Reviews Archives - Page 366 of 601

SEEN AND HEARD: MORS PRINCIPIUM EST, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, CROWHURST, VOIDTHRONE, CRYPTICUS

Nov 222016

I bet you thought we were finished posting for this Tuesday. Nope, I just got waylaid by my day job on the way to finishing this thing, but now having surmounted those obstacles, I give you this round-up.

This collection a bit different from the norm, in that I’m including a couple of items that aren’t hot off the presses. But we’ll begin with two that are, and then conclude with a new Megamix treat from Crypticus that you probably won’t hear anywhere else.

MORS PRINCIPIUM EST

The artwork up there is by one of my favorite metal artists, Berlin-based painter Eliran Kantor. I’ve already posted it on our site’s Facebook page and made it the cover photo on my personal page. How could I not put it here as well? The artist describes it as “an apocalyptic homage to Vermeer’s ‘The Astronomer'” — and here’s what that famous work (completed in 1668 and on display at the Louvre in Paris) looks like: Continue reading »

ONI: “IRONSHORE”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 7 Responses »

Nov 222016

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by the band Oni.)

Some of you old-timers might remember that I was super-hyped on Black Crown Initiate. I enthusiastically reviewed their debut EP and while I didn’t review their first album, I absolutely loved it. 2016 rolled around, and Selves We Cannot Forgive rolled around and it was… not the BCI I was hyped on. The album was a complete disappointment in fact, and I was extremely, extremely dismayed that the band had already seemingly fallen off the horse. We’ll see what the future holds, but as to what made me lose faith in the band, it was their conversion to a rather directionless, meandering style of songwriting combined with riffs that were barely riffs.

Oni are poised, already, to kick Black Crown Initiate off their own throne where they once brandished a distinctive brand of technical, groovy, yet poppy and melodic progressive death metal. The two bands share many similarities, but with Oni taking it a step further and adding even more influences and elements. I don’t think you can say Oni sound like BCI, but to my ears they have definitely taken the BCI formula and brought it to the next level, whether doing so consciously or not. Continue reading »

ULCERATE: “SHRINES OF PARALYSIS”

Album Reviews 12 Responses »

Nov 222016

(DGR reviews the new album by New Zealand’s Ulcerate.)

There’s a certain sort of apocalyptic reverie one takes on as a state of mind when reviewing an Ulcerate disc. The now long-running New Zealand-based death metal three-piece have made a career out of creating music that sounds tailor-made for the end of the world. When the Earth’s crust is rended asunder and magma comes shooting up into the air, Ulcerate are one of the groups that I am expecting to provide the mood music, like the band playing on the Titanic, on a planetary scale.

Keeping in mind that among the group’s discography are albums with names like Everything Is Fire and The Destroyers Of All, you can see why that description might feel apt. Ulcerate play a deafening form of death metal, one that is largely cavernous and often cataclysmic in its impact. They have grown in popularity over the years and have become a cultural landmark in the death metal scene as a whole. They are able to channel utter destruction in their sound and have done so for quite some time.

Only a few groups out there get to name a song “Weight Of Emptiness” and have it feel like it was built to fit that song, not just because it sounded cool. The same goes for Ulcerate’s newly released album Shrines Of Paralysis, which came out at the tail end of October, three years after the release of their last album Vermis. Shrines continues Ulcerate’s trend of auditory destruction, a slow death march to oblivion, and over the course of an hour it’s hard not to feel like there is some sort of darkness spreading through your veins. Continue reading »

OSKOREIEN: “ALL TOO HUMAN” (A REVIEW AND AN INTERVIEW)

Interviews, Reviews No Responses »

Nov 212016

(We are very fortunate to welcome back our friend Justin Collins (who spends most of his writing time over at Metal Bandcamp) with this guest review of the new album by Oskoreien, accompanied by a very interesting short interview of Oskoreien’s creator, as well as Justin’s equally interesting thoughts about the album’s subject matter.)

It was not even two months ago that we got to reacquaint ourselves with Oskoreien — the excellent but long-quiet black metal project of Jay Valena. Oskoreien contributed two songs to a split with Botanist. (Read my babble about it here.) I, for one, was very pleased to hear Oskoreien again, and was pleasantly surprised to listen to Valena try his hand at a decidedly more electronic sound than what he’d given us on his black-metal-meets-acoustic full-length. So you can imagine my delight when I learned that Oskoreien would be putting out a second album, All Too Human, hot on the heels on that split.

What kind of direction would Valena take this time? My first introduction to the album was a one-sentence description that Islander passed on to me from Valena, stating that, “It’s a concept album about free will inspired by the story of Charles Whitman.” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): L’HOMME ABSURDE, GRAVECOVEN, FORLET SIRES, NYRST, VERMINLORD

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 5 Responses »

Nov 202016

As you can see, this is the second part of a two-part post that I began earlier today (here). Both parts were combined in a single post as I originally wrote it. But even though I throttled back my usual wordiness in order to get it finished and make it more digestible, I eventually concluded that a 10-band post was still too much for a single serving.

Part 1 of this post focused mainly on advance tracks from forthcoming albums. Now I’m moving away from individual songs and into full album and EP streams — which means I’m really giving short shrift in my words to music that’s deserving of more fulsome praise. I do wish I had time to say more, because although the band names may be obscure, these releases are really very good. I hope you’ll make time to give each of them a fair listen.

L’HOMME ABSURDE

Album: Monsters
Release date: October 25
Country: Russia
Order link: https://lhommeabsurdebm.bandcamp.com/album/monsters Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ORDOG — “THE GRAND WALL”

Album Reviews, Premieres 6 Responses »

Nov 182016

Earlier today I asked our readers to share their nominees for our list of the year’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs”. I have my own big list of candidates, and the album you’re about to hear is home to multiple songs on that list. The album’s name is The Grand Wall, and it will be co-released by Solitude Productions, Moscow Funeral League, and Frozen Light on November 21.

This is the fifth album of the Finnish doom/death band Ordog, but for me it’s my introduction to Ordog’s music — and a hugely compelling introduction it is. As you’ll see, the band describe the album as “more aggressive compared to the previous ones”, but with melancholy going hand in hand with the aggression. As I listened to it, I thought it would appeal to fans that cut across the swath of such groups as In Mourning, October Tide, early Paradise Lost, and even Bolt Thrower. It’s an earthshaker and a headbanger, and on the other hand, it’s also deeply (and hauntingly) entrancing.

I have some more thoughts about the album, which has quickly become a late-year favorite of mine, but I’ll first share some comments by members of the band: Continue reading »

ACHERONTAS / SLIDHR: “DEATH OF THE EGO / CHAINS OF THE FALLEN”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Nov 182016

(Andy Synn wrote this review of the new split by Acherontas from Greece and Slidhr from Ireland.)

A good split-release, such as the Nightbringer/Dødsengel effort Circumambulations of the Solar Inferno, the recent Ur Draugr/Haar tag-team, or any of the multitude of Misery Index splits, can be a great place for a band to explore ideas and themes which – for whatever reason – might not fit as part of a full album or which they simply want to stand on their own, while also allowing them the chance to “share the stage” (as it were) with another act of a similar outlook and ethos.

In rare cases, such as last year’s unholy alliance between Dragged Into Sunlight and Gnaw Their Tongues, or the much more recent collaboration between Selvans and Downfall of Nur, both of which err closer to the album than the EP side of things, the split release becomes a true amalgam of both bands, giving birth to something wholly unique in the process.

But, however the bands involved choose to approach it, a good split-release is always an opportunity to make a statement, and this new five-track split (3 by the godless Greeks, 2 by the Irish idolaters) from Acherontas and Slidhr makes one very simple statement of intent indeed… we bleed black, and breathe fire, and we will not be denied our due. Continue reading »

MARTYRDÖD: “LIST”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Nov 172016

Martyrdöd are unquestionably a metal band, but the roots of their music is in Swedish hardcore, they’re dedicated to the d-beat, and anything you read about them will likely include the words “crust punk” somewhere in the first paragraph (sometimes with “blackened” or “metallic” stuck on the description). Yet they’ve become so much more than what most people would think of as a crust band. Their new album List, for example, is one of the most epic experiences of 2016.

Yes, I know: If there is an afterlife, I will pay some hellish price for using that overworked word. But dammit, there is no better word that comes close to summing up the experience of List. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN PRESENTS: REVIEWS IN HAIKUS (METALLICA)

Album Reviews, Reviews In Haikus 10 Responses »

Nov 172016

(Andy Synn’s haiku review feature usually includes a trio of 3-line reviews, but this one includes a dozen haikus for a single album.)

So I assume by now that many of you, if you have even a passing interest in the band still, will have heard some (if not all) of the new Metallica album, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct?

After all, it’s finally being released tomorrow, and the band have now debuted a different music video (some better than others) for each of the twelve songs which make up the double-disc set, so it should be easy enough to make your own mind up whether or not you’re still willing to get on-board the Metallica train.

Now as much as we tend to focus our energies on covering the smaller bands here at NCS, sometimes it’s fun to comment on the bigger acts too. It really just depends (in my case, at least) as to whether or not we feel like we have anything interesting to add to the conversation.

And having seen a mixture of reactions ranging from the hilarious (“death to false metal!”) to the fawning (“this is the best album of the year, Metallica can do no wrong!”) I felt like I wanted to at least say a little something about the album… and what better way than through the ever-enigmatic medium of the humble haiku?

So, after the jump, twelve haikus and twelve videos, summing up my feelings, good and bad, towards Hardwired… Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: RETURN TO THE TALENTED DEPTHS OV OBSCURE MADNESS (PART 6)

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Nov 162016

(This is the sixth part of continuing series prepared by Austin Weber putting the spotlight on recent releases, and today he focuses on music from these three bands: Noise Trail Immersion, Gross Ex Machina, and Inexistence of Aeon. To check out Part 1, go here; Part 2 is at this location; Part 3 can be found here, this link leads to Part 4, and Part 5 is here.)

Noise Trail Immersion – Womb

As I’ve said for years, it often pays off to keep track of groups who show promise, but aren’t quite at the level of blowing you away yet. Turin, Italy’s Noise Trail Immersion are yet another group who fit in that category of promising bands worth following who eventually end up capitalizing on the undeniable talent they showed early on. Which for them was 2014’s self-titled experience, which grabbed my attention but left me hoping they’d evolve into something more original moving forward. Continue reading »

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