SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (TOO MANY BANDS TO NAME IN THIS TITLE)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 102024
 

(written by Islander)

What’s a good metaphor for having too many attractive things to choose from? A kid in a candy store? Maybe, except a lot of the sweet things I’m looking at this morning are also poisonous.

Wandering the aisles of an animal shelter trying to make a connection with a small feline you might adopt? Yeah, but some of these small beasts I’m seeing will suddenly swell up and try to claw out my jugular.

How about a child wide-eyed at a pile of presents under a tree on Christmas Eve, wondering what to open first? Sure, except some of these gifts will explode when touched, or might break your heart.

Here’s what I chose to share from the array of musical delights and dangers I surveyed today. As you can see, I grabbed with both hands, pockets stuffed and both hands overflowing. Presented alphabetically, because trying to figure out how to organize this in any other way was too damn taxing. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MNAJDRA — “IN THE NAME OF THE GODDESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Last year the mysterious U.S. band Mnajdra made a splash with its self-titled debut album. Granted, it was a splash in a far corner of the small tributary of metal that spikes away from the vast ocean of music on a broader scale, but it still sent ripples, especially through devotees of terrorizing yet surprising musical extremity.

We attempted to review the album here, from which this is an excerpt:

The music isn’t easy to sum up, because it draws from scattered wellsprings of black metal, death metal, sludge/doom, post-metal, and psychedelia — whatever works to create wide-ranging sensations of catastrophe…. [B]e prepared to have your head spun and your dreams disturbed.

It is a relief that the secretive people behind Mnajdra, who clearly had done other things before that album, decided not to make the record a one-and-done effort. Instead, they’ve recorded a second album, and we’re thrilled to premiere it today — on the day of its release by Fiadh Productions and Snow Wolf Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MEKIGAH — “TO HOLD ONTO A HEARTLESS HEART”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Metal-Archives currently brands the Australian band Mekigah “Gothic/Doom Metal” based on the band’s first four albums. Based on Mekigah‘s forthcoming fifth album they may have to put an “(early)” parenthetical next to that genre description. But what will they put in front of “(later)”? What kind of genre label does the fifth album suggest? That turns out to be a very tough question.

Mekigah itself describes the new album as “a purposely designed ugly, drawn out, raw, awkward journey,” with “no attempt or desire to either embrace the slow slow doom, to aggressively technically impress or to build upon previous motifs”:

“Everything is caught between worlds, as Mekigah itself is caught between worlds. Nothing is where it belongs as things are uncomfortably forced together through the sheer necessity of only gaining satisfaction via sonic self sabotage and harm, creating audial-mazes which then have to delicately be navigated through.”

What does this mean? We’ll find out together, through our premiere stream of this new album, To Hold Onto A Heartless Heart, now due for release on August 15th via the Aesthetic Death label. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CRAWLING THROUGH TARTARUS — “THE FALL OF ATLAS”

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Aug 082024
 

As their name portends, the southern California band Crawling Through Tartarus, whose music straddles a line between contemporary death metal and deathcore, have drawn inspiration from ancient Greek mythology, with a particular relish for the most brutal and hellish aspects of those old tales, as proclaimed in their name itself.

But while the band wish to lead us into the deepest region of the infernal underworld where the gods internally imprisoned their enemies and ruthlessly punished the wicked, they don’t… crawl. Their music does succeed in creating hellish experiences, but their forte is bludgeoning listeners within an inch of their lives.

One example of what we mean is a song off their self-titled debut album, released earlier this year, that’s the subject of the lyric video we’re premiering today. In a nutshell, it’s a bone-smashing groove monster, albeit one that becomes haunting before the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEVENIAL VERDICT — “GARDEN OF EYES”

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Aug 082024
 

The appearance of another painting by Mariusz Lewandowski on the cover of a metal album is always welcome, and the album on which the one above appears is also welcome, especially because the music is as hauntingly chilling and as frighteningly colorful as the image.

That album, Blessing of Despair, is the Finnish death metal band Devenial Verdict‘s second full-length, following up their daunting Ash Blind from 2022. What we have for you today is a premiere of the third song from the record released so far, evocatively named “Garden of Eyes“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MOON INCARNATE

 Album Reviews, Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 082024
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ excellent discussion with Christian Kolff and Matin Vasari, with the focus being on their band Moon Incarnate, whose debut album was released earlier this year by Iron Bonehead Productions.)

The death-doom coalition Moon Incarnate was created by experienced members of the German underground: Christian Kolff (guitar, bass, synths), the leader of the prog death-doom act Valborg and five other projects of different directions, as well as Matin Vasari (vocals, synths) from the death metal band Beyondition.

Hymns to the Moon is seven small fantasies on the theme of death-doom of the ’90s, the fruit of love for the legacy of The British Three, Tiamat, Katatonia, Samael, as well and others like them. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOXIDE — “MORALS AND DOGMA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 072024
 

Twelve years have passed since the birth of Anoxide somewhere in London. In that time they have released a pair of EPs, a demo, and a couple of singles, but nothing in the last six years. And so it comes as something of a surprise that two days from now they will release an album via Ghastly Music, their full-length debut at last.

They’ve titled it Morals & Dogma, and packed it with 9 songs (one of them an instrumental) that explore such subjects as the influence of misinformation in a media-saturated world, inescapable cycles of systemic corruption within society, the exacerbation of socio-economic disparity and the devastating effects of austerity policies on the working class and marginalized communities, the resurgence of far right ideologies, and visions of dystopian futures produced by suffering and inequality.

Weighty subjects to be sure, and there’s powerful heft in the music too, but also head-spinning adventures, as you’ll discover through our full album premiere today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CLOSET WITCH — “TO THE CAULDRON”

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Aug 062024
 

The dictionary defines “catharsis” as “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions”. It’s one of the first words that comes to mind in listening to the fusion of grindcore and powerviolence made by Iowa-based Closet Witch, and especially so in listening to the song that’s the subject of the Closet Witch video we’re premiering today.

This song, “To the Cauldron“, is explained by lead vocalist Mollie Piatetsky: “The song is about needing, wanting, yearning for comfort/advice/the presence of someone who is no longer on the earthly plain and the torment caused by this.”

The subject is familiar to many of us who have lost a parent, or both of them, or others who never had the kind of parent they wished for, or maybe never really knew them at all. Here are the song’s lyrics: Continue reading »

PRIVATE PRISONS – EXCOMMUNICATION

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 062024
 

(Andy Synn signs up for a life sentence with Private Prisons)

The joy of discovering new music is something I hope never leaves me.

Sure, everyone loves a good bit of nostalgia now and then, and I’m a big fan of long-running bands continuing to put out excellent work, but there’s something about stumbling across a new band or album that just instantly “clicks” with you that just feels right.

Heck, it’s one of the big reasons I enjoy writing for NoCleanSinging so much in the first place, as it gives me the chance to keep up with new releases and encounter fresh new faces in the scene and then share that experience and my enthusiasm with our readers.

So, without further ado, let’s get nasty with the new album from Californian crushers Private Prisons.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IFRIT — “SALTS OF PENITENCE”

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Aug 062024
 

Every religious tradition includes demons, as if their authors couldn’t conceive of human beings alone being capable of the evils they inflict upon each other. Better to ascribe those evils to inhuman spirits from which humanity might be saved by appeals to other (divine) spirits, rather than by finding and healing their own better spirits.

In Islamic scripture and culture, the most powerful and malicious demonic entities are called ifrit, sometimes described as ruthless chthonic spirits made of smoke and fire.

When you listen to the music of the New Zealand band Ifrit, it’s no wonder they chose that name. Their formulation of death metal is both malevolent and eldritch, an expression of eye-popping violence and soul-sinking misery that seems to strike from another world.

And hear it you shall (that’s an order!), because today we present one of the four songs on Ifrit‘s debut EP Haunting Charnel Grounds, which will be co-released on September 6th by Brilliant Emperor and Gutter Prince Cabal. The name of this terror is “Salts of Penitence“. Continue reading »

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