NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DORMANT INFERNO

Aug 052015

(Our Russian friend Comrade Aleks is back with another interview, this time talking with Sunny Bhambri, the guitarist/bassist for Dormant Inferno, whose song “Deliverance” from their excellent split with Pakistan’s Dionysus we premiered here this spring.)

Some of you already know about this Indian death/doom outfit from infernally hot Mumbai. But as you still think about how to find some time to listen their split-album Beyond Forgotten Shores with Dionysus (Pakistan), the band are already at work over new songs for fans of exotic underground stuff. Sunny Bhambri (guitars, bass) found a few minutes to answer my questions and satisfy our curiosity.

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Hail Sunny! Some of our readers already saw the news about the split-album of Dormant Inferno and Dionysus, but I think that it would be good to get the story of the band from one of its members. How was it born?

Hey Aleksey! Yes word has been going around about the Beyond Forgotten Shores Dormant Inferno/Dionysus split. Both bands have been premiered on NCS. The idea came about once during an online conversation between myself and Sheraz of Dionysus. We got introduced to Dionysus through our music, as during the time we formed there was no other Indian band playing similar dark doom as us, so we connected well with Dionysus. Both bands have a lot in common, so I’d say it was very natural for us to split an album with Dionysus. Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: DALKHU, CULT OF FIRE, HATE ETERNAL, VAMPIRE, PLANKS

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 11 Responses »

Aug 052015

Once upon a time I started an irregular feature called “Eye-Catchers” in which I periodically tested the hypothesis that cool album art correlates with cool music. As much as anything else, it was a vehicle for exploring the music of bands I wasn’t familiar with, based solely on the attractiveness of their album or EP covers. There’s still a category link to all those posts on the right side of this page, even though the project has been moribund for quite a while.

This post, though it shares that “Eye-Catchers” title, really isn’t a continuation of the earlier experiment, because I’m already a fan of all the bands whose news and/or new songs are collected below. But the artwork for these new albums is so good that it seemed to be a fitting title. So, here we go….

DALKHU

I originally discovered this two-man Slovenian band in the middle of last month — and that really was an example of the original “Eye-Catchers” experiment. Their second album, Descend… Into Nothingness, features cover art by our beloved Paolo Girardi, and that’s what induced me to explore the music. Having done that (and written about the first advance track from the album here), I immediately became a fan. And so when I learned that Dalkhu released another new song yesterday, I felt confident it was going to be another good one — and so it is. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SCOTT KELLY (NEUROSIS)

Interviews 2 Responses »

Aug 052015

(Ben Manzella had the chance to talk with Scott Kelly of Neurosis before the band’s show on August 2, 2015, in Madison, Wisconsin. Ben’s thoughts about the show will follow in a separate post later today.)

With this show being the third date, how has the start of the tour been?

They both went pretty good; we played Lawrence and Minneapolis. Crowds were good at both shows, people were attentive and into the music; really into it emotionally as well, which is really all we can hope for. The club last night wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for, just not the right vibe; but the people who ran the venue were nice to us.

I know it’s been about 10 years since doing a run like this. Is it similar to how you remember or different in any ways?

Well we’ve done a few runs in Europe, with the locations being closer together. You don’t have to get on a bus and drive 10 hours overnight, unlike you do in the states. We’ve been doing about 30 to 45 shows a year for a while now, so it’s not totally out of our realm; but give it another 10 days or so and we may be pretty pooped considering we’re not taking any days off. Hopefully we’ll survive relatively unscathed physically; mentally it’s always somewhat of a grind, but you know, tour is always easier than real life when you have responsibilities every day. Other than the show and sound check, you really don’t have much on your plate; so, for me, tour is much simpler than everyday life. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: CREEPING — “REVENANT’

Album Reviews, Premieres 2 Responses »

Aug 042015

Steel yourself for a harrowing experience, for we’re about to bring you a full stream of Revenant, the new third album by New Zealand’s Creeping.

This isn’t an idle warning. Making your way through the album is like a brutal descent into a sodden catacombs inhabited by damned and vengeful spirits. The deeper you stagger and stumble into its depths, the farther the light recedes above you, replaced by an ever-increasing sense of implacable menace and wrenching loss. You are about to join the company of phantasms, and Creeping make their terrors your own.

Mostly slow or mid-paced, the songs are often as crushing and remorseless as the most catastrophic doom album you’re likely to find this year. Anchored by titanic, distorted riffs and earthquake drumming, the music is laced with eerie reverberating guitar melodies which enhance the supernatural atmosphere that surrounds the entire album. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DANIEL DROSTE (AHAB)

Interviews 3 Responses »

Aug 042015

(We are pleased to present Grant Skelton’s interview with Ahab’s vocalist/guitarist Daniel Droste.)

I recently had an opportunity to interview Daniel Droste of German nautik doom band Ahab. We talked in detail about the band’s upcoming album The Boats Of The Glen Carrig, the difficulties of band life and touring while holding a full-time job, and whether or not the band has plans for future shows in the US.

Stream the interview below via Soundcloud, presented by Local X Radio (localxradio.com). Thanks to Mona and Claudia at Napalm Records and also to Jon at Freeman Promotions for arranging the interview! Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: ARES KINGDOM, THE ATLAS MOTH, CATTLE DECAPITATION, GOROD, KAUAN, LYCHGATE, NECHOCHWEN, RIVERS OF NIHIL, SAILLE

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Aug 042015

I’ve been distracted by a combination of personal obligations and the demands of my fucking day job. As some of you may have noticed, we didn’t post anything on Sunday, which was only the seventh calendar day in five and a half years when that has happened, and we had only two posts yesterday. So great is the daily flood of metal that even a few days of distraction means that we get very far behind in our attempts to keep up with all the new music. Catching up would be a herculean task, but in this post I’ve made a modest effort to round up some (and only some) of the good new music and video streams that have surfaced since the end of last week.

This collection is incomplete, but it’s still a long playlist of recommendations — presented in alphabetical order by band name, with a rare paucity of words from me about the music. Your thoughts about these sights and sounds will be welcome, as always.

ARES KINGDOM

Roughly two years after the release of their last album, Veneration, Kansas City’s Ares Kingdom are about to drop a new one. The name is The Unburiable Dead, and the CD release is projected for early September on Nuclear War Now!, with LPs to follow. The album cover, which I think is wonderful, is based on a piece by the German artist George Grosz (1893 – 1959) called “The Pit“. When a friend of the band told me about the cover, he included this quote by the artist, who led a fascinating and tumultuous life: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INHUMAN — “CONQUERORS OF THE NEW WORLD”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Aug 042015

On August 30, Satanath Records and Sevared Records will jointly release the second album by Costa Rica’s Inhuman. The album’s name is Conquerors of the New World, and today you’ll find out how it begins, as we premiere the title track.

Different bands have different philosophies about how to begin an album. Some prefer to set the stage with an instrumental track, something designed to set the mood or begin building an atmosphere (though as often as not that kind of introduction has little to do with the music that follows it). Not this band. They jam the accelerator to the floor without giving you any time to catch your breath — and you’ll have difficulty finding a moment to breathe before it ends, too. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BLACKQUEEN — “THE DIRECTRESS:

Premieres 3 Responses »

Aug 032015

It’s not uncommon for metal bands to concoct their own genre terms for the music they create, though more often than not the new terminology is just a grab at attention for music that really sounds no different than what you’ve heard countless times before under age-old genre labels. But after you hear blackQueen’s new album The Directress, you’ll probably agree that the band’s description of their music as “Witch Metal” is just about exactly right — and that no other genre term you’ve heard before does a very good job capturing the album’s esoteric variety.

The Directress was released via Bandcamp on August 1, and those of you who have already discovered blackQueen’s black magic through their previous releases will have already pounced on it. For those who are new to the band or aren’t quite as quick to make the leap, we bring you a full stream of the album at the end of this post, as well as a look at the new video for the album’s opening track, “The Olde Religion”. Continue reading »

WIEGEDOOD: “DE DODEN HEBBEN HET GOED”

Album Reviews 7 Responses »

Aug 032015

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by the Belgian band Wiegedood.)

Like an idiot I’ve been putting this review off for over a month now, shuffling it back into the pack again and again whenever something else comes along and jumps to the front of my mental queue. And that’s extremely unfair to the band and, perhaps just as much, unfair to our readers as well, as De Doden Hebben Het Goed is one fine-fettered slab of pitch-black savagery and anguish.

The Belgian three-piece, whose name is also the Dutch term for “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” (way to keep it morbid, guys), possess an enviable knack for pumping out a ferocious torrent of rage and fury, whilst maintaining a keen melodic edge, that’s neither weak, nor overbearing. That may not sound like much, but it’s a hard balance to get just right, and these guys make it look like child’s play. Pun intended. Continue reading »

GRIFT, KALMEN, VASTATION, WAR/PLAGUE

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Aug 012015

I’m spending the weekend at a 2-day picnic for the people I work with at my fucking day job. It’s going to be fun, because the weather’s going to be great, there will be mountains of food and rivers of drink, and the people know how to have a good time. I’m so obsessive about not letting a day go by without new music on this site that I’ll probably still figure out some way to put up a post tomorrow. But I at least have highly recommended new songs from four bands to share with you on this Saturday.

GRIFT

The last time I covered Grift was more than two years ago, when I wrote (here) about their debut EP Fyra elegier. I was very excited to learn recently that this now-one-man Swedish band has recorded a full album named Syner that Nordvis plans to release on September 18. Yesterday, Nordvis debuted a video for one of the new songs, “Svältorna”, and it’s captivating in both sight and sound. Continue reading »

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