SHADES OF BLACK: KJELD, HOMSELVAREG, DEATHHAMMER

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Oct 082018
 

 

You may have noticed that we had no new posts at the site this past weekend — no Waxing Lyrical interview, no Shades of Black column, and nothing else. But rest easy — we are, in fact, still alive and well.

Mr. Synn played Mammothfest with his band Beyond Grace, and I spent the weekend in southern New Mexico at an annual outing of the business I work for when I’m not doing NCS stuff, and so neither of us had time to handle our usual weekend responsibilities. I guess I should have said something about these plans, in order to avoid the severe anxiety and heartbreak that our absence must have caused among the millions who looked for us and found nothing but the final post from last Friday.

My own activities not only prevented me from writing anything this weekend, they also prevented me from listening to as much new metal as I usually do on the weekends. I’ve got a shitload of catching up to do, which I’m thinking is a practical impossibility since I’m sitting here looking at the schedule of 11 song and album premieres I need to write this week, including the two coming today. But I will at least do this Shades of Black post, even if a day later than expected and even if the reviews are pitifully brief for music of such blazing power. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GROZA, DRATNA, A FLOCK NAMED MURDER, SLEGEST, HISSING, SOLAR TEMPLE, FLUISTERAARS, TURIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Sep 302018
 

 

I struggle with these picks every week, and resolve the struggle in different ways. Sometimes, when I’ve got the time, I double-up the column so I don’t have to leave out quite as many possibilities. I don’t have that kind of time today. And to make the task harder, a lot of the music I wanted to talk about today turns out to be extra time-consuming — full releases, really long songs, many minutes that don’t lend themselves to pithy introductions.

Days like this I’m reminded that the main value of what we do here is “curation” (to use a pretentious term), i.e., the sifting and sorting of music and the selection of what we find appealing and think might be worth the time of people like you. If the writing itself proves to be entertaining, that’s a bonus. Mainly, we just do that to entertain ourselves. Hopefully, the curation alone will carry the day today — my own words are limited to begin with and kind of tail off into tiny dribbles the further you get into this.

GROZA

My friend eiterorm found Groza’s new album on Friday, said it was obviously inspired by Mgła, and expressed completely certainty that I would like it, judging from our common tastes in metal. “So make sure this one gets top priority. ;-]”, he wrote. So I did, and my friend was right — this is really good. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (HGD EDITION): BÂ’A, CULT OF EIBON, CAEDES CRUENTA, ISKANDR, RODENT EPOCH, SORCIER DES GLACES

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
Sep 232018
 

 

(While our editor is on vacation this weekend, our ally HGD has generously stepped into the void and gathered the following collection of new black metal to recommend to you.)

Bâ’a

The best part of putting together a collection like this one is being able to discover hidden diamonds in the rough, especially those that appear out of the blue with little warning. The atmospheric black metal band Bâ’a is a prime example of this.

The scant details provided to Black Metal Promotion as a part of the upload of their single “Les Terres de Terreur“, seems to indicate that they hail from France, but there is no information about their membership. The band appears disinclined towards the use of social media as well, with no presence on Facebook or Bandcamp, seemingly preferring to let their music speak for them. After listening to this track, it’s not hard to see why. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ULTHAR, ANCST, KRODA, DEPTHS ABOVE, GORYCZ

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Sep 162018
 

 

Unlike most of the music I chose for Part 1 of today’s collection, black metal isn’t the dominant ingredient in everything I’ve included in this second Part, though it always plays a role. I’ve segmented these five choices by design, with some connections I hear between the first two, and some different connections between the last two, and some HelCarpathian Black Metal in the middle.

ULTHAR

Ulthar‘s 2016 debut demo made quite a vivid impression on me, which I likened to “the musical equivalent of rabid wolves in a feeding frenzy”. Of that demo I further wrote: “The focal core of Ulthar’s music is corrosive, distorted, head-ramming, d-beat crust, but they spread out from there, incorporating bestial death bellows and deranged shrieking along with massive, spine-shattering chugs, violent blackened riff swarms, and melodically dismal and alien slower passages”. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): CARPE NOCTEM, CRIMSON THRONE, AKVAN, PURE WRATH, NOCTEM AETERNUS

 SHADES OF BLACK  10 Responses »
Sep 162018
 

 

As you can see, I had enough time yesterday and this morning to pick twice the usual number of selections for this Sunday’s column. Maybe this will make up for the likelihood that there will be no S.O.B. column next week because this SOB will be going on a short vacation next weekend with Ms. Islander and some friends.

Although I had time to assemble a two-part collection this week, that only somewhat eased the agony of picking from among such a massive number of deserving advance tracks and new releases. I wish I could have done more.

CARPE NOCTEM

I christened May 2012 “Iceland Metal Month“, calling attention to a series of posts I wrote which exclusively focused on metal bands from Iceland, a country that I wrote was “starting to seem close to Finland in the ratio of killer metal bands per capita of population”. Now, almost five and a half years later, it no longer seems like a close call, particularly in the genre of black metal. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MALTHUSIAN, VALDUR, SPEARHEAD, LORDS OF THE CEMETERY, HOT GRAVES

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Sep 092018
 

 

The music I’ve picked for this week’s column is among the shades of black that shade into death metal, or vice-verse, depending on the stylistic ingredients that you think are more dominant. But while “blackened death metal” might be a suitable description for some of this music, that label doesn’t fit all of it, at least as I think most listeners interpret the term.

All but one of the bands in this collection are old favorites of mine who are returning with new music, sometimes after extended absences; one is a new discovery. I’ll add that this weekend has been a busy one for me (busy with non-NCS activities), so I’m hurrying to get this done before I have to turn again to other stuff. Which means I’m having to cut short my usual rhetorical embellishments, and mainly let the music sell itself.

MALTHUSIAN

After two powerful previous releases, the MMXIII demo in 2013 and the stellar 2015 EP Below the Hengiform (which we had the privilege of premiering), the Irish black/death band Malthusian will at last release a full-length this year. Across Deaths is set for release on September 28th by Dark Descent Records and Invictus Productions.  Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): YOVEL, ETERNAL SACRIFICE, AVAST, HULDREKALL, SPEKTRAL HATCHERY, S.E.K.H.

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Sep 032018
 

 

It’s Labor Day here in the U.S. today, which won’t mean much or anything to half the people who visit our site. For those people, who don’t live here, it’s a holiday designed to celebrate the American labor movement. For me, it’s just another laboring day at NCS, though of course it feels more like fun than work or you can be damned sure I wouldn’t be doing it.

This is the second Part of a column I began yesterday, which I hope you’ll check out if you haven’t, because there’s a lot of good music there as well as here.

YOVEL

Although I mostly focus these columns on new or forthcoming releases, I’m stepping back in time for the first recommendation today. I overlooked this album when it was released on April 1st of this year, but was called back to it through a recent e-mail we received. The first track was seductive; the second track spun the turbine in my head into the red zone. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): A FOREST OF STARS, ÖVER, THE ORDER OF APOLLYON, TEZCATLIPOCA, BLACK MOLD

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Sep 022018
 

 

This Sunday’s collection of music validates the title of the series: No two of the songs are very much alike, and they display quite different degrees of “blackening”. If you’re like me, you’ll like all of it; even if you’re not, there’s enough diversity in the music that you’re bound to discover something of interest.

As you can see, there will be a second Part of what I’ve pulled together this week. But the odds are I won’t finish it in time to post it today, and you’ll see it tomorrow instead.

A FOREST OF STARS

The first single from A Forest of Stars‘ new album (“Precipice Pirouette”) was a glorious extravagance, a 10 1/2-minute pageant capable of carrying the listener away like a leaf in a gale. I said so, and so it must be true. And now we have a second single, with the delightfully loony yet carefully calculated title “Decomposing Deity Dance Hall“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MEPHORASH, DALKHU, DYSYLUMN, NIGHT CROWNED, DARVAZA

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 262018
 

 

The thick blanket of smoke that’s fallen over the part of Wyoming where I’m currently vacationing has diminished the attractiveness of outdoor activity, and that in turn led me to do what I usually do on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings — listen to recent offerings of music from the darkest realms.

Strong winds seem to be creating some clearing in the noxious fog from burning forests, so I probably won’t be writing a second part for this column, though I have more than enough new songs and full releases to justify it. I’ll have to content myself with the following five selections.

MEPHORASH

Last week brought us the second single from the fourth album, Shem Ha Mephorash, by the Swedish band Mephorash. The first single, “777: Third Woe“, was released way back in November of 2017, and it prompted me to marvel at its pitch-black devotion — music that was reverential, grandiose, and fearsome in its conjuring of majestic and sinister power (and also quite memorable). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ULTHA, ERIPHION, MALEPESTE, DYSYLUMN, LOPUTON SUO

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 192018
 

 

This weekend I had the time to double the size of the usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column. And while I recognize the risks of recommending more music than you’ll have time to check out, I do hope you’ll explore the excellent selections I included in Part 1, as well as what I’ve picked for Part 2. As in the earlier installment, I’ve again included two full recent releases and advance samples of music from two others that are set for release this fall.

ULTHA

I somehow missed the original 2015 release of the debut album (Pain Cleanses Every Doubt) by this enormously talented German band, but rectified the oversight when the album was reissued by Translation Loss in April 2016, helping to spread the word through an interview of the band and a stream of one of the songs from that fine debut. And since then I’ve been following their activities closely, writing about their 2016 EP, Dismal Ruins; their 2016 split with Morast (a tribute to Bathory); their 2017 live recording, Woe Over Roadburn; their 2017 split with Paramnesia; and their 2018 EP Dismal Ruins Pt II. Meanwhile, Andy Synn reviewed their 2016 album Converging Sins.

In other words, as prolific as Ultha have been, we’ve devoted attention to everything they’ve done so far. Why stop now? Continue reading »

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