NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: CRYSTALMOORS — “MEMORIES”

Sep 052016

It was on the Ides of March this year when I discovered a video for a song called “Over the Same Lands” by the band CrystalMoors from the lush Cantabrian region of Spain, nestled between between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains. I was carried away by the music. The beating heart of this high-energy song is a gripping riff that seizes attention right from the start, and there’s a lot more to like about the track — from the galloping, warlike charge that comes later, to the pagan/folk chorus melody, to the mix of deep roars, high shrieks, and clean vocals. The physical setting of the video is also quite beautiful.

That song is part of a double-album CrystalMoors release coming our way from Casus Belli Musica on the 9th of September. The first of the two CDs is separately titled The Sap That Feeds Us, and the second one, La Montaña, consists of unplugged versions of both old and new songs played with folk instruments. Today we’re very happy to bring you the premiere of another song from this new release, the track that opens The Sap That Feeds Us: “Memories“. Continue reading »

LABOR DAY DELAY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Sep 052016

I checked the store of data about our putrid site at Google Analytics today and learned that over the last year 41.32% of our visitors were located in the United States, which means that 58.68% came to us from other lands. Which means that on average, most of you reading this won’t be observing a holiday today. It is, however, a holiday here in the U.S. Which means that I’m just lying around in two-day-old underwear enjoying the pleasures of doing not a goddamned thing. This is how we celebrate Labor Day — by not laboring.

The Labor Day holiday was created by an act of Congress on June 28, 1894. According to the U.S. Department of Labor (of course), the holiday “is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LLUVIA, JASSA, ENDE, VOMIT OF DOOM, JORDABLOD, HIRSI

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

Sep 042016

I’ve been messing with this site for almost 7 years and I continue to be astonished by how much good metal from all over the world appears on a weekly basis. And so a lot of new music awaits you in this round-up of metal in a blackened vein, but there could have been more. In fact, I forced myself to separate new music from five other bands and assemble those tracks in another one of these posts, though I can’t be sure I’ll finish it before being diverted by other things.

I’m starting off with tracks from two new releases that are headed our way from the Fallen Empire label, and then branching off into other directions.

LLUVIA

We haven’t given enough attention to Lluvia (a one-man project from León, Mexico), even though the band’s last album Eternidad Solemne was celebrated in our friend Ben Smasher’s list of 2015’s best albums (and he’s not the only writer around the web who embraced the album last year). We have another opportunity to do better, because Lluvia has already completed a new album, the name of which is Enigma. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (THORNS)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 5 Responses »

Sep 042016

For this Sunday’s backward look into metal’s past, the subject is the Norwegian band Thorns, whose line-up over time has included many of black metal’s true luminaries and whose story has been intertwined with some of the most notorious chapter’s in the genre’s history. The band produced only one album (though hopes have never died for a second one), but it is extraordinary.

The band’s roots can be traced to a two-man outfit called Stigma Diabolicum which came to life in 1989, the two men being Snorre W. Ruch (guitar, bass, and piano/synth) and Marius Vold (vocals, programmed drums). They were eventually joined by a live drummer (none other than Bård Eithun, who adopted the name Faust when he became a member of Emperor) as well as bassist Harald Eilertsen. They anointed themselves with the name Thorns around 1990.

The following two years they released demos entitled Grymyrk and Trøndertun (which are widely regarded as significantly influencing the development of the Norwegian black metal sound), and then in 1993 Ruch was convicted as an accomplice to the murder of Euronymous by Varg Vikernes, while Bård Eithun was also convicted of church arsons and for stabbing a stranger to death — and those events brought Thorns to a halt until Snorre Ruch was released from prison. Continue reading »

SATURN’S DAY: KYPCK, OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE, DEFECRATOR, NAAT, SECOND TO SUN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Sep 032016

Yesterday, to end the work week, I picked new (or newish) songs from five bands to recommend out of a much bigger group of new stuff I thought was good. To celebrate Saturn’s Day, I’ve picked four more from that original group and added one older EP that I finally got around to checking out.

KYPCK

Formed back in 2007 and naming themselves after the Russian city of the same name, KYPCK (pronounced “kursk”) are Finnish but led by a vocalist (Erkki Seppänen) who is fluent in Russian and sings in that language. His bandmates include two former members of Sentenced: guitarists Sami Lopakka (who uses a six-string guitar made from an AK-47 assault rifle) and Sami Kukkohovi, along with bassist Jaakko Ylä-Rautio and drummer Antti Karihtal. Their discography, such as it existed at the end of 2014, was the subject of the 53rd edition of THE SYNN REPORT at our site. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BRUTALLY DECEASED, MAGOA, BALANCE INTERRUPTION, HELLWAFFE, TAIGA

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 9 Responses »

Sep 022016

Last night and this morning I listened to all or parts of 21 new songs. Most of them I found in e-mails we received over just the last 24 hours, others from browsing my Facebook feed. Most of the bands I knew nothing about. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, I enjoyed 16 of them. What to do?

This is why these posts are tagged “Random Fucking Music”, because little more than chance determined what I chose to include here (as is often the case) — plus a desire for a bit of variety in the sounds while including some of those bands I’d never heard of before.

BRUTALLY DECEASED

This first band I have heard of before, but haven’t thought about in years. In fact, the last time I wrote about them was January 2011 in a review of their debut album Dead Lover’s Guide, which I accompanied with photos of gigantic chainsaws. Instead of massive chainsaws, this time I have an image of one of Paolo Girardi’s most monstrous artistic creations, which appears on the cover of this Czech band’s new album, Satanic Corpse. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DRAGONAUTA (LUCIEN KURGAN)

Interviews No Responses »

Sep 022016

all photos by Gimena Cuenca

(Comrade Aleks has been interviewing again, and brings us this new conversation with Argentina’s devilish Dragonauta.)

Dragonauta is a satanic extravaganza band from the edge of the world – Buenos Aires to be precise. They’ve been doing their evil deals since 1999 but after four full-length occult works only one founding member is left – the guitarist Daniel Libedinsky. He’s the author of most of their sinister riffs.

Three years have passed since Dragonauta released the Omega Pentagram album, a collection of savage and satanic stoner doom tracks. Today Daniel with renewed and a strengthened lineup continues to do his work finishing the fifth album, and Lucien Kurgan (vocals, bass) brings the news about it. He promises further mutations of Dragonauta’s sound, so let’s hear some details of it. Continue reading »

ALLEGAEON: “PROPONENT FOR SENTIENCE”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Sep 022016

(Here we have Andy Synn’s review of the much-anticipated new album by Colorado’s Allegaeon.)

So I’ve already seen a few reviews for this album eking their way out onto the interweb, several of which have gone down the desperate, obsequious route of “OMG guys! This is the best album ever! It’s perfect! Allegaeon are the future of metal! Please pay attention me!”

And don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a great album, and I’ve been a big fan of the Colorado quintet myself for quite some time now, it’s just that I fail to see the value in such shameless fawning and bootlicking. Do these people really think there’s some sort of value in blowing smoke up a band’s ass like this? When everything is written about IN BLOCK CAPITALS HYPERBOLE!!! and when every album is given a 10/10 rating… what’s the damn point?

Heck, as much as it must be nice to be praised for your work, the majority of the bands I’ve dealt with and spoken to over the years have told me that they’d rather read one well-thought-out review that offered a balance of creative compliments and constructive criticism than ten sprawling screeds written by people who either clearly have their own agenda to promote, or who are simply unable to write something that isn’t just gushingly saccharine and sycophantic.

Anyway, now that I’ve got that little rant out of my system we can get down to the business of reviewing (and praising) Proponent for Sentience, Allegaeon’s fourth full-length album, and their first with new vocalist Riley McShane. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IN THE WOODS… — “MYSTERY OF THE CONSTELLATIONS”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 022016

Two months ago we had the honor of premiering the first new song by Norway’s In the Woods… in 17 years. The name of that song was “Cult of Shining Stars” and it appears on a a new album entitled Pure that will be released by Debemur Morti Productions on September 16. Since then Debemur Morti has revealed another song (accompanied by a beautiful music video), “Blue Oceans Rise (Like A War)”, and we have published our review of the album (by Andy Synn), who called Pure “as unique and enigmatic a musical experience as you could wish for” and “one of the most compelling, captivating, and truly complete musical masterpieces of the year”.

Today it’s our pleasure to bring you a third song to hear in advance of the album’s release, and the name of this one is “Mystery of the Constellations”. When Andy reviewed the album, he wrote that “some of [the songs] rock a little harder, and some of them err a little more sombre. Some of them brood, some of them swagger, and some of them drift in a dreamless languor – at times all within the same song – but each and every one of them has something special about it, something magnificent that truly lets it soar… its own particular identity, its own particular brace of distinctive hooks and melodies.” And “Mystery of the Constellations” is further proof of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BANISHER — “ONIRIC DELUSIONS”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 012016

On September 3rd, Deformeathing Productions will release Oniric Delusions, the third album by the Polish death metal juggernauts in Banisher, and today we’re giving you a chance to hear the entire album before its release.

For those who are only now discovering (or re-discovering) Banisher, their current line-up includes members of such bands as Decapitated, Redemptor, Darzamat, Nuclear Vomit, Shodan, and Ketha.

Until the band ease back on the throttle somewhat in the closing track, they fly like the wind on this album — if the wind were capable of changing directions at the speed of thought. And that’s not the only metaphor that springs to mind in listening to this intricate, inventive, technically eye-popping collection of savage assaults. Continue reading »

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