SOUL TOMB: “DROWNING”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 052025
 

(After a bit of a lull DGR returns to NCS with a review of a great discovery, the second EP by the Swedish one-person band Soul Tomb.)

After years of doing whatver you might refer to this as, you sort of develop a sense that the year in heavy metal has a flow to it. There are plenty of peaks and valleys and often Summer can feel like a massive deluge of releases as hardcore festival and touring season gets underway, but there is one thing that has proven to be as equally reliable as the end of the year clusterfuck season or the time set aside for the brave souls who defy the odds and attempt a December release: January is a weird month.

January comes to us at the end of a whole year’s closing, partially feeling like the recovery from a hangover rather than the opportunity to appraise things anew and appreciate the potential of upcoming opportunities. The month is not bereft of releases; in fact the reason why January tends to consistently feel strange is the opposite.

There are a ton of releases in January, but truth be told you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes it’s by big, recognizable names but more often January gets to be a month of gambles and discoveries – which is how the year started on this end. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ОБРІЙ (OBRIJ), LHAÄD, FAUSTIAN SPIRIT, KOLDBRANN, TYHJÄ , ANONYMOUS SKULL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Mar 022025
 

(written by Islander)

My computer tells me that my introduction to yesterday’s roundup of new music and videos was 1,502 words long. I obviously had too much time on my hands, though I don’t know why I spent it doing all that sharing instead of covering more music. But don’t worry, I won’t do that again today. Today’s introduction is 47 words long:

I’ve alternated today’s selections between complete albums or EPs and individual songs from forthcoming records. Apart from that, there’s no rhyme nor reason in how I organized the choices. I made these choices because, to quote the English poet William Cowper, “Variety’s the very spice of life.” Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: CHURCH TONGUE / GRAND DEVOURER / PYRRHIC SALVATION

 SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 262025
 

(Andy Synn suggests three more short but sweet musical morsels for you to sink your teeth into)

What is it that they say about the best laid plans?

Some of you may have noticed a bit of a disruption to our regular publication schedule here at NCS this week, and that’s due to the fact that Islander is currently without power or internet where he lives and I’m dealing with a really nasty case of the flu that’s making it very difficult for me to function.

Rest assured, normal operations will be resumed at some point… but, until then, hopefully this little round-up of some recent EPs will keep you occupied and entertained.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KARG, MATAVITATAU, SUTTUNGR, FINAL DOSE, LOW BEFORE THE BREEZE, DÉMONOS, LESATH, ANTROPOCENO

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 232025
 

(written by Islander)

I’m hurrying to post today’s collection before I have to turn to much more mundane tasks, so I’ll spare you a wordy introduction and just say that I’m extremely proud of these choices, not only because I think all of them are excellent but also because they’re going to give you so many twists and turns, right up through the final choice. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SEVENTH STATION — “ON SHOULDERS OF GIANTS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 202025
 

(written by Islander)

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

(Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke, 5 Feb 1675)

We begin with that famous quotation because it is likely the source of the name that the unconventional international band Seventh Station gave their forthcoming new EP, On Shoulders Of Giants. They chose that name because the five songs on the record honor five great musical artists of the 20th century, many of them classical composers. Standing on those shoulders, Seventh Station have given the compositions their own distinctive twists, transforming the original works into expressions of contemporary metal that are as unorthodox, indeed mind-bending, as Newton’s theories must have seemed when he envisioned them from the shoulders of the giants in his own fields.

At the very end of this admittedly very long feature we’ve included a track-by-track commentary (a fun-loving one) by Seventh Station vocalist Davidavi (“Vidi”) Dolev that sheds light on what inspired each song on the EP and what the band sought to accomplish with each one. Although it’s at the end, you should really read it first if you want want a deeper understanding of what you’re about to hear. Just reading it, without listening, is also kind of a dazzling experience, and undoubtedly will leave adventurous listeners intensely curious about what’s coming. (That was certainly the effect it had on us before we started listening).

But Vidi Dolev‘s comments only hint at what the songs are going to sound like, leaving the door open for someone rash like me to offer up some descriptive verbiage, while humbly acknowledging that there’s really no substitute for listening first-hand. Continue reading »

ZOLTAR’S SHORT BUT SWEET: CRANIAL TORMENT, ETERNAL DIRGE, HOROH, PYRE

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 172025
 

(Our French contributor Zoltar has provided us with short reviews of four recently released records, two of them reissues of music dating to the ’90s and two of them brand new, from just a bit earlier this year.)

CRANIAL TORMENT – STADES OF REPRESSION

There weren’t that many ‘pure’ death metal bands to speak of in Greece in the late ’90s, one of the only notable exceptions being Inveracity and their killer debut Circle Of Perversion released through Unmatched Brutality (who else?) back in 2003. The thing is that most of the leaders of the movement, like Septicflesh – or Septic Flesh in two words as they were called back then – Horrified or Nightfall (the latter featuring a then rather unknown yet super promising drummer called George Kollias who would soon rise to fame with Nile), had all moved on to greener pastures.

So to say that local hardcore maniacs like Vassilis ‘Bill’ Benakis (guitar and vocals) and future Repulsive Echo Records founder Kostas Vaxevanos (drums) were wasting their time talking to a wall would be quite an understatement. Yet as Cranial Torment the pair nevertheless recorded no fewer than three demos – the second being almost album-length, clocking at 30 minutes – in between August 1998 and May 1999 before vanishing into oblivion, until now. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CHRISTIAN NECROMANCY, ЗАРЕЗНИЦА, FRAGDA, INOMIATUM KALOUNAPTHRAH, MIDRYASI’S KULT, ALDAARON

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 162025
 

(written by Islander)

I hope you’re having a good day. I hope the following music will make it better.

I used roulette-wheel and craps analogies yesterday, and it’s even more fitting today. Without exception, I had never heard the music of any of these bands before, so picking them was a spin of the wheel and a roll of the dice. I did also land on some songs that didn’t bring much payback; those aren’t here, only the winners. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): CAVERNOUS MAW — “PRIMITIVE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102025
 

(written by Islander)

The well-known descriptor “caveman death metal” connotes big dumb knuckle-dragging riffs, big dumb indecipherable grunts, and club-wielding drumwork that also seems primarily designed to break rocks. No pretense, no sophistication, no appeals to our higher faculties, just red meat for the reptile brain.

Sometimes, however, music that attracts that descriptor reminds of the long-running Geico commercials in which cavemen in modern settings become offended by the phrase “It’s so easy a caveman could do it,” because they are actually more sophisticated than their appearances suggest.

Which brings us to Cavernous Maw, a new Minnesota-based project created by guitarist/vocalist Niilo Smith (Sky Island) and drummer Ben Fagerness (Sky Island, Graveslave, Gloryhole Guillotine). Outwardly, they have no pretense — just look at the name of their debut EP (Primitive), the bloody cover art by Misanthropic-Art, their own proud brandishing of the “caveman death metal” label (though they do add “blackened” to that descriptor), and of course the band’s own name.

But their music turns out to be a whole lot more than a good soundtrack for breaking rocks and clubbing people senseless. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VERHEERER, OSGRAEF, ANCINE, THE BLOOD MOUNTAIN BLACK METAL CHOIR, OFNUS, Обрій (OBRIJ)

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Another Sunday arrives, and with it another brain-wrecking task of making choices for this column, a task made even harder than I was expecting when I woke up to find that Rennie Resmini had climbed back into the starkweather Substack with a bunch of new recommendations I hadn’t already discovered (more on that later).

It’s obvious (maybe painfully obvious to some of you) that I am prone to great enthusiasm about music. I know I’m less critical than lots of other listeners, and even other writers at our putrid site. I still use my own kind of filter, but it seems more porous than those of others. Or maybe I see more clearly just how much fucking creativity and talent continue flowering in the metal underground, week after week!

(Somehow my enthusiasm for music is unabated even though the country where I live is rapidly going down the shitter.)

Here’s a severely cropped snapshot of what’s enthused me in recent days from the blacker realms. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: REVOCATION, RIVERS OF NIHIL, ILLUSIONS DEAD, SERPENTS OF PAKHANGBA, SEASON TO RISK, JUNON, BENEDICTION, ROTTING CHRIST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 082025
 


Revocation – photo by David Brodsky

(written by Islander)

Bookends: solid objects firmly in place, resistant to the pressure of adjacent warped spines, bulging contents, and the changes in atmosphere and time that cause such pressures. I have a pair of musical bookends on each end of today’s musical shelf. In between are a few exceedingly interesting small volumes that caught my eyes and ears this week. I hope you’ll give them all a chance so they can catch yours too.

REVOCATION (U.S.)

Surely, Revocation need no introduction, so I won’t provide one. Let’s see and hear what they’re up to now, the focus being on the video released for a new single named “Confines of Infinity“. Continue reading »

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