CORRUPT MORAL ALTAR: “PATIENTLY WAITING FOR WONDERFUL THINGS”

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Dec 222020
 

 

(We welcome NCS guest contributor James Parry-Smith , who brings us his review of the new album by Corrupt Moral Altar, which was released in late November by APF Records.)

In a year as irreversibly horrendous as 2020 has been for most of us, a short, sharp injection of white-hot anger and riff-heavy grindcore is exactly what is needed to spruce up the terrible day you may very well be having. Liverpudlian group Corrupt Moral Altar have previous experience in the aforementioned areas, with a pair of EPs and full-lengths to their name over the past decade that have established them as one of the UK’s preeminent grind bands and, with a penchant for delving blithely into sludge metal realms and the battering distortion that characterises such a sound, one of the most interesting to boot.

With 2014’s Mechanical Tides and 2017’s Eunoia both allowing space for the band to stray off the beaten, grinding track and fully explore their collective creative vision, their EPs are by no means one-dimensional in comparison – something that is as clear on latest release Patiently Waiting for Wonderful Things as it has ever been. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HOLY DEATH

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Nov 272020
 

 

(We present Andy Synn‘s combined reviews of the three EPs released this year by the Nevada band Holy Death.)

Today’s edition of “Short But Sweet” is a little different.

Rather than covering three EPs by three different bands, instead we’re going to be taking a look at three different EPs by the same band, Las Vegas-based Death/Doom disciples Holy Death, whose debut EP, Supreme Metaphysical Violence, came out back in February, and was followed soon after by June’s Celestial Throne ov Grief.

Then, right at the end of last month, they dropped Deus Mortis, which is around about the time I jumped on the bandwagon… which brings us right up to date.

Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: CELL PRESS — “CELL PRESS”

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Nov 262020
 

 

We’re premiering the self-titled debut EP of the Montreal band Cell Press on the eve of its release. If we could see your faces when you listen to it, there would be a great temptation to write nothing about the music and just watch your expressions change as all the surprises hit you like battering rams, expressions that might range from joy to panic to spine-tingling fear, and perhaps revulsion too. But since we can’t see you, on we go….

By way of background, Cell Press are a relatively new outfit, coming together only last year, though their members have played in a myriad of punk, metal, and hardcore bands such as The Great Sabatini, Biipiigwan, I Hate Sally, The Chariot, Animal Ethics, Architect, Swarm Of Spheres, and Angles. They took their name from the 2001 Russian prison documentary The Mark Of Cain. If you know that movie, the choice will make some sense when you hear the songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NADER SADEK’S “THE SERAPEUM: BLACK OSIRIS” (AND A REVIEW OF “THE SERAPEUM” EP)

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Nov 242020
 

 

The Serapeum is a remarkable new EP created by the Egyptian metal artist Nader Sadek and a star-strewn coterie of talented friends. To celebrate its imminent release, we’re presenting a second video for a song from the EP, which joins another one that we premiered earlier.

We’ve already devoted a lot of attention to this EP, including a wide-ranging interview by DJ Jet of Nader Sadek and two of his collaborators on The Serapeum. But for those who might have missed that, this new EP grew out of a collaboration in Egypt among Nader, Karl Sanders (Nile), Derek Roddy (Serpents Rise), and Mahmud Gecekusu (Perversion).

And if those names weren’t already enough to seize your attention, the music also includes contributions by bassists Ben “Barby” Claus (Gorod) and Dominic “Forest” Lapointe (Augury) and vocalists Morean (Dark Fortress) and Shaun LaCanne (Putrid Pile), as well as Alex Zubair (Nephelium) creating eastern harmonies and drones, and Nancy Mounir adding theremin hauntings to the mix. Moreover, Sadek himself recorded the vocals inside the inner chamber of Dahshur’s “Red Pyramid” (the pyramid of Snefru). Continue reading »

COGNIZANT: “COGNIZANT”

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Nov 202020
 

 

(We present Todd Manning‘s review of the 2016 self-titled debut EP of Texas-based Cognizant, which was given a proper CD release by Selfmadegod Records on November 13th.)

When it comes to Grindcore, there’s always been a split, with some bands falling on the Metal side of the fence while others are more firmly rooted in Hardcore, though even more have staked out their territory somewhere smack in the middle. In the case of Dallas-based five-piece Cognizant, they easily emerge from the fetid swamp of Death Metal and their debut self-titled record, re-released courtesy of Selfmadegod Records, shows why they have become a force to be reckoned with.

In 1997, Floridians Assück dropped one of the best Grind records of all time with Misery Index, and they too were heavily indebted to Death Metal (in their case it was the almighty Suffocation). Cognizant looks to Gorguts for much of their Death Metal influence, and this leads their particular brand of blasting a much more complex and abstract edge. But do not mistake this abstractness for a lack of impact, because this is a paint-peeling assault from start to finish. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ALUSTRIUM / DÖ / FUMING MOUTH

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Nov 182020
 


Alustrium

 

(Andy Synn prepared the following reviews of three recent and very impressive EPs.)

It’s pretty common knowledge that, for the most part at least, I’m more of an “album guy” than an “EP guy”. There’s just something about the extra effort, the extra level of commitment, involved in creating an album that makes it feel more real and more substantial in my mind (although I’m sure that’s not always true).

That being said, I can’t deny that there are certain times when an EP is exactly what I’m looking for from a band, something explicitly designed to deliver a short, sharp shock of (ideally) all their best ideas and elements in one concise, captivating package.

Which is exactly what I have here for you today, three EPs – from three tonally and stylistically very different artists – all of which are pretty much brand new (one of them, in fact, is so new that it isn’t actually released until Friday) that find each band putting out some of their best material yet while also dropping a few hints as to where they might take things next. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BESTIALIS — “RITUS”

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Nov 132020
 

 

Just yesterday I was confessing that one of the reasons I’m so open to hosting premieres every day is a selfish motivation — because it affords the opportunity to discover new music from new bands that I might otherwise miss (and that you might miss too!). Sometimes those opportunities bring thrilling surprises, and today it has happened again through the discovery of a fascinating German black metal band named Bestialis.

What you are about to hear, on the day of its release by Vendetta Records, is the debut recording of this group, an EP named Ritus. The formidable success of the EP will be less surprising if you understand that Bestialis is the result of of a long-term artistic and spiritual conspiracy between two artists — vocalist Lastaurus and guitarist Absorber — who have been making music for 20 years; both of them are part of northwestern Germany’s Culthe Collectiv/Culthe Fest (Münster).

What they’ve achieved is both conceptually and musically tantalizing. In their lyrical focus, Bestialis focus on a concept “whose basic premise is to understand humans as – primarily and in the most positive way – animal beings, and thus, at its essence, to explore, proclaim and worship the bestia or beast in man.”. Ritus thus offers an introduction to this concept and puts into its narrative tales of prehistoric bull cults and Persian mythology (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, provided in the band’s own reinterpretation). Continue reading »

NCS PREMIERES FOR USTKARA GHOST’S “CONSUMING THE ABYSS”

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Nov 052020
 

 

What do you think would happen if two such doom maestros as Daniel Neagoe (Clouds, Aeonian Sorrow) and Shaun Macgowan (My Dying Bride) were to join forces in a new musical project? Well, you need not engage in too much speculation, because that is in fact what they have done, and we have the results for you right now.

Under the name Ustkara Ghost they have completed work on a debut album named Consuming The Abyss that’s being released today, and to help spread the word we present a full stream of the album, as well as the debut of a lyric video for its longest and most multi-faceted song. Continue reading »

ABHORRENT CASTIGATION: “ON THE SHORES OF HELL”

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Nov 052020
 

 

(This is the final installment in a seven-record review orgy by our man DGR, who is attempting to free his mind for year-end season by clearing away a backlog of write-ups for albums he has enjoyed in 2020. Today’s subject is a new EP by the German band Abhorrent Castigation, which was released in late August.)

It has been a little while since I’ve found a band by falling into the social media vortex of going from band to band to band, exploring who was playing shows with whom, who is showing up in various band recommendation segments, etc., and Germany’s Abhorrent Castigation were a result of such an adventure.

I’ve mused a few times in reviews this year about groups that I feel get slid across my metaphorical desk because someone listened to them and went ‘oh, I know exactly who to give that to’. Well, the opposite happened with Abhorrent Castigation. I listened to their new EP and knew that had it not crossed my desk, they would’ve eventually found their way on here anyway because they have appeared on this very site before – granted, way back in the yonder days of 2014, but still. It’s a good bet that eventually they would’ve appeared fully formed out of the mist once again, bringing their hybrid of brutal death, grind, and slam as all hell. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ATOMIC WITCH — “DEATH, SEX, AND SATAN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 302020
 

 

When we last checked in with Atomic Witch at our putrid site, about 14 months ago, the occasion was a premiere of the title track from their first EP, Void Curse. It caused us to conclude that the long-time disciples of the Cleveland metal and hardcore scene who formed Atomic Witch picked a damned good band name. As we wrote then, that EP “couples the wild radioactive energy of a runaway nuclear meltdown with the weird and witchy feeling of a supernatural orgy”. Together, those four tracks were supercharged with furious, pulse-pounding energy, head-spinning instrumental changes, and unhinged vocal intensity. The genre-bending music created a maniacal atmosphere, whole-heartedly indulging in a musical blood-spraying riot from beginning to end.

Now, 14 months later, the band’s label Seeing Red Records is on the verge of releasing a new Atomic Witch EP, entitled Death, Sex, and Satan. They picked Halloween as the release date (tomorrow!), for reasons that will become obvious when you find out what they’ve done — and yes, you can find out right away, because we’re premiering a full stream of the whole thing. Continue reading »

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