AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FEN — “WINTER”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 092017
 

 

Examples can be found in the annals of metal and rock of unusually long albums that either seemed to be calculated displays of pretentiousness or were simply the result of laziness, with a lack of care and focus producing an experience destined to defeat its listeners through an attack of tedium. In the same ways, some books have been written that were so rambling, self-indulgent, and bloated that only students forced to read them in a class could claim the dubious distinction of reaching the end.

But some long works of music and literature earn the demands they place on our time; the length feels necessary, not only because the inspirations of the artists genuinely demanded it, but also because the pleasure of the experience for listeners and readers would have been materially diminished with anything less.

And that brings us to the music of Winter, the new album by FEN that it’s our pleasure to bring you today in advance of its March 10 release by Aural Music/Code666. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATH OF KINGS — “HELL COMES TO LIFE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 082017
 

 

After a series of well-received shorter releases, Atlanta’s Death of Kings will be releasing their debut album Kneel Before None later this year on CD, with a vinyl pressing to follow. But before we get to that point, Boris Records will be bringing us a Death of Kings single on March 31, and we’ve got the premiere of its title track for you today: “Hell Comes To Life“.

Truer words were never spoken, because this song is explosively hellish, in all the best ways. It’s the kind of turbocharged, obliterating thrash ferocity that may make you want to destroy things, while it’s destroying you. Continue reading »

JUNIUS: “ETERNAL RITUALS FOR THE ACCRETION OF LIGHT”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
Mar 082017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Boston’s Junius, followed by a full music stream.)

One thing I’ve observed over the years is how often people conflate the statement “I don’t like this” with the judgement that “this isn’t good”.

Sometimes it means that someone has decided that just because they don’t like something, that means it can’t be good… but it also often means that people get offended when you say you don’t like something, because they immediately think you’re saying it isn’t any good.

Which, obviously, isn’t necessarily the case.

Why am I saying all this? Well, it’s because even though I definitely do like this album (a lot), I don’t quite like it as much as 2011’s Reports from the Threshold of Death.

But… that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as good. Continue reading »

CIRITH GORGOR: “BI DEN DODE HANT”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 082017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new EP by the Dutch black metal band Cirith Gorgor.)

I’m really picky when it comes to black metal as of late. I mean, I’ve always been picky, very specific about what I like to hear in any sub-genre of metal, and I have my own views about what I think works and doesn’t work musically. I’ve been on an avant-garde and progressive kick in regard to the blackened arts lately, but I also immensely enjoy straight melodic black metal that’s just fucking belligerent and relentless. Naglfar, Old Man’s Child, and Nordjevel are common staples in my black metal listening, when it’s not Dark Fortress, Khonsu, or most recently Lorn (whose new album I reviewed here).

Cirith Gorgor, Dutch blackened legionnaires, are damned good at writing scorching melodic black metal that provokes windmills and whiplash while knowing how to incorporate great, technically inclined, layered riffing that evokes that arcane sense of mystique that black metal has really leaned toward in the last few years. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CORPUS DIAVOLIS — “ATRA LUMEN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 072017
 

 

We are very pleased to bring you a full streaming premiere of Atra Lumen, the third album by the satanic French metal band Corpus Diavolis. It will be released by ATMF on April 6 of this year.

Making music that has the feeling of ritual has become one of the traditions of black metal, at least within certain circles of the black arts, and Atra Lumen has that feeling. But not all ritualistic music is alike. Where some black metal might conjure images of cavorting witchery around a woodland bonfire or huddled figures drawing blood in the glimmering candlelight of a crypt, Atra Lumen brings to the mind’s eye the ominous grandeur and majestic might of a great ceremony of praise and summoning beneath the high vault of a gothic cathedral, a ceremony surrounded by the tangible presence of death. Continue reading »

THE BEST OF GERMAN, 2017 (PART 1): DESERTED FEAR / GLARE OF THE SUN / NAILED TO OBSCURITY

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 072017
 

 

(Andy Synn combines reviews of three 2017 albums by German metal bands.)

You know who’ve been absolutely killing it over the last few years? The Germans. Those guys (and gals) definitely know their Metal. From the Thrash to the Prog to the Black to the Death… and every permutation in between… our Germanic brothers and sisters have produced a significant number of my favourite albums over the last couple of years.

And, so far, it looks like 2017 is going to be no different, as the year has already seen a number of high-quality releases from across the metallic spectrum, some of which I’m highlighting here today, and some more of which I’m going to bring you in the next week or so.

So, let us begin, shall we? Continue reading »

THE OMINOUS CIRCLE: “APPALLING ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  17 Responses »
Mar 032017
 

 

(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Portugal’s The Ominous Circle.)

Let’s be clear about one thing straight away. As band names go, “The Ominous Circle” is… not great.

Oh, it could undoubtedly be worse, and I’m sure that, when growled with sufficient gravitas from the stage, it probably sounds nice and evil, but when you consider that other, equally valid names might be “The Terrible Triangle” or “The Sinister Parallelogram”, well…

But, as the saying goes, a rose by any other name would still be as horrifically heavy, and I’ll be damned if these guys don’t deliver the goods on Appalling Ascension. Continue reading »

VIOLET COLD: “ANOMIE”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Mar 022017
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the wonderful new album by Violet Cold.)

The phenomenon of the “one-man Black Metal band” is certainly an interesting one.

On the one hand it really does mean that the band’s music will always be the product of a singular creative voice, and often results in said band maintaining a highly prolific writing/recording schedule, as there’s no need to arrange multiple schedules or to balance the writing process among a number of competing ideas.

But just because you CAN string together some hissy riffs, programmed blastbeats, and low-fi vocals about hating the world into a semblance of a song, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD, and just because you *love* Black Metal it doesn’t mean that you have anything original or interesting to offer the genre.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some truly phenomenal examples out there of solitary artists who possess the necessary vision and distinctive voice to stand out from the pack – such as Leviathan, Infestus, and The Clearing Path, to name but a few – but, by and large, the relative ease with which anyone can put together their own “one-man Black Metal band” has led to a glut of mediocre albums and EPs which do little more than recycle the same old sounds and the same old stories.

And then… there’s Violet Cold. Continue reading »

FROWNING: “EXTINCT”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Mar 022017
 

 

(Grant Skelton returns to NCS with this review of the brilliant new album by Frowning.)

Today I have the pleasure of presenting one of my early favorites from 2017, a stream/review of the new album Extinct by Germany’s Frowning. You may know Val Atra Niteris, the “man behind the curtain” of Frowning, as a member of the DSBM band Heimleiden. Also in Val’s repertoire is the blackened doom project Ad Cinerem, whose vocalist Hekjal appears on Extinct.

Frowning’s origin dates back to 2011, in which the band released a series of singles. One of those songs, the evocative instrumental “Day In Black” would later resurface on Frowning’s first full-length album. Three years later, Frowning released said debut album, entitled Funeral Impressions, along with Of Graves, Of Worms, And Epitaphs, a split with Aphonic Threnody. Extinct is Frowning’s second full-length album.

With the exception of the exquisite cover of Chopin’s “Marché Funebré,” Extinct consists of four dismal dirges which gradually progress in length. “Nocturnal Void,” the first track, is just shy of 10 minutes, while the sullen epic “Buried Deep” is over twice that. But what distinguishes Extinct is musicianship and songcraft. Let me explain what I mean. Continue reading »

DEGOTTEN: “HEXENTROST”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Mar 012017
 

 

Over the last 10 years I’ve used an alarm clark maybe a dozen times, tops, usually when I stupidly got wasted the night before and absolutely couldn’t risk oversleeping the next day. Usually I just rely on my restless mind to wake me: Before I go to sleep I tell myself when I need to wake up, and it happens, though usually even earlier than needed.

I do tend to get a little extra rest right up until my internal alarm goes off when I know I’ve finished the first NCS post the night before. Last night I hadn’t made much of a start on anything, and I wanted that extra sleep, so I wrote this instead of what I had been planning to do — and I did it as an experiment.

I normally wouldn’t dash off an album review as quickly as I have here, after only one listen to the album, but I did that. And I picked the album on a fairly random basis, knowing nothing about the band and having heard only a few songs over the weekend. However, the songs left me amazed, and I knew I would come back to this. So here we are — with what has turned out to be one of the biggest and best surprises of the year so far. Continue reading »

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