SUFFER: “GRAND CANVAS OF THE AESTHETE”

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Apr 022024
 


cover art by Ettore Aldo del Vigo

(We present Todd Manning‘s very enthusiastic review of the new album from Suffer, which was released by Wise Blood Records on March 29th.)

Most death metal bands define themselves by emphasizing one aspect of their sound. Maybe it’s speed or lack thereof, technicality versus primitivism, seeing how guttural they can be, and so on. On their latest, Grand Canvas of the Aesthete, which just came out on Wise Blood Records, South Dakota’s Suffer take a different approach; they define themselves by the balance they strike of all the elements of death metal that they incorporate. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, MARCH 2024

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Apr 012024
 

(March 2024 is in the history books, and in this column Gonzo reviews six albums that made it a good month to remember.)

So, I dunno if it’s just me, but 2024 has already been a banger of a year for heavy music after only three months. My best-of-’24 Spotify playlist has over 10 hours of music on it, and that’s just me throwing random shit in there on a fairly haphazard basis.

Later in April, I’m also taking a trip down the road to Red Rocks to see Amon Amarth headline a wild show that includes Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, and Frozen Soul. And by the time this piece goes live, I’ll have already seen Wayfarer perform “American Gothic” in its entirety at the Bluebird in Denver. Look for a review of that one coming up.

Good times await, my friends.

But first, let’s get to some new gems I’ve unearthed from metal’s grimy underbelly over the past 30 days. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PHANTASMAL ABYSS — “THE SPAWN OF LYCAON”

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Apr 012024
 

It’s a silly day today, or rather, sillier than usual. But the silliness is superficial, a temporary skin-deep covering for deplorable conditions and events world-wide that will be every bit as wounding tomorrow as they were yesterday.

That’s a reality not lost on the Oakland band Phantasmal Abyss, whose new single that you’re about to hear they describe as a song that “presents a bleak, raw and savage sonic landscape that is consumed with darkness and ferocity”.

The name of the song is “The Spawn of Lycaon”, a title that invokes the mythological king of Arcadia who (per this source) “killed and cooked his son Nyctimus and served him to Zeus, to see whether the god was sufficiently all-knowing to recognize human flesh”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SREFA — “A DREAM, NEVER ENDING”

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Apr 012024
 

What we have for you today is the premiere of a song that carries us into an unnerving dreamscape, a venture into a hostile void that’s cold enough to chill the blood, venomous enough to create fear, and mentally afflicting in the way of an alien encounter — no fooling.

The song is “A Dream, Never Ending“, and it comes from the debut album Solstice by the Israeli black metal band Srefa, which will be co-released by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Australis Records (Chile) on April 26th. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 169): VERBERIS

 THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Apr 012024
 

Recommended for fans of: Svartidauði, Panzerfaust, Rites of Thy Degringolade

New Zealand’s Verberis have been one of those “if you know, you know” bands ever since the release of their debut album, Vexamen, back in 2016.

It was the addition of Ulcerate drummer Jamie Saint Merat during the writing and recording of their Vorant Gnosis EP in 2018, however, that really helped put the band on the map, and there’s no denying that his impressive abilities behind the kit certainly helped elevate them to a whole new level.

But to focus too much on JSM’s contributions would be to do a huge disservice to the rest of the band (who, while no longer totally anonymous, prefer to go by the initials NH, DA, and MP) as it’s their collective contributions – combining the face-melting fury of the Antipodean Disso-Death scene with the bone-chilling bleakness of Icelandic Black Metal – which gives Verberis their monstrous, multi-headed sound.

And with the group having just surprise-released their new album, The Apophatic Wilderness, last week now seemed like the perfect time to give these particular devils their due.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ROTTING CHRIST, CHARUN, SATANIC NORTH, DODENKROCHT, FRAGMENTUM, CANTIQUE LÉPREUX, BEDRÄNGNIS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Mar 312024
 

It is a good thing to be tolerant of people who are different from you, including people who believe things you think are ridiculous. But tolerance is sorely tested by people who are hypocrites and con-men, whose professions of faith are a cover for corruption, hatefulness, and abuse of others.

Having those people in mind today, and all the people who have fought back against them (with a kind thought also for the sweet people who humbly try to follow the precepts of such passages as Matthew 7:12 and 25:35-40), I picked the following five songs from forthcoming records and two complete releases to recommend to you on this Easter Sunday.

ROTTING CHRIST (Greece)

Rotting Christ, but of course I’m starting with them today. Their new album ΠΡΟ ΧΡΙΣΤΟU (Pro Xristou) — “Before Christ” — “serves as a fervent tribute to the last Pagan kings who resisted the onslaught of Christianity, guarding their ancient values and knowledge”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ADVERSARIAL, ARROGANZ, BLACK TOTEM, CULT LEADER, DEAD FLESH, HENRY KANE, LILJEVARS BRANN, OU, SIG:AR:TYR, TÝR, ULTIO, VULGARIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 302024
 

It’s the 30th day of March, and 30 is about the number of new songs and videos I checked out in anticipation of this roundup, all of them having surfaced during the past week. I settled on an even dozen to share with you, and you probably won’t like all of them, even if you’re tenacious enough to go through all 12.

Why? Because your range of heavy metallic interests is probably narrower than mine (most people’s are), and the big herd below ranges pretty far and wide. On the other hand, the breadth of the range means you’ll probably find something to like.

Because there’s so much to get through, I dispensed with uploading and re-sizing all the cover art and tried to limit myself (with varying degrees of success) to more pithy expressions than usual. I also alphabetized the selections by band name.

P.S. There will be more recommendations tomorrow, Easter Sunday notwithstanding. In fact, the Easter observance just makes me more eager to char the day black. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ANTAGONYZE — “HIDDEN WISDOM”

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Mar 292024
 

The Chilean death metal band Antagonyze first began coalescing in 2019, on the unknowing eve of a global pandemic. Despite the ensuing hardships of the plague, the band released a demo cassette in May 2020 (Echoes From Soul), but that year and the next year brought line-up changes even as the band continued to work on new songs.

Eventually they began to play new shows, and by the end of 2022 they decided to re-record the best songs of Echoes From Soul and added new songs to create a full-length work titled Interpretations of the Unknown Wilderness, which drew the attention of the great Mexican label Chaos Records.

That label will release the band’s debut album on April 19th, and as a sign of its marvels, today we present the album track “Hidden Wisdom“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: VATICINAL RITES — “CORPOREAL AFFLICTION”

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Mar 292024
 

The UK band Vaticinal Rites made an extremely impressive debut with their self-titled EP in 2021, a definite silver lining to the black cloud of our pandemic existence, which was itself the awful spawning ground for the band.

As they explained then, they played “a visceral form of death metal inspired by the classic Floridian bands of the early – mid ’90s, with a special homage also paid to the European underground sound” and with lyrical and visual themes that “explore spirituality, loss, the occult and escapism”.

Those four songs (as we wrote at the time) were technically impressive and often lightning-fast, but also ferocious, heavy-grooved, and capable of generating supernatural auras.

It is thus very good news indeed that these London-based extremists are now returning with a debut album, Cascading Memories Of Immortality, which will be released on May 10th by Everlasting Spew Records — and very good news for us when we got the chance to premiere a song from the new album today. Its name is “Corporeal Affliction“. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MONASTERY DEAD — “EGO SUM DOLOR”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 292024
 

Today we premiere a full stream of Ego Sum Dolor, the fourth album to emerge, after four years of work, from the Saint Petersburg death metal band Monastery Dead. It will be co-released on March 31st by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Australis Records (Chile).

If your Latin is rusty, the album’s title translate to “I am pain”, or perhaps “I am in pain”. Consistent with that title, the concept of the album is described as follows:

This is a story about a man doomed to experience all the suffering and torment destined for him in his life, here and now. He bears the burden of merciless retribution, which, like stigmata, he acquired by birthright, experiences pain and inflicts pain, is obsessed with destruction and destroys himself. His own wounds and those of his victims will never heal and will bleed forever.

Or to put it more succinctly: “The basis of the concept of the release is the idea that the real hell is our current existence on Earth.” Continue reading »

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