AN NCS PREMIERE: MEPHORASH — “ATRAMENTOUS UNGOD ASPECT”

 Premieres  10 Responses »
May 292013
 

Mephorash are a black metal band from Uppsala, Sweden, with two albums to their credit, both released by Grom Records — Death Awakens (2011) and Chalice of Thagirion (2012). They’re about to add to those accomplishments through a split release with Philadelphia’s excellent Ashencult, entitled Opus Serpens, and today we’re premiering the Mephorash track for the split, “Atramentous Ungod Aspect”. The song features guest vocals by Acherontas V. Priest of the occult multinational band Acherontas. In addition to the music, we bring these words from Mephorash:

“Our hymn is the most deep and profund work Mephorash has done so far.
The song channels a lot of powers and elements never seen in the chalice of Mephorash before.

To help manifest our unrelenting forces we got support from Acherontas V. Priest from the great and powerful black metal band Acherontas.
He has added a lot of movement needed for manifesting the forces this song is providing.
The lyrical work of this song is a personal journey and aspect provided by our brother Endless, who is an important piece and mind in Mephorash.
His work in Mephorash has been the final piece making this song what it is. Achieving what we have been aiming for during the whole journey.
Thanks to all involved and special thanks to Ashencult for this mindblowing collaboration.

Hails from Mephorash.”

Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 36 — THE FUNERAL PYRE

 THE SYNN REPORT  2 Responses »
May 292013
 

(Andy Synn brings us another edition of THE SYNN REPORT, focusing on the discography of California’s The Funeral Pyre.)

Recommended for fans of: Gorgoroth, Abigail Williams, 1349

The phrase “American Black Metal” is like a red rag to a bull to some people (random fact: bulls are colour-blind, so it’s actually the motion that they’re responding to). Due to an unfortunate combination of cultural xenophobia and musical possessiveness they immediately dismiss the concept with a knee-jerk reaction of ugly contempt, or even outright anger.

And that’s a shame because there is a wealth of black metal talent in the American underground these days. And it’s not all of one uniform sort either. I suppose I could even wax lyrical how the USA has developed its own particularly American brand of the blackened arts (appropriately too, since Black Metal has always been a musical form which builds on cultural nuances and interpretations) but that’s a column in and of itself!

Hailing from La Habra, California, The Funeral Pyre were initially among the more European-sounding of the American Black Metal underground, with a frostbitten melodic attack that at its roots recalled vintage Dissection. Over the years, however, their sound has developed into something far more distinctive, a blazing conflagration of dry bones and dead-eyed malice, burning in agony beneath the pitiless desert sun. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: A NEW NINE INCH NAILS ALBUM IS ON THE WAY AND DAN SWANÖ IS BRINGING US WITHERSCAPE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
May 292013
 

This post involves breaking news about two iconic figures in the world of heavy music — Trent Reznor and Dan Swanö. The news is that both will have new music coming, and we already have a taste of what Dan Swanö’s new project has been creating, with a song that premiered yesterday.

NINE INCH NAILS

This appeared late yesterday on the Nine Inch Nails Tumblr:

“I’ve been less than honest about what I’ve really been up to lately. For the last year I’ve been secretly working non-stop with Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder on a new, full-length Nine Inch Nails record, which I am happy to say is finished and frankly fucking great. This is the real impetus and motivation behind the decision to assemble a new band and tour again. My forays into film, HTDA and other projects really stimulated me creatively and I decided to focus that energy on taking Nine Inch Nails to a new place. Here we go!”

As we reported back in February, Reznor reformed NIN early this year, bringing King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, Telefon Tel Aviv’s Josh Eustis, and former NIN touring members Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini, and Ilan Rubin into the fold for touring purposes. Now it appears they will be making a new album. Hallelujah.  Continue reading »

ROUND-UP: EXTOL, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, AND SUPER PUZZLE PLATFORMER DELUXE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
May 282013
 

DGR and I are collaborating on this little round-up of recent discoveries. The first item comes from moi, and the last two from him.

EXTOL (by Islander)

As previously reported (here), Norway’s Extol will soon be releasing their first new album in more than eight years — on June 21 in Norway, Germany, and Austria, and on June 24 everywhere else in Europe via Indie Recordings, and on June 25 in North America via Facedown Records. Pre-orders in a variety of formats and bundles can be placed here, and we’ve already featured the album’s first single, “Open the Gates” in that post linked above.

Today’s news is that Extol have released a new album teaser that collects excerpts from all the album’s songs. Man, it’s really a rich smorgasbord of diverse sounds — all of which sound very tantalizing. We have had high expectations for this album, and based on these excerpts, I think it’s likely they will be met in spades. Here’s the teaser reel: Continue reading »

FREE SHIT: A KLONOSPHERE SAMPLER — AND A NEW LOUDBLAST SONG

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
May 282013
 

Thanks to a tip from KevinP, I learned this morning that the French label Klonosphere has recently released a free sampler of music from 18 different bands. I’m an enthusiastic fan of many of the bands on this compilation, including Hacride, Klone, Lokurah, Magoa, and Otargos, all of whom we’ve written about at NCS. I’m not familiar with other bands, but the chance to discover new music is one of the reasons why samplers like this one are worth having. And just based on the music I do know, this is a really diverse collection of sounds.

Many of the songs previously appeared on recent albums or EPs, and some are being released for the first time on this sampler — including exclusive demo versions of tracks that will appear on albums projected for release later this year. One of those advance demo tracks comes from a long-running French band named Loudblast who we last visited at NCS all the way back in April 2011 (here). I liked what I heard of them then, and so I was especially interested in the chance to check what they’re up to now.

They’ve released six studio albums to date, and based on the description of this new demo track, it appears their seventh is on the way. The new song is entitled “The Abstract God”, and it’s a beefy, malicious death metal monster that stomps, rips, roars, and wails like a tormented spirit. It’s prime headbang material, so loosen up your neck muscles and stream it right after the jump. Continue reading »

TRAIL OF TEARS: “OSCILLATION”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  5 Responses »
May 282013
 

(In this post, DGR reviews the latest — and last — album by Norway’s Trail of Tears, which is due for release in North America on June 11 by Massacre Records.)

Listening to Oscillation, Norwegian group Trail of Tears’ seventh and ostensibly final album, is something of a bittersweet experience. The group’s acrimonious breakup played out in a pretty public fashion (reported here, for example), and once you read stories about how the working environment within the band had been difficult for a year prior, you can’t help but let it color your perceptions of the disc — especially if you’re the type to pontificate on each choice as it exists on an album, its overall effect on the sound, how you think things went down. Instead of seeing this as a remarkably risky album for a group who have been relatively conservative with their formula, you instead find yourself thinking,”Wow, they must have been fighting this whole time,” and it really does put a damper on what should be thought of as – and empirically is – a pretty good batch of Trail of Tears songs.

So that’s why this is something of a difficult review, because there are things on Oscillation that you could reason away or just simply describe that are now somewhat tainted by the group’s somewhat dramatic breakup. As a result, this review will be considering the disc in a vacuum, written by someone who liked Existenia and Bloodstained Endurance. Those two discs albums are probably the closest comparison to Oscillation, because this new one feels like the continuation of the two previous releases, with enough experimentation and shifts in sound that it still stands on its own. But it could just as easily be polarizing, simply based on which of the two warring vocalists is in the front of the band for most of the songs. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MURDOCK, SAPROGENIC, AND GODLESS ANGEL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
May 282013
 

Did I hear any good new music yesterday? Well, I’m glad you asked. The answer is Fuck Yeah, I did. That doesn’t make yesterday all that different from any other day. Maybe I’m too easily pleased, or maybe I just spend more time looking than the average person, who may differ from me in that they have a life. Or a life outside of a potentially unhealthy obsession with metal, which is what I have.

Where the fuck was I?

Oh yeah, the very good new metal I heard yesterday. It came from Murdock (Ireland), Saprogenic (Detroit), and Godless Angel (somewhere in Kansas).

MURDOCK

These three fine gentlemen from Ireland are a FUCKING NOISE MACHINE. Originally their words, not mine, but actually they’re now my words, too, because yesterday I saw and heard their new video for a song called “Brain Face”. I have a hard time separating the song from the video, even though the song itself is a free download at Bandcamp and therefore can be heard without the video. But I like the video so much that in my mind it’s inseparable from the song. Continue reading »

FALKENBACH AND FROSTSEELE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
May 272013
 

Here are two more recent songs I heard over the weekend. They seemed like a fitting pair, and (as you’ll discover) not only because the band” names both begin with F.

FALKENBACH

Falkenbach is the German one-man project of Vratyas Vakyas. Since 1996 he has released five albums on an irregular and unpredictable schedule, the last being 2011’s Tiurida. Apparently, a new one named Asa is now in the works, and about 10 days ago Falkenbach released a lyric video for the first single from the album, a song named “Eweroun”. It has hypnotized me in short order.

From the beginning introductory passage, which features acoustic strumming and a somber folk melody voiced in a clean baritone, straight through the balance of the song, with heavier instrumentation joining the acoustic guitar and the vocals rising in range, it’s extremely memorable. It makes a virtue of simplicity, though it’s far from simplistic. If that makes any sense. Which it probably doesn’t. Continue reading »

BEFORE THE PROPHECY: “[COLLAPSE]”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 272013
 

(We welcome guest writer Kim Rosario, who reviews the debut EP by Before the Prophecy from Warren, Michigan.)

The local scene for any genre can be home to a plethora of the next big (insert popular band name here) vying for a chance at stardom.  On any given weekend you can go to a venue in your neighborhood to catch this month’s group of musicians playing cookie-cutter riffs of all your favorite bands and adding their own personal touch to the mix.  Next month, however, a whole new group, a whole new sound.  Every now and then a young group of musicians will tap into a raw, true form of expression and reality.  These individuals understand what it means to truly write, live, and breathe music.  Warren, Michigan is home to such a group, and they are known as Before the Prophecy.

The band’s debut E.P. [collapse] houses many flavors that are prevalent in the progressive metal scene, yet they don’t focus too much on a single area or use typical breakdowns combined with ambient leads as a crutch.  Before the Prophecy early on create a dedicated sense of destruction with fast-paced drumming combined with a bevy of polished riffs and textures.  Quite frequently the leads will be played with a distinguishable effect over them to differentiate from the reverb-laden solos of their peers.  Drummer Will Constantine is also a standout performer on this E.P. While this genre may be stereotyped into blast beats and breakdowns, he flourishes, offering many different flavors to blend with the brutality and emotion and keep each song original and fresh. Continue reading »

IMMOLATION: “KINGDOM OF CONSPIRACY”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 272013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album from Immolation, which is out now on Nuclear Blast and can be ordered here.)

Kingdom Of Conspiracy is fucking excellent and you should buy it and shit.

See ya.

Nah, although I do kinda wish I could leave the review at that, just to have the shortest review in NCS history. I love Immolation, and as I stated in my review of Suffocation’s latest album, they’re another band who have those three key things going for them: Consistency, legacy, and relevancy. No one sounds like Immolation to this day, and yet Immolation continue to be ahead of their time no matter what era they are in.

Kingdom Of Conspiracy is a welcome jolt to the spine as well, because this is definitively the band’s most aggressive and fastest album since Dawn Of Possession, as well as one that includes the signature doom, sludge, and slam moments Immolation know how to throw into the mix. The band have never sounded more intense, Ross Dolan’s trademark roar has never sounded more grotesque and filth-covered, the drums are at an all-time high of double-bass and blast-beat saturation, and the riffs this time around opt more for bleeding you out via your jugular as opposed to the Immolation S.O.P of dragging you into an abyss by your feet. Continue reading »

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