KRYPTAN: A REVIEW OF THEIR SELF-TITLED EP AND THE PREMIERE OF “A GIANT LEAP FOR WHOREDOM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 012021
 

 

The dumpster fire of the past pandemic year was wretched in countless ways, but most of us have realized that it also gave birth to a multitude of changes that were not all bad. Among other fortunate developments, the shutdowns and solitary confinements gave many experienced musicians the space to turn their talents in different directions, no longer wholly consumed by the feverishness of routines that might have marked the pre-pandemic age.

The Swedish band Kryptan represents one such new beginning. It is the brainchild of songwriter, guitarist, and keyboardist Mattias Norrman, who is best known for his work with October Tide and Katatonia. But while the music on Kryptan‘s debut album does include recognizable traces of his other more brooding and doom-directed work, it is a vehicle for channeling the passions inspired by Scandinavian black metal from the ’90s, perhaps especially the influence of such bands as Dissection, Naglfar, and Marduk.

Kryptan‘s debut EP is et for release on July 23rd by Debemur Morti Productions, and today we’re providing thoughts about all four of its tracks, and premiering one of them Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ONDFØDT, NORDJEVEL, XANATHAR, A PREGNANT LIGHT, VARGSTUHR

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 272021
 

 

Reporting to you today from the hellish Pacific Northwest heat dome, where the second highest temperature ever recorded in Seattle at any time of the year happened yesterday and new records will be set today and tomorrow, I bring you  Part 2 of today’s expanded column devoted to black-ish metal. I decided to include three new EPs of very different styles, and to bookend them with one advance track from a forthcoming record and one song that opens a recently released album.

ONDFØDT (Finland)

Part 1 of today’s column was entirely devoted to videos, and I thought I’d begin Part 2 with another one. This one is for a song named “Mörkri” from Ondfødt’s new album Norden (their third full-length), which is set for release by Immortal Frost Productions on July 30th.

The heaviness of the bass and the hammering of the drums give the song visceral punch and power, but the mood of the music is severely desolate and distraught, with a haunting feeling of isolation and abandonment that’s matched by the frozen vistas in the video. But the song is a multi-faceted one. A militaristic drum pattern announces a change, with swinging, swaggering, and swirling riffs and scorching blasts of vocal ferocity giving the song a healthy dose of feral, carnal energy — though it becomes cold and cruel before the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST — “HAIR AS THE SALT OF CARTHAGO”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 242021
 

 

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the fascinatingly distinctive Italian black metal band Laetitia In Holocaust. To celebrate the occasion, the band have recorded a new three-song EP entitled I Fall With the Saints, and Brucia Records is releasing it on a limited run of tapes, along with a book that includes photos and an exclusive interview with the band covering much of their history. Today, in addition to sharing this news, we’re reviewing the EP and premiering one of its three songs, “Hair as the Salt of Carthago“.

For those who may only now be discovering this band despite their longevity, Laetitia in Holocaust was formed in 2001 by Stefano G. and Nicola D.A. That duo self-released two demos, one EP, and two albums before being joined by drummer Marcello M. for the release (by Third I Rex) of the remarkable (and enormously surprising) Fauci tra Fauci in 2019, which we had the thrill of premiering here. And they followed that with the release last year of the transfixing Heritage (via Nifihel Records).

It’s possible to make comparisons of this band’s idiosyncratic creations to the avant-garde stylings of a few other bands, but the truth is that they really don’t sound like anyone else I’ve encountered. Trying to sum up their music in succinct sentences would be a daunting challenge. Forgetting the music after you’ve heard it would be an impossibility. This new EP is a vivid demonstration of all that. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MODERN RITES, BIAŁYWILK, VAELMYST, WITCH VOMIT, MAZE OF TERROR, DIMENTIANON, UNREQVITED

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 232021
 

 

Lots of good stuff in today’s round-up, with a variety of new black metal, death metal, and thrash, plus a towering exit song. All of the songs are off forthcoming records, with the exception of a just-released EP that I’ve sandwiched in the middle. You’ll see some really good cover art in this collection too.

Even though I and most of the NCS writers are in the U.S., the preponderance of the music we cover (along with half our readers) seems to emanate from outside U.S. borders. Thus it’s unusual that (coincidentally) almost all of the following music comes from U.S. bands.

MODERN RITES (U.S./Switzerland)

The opening song today, “Self Synthesis“, swells in sound, like what you might hear if gradually approaching an industrial metal-mangling machine, and then erupts in a hammering, searing discharge of instrumental and vocal intensity — with eerie, wraith-like tones swirling in sorrow above. It revisits those mangling sensations, which begin to seem apocalyptic…. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BLACK CEREMONIAL KULT — “CROWNED IN CHAOS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 112021
 

 

On June 14th the Chilean black/death band Black Ceremonial Kult will add to their collection of demos and splits that have been released since 2014. The newest release, which will come our way via Godz Ov War Productions, is named Crowned In Chaos. As you will discover through our full stream of the EP today, that title is well-chosen.

The band draw their inspiration, and the source of their powers, from occult mysticism, and it obviously leads them into frightening and dangerous places, because their music as represented on this new EP is unmistakably — and inhumanly — frightening and dangerous.

Through the first seven tracks of this 11-track release, the music alternates, creating chilling visions as well as explosions of breathtaking violence and madness, yet the tracks flow into each other seamlessly, creating a massive hallucinatory psychosis. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, WORMWITCH, MOROS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 102021
 

 

In between bouts of activity driven by my fucking day job today, I had just enough time to pull together this relatively short round-up of new sounds — two tracks (both with videos) from forthcoming albums, and one recently released EP.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM (U.S.)

WITTR’s new album has been officially announced. Entitled Primordial Arcana, it’s set for release on August 20th by Relapse Records. Coincident with that they released a video for the song “Mountain Magick“. The band made the video themselves, and filmed it “in the northern reaches of the Olympic Mountains and the ancient forests that shroud the foothills”. They also recorded, produced, and mixed the album themselves. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATH ON FIRE — “A HELL OF OUR OWN DESIGN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 102021
 

 

For just a three-track EP, Death on Fire‘s Six Foot Box is a vibrantly diverse and dynamic experience that manages to hit home in multiple ways. After reaching the end, it’s really easy to loop back around to the beginning, to re-live the experience and try to get a better understanding of how the band managed to provoke such a reflexively visceral and physical response while simultaneously moving emotions in such different and powerful ways. By then, the songs have just dug their hooks deeper under the skin, even further strengthening the desire to go back to them.

You can pick out songwriting and recording techniques (and a dark world-view) that flow across all three tracks, but trying to dissect and enumerate all the stylistic strains in the music (which seem to span about five decades of rock and metal history) is a much more difficult task, though probably easier if you’ve got some gray hairs in your head. It’s better to just appreciate how well this Indiana band have integrated the sounds that inspired them.

What we have for you today, in advance of the EP’s July 16 release, is the premiere of the EP’s second track, “A Hell of Our Own Design“. It now joins the closing song, “Begging For Air“, as publicly available streams — but we’ll also give you a written preview of the EP opener as well. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SKEPTICISM, MERGER REMNANT, SONUM, NISHAIAR

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 072021
 

 

Today’s roundup of new music and videos is a real hodgepodge (or perhaps you would prefer mishmash) of metallic creativity. At least one of the entries is a massive hodgepodge unto itself. A full trip through all of them may leave you shaking your head — hopefully in wonder.

SKEPTICISM (Finland)

2021 marks the 30th anniversary of this pioneering funeral doom band, remarkably with its original line-up still intact. To celebrate their long survival, they have a new album named Companion that’s ready for release on September 24th by Svart Records. The first single, “Calla“, emerged last week with a beautiful and haunting video made by Tuomas A. Laitinen that perfectly suits the music and the equally haunting words, which incorporate references to pale calla lilies in a story of longing and closure. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KVADRAT — “ΨΥΧΙΚΗ ΑΠΟΣΥΝΘΕΣΗ”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 042021
 

 

Desolate subjects and a desperate mission animate the music on Kvadrat’s debut EP Ψυχικη Αποσυνθεση (“mental decay”), which we’re now premiering in full. Rather than embracing folklore or mysticism, this Greek black metal duo grapple with the kind of severe personal estrangement that reduces a mind to a frightening and hopeless prison, a vessel of fear, frustration, pain, and desperation, capable of producing not only depression but also hatred and a desire for oblivion.

The lyrics speak of life denying us light, of time melting all hope, of toxic rain flooding the paths of salvation, of sounds of hysteria ringing from bottomless pits of madness, and of rising fires of destruction as a last resort.

And with that subject matter in mind, the music pours gasoline on the gates of an unwelcoming reality, and ignites it, perhaps as a way of shedding light on the causes of terrible predicaments, or as a violent means of freeing lost souls from mental paralysis.

Be forewarned: This music asks no quarter and gives none. These four songs are absolutely breathtaking in their intensity and sonic power — dense, near-overwhelming, onslaughts of sound capable of swallowing a listener whole — but they are somehow also strangely mesmerizing. The music rings as well as ravages, and while it’s unnerving in its discordance, it can also seem heavenly — if the heavens were on fire. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GRAVERIPPER — “RADIATED REMAINS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 032021
 

 

Indiana’s Graveripper are open and obvious in their admiration of Germanic thrash, but equally attracted to the stylings of early Norwegian black metal, as well as the rollicking riots of first-wave black metal. As the band’s founder, vocalist/guitarist Corey Parks has quipped, “We’ve described ourselves as if Exodus and Kreator had a kid and Immortal babysat frequently. We’ve received comparisons to Venom, Toxic Holocaust, and Skeletonwitch, which I can see. I think there is a lot of Midnight in there, and bands like Bonehunter, Bewitcher — all that.”

Of course, it’s one thing to tick off all those influences and another thing to witness how well Graveripper have drawn together the ingredients of ’80s death/thrash, blackened speed metal, and savage rock ‘n’ roll — while also incorporating dark and memorable melodies so seamlessly into their blood-rushing onslaughts.

And witness it you shall, because today we’re presenting a full stream of the band’s explosive and moving new EP, Radiated Remains, the day before its release by Wise Blood Records. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries