KEVINP’S ALBUMS OF THE MONTH — APRIL 2015

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Apr 282015
 

 

(We’re nearing the end of the month, and that means it’s time for KevinP to name the releases this month that most impressed him.) 

We’re a quarter of the way through 2015 already.  This month was stacked to the gills with quality releases, the best yet.  Even though they didn’t make my Top 5, I feel obliged to mention Infernal War, Macabre Omen, Tribulation, Haar, and Kommandant, which are all worthy of your time.  But now, on to the creme de la creme.

5.  Abjvration – The Unquenchable Pyre

This was a last-minute entry and pushed one of the bands mentioned above off this list.  Think Portal, if they transformed into a Finnish doomy death metal band.  Sure, that makes no sense.  But does this band being absolutely terrifying and hailing from France make sense?  They are so kvlt, they’re not even listed on Metal Archives and have only a few hundred Facebook likes. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: FEARED, BLAZE OF PERDITION, SHRAPNEL STORM, KILLING ADDICTION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Apr 282015
 

 

Here are a few excellent new songs (and one superb video) that I spotted yesterday in my ramblings through the interhole, presented in the order in which I found them, plus one feature contributed by our guest Grant Skelton.

FEARED

Synder is the name of the new album by Sweden’s Feared and it’s due for release on May 25. I previously wrote about the excellent first single from the album, “My Grief, My Sorrow”, but I think the second one that premiered yesterday may be even better. Continue reading »

SIGH: “GRAVEWARD”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Apr 282015
 

 

(Wil Cifer offers some thoughts about Graveward, the new album by Sigh.)

Once upon a time one of my favorite black metal bands put out an album called Scenes From Hell and they transformed from one of my favorite black metal bands into one of my favorite prog metal bands. Their new album finds them getting some of the aggression back as they study the various aspects of death.

One thing that is interesting about Sigh is even though they are based in Tokyo, the band do not employ the Oriental dodecaphonic scale, but pull from a variety of western music ranging from Deep Purple to klezmer. This album opens in a fairly straight-forward metal manner for this band, with a slight leaning toward Emperor as the clean vocals sweep in amidst the twists and turns normally narrated by the more scathing snarls. The clean vocals have a more typical progressive metal vibrato, like something Therion might throw in.

Sigh continue to use a chaotic mix of varied elements, which are sometimes stirred together more smoothly than at others. There are some good metallic moments in the title track, which settled in with me more quickly than the opening song (“Kaedit Nos Pestis”); that one took a few listens to sink in. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOTAL NEGATION — “FLEUCHTLING”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Apr 272015
 

 

Next month Sweden’s Temple of Torturous will release the third album of Germany’s Total Negation, and to give you a hint of what lies within it, we bring you today the premiere of “Fleuchtling”.

There is no easy way to sum up this long song. It is both a lyrical and a musical narrative, one that unfolds (as the album does) very much like a story — a dark and disturbing story full of changing moods reflected in changes of pace and intensity. A mid-paced rocker at the start, it becomes brooding and eerie, with a spacious interlude pierced with twisted feedback, flickering noises, and the strumming of an acoustic guitar. As the song continues to unfold, bursts of double-bass and blast-beats join with whipping tremolo chords, rhythmic bass lines bound along beneath the reverberation of discordant guitars, and hand drums make an appearance as the song reaches its hallucinatory finale. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BRETUS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Apr 272015
 

 

(Comrade Aleks presents this interview with members of Italy’s Bretus.)

The shadow falls on Innsmouth once again! This time the Italian doom band Bretus comes to us to perform their own vision of nightmares which took place (and we know that’s true!) in a godforsaken town somewhere in Massachusetts. Bretus released The Shadow Over Innsmouth album just two weeks ago with the help of Dagon and BloodRock Records.

So if you like good old doom tunes, fish, and seafood delicacies, then this interview with seigniors Ghenes (guitars) and Zagarus (vocals) is for you.

 

Salute Ghenes! Bretus returns after three years of working in secrecy with a new conceptual album The Shadow Over Innsmouth. How did you spend this period since the previous record In Onirica was released?

Ghenes: Cheers man! We are not hyperactive guys for sure, but we recorded the single “The Haunter of the Dark” for the out-soon 7” split with Black Capricorn (for the label The Arcane Tapes), then we put together the first Doom fest (The Doom Diaries) in our city Catanzaro, and played some live concerts, including the Navajo Calling Fest in Parma, The Malta Doom Fest, and Doom Over Vienna IX. After that we concentrated on writing the new album, which between rehearsals and pre-production has taken us about a year. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 57: ICHOR

 THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Apr 272015
 

 

(Andy Synn devotes his 57th edition of The Synn Report to reviewing the discography of Germany’s Ichor.)

Recommended for fans of: Hour of Penance, Aborted, Carnifex

After last month’s more progressive and atmospheric offering… let’s go for something different this time around, shall we?

Let’s get heavy.

Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that “ichor” was originally a term used to describe the golden fluid that served as the blood of the gods in Greek mythology? And that it has, over the years, also been used as as a (now outdated) piece of medical terminology referring to bile, as well as cropping up as a literary reference frequently employed by H. P. Lovecraft?

And did you also know that it’s also the nom de plume of a bruising band of German ne’er do wells who deal in a gut-wrenching, butt-clenching, neck-snapping brand of Death Metal/Deathcore?

Well you do now. Continue reading »

TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT: BYZANTINE ARE HITTING THE ROAD AGAIN!

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Apr 272015
 

 

We’re stoked to help spread the news that West Virginia’s Byzantine are hitting the road again on a new NCS-sponsored tour that will bring their unique brand of heavy metal to lucky fans up and down the East Coast in June. Joining the band for this new rampage will be some speed merchants from Toledo, Ohio — Mobile Deathcamp.

Long-time readers of our site will be quite familiar with Byzantine because we’ve been writing about them virtually non-stop since the day in January 2012 when they officially announced their resurrection after splitting up in 2008.  But at this point it would be tough to find any metalheads with good taste who don’t know about Byzantine. Their new album To Release Is To Resolve is one of 2015’s true highlights, and now lots of people are going to get the chance to hear the music live — along with choice cuts from throughout the band’s discography.

We asked frontman Chris “OJ” Ojeda for his thoughts about this new tour, and here’s what he told us: Continue reading »

THE FINE CONSTANT: “WOVEN IN LIGHT”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 272015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new EP by The Fine Constant from Wisconsin.)

Some of our readers may already be familiar with The Fine Constant due to my recent post about the tour on which they are still currently playing dates, or possibly from when I placed their debut album, Myriad, on my 2012 year-end list. But for those new to the band, you’re going to want to check out this impressive Wisconsin-based trio and discover what makes their music an exceptional breed of top-notch instrumental metal.

Prior to the very recent release of their new EP, Woven In Light, the band had previously dropped that dazzling 2012 full-length called Myriad. Although Myriad was an interesting and original record in its own right, Woven In Light sees the band evolving into a totally different animal with a different focus and feeling. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (NO. 95)

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  9 Responses »
Apr 262015
 

 

Two months since the last post in this series. Pathetic, I’m pathetic, I admit it.

Now that my mea culpa is out of the way, let’s get on with it. I have for you on this fine Sunday ten items that I thought were metal, even though they’re not metal music.

ITEM ONE

The most metal event of the last week was the eruption of the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile. I already made a post about this yesterday (here) with a bunch of photos and videos, accompanied by a random assortment of songs by excellent Chilean metal bands, but I had to include something about it in this post, too. So what I’ve included is a video of the exact moment when the eruption began. Continue reading »

CHILEAN VOLCANIC MUSIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 252015
 

 

Hell has visited Earth again, in spectacular fashion. This time, the portion of Earth visited by Hell is Chile, where three days ago the Calbuco volcano erupted near the southern town of Puerto Montt after being quiet for 42 years. It has become the subject of some truly breathtaking photos and videos, some of which I’ve embedded in this post after the jump.

Are there any natural occurrences in the world more metal than an explosive volcanic eruption — especially eruptions that include lightning within the volcanic plume? I think not.

So, of course I decided that I needed to include some metal from Chile to accompany the photos and videos you’re about to see. I did dome searching through the NCS archives and discovered that in just the last 18 months we’ve written about more than a half dozen Chilean bands. I’ve collected songs from each of those bands, plus a couple of others. For a change, I’m not going to write any florid descriptions of the music, but just provide the streams and some links in case you want to explore further. All the music is excellent — volcanos aren’t the only things that unleash hell in Chile. Continue reading »

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