AN NCS EP PREMIERE: AZIZA — “COUNCIL OF STRAITJACKETS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 262017
 

 

By their own account, Minneapolis-based Aziza play “Thunderpunk”, combining “sludge, hardcore, and heavy metal”. “We play buttrock for the thinking man’s metal head,” they say. I get where they’re coming from, but I also think they’re understating the exuberant inventiveness on display in their new EP, Council of Straitjackets, which is being released today — and which we’re premiering in this post.

No doubt, the music is heavy — it’s brawny and bruising, venomous and vicious — but it’s also brain-scrambling and occasionally hallucinatory. I had visions of a brutish thug performing a nimble, bounding floor routine at a gymnastics meet while clubbing the competition and then showing his appreciation for the judges by sinking his teeth into their jugulars. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SEVENTH CIRCLE — “VOLUNTARY TORTURE”

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Jul 262017
 

 

Eons ago when I was in high school one of my best friends, and one of the gentlest souls I knew, got cross-wise with a guy from whom all gentleness had been purged. He hit my friend in the mouth with a brick. It shattered his front teeth and left him shrieking on the ground, his face a river of blood. It was the most violent thing I had witnessed up to that point in my life. That disturbing vision came back to me as I listened to Voluntary Torture.

This debut album by the Belgian band Seventh Circle consists of a dozen compact bouts of mauling mayhem and morbid misery. The cover art is a good match for the music, which comes at your throat with teeth spread wide, fury engaged, all hope purged.

The album will be released on vinyl by the Soaked In Torment label, who recommends it for fans of Nails, Trap Them, All Pigs Must Die, Integrity, Rotten Sound, and Full Of Hell. It combines blackened hardcore, brutal death/grind, and a relentlessly desolate outlook on life (displayed quite vividly through the song titles) to produce the audio equivalent of a brick to the teeth and an A-grade adrenaline spike right in the brainstem. You can (and should) listen to it through our premiere below. Continue reading »

NECK OF THE WOODS: “THE PASSENGER”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jul 262017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Vancouver’s Neck of the Woods, which is set for a September 15 release by Basick Records.)

As a writer/reviewer/opinionated asshole, I’m very aware of the effect that using the wrong words – particularly when it comes to genre terms – can have in a review.

Let’s face it, if I refer to something as “Black Metal” there’s always going to be someone ready to jump down my throat because the band in question isn’t “true”. If I call something “Death Metal”, there’s bound to be someone who’ll assert that the band in question aren’t “real Death Metal”. And if I even mention the whole “Post-“ thing… well, you know the rest by now.

So I’m seriously wondering how best to refer to the music of Vancouver virtuosos Neck of the Woods so as to alienate the least amount of people?

Progressive Death Metal-core maybe?

Wait, come back… Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NATTVERD — “VI VET GUD ER EN LØGNER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  5 Responses »
Jul 252017
 

 

Seemingly out of nowhere comes one of the best black metal albums of 2017, one that is simultaneously rooted in the decades-old traditions of cold Norwegian black metal and yet so vibrant and multifaceted, and so sure-handed in its songwriting and execution, that it breathes new life into the sounds. The achievement is all the more impressive because this is a debut album.

The album is Vi Vet gud Er En Løgner (We Know God Is A Liar) by the Norwegian band Nattverd. It will be released in September, and we’re fortunate to host a full stream of the music in this post. Continue reading »

BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS: “THE STARS OF THE SKY HID FROM ME”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jul 252017
 

 

(Our old friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth [ex-Number of the Blog} presents the following review of the new album by Blood of the Prophets, scheduled for release on July 27.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. As promised, I have returned to provide my thoughts in full on The Stars Of The Sky Hid From Me (henceforth to be referred to using the acronym TSOTSHFM), the newest album from Blood Of The Prophets, a technical death metal trio from Toledo, OH.

TSOTSHFM is the band’s first release in seven years, a long absence for any band regardless of how well-known or obscure they may be. Consider your life seven years ago, and how much has changed since then. I could list countless major differences for myself and exhaust the entire space of this review and still leave out many, many things. For a band to return from that kind of absence and then deliver a quality work is impressive. Continue reading »

ATRIARCH: “DEAD AS TRUTH”

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Jul 242017
 

 

(Wil Cifer wrote this review of the new album by Atriarch from Portland, Oregon, coming in August via Relapse Records.)

The Portland band returns with a new full-length that finds the newest incarnation of the band exploring yet another path to heavy.

The gloom is more visceral in the ritualistic pulse of “Inferno”, which opens the album. Singer Lenny Smith shouts out commanding declarations of his spiraling emotional state. Right from the first song they waste no time using an array of vocal colors, from a death rock croon to a black metal howl.

More often than not they creep along at more of a doom pace, yet the darkness they paint these songs with would appeal to fans of black metal. When they do choose to pick up the pace, they do so without using blast beats as an easy way out. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: SINMARA — “WITHIN THE WEAVES OF INFINITY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 232017
 

 

Listeners who have closely followed Iceland’s burgeoning black metal scene over the last decade know that there has been considerable cross-pollinization among bands in the vanguard of that surging movement. Sinmara is perhaps the best example, with a line-up that includes members of such other groups as Svartidauði, Slidhr, Wormlust, and Almyrkvi. Their 2014 debut album Aphotic Womb (which we had the privilege of premiering) was a gripping display of what such a creative collaboration could produce. Since then, Sinmara have released only one other song, “Ivory Stone”, which appeared on their split with Misþyrming early this year (reviewed here). But Sinmara now return with a new EP, and once again we’re fortunate to host its premiere.

The new EP, consisting of three interconnected songs, is named Within the Weaves of Infinity. It will be released on August 24th by Terratur Possessions on vinyl and CD and by Oration on cassette tape. However, as of today it’s available digitally via Bandcamp. We have the full stream below, along with some impressions of the music and news of a forthcoming Sinmara tour. Continue reading »

BYZANTINE: “THE CICADA TREE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 202017
 

 

(We present TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by West Virginia’s Byzantine, scheduled for release by Metal Blade on July 28.)

When Byzantine basically slowly imploded after their fantastic self-titled comeback I’ve no shame in admitting I was super-concerned about what would happen. I knew Chris Ojeda wanted to continue on, it was his baby, he’s the reason Byzantine exists, but the “OG” lineup of Byzantine, the one people remember, was pretty hard to beat and had some uniquely talented musicians in it, stylistically. Lead guitarist Tony Rohrbough would be especially the hardest element to replace, as his angular jazz-fusion-esque approach to soloing over the thrash/math-metal/southern-swagger juggernaut of the Byzantine sound served as the final piece in the band’s musical jigsaw puzzle that saw the whole thing come together.

To Release Is To Resolve, the band’s first album with its current line-up, was a great record, but one that had a lot of jagged edges on it as the effort to incorporate the new blood’s musical talents and tendencies hadn’t quite yet been worked out. Brian Henderson’s guitar playing was far more melodic and hook-oriented than Rohrbough’s, and Ojeda had bassist Sean Sydnor, who was much more technically skilled at his instrument than Michael Chromer, to account for. It was still Byzantine in all of the right ways, and even saw the band visiting more progressive pastures in light of the absence of Tony Rohrbough, who was a zealot for cutting songs down to the absolute minimum efficiency possible.

An evolution was definitely on the horizon, and I was eager to hear what would come next. Original drummer Matt Wolfe is now out of the picture since To Release…, making Ojeda officially the only original Byzantine member left in the band. Matt Bowles has stepped into the kit position, and he brings with him a greater degree of technical prowess. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CONCRETE AGE — “THE TOTEM OF THE GREAT SNAKE, PART 1”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Jul 192017
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Concrete Age, along with our premiere of a full album stream.)

 

Technical thrash-style riffing? Check. Melodic death metal styled melodic approaches and emotive song-writing? Check. Eastern ethnic cultural instruments and influences? Check. Raw thrash/hardcore styled vocals that have a complete disregard for technique and are all passion? Check. Concrete Age encapsulate a lot of things I love in extreme metal.

If this were a different time, these guys would definitely be classified under the so-called “Neo-thrash” tag alongside Hatesphere or Carnal Forge or even Darkane. Their music is more technical melodic death metal, I guess, with a great deal of Eastern ethnic instrumental moments and melodic tendencies.

The Totem Of The Great Snake, Part 1 is an immensely powerful album and is also the best melodic death metal album of the year that I’ve heard by FAR so far. Big deal, considering the style’s been in a real slump the last couple of years. Continue reading »

ORDER OV RIVEN CATHEDRALS: “THE DISCONTINUITY’S INTERLUDE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 182017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by Italy’s Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, which was released on July 5, 2017.)

Italian death metal and I have a pretty tense relationship. It tries so hard, and there’s certainly impressive things about it, but I’m usually not impressed. I like Hideous Divinity, and some Hour Of Penance and Fleshgod Apocalypse, but that’s really it, and even then I’m not so enamored that I couldn’t do without them.

The hyperspeed “let’s out Pole the Polish” aesthetic has always been commendable, and I have nothing against it in and of itself, but I often find that Italian bands lack the sense of efficiency and hooky song-writing that makes the Polish death metal template so appealing. Fleshgod has always been a band I enjoy because of the gimmick they offer (it works), and while I wasn’t impressed with Hideous Divinity at the beginning, they have evolved into a very good Annihilation Of The Wicked-era throwback band, and their new album this year is undeniably one of 2017‘s best.

And that brings me to Order Ov Riven Cathedrals. This is the first time I’ve encountered Italian hyper-speed death metal and actually LOVED it from the first listen. I might even go as far as to say that, at least for me personally, this is the first time the Italian death metal formula has been both perfected and extrapolated upon effectively. The Discontinuity’s Interlude is one of the most unrelenting, savage, and uncompromising death metal albums I’ve heard all year. Continue reading »

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