AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PRAISE THE PLAGUE — “TORMENT”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 252019
 

 

We would like to offer two rounds of applause to begin this premiere. The first goes to Berlin’s Praise the Plague for the wrenching emotional power channeled by their song “Torment“. The second is for Sven Liebold, whose surreal video for the song is a nightmarish feast for the eyes, one of those ever-changing visual collages that you can’t look away from, and which in this case integrates frighteningly well with the music.

The song comes from a two-track EP by Praise the Plague that was released digitally, and on vinyl by Argonauta Records, on September 13th. Entitled Antagonist II, it follows the band’s debut full-length Antagonist, which was released last year. Both tracks are powerful mood-changers, amalgams of black metal and doom that have the capacity to make you forget about whatever you were doing or feeling before listening, and to transport you into the indigo-dark dimensions where this band dwell. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TYRANT GOATGALDRAKONA — “MARQUIS OF EVIL”

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Oct 212019
 

 

In the ten years that have elapsed since the formation of Tyrant Goatgaldrakona, this Hungarian death metal duo have been measured in their release of music, with only one album (2013’s Horns In The Dark) and a pair of EPs to see the cold light of day since 2009. But now there’s a third EP on the horizon, a two-track offering named Marquis of Evil that’s set for an October 25th release on 7″ vinyl by Blood Harvest Records — and we have a full stream of it, in all its monstrous glory, for you today.

As trained medical professionals, we strongly advise you to get your neck loose before listening to the opening song, “Conspiracy With Marquis“. Okay, we’re not really trained medical professionals, but we still know sore-neck-trauma when we feel it, and this track is a merciless neck-wrecker — though it doesn’t begin that way. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: INTERFECTORMENT — “GROTESQUELY DECAY”

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Oct 152019
 

 

(This is Vonlughlio’s review of the new EP by Indonesia’s Interfectorment, which was released on May 31st by Brutal Mind, and features cover art by Toshihiro Egawa.)

One of the BDM scenes that is well known for their passion, is the Indonesian one. They are an amazing group of fans who support BDM in all its forms and do not hide the happiness this genre brings to them. A lot of bands come from that region, and some are great ones.

Sometimes, with the number of bands who play BDM, it can be hard to distinguish one from the other in terms of sound. Regardless, there are still bands who stand out from that large pack and bring something special. In this case, it’s the project Interfectorment from (Bandung, West Java), who on May 31st released their long-awaited EP Grotesquely Decay via Brutal Mind. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FLESHMEADOW — “DAYMARES”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Oct 102019
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli introduces our premiere of the new EP by the Norwegian band Fleshmeadow, which will be released via Bandcamp on October 11th.)

I try to avoid hyperbolic statements about how a new or new-ish band to the scene are paving the way for their style or how they’re the sickest fucking thing I’ve heard in forever, but Fleshmeadow are one of those bands to me.

I reviewed and we premiered the band’s debut album Umbra back in 2016‘s final days, and it was one of my favorite records that came out that year.  Their uncanny mastery of technical black metal mixed with touches of ritualistic death metal and a bit of deathgrind really hit a note in my soul that screamed with feral ecstasy.  I’ve listened to Umbra regularly since I discovered it and have eagerly awaited what I would hear next from these blasphemous Norwegian carnage mongers. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HORSE DRAWN — “NONBELIEVER”

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Sep 232019
 

 

The Ohio duo Horse Drawn can trace their origin back a dozen years. But both members — vocalist Bryce Seditz (Plaguewielder) and guitarist Jonny Doyle (Coldfells) have been involved in other musical projects, as well as dealing with the usual travails of daily life, and so haven’t been prolific in their output. They produced a pair of EPs in 2012, when the project was known as Horse Drawn Death Machine, and a 2015 demo named Wilted that was released after the change to their current name — and that’s been it, until today. Now, they’ve released a two-song EP named Nonbeliever as a prelude to recording a new album, and we’re helping spread the word through this post.

The EP consists of two songs. The first of them, “Cursed“, is a brand new track. The other, “Early Graves“, first appeared in a different form on one of those 2012 EPs, but has been re-recorded for this new EP. Both tracks, Horse Drawn say, take “inspiration from their Midwest origins, depression, psychedelic experiences, and the raw anger of American Black Metal”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND AN EP REVIEW): BLASPHEMOUS PUTREFACTION — “GRIEF”

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Sep 232019
 

 

The German duo Blasphemous Putrefaction staked their place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of underground death metal when they chose their name. Through their long-sold-out debut demo tape, 2017’s Abominable Premonition, and now the new EP which includes the song we’re premiering today, they’ve devoted their diabolical talents to the unapologetic creation of foul and festering musical horror — the skull-fracturing sounds of cruelty and the mind-mangling transmission of deviancy and derangement, devoid of hope (and not caring much for melody either), but capable of sending jolts of adrenaline through a listener’s bloodstream.

This new three-track EP of primitive, rotten death metal is appropriately entitled Festering Plagues, and it will be jointly released on tape by Death In Pieces Records and Macabre End Productions in early October. We’ll present a written preview of all three tracks, including the one we’re presenting, but won’t be offended if you just dive straight-away into the swirling cesspool of foul and fetid sensations via the stream of “Grief” below. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: OKTAS — “OKTAS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Sep 202019
 

 

Genre hybrids within the general ambit of extreme metal tend to be hit-or-miss affairs, and perhaps more miss than hit the further the hybridized ingredients differ from each other. Yet when the creative splicing of divergent ingredients and tonalities truly succeeds, the experience can stand out in ways that don’t often happen in the general run of genre monochromes, and reward the constant search of metal adventurists for something different. In my humble opinion, the self-titled premiere EP by Oktas, which is being released today, is one of those stand-out successes.

By way of background, an okta is a unit of measurement used to describe the amount of cloud cover at any given location. That term became the basis for the name chosen by this group of Philadelphia musicians, led by visual and musical artist Bob Stokes (Drones for Queens), who performs vocals and bass, and including friends of his from previous bands — drummer Rob Macauley and fellow bassist Carl Whitlock of Dirt Worshipper, and minimalist composer Jason Baron from Cloud Minder, who plays the cello with Oktas. (We did mention unusual tonalities, and here we have two bassists and a cellist, but no guitar.)

As forecast, this new EP embraces a range of influences, from ambient minimalism to atmospheric black metal and epic doom metal (and I hear a bit of gloomy post-punk in the mix, too), woven together with a cinematic edge. Lyrically “based in the filth ridden streets of south Philadelphia”, as Bob Stokes has told us, the words transport us “to a world destroyed by mankind’s own hubris, plagued with endless war, constant natural disasters and humanity desperate for redemption”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WINGS OF DAHAK — “DEATH AT YOUR SIDE”

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Sep 112019
 

 

I’ve been closely following the work of Texas-based Wings of Dahak since coming across the tracks released in advance of their 2017 debut album, Unholy Wings. Initially drawn to the music by the pedigrees of the band’s three members — guitarist/vocalist/bassist Dave Tillery (Embalmed, ex-Gruesome Fate), lead guitarist Cody Daniels (Giant of the Mountain, Dour), and drummer Matt Thompson (King Diamond, and more) — I quickly became sold on the ravaging ferocity and immense evocative power of their particular amalgam of death and black metal (to mention only two ingredients).

Named for a legendary three-headed dragon (Azhi Dahaka) created by the spirit of destruction, whose reign brought to the earth “misery, hunger, thirst, old age and death, mourning and lamentation, excessive heat and cold, and intermingling of demons and men,” and creating music “with this spirit in heart and mind”, the band have succeeded in summoning those terrible visions through sound.

Wings of Dahak followed that debut album with a new single last fall — “The Day They Burned” — which we reviewed soon after discovering it. Now, the band are about to release a new EP named Death At Your Side, which includes both that single and two new tracks. Today, on the eve of that release, we’re premiering both the EP as a whole and a video for its title track. Let’s take the songs one at a time, beginning with the one we’re presenting through a frightening video… Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: DIKASTERION — “STAVELOT 1597 / ROME 897”

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Sep 062019
 

 

Building on the strength of their slaughtering 2018 debut demo, the Belgian black/death band Dikasterion have escaped Hell again, and brought much of Hell with them in a new two-track release coming our way via Amor Fati Productions on September 9th — next Monday. If you think those references to hellish power were exaggerations, just listen to Stavelot 1597 / Rome 897 (which we’re giving you the chance to do a bit further on in this post).

Only two songs long, this is the kind of pull-no-punches barbarity capable of leaving a listener mind-mangled but crackling with electricity and wishing it were longer. Make no mistake, it’s a cruel and ugly assault on the senses, not any kind of experience for the faint of heart. But as toxic, brutish, and maniacal as the music may be, these sulfurous, diabolical assaults get the pulse pounding with primal power. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HORRID APPARITION, EXORCISME

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Aug 292019
 

 

Not too long ago Redefining Darkness Records digitally released a pair of demos (and launched pre-orders for forthcoming cassette tape editions), and I caught up with them last night. They set my hair on fire. After dousing the flames and getting a bit of fitful sleep I couldn’t resist the urge to let them set my head on fire again this morning. It’s not a good look, but the music sure woke me up in a big damned hurry, and felt just as good the second time around (and by “good” I mean “raw and riotous”).

The two demos — by the French/Dutch marauders in Horrid Apparition and the Cleveland hellfire arsonists in Exorcisme — make very good companions for each other. Both of them thrash like demons, with elements of punk in the mix and a char of blackening.

HORRID APPARITION

Evil Reigns is the name of the two-song debut demo by Horrid Apparition, whose two members are also involved in the old school black metal band DungeönHammer (their debut album Infernal Moon was released last year). Redefining Darkness introduces the new demo with references to the likes of Midnight and Hellripper. Continue reading »

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