SHORT BUT SWEET Archives - Page 22 of 114

DEADSPACE: “WITHIN HAUNTED CHAMBERS”

Jul 282023

Those of you who have been routinely stopping by our site over the last few weeks know that we’ve been enthusiastically welcoming the return of the Australian black metal band Deadspace, not only trying to help spread the word about their forthcoming seventh album Unveiling the Palest Truth on the Immortal Frost label, but also announcing and premiering a song from their new EP Within Haunted Chambers — and today that EP has been released.

As we’ve previously reported, the EP functions as something of a harrowing glide path to the takeoff of the new album. It includes three tracks from two Deadspace albums, The Promise of Oblivion (independently released in 2015) and Dirge (released through Talheim Records in 2019), but Deadspace have re-recorded the songs to showcase their evolution over the years in the live and studio arenas and to bring them more in line with what we’ll hear on the new full-length. As they explained to us:

This is part of us re-establishing ourselves and a much harsher and heavier entity, leaving behind the DSBM moniker. These tracks are how these songs are played live now in 2023 and are designed to sit well amongst our newer material that will be out in September.

SHADES OF BLACK: NIDARE, COLLIER D’OMBRE, GRIFT, ATGEIR, VOIDMÏLKER

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Jul 232023

Nidare

Why would any sane person wake up at 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, which is what I did today? Was it too hot to sleep in our un-air-conditioned bedroom? Not at all — it was a delicious 55°F (12.7°C) outside (eat your hearts out all you hell-dwellers in the rest of the sun-broiled world). It may have been that I limited my Saturday-night intoxicants to one ice-cold martini. Possibly I was subconsciously anxious because I had made no start on the writing of this column yesterday.

I don’t recommend this kind of behavior. I see no evidence that the early bird gets the worm. Instead, it turns the brain wormy… or at least very foggy. I went in search of music to function as a pesticide (the more forever chemicals, the better) and a bitter wind to blow away the fog. Here’s what I found:

NIDARE (Germany)

Late last year we premiered a song from Von Wegen, the then-forthcoming debut album by this German post-black metal band, and it pulled me headlong all the way into that album. It’s a very good thing, then, that we haven’t had to wait long for a follow-up, which hit the streets on July 12th in the form of a stunning EP named Naehe und Flackern (via Through Love Records). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DANTALION, SATÓN, ANTI-GOD HAND, MAZE OF TERROR, EMINENTIA TENEBRIS, STANGARIGEL

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Jul 162023

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times (probably closer to 200): I have another job whose demands are very unpredictable. It interfered with my ability to prepare a roundup yesterday, unexpectedly so for me — because I just fucking forgot about a big online meeting that had been scheduled for months (rude surprises have many causes). It started early and went on for 2 1/2 hours (come on, it takes time to coordinate production of pocket-sized fusion reactors!).

I thought about just pretending that today was Saturday and proceeding with a cross-genre roundup, but then thought again, and decided to stick with the usual plan and focus on the blacker arts today. Still, your creaky wagon won’t get stuck in any ruts – these selections will cause it to careen all over the en-thorned dirt road (or so I hope).

DANTALION (Spain)

I decided to start with a quintet of songs from forthcoming releases and then turn to just one recent EP. The first of the advance tracks comes from the ninth album by the long-running Spanish band Dantalion (which my addled brain always tries to read as “dandelion”, though there’s nothing about their music that connects with such an image, unless the flower is dead). Continue reading »

NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS: THE VIDEO PREMIERE OF “CRYPT OF THE GORILLA GOD” (AND A REVIEW OF “SILVER BULLET”)

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET No Responses »

Jul 122023

“What you’re about to experience is likely to be the most electrifying 18 minutes of your day, unless you lose control of your car, the brakes fail, and you’re surging toward a concrete pylon at Formula One speed.”

Almost four months ago that’s how we began our review and premiere of a self-titled EP by the Chicago-based horror-loving quintet Necronomicon Ex Mortis. We also wrote this: “Their brand of death metal is so fast, so technically head-spinning, and so devilishly inventive that it allows no room for any calm contemplation. All you can do is hang on for dear life and enjoy the flame-throwing madhouse thrills while they last — and then yield to the impulse to throw yourself back in right away”.

No wonder then that we jumped at the chance to host another Necronomicon Ex Mortis premiere today, and we’re doing that because they already have another EP headed for release in August. It’s named Silver Bullet, so if you’re a werewolf you’d better run. You might want to run even if you’re not a lycanthrope. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SZNUR, DISCORPORATE, A//PLAGUE, ANONYMOUS SKULL, NIGHTGOAT INVOKATE THE STARS, AUTGER

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Jul 092023

Over the last few days, in between other things, I wandered down an underground musical path that took some very unexpected turns. Rather than focus on names that might be well-known, I focused instead on obscurity. I did recognize two names whose new music I explored (they begin and end today’s collection), but most I had never before.

In each instance, something about the music grabbed me, even when in some instances it initially seemed to pose a rude challenge to my ear drums. I hope you’ll find it an interesting musical odyssey, as I did, straight through to the fascinating surprise that’s waiting at the end. I don’t expect everything will appeal to everyone, but what does?

SZNUR (Poland)

As noted, I’m beginning with a name that already resonated well with me thanks to my discovery of the band’s third album, Dom Człowieka, soon after its release by Godz Ov War Productions about two years ago (which I enthusiastically reviewed here). Now Sznur‘s fourth album Ludzina is on the way from the same Godz Ov War. I haven’t yet heard all of it, but the two tracks currently streaming are high-octane fuel for the reptile brain. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: INCANTATION, KATAKLYSM, OSSUARY, CRUCIBLE OF HATE, GHOST HOLLOW

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

Jul 012023

Incantation

When I started this blog 13 years, 7 months, and 10 days ago (but who’s counting?) I had very few ambitions. One of them was to continue posting about metal straight through the weekends for as long as this NCS lark might last, no days off.

Back in those days of the internet’s infancy, blogs devoted to metal were few in number (none of them were fancy enough to call themselves “web sites”), and I thought being the only such place with something new on the weekends would attract a few more visitors. But my main motivation was to tangibly demonstrate that NCS wasn’t a business, and writing for NCS wasn’t a job, and never would it be. Because if it were a job you’d get the weekends off, right?

13 years, 7 months, and 10 days later, I’m still not pausing NCS on the weekends. In all that time we’ve had some weekend days where nothing new went up, but not many. Maybe a dozen days, certainly not more than two dozen. Illness, injury, and apocalyptic hangovers have taken their tolls, but not nearly as often as you might think. However, weekends like this one pose a special challenge. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): G.N.L.S., SACRENOIR, VITAPHOBIA, D.R.E.P.

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Jun 252023

As forecast in Part 1 of today’s collection of blackened sounds, this Part compiles a small mountain of music — three complete albums and one complete EP. As also forecast, the music is nightmarish in different ways — some of it capable of causing skin to crawl, some of it blistering the flesh, and some of it accomplishing both objectives. But I also think the music is just as fascinating as it is frightening. I hope you’ll feel the same way.

G.N.L.S. (Greece)

Two weeks ago I wrote (here) about an album named Asphyxiating Late Night Sessions, which was a collaboration between Dødsferd‘s mastermind Wrath and m.Sarvok. But it wasn’t the sole result of their working together. Even earlier this year they released another collaborative album under the name G.N.L.S. (Geometric Nictation of Lament’s Space), and it’s a very different experience from the more recent release. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): IMPERIAL CRYSTALLINE ENTOMBMENT, WYRGHER, ASUNDER

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Jun 252023

Yesterday my spouse left me home alone for most of the day (the feline creatures were still there but they mostly left me alone too). That allowed me the time to do some deep diving in a search for music to write about today. Purely by coincidence, much of what I found turned out to be… nightmarish. Some of the songs make the skin crawl, others blister it, some do both, and almost none of it seems connected to what passes for reality in our world.

What I chose adds up to an unsettling but electrifying trip of significant proportions — three individual tracks (two from forthcoming records and one standalone single) and then a plunge into the depths of longer-form madness with three complete new albums and a new EP. Hopefully you won’t find this an endurance test but instead a relentless journey of mind-altering discovery.

To get things started before too much of the day gets away, I’ve divided it into two Parts, launching the individual tracks now so I can then turn back to finishing the much larger second installment, which will come later today Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: UNDULATION, GATHERING STONES, NOTT, NUCLEAR DUDES

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Jun 212023

I started working on this roundup of new music on Juneteenth, the U.S. holiday that was observed two days ago. Couldn’t finish it in time, due to a little celebration of the day that I was involved in. (Even my white-as-chalk family in central Texas celebrated it when I was growing up there eons ago, mainly for the excuse to feast on soul food, not so much to commemorate the final surrender of the Confederate army, and it has stayed with me even here in Washington State where it became an official holiday only last year). I couldn’t finish the roundup yesterday either, but finally, success.

Still buried in new music and with my brain knotted trying to figure out what to do, I decided to cut this Gordian knot by focusing on just a few recent releases from bands in the Pacific Northwest near where I live now. Although they’re all from the same region, however, you’re in for a real musical roller-coaster ride.

UNDULATION

First up is An Unhealthy Interest in Suffering, a head-spinning debut EP released by the Seattle band Undulation about 10 days ago. Here’s how the band themselves describe their music:

“Behind an oozing velvet curtain stand Undulation, Le Gran Guignol of Cascadia. Through the dappled sunlight of broken rose windows, their ritual begins like a writhing, pulsating wyrm thirsty for innocent blood. Painting a horrid beauty like gallows in a field of flowers, their cacophony blooms into a blurred, surreal vision of melodic blackened death metal. Undulation cometh.”

SHORT BUT SWEET: ALTARAGE / DĀMIM / INNUMERABLE FORMS / MORNU / TRIPHEAD / WOODS WITCH

SHORT BUT SWEET 1 Response »

Jun 162023

(Andy Synn collects a series of six short-form releases you may not have heard)

Time, as they say, is a cruel mistress.

No matter what we do, she never seems to give us enough of herself, and always demands that we try to do more, write more, say more, with what little she allows us to have.

It means that we frequently have to make some harsh decisions when it comes to what we do, or do not, cover here at NCS, and so it’s inevitable that stuff we might otherwise have liked to write about – for example, the delicious new Depeche Mode covers record by SOM – sometimes doesn’t make the cut.

Which, ultimately, makes it extra important that you all check out the following EPs… because so much already gets missed out that you really can’t afford to let these pass you by too!

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