NO CLEAN SINGING

TOURISM: AT THE GATES-DECAPITATED-THE HAUNTED-HARMS WAY and WOLVHAMMER-ATRIARCH

Oct 272015

If you haven’t noticed, we don’t make an effort to keep you fully informed of newsy announcements, including tour announcements. There are only so many hours in the day, and some of those must be devoted to things like eating, sleeping, evacuation of bodily waste, and punching the clock for people who expect us to earn our salaries and could care less about our precious metal blog.

However, I did spy a couple of mainly U.S. tour announcements yesterday that I thought were worth publicizing, even at the cost of evacuating some waste in my chair to make up for the time required to prepare this post. Hard choices.

AT THE GATES – DECAPITATED – THE HAUNTED – HARMS WAY

The first tour, which was announced yesterday, will happen in February and is headlined by Sweden’s At the Gates and includes for almost all the appearances Decapitated (Poland), The Haunted (Sweden), and Harms Way (Chicago). I presume none of these bands needs an introduction. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LUNAR MANTRA — “GENESIS”

Album Reviews, Premieres 3 Responses »

Oct 262015

So close and yet so far away, mysterious and unknowable for most of our existence, the Moon has exerted as strong a pull on human imagination as it has on the tides. With its reflected light waxing and waning, it alternately casts the night into deepest darkness and illuminates it with a ghostly pallor, spawning tales of night terrors and visions of things beyond the material plane. And for millennia, it has been associated with madness (there is a reason why the words “lunatic” and “lunacy” are derived from the moon’s Latin name, luna).

The debut album, Genesis, by the Scottish black metal band Lunar Mantra brought all these thoughts to mind, and not just because of the band’s name. In many ways, the album captures the mystery and the powerful influence of our closest celestial neighbor on our imaginations — as well as its link with madness. Genesis is indeed “a nightside odyssey through the formless void”, as one press description has it — a disorienting and arcane experience that proves to be spellbinding. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: LOCRIAN (ANDRÉ FOISY)

Interviews 2 Responses »

Oct 262015

(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview of André Foisy, one of the members of Chicago’s Locrian, whose latest album Infinite Dissolution was released this year on the Relapse label.)

It’s harder to speak about Locrian with every album they record. This trio from Chicago started with extravagant blackened doom / drone sessions, but over time they have just gone astray in labyrinths of sound researching and experiments. Their newer works keep a cinematographic and psychedelic touch; it’s subjective yet it’s close to the truth if you look for truth in extreme music…

What is Locrian? I have no univocal answer for you. Maybe André Foisy will give some hints in the interview we did with him because of Locrian’s release Infinite Dissolution. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: JACEK GRECKI (LOST SOUL)

Interviews 5 Responses »

Oct 262015

(KevinP brings us another installment of his brief-interview series, this time posing questions to Jacek Grecki, vocalist/guitarist of Poland’s mighty Lost Soul, whose powerful new album Atlantis: The New Beginning we premiered last week.)

K: People who have not heard about you before might instantly jump to the “it’s a Polish band that sounds like Behemoth” mantra. This may be a good or bad thing (depending upon the person). And while I’ll admit certain countries may have a “sound” that permeates through multiple bands, Lost Soul started in 1990 as a death metal band and gravitated to technical (sorta) death metal over the years, while Behemoth started in 1991 as a black metal band, then moved to black/death, and now to modern death metal with theatrics. So I think the facts speak for themselves on that particular issue.

J: You know, Lost Soul isn’t such a popular band as Behemoth is. People rarely double-check historical facts about one of the lesser known representatives of the music scene. I think it’s natural to compare one band to the other, better known to the less known in this case. As they say: no matter whether it’s good or bad, what matters is people speak about the band. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KALL, SOLOTHUS, TARNKAPPE, KNIVES, DEVATION, VOD, EXUVIUM

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Oct 262015

Although we featured quite a lot of music, both new and old, this weekend, we’re far from exhausting our new discoveries. And so we begin the new week with a large collection of recently discovered songs. Most of these are ones that caught my eyes (and ears), and Austin Weber contributes one as well. Coincidentally, every band has a one-word name, which I find pleasing for reasons that make no sense at all.

KALL

I’ve been following Sweden’s Kall since mid-2013, initially because I learned that their line-up included members of the late lamented Lifelover, and later because I discovered how good their music is. I was a big fan of last year’s self-titled debut album (reviewed at length here), and I learned this weekend that the band are now working on their second full-length, projected for release before the end of this year via Catatonic State. There’s also a new song from the album available on Bandcamp — and it’s really good. Continue reading »

GOATPSALM: “DOWNSTREAM”

Album Reviews 7 Responses »

Oct 252015

I am late in writing this review. I’ve had this album since mid-August and have enjoyed it over multiple listening sessions since then. It deserved more prompt attention, and it deserves even more words than I’m devoting to it now. On the other hand, the album isn’t projected for release until early next year, so I suppose I’m not too late.

The name of the album is Downstream, and it was created by a part-Russian, part-Ukrainian group named Goatpsalm, whose ranks include members of another very good, but very different, band — Sickrites. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (THE AMENTA)

Album Reviews, THE REARVIEW MIRROR 6 Responses »

Oct 252015

(This Sunday, DGR steps forward with our weekly look back at metal from yesteryear.)

I’ve been waffling a bit with the idea of contributing more often to the series of Rearview Mirror posts that we’ve been doing here at NCS. I genuinely love the idea of being able to deep-dive on a song at random, but I’ve also wanted to let other folks share their hidden gems out there without me vomiting my taste all over the site, especially as my own archive of ideas consists pretty much of bands I’ve already taken a healthy opportunity to write about on this lovely page.

However, there is one group that has been haunting me, that I’ve been thinking about a lot as of late, and that is Australia’s The Amenta. If you’ve been following NCS for a while, you’ll know that I’m a pretty unabashed fan of the band. Tim Pope gave me one of my favorite interviews ever, and the group’s 2013 release Flesh Is Heir ranks among my favorite discs — it is a noisy, harsh, and abrasive listen that seemed just slightly ahead of its time, especially as now it seems like more groups from Australia are breaking out into the limelight. Continue reading »

SATURDAY SONIC SLAUGHTERING: TONGUES, REPTILE MASTER, BLASPHEMOUS NOISE TORMENT, IMMENSITY, KÖRGULL THE EXTERMINATOR

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 11 Responses »

Oct 242015

This would normally be titled as a “Seen and Heard” post, but I was in an alliterative mood this morning. This is a selection of new songs (and a pair of older ones) that I discovered over the last 24 hours and want to commend to your ears. As usual, I’ve tried to include a variety of sounds, but they’re all deliciously devastating in their own ways.

TONGUES

Tongues are a duo from Aarhus, Denmark. Their debut EP Thelésis Ignis was released last year by I, Voidhanger Records, and they’re now at work on their first full-length album, which I, Voidhanger hopes to release in 2016. In the meantime, Tongues have posted a new song named “Golden Crown of Death” to their Bandcamp page as a “name your price” download. It will appear on a vinyl compilation entitled Roam The Streets II: Fuck You – We’re From Aarhus, to be released in December by VoxHall. Continue reading »

KOUROS: “CAUSA”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 5 Responses »

Oct 232015

I haven’t felt very well today, having managed to poison myself with alcohol at a job-related function last night. I doubted I would be able to write anything of my own for the site today. So fragile is my head and so unsettled is my stomach that I even doubted I would be able to stand listening to any metal. But for reasons I can’t really explain, I randomly decided to explore an EP named causa that a New Delhi band named Kouros had invited us to hear, via an e-mail that arrived yesterday. It proved to be a wise, if impulsive, decision.

causa was just released a week ago via Bandcamp, and it appears to be Kouros’ second release overall (though I could certainly be wrong about that). Further, it appears that Kouros is a solo project, the musical vision of a man who calls himself Nium, and it’s a multi-faceted vision that draws from multiple wellsprings of metal and rock. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KINGS DESTROY, MISTY MORNING, PLÖW, POHJOINEN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Oct 232015

(Comrade Aleks stepped forward for round-up duty today, bringing us videos and interview excerpts from four excellent bands.)

Yes, I already covered the mighty Kings Destroy and Pohjoinen in interviews with the bands’ members (here and here) at NCS, but these two bands are still in my player, so I want to say just a few more words about them, because amongst other things they have new official videos. As for Misty Morning and Plöw – it’s two very good bands with catchy tunes, proper riffs, paranoid atmosphere… and cool videos! Yes, it’s about videos and it’s about doom with balls.

KINGS DESTROY

Kings Destroy arose in Bronx, New York, on 2010. Being urban and graffiti fans, these five men decided to name their band after a local graffiti crew. Some of the band’s members gained experience in hardcore bands Breakdown and Killing Time, and both bands are still active despite the fact that Kings Destroy have three strong full-length albums for this period and a lot of shows and big tours. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries