NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: COMA CLUSTER VOID — “MIND CEMETERIES”

Nov 022015

(Austin Weber introduces our premiere of the title track to the new album by the multinational group Coma Cluster Void.)

In a way it’s very fitting that I’m here today writing about the premiere of the first full Coma Cluster Void song. Because it was Islander himself who first tipped me off to this multinational atonal 10-string death metal band in the first place. At the time he alerted me to them over a year ago, the band only had some very short song snippet clips up. But even those were strong enough to make me realize this band was going to be something special. So as I said, being here today to help premiere the title track from their forthcoming debut album Mind Cemeteries definitely feels like things have come full circle.

As for what the song “Mind Cemeteries” offers your ears, it’s a massive rumbling from the abyss right from the start, heaving with a mechanical, uneven gait that easily induces vertigo. There is a suffocating heaviness to “Mind Cemeteries”, which mercilessly strikes and jabs at you in shrill volleys of noise and disturbing dissonance. Continue reading »

PYROMANCER: “DEMO MMXV”

Reviews 2 Responses »

Nov 022015

(Our old friend Black Shuck provides this guest review of the excellent new demo by Kentucky’s Pyromancer.)

Greetings, denizens of the infernal region. Popping in here once again to put the spotlight on another underground band worth getting to know.

Pyromancer are a two-man black/death metal band from Lexington, Kentucky, consisting of Master of Graveyard Torment on drums and Conquerer Horus on guitars. The band have no bass player, and switch off on vocal duties, with Torment performing the high shrieks while Horus does gutturals. Their first demo tape, Demo MMXV, has been released via Grim Winds Records.

The demo takes the grim, lo-fi atmosphere of second-wave Norwegian black metal bands and combines it with the aggressive bestiality of bands like Archgoat. When Master of Graveyard Torment is shrieking over Conquerer Horus’ tremolo riffs the band sounds very traditionally black metal indeed. However, thanks to Torment’s relentless drumming, the music is fierce and fast rather than gloomy, and when Horus takes a turn on the mic, deep, distinctly un-Norwegian growling fills the air. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 65: WITHERED

THE SYNN REPORT 6 Responses »

Nov 022015

(Andy Synn presents the 65th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, reviewing the discography of Withered — who have a new album on the way.)

Recommended for fans of: Ulcerate, Krallice, Lord Mantis

Ugly. Raw. Nihilistic. Harrowing. These words — and many more besides — can all be applied to the work of bile-spewing troubadours Withered, who have so far produced three particularly stellar (if also particularly underappreciated) albums blending the raving savagery of Black Metal, with the wrenching heaviness of Death Metal, and the slime-drenched grooves of Sludge, each one bathed in a scalding miasma of acid-rain atmospherics and bleak, bitter misanthropy.

If you’ve encountered the band before, and/or have read any other reviews of their work, then I’m sure you’ll have noticed just how much of a struggle it is to adequately categorise the Georgian quartet (recently reduced to a three-piece after the departure of guitarist/vocalist Dylan Kilgore – who’s been replaced by Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy – as well as both long-time bassist Mike Longoria and his interim replacement Zach Harlan, with bass duties on the upcoming album being handled by a certain Colin Marston).

It’s not that the basic elements of the band’s sound are wholly unique – I, and others, have picked out references to everyone from (early) Mastodon to Morbid Angel, from Dissection to Neurosis, from Deathspell Omega to Entombed, underpinning their particular brand of Blackened Death-Sludge (or, possibly, Ensludgened Death-Black). It’s just that the resultant cacophony, this grim and godless entity that calls itself Withered, rises above these comparisons to stand defiantly on its own two feet.

Some people call them Death Metal. Some people call them Black Metal. Some people call them Sludge Metal. But whatever we all decide to call them, I’m sure we can all agree that they’re awesome. Continue reading »

VISCRAL: “EGOCENTRIC UNDERNEATH OF HORROR”

Reviews 2 Responses »

Nov 022015

(Our friend Vonlughlio provides this guest review of the 2015 album by Indonesia’s Viscral.)

Viscral is an Indonesian death metal band that was formed in 2007 in Bekasi. The band line up is Eggi Pradia (vocals), Yogi Praja (drums), Adrel Jatnika (guitar), Dwiky Dzarendrastyo (bass), and Liga Radensha (lead guitar). The band play brutal death metal with influences like Pyaemia, Disavowed, and Suffocation.

In 2012, Viscral released a promo with five songs consisting of older versions of “From Their Carcass Arise”, “External Proletar”, “Pareidolia Haze of Illusory”, “Suffer Resurrection”, and “Worldviews Mechanical”. The promo was not released by a label, but in 2014 Rottrevore Records announced the signing of Viscral and subsequently released Egocentric Underneath Of Horror in 2015. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 99)

That's Metal -- But It's Not Music 18 Responses »

Nov 012015

Welcome to another edition of “THAT’S METAL!”… one installment away from the glorious 100th edition of this series. Which doesn’t mean that this edition isn’t glorious, too, because it is.

I have to begin with the obligatory and all-too-frequent apology for allowing so much time to pass in between episodes of this series. At this rate, No. 100 will arrive around New Year’s Day. Of 2017.

Anyway, I have nine items for you today, all of them things I think are metal even though they’re not music. Since Samhain was last night, I couldn’t resist including a few items appropriate to that most metal of festivities.

ITEM ONE

Our first item, which was recommended to me by several people, is pictured above. It’s an image of asteroid 2015 TB145, generated using radar data collected by the National Science Foundation’s 1,000-foot (305-meter) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

NASA posted it on their web site the day before Halloween because, duh, it looks like a skull AND because it flew by our planet “at just under 1.3 lunar distances, or about 302,000 miles (486,000 kilometers), on Halloween (Oct. 31) at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT, 17:00 UTC).” NASA refers to the object as a “dead comet”. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (MINISTRY)

THE REARVIEW MIRROR 12 Responses »

Nov 012015

Here we are, the day after Halloween, and I am amazingly clear-headed. Clear-headed enough to compile another look backward into the metal of yesteryear. Today the focus is on Ministry, mainly because earlier this week two of my Facebook friends happened to post on their walls, within an hour of each other, the first video you’ll find below plus one other. They reminded me of how much I used to like this band.

The first video is worth a bit of commentary. It originally appeared on a VHS video called In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up, which documented Ministry’s 1989-1990 tour in support of their album The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste. For that tour, Ministry founder Al Jourgensen recruited a big live line-up that included two drummers (regular drummer William Rieflin plus Martin Atkins), Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Nivek Ogre from Skinny Puppy (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals), and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker — in addition to Jourgenson himself and Ministry bassist Paul Barker. Continue reading »

KRODA: “Навій Схрон (NAVIJ SKHRON)”

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 Responses »

Oct 312015

We wish all of you a glorious Samhain. It is the most metal of festival nights, the ancient day marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, a day for the remembrance of the dead, a day when the veil between this world and the realm of death is as thin as tissue, and for many the first day of a spiritual new year.

In our den of thieves there was some loose talk about compiling a Halloween play list for the site, but this talk came to naught. It matters not, because we have something better. We have a stream of the new album by HelCarpathian Kroda, just released via Bandcamp on this blessed day — and like nothing you’ve heard from Kroda before.

I’m only human. When I have intensely strong feelings for the past creations of an artist, I tend to be predisposed to admire whatever comes next, to the point of overlooking flaws and focusing on the gifts when necessary. But most of the music on this new Kroda album, Navij Skhron, turned my expectations upside down, as if someone erased almost everything familiar on the chalkboard and began writing a new verse. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AUTOPSY, KAMPFAR, EREB ALTOR, THE EXTINCT DREAMS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Oct 302015

I returned home late last night from my whirlwind 48-trip to the other side of the continent for my fucking day job. While on the seemingly endless wi-fi-enabled plane ride home, I spent some time seeing what I missed since Tuesday. Not surprisingly, I found a lot of new music worth throwing at you, and this morning brought even more. Though my ass is still dragging from that trip, I thought I’d collect some of what I liked today and leave the rest ’til sometime this weekend.

AUTOPSY

This first song is one that appeared this morning. The name is “Waiting For the Screams”, and it comes from the new album Skull Grinder by the almighty Autopsy (who I had the pleasure of seeing at California Deathfest not long ago). I’m still slobbering over Wes Benscoter’s cover art for this thing, which is one of the best in a long run of gruesome Autopsy covers. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KVLTIST — “THE DEVIL’S CATECHUMEN”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Oct 302015

As the dark chill of winter looms ahead of us, W.T.C. Productions prepares for the release of Catechesis, the debut album by Germany’s Kvltist — an album that is the final realization of a vision in the making for a decade. Today we spread before you the premiere of the album’s opening track: “The Devil’s Catechumen”.

Through this song, Kvltist throw open obsidian gates revealing sounds that seem to emanate from a different plane of existence. It’s a Luciferian black metal devotional that’s intricate, multifaceted, and constantly changing. With dissonant riffs and arcane melodies that writhe and spiral like phosphorescent lights beneath the surface of a black surging sea, the song spawns imaginings of a great and ominous power rising to the surface in triumph, illuminated with flickering tendrils of unholy fire. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: INVOKER — “AEON”

Premieres 3 Responses »

Oct 302015

Today is the official release date for Aeon, the second album by Germany’s Invoker, which will be brought to discerning metal lovers by Non Serviam Records. It is adorned by a wonderful album cover created by Misanthropic Art. It’s likely that you have seen this artwork at our site previously, because it has been our pleasure to bring you the premiere of three songs from the album. And now we bring you the premiere of a full album stream.

The music on the album encompasses a variety of moods, but it’s consistently intense, powerful, and dark. Produced in a way that provides both clarity and massive force, and featuring individual performances that really shine, Aeon’s greatest strength is nevertheless revealed in the songwriting. The song’s have individual character, each one marked by distinctive melodies that get their hooks in your head right away, and there is renewed pleasure when you come back to them. It’s the kind of album that can stay in your playlist a long time, without losing its interest. Continue reading »

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