NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD: ENSLAVED, DEMONICAL, DOWN

Feb 072015

I’m finally finished with the project for my fucking day job that has kept me on the U.S. east coast for the last three weeks. Tomorrow I return to Seattle and some semblance of normalcy, both for life in general and for NCS.

I still feel like I’ve been put through a goddamn meat-grinder, and it will take some time to get over being exhausted (and to finish posting what other writers sent me over the last week), but I did spend an hour this morning trying to figure out what I missed in the way of new music over the last couple of days. As usual, given the persistent flood of new metal that’s been coming our way since this new year began, I found A LOT. I’m going to include three new videos in this post. I hope I can get another round-up done tomorrow before heading to the airport.

ENSLAVED

Enslaved’s new album In Times is one of my “most anticipated” 2015 releases, so it’s been frustrating that I haven’t had time to listen to it since our advance copy arrived about a week ago. But this morning I did listen to the first advance track, “Thurisaz Dreaming”, which began streaming as a lyric video at Noisey yesterday along with an excellent interview of Ivar Bjørnson. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OBLIVIONIZED — “CRY YOURSELF TO ASH”

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Feb 062015

The head-wrecking, head-twisting grind trio from London known as Oblivionized are nearing the release of their debut album Life Is A Struggle, Give Up, and today we’ve got the premiere of an official music video for one of the new songs — “Cry Yourself To Ash”.

We’ve been following Oblivionized pretty closely, reviewing their debut EP (here) back in 2011, their second EP (here) in 2012, and one of their contributions to a split with Plague Widow in 2013 (here). They’ve already amply proven their ability to vent fury with megawatt power and technical intricacy, but this track is a good example of the band’s ability to put some interesting twists and turns into their ferocity. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: THE VOMITING DINOSAURS — “WORSHIP THE PORCELAIN GOD”

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Feb 062015

When I heard the first two tracks from the new album by Virginia trio The Vomiting Dinosaurs, I wrote that they were a blast to hear — an open-throttle, ass-kicking combo of grind, thrash, and death metal bent on ramming your head right through the wall and into the furnace next door. Now that I’ve heard the whole album, I realize that I probably under-stated the album’s impact because I failed to include some kind of reference to carpet-bombing with napalm.

The band obviously have a sense of humor, which carries over from their name and the album’s title to the individual track titles as well, but the music is punishing — in a very good way. It romps between made-to-mosh, punk-inspired thrashing, massively headbangable grooves, and flame-throwing grind eruptions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CORPO-MENTE — “DULCIN”

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Feb 062015

And now for something completely different.

You may gaze upon the macabre cover art for the debut album by Corpo-Mente, and you may wonder what lies within, cloaked in the image of a girl crying blood in a forest. Trust me, you won’t be able to guess. But making you guess isn’t the object of this post. Our mission instead is to bring you the premiere of the album’s sixth track, a song named “Dulcin”.

Corpo-Mente is a French duo consisting of vocalist Rïcïnn (Laure Le Prunenec) and multi-instrumentalist/producer Gautier Serre, who is better known as the man behind Igorrr and Whourkr and a collaborator with Öxxö Xööx. If you know anything about the music of those bands, then you know that attempting to guess what Corpo-Mente is about would be fruitless anyway. Continue reading »

HEADS UP

Uncategorized 14 Responses »

Feb 062015

photo by Tim Flach

In the 5+ years NCS has been alive, we’ve failed to post something new on only four days (including weekends and holidays). Yesterday was the fourth missed opportunity. You may be wondering what produced this tragedy. I thought about just using this excuse.

In reality, it was crunch time for the project at my fucking day job that has kept me on the U.S. east coast for the last three weeks. I got three hours sleep the night before, and the hours when I was awake allowed no time for me to even format and post what other people have written — apologies to everyone who wrote things to help keep the site from going dark and have been wondering why it went dark anyway. Continue reading »

FINSTERFORST: “MACH DICH FREI”

Album Reviews 9 Responses »

Feb 042015

(Our guest Booker reviews the new album by Finsterforst.)

One of the unique features of this fascinating piece of technological architecture we call ‘the internet’ is the way in which information becomes searchable, indexed, codified and filed away in virtual perpetuity. And as we all know, that can be terrifying when used to spy and pry into people’s lives, or when someone logs into your Amazon account and finds out about that copy of ‘Bronies’ you bought (http://youtu.be/ohnuyqJyEW0)…… yeah, um, that happened to… a friend….

But for someone like me with more memory problems than the guy from Memento, it’s a glorious reminder of ‘how the fuck did I find out about this band?’. Case in point — I can pinpoint the first time the hammering tones of Finsterforst graced my earholes, as this post featured the ‘Nichts als Asche’ video from their previous album Rastlos. And after a few google searches, it was clear the 5-minute odd video was effectively the ‘radio edit’ version (or would that be ‘youtube edit’?) of the 12-minute opening track of the album. Color me intrigued.

Ever since, Rastlos had me hooked with its blend of folk metal, mixed with some strong orchestral influences, traditional Germanic singing, and a touch of Neue Deutsche Härte influence. And now, a touch over two years later, Finsterforst offer us the follow-up Mach Dich Frei. Continue reading »

UNDERDOGS IN THE UNDERGROUND: ESCHER — “THE GROUND IS MISSING”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 6 Responses »

Feb 042015

(Austin Weber reviews a new EP by Escher from Raleigh, North Carolina.)

It’s been very interesting to witness the influence Between The Buried And Me has had on the scene. Because of their eclecticism, few if any have tried to truly copy them, but instead have taken cues from their songwriting style and their ideas about how to make aggressively focused yet complex, progressive-minded metal. Joining the pack of new-school prog metal in this vein are the Raleigh, North Carolina band Escher. One can only guess and hope that their name is a nod to the famed Dutch artist M.C. Escher.

The band just dropped an impressive new EP called The Ground Is Missing on January 20th. As suggested above, they owe a big songwriting debt to Between The Buried And Me, and to some degrees a stylistic one as well. Where they’ve made the music their own, though, is in a way similar to the path followedfellow young progsters The Odious — by infusing their key influence with snippets from technical death metal, earth-shaking deathcore, and a few djent-y chugs. Continue reading »

VENOM: “FROM THE VERY DEPTHS”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Feb 042015

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Venom.)

One of those bands whose name alone makes them legends. They often get credited for creating black metal, due to an album called, well… Black Metal. As a kid I took down their poster upon realizing they only used satanic imagery as a gimmick, like Slayer (and finding out Slayer were not satanists was like finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real). So this album puts Venom in the hot seat as it’s time to once again prove themselves.

The last album I paid attention to was Prime Evil which came out in ’89. This had “Demolition Man” on it rather than Cronos. So Venom really came to an end after Resurrection, and this is more of a Cronos solo album than a Venom album. The rest of the band is Danny Needham, who also bangs the skins for Tony Martin, and guitarist Stuart Dixon from Order of the Black Sun. Of course, using the Venom name is smarter than calling this Cronos. No one will buy a Cronos shirt, but you better bet they will be buying Venom shirts. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BLOCKHEADS — “CRISIS IS KILLING THE WEAK”

Premieres 2 Responses »

Feb 032015

The French band Blockheads have been spitting rage at high speed for more than two decades, with five full-length albums beginning with Last Tribes in 1995, and an assortment of split releases. Their latest album, This World Is Dead, was released by Relapse Records in January 2013, and today we bring you the premiere of one of its most devastating tracks, “Crisis Is Killing the Weak”.

Capturing on video the explosiveness of the kind of grindcore destructiveness manifested in a song like this one, and the impact it has on an audience in a live setting, is never easy. But this video does that. Filmed from multiple camera angles and artfully edited, it brings the mayhem vividly to life. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUND-UP: IN LIEU OF ISLANDER (PART 2)

Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Feb 032015

(Here’s Part 2 of Austin Weber’s fill-in round-up. Part 2 appeared here yesterday.)

Imperial Triumphant

I’ve been championing Imperial Triumphant for several years now. This New York City-based black metal group are on the cutting edge sonically and compositionally. In just two weeks the band will be dropping a new full-length called Abyssal Gods. Having heard it already, I can confidently say it’s jaw-dropping on numerous levels and of a quality and ferocity that few black metal acts can touch. Continue reading »

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