SHADES OF BLACK: MORIBUND MANTRAS, DACCAR-TCHUV’S CAVE, PINCER CONSORTIUM, NON SERVIAM, ALTAI-SAYAN

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Apr 162023
 


Moribund Mantras

Humans continue sending cameras into the deepest waters on Earth and continue seeing strange creatures that live there. If those creatures have minds, they may be thinking we should mind our own goddamned business, especially the two snailfish that were physically caught in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench last September at a depth of 8.022 meters (just under five miles below sea level). Even the snailfish that were only videoed at a depth of 8,336 meters, making them the deepest fish ever captured on film, might have felt annoyed. (The film was released earlier this month, reported here.)

But the snailfish aren’t the deepest sea creatures discovered so far. There’s an octopus that’s been found at an estimated 9,800 meters below sea level in the Marianas Trench. And the deepest part of the Marianas Trench measured so far (the deepest surveyed point of all the Earth’s oceans) is 10,971 meters (6.817 miles) below the water’s surface. There’s probably life down there too — we just don’t yet have the technology to go look.

Why the hell am I sharing this info here? It’s because I’ve been thinking about the allure of oddities (for want of a better term). Life-forms found at depths once thought unsurvivable bear resemblances to creatures that dwell far closer to the surface, but their appearance has been twisted in unusual and often frightening ways as they adapted through evolution in their epochal descents. Their strange fascinations lead us to keep searching for them, and to attempt to comprehend how they have survived.

Some (but not all) of today’s music bears resemblances to more familiar forms of black and blackened metal, but it is also twisted into unusual and sometimes frightening shapes. Searching for such oddities is one of our pastimes, because the results can be fascinating. (The risk of operating in a blog where there’s no one telling you what to do is that it permits strained analogies that consume a lot of space.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: OSSAERT, A LA FIN DE L’UNIVERS, SÓL ÁN VARMA, EKROM

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Apr 092023
 


Pieter Bruegel – “The Fall of the Rebel Angels”

Today is Easter Sunday, this year falling in the midst of Passover and Ramadan — a Holy Trifecta! To all “people of faith” out there reflecting on messages of hope, tolerance, liberation from oppression, the needs of the less fortunate, and visions of a more just world based on equality and dignity of the individual, we wish you well.

For those more focused on imposing your beliefs on others and abusing those who won’t submit, as predecessors of your kind have done for millennia, seems like you’ve lost your way. In more ways than one today, because people like that aren’t likely to land on this site anyway except by mistake (e.g., searching for “no spring cleaning”).

With that out of the way, we’re not observing any ancient commandments or rituals today, especially those that claim divine inspiration, just my own Sunday tradition of uplifting musical rebellion in some of its blackest expressions, including those who find Hell is where their heart is. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GABESTOK, REVA, THY CATAFALQUE, DAUGHTERS OF SOPHIA

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Apr 022023
 


Gabestok (2019) – photo by Adriana Zak

Every week we receive what mathematicians used to call a metric shit ton of black metal submissions. Maybe it’s because we tend to spend more time than many other metal sites focusing on that ever-expanding genre, and maybe because we try not to limit ourselves to well-known bands with substantial label backing or PR apparatuses.

But as some people still don’t understand, there are very few of us here, and our NCS time comes after paying work, family and friends, and every other demand and distraction that everyone else deals with on a daily basis. So, lots of worthy submissions just don’t get attention in our pages.

From amongst the worthy, there’s truly a high degree of randomness in what we choose to write about, and even more so on days like today when my own NCS time has gotten further compressed by unexpected events (including the Third World quality of internet service on the island where I live).

Yeah, I hear you — “Shut Up and Get On With It, you could have covered one more song in the time it took you to write that pathetic introduction!” I hear you, so let’s get on with it: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART II): HYL, HEXAKOSIOIHEXEKONTAHEXAPHILIA, CLERGY

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Mar 262023
 

Here are the rest of the selections I made for this week’s column devoted to black and blackened metal. And because daylight is burning (or it would be if it weren’t hidden behind grey Pacific Northwest clouds, I’ll just get right to the music.

HYL (Italy/Poland)

To lead off I’ve chosen the video for “Endless Illusions“, the latest single from Hyl‘s debut EP, Where Emptiness Is All. I was drawn to it after reading that the band is a collaboration among vocalist Shadow (from Black Altar and Ofermod), guitarist/bassist Rick Costantino (from Schizo and Krigere Wolf), and drummer Krzysztof Klingbein (ex-Vader, Belphegor live). I was also intrigued by the label’s description of the music as “atmospheric black metal, which should appeal to fans of Ruins of Beverast, Vemod or Mgła“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART I): INTO DARKNESS, NATTEHIMMEL, BERGRISAR

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Mar 262023
 


Into Darkness – photo by Nicolette A. Radoi

As I began making my way through my list of new music I might want to recommend for this Sunday’s column I had one mental WOW! after another. Some actual exclamatory sounds might have escaped my mouth, but the headphones were clamped on too tight for me to tell. After realizing that I’d already found more than enough to occupy this installment I had to make myself stop listening, even with lots of things left to check out,

Maybe I didn’t stop soon enough. There’s a lot here — four advance tracks from forthcoming records, two complete EPs, and one complete albums. To make all this a little more accessiblke, I’ve divided the recommendations into two Parts. I hope you’ll find time to delve into all of it instead of feeling overwhelmed, and that you get a few WOW‘s yourself.

INTO DARKNESS (Italy)

After experiencing the weirdness of time seeming to slow down during the depths of pandemic lockdowns, it now seems that it’s speeding ahead faster than ever. That includes the release of new music, which whizzes by so fast that it almost becomes a blur. That makes it easy to overlook things, and I confess that as a result I missed the release of a new Into Darkness EP about 10 days ago. It certainly wasn’t for lack of interest, since I’ve written enthusiastically about every release by this Italian band since their first demo in 2012. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: OLD FOREST, AFSKY, UKĆ, LE PROCHAIN HIVER, MOTSTAND, HYRGAL

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Mar 192023
 


Old Forest

I often rely on the recommendations of friends in deciding how to spend my listening time, and then deciding what to recommend to you. I like rooting around myself, like a truffle-sniffing pig, but after pouring a fair amount of time into yesterday’s big roundup I wasn’t left with a lot of sniffing and rooting time, and therefore took my lead from friends for much of what’s coming below. They didn’t let me down, and hopefully I won’t let you down with these choices either.

OLD FOREST (UK)

I had to start today’s collection with a new song by Old Forest because I found it so immediately captivating. I’m not steeped in the band’s extensive discography (seven albums and a bunch of shorter releases going back to 1998), but Neill Jameson is, and he introduced Decibel’s premiere of the song last week with a brief history.

The new track, “Master of Arachnids”, is from a forthcoming album named Sutwyke, which Neill lauded as “easily the band’s best full length since their phantasmagoric re-materialization” in 2008 following a long hiatus: “Taking elements from all eras of their discography (including the clean vocals, though somewhat more subdued) this is also their most jet-black record showing that there is still plenty of (un)life in these bones”.

Well, that was more than enough temptation to dive into “Master of Arachnids”. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: HARDIESSE, NEO INFERNO 262, DEVOURING FAMINE

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Mar 122023
 

Guess who forgot to jump the clocks ahead one hour before bedtime last night? Yeah, that would be me. Thought I was getting a good head-start on the day when I crawled from the covers at 6:30 a.m., and then took my sweet time making coffee, catching up on all the dismal news, shaving more minutes off my life with smokes, stretching and rubbing eyes, and then suddenly realizing it was 8:30 a.m. instead of 7:30 and I hadn’t done shit on this column.

Well, who would care but me? I’m not sure, but all that really matters is that I care, and the only way to avoid feeling like a failure today was to rush ahead with a few things I had in mind, or that were messing with my mind. The hour-late clock is ticking, and other chores plus a lunch with family and friends lie ahead, so like yesterday’s roundup this one must be brief. But it’s all really good!

HARDIESSE (France)

Hard to resist checking out this first song, since Hardiesse is the project of Hyver (from Véhémence, Hanternoz, Régiment, Grylle, and more), and includes Wÿntër Ärvn (from Aorlhac) on bass and some of the vocals and Torve (from Ascète) doing the drum programming and the mix/master. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DIABLATION, SCHATTENFALL, KOSTNATĚNÍ

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Mar 052023
 


Diablation

I’m roughly 1,900 miles away from my home. I made the trip last Thursday (an excruciating journey packed with delays), something I needed to do for my job. Since then I haven’t had much time to myself, night or day. My comrade Mr. Synn suggested I just take the weekend off from NCS. As he put it, “The world will keep spinning”.

I’m not so sure about that. What if the world is an incredibly detailed simulation running on the substrate of my mind? What if Mr. Synn is, as I have always suspected, a figment of my imagination? What if music has no objective existence unless someone other than its creator hears it?

I may have become too subsumed by a new sci-fi novel I’m reading, which I shouldn’t name because the idea of a simulation is one of its many surprises.

I did take yesterday off from NCS (actually not a lot of choice in that matter). I was very tempted to take today off too, but I do have a little time to myself before beginning the trip back to Seattle, and whatever airline- and weather-related fuck-ups will plague it. So I snagged just a few new songs to recommend, so you don’t think I had a stroke or a Sunday brunch in jail. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: XALPEN, KALMANKANTAJA, EXDESTRIER, PESTIS, DEKADENS

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Feb 262023
 


Xalpen

I read an article about sleep this morning, It reinforced the idea that I’m doing the right thing sleeping 8-10 hours a night on the weekends, a fairly recent development for me. It also helped explain why I have such vivid dreams in the last phase of sleeping right before waking up, even if they’re like ghosts that tend to vanish within minutes of waking. The article may be pay-walled, but you might find it interesting too (it’s here), or maybe you already know the details.

On the downside, sleeping late makes for a slow start on my weekend NCS posts, especially when I don’t get a head start on the selections the night before. Fortunately there’s someone out there who may have a different sleep cycle, in addition to being in a different time zone, and what he finished very late last night in his time zone was waiting for me in my in-box this morning.

Is it stealing for me to just copy/paste a few things from his collection right into this post to make up for my late start? If so, I confess to theft. At least I won’t pass it off as my own. But I do have a few of my own choices to lead the way in blackening the sabbath. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MYLINGEN, PALACE OF WORMS, MORK, STRJA, ETHIR ANDUIN, TIDELESS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 192023
 

I didn’t oversleep today, so there’s a lot here. And I don’t just mean the volume of music, but the stylistic range of it too. Black metal has become a vast canvass, but I’ve often gone off the edge of the canvass too. And I’ll add that there are more variants of doom in this mix than usual.

MYLINGEN (Sweden)

To begin today, I’ve chosen At Night I See Demons, the head-spinning debut EP released last month by the Swedish black metal band Mylingen, a collaboration between multi-instrumentalist V.J. (from Apathy Noir) and vocalist G.C. According to Metal Archives, their name is based on the word “myling“, which in Scandinavian folklore was “the phantasmal incarnations of the souls of unwanted children killed by their mothers and forced to roam the Earth until they could persuade someone to bury them properly.” Continue reading »

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