NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: AENAON AND VIRUS OF KOCH

Jul 212015

We present to you in this post a special dual premiere, the two new songs by the Greek black metal bands Aenaon and Virus of Koch that will appear on their new 7″ vinyl split, scheduled for release on September 7, 2015, via III-Damnation Productions, with artwork by Alexander Leybovich. Below you will find a few words about each song — “Ultima Momentum” from Aenaon and “Voro: Forma Mentis” by Virus of Koch — plus the music streams.

The split will be released in 50 copies of black/white haze vinyl (available for pre-order here) and 200 copies in black vinyl (available here). In a word, it’s fantastic.

AENAON: “ULTIMA MOMENTUM”

The new song from Aenaon follows their brilliant 2014 album Extance, which made many of our year-end lists and was also the source of a track (“Grau Diva”) that we named to our list of last year’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs”. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: HUMAN BODIES — “DEMO MMXV”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 6 Responses »

Jul 212015

Today I’ve prepared brief reviews of five short releases that I discovered since the end of last week. All five of them are very strong, and all but one are available on Bandcamp. This is the first.

HUMAN BODIES

I first came across Boston’s Human Bodies in May of 2014 and foamed at the mouth (here) about their eviscerating 2013 demo and a subsequent single named Scapegoat. And then last October I foamed at the mouth some more about their No Life demo, which included “Scapegoat” (here). And now I’m about to slobber some more. Continue reading »

ESSENTIAL ENTRIES: JUNE 2015

Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 13 Responses »

Jul 202015

(In this post Dan Barkasi continues his monthly series recommending music from the previous month.)

June is long gone, but alas, there’s music that needs some light shed upon it!

Apologies for the delay on this one. Life finds a way – to get in the way of my getting this done faster. Thanks, Dr. Malcolm, for the line!

How good was June? It was loaded like a politician’s rhetoric, but not vomit-inducing. In other words, lots of audible goodies! A lot of styles represented, too, possibly being the month with the most diversity thus far.

Let it begin!

Abyssal – Antikatastaseis

Chaotic as they are potent, Abyssal’s third album displays a band who continue to hone their craft to devastating effect. This sublime combination of black, death, and doom metal is so crushing that it gives a dinosaur a run for its money. There’s also a little bit more melody than the previous two discs, which is used to great effect. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ORPHEUS OMEGA — “PARTUM VITA MORTEM”

Album Reviews, Premieres 6 Responses »

Jul 202015

(Today we bring you the premiere of a full stream of the new third album by Orpheus Omega, scheduled for release later this month by Kolony Records — preceded by this typically detailed review from our man DGR.)

Orpheus Omega are a young melodeath band from Melbourne, Australia. They’ve been around for seven years now and have managed to produce two albums, an EP — and one new disc coming out very soon. That album is the one you’re about to hear in its entirety, Partum Vita Mortem.

Until 2013, they operated under just the name Orpheus, but wound up adding the Omega to their name that year. They hail from the school of melodeath that places a heavy emphasis on keyboard work and guitar melody, the school that became incredibly popular with the explosion of bands like Soilwork, In Flames, and Dark Tranquillity. However, the band really came into their own with 2013’s Resillusion and showed that they could modernize that sound. They also proved that they would be one of those bands who seemed to improve astronomically with every album.

Over the past couple of years we, here at NCS seem to have had good fortune in finding groups like this, bands who are clearly students of a genre yet play like masters, who recognize the boundaries of what they are playing with yet still put out fantastic material with the tools they have. Aether Realm, Words Of Farewell, and Crepuscle spring to mind as more recent discoveries who, alongside Orpheus Omega, are proving to be the new blood of this keyboard-heavy branch of the melodeath genre. In the case of Orpheus Omega, Partum Vita Mortem is their most mature and well-developed album to date. Continue reading »

AGONYST: “THE BAD OLD DAYS”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Jul 202015

(Andy Synn reviews the new second album by Agonyst from Norwich in the UK.)

Here’s a quick disclaimer before I get on with this review. I actually know the Agonyst guys, although not particularly well. We don’t really talk often (or, in fact, ever), but we do have a number of friends in common, and have in fact played a few shows together over the years.

I say this because I wanted to try and head off any accusations of bias. Yes, I am definitely a fan of the band and their peculiar brand of off-kilter, psychosomatic Death Groove, but I approach this album with just as much trepidation as anyone else. If it had turned out to suck, then I would not have written about it.

Thus the cleverest among you may have deduced one thing already.

It does not suck. Continue reading »

BLACK METAL WARFARE PT. II

Metal News 5 Responses »

Jul 202015

I’m just going to put that flyer up there and bow out pretty quickly so I can go back to moping about the fact that the just-announced Black Metal Warfare Pt. II tour is skipping the Pacific Northwest region of these United States. I have sympathy for all Canadians, too. And for people in the other 34 states besides Washington and Oregon whom the tour is passing by. Continue reading »

AUSTIN WEBER’S BEST OF 2015 SO FAR: PRIME CUTS FROM THE UNDERGROUND OF THE UNDERGROUND (PART 3)

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Jul 202015

(In this multi-part post that began last week, Austin Weber brings us his recommendations for some of the best albums released during the first half of the year. Part 1 is at this location and Part 2 is here.)

Ni are a French mathcore band whose madness you have to hear to understand, though to try to explain, they give off a demented Mr. Bungle vibe that’s paired with a hefty jazz influence and more mind-bending polyrhythms than you can possibly keep track of. Their new record, Les insurgés de Romilly, has been blowing my mind for the last week with its funky, headbang-inducing grooves and quirky, disorienting nature.

This record is an interesting exercise in combining highly technical, groove-oriented math-metal with prog and experimental inclinations. If death metal and other subgenres try to batter you with speed, then what ni do would be more akin to giving listeners a hit of acid and putting them in a vast, surreal labyrinth. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 29): VINTERBRIS AND AUTUMN’S DAWN

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014 2 Responses »

Jul 192015

As promised yesterday, I’m now adding two more songs to my woefully delayed roll-out of our list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Bad enough that five months went by before I resumed the roll-out after starting it late last year, but then I let three weeks go by since the last installment in the series. With two songs added yesterday and two more today, I hope to be a little more consistent in completing it.

For an explanation of what this list is about, go here. To see the songs named to the list so far, use this link. The titles of today’s two songs happen to refer to ashes, and they both happen to be affiliated with black metal.

VINTERBRIS

I thoroughly enjoyed this Bergen, Norway, band’s second album, Solace. I wrote separately about two of the tracks when they premiered in advance of the album’s release last year, and they were both candidates for this list (“Fathom” and “Dysphoria”). But the one I picked is the album’s wonderful second track, “Ash Alight”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY (PART 2): PUTREFIED REMAINS, RUINEBELL, SKIALYKON, WAKEN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Jul 192015

As explained earlier today, I spent a lot of time yesterday making my way through new songs and short releases and found so much to like that I’ve planned four posts about them. Though I’m not sure I’ll succeed in writing all four before the new week buries me in other things, I’ve at least succeeded in completing a two-part collection that includes seven new songs from forthcoming albums and one new single. I’ve arranged them in alphabetical order by band name. The first four songs are collected here, and the next four are featured below (actually, there are more than four… as you’ll soon discover).

PUTREFIED REMAINS

Putrefied Remains are a Malaysian band whose debut full-length was released on tape last October by a Malaysian label named Narrowards (a re-press of the tape became available last month). I discovered the band because of an announcement that the tasteful Barbarian Wrath label plans to release the album on CD in October of this year. Barbarian Wrath has also made a track from the album available for listening on Soundcloud, and it put an iron grip on my throat when I heard it yesterday. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY (PART 1): ALFAHANNE, DALKHU, DYSPHOTIC, GHOST

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Jul 192015

Happy goddamned Sunday to one and all. I spent a lot of time yesterday making my way through new songs and short releases that I had noticed over the last week and found quite a lot to like — so many that I planned four posts about what I found. I’m not sure I’ll succeed in writing all four of them before the new week buries me in other things, but I’ll at least do the first two today — a two-part collection that includes seven new songs from forthcoming albums and one new single. I’ve arranged them in alphabetical order by band name, and the first four are collected here.

ALFAHANNE

The second album by Sweden’s Alfahanne, Blod Eld Alfa, will be released by Dark Essence Records on September 11, and the label has now debuted a song from it named “Skallerormsgift”. It features guest vocals by Kvelertak’s front guy Erlend Hjelvik. (The album also includes guest appearances by Nattfursth (Sorhin), Spellgoth (Horna, Turmion Kätilöt), and Shining’s Niklas Kvarforth). Continue reading »

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