EXCOMMUNION — “THRONOSIS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 092017
 

 

(Todd Manning brings us this review of the new EP by Colorado’s Excommunion, and we also bring you a full stream of the music.)

At this point, it’s no secret that I have been extolling the great state of Death Metal in 2017, and so I wanted to pen a quick missive singing the infernal praises of another powerful release, the new Excommunion album, Thronosis.

I’ve noticed that so much of this great Death Metal is coming from scene veterans, and Excommunion is in that camp. This is the follow-up to 2002’s full-length Superion (with a split in between), and this release finds the group in fine form. Continue reading »

VERMIN LORD AND NIHTWINTRE: A SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 082017
 

 

As regular visitors to our site well know, I’ve been carefully following the releases of Seattle-based Vermin Lord, beginning with the project’s excellent 2016 debut album Anguish. Last Friday brought another new Vermin Lord release, this time a split with the Seattle black metal project Nihtwintre.

Both sides of the split are very good, both of them shrouded in darkness, sorcery, and loss, though musically the two bands are quite distinct from each other. There’s a full stream of the split at the end of this post, preceded by some thoughts about the songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: BLACK HARVEST — “ATTRITION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
May 082017
 

 

(Austin Weber brings us this premiere of the new EP by New York’s Black Harvest, along with some introductory impressions of the music.)

Some musicians are content to play within traditional sounds and genre boundaries, while others (Devin Townsend comes to mind) see all of music’s many genres as a vast palette that one can draw from and combine in new ways to paint a musical world all their own. This form of vast experimentation lies at the heart of all that Kishor Haulenbeek does, as both an incredibly talented visual artist and also as a musician with multiple musical projects that he has used to explore different facets of his interests, all of which convey an honest emotional feeling yet cover dramatically  different musical terrain.

Last year here at NCS, I finally got around to covering his fantastic mathcore-addled technical grindcore band Crisis Actor, and shoehorned in some coverage of his primary project, Black Harvest, at the same time. Today we’re bringing you an early stream of the group’s fantastic new EP, Attrition. Continue reading »

ULSECT: “ULSECT”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 082017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the self-titled debut album by the Dutch band Ulsect, which will be released on May 12 by Season of Mist.)

It seems like you can hardly turn around these days without tripping over another angular, off-kilter Death Metal band who worship at the throne of Gorguts/Deathspell Omega.

I’m not quite sure when, or how, it happened, but someone somewhere appears to have opened the floodgates, and the torrent (ok, maybe “torrent” is pushing it) shows little sign of dying off just yet.

As a result it’s more important than ever to learn how to sift through all the dross, panning for those morsels of burnished gold which shine brighter than all the rest. Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 22) — TNBM SPECIAL: BEASTCRAFT, ENDEZZMA, ÖRTH, WHOREDOM RIFE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 082017
 

 

(Our friend Gorger from Norway sings the song of his people in this 22nd installment in his ongoing series reviewing releases we’ve overlooked. To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)

 

☠ True Norwegian Black Metal ☠
 

When realizing I had four pieces of True Norwegian Black Metal to share with you, I obviously decided to pile them together. I’ve sorted them alphabetically, allowing me to finish of with a favored newcomer. All the others are veterans, each with a more or less significant background and history. Continue reading »

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT: OUR REVIEW OF “VERSVS 1” AND OUR PREMIERE OF “DIE GLOCKE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
May 052017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by The Monolith Deathcult, and we also present the premiere of a song from the album after the review. We apologize in advance to all our readers.)

Dedicated readers of the site will no doubt be aware of my long-running relationship with The Monolith Deathcult, dating all the way back to 2011 and encompassing, in the intervening years, numerous reviews, interviews, and tour dates (the most recent only a few weeks ago).

Heck, I even ended up helping the band rewrite the press release for this record simply because I didn’t think the original materials were up to scratch!

As a result you might be wondering whether this review is going to be full of bias, favouritism, and partisan hyperbole, to which I’d answer… of course it is.

In fact you’re probably better off thinking of this as a paid advertisement on behalf of Deathcult Inc.

Except I’m not getting paid…

And I’m actually going to be a bit critical in places… Continue reading »

GOD DETHRONED: “THE WORLD ABLAZE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
May 032017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the reunited God Dethroned.)

Like many of you I have been waiting for this album with a sense of near-breathless anticipation ever since it was first announced in 2014 that God Dethroned were getting back together.

And even though nothing had been announced about new material, I always knew that it was only a matter of time before the band would eventually get round to completing the WWI-themed trilogy of albums which began with 2009’s Passiondale.

So now here we are, seven long years since the group’s last release, all set to receive the third and final part of that trilogy, The World Ablaze, and the big question is — has the passage of time blunted their edge, or has it simply allowed the band to martial their forces for one final assault? Continue reading »

HATE: “TREMENDUM”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 022017
 

 

(DGR wrote this detailed review of the new album by the Polish band Hate.)

There are some groups who exist like heavy metal’s undercurrent, groups who seem like they have always been there and never seem to age, as if the band were immortal, with each release they put out slotting neatly right next to the others in their career. Hate are one of those groups. Their martial brand of Satan-inspired, Anti-religion death metal has seemingly existed as part of heavy metal’s subculture forever, one of a small handful of bands playing a particular style, a constant go-to for a specific fix.

The new Hate album Tremendum marks the group’s tenth release in a little over twenty years. The thing that has kept Hate around like this, like many bands who’ve enjoyed a twenty-plus-year career in the metal business, is that Hate found a sound, and since locking into it, for better or worse, they have put out albums with differing variations on that overall style, but have never gone for a massive genre-shift or anything blindingly different. Hate are going to consistently sound like Hate. That is one of the ways you wind up a pillar of a genre, as Hate have done. Continue reading »

GENOCIDE GENERATOR: “III”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Apr 282017
 

 

(DGR turns in this review of the new album by Bavarian grind merchants Genocide Generator.)

This one took a bit to review. Not because there was some conflict or confusion as to how Genocide Generator did things, but mostly because III is an album that does almost exactly what I was hoping the band would do after their debut album I — you’ll note, there’s no II yet — which was to double-down on all of the elements they had used to make their first disc.

I was hoping they would double-down on the speed, on the grind, on the usage of electronics, and on the heaping helping of just outright absurdity that they splattered over the top of everything. And that’s what they did on III. So if you can remember way back to the olden horse-cart days of the internets and our review of I, and if you enjoyed that, then III is perfect for you. What took a while with III, though, is that since the self-described “grindustrial madness” band doubled down on everything, it’s hard to pontificate about much with the disc. And it also raises a few interesting questions.

One question is that since the band have so much fun inserting dumb sound effects and cranking on random electronic noise to go along with the high-speed adrenaline rush that is their music, how does one possibly review grind like that? How does one talk about grind that takes on an almost carnival-like atmosphere with its big-top bombast and the joy of how anarchic some of the songs become? How do you review an album of grind that sounds like it was made for a funhouse? Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MANTAR / MARÉ / MESARTHIM

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Apr 272017
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews the new EPs by Mantar, Maré, and Mesarthim.)

So I’ve officially now reached a point where I am so far behind in my writing that the balance has fully shifted into the negative, with more new albums and EPs being added to my review queue – almost on a daily basis – than are being scratched off of it.

What to do, what to do…?

Well, the only answer, it seems, is to hammer out a bunch of quick reviews, and try to make some sort of dent in the ever-growing pile of streams and promos currently clogging up my inbox/mp3 player.

So, without further ado, here’s three great EPs, two from bands we’ve covered before, and one from an entirely new discovery of mine. Continue reading »

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