NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VICTORIAN WHORE DOGS — “I HAVE BECOME…”

Feb 162016

Victorian Whore Dogs are not a new exotic breed of canine, although you can’t help but wonder what such a creature might look like and how risky it might be to take them for a stroll in the park. No, Victorian Whore Dogs are a UK metal band from Guildford whose debut album Afternoonified is due for release at the end of March. What we have for you today is a rousing new video for a song from the album named “I Have Become…”

Last year the band won the Reading Bloodstock Metal 2 the Masses competition, which earned them the right to perform at the Bloodstock Festival on the New Blood Stage — and that’s where this video was filmed.

With a name like Victorian Whore Dogs, you don’t expect to see a band solemnly rooted in fixed positions on the stage, dishing out glacial drone to an equally rigid audience with arms crossed and eyes closed. And in fact, that’s not what happens. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THE COMPLETE LIST

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015 9 Responses »

Feb 152016

Well, unlike last year, I at least finished the list this time — or at least came to an intentional stopping point. I could have kept going — easily. And I’m sure I disappointed more than a few people by leaving out deserving songs. That’s just further evidence of what a great year 2015 was for metal. And I have no doubt that 2016 will be just as great (it’s already off to a hell of a start).

If nothing else, I hope this list provides a sign of how vibrantly healthy and diverse metal is, notwithstanding statistics about declining sales and increasing pressure on the larger and more commercially inclined labels. Though I’m sure I gave short shrift to a few sub-genres, I did try to make sure that anyone who explores this list will see that, creatively, things are burning hot and bright.

Below is a list of all the songs on this year’s list — 75 of them (!) — in the order in which I listed them, and the songs are hyperlinked to the original posts where you can listen to the music. I know it would have been nicer if I had included all the streams right here in one place, but that would have taken more time than you probably realize. Continue reading »

DAYS OF YORE: DARK AMBIENT, BLACK METAL, AND THE BIRTH OF DUNGEON SYNTH (VOLUME 1)

Feb 152016

(Kaptain Carbon returns to NCS with a feature devoted to Dungeon Synth”. 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. We’ve heard that he is also a fantastic dungeon master and has some wonderful EDH decks.)

If you have been following my exploits and research into dungeon synth, this article should come as no surprise. For the past year or so I have taken a swan dive into this genre without any hesitation or thought of the consequences. If you are new to dungeon synth, allow me to give you a proper introduction.

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 »

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