AN NCS PREMIERE: SVARTIDAUÐI — “IMPOTENT SOLAR PHALLUS”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

Iceland’s Svartidauði are perfecting the mechanics of tearing apart interdimensional membranes, exposing our ears to emanations from alien domains, while rocking very damned hard at the same time. Their latest offering, which will not be confused with the work of any other band, is a forthcoming two-song release from Daemon Worship Productions and Terratur Possessions entitled The Synthesis of Whore and Beast, and today we give you the chance to hear one of those two tracks: “Impotent Solar Phallus”.

Calling this music “black metal” feels unsatisfying. It’s too meager a description, and may in fact be misleading. “Impotent Solar Phallus” radiates reptilian menace, its exotic chords both disturbing and otherworldly, its booming/tumbling drumbeats conjuring images of a tribal ritual, as practiced by a tribe not found on this planet. Continue reading »

UNFATHOMED OF ABYSS: “ARISEN UPON OBLIVION”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

(We welcome Wil Cifer to NCS with this review of the debut album by Unfathomed of Abyss of San Antonio, Texas.)

Like everything else in Texas, Kevin Price thinks big, so he employed Kevin Talley of Dying Fetus / Daath fame to provide the drums. Price forsakes the organic approach taken by the flux of American Black metal bands to weave his own path. This path is filled with discordant geometry and angular atmosphere.

Opening with the 14-minute, piano-inflected “To Unequal the Balance of the Cosmos”, the album has an oddly uncertain beginning. While Kevin Talley is certainly not shabby as a drummer, he is not a black metal drummer and a drummer more versed in the genre would know where to throw in the appropriate blast beats to create the desired sound. Nevertheless, Talley does more than dial it in, adding a few creative accents of his own. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: LORD IMPALER — “FINAL GATES” (AND A REVIEW OF “THE SERPENT SEAL”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

This year the Greek melodic black metal band Lord Impaler are celebrating their 16th year of life. In that long stretch of time they’ve released four demos (the first one in 1999), two split releases, a full-length album, and an EP. I’ve previously reviewed both the album (2011’s Admire the Cosmos Black) and the EP (2013’s Babylon Whore) — both of which are very impressive — but I’ve never heard any of the earlier demo recordings. Now all of us are about to get a taste of them in new form.

On December 7 Lord Impaler will release a special anniversary EP entitled The Serpent Seal – Το Αρχέγονο Σκότοσ Επιςτρέφει, which includes re-recorded versions of four songs from their first three demos, and today we’re premiering one of those tracks: “Final Gates”. Continue reading »

PRIMORDIAL: “WHERE GREATER MEN HAVE FALLEN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  7 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Ireland’s Primordial, with a new video from the band at the end.)

If the world were a fairer place, then I have no doubt that Primordial would be one of the biggest metal acts in the world by now. If the world rewarded raw passion and creativity the way it should, they’d be playing arenas and selling albums by the bucket-load, bringing their majestic brand of misery and majesty to all corners of the globe.

But the world isn’t fair. It seems most metalheads prefer to regress towards the lowest-common-denominator wherever possible, and that most popular music fans prefer things served up to them in lightweight, easily digestible chunks.

And that’s just the way things are. Sex sells, and so does simplicity. But it’s not really adding anything real, or particularly meaningful, to the world, is it? It’s been said many times that “pop will eat itself”. Well pop has eaten itself so many times now that all we’re left with is an endless cycle of eat-defecate-eat-regurgitate that’s sapped whatever little value from the music that it originally had.

We continue to consume, unaware that we’re starving ourselves to death.

It’s why I’m thankful for bands like Primordial. Bands who write and perform not for fame and fortune, and not to please some imagined audience, but for themselves, for the message, for the sheer cathartic joy of creation. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DYSANGELIUM, OPHIDIAN I, WILDERNESSKING, WINDS OF GENOCIDE, XERATH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

For four days I’ve been on the other side of the country from my home in the Seattle area, and I’ll be working here for 10 more days. It’s one of those projects that engulfs me periodically, a night-and-day kind of thing that squeezes my blog time down to acorn size. I did make room late last night for some exploring and found the following new music I thought you might like. I sure as fuck did. Presented in alphabetical order by band name.

DYSANGELIUM

The German black metal band Dysangelium have a new album on the way from W.T.C. Productions. The title is Thánatos Áskēsis, it’s due for release on December 24, and it’s available for order here. I haven’t yet listened to the entire album, but I did catch Decibel’s premiere of one of the new songs yesterday, and have really been enjoying it. Continue reading »

BEGINNINGS

 Mosh Pit  4 Responses »
Nov 262014
 

 

(Andy Synn wrote this post.)

I’ve been thinking about beginnings a lot lately. With NCS hitting its fifth anniversary, and with my own four-year anniversary at the site having come and gone a few months ago, I’ve obviously been thinking back on where we’ve come from, where we’ve been, and how all those strange, chaotic choices and coincidences have led us to this point.

I’ve also been thinking about my own musical history, all the bands I’ve discovered, all the bands who’ve fallen by the wayside and, in particular, the bands which started me off down this road…

So settle in, loyal readers, it’s story-time. Continue reading »

CRIMSON MOONLIGHT: “THE SUFFERING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Nov 252014
 

 

(Guest writer Grant Skelton has discovered a new single by a Swedish band named Crimson Moonlight that he wants you to hear.)

I may have spoken too soon about my list of 2014’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. I made my list before hearing the new song by Sweden’s Crimson Moonlight. The song is called “The Suffering,” and comes from the band’s new album Divine Darkness (TBA 2015 via Endtime Productions.). This is the band’s first new material since the In The Depths Of Dreams Unconscious EP in 2007. The new album will be the band’s first proper album since 2004’s Veil Of Remembrance.

For those unfamiliar with Crimson Moonlight, they formed in 1997. Along with bands like Extol, Admonish, Antestor, Slechtvalk, and Immortal Souls, they were an integral part of their scene, sometimes referred to as “unblack metal.” This tune might appeal to fans of A Hill To Die Upon, 1349, Dimmu Borgir, Mayhem, or even The Black Dahlia Murder. Continue reading »

BARING TEETH: “GHOST CHORUS AMONG OLD RUINS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 252014
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by Baring Teeth.)

The time has finally come for renowned quirky Texas death metallers Baring Teeth to show the world another plane of terrifying sounds and squalor. As if their first album, 2011’s Atrophy, in all its demented brilliance, was not enough of a jaw-dropping testament to their skill and uniqueness, they set their aims at a higher and different place on Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins, giving us is a wide range of dynamics within each song — like a massive fight for control between frenetic, entrancing splinters and the colossal depths of quicksand, whose power ultimately derives from its slow, suffering burn.

Not only have they moved further from the realms of their Obscura-influenced debut, they’ve managed to expand their sound. It would have been easy and standard for a metal band like this one to keep the same blazing tempo and stylistic formula the second time around. Yet this time Baring Teeth offer more cesspools and sinkholes to drop into, sucking up more of the music like a slow-draining black hole, while also offering full-scale onslaught the likes of which will make your face melt just a bit too much to recover from in one sitting. Continue reading »

CONCERT PICS: JUCIFER, OHLM, AND NEW BRAVADO — LIVE IN LOUISVILLE, NOV 19, 2014

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 252014
 

 

On November 19, 2014, Jucifer, Ohlm, and New Bravado put on a show at the Headliner’s Music Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Photographer Nik Vechery, whose work has accompanied show reviews at NCS on many past occasions, witnessed the destruction and documented what he saw in the photos you’re about to see.

We didn’t have any writers at this event, so the only written description we can provide is the message Nik sent along with the photos:  “It was a killer show. So damn loud I couldn’t hear the drums sometimes, hah.”  As someone who has seen Jucifer before, I have a keen sense of what he means: Jucifer play with gut-liquifying levels of volume — and they do it really well. If you’ve never seen the rituals of this nomadic sludge metal death drone amplifier cult, you need to. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2014: REVOLVER’S 20 BEST ALBUMS OF 2014

 LISTMANIA 2014  16 Responses »
Nov 252014
 

 

As part of our year-end Listmania series, we re-publish “best metal album” lists compiled by certain “big platform” web sites and selected print zines. Today, we bring you what Revolver magazine thinks are the 20 best albums of 2014, as posted yesterday on the magazine’s web site.

Let me be very clear, because someone always seems to misunderstand what we’re doing here: We’re not endorsing these lists we filtch from other places (though some are certainly better than others). We’re especially not endorsing this one. To be fair, Revolver doesn’t pretend to limit its coverage to metal. And to be even more fair, I haven’t listened to half the albums on this list, so what do I know?

Still… not endorsing this one. Continue reading »

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