ONLY DEATH IS REAL: BLACK CURSE / LIFESICK / LIVING GATE

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Nov 052024
 

(Andy Synn dives back into the Death Metal scene)

I’ve been accused, not entirely unreasonably, of being a little jaded and cynical when it comes to Death Metal these days.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Death Metal, in all its different forms – ok, maybe not all its different forms – but… you’ve got to admit… it can get a little tiresome being told that [X] band is “the next big thing” or “the saviour of the genre” when all its doing is rehashing the same old HM-2/Swe-Death/OSDM revivalist tropes as the last band to get the exact same sort of hype just a few months previously.

Thankfully there are lots of bands out there who – while not necessarily breaking the mould or reinventing the wheel – are still more than capable of reminding us all, me included, just why we like what we like, hype be damned, and I wanted to highlight three bands, with three distinctly different flavours, for you today.

PS – while I couldn’t find time/space for them you should also check out the extremely promising debut albums from Weeping and Recidivist (though, at just over fourteen minutes, calling the former an album seems like a little bit of a stretch) as well as the riff-tastic new one from Ripped to Shreds (which contains one of my favourite Death Metal songs of the year in the form of the irresistibly hooky “冥婚 (Corpse Betrothal)”)

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: GRAVESLAVE — “STRETCHED UNTIL WE BLEED”

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Nov 042024
 

(written by Islander)

Spreading the word about new music from Minnesota’s GraveSlave has become an NCS tradition. What else would you call it when we’ve hosted seven premieres in support of their releases since 2016 — today marking the seventh occasion?

To be brutally honest (which is the only kind of honest we know how to be around here), tradition is often a hollow thing, perpetuating events or activities that have often long lost their meaning or value. But not in this case. We continue welcoming GraveSlave because their music has so consistently been… welcome!

And so it is again today, when the occasion is the debut of a new video for a song from their most recent release, the Relinquish, Life EP that detonated earlier this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RVKKVS — “SHACHIKU”

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Nov 042024
 

(written by Islander)

I wonder what made me curious about the etymology of the word “ruckus“? Maybe it will come back to me.

In searching for an answer I found no clear answer. Its meaning is clear enough — a commotion, a disorderly disturbance, a row. Per one source, it has been compared to ruction and rumpus and rampage, but the early forms vary and include rookus (1882), rucus (1877), rukus (1879), also rukas, roockus, rucuss. And there’s this:

Apparently a regional word in the U.S. West and South; when Sen. William J. Stone of Missouri used it in 1914, the editors of the New York “Sun” were baffled, but the Bismarck, N.D., “Daily Tribune” (March 3) replied that ruckus was “a word in perfectly good standing almost anywhere west of the Ohio.”

Anywhere west of Ohio… apparently including… New Zealand! And now it comes back to me! Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

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Nov 042024
 

(Andy Synn presents four of October’s most outstanding releases you may not have checked out)

Time’s arrow marches ever forwards my friends, and soon enough – sooner than you think – it will be “List Season” all over again, where we look back and take stock of the year gone by before we turn our attentions to 2025.

As a result I’m having to be incredibly selective about where and how I spend my precious time in regards to reviews, which means that I’ve had to make some fairly lamentable omissions this past month, including the new album from Cosmic Putrefaction (though hopefully I’ll get to that one in more detail in one of my end of year retrospectives), plus both the new Doedsmaghird and Iotunn releases (though you can find excellent write-ups of both over at AngryMetalGuy), and many more besides.

But let’s not focus on what we may have missed and instead focus on what we shouldn’t, shall we?

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: 夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER), CAGED BASTARD, VYR MUK

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Nov 032024
 

(written by Islander)

I included a fair share of black metal in Part I of yesterday’s large cross-genre roundup despite having this column looming in the near distance. I did that on purpose because the bulk of the verbiage below (and it is bulky) is devoted to an album that doesn’t really fit the usual bill on Sundays, or any other bill, though I have my reasons for including it here.

Yet fear not, ye black metal zealots, because I’m following the opening act with some music that will be more in line with this column’s typical focus, though some of it gets out of line too. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART II): UNREQVITED, MONOLITHE, THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID, KÆLAN MIKLA, MOROKH, ULVER

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 022024
 


Unreqvited

(written by Islander)

In Part I of this Saturday’s roundup of new songs and videos I likened the flow of them, as I’ve arranged them, to a river that twists and turns through passages of greater and lesser turbulence and gloom. Now you’ll have a better idea why I wrote that.

In this Part, as compared to Part I, our musical river begins to make a bend into increasingly less turbulent and more haunted environs, though it will prove to be a long curve and not a sudden one — and the river also leaves the earth at first. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART I): LÖMSK, DJEVEL, DEUS MORTEM, GHOULHOUSE, SVARTKONST

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 022024
 


Lömsk

(written by Islander)
Halloween (or Samhein if you prefer) is in the calendar’s rear-view mirror but not out of my head yet. That’s the best way I can explain why I picked some of the selections for this roundup, and not just the ones that sound hellish but perhaps especially the ones that are carried by (gasp!) clean singing. Many of the songs were actually released on Halloween.

There’s again a lot to see and hear today, so much so that I again divided the collection into two Parts, with Part II coming in an hour or two from now. But rather than default to alphabetizing the picks, I organized things based on what I was hearing, to create a little flow, a river of greater and lesser turbulence and gloom.

P.S. Happy Día de los Muertos.

P.P.S. If you live in the U.S., don’t forget to roll your clocks back an hour before you go to sleep tonight. Also, fucking plan to vote if you haven’t already voted early! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVERTED CROSS — “INTO THE CRYPT OF THE NECROMANCER”

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Nov 012024
 

After two demos and two splits the Barcelona based hellraisers Inverted Cross are at last bringing us a short but sweet debut album fittingly named Eternal Flames of Hell, with a release date of November 29th set by Helldprod Records.

The fire-shrouded, goat-headed demon wielding a sword of lightning on the cover imperiously directs you to bow down and beg for mercy, but no mercy is to be found within the album, only riots of venomous black thrashing speed metal that will get rattled heads hammering and heated blood rushing.

You’ll see what we mean as we invite you to enter “Into The Crypt Of The Necromancer“, the latest single from the album that we’re premiering today, and a song that turns out to be hellish in more ways than one. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MISANTHROPY — “OF SULKING AND THE WRATHFUL”

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Nov 012024
 

Consider the Lovecraftian monstrosity that dominates the cover of Misanthropy’s new album, and the whirling red-tinged void into which the monster is about to plunge its captive, and then consider what it might be telling you about the music.

That artwork (credit to Pedro “Lordigan” Sena) turns out to be a very fitting preview of the new album, the name of which is The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance. As demonstrated by the first two singles released from the album so far, and the third one we’re presenting today, Misanthropy‘s newest creations are indeed monstrous, out-of-this-world, and whipping whirlpools of exhilarating metallic madness. Continue reading »

THE BODY: “THE CRYING OUT OF THINGS”

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Nov 012024
 

(We present Christopher Luedtke‘s review of a new album by PDX-based The Body, which will be released by Thrill Jockey Records on November 8th.)

There are not many bands out there you can truly call unique. Cheesy as it may sound, it is the reality of things. Genres are built and maintained by many different bands sharing a similar sonic sound and expounding on it on a smaller scale. Usually there is a slow branching out of things, though some buck tradition. But there are certain bands out there that exist in broader terms. The Body has been one of those bands for the better part of their existence now.

Originally beginning as a more straightforward heavy, doom sound, by the early stage of the aughts and 2010s The Body was less than interested in maintaining orthodoxy. As such they have occupied a unique space that few other bands share. And their latest solo release, The Crying Out of Things, continues to solidify this space they have made. Continue reading »

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