Apr 242024
 

The Cuban death metal band Combat Noise first emerged in 1995 in La Habana, inspired by both Floridian death metal and a desire to render tales of war through their music. Beginning in 1996 they steadily released a sequence of demos, an EP, and eventually three full-length albums, with the last of those appearing in 2013.

There then followed a decade-long hiatus in recordings, a gap that will now end with To the Heart of Battle, a new album set for co-release by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Sanatorio Records (Costa Rica) on May 21st. Today we premiere one of its 12 anthems of war, a song entitled “Stalingrad in Blood“. Continue reading »

Apr 242024
 

(Our friend Ben Manzella made sure not to miss one of the California dates of the ongoing Cancer Culture Over North America Tour, featuring Decapitated, Septicflesh, Kataklysm, and Allegaeon, and he brought us the following report on the show and lots of his photos.)

After going to shows consistently for close to twenty years, I find some venues hold a nostalgic place in my memory. The Observatory in Santa Ana, formerly known as the Galaxy Theater, is one such place. I rarely attend shows there due to the distance from where I live in southern California; but when I heard Decapitated’s tour would be starting there and I knew I’d be out of town for their other date in the area, I knew I had to figure out a way to be there.

As other US/North American fans of Decapitated will be well aware, the band has not been back to this region of the world since an incident that happened 7 years ago. It was pretty well documented and I don’t think it needs to be further mentioned out of respect for the band in moving forward. If anything, it felt sort of celebratory that their tour started at The Observatory because it was also the last venue they played 7 years ago.

So, with a new album released in 2022 and a strong/eclectic lineup featuring Septicflesh, Kataklysm, and Allegaeon, the Cancer Culture Over North America tour started on a high note. Continue reading »

Apr 232024
 

Wingless is a great name for a band who’ve chained themselves with the heavy links of doom and death. It seems to encapsulate the core reality that human beings struggle to soar, land-bound and crawling toward a bitter end beneath the distant gaze of winged creatures that have always seemed more free.

And yet the new album from this Krakow-based band, their fifth full-length since forming in 2012, is named Ascension. The title raises questions: ascending toward what? and when? and how?

The music suggests answers, though they are likely to vary with each listener’s interpretation of the experience. What’s not likely to vary is the inevitability of becoming submerged in the music, and to rise with it. You’ll have that chance today, as we premiere a full stream of Ascension in advance of its release on April 26th by Selfmadegod Records. Continue reading »

Apr 232024
 

(Here we have DGR‘s review of the debut album by the Greek symphonic death metal band Thy Shining Curse, released by ViciSolum Records in mid-February.)

Thy Shining Curse is a project that snuck up on us – the result of many a Bandcamp tumble and record label page scour, mostly to see what projects are doing what these days. Even though their debut album Theurgia has been out for a few months by this point – have to keep the perpetually tardy streak alive – the aura of intentional mystery surrounding the album was enough to grab interest. Mostly curiosity for both what it is as well as who was involved in assembling the machine in the first place.

The group are intentionally keeping things a bit vague, as Thy Shining Curse is a solo project belonging to musician Leonidas Diamantopoulos, while the album credits – courtesy of the label – add vocalist Cezar Moreira and guitarist Gabe Pietrzak as co-conspirators in making the creature that is Theurgia breathe. But to walk that back a little, as just about everyone these days is enjoying their time with the masks-and-robes aesthetic, just what the hell are Thy Shining Curse and Theurgia and why does it seem they are walking among us now? Continue reading »

Apr 232024
 

(Andy Synn enters the devil’s den that is the new album from Terminal Nation, out next week)

As someone whose first serious foray into “alternative” music involved getting seriously into Hardcore, I’ve been loving a lot of the new wave of Death Metal/Hardcore crossover acts.

Sure, there’s a few bands out there who’ve definitely taken the trend as an opportunity to play down to the worst aspects of the two genres (and the less said about them the better, in my opinion, as they’ve already gotten enough hype for their lazy, lowest-common-denominator bullshit) but the likes of Tribal Gaze, Xibalba  Slowbleed, and Fuming Mouth have all made a big impression on me over the last few years.

And then, of course, there’s Terminal Nation, whose previous album (and subsequent split EP with Kruelty) I was a big fan of, and who are now set to make even more waves with Echoes of the Devil’s Den.

Continue reading »

Apr 222024
 

In this article we’re presenting two premieres — a full stream of Shattered Lament Unmoored, the debut album by the Costa Rican band Deplorable, which will be released today by the Dutch label Breathe Plastic, and a video for one of the album’s six songs. Perhaps the best one-word description for both of them is… HARROWING. But of course we’ll try to flesh that out with more words.

It might be best to begin with the video and the song it presents, “Apparition In The Ether“, even though that song appears second in the album’s track list, because it provides such a soul-shattering introduction to the black chasm of dread and despair that the album opens up beneath us as listeners. Continue reading »

Apr 222024
 


photo by Hedda Winroth

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ very entertaining interview with members of the Swedish band Malsten, whose latest album-length tale of horror was released last month by Svart Records.)

Formed back in 2018, Malsten chose to follow the path of doom, and I’d tell you that they moved pretty fast, having released their first album The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill already in 2020. Four songs, totaling 42 minutes, told a story of bloodshed, evil, horror, and madness in a pretty traditional doom metal manner. The thing about this album was that it’s a concept album with a kind of open ending.

Malsten continued the tale of the Grinder at Silvåkra Mill with two singles, Entr’acte (2022) and Path of the Nix (2024), and as all good things move towards their end, so this story does. Their second album, The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill – Rites of Passage, saw the light of day on March 15this year  with the help of Svart Records, and here we are talking with the band about this and that.

Be ready to learn more about grim ways of [folk] horror doom from this quite in-depth and entertaining interview. Continue reading »

Apr 222024
 

(Andy Synn has nothing but praise for progressive Post-Metal messiahs Dvne on their new album)

Much like the legend of the Lisan ‘al gaib, Dvne‘s success seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.

After all, both their debut full-length (which remains, to this day, one of my all-time favourite albums) and its bigger, bolder – and, dare I say, almost Villeneuv-ian – sequel demonstrated that the band were one of the brightest stars in the UK Metal scene, and now it’s time for their third album to seal the proverbial deal.

Interestingly enough – and I say this as someone who has read almost every single Dune book written (not just the Frank Herbert originals, but also the sequels, prequels, and spin-offs written by his son and others) – Dvne‘s career maps surprisingly well onto that of Herbert himself.

If you consider Asheran to be the band’s equivalent of their original namesake – a wild burst of creativity and ambition which seems to positively leap off the page/out of the speakers – then Etemen Ænka was clearly their version of Dune Messiah, a drastic expansion of the scope and scale of the original story, which was capable of soaring so high only because its predecessor had laid down such phenomenal ground-work.

Which would make Voidkind their very own Children of Dune, right?

Continue reading »

Apr 212024
 

I got a late start on the day and my NCS time is rapidly running out, so I’ll skip the usual long-winded introduction and just quickly summarize what I’ve picked to recommend below:

This collection includes startling new songs from forthcoming records by four bands whose past releases I’ve enjoyed, and one recently released album from an equally startlng newcomer to these ears.

VETER DAEMONAZ (Russia)

To begin, I have a song from a new EP by the Saint Petersburg black metal band Veter Daemonaz, whose previous music I’ve commented about repeatedly in the posts collected here. The song is “На Север (первое видение)” (which means in English, according to Google Translate, “To the North (first vision)”). Continue reading »

Apr 202024
 

This has been an unusual week for me. I broke out of my hermit-like existence (originally provoked by covid but comfortably extending to the present) and made a quick Wednesday-Friday trip to Texas for a celebration of an old friend. The travel part of it was an annoying hassle; the celebration part of it was great.

During that trip I didn’t accomplish much for NCS. Among the things I didn’t accomplish was paying attention to the emergence of new songs and videos I might want to celebrate today. I bookmarked a few things in even more random fashion than usual while away and quickly spotted a few more things this morning.

These roundups are never comprehensive; this one skims the surface even more lightly. Kind of like a flying fish briefly airborne, with bigger toothsome things hungrily rocketing up from below without warning, jaws gnashing for a bite. The following things jumped up and bit me. Continue reading »