AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WHEELFALL — “THE ATROCITY REPORTS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 052017
 

 

To greater and lesser degrees, every track on the French band Wheelfall’s new album gets your head in a hammer lock and seizes control of your involuntary muscle reflexes. Remaining motionless as you listen is not an option. To greater and lesser degrees, every track is also unerringly bleak and disturbing. It’s the kind of black-hearted music that seems simultaneously to be clawing in a blood frenzy to get at your throat while also clubbing you senseless with a cold, machine-like determination and precision.

In reflecting on the album experience, “violent”, “hallucinatory”, “insane”, and “oppressive” are among the words that spring to mind. “Massively heavy” and “compelling” are other words that seem appropriate. The warmth of human kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and love — all of that has been brutally banished from Wheelfall’s musical realm, but man, what they’re doing here is electrifying. The Atrocity Reports keeps you on the edge of your seat, all nerves firing. Sometimes it feels like the world is coming apart, or at least your own sanity, but the allure is nonetheless (and perhaps perversely) irresistible. Continue reading »

GWAR: “THE BLOOD OF GODS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 052017
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer’s review of the new album by GWAR, whch will be released by Metal Blade Records on October 20.)

Their blood-drenched, cum-soaked live shows overshadowed the fact these guys had some good songs and made pretty killer albums up to, say, This Toilet Earth. They also used to be one of my favorite bands in high school, so the nostalgia runs deep. It also makes me proceed with caution knowing that they are carrying on without their lead singer Oderus Unrungus, whose human form Dave Brockie passed away in 2014. His voice fluctuated from a gruff punk-like bellow that could have come off of a Fear record to more of a growl or a croon.

I became more willing to give them a new shot when I learned that Blothar, the new singer, is the old Beefcake the Mighty taking on a new mantel. So they promoted from within. I can deal with this better than if it was some new guy they just brought in. The new sound has to grow on me even though he handled the vocals on the song “Nice Place to Park“. So his voice is not totally alien. It holds a Blackie Lawless-like edge. The songs on the new album typically carry a more straight-ahead metal feel in the vein of mid-’80s thrash, with songs like “Viking Death Machine” touching on their punk roots. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SEER — VOL. 5

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 042017
 

 

Only three months ago Vancouver-based Seer released their first album, Vol. III & IV: Cult of the Void, from which we premiered two of its tracks. And thus it will undoubtedly come as a surprise to their fans that today, with no advance fanfare, they are releasing a further chapter in their evolving musical narrative, a new EP named Vol. 5. To help spread the word, we present a complete stream of the EP in this post. To introduce the music, we begin with this statement provided on behalf of the band:

“Despite releasing a full length record just this past July, Vol. 5 is the most accurate depiction of Seer as they exist today. The EP showcases Seer’s extreme metal influences more prominently than any other release in their discography. Recorded on the largely undeveloped Gabriola Island by Jordan Koop (Ahna, Wolf Party) and mastered by Arthur Rizk (Inquisition, Power Trip), the process has been the most organic and proved most fruitful of any of Seer’s recording sessions.

“Track 2 and 3 comprise the bulk of the EP, with track 1 and 4 acting as intro and outro respectively. Track 2 is an apocalyptic funeral dirge featuring more twists, turns, and layers than one might expect from sprawling, “big riff” songs of this nature. Track 3 is a more straight forward rock and roll tune with heavy emphasis on occult-rock guitar leads and astute interplay between harsh and clean vocals.” Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CRACKHOUSE — “BE NO ONE, BE NOTHING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Oct 042017
 

 

When you see a band name like Crackhouse and an album title like Be No One, Be Nothing, you don’t expect uplifting music. And in fact, this French trio traffic in the bleak reverberations of sludge and doom, amalgamated with body-moving riffs that provide a link to stoner metal. But such genre references, while useful, don’t fully prepare you for what Crackhouse have accomplished on this, their debut album. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the stunning intensity and wholly devouring experience that the music presents when I first listened to it.

On the surface, Be No One, Be Nothing can be intimidating. The idea of an album that’s more than 50 minutes long but is divided among only three songs that range in length from more than 11 minutes to more than 22 would cause many people to take a very deep breath. It might deter some people from giving the album an opportunity to join their rotations. I hope that doesn’t happen, because the record really is remarkable — and you’ll have a chance to discover that for yourselves through our premiere of a full stream today before its October 6 release by Argonauta Records. Continue reading »

CELESTE: “INFIDÈLE(S)”

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Oct 032017
 

 

(This is Andy Synn’s review of the new album by the French black metal band Celeste. The album was released on September 29 by Denovali Records.)

Whenever I write about an album I make a real effort to try and give it some sort of theme beyond the generic “this track is good, this track is fast, this track is slow” boilerplate which seems to make up so many of the homogenous and interchangeable reviews I read elsewhere.

For me it’s all about placing an album in context. Whether it’s talking about where an album sits in a band’s discography, how it compares to the rest of its genre, or the impact that line-up changes may (or may not) have had upon the writing, there are always ways to make a review more interesting to read (and to write).

Heck, in recent months I’ve used reviews to ruminate on the issue of “selling out” and the perception of Black Metal as a singular “monolith”, to ask questions about what it is that makes a band good/bad, and to rail against people who claim that there’s “just no good new music anymore.”

But even I’ll admit that sometimes it’s enough to just say “this album kicks ass” and leave it at that. Continue reading »

AMENRA: “MASS VI”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 022017
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by the Belgian band Amenra, which will be released on October 20 by Neurot Recordings.)

Here is an album that reminds us distortion alone is only as heavy as the emotion being poured into the songs. This Belgium sludge band returns with another piece of despair. Gone is the Neurosis worship, which has been washed away from a more lush sound with thicker atmosphere. The emotional depth can be heard in anguished howls of the vocals. The layers of accompanying guitar have a droning sense of melody and carry an inner darkness.

The album opens with the brand of aggressive sludge you expect, with an almost hardcore-tinged anger. When this dies down the band float out into something more fragile and intimate with vocals sung in an almost androgynous Sigur Rós-like whisper, but then throw themselves back into the tormented screaming. One thing this album has going for it is the fact that the sung vocals are not used to create a MySpace Metal good cop/bad cop routine. Instead they build a dynamic in a less contrived fashion. Continue reading »

SOROR DOLOROSA: “APOLLO”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Oct 022017
 

 

(Music writer Konstantin, who in past years has written for Serbia’s Nocturne Music Magazine, rejoins us with this review of the new album by the French band Soror Dolorosa, which was released by Prophecy on September 15.)

The last 15 years have put France mainly “under the light” of the black metal scene and created a solid number of followers worldwide. Completely justified, one could say, taking into consideration the impact that French bands have created on extreme metal in this period. At the same time, several other good bands have come out, but have received drastically less attention and fewer fans.

The birth and death of French cold wave happened almost three decades ago, and you could count on the fingers of one hand the bands that have lasted for more than just a few years. A certain revival was finally seen in the debut album of Soror Dolorosa in 2011. At last, we are now able to see and hear their third LP, four years after their solid sophomore release No more heroes. There wasn’t much to hear from them in this period. They played only a handful of concerts, but at least now we know the reason. And the reason is excellent – Apollo is finally out and they have made their best record so far. Continue reading »

FOREVER PLAYING CATCH-UP (PART 3): PSUDOKU, VMTHANAACHTH, FELIX MARTIN

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Sep 292017
 

 

(This is Part 3 of Austin Weber’s ongoing series devoted to reviews of 2017 releases we haven’t previously covered. More installments will be presented next week.)

In spite of what the naysayers will tell you, I’m of the opinion that there’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of good metal releases coming out all the time, many of them coming from new groups or independent groups that we’re just now catching onto for the first time.

This lengthy round-up has been in the works for awhile, but I kept adding more and more to the list of what I wanted to cover, and that delayed it until now. The focus here is on releases that dropped in 2017 that haven’t been covered at NCS yet. We’ll run through a boatload of harsh and unorthodox black metal, mountains of mathcore, death metal of all stripes, a few technical grindcore acts, a ton of different prog-metal bands, some sick instrumental metal jams, and a whole lot more. Hopefully you will find something new you enjoy in each installment.

PSUDOKU – DEEP SPACE PSUDOKUMENT

Cult favorite weirdo grinders from Norway, Psudoku, are back again with a new release of strange grindcore from an alternate timeline. This isn’t the first time I’ve covered them at NCS, having previously highlighted them in a 2015 article regarding their prior album, Planetarisk Psudoku. Somehow the group continue to push their already out-there songs into ever-stranger territory on their new 2017 album, Deep Space Psudokument. Continue reading »

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: “NIGHTBRINGERS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 282017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by The Black Dahlia Murder in advance of its October 6 release by Metal Blade Records.)

It’s extremely fitting that the striking, crimson-hued cover art that you see above has been provided by the legendary Kristian Wåhlin, aka Necrolord, who last worked with The Black Dahlia Murder on the cover for their career-defining Nocturnal, as Nightbringers is without a doubt the band’s best release since their 2007 breakthrough.

That’s not to disparage or denigrate the albums the band have put out in the intervening years (Deflorate in particular remains a personal favourite of mine), but the harsh, bitter, ugly truth of the matter is that, try as they might, the Michigan quintet have never quite managed to fully replicate that strange mix of power and precision, heaviness and hooks, menace and melody, that came together on their third record.

But album number eight definitely comes very, very close. Continue reading »

LOINCLOTH: “PSALM OF THE MORBID WHORE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 282017
 

 

(Todd Manning reviews the new album by the Virginia/North Carolina instrumental metal band Loincloth, which will be released by Southern Lord on September 29.)

During the Death Metal explosion of the early ’90s, there existed an anomaly on Earache’s legendary roster, an incredibly complex and off-kilter Doom Metal act by the name of Confessor. Boasting dramatic, high-pitched vocals and very technical music, Confessor stuck out like a sore thumb in a scene dominated by blast beats and death growls. At the time, most people obsessed over the vocals. But nowadays, the world seems to have come around and considered their debut, Condemned, to be a classic, and in those conversations it’s the music getting equal attention.

After the band broke up for the first time, while in the midst of trying to follow up their debut, bassist Cary Rowells and drummer Steve Shelton went on to form Fly Machine and then subsequently moved on to Loincloth, an instrumental trio in which they are joined by guitarist Tannon Penland. Continue reading »

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