have all the time and creativity in the world, able to put out new releases year-over-year; hell, even the ones who manage to do a new release any time under two years since the last one still seem impressive.

Bay Area tech-death group Inanimate Existence recently found themselves at the most difficult version of that challenge yet, recording and releasing their new disc Underneath A Melting Sky (via The Artisen Era) in the year since their last album, Calling From A Dream, came out. On top of that, the band did that despite some lineup shifts taking place, recording Underneath A Melting Sky as a three-piece. Considering that the band had just recently been a complete five-piece group, Inanimate Existence had a tall order ahead of them as a newly slimmed down trio (slimmed down almost to their first album’s core members, with Cameron Porras and Ron Casey being the tenured members still left). Continue reading »

EMPYREAN THRONE: “CHAOSBORNE”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 282017
 

 

(DGR wrote this review of the new album by Southern California’s Empyrean Throne.)

There exists an alternate reality where the fusion of black metal and death metal, instead of favoring the atmospheres of the icefrost and bleak of the black metal side, took on the more mechanical and firebreathing aspects of the death metal spectrum. Where most blackened death metal tends to favor the ritual and romanticized pomp-and-circumstance theatricality loaned to it by its colder atmosphere-favoring brethren, in this alternate reality it instead leaned toward the heavier groove.

It’s not often that you see the phrase “sun-baked” attached to a disc, yet here we stand with Southern California act Empyrean Throne and their brand of symphonic bombast layered over a large feast of mechanized death metal, with the black metal aspect providing its ritual airs and snarling nihilism to the overall affair.

The group’s recently released album Chaosborne sounds like it was written from within a furnace, every song pushed to the maximum in terms of volume, and the instrumentation following suit, making grandiose sweeping movements from one carved-out blast to the next one. It envisions a world in which the entire planet is basically the high-desert, segments of sand so dry that it looks like it was created in a kiln and shaped into tiles, and those somehow still managing to crack under the heat of the sun. Continue reading »

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY, KEEPING IT TRIBAL WITH CLANN AN DRUMMA, AND GETTING LOST IN THE MAZE OF TERROR

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 272017
 

 

I made a swan dive into a lake of tequila last night at a friend’s birthday party. I surfaced this morning but I’m not swimming very well at the moment. Unfortunately, this means there will be no SHADES OF BLACK column today. I hope I’ll get it finished in time to post tomorrow. But in addition to this morning’s trio of reviews (which I wrote yesterday before the swan dive), I wanted to leave something further with you today.

I guess everything is coming in threes on this Sunday. Here are two videos and one-half of a split that I happened upon yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed. Apart from that coincidence there’s no real rhyme or reason for grouping them together in this post.

NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY

National Space Agency is an organization based in Sydney, Australia. The identities of its members are Classified — literally, their names are all “Classified“. They describe their music as “Cinematic Stoner Metal from Outer Space”. Their stated mission is to “regulate alternate timelines and parallel universes to restore the one true reality”. However, their new video fractured my reality. Maybe the pieces are being assembled into some new shape within my head, or what’s left of it. We shall see. Continue reading »

CATCHING UP: REBEL WIZARD, PALEOWOLF, BØG

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Aug 272017
 

 

I spend so much of each day scurrying around to find and write about new songs from forthcoming releases and to prepare introductions for our own premieres that I rarely have time to write my own reviews of full releases, except in the context of introducing our premieres. On a whim I decided to stop scurrying for 24 hours and share at least a few thoughts about three recent releases I’ve been enjoying.

REBEL WIZARD: THE WARNING OF ONE

The new Rebel Wizard EP is out now. It’s described as “Four anti-shamanic pre-fetal negative metal anthemic warnings of ‘one'”. You should listen to it. You should especially listen to it if you have a taste for the kind of creativity that turns out music which is off of metal’s most familiar beaten paths — although you could also think of it as music that creates intersections of well-loved pathways that usually diverge. Continue reading »

PARADISE LOST: “MEDUSA”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 252017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Paradise Lost, which will be released on September 1 by Nuclear Blast.)

Not that long ago, the idea that Paradise Lost would, twenty years into their existence, be undergoing a well-deserved critical and commercial renaissance, would have been seen as… well, if not outright laughable, then certainly a little far-fetched.

That’s not to say that the band’s foray into the realms of dark, synth-heavy electro-rock was a complete failure (I’ll gladly go to bat for Host any day of the week) but, even so, there was a time when the band’s star seemed very much on the wane, and unlikely to ever ignite in the same way again.

And yet, ever since the release of 2007’s In Requiem the grim Northerners have been on a steady upswing, one which has seen them growing ever darker, ever heavier, and ever doomier over time, ultimately culminating in the utterly monstrous Medusa, one of the darkest, heaviest, and doomiest albums of their career. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT — “FINISTERRE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Aug 222017
 

 

(We have the privilege of helping to premiere a full stream of the new album by Der Weg Einer Freiheit in advance of its August 25 release by Season of Mist, which we introduce with a review of the album by Andy Synn.)

Raise your hand if you’re familiar with Der Weg Einer Freiheit’s phenomenal 2015 album, Stellar?

If your hand isn’t up in the air… shame on you. Shame.

Because you’ve been missing out on one of the most electrifying and emotionally invigorating acts (and albums) in the Metal scene today.

But don’t worry, because the band’s latest record (their fourth) is another opportunity to bask in the glory of their sublime blackened beauty. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EHNAHRE — “THE MARROW”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 212017
 

 

(Austin Weber brings us his review of the new album by the Boston-based ensemble Ehnahre, as well as the premiere of a full stream of this fascinating new record.)

Ehnahre are one of the most interesting groups in metal, a lot of which is due to how much their music draws so liberally from outside of metal, specifically from classical music, chamber music, jazz, film score music, avant-garde, improv, and beyond, with all of this married to a love for all things experimental and harsh, wrapped inside a doom metal, death metal, and sometimes black metal influenced framework.

They’re a rare group, one whose sound is amorphous and ever-shifting from release to release and from song to song, delivered with a scope and love for long-form compositions that ends up making their music feel like it’s a world all its own. For those new to Ehnahre, both current and former members have spent time playing in fellow avant-garde metal experimentalists Kayo Dot  if you need further evidence that this project is worth paying attention to.

I’ve been following the project for many years now, and finally got around to covering them here at NCS starting in 2016 when we helped Ehnahre do an exclusive early stream of their sprawling double album, Douve. That was followed by a second 2016 release in the form of an EP called Nothing and Nothingness, that I also made sure to cover here at NCS. So I’m happy to continue supporting them here with an early stream of their new album, The Marrow. Continue reading »

SEASONS IN DARKNESS: NOISE AND RUIN FROM VRASUBATLAT

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 182017
 

 

(We are very happy to welcome Kaptain Carbon back to NCS with this feature on a series of forthcoming 2017 releases by a label known as Vrasubatlat. Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser-known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community.)

This is not the first time I have written about Vrasubatlat, nor do I believe it will be the last. Over the course of these past years, I have become enamored with the output from this Pacific Northwest label. Aesthetic is important in heavy metal, and the bands that revolve around the universe of Vrasubatlat all seem to be circling the same themes. While each of the bands represented on the label has its own personality, the general tone of spiritual violence, existential ruin, and transcendental obliteration seem to make a solid foundation.

I have decided to wait until now to discuss the recent and future releases from Vrasubatlat. Perhaps I can only experience this type of music in segments, as too much would leave me inverted and eviscerated. Through this showcase and review, I will most certainly be using flowery and colorful descriptions. Part of this is just a writing style, but the other is to express the immersion into unsettling waters. Vrasubatlat is certainly not the end of harsh and dissonant sounds but they are certainly a label with an energetic spirit for it and a lack of caring for others.

Below are a list of releases and new demos from new projects from 2017. I feel fortunate to hear these demos before their release date like some sort of chosen prophet who sees imminent doom in the stars. What I can tell you is that this label, while already ornery and antisocial, has found new ways to describe disgust. Continue reading »

NIGHTRAGE (“THE VENOMOUS”) AND CARACH ANGREN (“DANCE AND LAUGH AMONGST THE ROTTEN”)

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 172017
 

 

(In this long post we have not one but two extended reviews by DGR, one focusing on the 2017 album by the Greek band Nightrage and the second dwelling upon the 2017 album by the Dutch storytellers in Carach Angren.)

If there is one thing I’m a big fan of doing throughout the year, it’s the inevitable dive backwards into the earlier part of the year in order to play the increasingly desperate catch-up game, to write about releases I’ve been listening to, but never took the time out to say anything about. I’ve got a handful of those, and now that I have a little bit more free time from the day-job (which will be brief, let me tell you, the holiday season approaches) I can finally talk about two pretty constant spins from 2017 that NCS hasn’t had the chance to cover yet, completely glossing over the fact that I’m the guy at the site who will usually wave the flag for both bands.

The two this time around are melodeath stalwarts Nightrage and their seventh (!) album, The Venomous, and the latest batch of supernatural symphonic shenanigans from Carach Angren and their album Dance And Laugh Amongst The Rotten.

Nightrage – The Venomous

Without descending too much into an image of me in a room with newspaper articles and photos all connected with string in so many ways that I can barely move around inside of it, disheveled with a half-drunk cup of coffee that has somehow managed to turn semi-solid, screaming that “there has to be some sort of connection here!”, I’m starting to think that the melodeath crew of Nightrage have developed a pattern. It’s one I hoped that with the March release of their album The Venomous, the band would manage to break. Continue reading »

VACIVUS: “TEMPLE OF THE ABYSS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Aug 162017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the debut album by the UK death metal band Vacivus, set for release by Profound Lore on September 22nd.)

Here’s a seemingly simple, but actually incredibly complex, question – why are some bands good and other bands… less so?

Or, to be more specific, what makes some bands capable of spinning fresh gold out of a well-worn sound, while others are doomed to wallow in their own mediocrity?

This is something I’ve been wondering about quite a bit recently, after I came across a pair of Death Metal bands from the UK, both of whom have been receiving a fair bit of hype and attention online, whose albums couldn’t have more clearly represented the opposite ends of this spectrum.

You see, whereas one of these albums (whose name has been withheld out of respect to the victims) turned out to be one of the most painfully unoriginal and uninspired records I’ve heard all year, the other captured a certain freshness, a viciousness, a certain sense of drive and urgency, which made it an absolute joy to listen to.

So whatever this particular attribute, this special x-factor is, it’s clear that Vacivus definitely have it. Continue reading »

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