NO CLEAN SINGING

DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT AND GNAW THEIR TONGUES: “N.V.” IS COMING

Sep 082015

I’ve been quite eager for the new collaboration by Dragged Into Sunlight (UK) and Gnaw Their Tongues (The Netherlands) ever since catching word long ago that it would be happening. Just moments ago, some additional info popped up in our in-box, along with a link to a trailer for the new album. For now, I’m just going to excerpt some of what appeared in the press release and embed the trailer after that. Hell yes.

First, the name of the album is N.V. and it will be released by Prosthetic Records on November 13.

Second, as you can see, the artwork by Seldon Hunt (Khanate, etc.) has now been revealed.

Third, from the press release we have the following insights into the approach to the album, which will be a re-imagined rendering of Streetcleaner by Godflesh:, produced by Justin Broadrick himself along with Tom Dring: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RAISING THE VEIL — “QUBIT COMPUTED MULTIVERSE”

Premieres 1 Response »

Sep 082015

Back in June we happily premiered a song named “Qubit Computed Multiverse” from Bosonic Quantvm Phenomena, the debut album by a multinational band named Raising the Veil (we also premiered a stream of the album), and today we’re equally happy to help bring you the debut of the band’s official lyric video for that same song.

For those who are new to the band, despite our best efforts to spread the word about them, the line-up includes Austrian vocalist George Wilfinger (Monument of Misanthropy, Disfigured Divinity, ex-Miasma), Canadian guitarist Daniel McLellan and bass-player Denis Landry, and Necrophagist drummer Romain Goulon. Together, they’ve created some brain-scrambling, pulse-pounding, progressive-minded tech-death capable of re-wiring your neurons and firing their synapses at will. Continue reading »

NAKED ROOTS CONDUCIVE: “SACRED 521”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Off Topic 3 Responses »

Sep 082015

(Austin Weber takes us far off our usual beaten paths with this review of an unusual album by a violin-and-cello duo who call themselves Naked Roots Conducive — with a full-album stream.)

I think one of the most wonderful things about avant-garde and experimental music is how it seems to transport you to a very strange yet intense place where you may have to adapt in order to fully appreciate it. Such is the case with the New York City-based duo called Naked Roots Conducive. The two members are Natalia Steinbach who plays violin and sings, and Valerie Kuehne, who plays cello and and sings as well. The range and scope of the music on their new album Sacred521 is impressive, and I’d say additionally impressive because no other instruments beyond violin, cello, and their two voices appear on the album.

Records such as Sacred521 are difficult to describe, since there aren’t many other people doing anything similar, and the musical lines they straddle coalesce into a sound that doesn’t fit into any established musical style. Naked Roots Conducive craft exquisite and intricate songs that are part classical music, and part nightmarish film score instrumentation, accompanied by heavenly singing courtesy of each member. The end result is not wholly classical music, nor simple singer-songwriter-oriented stuff either. It’s very sweeping and dramatic music, constantly traversing, back and forth, a divide between sour and sublime sounds. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: ANDREW CRAIGHAN (MY DYING BRIDE)

Interviews 4 Responses »

Sep 082015

(KevinP brings us another installment of his short-interview series, and this time he talks with Andrew Craighan, co-founder/guitarist/composer of My Dying Bride, whose new album Feel the Misery is set for release by Peaceville Records on September 18 — and reviewed here on our site.)

K: One of the things that struck me last time we spoke (right after A Line of Deathless Kings was released in 2006) was how you would write all the music, then give it to Aaron, and he would lock himself away for a week or so with some wine and candles and just spit forth all the lyrics. He wasn’t privy to hearing the music beforehand. Has anything fundamentally changed in that regard over the years?

A: It was more or less the same on this one. I wrote at home and would send out odd and sods when I thought I had something of use. The band, Aaron included, would get used to them or learn the riffs in anticipation of needing to play it later. The full songs were then arranged again alone by me initially. Then, when in a playable state, we would rehearse them live at Voltage and re-arrange or write anything new there that fit or was needed. Again, completely developed without any vocals or lyrics by everyone in the band but Aaron. He doesn’t ever come to those parts of the process but has “demo” versions sent to him. What he does with them no one knows as he always seems “surprised by music” at the studio and on this one I got a bit more involved on the vocal melodies too, which was cool. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PERIHELION, SACRAMENT OV IMPURITY, CHTHONIC CULT, BRÉAG NAOFA

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Sep 082015

I’m confused. Yesterday was an official U.S. holiday that almost all of my friends seemed to ignore. It was LABOR DAY, and so I spent the day laboring, as commanded, while most people I know were fucking off. I don’t understand this kind of rampant ignorance of U.S. legal commands. Perhaps there is some explanation, but in the meantime here are three new songs I found in my blog labors yesterday that I believe are worth your time — plus one reminder about a band who blew me away with a live performance I witnessed two nights ago.

PERIHELION

Perihelion are a Hungarian band who signed with Apathia Records in June for the release of their second album, Zeng. The album features cover art by the talented Costin Chioreanu (Twilight13 Media). Yesterday, Apathia and the band released a music video for a track from Zeng named “Égrengető”. The lyrics of the song are in Hungarian, as is true for the whole album. It’s an exception to our “rule”, because the singing is all clean — but the vocals are quite good, and both the song and the video that presents it are entrancing. Continue reading »

THE RITUAL AURA: “LANIAKEA”

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Sep 072015

(In this post Austin Weber reviews the new album by The Ritual Aura from Perth, Australia.)

In the past few months here at NCS we’ve had the honor of premiering two songs by The Ritual Aura from their newly released record Laniakea. Both songs (featured here and here) showed off a wide range of technical death metal influences and differing songwriting styles. The diversity of both “Time Lost Utopia” and “Erased In The Purge” is no fluke, as the rest of the Laniakea is just as varied and dense musically. To my ears, their colliding mass of many different tech-death influences sounds similar to Decrepit Birth-style progressive melodic death metal mixed with The Faceless, Beyond Creation, and Necrophagist. It’s very pissed off, yet frequently abounding in gorgeous melodies and spidery slithering riffs amidst sci-fi key/synth flourishes and interludes that help lend a sense of balance and space-like texture to their music.

While I know not everyone is into records having intro and outro tracks, at least the ones present on Laniakea are both barely over a minute while consisting mainly of pleasant piano playing. The album features two instrumental songs as well, “Nebulous Opus Pt I.” and “Nebulous Opus Pt. II”, with the latter being a very intense and complicated track in line with the rest of their music except sans vocals. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): IN TWILIGHT’S EMBRACE — “THE GRIM MUSE”

Album Reviews, Premieres 9 Responses »

Sep 072015

The Grim Muse is the name of the third album by Poland’s In Twilight’s Embrace. It’s due for a September 15 release by Arachnophobia Records in this, the band’s tenth year of existence. Two excellent songs from the album have premiered so far (one featuring guest vocals by At the Gates’ Tomas Lindberg), but we have the pleasure of bringing you a stream of the entire album.

“Melodic death metal” may be the closest simple genre description for this music, but it’s also one that would be misleading to a lot of listeners, in part because there is considerable variety among the album’s 11 tracks and in part because the record’s overall atmosphere, like its name, is grim — and vicious. If we’re going to use that genre term, let’s at least call it Melodic DEATH Metal. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLOODWAY, ANTROPOFAGO, OVERCLIFF, PHOBONOID, SLOW, RAMAGE INC.

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Sep 072015

My calendar says it’s Labor Day here in the U.S. I am a law-abiding citizen, and therefore I will do as commanded, and labor. But it’s not exactly hard labor. It’s just writing about a lot of excellent new metal that I heard over the weekend. Also, our pal Grant Skelton made it even easier by writing one of the following features himself (I’ll point out which one when we get to it.) This collection is a fine example of the diversity of metal — hope you’ll enjoy it, while you are laboring.

BLOODWAY

When I last wrote (here) about Bloodway, the Romanian group led by talented graphic artist Costin Chioreanu (Twilight13 Media), it was to praise a song called “Walking Past Near the Lighthouse” (and its accompanying video) from the band’s then-forthcoming album Mapping The Moment With The Logic Of Dreams. The album is now out, and in recent days the band released another video for the album’s second track, “The Transfinite Castaway”. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SANZU — “THOSE WHO SLEEP IN THE EAST”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Sep 072015

(Andy Synn introduces our premiere of a new song and video from Australia’s Sanzu.)

If you’ve been paying even the slightest amount of attention to our site in recent months, you’ll no doubt be aware that Painless, the debut EP by Australian mechanoids Sanzu, is easily one of my favourite releases that I’ve heard this year. So much so in fact that not only did I immediately order myself a copy of the CD (that’s right… a real, physical copy!), I also plonked down some cash for a pre-order of the band’s at-that-point-untitled debut album.

So it probably won’t surprise you to hear that I’m extremely excited that NCS is able to bring you the debut song, and video, from that very same album, the enigmatically titled Heavy Over The Home.

The song in question – “Those Who Sleep In The East” – is a stunningly heavy piece of relentless sonic intensity… all rumbling, piston-powered guitar work, scorching, blowtorch vocals, and explosive, artillery-fire drumming, designed to simultaneously mesmerise and pulverise the audience over the course of almost six minutes of weapons-grade metallic firepower. Continue reading »

FATHER SYNN’S METAL CONFESSIONAL, PART 11

Mosh Pit 37 Responses »

Sep 062015

(Father Synn returns after 4 weeks of intense purification so that he may once again hear all your disgusting metal sins. Please leave them in the Comments so all that “purification” won’t be wasted.)

Rejoice my children, for I am returned to you from my wanderings! 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness… or at least, it feels like that. Time flies when you’re drinking/carousing/shirking your priestly duties…

So once more I come before you burdened with the weight of truths yet untold and words yet unspoken. Let me be as a light to you in the darkness, a balm to your wounded soul, a… canary in a particularly pungent coal mine.

Let me lead you. And where I go, thou shalt follow, into the arms of metallic salvation! Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries