2015 A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GREAT ALBUMS

 LISTMANIA 2015  29 Responses »
Dec 142015
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(Here’s the first of Andy Synn’s annual five-part, year-end round-up of metal.)

Well, well, well… it’s already that time again, is it? Time to look back on the year in Metal and take stock of all the Great, Good, and Disappointing albums that the past twelve months have produced.

As you may have gathered, I’ve once again elected to split the year into the usual three categories:

The “Great” – the albums which I honestly consider the top tier of this year’s crop.

The “Good” – albums which vary from “solid” to “really good”, but perhaps don’t quite reach the bar of true greatness (though most of them still kick a major amount of ass).

The “Disappointing” – albums which I honestly think could/should have been better (though that doesn’t necessarily make them “Bad” albums).

Now I’ll go a little bit more into the rationale of each one in detail at the appropriate time, but let me just specify that these lists should NOT – I repeat, NOT – be considered comprehensive. There’s just so many albums that have been released this year that there’s almost no way for one person to get to them all. Continue reading »

SUNDAY SLAUGHTER: PRIMITIV, EXCORIATE, ORACULUM, OBSESSÖR, DAMAAR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  16 Responses »
Dec 132015
 

Primitiv-Immortal & Vile

 

I had a plan for today. I was going to finish a review of a new album, I was going to watch a few hours of sportzball (to see if the resurgent Seahawks continue their run into the NFL playoffs), and I was going to spend the rest of the day editing and formatting a big group of year-end-list posts we’ll be rolling out this week as part of our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza. I’ll still accomplish some of these things, but I kind of got derailed at the start of the day.

What happened was that I decided to listen to just one new song, and that put me in a certain kind of mood. And I started bouncing around among other songs that fit the mood, going even deeper into that mood. And then I decided, what the hell, maybe I should share what I listened to. And voilà! Maybe you’ll guess what kind of mood I was in by the time you finish this playlist — IF you can finish it.

PRIMITIV

This was the brand new song that started me on a roll. It’s the first advance track from the new album by an Indian band named Primitiv. The name of the album is Immortal & Vile, and it’s projected for release on February 1 by Transcending Obscurity Distribution. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (SARCÓFAGO)

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  3 Responses »
Dec 132015
 

Rearview Mirror

 

For this week’s look back in time, we have some music by the influential Brazilian extreme metal band Sarcófago.

Between the band’s founding in 1985 and their break-up in 2000, they recorded four full-length albums and an assortment of demos and EPs. Their 1987 debut album I.N.R.I. was a vital “first wave” release in the evolution of black metal, and even the appearance of the band on the album’s cover was influential in the corpse-painted visual ethic of the genre. The drummer on that album, D.D. Crazy, also pioneered in the use of blast-beat drumming.

Sarcófago’s second album, The Laws of Scourge (1991), marked a change in musical direction. As explained in The Font of All Human Knowledge: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: REBEL WIZARD, SHRAPNEL STORM, THE BODY, OCEANS OF SLUMBER

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  13 Responses »
Dec 122015
 

Rebel Wizard-Invocation of the Miserable Ones

 

That post title is a little misleading. I’m writing this (somewhat hurriedly) on a Friday afternoon, because the place of employment for my fucking day job is having its annual holiday party tonight, and the odds are I will get fucked up and be in a world of hurt on Saturday morning — because (obviously) I have all the self-control of a three-year-old.

So, this is a selection of new music that I heard and liked on a Friday, presented for your eyes and ears on a Saturday. As you will no doubt expect by now, no two songs sound remotely alike.

REBEL WIZARD

“Rebel Wizard” is the name of a solo project by the Australian musician Nekrasov, whose work under that name is probably better known in certain circles than Rebel Wizard (and whose most recent release I reviewed here last month). The first Rebel Wizard recording that I heard (and reviewed here) was an EP released in July named Negative Wizard Metal. Just yesterday another EP was released on Bandcamp, this one entitled Invocation of the Miserable Ones. It has many of the attributes that made me like the last EP so much. For example: Continue reading »

BENEATH THE NCS RADAR (PART 5)

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Dec 112015
 

radar5

 

(Here’s Part 5 of our Norwegian friend Gorger’s entertaining multi-part feature on bands we seem to have overlooked at NCS. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here; Part 4 is here.  And be sure to check out Gorger’s Metal.)

Intro shmintro. Now, with those formalities out of the way, lets get to it.

KHORS – THE FLAME OF ETERNITY’S DECLINE (Re-Release)

Ukrainian Khors celebrate the ten-year anniversary of their début, and mark this occasion by releasing the album in remastered edition with new cover art. My two previous meetings with the band, their fourth and fifth albums Return to Abandoned (2010) and Wisdom of Centuries (2012), left me with a decent impression, but not much more. I haven’t forgotten the albums though. At least that’s a good sign.

Something seems to have been lost along the way, for my impressions of The Flame Of Eternity’s Decline are a good deal better. The music here eagerly grabs me and drags me along from the very beginning. Continue reading »

2015 – A YEAR IN EPs

 LISTMANIA 2015, SHORT BUT SWEET  20 Responses »
Dec 112015
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(So far, our year-end LISTMANIA series has mostly been devoted to year-end lists from other sites and print zines, but today we begin rolling out our own lists, and we start with the first of six that Andy Synn is preparing. Every day next week we’ll post his remaining five.)

 

Such is the chaos that is my life at the moment (in between trying to get my End of Year List/s done, I’ve also been putting together a PhD proposal/application, booking a photo shoot for Beyond Grace, TRYING to book shows for next year for us, and helping some good friends move house) that I almost forgot about my annual semi-traditional round-up of all the great EPs I’ve heard this year!

Yes, yes, I know there are several bloggers and/or sites out there who argue that EPs should be considered right alongside full-length albums when it comes to summing up matters at the end of the year… but I’m not one of them.

No, I think EPs deserve their own category, and their own specific focus, and so I’ve written this little round-up to give some of the year’s shortest, sharpest, releases their due. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CONAN — “REVENGEANCE”

 Premieres  10 Responses »
Dec 112015
 

Conan-band-2

 

They look so friendly, don’t they? Sitting there in front of that wall of green as if they hadn’t a care in the world. But once they put their game faces on, crank the power, and begin dropping riffs and drum beats as big as meteor strikes, it’s a different story.

I’m a relative latecomer to Conan. What really sold me was their performance at last May’s Maryland Deathfest. It may have been the heaviest set I saw at the whole festival. I certainly can’t remember any other band that delivered a more pulverizing performance. By the time they finished, I think I had something like the concert-goer’s version of PTSD. My teeth vibrate just thinking about it again.

They’ve called their music “Caveman Battle Doom”, and they’re right in this sense — Conan’s music exerts a primal appeal, as if they’ve figured out how to wake up elements of our DNA that have been dormant since the last ice age. Their new album is named Revengeance, and it’s set for release on January 29 by Napalm Records. Today we bring you the premiere of a lyric video for the album’s title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MONOLITHE — “EPSILON AURIGAE”

 Premieres, Reviews  5 Responses »
Dec 112015
 

Monolithe-Epsilon Aurigae

 

Today is the release date of Epsilon Aurigae, the fifth album by the remarkable Parisian doom band Monolithe, and in cooperation with Debemur Morti Productions we have for you a full stream of the album.

Epsilon Aurigae is divided into three tracks — “Synoecist”, “TMA-0”, and “Everlasting Sentry” — each of them exactly 15 minutes in length. All three are massively heavy, atmospherically chilling, and ultimately spellbinding in their effect. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF THE 50 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2015

 LISTMANIA 2015  42 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

STEREOGUM 50 BEST METAL ALBUMS

 

Of all the year-end lists we re-post from “big platform” web sites as part of our LISTMANIA extravaganza, this is the one I most look forward to seeing. It’s Stereogum’s list of “The 50 Best Metal Albums of 2015“, which was published today. I look forward to it because it’s assembled by a team of people whose opinions I respect a lot — the five guys responsible for Stereogum’s excellent Black Market column this year: Michael Nelson, Doug Moore, Ian Chainey, Aaron Lariviere, and Wyatt Marshall.

This year’s Stereogum list is preceded by a long opinion piece — prompted in part by Disma’s removal from some metal festival line-ups — that raises the thorny and always-controversial issue of whether there are lines crossed by musicians that warrant “excommunication” of their music from our lives. Regardless of what you think about that issue, this is a good and interesting list. It includes some of whom we can safely anoint as “the usual suspects” this year, but some deep cuts as well. And I’m especially happy to see the pick at the top of the list. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2015

 LISTMANIA 2015  31 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

Rolling Stone-20 Best Metal Albums-2015

 

As part of our continuing effort to bring you year-end “best of” lists published by selected print zines and “big platform” web sites, today we’re re-posting Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “20 Best Metal Albums of 2015“, which has just appeared.

You may remember that not long ago we identified the lone metal album that appeared in Rolling Stone’s overall list of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. But this list is a metal-only list, and it’s obviously a much bigger collection of names. Here’s the list: Continue reading »

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