AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAVERNOUS MAW — “PRIMITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102025
 

(written by Islander)

The well-known descriptor “caveman death metal” connotes big dumb knuckle-dragging riffs, big dumb indecipherable grunts, and club-wielding drumwork that also seems primarily designed to break rocks. No pretense, no sophistication, no appeals to our higher faculties, just red meat for the reptile brain.

Sometimes, however, music that attracts that descriptor reminds of the long-running Geico commercials in which cavemen in modern settings become offended by the phrase “It’s so easy a caveman could do it,” because they are actually more sophisticated than their appearances suggest.

Which brings us to Cavernous Maw, a new Minnesota-based project created by guitarist/vocalist Niilo Smith (Sky Island) and drummer Ben Fagerness (Sky Island, Graveslave, Gloryhole Guillotine). Outwardly, they have no pretense — just look at the name of their debut EP (Primitive), the bloody cover art by Misanthropic-Art, their own proud brandishing of the “caveman death metal” label (though they do add “blackened” to that descriptor), and of course the band’s own name.

But their music turns out to be a whole lot more than a good soundtrack for breaking rocks and clubbing people senseless. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VERHEERER, OSGRAEF, ANCINE, THE BLOOD MOUNTAIN BLACK METAL CHOIR, OFNUS, Обрій (OBRIJ)

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Another Sunday arrives, and with it another brain-wrecking task of making choices for this column, a task made even harder than I was expecting when I woke up to find that Rennie Resmini had climbed back into the starkweather Substack with a bunch of new recommendations I hadn’t already discovered (more on that later).

It’s obvious (maybe painfully obvious to some of you) that I am prone to great enthusiasm about music. I know I’m less critical than lots of other listeners, and even other writers at our putrid site. I still use my own kind of filter, but it seems more porous than those of others. Or maybe I see more clearly just how much fucking creativity and talent continue flowering in the metal underground, week after week!

(Somehow my enthusiasm for music is unabated even though the country where I live is rapidly going down the shitter.)

Here’s a severely cropped snapshot of what’s enthused me in recent days from the blacker realms. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: REVOCATION, RIVERS OF NIHIL, ILLUSIONS DEAD, SERPENTS OF PAKHANGBA, SEASON TO RISK, JUNON, BENEDICTION, ROTTING CHRIST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 082025
 


Revocation – photo by David Brodsky

(written by Islander)

Bookends: solid objects firmly in place, resistant to the pressure of adjacent warped spines, bulging contents, and the changes in atmosphere and time that cause such pressures. I have a pair of musical bookends on each end of today’s musical shelf. In between are a few exceedingly interesting small volumes that caught my eyes and ears this week. I hope you’ll give them all a chance so they can catch yours too.

REVOCATION (U.S.)

Surely, Revocation need no introduction, so I won’t provide one. Let’s see and hear what they’re up to now, the focus being on the video released for a new single named “Confines of Infinity“. Continue reading »

ROTPIT AND DRUID LORD JOIN FORCES IN ROT-FILLED SPLIT EP

 Album Reviews, Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 072025
 

(Here, our contributor Zoltar shines a light on the recently released split Doomed To Rot by two death metal devastators — Druid Lord from the U.S. and the German/Swedish group Rotpit.)

Split releases may appear like a thing of the past but, Satan be thanked, some cool bands and underground labels out there carry on that long tradition, let it be by pure opportunity or, in today’s case, simply to show each other some good old respect. And why the hell not? Especially when the two bands in question aren’t exactly playing what you would call, well, half-ass death metal.

Here in the US, you’re probably more familiar with DRUID LORD: Formed over fifteen years ago by former EQUINOX and ACHERON veterans Peter Slate (guitar) and Tony Blakk (bass & vocals), completed since 20016 by KILLING ADDICTION’s Chris Wicklein (guitar) and MASSACRE’s Elden Santos (drums), they’ve been growing in strength over the course of three albums and a whole bunch of splits, showcasing their heavy-as-fuck doom/death take on the classic Floridian style.

On the flipside, you’ll find the Swedish/German supergroup ROTPIT, spearheaded by Ralf Hauber from REVEL IN FLESH, assisted by his partner-in-crime in HEADS FOR THE DEAD Jonny Pettersson (the man of a thousand bands/projects like WOMBBATH, HUMAN HARVEST and so on) and, on drums since last year, Erik Barthold from LEFT HAND SOLUTION. Last November, the lads released Long Live The Rot, a downtuned delicacy of epic proportions that would make BLOODBATH barf and run for cover. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IMPURIST — “EVOLVING CORTEX”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 032025
 

(written by Islander)

Impurist are a new death metal band formed in Hull, England in 2023. Their lineup features former and current members of Extreme Noise Terror, Gorerotted, Winterfylleth, and Introrectalgestation. They proudly proclaim that they have taken influence from the bands they grew up listening to, and they obviously must have grown up listening to violent horrors.

Impurist made their recording debut in April of last year with an EP aptly named Punishment Without Mercy. Since then they’ve recorded a second EP entitled Evolving Cortex. It will be released by 783label on CD, cassette tape, and 12″ vinyl — and the vinyl edition will include the band’s debut EP as the B-side.

The new EP, Evolving Cortex, includes three songs, and we have some thoughts about each of them — along with the premiere of a frightening animated lyric video for the title song. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MNAJDRA, PLUTONIAN SHORE, PURE WRATH, SIVYJ YAR, SLEEP PARALYSIS, SVRM, UTHULLUN

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 022025
 

(written by Islander)

In both these Sunday columns and the more genre-scattered ones I do on Saturdays I tend to write about individual songs more than complete EPs or albums. That allows me to cover more ground, and to bring more bands and their forthcoming releases to people’s attention.

The downside is that lots of listeners don’t really put much weight on individual songs. They want to know about the complete record, maybe through a review or more likely by listening to all of it when that becomes possible.

I don’t have any way of knowing whether the pluses of my strategy outweigh the minuses, but I’m wedded to it for better or worse. Today’s column is a classic example of that, though I have included a trio of complete but short EPs in the mix. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MANTAR, BALMOG, JUODVARNIS, DARK MEDITATION, GRAVEWITCH, MESSA, MARES OF THRACE, IMPURITY

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 012025
 


These are bathrooms I visited in Port Orchard, Washington

(written by Islander)

It’s been a hell of a week hasn’t it? More like a week from hell. The daily news has become a series of Hieronymus Bosch paintings, the ghastly ones whose details have frequently appeared on the cover of metal albums.

On the other hand, it’s been a heavenly week if you focus on the kind of music that typically makes its way into these Saturday roundups. So let’s forget about the news for now and move right to that!

MANTAR (Germany)

I’m never going to not rush to check out new music from Mantar. (Forgive the double-negative, I guess I haven’t completely forgotten about the news.) Especially when it’s prefaced by this kind of statement from guitarist/vocalist Hanno Klänhardt: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: OBSCURE SPHINX / SLAUGHTERSUN / ΘΛΊΨΙΣ

 SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 282025
 

(Andy Synn promises to review more EPs this year… we’ll see about that!)

Every year I promise that I’m going to feature and review more EPs here at NCS… and every year I fail spectacularly at this, and have to jam in all the short-form releases of the year into my annual “List Week” instead.

But, mark my words, this year things are going to be different! Although, I might have said that before…

Continue reading »

CHRONICLING CORRODED CRENELATIONS OF RESONANCE – LONGFORM MUSINGS ON KOKESHI, MESARTHIM, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, LYCOPOLIS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jan 202025
 

(As the title of this post signifies, our Vietnam-based contributor Vizzah Harri shares some thoughts about new music by kokeshi, Mesarthim, Imperial Triumphant, and Lycopolis, but in this month of beginnings and transitions he also shares a great many other abundantly-linked thoughts before getting there, many of them concerning “theft and intertextuality within music.”)

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” – ultimate guitar user quote… originally by H.P. Lovecraft

It was 210 days left in my 40th year when I started writing this. One of my exes recently said the reason I’ll remain single for life is because I refuse to grow up, probably also why my articles read like they were written by a teenager on crack. 210 is a Harshad number. Harshad originates from the Sanskrit harṣa (joy) + da (give), meaning joy-giver. I for one rejoice in the bliss of discovering new music gushing in from my headphones.

2024 was the year of the dragon, a word which finds its origin in the Greek drakōn or ‘serpent’. 2025 will be the year of the snake, from 蛇 or Shé in traditional Chinese, or Hebi in Japanese Kanji which refers to “the winding thing.” This bodes well for what is to come for the dragon sharing so much of its hoard with us in music. And their etymologies being so linked one could only imagine 2025 to be as prodigious in output. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: RUINOUS POWER, DAKÛ, NECRODANCER, BESNA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jan 192025
 

(written by Islander)

What is the correct adjective for the genre of music known as Black Metal? Is it “blackened“? I think not. “Blackened” is a word I often see applied to the music of bands who play something other than Black Metal but add ingredients that people think are drawn from Black Metal, even if it’s nothing more than shrieks, blizzard-like tremolo riffs, or blistering blasts, even though none of those elements is unique to Black Metal.

So if “blackened” really isn’t right, then what is? Other adjectives commonly used to describe Black Metal are even less specific to the genre — words like “grim,” “cold,” “nihilistic,” “misanthropic,” or “kvlt,” and for some kinds of Black Metal they don’t fit very well at all.

How about “Black Metallic“? Linguistically, it appears to be accurate; “metallic” is an accepted adjective for things relating to or being a metal, and there’s also an accepted definition of “metallic” that refers to “having a harsh or rasping sound.”

There’s a risk that if “Black Metallic” were accepted, it could become a noun. After all, the term “Classical Music” originally might have been intended as an adjectival phrase but is now a noun, and has been for a very long time. But I don’t think it would be terrible if people used “Black Metal” and “Black Metallic” interchangably. Of course that will never happen. Continue reading »

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