NO CLEAN SINGING

FIVE OF MY FAVOURITE… GOATWHORE TRACKS

Oct 292015

(If you read your humble editor’s earlier post today, you’ll know that I wasn’t expect to post anything by any of our other writers today… and then Andy Synn stepped up with this installment of favorite things that come in fives.)

Here he comes to save the day…

Ahem. Anyway, after Our Great And Most Glorious Leader’s post earlier today about having nothing to hand for the site for once, I took it upon myself to quickly bash something together in order to help uphold our nigh-unimpeachable record of journalistic quality and integrity.

Or, something like that.

Either way, it’s a good enough excuse to jam out some fat and filthy blackened riffs whilst picking and choosing five of my favourite songs by everyone’s favourite cloven-hoofed courtesans of Satan.

Deep breath…

Altogether now…

GOATWHORE!!! Continue reading »

A DAY OFF

Off Topic 19 Responses »

Oct 292015

Artwork by Anton Semenov

I mentioned yesterday that I’ve had to fly across the country from Seattle for my fucking day job. It’s a quick trip, because I’ll be getting home again late tonight, but what I’m having to do is leaving me with no time for NCS.

So far, I’ve had no time to listen to music, much less to write about it. And I doubt that’s going to change before I get back on an airplane this afternoon to head home. Continue reading »

THROES OF DEATH: BONE GNAWER, GRAVE, CRYPT INFECTION

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Oct 282015

(In this post TheMadIsraeli does some catching up, with three reviews of 2015 death metal albums.)

About my absence from NCS: I promise you all, it’s not that I haven’t been listening to music; life has just been rather chaotic. I’ve got a triple review here — one established band you already know are going to be good, and two under-the-surface death metal records I’ve been listening to on and off for a couple of months that I think are definitely worth your time. All three of these albums also have distinctly different sounds.

Bone Gnawer – Cannibal Crematorium

Bone Gnawer has some weight behind its name. With only two full-lengths since 2009, one back then and the one I’m going to talk about now, and mostly EPs to their name, I think these guys deserve to be looked at. I’ve not visited any of the band’s previous material (which included Rogga Johansson in the lineup), I’m only familiar with Cannibal Crematorium, but it’s pretty fucking good. Continue reading »

KEVINP’S ALBUMS OF THE MONTH — OCTOBER 2015

Listmania 12 Responses »

Oct 282015

(Here’s the latest installment of KevinP’s series in which he runs down his list of the best releases from the month that’s about to end.)

It’s been 10 months now that I’ve worked on this column and I always wondered how others kept track of what was released each month. I simply take a notebook, write down a month on each page, and then when I get a promo, I download it and hand-write it in the release month. That’s as low-tech as you can be (and sometimes semi-dangerous if the baby gets her hands on it and goes to town). So does anyone have any better suggestions? What do you do?

Anyways, we are fast approaching the end of the year and October has been quite the eclectic month, probably the most so far, as you’ll see from my selections. Let us know what else wet your whistle in the comments below. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FATUM, ARRIVER, NORDLAND, REGURGITATED GUTS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Oct 282015

A musician acquaintance of mine who recently started following our putrid site was pleasantly surprised at how many bands he had found here that he’d never heard of before, and he asked me how we find the music we write about. I can only speak for myself (because everyone here makes their own choices and writes what they want to write about).

In my case I do discover a lot of the music via press releases from labels, bands, and PR reps, but I would guess that more than half of what I choose to feature and review comes through tips from our readers and from messages or posts by Facebook friends. And that’s what I’m doing here — picking new music I’ve enjoyed from among recommendations I received yesterday via Facebook friends one from a reader e-mail.

Though you know I like to provide my own descriptions and reactions to what I hear, I can’t do that this time. I’ve got to leave town early this morning for my fucking day job, and until I get back home late tomorrow night I won’t have much blog time. But trust me — everything you’re about to hear is really good.

FATUM

Fatum are from Moscow, Russia. Their new album is called Life Dungeons. It’s hell-on-wheels thrashing crust that will get your blood pumping. (Many thanks to Craig for posting about them on FB.) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DOOMRAISER (NICOLA ROSSI)

Interviews 2 Responses »

Oct 282015

(Here we have another doomy interview from our Russian friend Comrade Aleks, speaking this time with Nicola “Cynar” Rossi, vocalist for Italy’s Doomraiser.)

Sometimes I think: “Stop! Never again! That was my last interview with an Italian doom band. There are a lot of good bands in other countries!” I go to bed with this thought, but everything changes when I wake up in the morning and see the horse’s head next to my pillow.

Doomraiser is one of the most heavy, most straight-out, most active and prolific doom clans from the Apennine Peninsula. They released their fourth album Reverse (Passaggio inverso) in 2015 and they are already busy preparing new songs. Somehow their frontman Nicola “Cynar” Rossi found a few minutes to answer my questions. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: INTEGRITY — “HUMANITY IS THE DEVIL” (20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)

Premieres 8 Responses »

Oct 272015

I heard about Cleveland’s Integrity long before I heard them. Other bands across a wide range of genres have dropped their name as an influence like I drop cigarette butts on the sidewalk. To this day, I get press releases pushing new bands because they sound (something) like Integrity. Integrity broke ground, and they broke minds.

Almost twenty years on from the release of the band’s landmark Humanity Is the Devil, Magic Bullet Records is releasing an anniversary edition of the EP. This edition features a new treatment of Pushead’s original album cover by artist Josh Bayer and comes with Dwid Hellion’s complete lyrics, along with an updated narration by him on the album’s last track.

And it has been remixed by Joel Grind (Toxic Holocaust) with guidance from Hellion and Integrity guitarist Aaron Melnick and remastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege — and that has brought an added power and immediacy to the recorded music that probably wasn’t even possible in 1995. Continue reading »

OTARGOS: “XENO KAOS”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Oct 272015

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the French band Otargos.)

Full disclosure: I’ve been a big fan of this band for a long time now (although, curiously, I don’t think I’d seen them live until this year’s edition of Incineration Festival), and have loyally followed them as they’ve transitioned, slowly but surely, from the more overt blackness of their early years, to the denser, more Death-tinged sound which they now wield.

Yet whilst their new album, Xeno Kaos, most definitely (even defiantly) continues this progression away from the realms of Black Metal, it also simultaneously takes both a step forwards and a step backwards from its predecessor, dropping the thrashier edge found on Apex Terror whilst making more room for a grimly oppressive Industrial undercurrent reminiscent of 2010’s No God, No Satan.

This clanking, industrialised soundscaping is nothing new to the band, obviously, but the way it’s deployed here alongside the steadily more Death Metal-leaning metallicisms that the band have made their stock-in-trade puts me strongly in mind of Norwegian extremists Zyklon (or perhaps their cousins in Myrkskog).

So, if you’re a fan of either of those bands (or simply a long-time Otargos fan curious as to where the band’s more deathly ambitions have taken them) then read on! Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: XUL — “MALIGNANCE”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Oct 272015

In preparing to write a few words about our premiere of this hair-raising album from XUL, I went back and read what I wrote about a XUL song we premiered earlier this year from their lethal 2015 EP Extinction Necromance, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I think my mind was so exploded by the music that I forgot where I put it. I’m warning you now that the same thing may have happened when I started writing this post after listening to XUL’s Malignance.

That’s the name of this British Columbia band’s 2012 debut album, which was originally self-released and is now getting a gilded reissue by Redefining Darkness Records, with remastering executed by Ken Sorceron (Abigail Williams), eye-catching new artwork by Remy Cuveillier (Headsplit Design), and a previously unreleased bonus track. Continue reading »

A DUAL REVIEW: MENDEL (“OBLIVION”) AND PAUL WARDINGHAM (“THE HUMAN AFFLICTION”)

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Oct 272015

(TheMadIsraeli returns to NCS with reviews of 2015 albums by two instrumental maestros — Mendel Bij De Leij and Paul Wardingham.)

Of the instrumental metal albums I’ve listened to this year, these two are definitely the top tier out of the bunch so far. There will be more multi-album reviews coming, in the spirit of clearing the way for the super big/important releases I’m also stoked about.

MENDEL: OBLIVION

Mendel is one of the most enjoyable instrumental metal listens you can partake of next to Jeff Loomis right now. Part Yngwie, part death metal, and all regality, Oblivion is an interesting listen that is so full of ideas it can also be rather exhausting — but in a good way. Continue reading »

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