(Andy Synn praises the new album from this German quintet, out Feb 16 on Lifeforce Records)
So far this week I’ve covered a moody “Doom-gaze” album and an ostentatiously melodic piece of bombastic Prog Rock by an ex-Death Metal band… and I’m worried people might be starting to think I’ve gone soft.
Well, to make up for it, here’s a few thoughts about the bleak ‘n’ blistering new album from German Blackened Sludge crew Praise the Plague.
Are you happy now?
(This is Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review of the new album by Hulder, which will be released on February 9th by 20 Buck Spin.)
It is the critics’ temptation to always glorify the radical and experimental, but sometimes it’s important to realize genius when it is executed within a genre’s traditional confines. Such is the brilliance of Hulder. Their latest full-length, Verses In Oath, is an exercise in everything that has made black metal such an addictive sound. The embrace of ancient violence and forest mysticism is strong here and they don’t radically deviate from the template, they are just doing it better than almost anyone else right now. Continue reading »
(Daniel Barkasi returns today with the second of his monthly NCS columns devoted to spreading the word about musical obscurities. What you’ll find below are reviews and streams of 8 records released from around the globe in January.)
To begin, thank you to all who read the first edition of this monthly column. I’m glad folks seemed to enjoy the musical expeditions of my often wacky brain. May you discover something to your liking that’ll (hopefully) give you plenty of enjoyment and respite from the madness of the everyday hustle.
This edition covers records that were released in January, which is how we’ll be covering things month-to-month. This time, we have a cornucopia of flavors to indulge; from atmospheric, epic, and relaxing, to the downright filthy. True that the first month of the calendar is typically a relatively slow month in terms of memorable releases, but this year has started off quite favorably. Plenty of under the surface delights to tear into, so let us begin faster than Jerry Seinfeld’s supposed claim of being quite fleet of foot. We choose to run! Continue reading »
(We present Wil Cifer‘s intriguing review of an album by the Chicago band meth. that was released last Friday by Prosthetic Records.)
Imagine a band that does not feel the need to adhere to any of the conventions we have heard a thousand times over from all the other bands that push the limits of heavy. Chicago’s meth. is such a band.
Less unsettling evil haunts their new album Shame than say a band like Portrayal of Guilt, who are not far removed from their sonic zip code. You can pinpoint the sub-genres they touch upon, such as the deliberate pound of dense distortion that could be called sludge. Most of their vocalist’s screams carry an anguish that is similar to what we hear from black metal vocalists. Yet unlike those bands, they do not just relegate themselves to doing it throughout the entirety of a song much less the entire album. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn tries his best to embrace the new album from Chapel of Disease, out this Friday)
A lot of people, including yours truly, will tell you that Chapel of Disease‘s 2018 album, …And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye, is one of the best Death Metal albums of the last decade.
And even those who don’t agree with that statement generally have to concede that it’s definitely one of the most unique Death Metal albums they’ve heard in a long, long time.
But the band’s upcoming fourth album (the final recording of the group’s original line-up) is neither of these things.
Because it’s not really a Death Metal album at all.
(Andy Synn finds himself enchanted by the debut release from Ohio’s Modern Witchcraft)
As I’ve mentioned several times, it’s difficult (read: impossible) for us to keep up with every new band that comes out and every new release they come out with.
Heck, it’s not exactly easy, either, keeping track of all the bands we already know about, especially when they decide to change their names – which is the case with Modern Witchcraft.
Previously known as Close the Hatch (whose 2020 album, also entitled Modern Witchcraft, was a low-key favourite of mine that year) I had pretty much given up hope of ever hearing anything from these guys again until, out of the blue, I stumbled across the video for “Corpse Painter” a little over a week ago.
Some part of me immediately recognised that particular mix of moody percussion, brooding bass, and reverberating guitars… and when those instantly identifiable vocals kicked in I knew exactly who this must be, regardless of what they were calling themselves now.
And I also knew, as soon as the song finished, that I’d be writing about this record as soon as I could.
Ash
Sometimes we must confront grim tasks head-on and grapple with them, rather than shying away. And so I forced myself to calculate how much time has passed since the last time I did one of these columns. The answer is, six weeks ago, the day before Christmas.
Countless creatures making up thousands of species are born, live, and die within a six-week span. Hell, males among the American sand-burrowing mayflies live less than one hour after reaching adulthood, and females have just five minutes to breed before they die. Let’s have a moment of silence for them, please.
Thank you.
Even thinking about what has happened to me over the last six weeks to produce such a void in this Sunday column is a grim contemplation. Knowing what I have ahead of me next weekend, there will likely be another void next Sunday. But for now let’s contemplate more pleasurable grimness. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn has a few words to share about four albums from last month you may have overlooked)
Here we are… one month into the new year… and we’ve already fallen behind.
Of course, that’s nothing new. As I’ve said before (several times, in fact) it’s impossible for any site, let alone any individual writer, to keep up with everything that’s released week after week (which is one reason I don’t trust anyone who claims that they’ve somehow listened to literally hundreds of albums every month – they may have heard them, but I doubt they really listened to them the way they deserve), so even at this early stage it’s no surprise that there’s so many artists and albums we haven’t been able to write about.
To be quite honest though, this is less and less of an issues these days – simply by accepting the fact that there’s always going to be stuff we’re not going to be able to cover, while also acknowledging that we’re definitely going to be featuring some stuff here that other places, and other people, won’t cover, we’ve gotten over our fear of missing out and embraced the idea that our value comes not from covering everything but from providing an interesting and distinct perspective of our own on what we do write about.
So, with that in mind, here’s four artists/albums from January – some of which you may already have been aware of, some of which you may not – that we (or, at least, I) felt compelled to pen a few extra words about so that they didn’t get overlooked following what was, after all, a very packed month of new releases!
(Daniel Barkasi, an NCS writer from long ago, has returned here with the first installment in a planned monthly column. In this inaugural edition he recommends 10 albums released last year that deserve a closer look.)
Welcome NCS readers to my first, brand new column of music that’s been bouncing around in my often deranged cranium. I feel vigorous.
What we’re going to be doing here is highlighting releases that have – at least, according to my spidey senses – slipped under the radar and haven’t gotten much attention or buzz. We’ll cover an undetermined number of these unsung heroes monthly. Most of these will be relatively current and put out within the last few months, but I also don’t want to be that rigid all the time, so we’ll do so liberally and make sure to add a release date for each entry.
For this inaugural piece, I’m going to highlight a few albums from 2023 that were unsung gems that deserve a little love, in no particular order. Continue reading »
(Gonzo returns with another end-of-month roundup of recommended releases, this time shining a light on albums and EPs released by six bands in January.)
January is such a bullshit month.
It’s cold as all fuck, everyone’s burned out – financially, emotionally, professionally – and shows/tours are few and far between. To pile it on, it’s also customarily a terrible month for new music. I wasn’t expecting to unearth much during my monthly search of metal’s grimy underbelly to include in this feature.
Lo and behold, I was dead fucking wrong. 2024 has already seen so many good releases in just over three weeks that I actually had to figure out what not to include here. (Coincidentally, three of the releases are from France, so make of that what you will.)
Regardless of geography, the sharp rise in early-year quality in 2024 is making me rethink old paradigms. Is the January curse on its way out? Am I reading too much into this? Is reality a lie? Are the machines reading my thoughts? Fuck. Continue reading »