NO CLEAN SINGING

GOROD: “A MAZE OF RECYCLED CREEDS”

Sep 102015

(Andy Synn reviews the eagerly awaited new album by Gorod.)

In the hallowed halls of Tech-Death, some names resonate louder than others. Names like Necrophagist… Spawn of Possession… Obscura… Beyond Creation… these are the modern masters and living legends towards whom so many budding fretboard fanatics pay tribute.

This is far from a comprehensive list of course (“no Arsis/Anata???”, I hear you cry), not least because it omits the name of Gallic string-slingers Gorod, who have returned once more to try to claim their own place amongst the pantheon of the immortals with their latest album, A Maze of Recycled Creeds.

To be fair to them, the French fivesome have been teetering on the edge of greatness for almost as long as I can remember, and there’s more than a few folks out there who’d insist (with good cause) that the band belong firmly on the list with all the Tech-Death demigods whom I’ve mentioned above, but it remains to be seen whether or not A Maze of Recycled Creeds is going to be the album to finally garner the band a permanent place in the upper echelons. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SHEPHERD

Interviews 3 Responses »

Sep 102015

(Comrade Aleks has interviewed dozens of bands from all over the world, and we have published many of them. This is the first one in which the subject told us to fuck off.)

Shepherd is a band of cocky dudes from Bangalore, India. This stoner doom outfit also has some sludgy influences and approach, and you can easily find it in their debut full-length album Stereolithic Riffalocalypse, which was released by Shepherd themselves in March 2015. Does this record have any surprises for listeners? What’s new in the Indian underground? Let’s ask Deepak Raghu (drums, vocals).

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AN NCS INTERVIEW: OBAKE (ERALDO BERNOCCHI)

Interviews No Responses »

Sep 092015

(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview with guitarist Eraldo Bernocchi of Italy’s Obake.)

We’ve mentioned the Italian experimental band Obake twice on NCS. First, it was the big doom quiz in July 2015 and then that article about rituals performed in music. Well, Obake released the new album Mutations in the fall of 2014 and a year has passed, but I’ve decided to put out this brief interview with Eraldo Bernocchi (guitars).

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Hello Eraldo! The new Obake album Mutations was released a year ago. How would you rate your own professional progress gained with that record?

Mutations is the natural evolution of the first album. We are tighter; we are a full time band now, where before Obake was more a project. The tracks are more structured, there’s a clearer path. Kaos has a method.

Those three songs which I heard are really more complex, more energetic, and heavier than those which you recorded for Obake’s first album. With what kind of feelings and expectations did you compose these songs?

Nothing expected, nothing felt. Energy, it’s all about energy. If we feel it in the studio we continue composing. We aim to be even heavier if possible. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FRACTAL GENERATOR — “FACE OF THE APOCALYPSE”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 092015

Sometimes the name that a band chooses for itself can be a significant clue to the kind of music they make. The name Fractal Generator sounds kind of cybernetic and machine-like, although fractal repeating patterns across multiple scales of size are evident in nature as well as mathematics. But then consider further that the members of this band from Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, identify themselves by number: 040118180514 (bass, vocals), 040114090512 (drums), and 102119200914 (guitar, vocals). And then consider that the name of their debut album is Apotheosynthesis.

It may be fun to speculate about what all these names signify about the music, but I’m afraid we’re going to spoil some of the fun by premiering a Fractal Generator song from the new album. The song’s name is “Face of the Apocalypse”. It may not sound exactly like what you’re guessing. Continue reading »

VIALS OF WRATH: “DAYS WITHOUT NAMES”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Sep 092015

(Here’s Grant Skelton’s review of the new album by Vials of Wrath.)

“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:–
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.”

William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned”

I initially caught wind of Vials Of Wrath with their 2013 release Seeking Refuge. That album was one of my first forays into black metal, particularly with atmospheric leanings. It was a genre I had not explored because I had decided that I did not like it. Since becoming a lurker here at NCS, I’ve adopted a much more fluid “listen to anything once” policy. The reason for this is that I’ve been proven wrong on more than one occasion. I’d convinced myself that I did not like a genre/band/release. Upon repeat listens, I’ve found my musical horizons broadened, thus evolving my metal palate. Continue reading »

WINDFAERER: “TENEBROSUM”

Album Reviews, Phro's Posts 10 Responses »

Sep 092015

(Over in the list of Categories on the right side of the page, I’ve kept alive one called “Phro’s Posts“, hoping that one day our old friend would come back to us — and so he has. Here’s Phro’s review of the new album by New Jersey’s Windfaerer.)

Tenebrosum, Windfaerer’s newest album, is seven tracks of pure frigid despair that could be summed up with three adjectives: Melancholy, punishing, and fierce. When you get the album on September 22 (which you absolutely must, whether you think you like black metal or not), wait for a cold, rainy day to listen to it. Tell everyone to leave you alone for an hour and grab your best headphones, preferably a pair with a relatively flat but accurate frequency response. Find an empty room with a single window, turn out all the lights, and sit in the grey light of the afternoon. Then, press play and close your eyes.

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The plane rattles with the kind of turbulence you’ve only seen in movies. Smoky clouds whip by the windows and the sobs of terrified passengers fill the cabin. Alarms blare for a moment and then everything disappears…

When you open your eyes, you’re neck deep in snow. The wreckage of your plane writhes a hundred meters away, hungry flames licking at the cabin. The shrieks of someone dying reach your ears before falling silent a moment later when the fire stretches out and engulfs the plane’s skeletal remains. Continue reading »

MUSIC FOR SOUR MOODS?

Mosh Pit 46 Responses »

Sep 092015

“Frustrated” by Dawn Olaniyi

I think most people who know me would say I have a sunny disposition. I’ve thought about why this is, but I’m not sure whether it’s genetic, or the fact that I received a lot of familial support while my frontal lobes were developing, or because over time I’ve randomly been dealt lots of good hands by the uncaring cosmos — or some combination of these or other factors.

I do think about this from time to time, because it seems that most of my friends seem to have a 50/50 split between sunny and sour, and some seem to be sour most of the time — which I would guess is more par-for-the-course among the great mass of humanity as a whole. I still like all of my sour friends, and feel a strange compulsion to try to make them feel sunnier.

But even I, with a sunny disposition of indeterminate origin, have sour days. I had one yesterday, and it’s going to roll right into this day like the stench from a West Texas feedlot. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KINGS DESTROY (STEVE MURPHY)

Interviews 3 Responses »

Sep 082015

(Comrade Aleks brings us a new interview, this one with Steve Murphy, frontman of New York’s Kings Destroy.)

Welcome the stoner/doom kill team from New York, here are Kings Destroy! This stubborn band finished their third album in May, and I humbly suppose that this time they have collected their most rocking hits in one record.

This highly professional crew is deeply inspired by Melvins, Yob, and New York City itself, and they sound like “brutal Sabbath heaviness with hardcore outbursts and disturbed vocals verging on the demented”. I got the feeling that it was my duty to spread a word of Kings Destroy’s third arrival, and therefore today we have this interview with band’s frontman Steve Murphy. Continue reading »

LUCTUS: “RYŠYS” (A REVIEW AND A FULL-ALBUM STREAM)

Reviews 3 Responses »

Sep 082015

I discovered the Lithuanian band Luctus for the first time at the end of July, reveling in the power of their last album (2013’s Stotis) and writing about a few of the songs (here). At that time, news was beginning to spread about their next release, a concept album named Ryšys (which means “connection”).

In mid-August an advance track from the album became available for listening — one named “Kvantinis šuolis” — and it proved to be as exhilarating as what I’d heard on Stotis. Now, the album has just been released by Inferna Profundus Records and the entirety of it has become available for streaming.

I’m very high on this record. It brings with a vengeance what many of us want first and foremost in black metal — cold, calculating savagery — but it does that with a powerfully heavy weight in the riffs and the kind of deep vocal growls more often found in death metal (along with skin-tearing shrieks, effective clean vocals, and even throat-singing!). Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SICK REVIEWS

Interviews 4 Responses »

Sep 082015

(Our friend and brutal death aficionado Vonlughlio [Blast Family] from the Dominican Republic rejoins us with an interview of the man behind Sick Reviews, a blog devoted to BDM.)

Back in 2014 I was looking for new bands and happened to stumble upon a FB page called “Sick Reviews” that specializes in Brutal Death Metal reviews. Thanks to this page I have found great bands from all over the globe (including Russia, Colombia, and Indonesia). The owner is Mr. Talbot, a rabid collector for more than 20 years and a connoisseur of the genre — and my interview of him follows:

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First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview for NCS, really appreciate it. As I mentioned, you are a collector and I would like to know from all your years of listening to metal, when and what album started you on your path into this particular genre?

Hi Rafael, first thanks for the interview! The album which have made me start getting into Brutal Death Metal I think was in 1996 with Trading Pieces from Deeds of Flesh, which is for me the first real BDM release to have been made! Before, we had Suffocation, Cryptopsy, and Pyrexia, but I never considered them as Brutal Death Metal. Trading Pieces in my opinion is the album which really created the genre — a bunch of BDM bands appeared after them and the genre was born! Continue reading »

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