NO CLEAN SINGING

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 3): HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, ELLENDE, AZZIARD, NIRNAETH, ISGÄRDE, AKATHARTA

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

Jul 052016

This is the third and final Part of a post that I began on Sunday focusing on black metal (and music influenced by it), thinking it would just be a two-parter featuring six bands instead of what it has become. As the days have passed, I’ve continued to come across advance tracks and full releases that I want to support, and the total has now reached 13 bands. Honestly, I could do this every day, but I’m going to make myself stop until next Sunday so I can devote attention to other things. Like eating and sleeping.

I’m going to begin with a couple of videos, one brand new and one not so new (but newly discovered), both of them created for Austrian bands. And then I’ll turn to a new split, a recent album, and a couple of new songs from a band with some famous names attached to it that aren’t really black metal but I want to mention them without further delay.

HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY

The new album by this Austrian band, III: Trauma, is fantastic. We’ve already featured one of the new tracks (here) and premiered a second one (here), and yesterday the band debuted a video for a third one. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DIABOLICAL — “UMBRA”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Jul 052016

Diabolical’s new EP Umbra — which we give you the chance to hear in full today — is a multifaceted obsidian gem. Atmospherically forbidding and possessed of a grim, doomed grandeur for most of its length, Umbra is also savage — and at times wistful and meditative. It’s so well-conceived and expertly performed that it has the capacity to carry listeners away and hold them in thrall, while also triggering fierce surges of adrenaline.

Umbra also reflects changes in style since the band’s last release, the 2013 concept album Neogenesis. Gone are the symphonic arrangements and massed choral voices, yet even in the absence of these elements the music is still often shrouded in an aura of forbidding majesty — as well as implacable menace. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): KAMPFAR, AXIOMA, TODESSUCHT, HELLBRINGER

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET 11 Responses »

Jul 042016

Yesterday I posted the first half of what was supposed to be a two-part post collecting recent advance tracks and full releases in a blackened vein that I wanted to recommend to you. When I finished Part 1, I had music from three more bands collected for Part 2. Sure enough, between then and now I found a lot more stuff that got me excited. And since we’re celebrating Independence Day here in the States, I might as well go big.

So, I’ve expanded this edition of Shades of Black into a three-part post, with the final segment coming tomorow. Please enjoy this jumbo fireworks display as we all strive for our own independence.

KAMPFAR

Kampfar previously released a fantastic video for one of the tracks (“Daimon”) from last year’s excellent Profan album (reviewed here), and today they premiered another one. This video is for “Tornekratt“, and to quote from the site that handled the premiere, it’s “a nightmare vision of the end of the world featuring a vast demon wielding a fiery whip over the last remnants of humanity, a grotesque take on the last supper, monolithic hooded deities serving judgement and all manner of cinematic suffering.” Continue reading »

BRAIN DRILL: “BOUNDLESS OBSCENITY”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Jul 042016

(To celebrate Independence Day, we would like to drill your heads, and Austin Weber would like to review this new Brain Drill album — and we are both getting our wishes!)

While not the first of their ilk, preceded by Origin and to degrees Cryptopsy and several others, California natives Brain Drill ushered in a new dimension of hyper-frenetic technical death metal upon their unholy birth in 2006, bearing instant fruit with an initial EP that year entitled The Parasites. From there the group linked up with Metal Blade Records for two over-the-top-yet-face-melting albums, 2008’s Apocalyptic Feasting and 2010’s Quantum Catastrophe.

After Quantum Catastrophe the band seemed to drift away, but founding member and main composer Dylan Ruskin announced about a year ago that a new album was in the works — and it has now arrived. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): CAÏNA, OLD GRAVES, LARVAE

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 3 Responses »

Jul 032016

For this Sunday round-up of recommended music in a blackened vein, I compiled advance tracks and two full-album streams from a total of six bands. Because I’m a little pressed for time today, I decided to split the collection into two parts and finish writing the second half for tomorrow, so as to char the shit out of The Glorious Fourth. Between now and then I might add to the collection, too.

I’m starting with music from two bands whose past work I’m familiar with, and then turning to groups who are new to me, concluding tomorrow with one whose music is only slightly “blackened” but has some famous names attached to it.

CAÏNA

With a few relatively brief pauses, Caïna has been prolific and inventive, releasing six albums and more than a dozen shorter releases since the first demo in 2005 — and transforming the shapes of the sound along the way. Caïna’s new seventh album is named Christ Clad in White Phosphorus, and it’s coming out on July 15 through Apocalyptic Witchcraft Records.

For this new album, Caïna’s core creator Andy Curtis-Brignell is joined by vocalist Laurence Taylor (Cold Fell) and bassist Paul Röbertson, along with contributions by members of the British experimental/noise group Warren Schoenbright and Integrity’s Dwid Hellion in his guise as Vermapyre. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PEQUOD — “FALSE DIVINITY”

Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET 4 Responses »

Jul 032016

“Explosive” is a good one-word summary of False Divinity, the new EP by Germany’s Pequod that’s set for release on July 5th. “Vortic-Death-Thrash”, which is the band’s own label for their music, is accurate, too. It is indeed a vortex of skull-crushing death metal and electrifying thrash, and as you’re about to find out through the full stream in this post, it includes other qualities that make it a lot of vicious fun to hear over and over again.

If you’re new to this band, we’re told that they first came to life in early 1998, and since then they’ve released a pair of demos, a self-titled EP in 2004, and a debut album named Forgotten in 2011. And because they chose the name of Captain Ahab’s whaling ship for their own name, Ahab can’t be considered the only German metal band with an affinity for Moby Dick. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (UNANIMATED)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 15 Responses »

Jul 032016

For this Sunday’s look back into metal’s past I have Bardo Methodology to thank for the idea of focusing on Unanimated. Last week, that site featured an excellent interview of Richard Cabeza by Niklas Göransson, which reminded me not only of Unanimated’s past glories but also of the fact that the band is still alive, though it’s anyone’s guess when they will complete work on a fourth album.

As Göransson notes, Cabeza is “Stockholm death metal royalty” (though he has lived in Dallas, Texas, for the last 14 years). In addition to being one of Unanimated’s founding members in 1989, he was a bass player for Dismember and Murder Squad, a vocalist for General Surgery, and a live member of Satyricon and Dark Funeral. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: TOO MANY THINGS TO PUT IN THE TITLE OF THIS POST

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 16 Responses »

Jul 022016

For those of us here in the U.S., today is the beginning of a long weekend in which we celebrate the nation’s independence from another country, which recently declared its own “independence” from Europe and now can’t seem to figure out what to do next. But since we have a couple of presidential candidates here in this country that most people don’t like, I guess we’re having some trouble figuring out what to do next, too.

I nearly decided to take the day off from blogging, not because I’m feeling very “patriotic” but because I’m feeling really lazy. I decided instead to make a feeble compromise with myself: I have a ton of new music I think is worth hearing, but I’m just going to spread a lot of it out for your perusal without any commentary. I feel kind of shitty for doing that, not because you really need my commentary but because I think I owe it to the bands to explain why I think the music is worth hearing. But I guess this is better than doing nothing at all.

Tomorrow we’ll be bringing you an EP premiere and something else, probably another Shades of Black post and/or the first “That’s Metal!” post in months. Unless I continue to indulge my feelings of laziness. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIABOLIZER — “APOKALYPSE”

Premieres 10 Responses »

Jul 012016

If that demonic artwork up there by Robert A. von Ritter doesn’t stop you in your tracks and peak your interest in the music that lies behind it, I’ll be surprised. It adorns an EP named Apokalypse by the Turkish death metal band Diabolizer, which Third Eye Temple has decided to release on July 8 in celebration of my birthday. Actually, they don’t know that’s my birthday, but I’m considering it a gift anyway, and a very generous one. It’s a hell of a gift for all of you as well, as you’ll discover through our stream of the entire EP.

Looming like a predatory beast in the underground of Kadiköy, Diabolizer consists of musicians who have been members of such bands as Decaying Purity, Engulfed, Deggial, and Godslaying Hellblast. The EP includes five new songs as well as two tracks that first appeared on the band’s hard-to-find 2012 promo, Shadows Of Impending Decimation. Continue reading »

DEATH RITUALS: VERBUM, OROBAS, AUM, TIDES OF SULFUR, UNCANNY REALITY

Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Jul 012016

I meant to post this yesterday, but my job continues to mess with me. What I did here was to collect some new singles and a couple of new EPs that I found two nights ago while using the internet to crawl through the underground. I like all this stuff and thought you might also find something in here that strikes the right chord.

In this globe-trotting expedition the music consists mainly of various shades and phases of death metal (much of it “blackened”) by five bands, hence the title of this post.

VERBUM

Verbum are based in Chile, and their debut EP Processio Flagellates was originally released on tape by the Chilean label Penitenziagite Records, although it’s now also available as a download at Bandcamp. Continue reading »

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