AN NCS PREMIERE: THE HOUSE OF CAPRICORN — “IVORY CROWN”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  4 Responses »
Oct 272014
 

 

The House of Capricorn from Auckland, New Zealand, describe their music as “apocalyptic devil rock”. To date, they’ve released two albums — Sign of the Cloven Hoof (2010) and In the Devil’s Days (2011) — and on November 7 Svart Records will be releasing their third, Morning Star Rise. As a sign of what’s coming, we bring you the premiere of “Ivory Crown”.

A site with a name like ours might not seem the most obvious match for The House of Capricorn, whose vocals are usually not the growly or shrieking sort, but I’ve been thoroughly captivated by this album, and “Ivory Crown” is one of my favorites in a collection that’s very strong from start to finish. Ironically, the clean vocals have much to do with the music’s appeal.

Relatively speaking “Ivory Crown” is one of the more subdued tracks on the album — if you’re looking for tracks that drive harder on the mayhem end of the spectrum, then I’d recommend “The Road To Hell Is Marked” or “Our Shrouded King”. But “Ivory Crown” is built around such killer melodic hooks that it’s powerfully addictive. Continue reading »

FULL ALBUM STREAM: BLOODSHOT DAWN — “DEMONS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 272014
 

 

Demons, the new second album by Bloodshot Dawn from the UK has now been officially released, and with the release has come a full stream of the album on Bandcamp.

We’ve been singing the praises of this album since the first advance track appeared, culminating in an enthusiastic review of Demons by TheMadIsraeli, who calls it “the pinnacle of what melodic death metal could still strive to be, but seems largely unwilling to be at the moment” and his likely album-of-the-year winner.

But you don’t have to take our word for it — right after the jump you can listen to Demons in its entirety. The album is available on CD at this location (along with related merch), and a digital download can be obtained here: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: NUNSLAUGHTER AND WITCHTRAP (A SPLIT)

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 272014
 

According to Metal-Archives, Cleveland-based Nunslaughter have released more than 140 recordings, only four of which have been full-length albums, the rest mostly consisting of splits, EPs, and live albums. Hells Headbangers is releasing two more splits this fall, and I spent some time with both of them this past weekend. I reviewed the first one, a split with Perversor, here.

In this second split, with Columbia’s Witchtrap, Nunslaughter spit their poison in Spanish for a change, with tracks named “La Ofrenda” and “Altar De La Muerta”. “La Ofrenda” is a meat-grinder on steroids, a venomous death metal romp with a breakdown guaranteed to produce sore-neck syndrome and thoroughly disgusting vocal filth. “Altar De La Muerta” is another jet-fueled riff-rampage that’s groovy as hell and never backs off the gas. Both songs will light a bonfire under your butt. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: NE OBLIVISCARIS AND MORTUARY DRAPE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 272014
 

Here are a couple of items that were brought to my attention this morning. I thought you might want to know about them, too.

NE OBLIVISCARIS

This Australian band’s eagerly anticipated second album Citadel will be released by Season of Mist on November 7. Through a timely e-mail from one of our supporters, I learned that the entire album is now streaming on KillYourStereo.com. I presume the album will eventually be streaming at other sites scattered around the world, but this seems to be the first one. Go here to listen:

http://killyourstereo.com/news/1037625/ne-obliviscaris-citadel-au-album-stream Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: THE DEATHTRIP AND HUMAN BODIES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Oct 262014
 

I’m still in Texas visiting family and friends and not listening to much new metal, but before I once again leave the interhole for the real world for the rest of the day, I thought I would share a few things that have been wrecking my earholes this morning.

THE DEATHTRIP

The Deathtrip are a two-man band consisting of UK guitarist Host (Thine) and vocalist Aldrahn (Thorns, Dødheimsgard, ex-Zyklon-B). Their debut album, which was mixed by Thorns‘ Snorre Ruch, is scheduled for release by Svart Records on November 14 and its title is Deep Drone Master. It includes session drums by Dan “Storm” Mullins and Jon Wesseltoft on bass.

Two songs from the album are available for listening — “Flag of Betrayal”, which premiered two days ago on Metal Hammer, and “A Foot In Each Hell”, which surfaced earlier this month. They’re hell-ripping storms of vintage Norwegian black metal with razoring riffs that penetrate deeply and a monstrous offering of inflamed vocal passion — searing music surrounded by the flames of arcane energy. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: NUNSLAUGHTER AND PERVERSOR (A SPLIT)

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 262014
 

 

According to Metal-Archives, Cleveland-based Nunslaughter have released more than 140 recordings, only four of which have been full-length albums, the rest mostly consisting of splits, EPs, and live albums. Hells Headbangers is releasing two more splits this fall, and I spent some time with both of them this past weekend.

In this split with a relatively new Chilean band named Perversor, Nunslaughter contribute two tracks — “Impure Thoughts” and “Bless the Dead”. “Impure Thoughts” is a thick, black, boiling cauldron of riff liquor, a mix of d-beat rhythms, skin-flaying black thrash, and grisly corpse-crawling death metal. “Bless the Dead” switches up the beats and the styles, too, and at its core is a head-wrecking chug-stomp, catchy as fuck and impurified with a wash of vocal pollutants. The songs are gone before you know it, but it’s a sweet trip while it lasts. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ANTIVERSUM AND CENDRA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Oct 252014
 

 

Hey motherfuckers, happy Saturday. I’m still in central Texas visiting family and friends and spending a lot more time yakking than listening to new music. But this morning I did discover some infernally excellent new songs that put a charge in the reptile part of my brain, which is basically everything enclosed by my skull. Hope you dig this nastiness as much as I have.

ANTIVERSUM

Antiversum are from Zurich, Switzerland. Based on this interview, it appears that the band’s members are also involved in numerous other projects, with names such as Blakk Old Blood, Deathcult, Asag, Goatfukk, none of which I’m familiar with — yet. I learned about Antiversum through a tip from KevinP. Their musical output so far consists of two tracks that first appeared on Soundcloud in August — “Total Vacuum” and “Finis Aeternitum”.

The comparisons with Bölzer are inevitable, both because of the bands’ shared nationality and also because of certain similarities of style. The music is highly atmospheric black/death, with the band churning out a dense, poisonous fog of morbid riffs driven by attention-grabbing drum-and-cymbal assaults. The vibrating haze of sulfurous murk generated by the riffs is cold, hostile, and malignant, and the eerie cosmic melodies suggest that this impenetrable haze is populated with alien entities. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PERDITION TEMPLE AND MYSTICUM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 242014
 

I’m about to bolt for the airport — not because of the fucking day job, for a change, but to visit family in Austin and maybe have time for a bit of the Housecore Horror Film Festival. If the wi-fi works on the airplane, I might turn up again, but otherwise this round-up of new music will be today’s final post. Although this post isn’t a long one, trust me, it’s a good one.

PERDITION TEMPLE

I have BadWolf to thank for the discovery of this first new song. It comes from a band named Perdition Temple. Despite the fact that they have two albums out in the world (Edict of the Antichrist Elect from 2010 and 2014’s Sovereign of the Desolate), I don’t think I’ve previously explored their music.

The band’s line-up, which includes some veteran names, is as follows: Continue reading »

DREMENUART: “WEIGHTBEARER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 242014
 

When I started this site almost five years ago I picked the name “NO CLEAN SINGING” not so much to announce a rigid rule we intended to follow about the site’s content but more as a protest against something that had happened to the music of one band I used to care a lot about — Bury Your Dead. Matt Bruso had left the band to teach school and he had been replaced by Myke Terry, who introduced clean singing into their music, and the music just seemed to lose some of its weight all the way around.

Even though my musical tastes have evolved in increasingly extreme directions and I’ve lost touch with a lot of what’s happening in whatever scene is left of the one BYD inhabited, I still keep the early BYD albums in my car and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of them.

So, when a Facebook friend recently posted a link to a brand new EP named Weightbearer by a Spanish band named Dremenuart and made comparisons to the”über-low-tuned hardcore metal” of bands like early BYD, that pushed the right button and I had to check it out. I’m so very glad I did. Continue reading »

ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES-IV: CANOPY, HARASAI, KALL, OBITUS

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 242014
 

 

Today the Elemental Nightmares project released the fourth of the seven vinyl splits in the series, with a fourth segment (above) of what will eventually become one massive piece of artwork for the series as a whole — and as of today it’s also now available for download on Bandcamp.

I’ve been especially looking forward to this split because it features two old favorites of this site — Canopy and Obitus — as well as two new ones, Harasai and Kall.

Last summer we had the pleasure of premiering the tracks by Canopy and Harasai, and I’m going to include the accompanying write-up below, along with thoughts about the Obitus and Kall tracks. In a nutshell, this is a great quartet of pleasingly diverse songs. Continue reading »

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