SHADES OF BLACK: DUSK CULT, BLACK SORCERY, GRÅANDE, MELTED BODIES

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May 212023
 

This Sunday’s tour through the black arts is shorter than usual. Unexpected conflicts have arisen in my day. The confliction in the music was planned.

DUSK CULT (Australia)

Behold, our revelation statement
Bow down, before a dying sun
Yielding, to midnight manifesto
We’ve only just begun

Those words are some of the lyrics to “Black Cloud Worship“, a new song that this Australian band presented two days ago through a dramatic video wherein revelations occur on a rocky, wave-drenched shoreline. I had some idea what to expect from this duo (who are members of Be’lakor and Rainshadow), based on the manifold strengths of their 2021 debut album Embrace the Lunar Age, but the music still left my heart pounding hard. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PENNY COFFIN – “CONSCRIPTED MORALITY”

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May 192023
 

(Our long-time writer DGR has been very busy catching up with recent releases that struck his interest in different ways, and today we begin a daily run of reviews that will carry on through next week. This one is for a new EP by the Scottish band Penny Coffin that was released in April via Dry Cough Records and At With False Noise.)

We’ve long specialized in stumbling headfirst into the world of the oppressively dark and suffocating. Rarely would you see a website describe itself as having a knack for something and it certainly couldn’t be said that we’re skilled seekers of the style; it’s more like a drunken crash through the wall when the entrance door is just two feet over. The latest one to send that shock to our system – or be rudely awakened by our door-crashing — is the group Penny Coffin and their latest release.

Penny Coffin come to us by way of Scotland with their third EP – the band currently on a schedule of one EP a year – Conscripted Morality. Conscripted Morality saw release in early April and was one of the many tumbling into the whirling abyss of the internet discoveries that found themselves captured in the great content maw, with the purpose of allowing us to investigate when things here sort of lightened up.

Playing a style of grossly-heavy death metal with an emphasis on brutalizing and equally brain-rotting guitar chug, it’s shocking that the band haven’t fought their way onto this here site before, because Conscripted Morality‘s brand of bleak-and-grey mud is perfectly suited to find some listeners around here. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GALLOWS RITES — “WITCHCRAFT AND NECRO DESECRATION”

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May 182023
 

Portugal’s Gallows Rites are as un-pretentious as they come. In their debut EP Witchcraft and Necro Desecration they announce their steadfast devotion to Lucifer, and never swerve from it. The music is a black thrashing glorification of the lord of Hell and all his minions, often primal and primitive but thoroughly saturated by the stench of sulphur and exulting in the kind of sonic sorcery that brings visions of witches’ covens to the mind’s eye.

Gallows Rites thrive in the fast lane, just as devoted to music that would stir up mosh pits into bloody froths as they are to the glory of the Lightbringer. But they also switch gears and moods in these five songs, in ways that make them even more attention-grabbing.

You will experience all this for yourselves today, because we have a premiere stream of the EP in advance of its release tomorrow — May 19th — by Helldprod Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEZDECH — “TAM, GDZIE GNIJEMY POD POMNIKAMI”

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May 162023
 

Almost two years ago we encountered Duhkha, the debut EP by the Polish band Bezdech, summarily describing it as “a hair-raising and head-spinning alchemy of avant-garde black and death metal”, and then adding these words:

This Polish duo paint their disturbing but often electrifying sonic portraits with colors of mind-abrading dissonance, thoroughly unpredictable fretwork maneuvers, and rapidly veering tempos. But the music is just as likely to become cloaked in shrouds of haunting gloom or to dip into streams of soul-shaking misery as it is to spin like a centrifuge of technically impressive lunacy and riotous savagery. And holy shit, the vocals are stunningly rabid and possessed.

Since then Bezdech have expanded their line-up from a two-man studio project to a full four-man band, and have managed to get a few live gigs under their belts. They’ve also been working on new music for a debut album, but have decided to give the world a glimpse of what they’ve been working on via a demo named Tam, gdzie gnijemy pod pomnikami that we’re gratefully premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE END OF SIX THOUSAND YEARS — SELF-TITLED

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May 152023
 

Today we have another tale of slumber and revival. In this case it’s the Italian band The End of Six Thousand Years. Their inception occurred nearly 20 years ago, and by 2012 they had released two albums, in addition to some shorter releases. But then a long silence befell them, interrupted only by a single (“Angelus Errare“) that emerged in 2020.

Well, they weren’t actually sleeping, more a case of “life getting in the way”. Yet the desire didn’t die, and although line-up changes have occurred, the band is now returning with a new EP that will be released by Hypershape Records on May 18th. As a sign of the rebirth, and it’s fair to say a reinvention, the new EP is self-titled. It includes four tracks, concluding with a cover of “The Man Who Loves to Hurt Himself” by Today Is The Day, and we’ve got all four of them for your listening pleasure today. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BURY THEM AND KEEP QUIET, FEMINIZER, SOMBRE CIEL

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May 142023
 

Happy Mother’s Day. I felt the need to say that because a few of you might be mothers and others might have been born of mothers, as opposed to some other form of spawning.

I’m typing this with one hand. The other hand is around my own throat, trying to choke off my tendency to explain why I haven’t accomplished more with this column today. It’s a struggle, so I should get on to the music before my choking hand succumbs to fatigue.

BURY THEM AND KEEP QUIET (U.S.) / FEMINIZER (U.S.)

The 2023 debut demo by the German band Kuolevan Rukous quickly became one of my favorite black metal releases of the year. I might never have listened to it if the Spanish label Vita Detestabilis hadn’t asked if we might premiere it — which I eagerly did here after listening to it. If you still haven’t checked it out, I urge you to bookmark this Bandcamp page and make time for it soon. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ERDVE, ADVERSVM, COFFIN MULCH, KORPVS, KILL DIVISION, THE NEANDERVERBS, MNAJDRA

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May 062023
 

Less than a week into May and it’s already damned hot in many places around the world, even in some far northern latitudes. A news report yesterday said that at least 78 wildfires are burning across the Canadian province of Alberta, 19 of which are burning out of control, and that more than 13,000 people have already been evacuated from where they live.

Where I live, near the 47th meridian in the Pacific Northwest (and about 800 miles southwest of the Alberta fire zone), it’s now 47° F and the gray sky is drizzling rain, as it did all day yesterday. I love it. It might have influenced some of the picks in this large roundup of new songs and videos, though some sonic firestorms and a few vigorous beatings found their way into it too.

Actually, I’m very proud of how varied this collection turned out to be. Which means you probably won’t like all of it.

ERDVE (Lithuania)

Despite my opening commentary about the weather, the new single from Erdve sounds like a different natural phenomenon — like a mid-paced avalanche of stone, with giant boulders rumbling down. Along with all the jarring jolts, the sizzling riffage is also frightful, creating tension and fear, while the raw yells channel rage. Continue reading »

ENCOUNTER TRUTH: “PANSPERMIA”

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May 012023
 

(Encounter Truth hail from Bogotá, Colombia, and what follows is DGR‘s enthusiastic review of their debut EP Panspermia.)

Truth be told: Colombia’s Encounter Truth and their new EP Panspermia – released at the tail end of March – are kind of at a perfect cross-section of where yours truly has been positioned musically at the moment. At a little over twenty-six minutes in length, five songs, full of tech-death noodling that could challenge a ramen shop in terms of production and plenty of blue/purple colorization about science fiction topics, Encounter Truth have laid their entire formula out on the table before you even hit play.

Across those five songs Encounter Truth are showing that they’re likely never going to let off the accelerator once, and the constant hammering is going to come from all ends – whether it be a surprisingly prominent bass guitar or a never-ending drum section wherein the double-bass rolling is the foundation upon which many of the songs are built.

If this is the “proof-of-concept” release for the current incarnation of Encounter Truth, then perhaps this is a band to keep an eye on in the future, because Panspermia makes it clear that they have the fundamental nature of the genre locked down by the time they’re rocketing well into the EPs second song “La Alianza”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KRYATJURR OF DESERT AHD, OXBOW, BALMOG, SARVEKAS, HOST, ÚZKOST

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 292023
 


Balmog

Happy Saturn’s Day (and good wishes to the dead Romans who named it.). For me, paying work was all-consuming during the first part of this past week, but it was sheer laziness that kept me from compiling a roundup of new music in the closing days. Those two phenomena were connected of course. After some NCS editorial work and some premieres during the days when the paying work relented, I felt like I’d earned the right to stop scurrying and attempt a mind-meld with sloths.

With no head-start behind me, here I am with a giant slag-pile of new music and videos to go through, and great risk of cutting myself followed by infection as I try to paw through it. But paw I did (thankful for band-aids), and the results are presented below. It doesn’t include everything that grabbed me, but to include everything would have left me still writing come sundown. I don’t want that. I want time to go outside and enjoy the warmest day of the year so far here in the Pacific Northwest, or more likely just take a nap.

As if I didn’t have enough picks already, this morning brought a new installment of Renni Resmini’s starkweather substack, and as usual I hadn’t heard the majority of those selections, and as usual his writing compelled me to check out some of those, which has made this roundup even longer. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: DEMONICAL — “INTO VICTORY”

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Apr 242023
 

(Here we have DGR‘s review of a new EP released by the Swedish band Demonical, which has been out since the end of March on Agonia Records.)

There have been a string of singles and EP releases in the past couple of months and the grouping of them has been all over the place — many consisting of bonus tracks that were on international editions or ultra-exclusive songs, others being odd experiments, and some being the more traditional “yes, we are working hard on new stuff, here’s what we’ve been up to recently”.

Demonical‘s newest EP release is along the lines of the third one, although part of the reason we’re checking in with them is due to Demonical changing vocalists, so its partly that the band are still going (which is good news, given that 2022’s Mass Destroyer was pretty strong) and partly “here’s what we’re going to sound like now” with new vocalist Charlie Fryksell at the helm.

Not to shock anyone, but the two songs present on Into Victory – the title track and a cover of The Ramones‘ “Somebody Put Something In My Drink” that plays it remarkably straight – continue Demonical‘s pattern of being particularly strong and very capable of bringing the earth-rumbling gallop that you come to this style of death metal for. Continue reading »

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