NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: WILDERNESSKING — “WITH ARMS LIKE WANDS”

Oct 092015

We’ve closely followed the upward trajectory of South Africa’s Wildernessking since 2012, spilling many words over everything they have released, from their 2012 debut album The Writing of Gods In the Sand, to their two EPs (…and the Night Swept Us Away and The Devil Within), to their track on one of the Elemental Nightmares splits (“Kings”), to the song “Soundless Longing” (included on a split released early this year by Secret Ceremonies). Now the band have completed work on their second full-length — Mystical Future — and today we’re honored to bring you the first full song from the album: “With Arms Like Wands“.

Beginning with their debut album, Wildernessking have demonstrated a talent for achieving an inventive balance between light and darkness, between moving, atmospheric passages and bursts of intense ferocity, between complex progressive tendencies and hook-filled melodies. And over the course of the shorter releases that followed The Writing of Gods…, they’ve also demonstrated growth and increased maturity in their song-writing, though their debut was so damned good that finding room for improvement might have seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“With Arms Like Wands” is yet another example of the band’s skill at integrating different styles of music within a framework of black metal — and it’s also as intense and intensely moving as anything they’ve done to date. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WILT — “ILLUSION OF HOPE”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Oct 082015

2015 may be the best year yet for releases by Bindrune Recordings. In addition to stellar offerings from Panopticon, Alda, Infera Bruo, and Nechochwen, on October 30 the label also plans to release the debut full-length by Wilt from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Entitled Moving Monoliths, it will be adorned by gatefold cover art created by the fantastic Nick Keller from New Zealand.

The band previously released a tantalizing teaser of excerpts from the album, but now we bring you more than mere moments of music. We’re very pleased to host the album’s first mammoth track — “Illusion of Hope”. Like all four of the songs on Moving Monoliths, it’s a long piece of music, but it’s a prodigious work in more ways than simply its unusual length. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: WOUDLOPER — SELF-TITLED EP

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Oct 082015

We rarely turn back in time for the metal releases we review at this site, instead spending most of our time focusing on what’s coming in the future. And when I recently began listening to Woudloper’s self-titled demo (which seems to have been originally self-released about a year ago, and then was distributed on cassette by the Dutch label Breathe Plastic Records earlier this year), I didn’t mean to write a review. I thought perhaps I would include a mention of it in one of our Shades of Black round-ups. But this small obsidian gem is so good that I thought it deserved a stand-alone feature.

The band is the solo project of a Dutch musician named Erik B., and this demo consists of two long songs, denominated only by number. If you’re interested in a genre description, the music crosses boundaries, fusing together elements of atmospheric black metal, sludgy doom, and post-metal. It’s staggeringly heavy and manages to be both mesmerizing and frightening. Continue reading »

FIVE OF MY FAVOURITE… SATYRICON SONGS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 20 Responses »

Oct 082015

(Andy Synn presents yet another list of his favorite things that come in fives.)

With the recent news that Satyricon frontman Satyr has been diagnosed with a (hopefully benign) brain tumour, I felt now was as good a time as any to wax poetic about my love for the band, and pick out five of my favourite tracks from across their back catalogue.

Once again I’ve tried to stay away from the obvious choices, so you won’t find any mention of “Hvite Krists død” or “Mother North” here, and likewise you’ll also note a distinct absence of the big singles like “Fuel For Hatred” and “K.I.N.G.”.

Still, it’s a testament to the band’s longevity and songwriting prowess that it’s just as easy to pick out any number of other songs that hit the same heights, from across the length and breadth of their creative catalogue, as it is to focus in on their most famous numbers. Continue reading »

GODLESS ANGEL INTERVIEWS FERNANDA LIRA OF NERVOSA

Interviews 5 Responses »

Oct 082015

(Our friend Derek Neibarger (Godless Angel) interviews Fernanda Lira of the Brazilian band Nervosa.)

A short while ago I wrote a post in which I praised the Brazilian thrash/death trio, Nervosa. Fernanda Lira, Prika Amaral, and Pitchu Ferraz have been bringing their awesome brand of metal to the masses since 2010. Their first full length album, Victim of Yourself, was released in 2014 through Napalm Records, and the band has been on the road ever since.

I was hooked from the first moment I heard “Masked Betrayer” off of their debut EP, Time of Death. Simply put, Nervosa is a hundred different kinds of badass. So I was extremely excited when I was granted an interview with bassist/vocalist Fernanda. As you’ll soon see, she’s extremely cool, passionate, and a true metal warrior. A huge thank you to Mona Muliski for making this possible! Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: VREID, THY CATAFALQUE, DEMONICAL, BODYFARM, FUCK THE FACTS, BLODSGARD, SWORN TO OATH, KUBLAI KHAN

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Oct 072015

Yesterday I compiled a massive round-up featuring new songs and/or videos by seven bands. But that still didn’t exhaust what I had found in the preceding days. And, metal being such an explosively metastasizing tumor, I’ve found still more things to get excited about since I wrote yesterday’s compilation. So, what the hell, I’ve decided to throw caution to the winds and prepare another even more jam-packed post, with good things from eight bands. Once again, I’m choking back my tendency to shower many words over the music… I’ll just scatter a few droplets instead.

VREID

I’m going to start by telling you about a full-album stream that came rushing up like a freight train at night with the lights off. Which is a way of saying that although we here at NCS are enormous fans of Vreid, we received no advance copy of their new album Sólverv, and just learned that all the songs have now been officially uploaded to YouTube for streaming. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NYLITHIA — “BLÜDWOLVES”

Premieres 8 Responses »

Oct 072015

About a week ago we happily reported that Vancouver’s Nylithia had finally announced the release date for their debut album Hyperthrash. It has been a long time coming, but the band have given us plenty of reasons to get excited about it — and today we’re bringing you one more, through our premiere of the album’s tenth track of 12: “Blüdwolves“.

The story of our acquaintance with Nylithia began in March 2012, when we discovered the first three songs they had released for the planned album, each of which was accompanied by separate artwork and videos — “Trainsaw”, “Immersed In the Maniacal”, and “Vein of Creation”. And then in September of that year we had the pleasure of debuting the title track — “Hyperthrash”. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SATURNALIA TEMPLE

Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews 4 Responses »

Oct 072015

(Comrade Aleks presents this in-depth interview with Tommy Eriksson of the Swedish band Saturnalia Temple. Music is included, of course)

Swedish bloody dark and heavy doom outfit Saturnalia Temple produced their second full-length album in 2015; it’s name is To The Other. If you think that you know something about the occult because you previously heard a few songs about goats, rituals, and naked chicks, then just forget it. I wouldn’t like to continue this game of associations and assumptions, because Saturnalia Temple’s high priest Tommie tells it better.

******

Hail Tommie! First of all, thanks for the time you found for this interview! What’s Saturnalia Temple status at the current moment?

We are entering the dark part of the year, especially here in Sweden, and we have done some great festivals during the summer, the Sonnenwende in Abtenau, Navajo Calling in Parma, Metal Magic, Geggan, and Chaos Descends. We played London some weeks ago with Cult of Fire and Skan, which was also amazing. We are not booking any more gigs this autumn really, except possibly one very special night in Sweden with some brothers, check our pages for news about that. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SWALLOW THE SUN, BELPHEGOR, LOST SOUL, BLACK FAST, REVENGE, HUMAN IMPROVEMENT PROCESS, WHORETOPSY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 24 Responses »

Oct 062015

Yesterday and today brought yet another flood of very good new song and video premieres, many of which I’ve collected in this post. This is another instance where there’s so much music I want to share that I’m having to throttle my tendency to spill great piles of words on top of the music. Instead, there will be only small molehills of words.

SWALLOW THE SUN

Yesterday Finland’s Swallow the Sun premiered a lyric video for one of the vast number of songs on their forthcoming three-disc album on Century Media, Songs From the North I, II & III. We’re trying to figure out how to review this album. Current thinking is to divide it among three different writers here at our site. We probably need to think more.

Anyway, this song is “Heartstrings Shattering” and features guest vocals by Aleah (Trees of Eternity) The title is well-chosen. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANOMALIE — “UNTOUCHED WALLS”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Oct 062015

On November 20, Art of Propaganda will release Refugium, the second album by Austria’s Anomalie, a band founded in 2011 by multi-instrumentalist Marrok (Selbstentleibung, Harakiri for the Sky). As a further sign of what the album holds in store for listeners, today we bring you the premiere of Refugium’s second advance track, “Untouched Walls“.

The ringing chords and low-end thunder that launch the song in dramatic fashion seize the attention immediately, with Marrok’s flesh-scarring howl magnifying the music’s chilling intensity. But that’s just the start of what becomes a changing, multi-hued musical journey — one that never loosens its grip even as it moves through a dynamic array of sounds and moods. Continue reading »

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