SEEN AND HEARD: SCAR SYMMETRY, THE STONE, SANCTUARY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 222014
 

 

Here are a trio of new songs that I heard this morning that I enjoyed. Perhaps you will enjoy them, too. Obviously, I couldn’t resist grouping these three S bands together. Cool album covers for all of them, too.

SCAR SYMMETRY

Scar Symmetry’s sixth album is on the way. The title is Singularity (Phase I: Neohumanity). It has a cool album cover, don’t you think? Today the band released a lyric video for a single from the album named “Limits To Infinity”. The announcement came with these quotes from band members:

Per Nilsson: “I thought to myself… am I allowed to fuse death metal with AOR, and go extreme in both directions? I didn’t ask for permission, I just went and did it, and I’m pretty excited to hear what people are gonna think about it.”

Henrik Ohlsson: “‘Limits to Infinity’” unveils the malevolent plan of the elite, the hidden hand, and their discoveries regarding the secrets of the universe. The lyric elaborates on the decision makers’ long-term plan to merge with machines and colonize other planets.”

The music is a high-powered combination of jolting riffs/rhythms and catchy melody, deliciously ugly growls and soaring cleans, tumbling drums and a flickering solo. It hammers and it glides and I don’t think you’ll be able to remain still while it does its thing. Continue reading »

DECAPITATED: “BLOOD MANTRA”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Aug 222014
 

(Andy Synn reviews the new Decapitated album.)

To my mind each and every Decapitated album has a different flavour to it. Oh, the band definitely have a unique and specific sound, no doubt, but even within that, there’s still more than enough room for nuances of expression and style.

For example, Winds of Creation has a certain bloodstained thrashiness to it, Nihility an unearthly post-human precision, The Negation an otherworldly, angular feel… while Organic Hallucinosis positively reeks of unkempt madness and cerebrospinal corruption, and Carnival Is Forever offered us a warped, reflective mirror made of sharpened edges and shattered perceptions… Ultimately I think you’d be hard pressed to mistake a song from one album as belonging to any of the others, and yet each one remains recognisably, even intimately, Decapitated.

With Blood Mantra the Polish psychonauts offer up yet another facet of their ever-evolving sound, an album permeated with an eerie, almost nightmarish, sensation of discomfort and dissociation, carrying through familiar threads of each of its predecessors, whilst simultaneously twisting and reweaving them into fresh new forms. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DENDRITIC ARBOR — “GENIE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 212014
 


Photo by Greg Neiser

Almost exactly one year ago I reviewed the debut EP (Sylvan Matriarch) by a Pittsburgh band named Dendritic Arbor. Listening to the EP, I had the sensation that the music was causing my own dendritic arbors to grow in rampant fashion — and then burning them to ash. Borrowing chaotically from black metal, hardcore, sludge, industrial, doom, and freakish electronic noise, the music created an overall atmosphere of severe derangement, as if the inmates had been put in charge of the asylum after being injected with gasoline and then set on fire. I found the whole EP (which is available on Bandcamp) fascinating, wildly creative, and extremely destructive.

Dendritic Arbor have now recorded a new song that will be released on a forthcoming compilation to be released by Philadelphia’s  Anthropic Records, and we’re premiering it today in the form of a music video. The song’s name is “Genie”, and it’s based on the tortured life of Susan Wiley (nicknamed “Genie”), whose abuse, neglect, and social isolation at the hands of her father during the first 13 years of her life prevented her from ever learning speech and led her to be considered a “feral child”.

After being rescued from the prison in her home by Los Angeles child welfare authorities in 1970, Genie became the subject of extensive scientific study, while being moved in and out of foster homes and a series of institutions for disabled adults — many of which seem to have been environments just as abusive as the one from which she was “rescued”. (Read more here.) Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: BLOOD OF KINGU — “DARK STAR ON THE RIGHT HORN OF THE CRESCENT MOON”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 212014
 

 

The Ukrainian black metal horde Blood of Kingu are on the verge of releasing Dark Star On the Right Horn of the Crescent Moon — their third album and their first in more than five years. As you will soon hear, it is a grim devotional to disease, doom, and decay — an intense, immersive listening experience that over its length builds a wholly enveloping atmosphere of ominous peril.

With Drudkh’s main man Roman Sayenko once again piloting this dangerous vessel, Blood of Kingu drive the music with relentless blasting percussion and huge moving waves of almost ceaseless tremolo-picked chords, accented by eerie and ominous keyboards that effectively deepen the aura of doom. Through these dense moving walls of sound, bleak minor-key melodies ripple like disease vectors, and Sayenko’s monstrous, hollow roars sound like a ritualistic chant in an occult ceremony of death. When the band isn’t storming like a hurricane, they’re pounding like titans hammering nails into granite, or using massive groaning chords in a way that sounds like chains being dragged across a crypt floor.

The album’s savage assault is segmented by two brief ambient interludes, but even those breaks do nothing but further intensify the sense that you have been transported to an arid, decomposing wasteland of perpetual night. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STENCH — “ARCHWAYS”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 212014
 

 

(BadWolf introduces our co-premiere of “Archways”, the first track on the forthcoming second album by Sweden’s Stench.)

Stench features members of Tribulation, whose last album, 2013’s Formulas of Death, endeavored to stretch black metal into uncharted territory, whether that be 70’s prog or 60’s surf rock. Tribulation’s approach didn’t always strike gold, or a chord for that matter, but it usually struck a nerve. Successful or not, that band was trying to do something genuinely new and interesting. The same could be said of Arizona’s Take Over And Destroy, who have a new record out this way. Stench finds itself between these bands, vying for an adventurous mix of prog, black, and death metal. It’s not orchestral in a Cradle of Filth kinda way, but there’s definitely some melodrama to Stench’s approach. All the better, I say.

“Archways,” the first track on the trio’s second record, isn’t immediate—it submerges itself in isolated guitar tracks before launching into a full assault part-way between the low-fi onslaught of Bathory and other proto-black bands, and the unforgiving rhythm of something like early Entombed. Likewise, the restless creep factor of both groups is present on this track. You can almost envision the black leather giallo gloves slipping into the hands of an unknown psychopath as the group’s death metal assault is joined by some vintage keys and sound effects. Before you know it, “Archways” is done, but that’s the way we like it, right? Never overstaying one’s welcome. All of Venture is like that—creepy and precise. Check it out in Europe on September 26 and in America on October 28. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: AT THE GATES AND ANAAL NATHRAKH

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Aug 212014
 

 

We have three music premieres coming your way today, but before we begin rolling them out, here are a couple of quick notes that caught my eye this morning.

AT THE GATES

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know by now that Sweden’s At the Gates have recorded a comeback album entitled At War With Reality that’s due for release by Century Media on October 27th in Europe and October 28th in North America. Today the band revealed the cover art for the album (above), which was created by one of our favorite metal artists, Costin Chioreanu (twilight13media.com). As for the relationship between the art and the album, and how Chioreanu came to be involved in the project, we received a press release that included these statements.

From AtG vocalist/lyricist Tomas Lindberg:

“The concept of At War with Reality is based on the literary genre called ‘Magic Realism’. The main style within this genre is the notion that ‘reality’ is ever-changing, and needs to be constantly re-discovered and re-conquered. We felt that Costin’s artwork style would be the perfect visual contribution to this album, so he became the natural choice…” Continue reading »

SECTU: “NEFARIOUS”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 212014
 

(DGR reviews the third album by Sweden’s Sectu, which was launched in June of this year.)

The discovery of Sectu could not have come at a better time for your lovely reviewer here. While I’ve buried myself in a smattering of different genres recently, there hasn’t really been a traditional death metal disc that has caught mine eye in a bit. You can actually thank Volturyon for this discovery, because while bouncing around to their Bandcamp page to look for a stream we could attach to the review of Human Demolition, I found the Swedish record label ViciSolum Records and their Bandcamp page — and just below Volturyon were Sectu.

Now, I absolutely love record company Bandcamp pages. It’s such an amazing way to discover bands and, if you’re coming across an album that has come out already, an excellent way to get a big sample of what you’ll be in for. It’s the modern-day “stuck in a CD store listening to an album to find out what’s on it” — minus the headphones and the trying your damndest not to rock out in public.

Sectu, who are based in Stockholm, Sweden, are hard to pin down within the death metal genre. They have elements of tech-death, but also a huge treasure trove of Swedish death metal from which to pull, and are even prone to delving into some of Morbid Angel’s more apocalyptic moments. Continue reading »

TRIOSCAPES: “DIGITAL DREAM SEQUENCE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 202014
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new sophomore album by Trioscapes, which is being released today by Metal Blade Records.)

Music that lies at the intersection of jazz and metal has always interested me. The first Trioscapes album that came out not long ago in 2012, called Separate Realities, certainly scratched that itch. What excited me the most about the record was that it certainly seemed like only the beginning of where they could go with their sound, if they followed their heads.

While many are familiar with them as the side-project of Between The Buried And Me bassist Dan Briggs, saxophonist/flute player Walter Fancourt (ex-Mars Volta) and drummer/electronics artist Matt Lynch deserve just as much credit.

When Separate Realities was released, I immensely enjoyed it — but the band have experienced an exponential growth in their sound on Digital Dream Sequence. The leap into larger uncharted waters on the new record is simultaneously jaw-dropping and smile-inducing. They may be the same band toying with the same ideas, but the expanded and more unconventional depths of these new compositions gives the band a fuller, more adventurous sound than they previously exhibited. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CHRIS “OJ” OJEDA (BYZANTINE)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Aug 202014
 

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: West Virginia’s Byzantine are nearing the end of a Pledgemusic crowd-funding campaign to help finance the making of their next album, To Release Is To Resolve, and NCS writer TheMadIsraeli caught up with the band’s main man, Chris “OJ” Ojeda, in an exclusive audio interview that we’re streaming at the end of this post. TheMadIsraeli introduces the conversation as follows:

***

Chris “OJ” Ojeda from Byzantine is a riot.  The guy’s got an obvious fire for what he’s doing, and handles the hardships he’s endured with a surprisingly casual and hopeful outlook.  He’s one of my favorite vocalists out there, and his riffs are distinct and have always stood out to me.

As the driving force behind Byzantine, the guy may feel like he’s got a load on his shoulders to prove that the band’s stellar comeback comeback album (2013’s Byzantine) wasn’t a fluke.  From what I’ve heard of the new record, though, I’d say we’re in for something better than even that last one. You’ll get a taste of it at the end of this post. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: USURPRESS — “STORMING THE MAUSOLEUM”

 Premieres  6 Responses »
Aug 202014
 

If you’re a fan of Swedish death metal but you’re also hungry for something out of the ordinary, you need Usurpress in your life. This band from Uppsala have completed recording their second album — Ordained — and it will be coming out later this year via Doomentia Records. It follows the band’s 2012 full-length debut, Trenches of the Netherworld, and a handful of splits and shorter releases. Today we’re bringing you a taste of the new album — and it’s a two-fer: In addition to the premiere of a new song, we’re giving you a first look at the full-gatefold album cover by Ola Larsson, which is just downright gorgeous.

The new song is “Storming the Mausoleum”, and it’s a good representation of the Usurpress sound. Though it’s a compact four-minute affair, it’s packed with enough variations that it seems to end too soon — and if you’re like me, your first impulse after finishing it will be to hit “play” again.

In addition to that distinct, fat, corrosive guitar tone that’s the hallmark of the genre, plus gruff, bone-chewing vocals, the band show their affinity for d-beat rhythms — plus some other twists and turns. It begins with huge, lumbering,  swampy riffs and sledgehammer drum hits but then accelerates, with grinding tremolo-picked guitar parts and knee-capping percussion. Before it ends, the band shift into a galloping rhythm, inject menacing spoken-word vocals, and lace the music with odd, dissonant scales that aren’t exactly par for the course. It’s an excellent song, and an excellent teaser for what promises to be an album that’s both brutal and interesting.

But before we get to the song, feast your eyes upon this (click the image to enlarge it): Continue reading »

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