NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVOKER — “ENGULFED FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS”

Oct 222015

We’ve previously premiered two tracks from the new album by Germany’s Invoker — “Secrets of Seed” and the title track “Aeon”. Two is not enough. We have more, beginning today with the album’s seventh track, “Engulfed For Millions of Years”.

If you’ve been following the songs from Aeon that have appeared to date, you already know about Invoker’s talent for weaving dark melodic hooks into the majestic and multifaceted tapestry of their sound, and “Engulfed…” is another grant example of that skill at work. The song races and rips from the beginning, seizing the listener’s attention without delay, and then begins to move along a changing course that includes hard-jabbing riffs, a swirling melodic guitar melody that shimmers like streamers of light, and big, booming hammer blows of pile-driving power. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LUNG MOLDE — “LUNG MOLDE”

Premieres, Reviews 5 Responses »

Oct 222015

Lung Molde is an evocative name for a band. Knowing nothing about the music, it begins to shape your impressions of what you will hear. You begin to imagine your air supply choked off by a toxic growth of slime breeding in the hothouse of your own body, of a once pink vitality turned into a gasping black ruin, of your eyes clouded by the fog of your own impending asphyxiation. Or maybe that’s just me, contemplating the start of lung molde season here in the Pacific Northwest.

This Portland trio (which includes members of Triumvir Foul) chose their name well, because, as you’re about to learn through our premiere of their debut self-titled album, the music is indeed calamitous. Their brand of staggering sludge and doom generates an oppressive atmosphere, creating a soundscape that’s blighted, bulldozed, and burned. Continue reading »

WORLD WAR II (PART III)

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Oct 222015

(This is Part III of a three-part article prepared by our Russian friend Comrade Aleks. Part I is here, Part II is here.)

This third part of an article that has mainly told the story of World War II’s Eastern Front was supposed to appear earlier, but for some reasons I couldn’t rush. Its structure isn’t so straight, but the main subjects of this part aren’t battles, but the dirtier side of War, War Crimes.

It’s impossible to believe that such things were done by human kind in the period from 1941 ’til 1945, yet these crimes in different forms continue to the present days. You’ll not find here my point of view – only facts from the internet which you can easily check, and mostly extreme and brutal musical points of view on the events of World War II.

Here we have tracks from KYPCK, 1349, Slayer, and Jucifer (again), and you’ll also find exclusive comments by such bands as Winterborn (with fierce and sudden audio help from Impaled Nazarene), The Committee, Cirith Gorgor, and Endstille — along with their music.

I have no quote of Erich Maria Remarque for this time. Just never forget. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: YELLOW EYES, SKULLREADER, DISTERROR, APOKATHILOSIS, YGFAN

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 5 Responses »

Oct 212015

Last Saturday I began what was supposed to be a two-part post of new music in a blackened vein. Forgetting that part-time, half-witted metal bloggers should never forecast what they’re going to do, I said that I would post Part 2 on Sunday, or Monday at the latest. And… it’s Wednesday.

Of course, the arrow of time didn’t stop in mid-flight to wait for me, and so more new songs and EPs have appeared since I compiled the stuff I originally planned to include in Part 2. Therefore, I’ve made some additions, and postponed writing about some other things. Ain’t no way I’m saying when the next installment will come….

YELLOW EYES

When I first found out in early September that Gilead Media would be releasing a new album by New York black metal band Yellow Eyes, I blared the news as fast as I could. Now that I’ve heard the album, I feel completely justified in my initial enthusiasm. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NAR MATTARU — “THE END OF THE BEGINNING”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Oct 212015

When I first encountered the music of Chile’s Nar Mattaru back in February 2014, I was already late to the party. I had missed the band’s first album, 2011’s Eluma Elish, but the song I heard (now more than 18 months ago) really made a deep impression. That track (reviewed here) was “Funeral In Abzu”, and it was due to appear on the band’s second album Ancient Atomic Warfare. And then, almost one year later, I discovered a second advance track from the album, a monstrous nuclear firestorm called “Declaration of Supremacy” (discussed here). Where, I wondered, was the rest of this album?

Well, at long last, the wait is nearly over — because I, Voidhanger Records has now revealed that Ancient Atomic Warfare will be released on December 7 — and today we bring you another track from the album, this one named “The End of the Beginning”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ABIGAIL WILLIAMS, DISSVARTH, MAN MUST DIE, REVENGE, SANZU, VASTUM, MC BILL PULASKI

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Oct 212015

I had to make a whirlwind trip to Dallas, Texas, for my fucking day job, leaving Sunday morning and returning to Seattle late yesterday. I didn’t have much time to myself, which means I fell behind in listening to new metal. On the plus side, I was put up in a swanky hotel, the corridors of which were lined with large framed photos from ’60s and ’70s fashion magazines. Every time I walked past the one above, I did a double-take. And that wasn’t the only one that stopped me in my tracks. So there’s that.

Anyway, last night and this morning I enjoyed the following new music streams and videos, presented here in alphabetical order by band name except for the last one, which is a twist on what I usually feature in these pages.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

Thanks to Andy Synn, we’ve previously reviewed the excellent new album by Abigail Williams, The Accuser, which will be released by Candlelight Records on October 30. Yesterday CVLT Nation premiered a video for one of the new songs named “Nuumite”. It’s the track that ends the album, and takes a sharp turn from what preceded it (though if you listen closely to the preceding songs, you’ll realize that the twist was forecast all along). Here’s what Andy wrote about the song: Continue reading »

SHINING: “INTERNATIONAL BLACKJAZZ SOCIETY”

Reviews 3 Responses »

Oct 212015

(DGR reviews the new album by Norway’s Shining.)

Years ago, in reviewing the then newly released album One One One by Norway’s Shining, I joked that the band were one of those groups I would listen to in order to pretend that I was much smarter than I actually was. I hypothesized that I might not get much of what the band were doing, despite a love for the album Blackjazz, with their freeform jazz routines, constant instrument abuse, and love of all things dissonant, but the parts that my brain could grasp onto would surely fool people into never figuring out that I am, and always have been, a rube with the ability to write a lot.

One One One was a drastically different turn for Shining and pretty much insured that every disc the band had put out was different from the one before it. In comparison to Blackjazz, One One One was remarkably straightforward — it still had its spazz-out moments, but overall the album was a lot easier to get into and had its fair share of infectious songs. “I Won’t Forget”, for instance, is still prime volume-way-up-blasting material and “The Hurting Game” is another driving monster of a track. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THIRTEEN BLED PROMISES — “BIBLEPHAGY SLENDER PHYTOBEZOARS”

Premieres 4 Responses »

Oct 202015

This winter Thirteen Bled Promises from Madrid, Spain, will release their second album through Blood Fire Death. Entitled The Black Legend, it will function conceptually as a prequel to the band’s debut album Heliopause Fleets that traces the origins of our planet to the 16th century.

The sci-fi themes that provide the backdrop for the band’s music have been worked into the video we’re premiering today for a song from The Black Legend entitled “Biblephagy Slender Phytobezoars”. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RETURN FROM THE GRAVE (JACOPO SEMENZATO)

Interviews 1 Response »

Oct 202015

(Comrade Aleks presents this interview with Jacopo Semenzato, vocalist of the Venician band Return From the Grave. All photos are by Maria Doglioni.)

Return From The Grave is a good name for a band performing any heavy music, and doom isn’t an exception. Darkness, raw soil beneath the tombstone, chill air, and the moan of the dead walking through graveyard… This name gives enough freedom for your imagination.

Same with this band from the amazing Italian city of Venice, one of the most bloody romantic places in the world. Return From The Grave play damned heavy stuff. They call it rock, I see there powerful doom rock. What will you see? The only thing that matters – if you dig it or do not.

You can check the second album Gates of Nowhere of this remarkable band, and it could be enough for you. But if you’d like to look deeper into the chemistry of Return From The Grave chemistry, then you’re welcome to dose — because here’s an interview with Jacopo Semenzato (vocals). Continue reading »

ENSHINE: “SINGULARITY”

Album Reviews 8 Responses »

Oct 202015

(DGR reviews the new album by Enshine.)

Jari Lindholm is one of those musicians who surrounds himself with incredible talent, having been involved now in a handful of projects over the years and beginning to find himself having multiple releases within one year. Two of the projects that he is a part of are two-man melo-doom groups. Though they lie on different sides of a very finite spectrum, both are still playing a brand of ethereal doom that has always felt decidedly European, even as more groups in North America seem to be mastering it recently.

The first release of these two-man collaborations hit earlier this year, with Exgenesis releasing its first EP in the form of the soul-crushing bleakness of Aphotic Veil. Exgenesis sees Lindholm paired with musician Alejandro Lotero for a project that spans a pretty good chunk of the globe. Continue reading »

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