NO CLEAN SINGING

INQUISITION DELIVER “POWER FROM THE CENTER OF THE COSMIC BLACK SPIRAL”

Jul 072016

The always compelling black metal band Inquisition have just revealed another advance track from their new album Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith, which will be released by Season of Mist on August 26. I thought briefly about including the song in a round-up that I hope to finish and post later today, but then decided not to delay.

The song premiered not long ago at Revolver’s on-line site. Revolver chose not to provide any comment about the song itself, perhaps having concluded long ago that such commentary is a waste of time since people can listen to songs for themselves and most listeners probably wouldn’t strain their eyes reading before pressing “Play”. I, of course, can’t resist the urge to comment. Continue reading »

SPECTRAL GLOOM: BLACK AND DEATH DEMOS OF 2016

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Jul 072016

(Kaptain Carbon returns to NCS with this feature on black and death metal demos. Kaptain Carbon operates Tape Wyrm, a blog dedicated to current and lesser-known heavy metal. He also writes Dungeon Synth reviews over at Hollywood Metal as well as moderating Reddit’s r/metal community.)

Islander and No Clean Singing have been champs regarding my sometimes insane focus when it comes to articles. I remember at the last Maryland Death Festival I met Islander for two seconds and the first thing I mentioned to him was “Thanks so much for letting me write about Dungeon Synth.” I am in the process of writing the second part on that series but I have decided to do an article more in line with the site’s ethos. Black and death demos. Hopefully he will let me keep being weird.

Demos have been of immense interest to me because they are an entity whose intent has changed over the years, particularly since the era of the digital internet landscape began. Artists can release full-length albums to fans without the need for a record label intermediary. Demos were originally intended as a demonstration to labels, which could lead to albums and further releases with that label’s support. While this seems like a dream of the halcyon days of big labels, the process of demo to album still exists in underground metal, albeit slightly different in intent. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INFECTING THE SWARM — “OBSCURING THE SEVENTH SUN”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Jul 072016

Augsburg, Germany, is home base for the über-talented one-man brutal death metal band Infecting the Swarm. With one well-received album under his belt (2014’s Pathogenesis), Hannes S. has completed a second album in a planned conceptual trilogy, this new one named Abyss. Lacerated Enemy Records will be releasing the album on September 9, and today it’s our pleasure to bring you the premiere of the album’s seventh track — “Obscuring the Seventh Sun“.

Yesterday on our putrid site we posted an “op-ed” piece (here) attempting to answer the question often asked of metal heads: “Why do you listen to that stuff?” Our writer (Mr. A. Synn) identified many answers, but for him the main one could be summed up in one word: “ENERGY” Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NUKE — “HELLRIDER”

Premieres 6 Responses »

Jul 062016

Almost one month ago I came across a song called “Nuke Me Baby” by a Detroit band named Nuke from their forthcoming, self-titled debut album on the Hells Headbangers label. It lit me up like I’d stepped on a downed power line. I managed to gasp out the phrase in print that it “makes me want to get wasted and piss on a police car”. Despite that, or maybe because of that, I got the chance to premiere another song from Nuke. I even got to pick the song I wanted to premiere. It wasn’t easy (so many fine tracks on this album), but I’m going with “Hellrider“.

Nuke may be a newish band, but the line-up includes Ritchie Riot from Shitfucker on vocals and other members who’ve played in Reaper, Borrowed Time, Perversion, and Anguish. They’ve got some veteran skills, of a certain kind, that they’ve put to damned good use nuking the bejesus out of listeners on this new album. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BARISHI — “GRAVE OF THE CREATOR”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Jul 062016

We’ve been following Vermont’s Barishi every step along their way, with our man Andy Synn reviewing both their 2013 debut album (here) and their 2015 EP Endless Howl (here). Barishi have now prepared a second full-length named Blood From the Lion’s Mouth, which will be released worldwide by Season of Mist on September 16, and today we bring you a stream of the album’s first advance track, “Grave of the Creator”.

Regarding the new track, the band comments: “”Grave of the Creator” came together in the middle of the album’s writing process. The majority of the song was written on an old acoustic guitar in a hundred year old log cabin in the middle of Maine. It’s been fun hearing its transformation since then.”

And the song definitely has transformed since its acoustic beginnings. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: ANICON — “EXEGESES”

Album Reviews, Premieres 11 Responses »

Jul 062016

It makes some sense that New York’s Anicon have partnered with Gilead Media for the release of their debut album, Exegeses, which happens this coming Friday. The band includes drummer Lev Weinstein of Krallice (and Geryon, among other groups) as well as bassist Alexander DeMaria, who performs live with Yellow Eyes. Apart from the connections between those bands and Gilead Media, Exegeses displays certain qualities that make it a natural fit for the kind of dark and unusually distinctive music in which Gilead tends to traffic.

In addition to the impressive rhythm section identified above, Anicon includes the group’s founding members Nolan Voss and Owen Rundquist, who share both guitar and vocal roles. The interplay and the harmonizing of their guitar performances on Exegeses is a principal source of the album’s great fascination and power — as you’re about to find out for yourselves through our premiere of a full album stream. Continue reading »

WHY DO YOU LISTEN TO THAT STUFF?

Mosh Pit 31 Responses »

Jul 062016

(Andy Synn prepared these meditations on why he listens to metal.)

Like most of you (or so I’m assuming for the purposes of this column) the above question is one that I was, for a long time, quite intimately familiar with. And though I tend to hear it less frequently nowadays than I used to, variants of it still crop up now and again:

“How can you listen to that stuff, it’s just noise?”

“Where’s the melody?”

“It all just sounds the same!”

And, as much as I’m occasionally tempted by the knee-jerk, involuntary reaction (“YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!) I’m not an angst-ridden teenager anymore… I’m an angst-ridden adult, and thus far more willing to engage with these sorts of questions and statements, and try to understand where they’re coming from.

Plus, it’s actually a good question… why DO we listen to Metal? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PHASED (CHRIS SIGDELL)

Interviews No Responses »

Jul 062016

(Today, Comrade Aleks brings us his interview of Chris Sigdell of the Swiss band Phased.)

Phased is a heavy psychedelic doom band from Basel, Switzerland. This project was founded in 1997 as its creators were influenced by achievements of scientists in the sphere of deep space exploration, researchers of parallel universes, and slow doom stuff as well. They never make haste, they always use their time well, and so Aeon (Czar of Bullets, 2015) was released in November 2015, six years after their previous album A Sort Of Spasmic Phlegm Induced By Leaden Fumes Of Pleasure had seen the light of day.

Will we wait for the next album so long? Chris Sigdell, Phased’s mastermind, knows the answer. But will he give this information? Let’s try! Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: SERPENTSPIRE — “THE COSMIC THRONE”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Jul 052016

On Friday of this week — July 8 — Transcending Records will release the official CD edition of The Cosmic Throne by Serpentspire from Spokane, Washington, and we’ve got the premiere of a full stream right here.

Those of you who are already familiar with the band may recognize The Cosmic Throne as the name of a demo that Serpentspire self-released last year (perhaps by happening upon our own DGR’s enthusiastic review of said demo last July). But the EP that’s being released on July 8 is a re-recording of the songs from that demo by a revised Serpentspire line-up that now includes the return of original vocalist Shawn Taylor as well as new guitarist Damon Koenig and new bass-player Nathanial Fennen, in addition to drummer Ian McKinney and guitarist Zach Lavelle. Continue reading »

DGR SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): BE’LAKOR, THE VISION BLEAK, CENTAURUS-A, OBSCURA, THE SHADELESS EMPEROR, WITHERSCAPE, SOILWORK, SOLUTION .45

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Jul 052016

(DGR presents this round-up of new music, which completes a two-part post that he began here.)

I joked in the previous collection that I wrote that the flood of music which hit in June was a little hilarious. There’s been so much that it feels like I’ve become a giant net in which news lands and then I dump the whole thing upon this site for users to romp around in, and guess what? The comedic flood of music continues unabated with Round Two of our roundup.

We posted Round One last week, and the dredging of the internet continues as we dig for more music videos/song streams/full album streams to talk about. This time around the collection is actually pretty Europe-heavy, with our one huge divergence being a trip out to Australia — which happens to be our lead-off as well. The collection of bands this time around also features one newer discovery and also a check-in with a band who haven’t had some stuff out in some time.

Be’lakor – Smoke Of Many Fires and Vessels Album Stream

We’ve reviewed Be’lakor’s Vessels already, and I share Andy’s opinion that Vessels is a really good album, but recent weeks have brought even more news — though I can now keep this a little more truncated. One is that the band premiered a lyric video for the song “Smoke Of Many Fires” over at Horror Society, and two, if you prefer your music streams less lyric-video-heavy, Bloody-Disgusting grabbed a whole album stream here. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries