NO CLEAN SINGING

OCEANS OF SLUMBER: “WINTER”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 4 Responses »

Feb 152016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Houston’s Oceans of Slumber.)

WARNING – EXTREME AMOUNTS OF CLEAN SINGING AHEAD

Ahem, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me just say that I’ve honestly fallen in love with this album after being introduced to it by the Angry Metal Guy himself a few weeks back. And whilst it’s not 100% perfect, there’s definitely something special, and truly unique, about Winter.

Rather than racing out of the gate and grabbing you by the throat, the album opts instead for a sublime slow-burn, beginning with the sombre, slowly unfurling strains of its title-track whose gleaming fretwork and subtle, progressive drumming provide a languid canvas upon which the utterly astounding and captivating vocals of Cammie Gilbert take centre stage.

It’s several minutes before the band unveil their heavier side, dropping into a sonorous, distortion-soaked groove, layered with scintillating, shamelessly progressive lead guitar work and gorgeous atmospheric touches and interspersed with some impressively gruff, pseudo-melodic vocals and rough-hewn growls, which play off against Gilbert’s silken tones perfectly, as the song builds to a stunningly powerful, Prog-Death denouement.

It’s quite unlike anything else I’ve heard in some time, and provides a perfect example of the album’s distinctive blend of proggy intricacy and metallic intensity. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MANTAR, GERM, GRAVDAL, NOX FORMULAE, KASSAD, DISSVARTH

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 5 Responses »

Feb 152016

I had originally planned to post this yesterday, to make the Sabbath blacker, but didn’t quite get it finished. I’ve collected five new songs from forthcoming albums and a brief review of an EP released last month. The songs are stylistically diverse — in fact, this is one of those installments of this column where not all of the music is even going to fit the broadest definitions of black metal — yet there is a shared “depressive” quality among many of the songs (and I use the term in a genre sense). And of course I found everything very good and very memorable and hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

MANTAR

As I’ve previously written, Mantar’s new album Ode To the Flame is one of my most eagerly anticipated releases of 2016, both because I thoroughly enjoyed their debut album Death By Burning and because I was so blown away by their live performance at last year’s Maryland Deathfest. A few days ago we got our first full glimpse of the new album via the premiere of a song called “Era Borealis“. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 27)

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015 4 Responses »

Feb 142016

I’m not finished with this list, but I’m making myself stop. It’s the middle of February, and I ought to be using the time I’ve been spending on this focusing on 2016 releases. But I still can’t help but feel bad that I’m stopping without having mentioned all the other 2015 songs I’ve heard that are as deserving as the songs that are on this list.

Tomorrow I’ll have a wrap-up post, with a complete list of all the songs and links for listening to them. Here are the last four, and I’m closing out this list with some good old death metal.

WOMBBATH

Until last year, Wombbath’s last album was 1993’s classic Internal Caustic Torments. The group that recorded Downfall Rising isn’t the same band from more than 20 years ago — vocalist/bassist Jonny Petterson (Ashcloud, Syn:drom, etc.), guitarists Al Riglin and Taylor Nordberg (Infernaeon), and drummer Jeramie Kling (Infernaeon, The Absence) joined forces with founding guitarist Håkan Stuvemark for this new album — but they upheld the Wombbath name and reputation very well. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 26)

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015 4 Responses »

Feb 142016

Today will be the end for my list of 2015’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. I really do need to bring the series to an end, but I’ve found it so difficult to let go of the thing that I’ve prepared two installments for today. There are three new songs for the list in this post, and the next and final one includes four tracks.

The three songs collected here are oddities, none of them appealing to standardized tastes and none of them wedded to linear or predictable structures or even single recognizable genre styles. To varying degrees, you could even say they’re disorienting, but they’re highly creative and to my fractured mind they’re also awfully damned infectious.

DEATH KARMA

I discovered the existence of the Czech band Death Karma on a May day in 2013 at the same time as I learned about Cult of Fire (and described the experience in this post). The two are linked because Death Karma is composed of Infernal Vlad and Tom Coroner, who are also two of Cult of Fire’s three members. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MORGUE SUPPLIER — “HEATHEN (THE THROES OF POISON)”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Feb 142016

Morgue Supplier have been rotting away in some very dark urban crevice, festering for roughly seven years since the release of their 2009 EP Constant Negative. A whole hell of a lot of seething viciousness has been building up, and now it’s about to explode. On February 19 the band’s self-titled album will be released via Obscure Musick, and today we bring you a stream of the album’s opening track, “Heathen (The Throes of Poison)“.

The band’s roots go back to roughly 1997, when their original name was Jugular Appetizer, and in 2004 they delivered a debut album called Sociopath. Here in the present, the band’s only remaining member is vocalist Paul Gillis (Drug Honkey), and he’s joined on the new album by drummer/guitarist Eric Bauer (who’s been with the band since 2002) and bass-player Steve Reichelt. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 1 Response »

Feb 142016

(DGR takes over this Sunday’s weekly feature on the metal of yesteryear.)

I’ve decided to hijack the Rearview Mirror column this Sunday because there’s been an idea playing on my mind for the past few days, as I’ve been going over my music collection trying to dig up more obscure stuff that we’ve never taken the time to talk about on NCS — in some cases, because the site wasn’t around yet.

It’s the idea of abums that I’m not quite sure why I have, but when I give them a listen I find that they were generally good discs that I’ve forgotten about. Most of the time, I would argue that it’s because they were half-good albums, discs that to me were enjoyable but for whatever reason just did not stick.

There are a handful of albums out there that I would describe as half-good — hinting at greatness but instead dragged down back into the “good” realm for a variety of reasons. Whether because of odd song choices, too much time devoted to uninspired mid-tempo tracks, or strange production, they tend to weigh on me more than I’m willing to admit, mostly as I find myself saying, “You know, they were on to something with a handful of these songs”. More often than not, I find that my “half-good” discs tend to be from local bands, but in this case we’ll be going on an international trip to Germany. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 25)

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015 1 Response »

Feb 132016

Over the last two months, as I made my way through the hundreds of songs that had become candidates for this list, I fell into the habit of grouping certain songs together for listening purposes, usually because I thought they would complement each other. The first three in today’s quartet formed one of those playlists, and they kind of got stuck together in my head. I enjoyed the trip through them so much (and so often) that I decided all three belonged on this “Most Infectious” list, and that they should stay together here, just as they did when I was trying to figure out this list as a whole.

And then in recent days I found that another song I had already decided to include worked well as an addition to the original trio — which is why this installment includes four tracks instead of the usual two or three. (The songs that preceded these four on the list can be found here.)

GLOSON

When I included “The Aftermath/Beginning” on the list of candidates for this series, I had forgotten that Gloson’s Yearwalker was originally self-released in 2014, because we “premiered” this song from it last February in advance of its March 2015 vinyl release by Art of Propaganda and Catatonic State Records. When I remembered only days ago that the song was from a 2014 release, it was too late for me to abandon it (see the paragraph above about the first three songs in this post being joined at the hip). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 24)

Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015 6 Responses »

Feb 122016

Welcome to the 24th Part of our roll-out of 2015’s Most Infectious Songs, as chosen by me and me alone. I have a constricting feeling around my throat as I bear down on my self-imposed Sunday deadline for finishing this list, when in fact I’m not really close to exhausting all the songs I want to write about. I have some terrible decisions to make this weekend.

The rest of the songs on the list can be inspected via this link.

AMORPHIS

I don’t suppose Amorphis really needed to make a “comeback” album. They haven’t really gone away, and the massive core of their fan base has never left them. But I still think of Under the Red Cloud as a comeback album. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DEATH FETISHIST, PTAHIL, WALDGEFLÜSTER, CANTIQUE LÉPREUX, GOATPSALM

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 8 Responses »

Feb 122016

I usually post collections such as this one on Sundays, to make the Sabbath blacker. But I’m sitting on so much good new metal in a blackened vein that I decided to share this collection now. I’m hoping to put together another one for Sunday.

DEATH FETISHIST

Just a couple of days ago, the eminent Debemur Morti Productions announced the signing of a new band from Portland, Oregon, named Death Fetishist, whose debut album will be released by the label later this year. To commemorate the blessed event, Death Fetishist released a single-song EP entitled Lucifer Descending yesterday — which follows a two-song EP (Whorifice) released on the first day of this month. Both EPs are available on Bandcamp.

The person behind Death Fetishist is the prolific Matron Thorn, who is also the principal driving force in Ævangelist as well as the protagonist in a large number of solo projects, including Benighted In Sodom. He is the vocalist in Death Fetishist and performs all the instruments other than drums and percussion, which are handled by Grond Nefarious. Continue reading »

OMNIUM GATHERUM: “GREY HEAVENS”

Album Reviews 9 Responses »

Feb 122016

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Finland’s Omnium Gatherum.)

As you know, we’re not really in the business of publishing negative reviews here at NCS. In fact I think the very idea of publishing something wholly negative gives Islander heart palpitations.

Still, I have to say that Grey Heavens, the seventh album by Finnish melodeath titans Omnium Gatherum, is, without a doubt, a thoroughly frustrating listening experience.

There are times when it positively crackles with the band’s patented musical magic, driven by the same passion and energy that made The Redshift, New World Shadows, and Beyond such thrilling, electrifying albums, ably accented by characteristic tinges of proggy melancholy and shamelessly extravagant fretboard theatrics.

Unfortunately, there are also times (more than I’m really comfortable with, truth be told) where it limps rather than gallops along, with a much more uneven gait, hamstrung and prevented from reaching its full potential by a nagging feeling of over-familiarity and a sense of “been there, done that” which lingers like a vaguely unpleasant odour.

Like I said… it’s frustrating, fluctuating as it does between utterly stupendous, and unsatisfyingly stock in its delivery. But that doesn’t make it a bad album. Just an uneven one. Continue reading »

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