AN NCS PREMIERE: ORACULUM — “THE VESSEL OF ORICHALCUM”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

 

Everything about this song is massive — the sound, the grooves, and the scale of the trauma that it inflicts. If my instincts are correct, it will also prove to be massively appealing to fans of death metal in the vein of Bolt Thrower or vintage Sadistik Exekution. The song I’m speaking of is the one we’re premiering in this post: “The Vessel of Orichalcum”. It appears on Sorcery of the Damned, the forthcoming debut EP by a three-man Chilean band named Oraculum that’s slated for release by one of those underground labels that seems to do no wrong — Invictus Productions.

“The Vessel of Orichalcum” isn’t a “grower” — it’s such a stupendously galvanizing and supremely headbangable track that it exerts an iron-fisted grip on the pleasure centers right from the first listen — and the same is true of Oraculum’s EP as a whole.

Do you like your death metal so choked with distortion and caked with grit that it feels like you’re being hosed down with an industrial-strength sandblaster? You’re in luck! Do you grin stupidly at the assault of riffs that pound like sledgehammers, grind like bone saws, and rumble like a freight train passing just outside your door? Prepare for big smiles! Do you appreciate organic, brute-force percussion with a lot of rhythmic variety? Check that off, too. And do you eat up spitfire solos and reverberating vocals that sound like the wretched howls of an anguished demon? Prepare to dine sumptuously! Continue reading »

PHOBOCOSM: “DEPRIVED”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

 

(Austin Weber reviews the new album by Phobocosm from Montreal.)

A lot of modern death metal is shiny, flashy, and in addition, purely cutthroat. Well, the Montreal-based group Phobocosm are nothing like that. They are relentlessly ugly and unforgiving, often content to stew in misery at a slower pace, entrenched in massive, sickening riffs that churn bowels and cause minds to enter a state of hopeless insanity. If a cutthroat death metal record feels like a physical assault, then consider Phobocosm masters of taking that assault directly into your brain, feeding you clouded questions that don’t lead to any answers, submerging you in a sadness and longing that reeks of perversion. Deprived offers an evil and different take on the death metal sound. Yes, there is plenty of  lively double-bass, and the album has its frenzied moments, but often this is a skulking, wounded beast — preaching a horror beyond gore, beyond death.

An eerie Immolation and Incantation influence is clear — from the riffs to the grooves to the structuring. However, Phobocosm are far from wholly a clone of either group. Besides those two points of reference, the music sometimes calls to mind the approach of Ulcerate, embracing and reflecting in atmospheric reverberations, sometimes by themselves and at other times mixed within the band’s full-throttle moments. The back and forth sway of the songs on Deprived is one of its greatest strengths, frequently manifesting a battle between faster and lurching tempos.

At still other moments on Deprived a black metal undercurrent is injected into the mix and further poisons the music’s already pitch-black feel. In this respect, the album is reminiscent of Deathspell Omega or Mitochondrion, though the blackened coloring occurs largely within a death metal framework overall. Continue reading »

ANOTHER LEPERKAHN ROUND-UP, PART 2: FROZEN DAWN, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT, BESEIGED, TOOTHGRINDER, MASTODON, SOILWORK, ATRIARCH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

 

(Leperkahn’s first two round-up posts today were more in the “metal news” category. In this one, he delivers actual streams of recommended new songs and videos.)

Herein lies the latest of my attempts to fill Islander’s shoes in collecting new music and videos. There was only gonna be a few things, but then I found a bunch more. So there’s a lot in here. Sorry, but I’m also not very sorry, since it’s all good stuff.

FROZEN DAWN

I was entirely unfamiliar with Madrid’s Frozen Dawn before Islander emailed me a link to a new video they released a couple days ago. The video is for “Banished, The Everlasting Confinement”, off their second album Those of the Cursed Light, which is out now via Xtreem Music. Broadly, it’s melodic black metal, but it has dug some serious hooks into my brain. Check it out below, and order the record if you like it via the Bandcamp page below.

https://frozendawn.bandcamp.com/album/those-of-the-cursed-light
https://www.facebook.com/truefrozendawn
http://www.frozendawn.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/truefrozendawn Continue reading »

AND THUS A CLUSTER OF KICKASS ALBUMS APPEARED ON THE HORIZON…

 Metal News  2 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

(In the second of three round-up posts for today, Leperkahn delivers news of forthcoming albums of interest.)

It seems that yesterday roughly an eighth of the entire metal universe announced the recording of new albums on the horizon, or provided updates on said recordings. I’ve collected the ones that especially caught my eye below, much to the chagrin of my wallet.

ENSLAVED

According to a Nuclear Blast press release that Islander forwarded to me, Enslaved are entering the studio to record their 13th album. “Main recordings for the as-yet-untitled new album are taking place at Duper and Solslottet Studios in Bergen, Norway with additional recordings done at Conclave & Earshot Studios (presided over by ENSLAVED members [vocalist/keyboardist Herbrand] Larsen and [lead guitarist] Ice Dale), and Ivar Bjørnson’s Personal Sound Studios.”

The band will also apparently venture to Valevåg, a rural woodsy area south of their hometown of Bergen, for additional recording (the band had previously gone there to record their 2012 7” Thorns).  The album will apparently be produced by Larsen, bassist/vocalist Grutle Kjellson, and guitarist Ivar Bjørnson with Iver Sandøy, with mixing done by the inimitable Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden.

Considering how much RIITIIR – and for that matter pretty much all of the Enslaved catalog – kicked ass, I’m sure we can all bet that this will open minds and crush faces.

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

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: STENCH, FALLS OF RAUROS, PUIG DESTROYER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 302014
 

 

(Our brother Leperkahn continues to shoulder the burden of rounding up news and new music during my vacation from that task.)

Attempting to do Islander’s job is WAAAAY harder than I ever would’ve thought it to be. Luckily, unlike the last stream dump, this one has a bit of a theme, namely that they’re all full-album streams.

STENCH

The NCS camp in general has expressed widespread approval for Stench’s new album Venture – we even went as far as to premiere a track from it here . It’s now streaming in full at Decibel here. I think at this point we’ve said our part on this one – now it’s your turn to voice your opinion.

The album is slotted to come out October 7th via Agonia Records – look for it at this location.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stench-official/213520935347849 Continue reading »

METAL NOT PREVIOUSLY FEATURED ON NCS — PART 1

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Sep 302014
 

(We welcome guest contributor Gorger, who explains himself and the objective of this new series as follows… )

Let me start off with a short presentation of myself. For almost a year I’ve been running a Norwegian metal site with a focus on reviews of metal releases. The site is split into two forms of reviews. There are the standard reviews, where I listen a plethora of times before writing a medium-long, moderately indept description with a dice-scaled rating, and then there are what I call “Impressions”, where I listen to an album a few times before writing short and somewhat impulsive description with a classification as Approved (V), Dissapproved (X), or Intermediate (VX).

Like Islander, I know what lack of time is. I have a wish of making a parallel, English-language version of my site, but that ain’t happening any time soon. When Islander told us all he’d be leaning back between two loud-speakers and enjoying some full albums for a change, I decided this was a perfect time to both give something back to this enlightening site and also do a “pilot” of English translations, to see how that would work. I plan to present 16 releases from the past two months over three posts, and the criteria are these:

-Only albums that have not earlier been presented in any way at NCS.
-Only music that fits the NCS profile (i.e., no clean singing)
-Only music that fits the NCS concept (i.e., only recommendable releases)

We are all excited to see which records will be reviewed by our host. In the meantime (yes, time is mean indeed) I hope you’ll find something interesting here. For those with Scandinavian linguistic skills, check out Gorger’s Metal.

I’ll put it all in chronological order. Now, let’s get started, shall we? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THY DARKENED SHADE (SEMJAZA)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Sep 292014
 

(Our interviewer KevinP produced the following fascinating discussion with Semjaza, the main man behind the Greek black metal band Thy Darkened Shade, whose new song “Saatet-ta Renaissance” we premiered earlier today — here — and whose new album will be released on October 31 by W.T.C. Productions.)

K: So we are coming up on the release of your second album. For those people who heard the debut, what can they expect, and for those completely new to the band, what are they going to experience?

S: The experience depends on the eye of the beholder, however, I am sure that those with hearts of Fire will experience the same Luciferian energy invoked for the debut, but this time we are even closer to the source, the Waters of Nun. The manifestations of the Devil are many and His names countless, we will capture as many as possible in our albums.

 

K: I’ll admit to not being all that interested in lyrical content (for the most part) but that seems to be a huge part of what you are doing here.

S: Yes, our art is not one-dimensional since we invoke Chaos. A synthesis of lyrical, musical, and visual art amongst others that can be translated into mantras, sigils, postures, and invocations for those who have the will to gaze beyond their mundane life and evolve. In fact, we are aiming to express our black flames sonically. It is therefore, a mirror of ourselves and represents the will of our Gods as we experience it. Continue reading »

HAVE YOUR WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE — GODFLESH’S NEW ALBUM IS STREAMING

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Sep 292014
 

 

(Leperkahn brings us this piece of breaking news.)

I have another roundup I’m working on right now, but before that I thought I’d let y’all in on a quick bit of breaking news, namely that Godflesh are now streaming their reunion album via NPR, their first album in 13 years.

I myself have just started to understand and appreciate the beast that is Godflesh (as in, it finally clicked for me when I was reading their Decibel cover story and listening to their new EP Decline and Fall), but I’m sure most of you have more history with the band than I do.

Anyway, if you dig it (which you should – I’ll reserve judgment until I have time to listen to all of it myself, but I’m pretty confident they’ll knock it out of the park), you can preorder it on Amazon here, or wait until it comes out on October 14. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THY DARKENED SHADE — “SAATET-TA RENAISSANCE”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 292014
 

 

On October 31, 2014, W.T.C. Productions will release Liber Lvcifer I: Khem Sedjet, the second album by Greek black metal band Thy Darkened Shade. In due course, you will hear much more about this album at our humble site. For now, it is enough to say that it’s absolutely stunning — one of the year’s best.

Today we have two teasers for you: In this post we bring you the premiere of the album’s eighth track (of 11) — “Saatet-ta Renaissance” — and then a bit later today we will bring you a fascinating interview with the band’s main man Semjaza, an interview that will significantly affect the way you hear the music. But the music comes first.

“Saatet-ta Renaissance” is one of this massive album’s longest songs. As it moves from entrancing acoustic strumming and choral chanting into an abrupt explosion of blistering fretwork and blasting percussion, you may experience a feeling of disorientation — and that feeling may be enhanced by the warm bounding bass notes and the rocking back-beats that come next, or by the variance between primal clawing growls and clean-voiced proclamations that give life to the lyrics. Continue reading »

STUFF LEPERKAHN DONE FOUND AND DONE LIKED, PART 1 (TREPALIUM AND USNEA)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Sep 292014
 

 

(As explained over the weekend, I’m taking a 10-day hiatus from rounding up new song and video premieres in order to focus on reviews, but fortunately we have at least one volunteer stepping up to fill the void. Here’s a post by Leperkahn that focuses on two recent premieres.)

Hey guys! Since Islander is taking a sabbatical from daily round-ups, I figured I’d take a stab at being his fill-in for a few days here, or at least until I realize that my problem sets won’t do themselves and Wealth of Nations won’t read itself. This shall serve as part 1, with future parts coming at likely very irregular intervals. If you feel like I’ve overlooked something that the peoples of the NCS universe should be cramming into their ears, feel free to shoot me an email at brendan@sdmetal.com. Anyway, herein we have two new song premieres, from opposite corners of both the globe and the metal spectrum.

TREPALIUM

A few weeks back France’s Trepalium unleashed upon us “Moonshine Limbo” (featured here), a glorious little ditty that was easily the best swing jazz/metal combo I’ve heard since Diablo Swing Orchestra’s last album back in 2012. It came replete with a bitchin’ horn section and the first time I’ve ever truly heard scat-screaming. I mention this because the group have now released the second song from their forthcoming EP Voodoo Moonshine, “Fire On Skin”.

The song is perhaps a bit less overtly jazzy than the title track – I didn’t hear the aforementioned bitchin’ horn section this time – but the arrangement and progression of the song is still rooted pretty firmly in jazz territory, only remaining death metal because of the instrument choices and Cédric Punda’s eviscerating roars. The jabbing verse riff in particular gave me the sensation that I was in the ring with Muhammad Ali at his prime, jolting left and right with each nasty hook the chugging riff planted into my sides. Continue reading »

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