( Norwegian blogger Gorger is back again, highlighting still more releases that we have overlooked. To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)
Hot on the heels of the previous part, here’s another attempt at covering the tip of the iceberg of the occasional stream that NCS has missed out on in the otherwise overflowing river of metal releases. Continue reading »
(Our man in the UK, Andy Synn, attended Damnation Festival 2016 in Leeds on November 5, and provides this report along with videos he made.)
Oh Damnation Festival how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
Whereas too many other events seem content to book the same big-name crowd-pleasers, year in and year out, buttressed by an interchangeable selection of generic sound-alikes and contrived gimmicks – all carefully selected purely for their mundane mass-appeal – the Damnation team seem to operate on an unwavering ethos of only booking the bands they truly like, bands (big and small) that they truly believe in, who have something unique or special to offer.
This is how every edition of the festival features an array of bands from multiple different styles, from Death to Prog to Doom to Hardcore to Sludge (and beyond), from across the length and breadth of the underground Metal scene coexisting under one roof and why, over the years, Damnation has seen everyone from Ahab to Asphyx, Carcass to Katatonia, Mono to My Dying Bride, playing to the sort of packed crowds that are a regular occurrence in Europe, but which only rarely seem to be achievable here in the UK.
This helps make Damnation Festival’s line-up a much more interesting affair than many of their peers, as the organisers seem to operate on the principal of “if you build it, they will come”, putting their faith in the belief that the UK scene doesn’t just want to be fed the same old bands and the same old performances, time and time again. And this year was no different, with a wide variety of different acts, of different styles, on display, coupled with a bunch of exclusive performances which practically justified the ticket price on their own! Continue reading »
( Norwegian blogger Gorger is back, highlighting still more releases that we have overlooked. To find more of his discoveries, type “Gorger” in our search bar or visit Gorger’s Metal.)
Three months have flown by since my last installment. Sorry to keep you waiting. Not that you’ve been waiting, but you know you’ve been missing out on something in the meanwhile. I’ve grown a long list of candidates, but I’d rather not overheat your brain, so we’ll be focusing on a quadruple set as usual, with a further installment coming very soon. Continue reading »
(We’re grateful to New Zealand writer Craig Hayes (Six Noises) for bringing us this review of the debut album by New Zealand’s Setentia, which will be released on November 11 by the Finnish label Blood Music.)
Setentia are an atmospheric death metal band from New Zealand. They write hard-hitting, complex songs where jagged melodies do battle with tremolo deluges on dissonant soundscapes. The band’s accomplished full-length debut, Darkness Transcend, intertwines gut-felt ferocity with forward-thinking expressiveness. And yes, with those creative hallmarks, Setentia have been compared to New Zealand’s much-lauded death metal behemoth Ulcerate, many times.
That’s an understandable comparison to make. Sonic similarities aside, Setentia and Ulcerate have higher profiles than most other New Zealand death metal bands because they’re signed to international record labels (Finnish label Blood Music, in Setentia’s case). Continue reading »
(We present Andy Synn’s review of the new album by Norway’s Khonsu, plus the band’s just-released stream of an album track called “The Observatory”.)
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that there is a potentially infinite number of alternative universes in existence, some wildly divergent from our own, some as close to what we know as to be almost indistinguishable from the one we call home.
Listening to The Xun Protectorate is like being given a teasing window into one of these worlds… a world that is both strikingly different, and yet intimately familiar, where the battle for the heart and soul of Black Metal was not dominated by the devil-worshippers and the church-burners, but by the stargazers and the dreamweavers.
In this world the titanic generation ships of the Samael exodus have long since passed beyond the limits of our solar system, carrying with them the cyborg monks of the Brotherhood of Thorns as they seek to interface directly with their god, while, in orbit around the ruins of Old Earth, the neon-spires of Perdition City play host to the Machiavellian machinations of Dødheimsgard Inc. and their gene-engineered clientele.
It’s a world where the nascent Black Metal scene chose entirely to reject the insular, inflexible dogma of those who wanted to limit it, to keep it small and keep it to themselves, and instead embraced an expansive, open-minded approach, looking outward, instead of turning inwards. And only in such a world could an album like The Xun Protectorate have come to fruition… Continue reading »
Last month we were fortunate to bring you premieres of two songs from an album we are very excited about, and now we bring you a full stream of the entire album. Entitled Lunaris, it’s the sixth full-length by the Polish black metal band Arkona, and Debemur Morti Productions is releasing it today.
In writing about one of our previous song premieres, I summed up the music as mystical, majestic, and marauding, and those adjectives hold true for the album as a whole. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn reviews the performances of Mithras and Rannoch in London on October 31, 2016, and includes some of the videos he made.)
One of my favourite things about being in a band (though, to be fair, there are lots of things I love about it) is the chance it affords me to play shows with bands that I love. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to go out on tour with bands like The Monolith Deathcult and Becoming The Archetype, and perform alongside such stupendous acts as Darkane, Abigail Williams, and Skeletonwitch (to name but a few).
And the thing is, although I still have a hefty list of bands I’d love to support or go on tour with (Living Sacrifice, Blood Red Throne, A Hill To Die Upon, Sanzu, Extol, some Swedish group called Meshuggah…), I’m happy to report that I recently got to tick off another big milestone when we opened for the mighty, mighty bosst… Mithras! Continue reading »
(We present Wil Cifer’s review of the new album by NY’s Black Table.)
This band from New York have spawned a dark hybrid of metal sub-genres that stands out from all the run-of-the-mill blackened this or that flooding my in-box. Black metal might be the intersection where most of these sounds meet, despite using only occasional blast-beats that come when the band are at their most raging.
Thanks to producer Billy Anderson this album sounds great, with the production complementing the depth of Black Table’s dynamics. The arrangements get murkier going into the song “Helm”, and with the more melodic riffs providing a path to follow as they wander into more of a jammed section. When this occurs it feels more like sludge at this point than black metal. Continue reading »
(This is the fifth and final part of continuing series prepared by Austin Weber putting the spotlight on recent releases, and today he focuses on music from these three bands: Vaulting, Octexosis, and Pyrrhic Salvation. To check out Part 1, go here; Part 2 is at this location; Part 3 can be found here, and this link leads to Part 4.)
Vaulting – Vanitas
German technical death/grind weirdos Vaulting have been active since 2006, but like a lot of groups, I’m late to the party, having only gotten into them recently through their 2016 release, Vanitas. I suppose a comparison to the strange sound of See You Next Tuesday might give you a small ballpark with which to think of the music here, but there’s so much more of progressive and eloquent side to Vanitas beyond its mathy miniature death-crushing songs. Continue reading »
(We welcome guest contributor Pablo Balbontín, editor of the Spanish webzine Subterráneo, who brings us this review of the first album by California’s Black Fucking Cancer.)
The human being is such a despicable animal, capable of wishing death to its peers or to have a laugh out of their disgrace. We have all said some atrocity, which we might have regretted later (or not). Who hasn’t ever wished somone to die, or to have cancer? Well, from that pure feeling of hatred, Black Fucking Cancer was born — a power trio from San Jose, California, who have given birth to one of the most furious albums of this year, and possibly one of the best overall.
However, when someone thinks about fury in black metal, they tend to imagine bands like Marduk, Blasphemy, Archgoat… short songs, chaotic guitar solos, and frantic drumming patterns. Bringing an anology, it could be like a maniac who stabs his mother two hundred times, until there is no more skin left to tear. Instead, Black Fucking Cancer are like that alienated person who sharpens a rusty machete and takes his time to knife the victim, twisting the blade inside the guts and savoring the victim’s suffering. Continue reading »