BLOG SLOWDOWN — TOTAL VOMIT EXPERIENCE

 Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Mar 082015
 

 

The maniacs out there who actually visit our putrid site on a daily basis will have noticed that I didn’t post anything yesterday, which I think is only the sixth day in more than five years when that’s happened. It wasn’t because of fucking off. “Fucking off” isn’t in the NCS dictionary. Once again, it’s because my fucking day job is fucking with me — and that will continue to happen for the next two weeks.

Once again, I’ve been dispatched away from home on a project that keeps me ridiculously busy both day and night. Yesterday I didn’t even have time (or the right frame of mind) to listen to a single song, much less the time to scribble something for the site. There will be days here and there between now and the end of the project when I can throw something together for NCS, or edit, format, and post the scribblings of other people. But I’m afraid there will be a noticeable drop in the volume of content on the site. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOVOKA — “CHOSEN”

 Premieres  9 Responses »
Mar 062015
 

 

Wovoka are a relatively new sludge metal band who come our way from Los Angeles, and their debut album Saros is set for an April 14 release by Battleground Records. As a herald of the album’s advent, we bring you today the premiere of a powerful track name “Chosen”.

The galvanizing drumbeat of the song’s opening rumbles like cascading boulders during an avalanche, soon joined by big, thick riffs that ring as if sounding a clarion call of awakening to a dark new future. When the earthshaking force of the song’s initial section subsides, what unfolds next is something like the vista of a vast, desolate plain, scoured of life, blasted yet clean under an ominous sky. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PERDITION TEMPLE — “GODDESS IN DEATH”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Mar 062015
 

 

In the years that have followed the 2010 release of Perdition Temple’s debut album Edict of the Antichrist Elect, the band’s line-up has undergone changes. Now, the group’s founder, guitarist Gene Palubicki, is joined by Immolation guitarist Bill Taylor (a comrade of Palubicki in Angelcorpse during the ’90s) and Black Witchery vocalist Impurath — along with drummer Ron Parmer and bass player Gabriel Gozainy.

This new Perdition Temple collective have recorded an album entitled The Tempter’s Victorious that will be released imminently by Hells Headbangers, and today we bring you the premiere of the album’s fourth track, “Goddess In Death”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: RED MOON ARCHITECT — “BETRAYED”

 Premieres  10 Responses »
Mar 062015
 

 

Red Moon Architect are a melodic doom metal band who make their home in what has been described as Finland’s gloomiest town, Kouvola. Their debut album Concealed Silence was released in 2012, and today marks the release of their new album Fall via Playground Music. To help introduce you to the music of the new album, we’re pleased to bring you the premiere of an official music video for the new album’s second track, “Betrayed”.

“Betrayed” is cavernous and vast, the kind of crushing music that finds beauty in misery and truth in despair. Anchored by titanic riffs that move at the pace of a wounded leviathan and powerful drum strikes, the song is a striking contrast, its melody as captivating as it is forlorn. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: A NEW GORGOROTH ALBUM AND IMMORTAL SOCK PUPPETS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Mar 062015
 

 

I have a lot of new music and videos that I spotted earlier in the week that I still need to throw your way, and with luck I’ll be able to do that later today, but for now, here are the first two things I saw this morning after firing up my computer and visiting Facebook.

GORGOROTH

My NCS comrade Andy Synn posted the album cover that’s at the top of this post. It appeared on the Facebook wall of Gorgoroth, with this announcement:

Gorgoroth has signed to Soulseller Records, who will release the band’s new album Instinctus Bestialis on 8. June 2015 on CD/vinyl and digital (available through Amazon, Spotify, iTunes etc.) Continue reading »

MALADIE: “…STILL…”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Mar 062015
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by the German band Maladie.)

My problem with bands such as Slipknot is not merely a distaste based on personal likes and dislikes, but one rooted in the fact that their music has never seemed to sound like the collective efforts of their many members. It seems limited and small, compared to what might actually be possible had a band with that many members truly tried to include and incorporate each player’s talents in a way that added richly to the band’s sound.

While they are worlds away from Slipknot, I think this is part of the reason why I love the German metal super-group Maladie. They truly make full use of each of their nine members, to create an ensemble effort that defies the norm in search of a highly progressive musical path that never loses its venomously monstrous aggressive edge in the pursuit of this enlightening and forward-thinking aim. Continue reading »

SYLOSIS: “DORMANT HEART”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 

(DGR reviews the latest album by Sylosis.)

For a long time, there were few bands out there that I was willing to evangelize as much as Sylosis. Long before I ever got into the writing game, I would tell anyone who would lend me their ear about the band — a group I had initially checked out on a whim when my policy for checking out new music consisted of looking into albums that scored an eight and above on Blabbermouth.net’s review scale, a criterion that Sylosis’ 2008 release Conclusion Of An Age happened to satisfy.

To explain why the group held such a strong appeal to me, I have to own up to the fact that three genres were really my entryway into heavy metal, and they were melodeath, metalcore, and thrash metal. It’s probably a common event that those three tend to be the welcome mats, since a lot of what I view as “gateway bands” tend to fall into those genres, but I just had to highlight it, in part because, to be incredibly reductive, Sylosis‘ sound is a combination of those three genres. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THULCANDRA — “THE SECOND FALL”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 

Munich-based Thulcandra have been a favorite of this site since we discussed their origin story and reviewed their debut album Fallen Angel’s Dominion back in 2010 (here). Their third album Ascension Lost was released in late January by Napalm Records, and today we’re proud to bring you the premiere of an official video for the album’s seventh song, “The Second Fall”.

The mid-paced song is both hard-rocking and threaded with an icy melody that proves to be as memorable as it is dramatic. The song is highlighted not only by magnetic riffs and a pulse-pounding rhythm section but also by a beautiful extended guitar solo that stands in stark contrast to the skin-flaying vocals of frontman Steffen Kummerer. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ETERNAL CHAMPION, AUTOKRATOR, GLACIATION, TAKAAKIRA “TAKA” GOTO

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 052015
 

 

Once again, I’m behind in posting round-ups of new music and videos. I have a long list of new things that emerged this week, just not enough time to write about it… because once again my day job has sent me away from home. More about that in a later post today.

But although I can’t write about all the good new things I saw and heard this week right now, I’ll throw a few diverse tracks your way in this post and try to collect more tomorrow.

ETERNAL CHAMPION

I’m going to start with the most unlikely of choices for a site like this one — it’s an exception to our inconsistent “rule”.

Eternal Champion are an epic heavy metal band from Austin, Texas, named after a character premise in Michael Moorcock’s fictional universe and featuring an ex-Iron Age vocalist (Jason Tarpey) and Power Trip’s lead guitarist Blake Ibanez. Continue reading »

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