NO CLEAN SINGING

MAJESTIC DOWNFALL: “THE DARK LULLABY”

Apr 042014

cover art by Anne O’Neill

I’ve been waiting impatiently to hear Majestic Downfall’s contribution to the band’s forthcoming split with The Slow Death for two weeks, ever since hearing the latter band’s part of the split (which I thought was wonderful). And this morning it began streaming through the interhole. Using my well-known cat-like reflexes, I pounced on it without delay. I prepared to be enveloped in its fuzzy embrace, but instead lost my grip and fell into it like a drowning pool.

As the solo project of Zombiefication’s Jacobo Córdova, Majestic Downfall secured a place on my personal “listen to everything they do” list with 2013’s Three, an album from which we had the pleasure of premiering a song last year. And this new song proves the wisdom of pouncing on the band’s every new release without delay.

The song’s name is “The Dark Lullaby” and it’s an amazingly rich and varied tapestry of sound that makes full use of its 13 minute run-time. It may be premature to say this, since I’ve only heard the song a few times, but I’d venture to say that it’s the best thing I’ve yet heard from this very talented project. Continue reading »

METAL FASTING: DAY 4

Off Topic 10 Responses »

Apr 042014

(NCS guest contributor Leperkahn decided that for a school project he was going to spend a week without metal. He received a lot of suggestions from our readers, and this is his report on Day 4 of the experiment.)

Very early on in my music listening career, I was very much into rap. Part of it might have been the combination of the ease of access to it (all I had to do was go to the Top 100 iTunes songs chart to find plenty of stuff for my young ears) with the misguided idea that girls had “cooties” or something, and that listening to other types of pop would make me “girly”. In hindsight, I want to slap my former self for ever thinking like that, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was the way I thought once.

Nevertheless, I used to be mostly a rap fan (specifically the popular stuff). That all changed when I first picked up, played, and became obsessed with Guitar Hero III (maybe as a third or fourth grader; I’m not in the mood to calculate when exactly it would have been). That elucidated to me the wonders of classic rock, and sent me on a decade-long tailspin that has landed me here, deeply entrenched in the metal underground.

When I began to get more immersed into rock, and especially once I found heavier metal, I began to swear off all types of rap, perhaps in realization of how awful my music taste once was. Honestly, I hadn’t even tried to look into rap for years, until this project hit. Continue reading »

NOCTEM: “EXILIUM”

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Apr 042014

(In this post DGR reviews the new album by Spain’s Noctem.)

Spain’s Noctem are one of those bands that, in my mind, have improved with each album throughout their career. Every disc has been better than the last, and the band — often feeling especially scrappy due to a staunch refusal to give any ground on their aesthetics and lyrical themes — have always found ways to contort their music to fit the blisteringly fast, fire-hot riffing of their blackened death metal. Noctem have had a penchant for sounding like a huge band over the years and, through whatever means of sorcery, have always managed to incorporate high production values in their music and videos. As their career has progressed, their preference for the epic and grandiose has increased, moving them into murkier waters with regard to genre but always keeping things exciting.

Divinity was my starting point for the band. I found the disc to be a massive slab of death metal, almost like a granite rock falling upon the listener, going from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye and then staying there for the whole album. Definitely good for a super-quick hit, but a full listen could sometimes get arduous and you really had to be in the mood for it. The followup, Oblivion, rectified a lot of that whilst also making the move from song to song more dynamic. It was on the strength of that disc that I found myself excited for the March release of Exilium.

Even though a bit of time has passed since the disc was released, the delay in writing about it is largely because we’ve really been savoring the album over at NCS. It is, once again, a marked improvement over the group’s previous albums that also sees quite a few smaller experiments paying huge dividends for the full listening experience. Continue reading »

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF REVIEWING METAL

Mosh Pit 30 Responses »

Apr 042014

I think about this subject a lot. In fact, I think about it every day. Although I usually don’t manage to review an entire album more than two or three times a month, I write almost every day about individual songs that I’ve heard. I tend to do that quickly, but even then, mixed in with trying to put sentences together in a near-frenzy, I’m thinking (fleetingly) about what makes a review of music worth reading.

I don’t have a single answer to that question. And even the many answers I’ve thought of aren’t all ones I feel capable of following, because I’m a self-taught amateur and I know my limitations. But I thought I’d spill some thoughts about the subject in this post, as much to provoke discussion by readers and other writers as to help myself in a continued groping for some kind of mental synthesis.

I think about what makes a good review from two perspectives, and they don’t exactly line up with each other: What’s fun to write, and what’s useful and entertaining to read. This is why there are so many different answers to that question with which I began: what’s fun to write varies with the writer and what’s useful and entertaining to read varies with the reader. It’s hard to make yourself and everyone else happy.

I know what I enjoy reading. I want to get a sense of the music’s sound and the skill of the songwriters and performers. I want to know something about the genre, and something about the band’s history and interests, if I’m not already educated about those things. But I’m almost equally interested in the skill of the writer. I want to love the prose as much as the anticipation of what I might hear. If a review is dull and drab, inarticulate and deficient in lively turns of phrase, I’m unlikely to go back to that writer a second time. Continue reading »

METAL FASTING: DAY 3

Off Topic 18 Responses »

Apr 032014

This third post is going to be a bit light on music, as was my day, for the first time in a very long time.

Like most NCS readers, I tend to fill my earholes with music on a semi-constant basis, in both appropriate and inappropriate social contexts. For the first time in a long time, I really didn’t listen to much music. In fact, I didn’t listen to anything besides a bit of random radio garble while driving various places, at least not until a little before 7 o’clock at night.

Part of this might have been that, unlike yesterday, I had no plan at all as to what I was going to theme my day with. My brain racked for a bit in search of an idea, but for most of the day nothing came to mind that seemed fitting. Part of it was also definitely a lack of opportunities to listen, since I had a calc test and part one of my two-part final essay in a Literature class. This, combined with a lack of sleep from studying the previous night, left me in a rather crabby mood, and not particularly receptive to music.

However, I eventually came around. I started by checking out a band recommended in the Day 2 post, The Goat Rodeo Sessions. Continue reading »

THE RETURN OF MOURNFUL CONGREGATION IS IMMINENT

Metal News 4 Responses »

Apr 032014

“The return of Mournful Congregation is imminent.” That’s the way an announcement began that I just saw from the 20 Buck Spin label. It perked me right up. Here’s the rest of the announcement, which concerns the first new material from this influential Australian funeral doom band released since 2011’s The Book of Kings.

The band will released a new mini-album titled Concrescence Of The Sophia on June 24th via 20 Buck Spin in North America. The European release will be handled by Osmose Productions.

The release consist of two tracks “Concrescence Of The Sophia” (21:42) and “Silence Of The Passed” (8:57) totaling just over 30 minutes of completely new music from the Gods of Extreme Doom. The vinyl release for North America will be the band’s first domestically available vinyl pressing and will come on black vinyl and two additional color variants. The CD version will be a digipak. A t-shirt design based on the album artwork is also planned.

If all goes well the album will be in the hands of the band on both formats in time for their headlining appearances at Martyrdoom in New York City at the end of June.

Also for those keeping track, our good friend Tim Call (Aldebaran, The Howling Wind, Nightfell, Parasitic Records, etc etc) handles drum duties on this recording.

AN NCS PREMIERE: HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY — “BURNING FROM BOTH ENDS”

Premieres 6 Responses »

Apr 032014

I won’t be surprised if you’re perplexed by the name of this two-man Austrian band — Harakiri For the Sky. It’s cryptic and subject to different interpretations. I also won’t be surprised if you can’t guess, from their name, the nature of the music they make — and in fact it’s hard to pin down with a convenient label. But the music is very much worth hearing, and we’re giving you the chance to discover it for yourself via our premiere of a song named “Burning From Both Ends” that will appear on their forthcoming second album, Aokigahara.

The lilting, chiming guitar introduction to the song provides no preparation for the galvanizing storm that soon breaks. The music of songwriter/instrumentalist M.S. thunders and roars, but dramatic melodies flood the music, as vocalist J.J. (and guest vocalist Torsten of Agrypnie) rage with impassioned, lung-bursting conviction. As heavy as the music is, it swells with emotion and sweeps with windswept power, and the song will get stuck in your head. It’s a melding of black metal and post-rock that’s damned appealing. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ROTTING HILLS, SCHAMMASCH, SABBATORY, BLACK MONOLITH

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK 6 Responses »

Apr 032014

Over the last 48 hours I found a lot of really good new metal. I’ve picked three of those new songs to feature in this post. The “Shades of Black” post title doesn’t mean all the music is black metal, and it isn’t.

ROTTING HILLS

Rotting Hills are a Vancouver sludge/doom band consisting of four drummers, two guitarists, and a bass player (and one of them is a vocalist, too). As far as I can tell, they’ve put out three singles so far, all of which are available on Bandcamp. The second of those, released in mid-2012, is named “Belgrave”. For that song, the band’s Brian Sepanzyk wrote and directed a striking video with a different title — “Seventh Prayer” — that premiered just a few days ago.

Everyone who worked on the video should be congratulated; it’s beautifully made, with a high level of professional skill. And Rotting Hills should be congratulated on the song as well. It’s slow, spare, and deeply sombre, a gradually unfolding piece that moves from the beautifully melancholy to a wrenching cataclysm. The video is one of those prized accomplishments in which the music and the visuals not only complement but also enhance each other. Continue reading »

FALLS OF RAUROS / PANOPTICON SPLIT: A REVIEW AND AN NCS PREMIERE

Album Reviews, Premieres 11 Responses »

Apr 032014

I first learned that Falls of Rauros and Panopticon would be joining forces for a split release back in December 2013, when Panopticon’s Austin Lunn accepted our invitation to write an article about his favorite releases from 2013. It’s a natural pairing. There is, for example, a deep mutual respect between the two bands. Austin Lunn wrote in that same article that Falls of Rauros are his “favorite current American band” and that their forthcoming 2014 full-length (Believe In No Coming Shore) “may be my favorite record ever”, and Falls of Rauros have called Panopticon’s forthcoming album “absolutely massive and stunning on all levels”.

Beyond the respect they have for each other, both bands have earned the respect of both critics and a dedicated following of fans: they are both quintessential American black metal bands, and not just because they happen to be based in Maine and (at least temporarily) Minnesota, respectively. They have successfully incorporated American folk traditions into their powerful and emotionally resonant music, so much so that you could call them American folk metal bands instead of black metal bands and I wouldn’t argue with you.

Yet you may be surprised by what you hear on the new split, as compared the sounds captured on each of the bands’ last albums and on the albums to come. Panopticon’s tracks are unquestionably an homage to Norwegian black metal traditions, while Falls of Rauros have, if anything, brought even more vibrant life and light into their songs. You’ll get a chance to hear both styles of music on display as we premiere one song by each band from this excellent split. Continue reading »

CROWDFUNDERS: NERO DI MARTE, TALANAS, DERELICT EARTH

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Apr 032014

Almost every day we read about new crowdfunding campaigns by metal bands. We don’t try to mention even a small fraction of the ones we see; there’s just not enough time or space. But there are three in this post we wanted to spotlight, in part because all three involve bands we’ve supported in the past — because they’re damned good. And to remind you of that, music is included.

NERO DI MARTE

This first appeal for funds was spawned by a tragedy involving two Italian bands. One of them, Nero di Marte, delivered a self-titled 2013 album that our reviewer Andy Synn called “a phenomenal debut” — “an unusual form of technically twisted death metal with a taste for sudden, erratic explosions of extremity, and a progressive streak a mile wide.” (The review is here.) The other, Void of Sleep, are a sludge-rock band whose 2013 album was Tale Between Reality and Madness.

On Sunday, March 23, after playing a show in Rome, both bands were robbed of all their instruments and gear. Here’s their statement of what happened:

In less than 30 minutes someone broke into our van and was able to take everything. It happened in broad daylight near a police station in Rome, despite there being a massive amount of police forces surveilling the area but, alas, no security cameras.

Guitars, amps, pedalboards, drums, merchandise and personal belongings… a total amount of 25.000€ was stolen from both bands. They took everything. A full list can be found here:

The sad reality of this situation is that without any instruments we cannot continue as a band. We can’t play, rehearse, tour, record a new album.

It took us years to buy our gear, and to start from absolutely nothing, without any help, means paralyzing anything we could do for a long time or seriously put ourselves into debt beyond what we can afford.

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