AN NCS PREMIERE: DEATHLESS VOID — “PURPLE TRIAD”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 222024
 

(written by Islander)

The Dutch extremists Deathless Void burst upon the scene in 2022 with a debut demo that Iron Bonehead Productions wisely picked up for release on vinyl and tape. Its experiences of dread and delirium spawned comparisons by the label “to later Katharsis or Antaeus or especially turn-of-the-millennium Thorns“.

Deathless Void opened that demo with an instrumental piece, and followed it with “The Shattered Realms of Man Become the Abyss” and the stupendous “Crossing the Threshold“.

Not the usual dispensable intro track, “Ignis Fatuus” created an authentically flesh-creeping sonic hallucination, building layer upon layer of dismal, diseased, and demented sensations, both haunting and nightmarish.

In the subsequent two songs Deathless Void maintained the intro track’s connections to hostile beyond-our-world dimensions but escalated into mind-warping paroxysms of violence. Even more elaborately layered than the intro but orders of magnitude more orgiastic, those songs scathed and screamed, hurtled and heaved, and twisted themselves into a multitude of unexpected directions — including episodes of blaring and boiling grandeur, thrilling exoticism, and bottomless descents into the ice-cold void of their name.

Now, Deathless Void are poised to release their first album, The Voluptuous Fire of Sin, again ushered into our world by Iron Bonehead. It includes those latter two tracks from the demo, plus seven other songs, and we have one of those to share with you today. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ATAVISTIA / HOLY BLADE / SOLNEGRE / TIDES OF ACCRETION

 SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Aug 222024
 

(Andy Synn recommends a quartet of short but sweet recent releases to check out)

We’ve featured a bunch of pretty big and/or up-and-coming bands this week – Spectral Wound, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Leprous – so maybe it’s time to shift focus back on some lesser-known names?

And since I also haven’t covered anywhere near enough EPs so far this year I was thinking… why not kill two metaphorical birds with one proverbial stone and write about a bunch of short-form releases that, perhaps, haven’t gotten enough attention?

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: COFFIN ROT — “HANDS OF DEATH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 212024
 

When we last devoted attention in our pages to the works of Coffin Rot from Portland, Oregon, the occasion was the impending release of their split with Molder in 2018. Much has happened to the band since then, including the release of their 2019 debut album, A Monument to the Dead, and the expansion of their lineup from founders Hayden Johnson (vocals) and Derek Johnson (drums) and guitarist/bassist Tre Guertner to also include bassist Brandon Martinez-Woodall and second guitarist Jonathan Quintana (from Decrepisy, Thanamagus, and Ascended Dead).

Now, this quintet has prepared a second album. Fittingly entitled Dreams of the Disturbed, it’s set for release by Maggot Stomp on September 20th. As you’ll discover, it’s not just the lineup that has changed since 2018, but the array of ingredients Coffin Rot have brought into their sound, and the array of skin-crawling moods they’ve thereby created on this new full-length.

As proof of this, today we premiere the new album’s second single, “Hands of Death“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INGURGITATING OBLIVION — “THE BARREN EARTH OOZES BLOOD, AND SHAKES AND MOANS, TO DRINK HER CHILDREN’S GORE” (PART 2)

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 212024
 

(written by Islander)

Four weeks ago we embarked here on an unusual collaboration with the German avant-garde death metal band Ingurgitating Oblivion and Willowtip Records, the label that will release their new album Ontology of Nought on September 27th. What we began doing four weeks ago was the rollout of a single long song from the album, a rollout divided into three segments. Today we present the second Part, with the third and final one still ahead next month.

The name of the song is also long, and unsettling in the vision it portrays: “The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore”. As we disclosed in Part 1 of this premiere, the rest of the song titles on the album are also unusual, and also evocative of dark moods — and all those other songs are also expansive in their duration. Here’s the track list: Continue reading »

LEPROUS – MELODIES OF ATONEMENT

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 212024
 

(Andy Synn continues his on/off love affair with Leprous, whose new album comes out 30 August)

Being “heavy” is not the same as being “good”. We all know that, right?

But I must admit, as someone who first fell in love with Leprous back when they were still serving as Ihsahn‘s backing band, and who still believes that Bilateral is one of the best and most unique albums of the new millennium, I was certainly excited by the announcement that Melodies of Atonement was going to showcase a “heavier” side of the group than what we’d seen/heard in recent years.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve continued to be a fan (to a greater or lesser extent) of the band’s output – Coal and Malina are also still firm favourites, and there’s some great tracks on The Congregation, Pitfalls (including the outstanding “The Sky Is Red”), and Aphelion (whose cinematic highs more than make up for the record’s occasional lows) – but the idea that they might be bringing back some of the edginess and punchiness of their earlier work(s) certainly had me intrigued.

Of course, as any sensible person might have predicted, MoA isn’t just Bilateral, Part 2 – there’s some moments here that probably deserve that comparison, but overall the two albums really share only the most basic musical markers, enough to tell that they’re related but probably not enough to make them genetically compatible – as the Leprous of today is quite literally not the same band they used to be.

Even so, however, I can tell you now that the group weren’t lying when they said that this would be a “heavier” album… even if the story is a little more complicated than that.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INVOCATION — “OPIUM THEBIACUM (SOMNIFERUM)”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 202024
 

So far, we’ve managed to comment (and comment favorably) about every release from the Chilean occult extremists Invocation, from their debut demo in 2016 through their 2020 EP Attunement to Death, and now we get to maintain our fidelity by premiering a song from Invocation‘s eagerly awaited debut album The Archaic Sanctuary (Ritual Body Postures).

The album is set for release on September 20th by Iron Bonehead Productions, who also released that Attunement to Death EP, as well as its predecessor, The Mastery of the Unseen EP from 2018.

The song we have for you, the second one disclosed from the album so far, is “Opium Thebiacum (Somniferum)“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASHEN TOMB — “CATHARSIS THROUGH TORTURE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 202024
 

(written by Islander)

The band name chosen by the Finnish death metallists Ashen Tomb suggests visions of lifeless emptiness, a cold catacombs whose ruins enclose desiccated flesh and collapsing bones, blanketed in the ash of some long-forgotten blaze. Their music, on the other hand, ignites visions of the horrid catastrophes that left the dead in such a blasted place.

Take, for example, the song we’re premiering today (with an excellent video) from Ashen Tomb‘s debut album Ecstatic Death Reign, which is set for release in October by Everlasting Spew Records: Its name is “Catharsis Through Torture“. Like the album’s name, it portends a revel in violence rather than lifeless ruins, and the music does indeed prove to be an expression of monstrous murderous ecstasy. Continue reading »

FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE: “OPERA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 202024
 

(DGR wrote the following review of the new album by Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse, which will be released this Friday, August 23rd, by Nuclear Blast Records.)

Given that Fleshgod Apocalypse have up to this point had a seventeen-year career and now six albums to their name, it’s surprising that the group have never had a straightforward self-titled release.

Often used as either the initial opening statement of a group’s career – the proverbial flag in the ground of “this is who we are as a band” – or, having become more frequent, a later-in-the-career platform for either reinvention or just outright reminder that they in fact still exist and are going strong, the self-titled does have a surprising amount of cultural cachet to it.

If you were to view the self-titled as the platform for reinvention, often the resurrection of a group or the crystalizing of a particular lineup, now would be such a time for it in Fleshgod Apocalypse‘s career, with only two of the members from the early days of their career still standing and three others now full-time members of the lineup, with a few of them having held steady in a live-lineup status since the release prior to 2019’s Veleno, and one having been such an integral part of the band’s sound and stage show that it was surprising they hadn’t been upgraded sooner. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HATCHEND — “SUMMER OF ’69”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 192024
 

(written by Islander)

The name of Hatchend‘s debut album is Summer of ’69. As you can see, the cover art is a collage of Charlie Manson’s face covered with what appears to be Marilyn Monroe’s hair, or maybe it’s Sharon Tate’s. It was in the summer of ’69 when Manson’s cult murdered at least nine people, including Tate.

Hatchend‘s drummer Rikard Wermén asks, “Where were you in the Summer of ‘69? You got any proof of that?” I know where I was. I was alive then in Texas, and sentient enough to remember learning about the Manson cult’s murders as they came to light, along with a lot of other things happening that summer, including the Apollo 11 moon landing, Woodstock, and the release of Bowie’s Space Oddity. Vanity prevents me from showing the proof, because it would reveal how old I was then and thus how absurdly old I am now.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, the members of Hatchend weren’t alive in the summer of ’69, though they’re definitely not young kids. Also interesting, I haven’t found anything which explains why they chose that title for their album. Now that I’ve written this, maybe it will be revealed.

But regardless of the title’s inspiration, the music on Summer of ’69 kicks a big boatload of ass, as wild in its own way as the wildness of the turbulent times some of us lived through in that summer of 55 years ago. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VOID MOON

 Interviews  1 Response »
Aug 192024
 

(In June of this year Personal Records released a new album by the Swedish doom metal band Void Moon. Our Comrade Aleks became a fan of it, and that led to the following discussion between him and Void Moon‘s Peter Svensson. As you’ll see, it’s a very good conversation and goes off in lots of interestng directions.)

Peter Svensson (bass, guitar) is involved in about 15 projects and bands, playing both heavy and death metal. Not all of these formations are active, but it is worth keeping in mind the number. In a good half of these bands, he is accompanied by Marcus Rosenqvist (vocals, drums).

It is almost funny, but Marcus has been drumming in Void Moon since 2014, yet his talent as a vocalist was fully discovered only by the third album, The Autumn Throne (2020), so Dreams Inside the Sun is his second full-length as a frontman.

This time, the duo have prepared nine tracks, and I got the impression that this material is lighter and more melodic than what we heard on the previous work. And this is not just a guess: Peter officially stated that he does not want to repeat himself, and promised that the new album will be different, more powerful, and more positive.

Formally operating with the standard techniques of traditional doom metal, relying on dense riffs and a low tuning, Void Moon, without breaking the laws of the genre, take from it what positives they can, and equip Dreams Inside the Sun with a truly positive charge. They are not pioneers, because such bands existed before, but there are not many of them. I invite you to check out this interview with Peter. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries