Reviews Archives - Page 72 of 601

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOXIDE — “MORALS AND DOGMA”

Aug 072024

Twelve years have passed since the birth of Anoxide somewhere in London. In that time they have released a pair of EPs, a demo, and a couple of singles, but nothing in the last six years. And so it comes as something of a surprise that two days from now they will release an album via Ghastly Music, their full-length debut at last.

They’ve titled it Morals & Dogma, and packed it with 9 songs (one of them an instrumental) that explore such subjects as the influence of misinformation in a media-saturated world, inescapable cycles of systemic corruption within society, the exacerbation of socio-economic disparity and the devastating effects of austerity policies on the working class and marginalized communities, the resurgence of far right ideologies, and visions of dystopian futures produced by suffering and inequality.

Weighty subjects to be sure, and there’s powerful heft in the music too, but also head-spinning adventures, as you’ll discover through our full album premiere today. Continue reading »

PRIVATE PRISONS – EXCOMMUNICATION

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Aug 062024

(Andy Synn signs up for a life sentence with Private Prisons)

The joy of discovering new music is something I hope never leaves me.

Sure, everyone loves a good bit of nostalgia now and then, and I’m a big fan of long-running bands continuing to put out excellent work, but there’s something about stumbling across a new band or album that just instantly “clicks” with you that just feels right.

Heck, it’s one of the big reasons I enjoy writing for NoCleanSinging so much in the first place, as it gives me the chance to keep up with new releases and encounter fresh new faces in the scene and then share that experience and my enthusiasm with our readers.

So, without further ado, let’s get nasty with the new album from Californian crushers Private Prisons.

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Aug 052024

(Andy Synn presents four albums from July which may have passed you by)

So apparently it’s August already? How the hell did that happen?!?

And spare me your scientific hocus-pocus about “the linear passage of time” and “the direction of entropy”… all I know is that it was just yesterday I was doing one of these “Things You May Have Missed” columns for June, and someone needs to answer for where all that time in between went.

Now, I know that there were some people who felt like July was a bit of an “off” month – both in terms of quantity and quality – but I’m here to tell you that those people are fools and not to be trusted.

Heck, I could have done an entire separate piece on “Black Metal You May Have Missed” (in fact, I did just that last week) and the number of artists/albums which ended up on the proverbial “cutting room floor” this month was enough to cause me almost physical pain.

Still, I think you’ll enjoy the four records I’ve selected for this month’s article, which cover a pretty decent spread of styles/genres, meaning there should be something for almost everyone.

SHADES OF BLACK: SWAMPWORM, ESOCTRILIHUM, ZEIT DER DUNKELHEIT, NOEN HATER OSS, HORRENDA, VICIOUS BLADE

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Aug 042024

It’s been tough sledding to pick music for this Sunday’s column. Not because of moguls — there’s no snow outside here in the Pacific Northwest, other than in the black metal, where it’s always snowing or sleeting somewhere. No, the sledding has been tough for the usual reason — too damn many options and not enough time.

Here’s what I chose for today before being thrown into a drift, head down, ass up. I think they will keep you off-balance.

SWAMPWORM (Germany)

Based on their name you might think Swampworm play some kind of murky, rotten-to-the-core death metal, but on their new EP Architeuthis they instead lay into a blast-furnace discharge of dissonant black metal and ruinous blackened grindcore, but with a few variations along the way. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, JULY 2024

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Aug 012024

(With July now in the rearview mirror, Gonzo has brought us another monthly collection of recommended albums.)

As a reasonably respectable writer who can form coherent sentences, I’d sooner die than kick off this column with some banal trope like “Summer’s heating up, and so are these new releases!”

Fuck that nonsense. But I suppose it’s worth mentioning that I’m sitting here in my air-conditioned apartment while temperatures outside flirt with triple digits, and that means staying inside and listening to music is a much more preferable option than sweating it out in that godforsaken heat.

And….sigh. Yes, these new releases are pretty goddamn spicy, so feel free to form any heat-related tropes at your own discretion. Just listen to these albums first.

BLACKER THAN THE BLACKEST BLACK

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Jul 312024

(Andy Synn catches up on some of last month’s bumper crop of Black Metal)

Despite what some people might believe, we’re big fans of the ol’ Black Metal genre here at NCS.

Sure, there’s certain artists we don’t fuck with, for reasons which are entirely our own, but considering how rich and fertile the field is right now (as today’s article so adamantly demonstrates – right down to the fact that I didn’t have time to also include the likes of Coldcell, Limbes, and Unholy Altar) there’s more than enough great options out there to keep us busy until the inevitable heat death of the universe.

So – since I didn’t want the next edition of “Things You May Have Missed” to be all Black Metal – here’s four short-but-sweet write-ups of some recent albums I thought would put a smile (although I guess it’s more of a grimace) on your corpse-painted faces.

SHADES OF BLACK: RAAT, PAYDRETZ, STARER, GEISTERFAUST, HAND OF OMEGA, SALQIU, MANṢŪR, MORK

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Jul 302024

Hopefully you noticed that we began the last NCS Sunday with a premiere. That song and video by Weald & Woe were well worth the time required to prepare the write-up, and it would have fit well into the usual Sunday roundup of new black and black-ish metal, but it did leave me with less time than I needed to pull together the usual Shades of Black column.

So, I’ve taken an extra two days to finish gathering together what I wanted to recommend this week. I’m very happy with these eight selections and hope you’ll also find all of them well worth your time. (Yeah, there’s a lot here — bookmark it, try a little here and a little there, in between trying to make a living, drinking yourself silly, washing your cat and your clothes, bathroom breaks, sleeping, etc.)

RAAT (India)

As steadfast visitors to our site are well aware, I’ve been enthusiastically following the progression of Raat‘s music since early days, and thus was eager to delve into the band’s fourth album, Enchantment, which was released about 10 days ago. Continue reading »

EYE EATER – ALIENATE

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Jul 292024

(Andy Synn finds himself far from alienated by the new album from Eye Eater)

It’s always been fascinating to me how different ears, on different people, can hear something different – whether subtly or strikingly – when listening to the same thing.

Case in point, a quick peruse of the listener reviews on the Bandcamp page for enigmatic New Zealand extremists Eye Eater will reveal a number of different descriptions of the band’s music, from “Progressive Death Metal” to “Blackened Death Metal” to “Dissonant Death Doom”.

And while, to a greater or lesser extent, I can understand where these listeners are coming from, what’s really interesting to me is what they’re not saying… which is that it would be just as valid to make references to “Deathcore” and “Tech Death” when it comes to the band’s gloom-heavy, crushingly claustrophobic, and hauntingly atmospheric blend of styles and genres.

CANOPY: “EMPTY LIGHT”

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Jul 292024

(Wil Cifer wrote the following review of a new EP by Canopy from Georgia (U.S.), which was independently released earlier this month.)

Sludge has reached its peak, with a few bands still carrying that torch while others move toward the other sub-genres rising in popularity. Canopy is an Atlanta band that has persevered for over a decade and their new EP finds the band going above and beyond by reaching a balance of sonic intensity and eerie melancholy.

What keeps me listening to these songs is not screamed vocals or weighty accents they chug into, but how the chords ring out with emotion. Just being heavy for the sake of being heavy is an easy task, but pouring your pain and depression into your instruments and tangibly conveying them is more nuanced. The band has a penchant for post-rock phrasings balancing out their monolithic crunch. This allows for plenty of breathing room for the songs to flourish. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOJIRA, MALAMORTE, GLACIAL TOMB, MORCAINT

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 5 Responses »

Jul 272024

photo by Weiyi Cai/The New York Times

Yesterday was a day of firsts. Among other things, it was the first time a heavy metal band performed in the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. And the first time memes took off about a U.S. vice-president candidate fucking a couch. Less exciting, I’m also pretty sure it was the first day since I started this blog 14 1/2 years ago that we failed to post anything on a weekday.

I made a whirlwind driving trip with a friend to Vancouver, heading north on Thursday and coming back to Seattle yesterday. In between, we attended a blowout celebration related to our day jobs that left me not enough clear-headed time yesterday morning to do anything before beginning the trip home, even though I had a couple of interviews ready to publish.

I’m getting a late start today, and that whirlwind trip didn’t give me any time for listening to the kind of music we focus on here (my road-trip companion isn’t into that kind of music, and anyway, I didn’t bring with me my list of new stuff I wanted to check out). So I did some whirlwind catching up today, and here’s what I hurriedly picked to share with you. Continue reading »

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