AETHERIAN: “TALES OF OUR TIMES”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Mar 122015
 

 

(DGR reviews the debut EP by Aetherian from Athens, Greece.)

Oftentimes, when a writer disappears for an extended length of time, the writer will usually return to the fold — because really, the muse is always calling, siren song being strangled from her (because really, we have to METAL around here) — with tail tucked between the legs, bevy of excuses in hand (most pretty valid), ‘aw shucks’ look on the face, and full of apologies, ready to be welcomed back with grand plans and a ton of material to work with.

I can’t do that this time. I disappeared because work kicked my ass. It’s been a well-known fact that NCS is a labor of love and it is our passion (and that of many others) that keeps the site running. We happen to be in a very blessed position where we don’t have to worry about ad-buys and traffic, and therefore we can sort of freely write about what strikes us. But our amateur status also opens up the scenario in which actual real life takes over, and for about a month and a half I was the aforementioned single digit that was being smashed into dust on Napalm Death’s Apex Predator. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THEORIES — “BURNT CONCRETE”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 112015
 

 

On March 24 Metal Blade Records will release the debut album of Seattle’s Theories. It’s an event that makes me very happy, in part for reasons that may not mean much to most people who hear the album. For one, I know all of the people in the band, some better than others, and they’re the kind of people who make you happy for their success (getting signed by a label like Metal Blade would certainly qualify as success in most people’s books). For another, I’ve seen the band perform live, everywhere from Seattle to Maryland Deathfest XII to Denver Black Sky II, and they seem to be even more perfectly destructive each time I see them.

So, with that said, you can imagine how fucking delighted I am that we’re premiering the lyric video for a song called “Burnt Concrete” off Theories’ debut album Regression. It’s the opening track and it starts off the festivities with a full-bore blast of grindcore fury. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INFESTING SWARM — “DER LAUF DER ZEIT”

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Mar 112015
 

 

Infesting Swarm are a German band formed in 2007. Their first demo, released in 2011, delved into the depths of blackened death metal, but their their debut Desolation Road, which will be released through Art Of Propaganda on March 30, reflects musical change of course. In this post you’ll have the chance to sample what the new album holds in store as we premiere the album’s sixth track, “Der Lauf der Zeit”.

The song is a long one, in excess of nine minutes, and it makes full use of the time. The music employs the racing, ripping ravages of a black metal assault, with raking tremolo riffs, blasting drum beats, and flesh-rending howls. But it’s also a deeply atmospheric piece, with big moving waves of bleak melody that bring down heavy clouds of sorrow verging on despair, parted by piercing rays of light. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ÖXXÖ XÖÖX — “ÄBŸM”

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Mar 112015
 

 

Öxxö Xööx are a French band whose members are Laurent Lunoir (music, lead vocals, visual design), Rïcïnn (Laure Le Prunenec) (vocals, live bass), and Isarnos (Thomas Jacquelin) (drums), with studio engineering by Igorrr (Gautier Serre) of the band Whourkr. I first came across them in 2011 in one of my irregular MISCELLANY excursions and wrote about their unique debut album Rëvëürt. On May 26, Finland’s Blood Music label, which seems to have a knack for signing bands whose music is well off the usual beaten paths, will be releasing the second Öxxö Xööx album, Nämïdäë. In this post we’re premiering the seventh track from the album — “Äbÿm” — and I predict you haven’t heard anything like it, unless perhaps you’ve heard Rëvëürt.

Some things haven’t changed since that first release: The band still have an affection for umlauts. The band are still speaking their own language (their name is a binary representation of the number 69 [in binary code, 0110=6 and 1001=9], which (among other things) relates to flipping life on its head, to turn bleakness into light). They still have an extravagant talent for combining visual with musical art (as you’ll soon see), and their music is still avant-garde, with a capital A and a capital G. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VELD — “WORLD IN OBSCURE”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Mar 102015
 

 

I have a theory that cool album art tends to correlate with cool music. It’s not always true, of course, but I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been drawn to the sound of a new album through the artwork on its cover. When I saw the cover that you’re now looking at — which was created for the new album by the Polish/Belarusian band Veld — I was powerless too resist the urge to explore the music. And that turned out to be a very good call.

The album’s name is Daemonic: The Art of Dantalion and it will be released next month by Lacerated Enemy Records. In this post we have the pleasure of premiering for you a lyric video for a song from the album named “World In Obscure”. If you enjoy storming, tyrannical death metal that’s as bludgeoning as it is blisteringly fast, and as alien and exotic as it is physically jolting, this is one you don’t want to miss. Continue reading »

WATCHTOWER: “RADIANT MOON”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Mar 102015
 

 

(Grant Skelton reviews the new EP by Watchtower.)

I don’t know what’s gotten into the water in Melbourne, Australia. But it must be some kind of alchemical elixir because that city is producing some exceptional doom metal of late. Watchtower, along with labelmates Horsehunter and the psyche-doom-ic blues of Child, are just a few patrons of the Melbourne doom scene. (Side note: both of those other bands are definitely worth your time).

According to this interview with Doomed & Stoned, Watchtower’s name comes from an experience that frontman Nico Guijt had with a few Jehovah’s Witnesses. Nico was introduced to the Witnesses’ magazine, called Watchtower. In the interview, Nico christens the band with that name. Continue reading »

PREPARE FOR THE ADVENT OF “MISSING”: AN INTERVIEW WITH JEFF WILSON

 Interviews, Metal News  6 Responses »
Mar 092015
 

photo by Samantha Marble

Yesterday, while on a short work break, I took a quick scan through my Facebook news feed and quickly discovered an invitation to a new Facebook page for a band named Missing. And when I saw who was in the band I got bug-eyed with excitement:

Charlie Fell (Abigail Williams, ex-Lord Mantis)
Fade Kainer (Statiqbloom, Theologian, Batillus)
Sanford Parker (Corrections House, ex-Nachtmystium)
Ken Sorceron (Abigail Williams, ex-Lord Mantis)
Jef Whitehead (Leviathan, Lurker of Chalice)
Jeff Wilson (Wolvhammer, Chrome Waves, Abigail Williams)

An official announcement about the band was released today, about a half hour ago. But yesterday, before the news became official, I reached out to Jeff Wilson and persuaded him to answer a few questions about this new project and what it holds in store. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALKALOID — “THE MALKUTH GRIMOIRE”

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Mar 092015
 

 

We discovered the existence of Alkaloid quite by accident last July after learning of the departure of Christian Muenzer and Hannes Grossman from German technical death metal overlords Obscura, and wrote about them at a time when not much information had been publicized — but what was known was certainly enticing. In the months since then, the reasons for excitement have only grown. This supergroup’s debut album The Malkuth Grimoire is now set for release on March 17 — and today we bring you the premiere of its title track.

The word “supergroup” is overused, but it’s entirely justified in the case of Alkaloid. The band’s members have histories with an impressive list of groups: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANIMALITY — “BLOODSPATTER BRAINMATTER”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 092015
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli introduces our premiere of a new song by Animality from Nashville, Tennessee.)

Going to make this short and sweet to accommodate our humble editor getting ass-slammed by work.

This is Animality.  They are from my home state of Tennessee and perform some downright bestial bloodthirsty technical death metal/deathcore.  You are about to hear “Bloodspatter Brainmatter”, the first single from their upcoming EP and I’m proud to present it to you and hope you’ll dig it. Continue reading »

APOCROPHEX: “SUSPENDED FROM THE COSMIC ALTAAR”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 092015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the debut album by Apocrophex from New Jersey, which is being released on March 10.)

They say variety is the spice of life, but in a musical context, it’s how you arrange that variety and spice that makes the difference between music that’s merely a rehash and something that’s varying degrees of remarkable.

Instead of mixing all their influences into one singular synthesis dispersed in the same manner across every song, as many derivative tech-death bands do, Apocrophex shift between countless styles and technical death metal influences in separate contrasting passages and songs. In isolation, this can make some moments come across as too obviously close to their influences and thus seem weaker, but when taken as a whole in terms of how the music is constructed, Suspended From the Cosmic Altaar is very interesting and varied for technical death metal. And that’s especially when you consider that this is the band’s debut album, coming very soon after their initial two-song EP, Wheels Within Wheels (which I wrote about last year here at NCS). Continue reading »

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