NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: ONIRIK — “INVOCATION AND DEFIANCE”

Sep 232015

We metalheads may be different in some important ways from the people who don’t share our passion for abrasive, aggressive music, but in some ways we’re not so different: In our listening, many of us find comfort in what is familiar, and sometimes instinctively shy away from bands who have stepped off the usual beaten paths. But sometimes when that happens, the results can be exciting, even if the music is different and challenging on first listen.

Casket Dream Veneration, the new album by the Portuguese band Onirik, maintains a spiritual devotion to the traditions of black metal, but the band are definitely following their own path, and the music is a rewarding experience in part because it does sound different from much of the music that now travels under the black flag.

Take, for example, the track from the album that we’re premiering today: “Invocation and Defiance”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VARATHRON, SLUGDGE, BLOODRED HOURGLASS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Sep 232015

This is one of those mornings where I’ve accumulated a lot of music over the last couple of days that I’d like to tell you about, but I don’t have enough time to do all the telling. So I’ve picked only three new things, which is what I have time for, and I picked this grouping because they provide variety, which someone said is the spice of life. Because time is short, I will also have to hold my own descriptive verbiage to a minimum.

VARATHRON

One item of exciting news that appeared in recent days was the announcement that the Greek black metal titans in Varathron have a new, seven-track EP named The Confessional Of The Black Penitents that will be released by Agonia Records on October 23. Apart from the prospect of new music from this excellent band, I also enjoyed the cover art, since it happens to be a painting by Swiss painter and printmaker Carlos Schwabe (1866-1926) that I’ve used before as one of the daily art posts on the NCS Facebook page.

In addition to the news about the EP, Agonia began streaming a new track named “Sinister Recollections”. It’s one of three new songs on the EP — the other four are previously released songs recorded live in Larisa, Greece, on May 16, 2015. Continue reading »

FIVE OF MY FAVOURITE… NACHTMYSTIUM TRACKS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Sep 232015

(Andy Synn returns to an irregular series in which he shares favorite things that come in fives.)

I’ve not done one of these in a while it seems, so while I’m tinkering away on a few other bits and pieces (I’ve got an EP review in the pipeline for this week, as well as another Synn Report in-progress… and maybe one day soon I’ll even complete that column about the importance of lyrics… though don’t hold your breath for that) I thought I might as well just throw something together for the sheer hell of it!

So, ignoring the well-documented douchebaggery of Blake Judd (he’s a toxic cunt by all accounts… but damn, he can write some mighty fine drug-induced Black Metal jams when he wants to), here’s five of my favourite Nachtmystium songs from the Black Meddle-era. Continue reading »

WORLD WAR II (PART I)

Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 12 Responses »

Sep 222015

(This is the first of a two-part article prepared by our Russian friend Comrade Aleks.)

We are used to horror lyrics in metal and especially in extreme metal music. Different reasons push different bands to write about it, and I’ll let someone else write about that who knows this topic better than I do. Today I have for you a compilation of tracks dedicated to World War II, mostly to the Eastern Front. 70 years ago the War ended, and today there is still a lot of discussion born in Russia, the East, the EU, and the USA about how it truly was, and how it could have turned due to some specific circumstances. I will not tell you my point of view — but just provide brief historical excursions, music, and sometimes the comments of death, black, and doom bands about it.

Here you will find exclusive detailed comments from Martin van Drunen of Hail of Bullets and some stories by participants in Skyclad, Altar of Oblivion, Mental Home, Eastern Front, Dark Lunacy, and Sodom.

Why the Eastern Front? Because a damned lot of things happened here, sooth to say. My grandfather was recruited in January 1943. He was 17 years old, and German aviation had bombed his village near Leningrad / Saint-Petersburg. He took part in breaking the Leningrad siege and in a Finnish company where he was wounded. The War touched nearly every family here, and we must remember. I’m thankful for all these bands who remind us about it. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HUMAN IMPROVEMENT PROCESS — “ENEMIES OF THE SUN”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 2 Responses »

Sep 222015

(Andy Synn reviews the new EP by Italy’s Human Improvement Process.)

This has been a bumper year for EPs so far, with several of my favourite releases of 2015 coming in the old Extended Play format…. Barús, Wild Hunt, Sanzu, Pyrrhon, Exgenesis, Barishi, The Monolith Deathcult… the list goes on.

Well, now you can add Italian Tech-Death collective Human Improvement Process to that litany of names above, with their all-killer, no-filler, new EP Enemies of the Sun. Continue reading »

THY CATAFALQUE: A REVIEW OF “SGÚRR” AND THE PREMIERE OF “JURA”

Premieres, Reviews 11 Responses »

Sep 222015

We are very fortunate to help premiere a song named “Jura” from Sgùrr, the new album by the remarkable Thy Catafalque. The album has been one of my most-anticipated releases of 2015 — and my expectations were very, very high, given the quality of Thy Catafalque’s most recent albums, 2011’s Rengeteg and 2009’s Róka Hasa Rádió. Yet as lofty as those expectations were, Sgùrr has exceeded them.

I won’t blame you if you now jump to the end of this post and start listening to “Jura”, but there may still be reasons to read the review that precedes the song stream, because no one song on this album tells you what you need to know about the rest of it.

I hasten to add that I’m not sure I can tell you what you need to know either. When you encounter an album as varied and unusual as Sgùrr, the typical genre references and descriptive adjectives go out the window, and that leaves me feeling even more helpless than usual in trying to find the right words. Of course, as mentally hobbled as I am by these limitations, I’m soldiering on anyway. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: SHRINE OF INSANABILIS — “DISCIPLES OF THE VOID”

Premieres 9 Responses »

Sep 212015

About a month ago we brought you a clue to what lies within Disciples of the Void, the debut album by a mysterious entity known as Shrine of Insanabilis, with our premiere of a song from the album named “Ruina“. Now we are privileged to lift the veil all the way off as we deliver a full stream of the album in advance of its September 22 release by W.T.C. Productions.

Actually, that metaphor about lifting the veil is an overstatement, because the identities of the band’s members are still concealed, and the music itself remains mystical. But that’s only part of its allure. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MORD’A’STIGMATA — “OUR HEARTS SLOW DOWN”

Premieres, Reviews 6 Responses »

Sep 212015

The remarkable new EP by Poland’s Mord’A’Stigmata is named Our Hearts Slow Down. Although the title has meaning in the context of the music, your hearts will not slow down when you hear it. Unless you’re listening to the EP just as you’ve lost your brakes while bending through a hairpin curve on a mountain highway, we can assure you that you hearts will beat faster. You can tell us if we’re wrong — because at the end of these words you can listen to the EP from start to finish.

Black metal is at the core of this music, but whatever instinctive reactions you may have to that genre label, good or bad, put them aside. On this EP, you can tell that Mord’A’Stigmata had a vision that didn’t conform to established forms, and they bring into play a number of diverse musical styles to create a thoroughly narcotic and irresistibly powerful concoction. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: GREY WIDOW / SONS OF TONATIUH — A SPLIT

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Sep 212015

This is a review of the just-released split by Grey Widow from somewhere in the southeastern wastes of the UK and Sons of Tonatiuh from Atlanta, Georgia. I’ll take them one at a time, but in a nutshell, this is one hell of a devastating split.

GREY WIDOW

This split comes in the wake of Grey Widow’s debut album last year, a catastrophic sludge/doom behemoth that I thought was brilliantly caustic, corrosive, and crushing. The band contribute two songs to the split, a 10-minute track named “X” and a somewhat shorter one named “Obey”. They’re as utterly obliterating as anything else I’ve heard this year.

The three minutes of inexorable pounding and excruciating feedback that launches “X” may put your teeth on edge, but the absolutely staggering riffs that follow may knock them into your throat. It’s the titanic, fuzz-drenched sound of buildings collapsing in slow motion and bone being pulverized into dust. The vocalist shrieks for all he’s worth in the background of the destruction — and though all this noise is ghastly enough, it still doesn’t completely prepare you for what happens when the band really start storming about halfway through the song. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND AN INTERVIEW): ABHORRENT DECIMATION — “MIASMIC MUTATION”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 212015

Last week in a “Best of British” article on our site, Andy Synn reviewed Miasmic Mutation, the new album soon to be released by Abhorrent Decimation — and now we’re bringing you the premiere of a full-album stream, along with an interview of the band.

While referencing the likes of such stellar bands as Hour of Penance, Decapitated, and Man Must Die, Andy further wrote:

“This isn’t an album that feels derivative. It feels fresh. It feels vital. It feels… alive. In fact, it’s one of the most shamelessly infectious and irresistibly head-bang-able Death Metal albums that I’ve heard this year.”

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