BLOODSTOCK FESTIVAL 2014 — SATURDAY SHENANIGANS

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 132014
 

 

(NCS writer Andy Synn attended part of the Bloodstock Festival in England last weekend and files this report, with his own photos.)

For various reasons I was only able to make it to the one day of Bloodstock Festival this year. Thankfully that one day happened to be headlined by the legendary Emperor, so I’m not massively complaining!

Due to some issues getting my new laptop (it’s lovely and shiny and I’m writing this column on it right now), I ended up running a little late that morning and so, after picking up my two companions, got to the festival site a little later than planned. As a result I missed out on both The King Is Blind and Shining (Nor), but was there in time to see Old Corpse Road bring their eloquent mix of dark folklore and blackened intensity to the Sophie Stage. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (Part 1): BLOODSHOT DAWN, DISENTOMB, PSEUDOGOD, KHTHONIIK CERVIIKS

 Eye-Catchers, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Aug 132014
 

I’ve been remiss in posting round-ups of news and new music lately, and I’ve collected quite a large batch of items worth spreading around. As a consequence, I’ve divided the collection into multiple parts that I’m going to dribble out over the course of the day, because what else am I going to do with all this drool? One thing the four items in this Part 1 have in common: Killer cover art. You’ll see.

BLOODSHOT DAWN

This UK band’s self-titled 2012 album was one of my favorite releases of that year, and I included the song “Godless” in my list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Needless to say, I’ve been eager for the band’s follow-up. They funded its production through a Kickstarter campaign in four days, and yesterday the band revealed a lot more info about it, to wit:

Its name is Demons and it will be released in the UK on October 26. It was was mixed and mastered by Danish engineer Jacob Hansen (Aborted, Amaranthe, Volbeat, Destruction, Epica, Pestilence). It features guest appearances by Sven De Caluwé (Aborted, System Divide), Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry), Teemu Mäntysaari (Wintersun), Andy James (ex-Sacred Mother Tongue), and Chris Amott (Armageddon, ex-Arch Enemy). And as you can see, it features a gob-smacking album cover by the talented Pär Olofsson (click that sucker to make it bigger). I’ll be waiting, eagerly and drooling, for the first advance track…

https://www.facebook.com/BloodshotDawn Continue reading »

KERATOCONUS: “INANE LIVING CONDITIONS”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 132014
 

 

(As part of our week-long series of new reviews by DGR, today we bring you his write-up on the debut album by Keratoconus.)

Few things in the world make me happier than getting to run ridiculous cover art on the NCS frontpage for a few days that will at the very least make someone scrolling along the page do a double-take. It was one of the reasons I enjoyed reviewing GenocideGenerator’s 2013 release this year, because aside from the music, the knowledge that the artwork would be going on the frontpage was enough to carry me on cloud nine for a couple of days. Thus, we find ourselves with Keratoconus‘ big ol’ blotch of blue for its new disc Inane Living Conditions splattered all over our canvas of red and skulls that make up the NCS page.

We found Keratoconus, a one-man project run by one Sam A. Mudd based in the UK, after the main man behind it reached out to us on our Facebook page, describing the music as something of a mixture of death metal and grind, while also having a random smattering of electronics throughout. Which, if anything will go to show you that we do notice the folks posting on our FB page — we just get backlogged super-quick, but we do give everyone a chance. In the case of Keratoconus, the project is very interesting, but if discovering it accomplishes nothing else, at least it has provided me with the joy of putting that artwork up on the front page.

Inane Living Conditions is the first release that S.A. Mudd (as most of his accounts go by) has put out underneath the Keratoconus name, a release that has slowly been in the works over four years and has gone through constant reboots and different changes. This is going to sound like Greek to a lot of you but upon listening to it, the first thing it reminded me of was the British flip-side of the coin to Brandon Duncan’s The Sequence Of Prime project and its album -Inter. Both discs are one man-releases that at the easiest you could probably describe as very “On edge” — like the person behind it was slowly losing his mind and decided to scream about it over a bunch of bouncing guitars and hammering drums. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SACROCURSE — “RITES OF PERVERTED IDOLATRY”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 122014
 

 

The cover art for Unholier Master, the debut album by Sacrocurse from Monterrey, Mexico, gives you fair warning: What lies within is pure aural hellfire summoned from the deepest sulfur pits of the underworld. It’s a scorching conflagration of bestial black/death that inflicts its punishment with unbridled ferocity and gut-wrenching speed, but matched with the kind of powerhouse grooves that will give the neck muscles of listeners a vigorous workout.

Unholier Master is scheduled for release on CD and vinyl by Hells Headbangers on August 19, with Germany’s Iron Bonehead handling the European vinyl release. The presence of those two labels behind this album probably tells you all you need to know about what the album holds in store, but today we’re bringing you an immediate taste of its poison through the premiere of its fourth track, “Rites of Perverted Idolatry”.

Together, vocalist/guitarist Zolrak Montes aka ZK (Nodens, ex-Unholier, ex-Morbosidad) and drummer LZ push this diabolical music into the red zone on “Rites”, delivering a storm of razor-edged riffs, relentless drum blasts, and inhuman proclamations that leave no doubt who is master of this domain. Continue reading »

HYPERIAL: “BLOOD AND DUST”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Aug 122014
 

 

(DGR has been on a review-writing tear — we’ll have something from him every day this week. Today he assesses the new release by Poland’s Hyperial.)

There are some bands out there where within the first thirty seconds of a disc, you get to know exactly what you’re in for. In the latest offering from Poland’s Hyperial, Blood And Dust, which hit in mid-July, the first thirty seconds of the song “The Plague Of The Used Masses” is a frighteningly fast and precise drum-fill-into-blast-beat combo alongside a poweful roar that moves right into a synth-backed, chugging riff. It’s a song of hybrid genres — of blackened death metal, the devastatingly precise drumming and syncopated guitar riffs of industrial death metal, the heavy groove sense of deathcore, and the huge orchestral swells that lend themselves well to symphonic death. It’s a tried and true combo, and in the case of Blood And Dust, one that sounds like the soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic wasteland after a robot uprising.

The band appear to have packed as much as they can within the confines of four- to five-minute songs, with sounds that can be included on a CD that weighs its usual couple of ounces, but that can feel as dense as a brick of lead. Blood And Dust is one of those albums in which you can hear where everything was pulled from, and you can even think of one or two bands who are also doing something similar, but its the kind of music that still has life — it still hasn’t grown tired, it’s still as delicious as it was from the first bite. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INCONCESSUS LUX LUCIS — “CRUX”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 122014
 

Twenty-five years ago, even twenty years ago, only the clairvoyant could have foreseen that black metal would one day become a laboratory of alchemical experimentation, with its orthodox tropes used as ingredients in the creation of new potions to an extent perhaps unequaled in other metal genres. It’s an evolution filled with irony. Even today, there are legions of hidebound black metal fans who regard themselves as the keepers of the sacred flame; they pounce with bared claws on bands who dare to diverge from the orthodox ferocity of the original templates. Such people will probably turn their noses up at the music of Britain’s Inconcessus Lux Lucis. Their loss.

ILL is a duo consisting of W. Malphas (guitars, drums, vocals) and A. Baal (bass). Their debut album Disintegration: Psalms Of Veneration For The Nefarious Elite was released by Nomos Dei Productions, and they are now working on a second full-length to be released by I, Voidhanger Records in 2015. In the meantime, they have recorded a four-song EP entitled Crux Lupus Corona that I, Voidhanger will be releasing in October, accompanied by a beautiful booklet with artwork created by Bethany White. Today we’re fortunate to bring you the premiere of its second track, a song called “Crux”, as well as the comments of W. Malpas about the band and their music. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 70: ALTARS OF GRIEF, FAT GUY WEARS MYSTIC WOLF SHIRT, JXCKXLZ, RUMINATIONS, IMPERIAL CULT

 MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
Aug 122014
 

I know I’m displaying masochistic tendencies by looking at how long it’s been since I posted an installment of the MISCELLANY series, but the answer is approximately two months, which is pathetic even by my own hard-to-beat standards of patheticness. Pathiticity? Pathneticism?

Anyway, because it has been so long, here’s a refresher on the rules of this game: I randomly pick unheralded bands whose music I’ve never heard; I listen to one or two songs; I write my immediate impressions; I stream what I heard so you can make up your own minds. I don’t know what the music will sound like going in, or whether I’ll like it. Here we go:

ALTARS OF GRIEF

I guess it’s obvious why I picked this band’s new release to sample: Sam Nelson cover art. I follow his work very closely and yet I don’t think I had seen this piece before my comrade DGR linked me to it yesterday — it’s stunning. The debut album’s name is This Shameful Burden and it was released by a band named Altars of Grief from Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Continue reading »

THE BEAUTY REPRESENTING THE BEAST (PART 1)

 Eye-Catchers  26 Responses »
Aug 112014
 

 

(Guest writer Ty Lowery has assembled a personal list of favorite metal album covers for 2014 to date, divided into two parts. Please feel free to add your own favorites in the Comments.)

Sometime last year, I had planned to showcase some of my favorite album covers. However, as you might imagine, that didn’t happen. So, a bit over halfway through 2014 already, I’ve decided to give it a go again so I don’t have to worry with trying to find everything last minute and become overwhelmed at year-end. I’ve been looking back at some of my favorite album covers, as well as looking at random covers here and there, and I must say, I’ve found a lot more than I expected- so many that I think it’s be best to break this up into a couple of posts.

I’ve actually happened upon some really cool bands this way, too, which isn’t out of the ordinary but worth noting nonetheless. Had it not been for their album art, I might never have found some of the following bands, one of which I simply can’t get enough of. However, to be clear, I’ve done this exercise for the sole purpose of rounding up the nicest looking album art, according to my own tastes. There are a couple of bands in here whose music I can’t stand, and a couple more I’d never heard of before. So to avoid any confusion, I am not necessarily recommending all of the albums featured below. They all just chose wisely for their album art.

Since I began working on this article, I noticed something peculiar: A good number of the album covers correlated in one sense or another with the music on the album. To make sure that I wasn’t just imagining this, I asked my wife (who’s not very big on metal music as a whole) and a friend of mine (who is) to look at the album art and give me their impressions. Some of them were spot-on, others not so much. Here’s what we came up with for the first nine. (Another note, these are in no particular order. They are just listed as I came upon them.)

Belphegor – Conjuring the Dead

This might be one of the best “photo realistic” album covers I’ve seen so far this year. It’s got the dark, gritty feel washing over it in shoals. The symbolism on the cover speaks of blasphemy, a great deal of death, and more than a smidge of Satanic interplay. When my wife Heather saw it, she immediately guessed that it was death metal, which is a good part of the album, so I’ll give it to her. My friend Adam said the same thing: “This had better be death metal.” Heather also hit the nail on the head about the dark/demonic themes that run throughout many of the songs. That’s a point for the correlation theory, although an easy one. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PANTHEON I — “FROM THE ABYSS THEY RISE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 112014
 

From the Abyss They Rise is the new album by Norway’s Pantheon I (whose line-up includes members of 1349, Trollfest, and Den Saakaldte, among others) and it will be released on August 14 by the band’s new label, Non Serviam Records. It begins with an EP of five new songs and ends with the band’s first demo recording, and it features wonderful cover art by Kjell Åge Meland.

We’ve already sung the praises of the album’s new songs via this review by Andy Synn, and today we’re happy to bring you the streaming premiere of the entire album.

Both decadent and splendorous, acid-drenched and haunting, feverish and slow-burning, the new songs mark a subtle but significant step ahead for a multi-faceted group whose brand of black metal has always been out of the ordinary. This new release presents a vista of the band’s progression over time, and it’s one we highly recommend. Continue reading »

ASTARTE — RIP TRISTESSA

 Metal News, THE SYNN REPORT  6 Responses »
Aug 112014
 

(Andy Synn wrote this remembrance of Tristessa, of the Greek metal band Astarte.)

Sad news my friends. Yesterday I learned that Astarte frontwoman Tristessa (aka Maria Kolokouri) passed away due to complications suffered while fighting off Leukaemia. Not only was her wonderful life tragically cut short, but she also leaves behind a husband and young son… and I cannot begin to imagine what they must be going through. My heart goes out to them for their loss.

I’d been following Maria’s battle via the Astarte Facebook page, and her husband’s occasional updates, and had been hopeful she would be able to pull through, because I have been a huge fan of hers (and of Astarte) for a long time now. Indeed  we’re coming up on the 50th edition of The Synn Report (not even counting special editions) and it was Astarte who I chose to cover for the very first edition, way back in January 2011.

Here’s how I described them back then:

“With a consistently changing line-up, the primarily female band Astarte began life as a purely Black Metal band, albeit one with an ear for a distinctive and dark melody.

“Over the years they have metamorphosed into a more Black/Death hybrid of a band, shedding and recruiting numerous different members along the way, but each time progressing and improving upon their own sound. They have in the past ten years gained a cult following of their own, whilst also gaining the patronage and friendship of some of the larger leading lights of the international Black and Death metal scenes. Guest slots from members of Rotting Christ, Dimmu Borgir, God Dethroned, Arch Enemy and Mayhem have all served to cement them as a band to be taken seriously on the world stage, although their overall lack of exposure (coupled with their inconsistent line-up issues) has yet to provide them with that all-important break-out opportunity.”

In hindsight I think it holds up pretty well. So, in tribute to Tristessa, I’ve asked Islander to reprint the original Synn Report below, in the hope that more people will be drawn in to appreciate the scintillating blackened art of Astarte. Continue reading »

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