SHORT BUT SWEET Archives - Page 76 of 114

DEATH RITUALS: DESTRÖYER 666, INVERLOCH, PESTILENTIA, VENEFICIUM, SXUPERION, VERRÄTER, BLEAK, PERCUSSOR

Jan 082016

You may have already guessed from the title of the post that it includes a shitload of new music — and I still haven’t exhausted the new discoveries that I want to write about, not by a long shot.

The last few days have indeed brought a typhoon of new metal that’s intensely good. In this post I’ve collected recommended new songs that are especially dire and destructive, which is why I’ve chosen a different title than the usual “Seen and Heard”. At some point this weekend I’ll bring another post that gathers together the rest of what’s been kicking me in the teeth.

DESTRÖYER 666

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the new album (Wildfire) by these Australian marauders, and at last we now have a song to stream, fittingly titled “Live and Burn”. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MALDEVERA , WALL OF WATER, PROFANAL & INTO DARKNESS

Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Jan 082016

What follows are delayed reviews of three short releases that I’ve enjoyed, two of which are available for free. And by “delayed”, I mean that I started writing this post in November, put it aside, got caught up in other things — and forgot to finish it! Better late than never, I hope.

MALDEVERA

In the middle of November a Dallas band named Maldevera released a new three-song EP entitled Incarceration Plague via Bandcamp. According to Metal-Archives, this is the fourth demo they’ve released since 2012 — and this one is awesome. Continue reading »

ABORTED: “TERMINATION REDUX”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 8 Responses »

Jan 042016

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new 20th anniversary EP by Belgium’s Aborted.)

I fucking love Aborted, especially their last two albums. It’s no secret that here at NCS we were foaming at the mouth like a horde of ravenous hyenas and cackling as we ripped apart the carcasses of Global Flatline and The Necrotic Manifesto when they came our way. To my ears, The Necrotic Manifesto, compared to Global Flatline, signified a departure from the sound the band had always been semi-attached to. Until then, every Aborted record had included the more technical, more tempo-dynamic flare reflected on Global Flatline, although I think most would agree that Global Flatline was their sound taken about as far as you were going to get.

The Necrotic Manifesto was even more aggro than any Aborted release before it. It was streamlined, grindier, noisier, faster, and more belligerent, while largely ditching the more dynamic song-writing of previous Aborted albums. And in between those two albums, Aborted had acquired guitarist Mendel bij de Leij, whose solo project we have covered before (along with his and vocalist Sven’s side project, System Divide — which appears to have transformed into the band Oracles).

So where does that leave Termination Redux? When it comes to EPs, I see them as serving one or more of three specific purposes nowadays: You use them to introduce your craft; you use them to tide people over with some goodies before the next big release; or you use them to plant the flag — to sow the seeds of a new direction and sound in a digestible format, or sometimes to make a defiant statement of said new direction and sound.

I do believe that Termination Redux is the third of those types of EPs, signifying an interesting evolution in the band’s music, capped off by the gesture of re-recording the opening song of one of their most praised early records, Engineering the Dead. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ENTROPIA, END OF PROCESS, IFRINN, MORBOSIDAD, DEATH FORTRESS, 1914, NEVERENDING WINTER, AND MYSTIC MYSTERIES

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 12 Responses »

Dec 312015

I had intended to post most of the new music in this collection on Sunday, hot on the heels of Saturday’s Shades of Black post. However, I was distracted by the sound of a passing car, chased it for a few blocks, and then forgot what I had been thinking by the time I found my way home (I also blame those squirrels for not stopping so I could lick them). Other distractions have materialized since then, including the death of Lemmy Kilmister.

On the bright side, I discovered more excellent new songs as the days have passed since Sunday; in fact, I heard the first three in this collection only after the weekend. The result is a rather humongous assembly of music, but please don’t let the quantity deter you from wading hip-deep into it, because there are a lot of gems to follow. And besides, it’s my last round-up of new music for 2015!

I really do hope you’ll like everything here as much as I have, and I hope you have a great New Year’s Eve too. As is often the case with these Shades of Black posts, I want to thank my Serbian friend “M” for linking me to much of what you’re about to hear. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: THE FIVE HUNDRED — “WINTERS”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Dec 302015

(Grant Skelton reviews the new EP by The Five Hundred from Nottingham, England.)

I initially caught wind of Nottingham, England’s The Five Hundred after hearing a demo of the song“Winters.” That track introduced me to the band’s particular brand of aggressive, but melodic metal. It also serves as the title track to The Five Hundred’s new self-released EP. “Winters” was produced by Justin Hill, vocalist of the recently reactivated Sikth.

I don’t consider myself a connoisseur of djent by any means. While I recognize the influence of the djent sound attributed to bands like Sikth and Meshuggah, I am not as familiar with it as I am with other genres. Notwithstanding, here at NCS we don’t like to pigeonhole ourselves by treating genres as immutable. Music is fluid, as are our personal proclivities for what music we do and don’t enjoy. That being said, if you are one who has drawn a proverbial line in the sand regarding anything djent-influenced, I submit The Five Hundred’s Winters EP for your consideration. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ALTARAGE, SELBST, ANCESTORS BLOOD, OCERCO, NABAATH

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 11 Responses »

Dec 262015

I had no Christmas rant this year. Truthfully, I said about all I have to say on the subject five years ago. And if I were even more honest with myself, I’d admit that I’m not quite as big a humbug about the day as that post might suggest. It has its good points, to the extent that it provides an occasion for people who actually do like or love one another to get together and enjoy themselves (and I hope that happened for you).

Now that the day has been interred for another year, it’s time to return to the unearthing of new underground metal. In this collection, and in another one I have planned for tomorrow, I’ve got music to recommend in a blackened vein — not all of it black metal, but all of it pleasingly dark nonetheless.

ALTARAGE

In July I reviewed a two-song demo by a Spanish death metal band named Altarage, concluding as follows: “This is primitive, poisonous, electrifying music from a band that’s now squarely on my radar screen for the future.” They’ve now made a new appearance on the screen. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: REBEL WIZARD, SHRAPNEL STORM, THE BODY, OCEANS OF SLUMBER

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 13 Responses »

Dec 122015

That post title is a little misleading. I’m writing this (somewhat hurriedly) on a Friday afternoon, because the place of employment for my fucking day job is having its annual holiday party tonight, and the odds are I will get fucked up and be in a world of hurt on Saturday morning — because (obviously) I have all the self-control of a three-year-old.

So, this is a selection of new music that I heard and liked on a Friday, presented for your eyes and ears on a Saturday. As you will no doubt expect by now, no two songs sound remotely alike.

REBEL WIZARD

“Rebel Wizard” is the name of a solo project by the Australian musician Nekrasov, whose work under that name is probably better known in certain circles than Rebel Wizard (and whose most recent release I reviewed here last month). The first Rebel Wizard recording that I heard (and reviewed here) was an EP released in July named Negative Wizard Metal. Just yesterday another EP was released on Bandcamp, this one entitled Invocation of the Miserable Ones. It has many of the attributes that made me like the last EP so much. For example: Continue reading »

2015 – A YEAR IN EPs

LISTMANIA 2015, SHORT BUT SWEET 20 Responses »

Dec 112015

(So far, our year-end LISTMANIA series has mostly been devoted to year-end lists from other sites and print zines, but today we begin rolling out our own lists, and we start with the first of six that Andy Synn is preparing. Every day next week we’ll post his remaining five.)

Such is the chaos that is my life at the moment (in between trying to get my End of Year List/s done, I’ve also been putting together a PhD proposal/application, booking a photo shoot for Beyond Grace, TRYING to book shows for next year for us, and helping some good friends move house) that I almost forgot about my annual semi-traditional round-up of all the great EPs I’ve heard this year!

Yes, yes, I know there are several bloggers and/or sites out there who argue that EPs should be considered right alongside full-length albums when it comes to summing up matters at the end of the year… but I’m not one of them.

No, I think EPs deserve their own category, and their own specific focus, and so I’ve written this little round-up to give some of the year’s shortest, sharpest, releases their due. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): BATUSHKA, THE LION’S DAUGHTER, TOSKA

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 13 Responses »

Dec 082015

This is the first part of a two-part collection of recent discoveries I’ve made in the vein of black metal, plus one that isn’t black metal but is still spiritually as black as a corpse charred in a napalm attack. As will become obvious, I’ve chosen this particular group of bands in part because no two of them sound alike.

BATUSHKA

Batushka are a Polish band whose members have not been disclosed, but they are reputed to be from well-known bands. Their debut album Litourgiya was released on December 5 by the Polish label Witching Hour Productions. It makes an astonishing impact from the very first song, and all the way to the end.

The music is dark, heaving, and very heavy — with bombastic outbreaks of wildfire and thunder — and the bleak, majestic melodies are effective at getting under the skin. But what sets the music apart and makes the album especially memorable are the vocals. In addition to the incinerating shrieks that you might expect in a black metal album, you’ll hear reverberating liturgical chants in what I’m told is Church Slavonic — the language used in the Orthodox Church in such places as Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as nations in the Balkan Peninsula. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ENDLESS RECOVERY, VALROGH, FUCK-USHIMA, ONE TAIL, ONE HEAD, OLD SKIN

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 6 Responses »

Nov 282015

This is kind of an odd Saturday. Here in the U.S., it’s the middle of a long holiday weekend, two days after Thanksgiving, a day after Black Friday, and two days before what snake oil peddlers have annointed “Cyber Monday”, when people get back to their high-speed internet connections at work and are encouraged to buy shit online that they don’t need, with money they don’t have. Hail Satan!

Anyway, I’m not sure if anyone will be visiting us today, but I’ve stitched together some (mostly) new music anyway, because instead of leaving my house to spend money yesterday I hunkered down and doused myself with a few hours of new metal. Much more satisfying and much less costly.

ENDLESS RECOVERY

I decided to start this round-up with a healthy heaping serving of high energy, beginning with a blast of speed metal from the Greek band Endless Recovery. The band’s new album (their second full-length) is named Revel In Demise, and it’s set for release by Witches Brew on December 24. Continue reading »

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