FESTIVAL PREVIEW: TOLMINATOR 2024

 Metal News  No Responses »
Jun 172024
 

(Our Slovenian compatriot Didrik Mešiček has prepared the following preview of the second edition of the Tolminator festival in his home country, which is coming up fast and looks well worth attending.)

After a successful first edition, Tolminator is back for its second year! For those of you unaware, since Metaldays has had its various debacles, Tolminator has now taken over the stunning festival location by the Soča river. The festival is limited to 5000 visitors and will take place between the 24th and the 28th of July so this is a good time to get your tickets for one of the most idyllic festivals in Europe.

Last year’s edition had a lovely and chill atmosphere and definitely felt very well organised – from what I could tell everything went rather smoothly. While the visitors weren’t that numerous last year (due to the festival being new and only announced in the autumn of 2022), it’s expected this year the festival could be close to selling out, which means there’ll be an even better atmosphere under the stage and more fellow metalheads to have fun with.

Of course, the most important thing is the lineup up and Tolminator will have four main headliners: Behemoth, Exodus, Electric Wizard, and Testament. The festival leans quite heavily into extreme metal, generally favouring thrash, black, and death metal although there’s the occasional stoner/doom band, as you can see, as well as some -core bands if you’re into that sort of thing. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: OCCULTA VERITAS, TODESSTOSS, MOUTH OF CEDAR, HORNED ALMIGHTY, SÓLSTAFIR, HEXEN HOUSE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 162024
 

To follow up on yesterday’s personal report: The food cooked deep underground turned out extremely well. Our fire continued to roar. The beer and wine didn’t run out. The forecast thunderstorms and hail didn’t arrive, though ominous clouds constantly raced across blue skies, and in the late afternoon they paused long enough to provide a brief drenching.

That did put a literal damper on our outdoor picnic, followed by scenes of people warming their backsides next to the fire bowl, with hilarious sights of steam coming off the butt-side of wet jeans. Not long after, people started going their separate ways just before sunset.

So, what might have been another late night for me turned into a relatively early collapse into bed. Yet I listened to no music yesterday other than vibrant songs from Mexico and Guatemala pumping from a boom box, with lots of marimba, accordion, and tuba in the mix. Today is also Father’s Day.

With all that, today’s collection of metal like yesterday’s isn’t as extensive as I’d like, but still worth your time (I hope you’ll agree). I’ve launched it with a trio of mind-benders, Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, BURIAL OATH, WHITE STONES

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 152024
 

For this currently foggy-headed writer yesterday was a hell of a day and last night was a hell of a night. There was food grilled near hot coals, copious drinking, fire, and conversation far into the night among people who could barely understand each other. Deep underground with the oxygen cut off, a bigger bed of hot coals started cooking some things; today we will reconvene to discover the results.

Depending on those results we may eat grass and go our separate ways early, or it may be another late night. But yeah, it’ll probably be a late night regardless; there’s still plenty of beer, wine, and dry wood on hand.

And that’s an explanation for why this usual Saturday roundup is appearing so late and is so short, and a preview that Sunday’s black metal roundup may befall the same fate.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOLFDOM — “THE REAPER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 142024
 

The last time we premiered music from the multi-national band Wolfdom we emphasized “the band’s talent for interweaving black metal terror and anthemic heavy metal”: “Wolfdom manage to punch the guts, to swagger like a feral beast, to attack with unbridled viciousness, and to send their music into high-flown realms of devilish glory”.

At that time, the occasion was the impending release of Wolfdom‘s 2022 debut album Moonlight Misanthropy, and now we’re happy to spread the news that Wolfdom are returning with a follow-up full-length, this one believably named I Belong To Satan, which is set for digital release on July 31st by the Ukrainian label GrimmDistribution.

And once again, today we’re the bearer of a song premiere, a fiendish and hook-filled romp named “The Reaper“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: KRYPTICY — “THE WATER STREET BUTCHER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 142024
 

I have not seen The Poughkeepsie Tapes, the 2007 American pseudo-documentary horror film about Edward Carver, aka the Water Street Butcher. After doing some reading about it (e.g., here), I’m confident I never will, because I don’t have a strong stomach and would like to continue sleeping well at night.

I would guess, however, that the Spanish death metal band Krypticy have seen the movie, and probably more than once, given that the song from their new album which we’re premiering today is named “The Water Street Butcher“.

What have they done with this ghastly inspiration? And what kind of black hole is that tiny figure on the album’s striking cover being inexorably pulled into? Continue reading »

BLOODY KEEP: “RATS OF BLACK DEATH”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 142024
 


(Our contributor Vizzah Harri has discovered California-based Bloody Keep and their debut album released by Grime Stone Records in January of this year. He wishes to share with you his considerable enthusiasm for it today. Read on….)

You must be a selenite (inhabitant of the Moon) at this point in time to not realize that black metal is probably the kind of metal that, if not incumbent to the highest frequency, probably has the best base for coagulation and experimentation with any other genre.

Grime Stone Records have a penchant for the odd and strange and there are those who would prefer their murky darkness unspoiled with the invasion of even the faintest light (or chiptune for that matter, click on the ‘strange’ link above to take a trip down a rabbit hole you might never have had the chance to know existed). With Bloody Keep we find abstractions of the acrid and abrasive type yet subscribed purely to that which is animistic, and efficacious in its effulgence.

These acolytes of the black arts exist to zapruder the flow of that what is deemed the norm. Wormscored, engaging, fertile with ideas, and glimmering with lustral exuberance. From the bleak and near comical cover to that which can be deemed garish musically. Aberrant to the abhorrent, recalcitrant to such non-divergence. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABIGORUM — “EFFORTLESSLY INTO THE DARKNESS (MÜHELOS IN DIE DUNKELHEIT)”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 132024
 

Abigorum was founded by Aleksey “Satanath” Korolyov in Saint Petersburg, Russia more than a decade ago. Since then, much has happened to the band, both in its membership and location as well as its musical evolution, which could be called atmospheric black metal but has involved other genre explorations.

Abigorum now consists (as it has for some years) of Korolyov, who moved from Russia to Georgia in March 2022, and his German collaborator Tino “Fluch” Thiele. And their new third album, Foretaste of Justice, is a sign of further evolution. The band explains

Foretaste of Justice is an important chapter in the history of the project, whose genre has changed again, becoming even more melodic and epic. Comparing it to the previous works, the band’s departure from deliberate roughness and gloomy rawness in the music to well thought-out song structures and creating a spiritually uplifting atmosphere is clearly noticeable.

The sound itself did not become light, but retained anger and pain, especially in the lyrics. The album absorbed all the experiences and thoughts of the musicians over the years, which makes it truly philosophical. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MIASMIC SERUM — “INFECTED SEED”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 132024
 

Let’s ponder for a moment the name of the Italian band whose debut album we’re about to premiere. “Miasmic” is an adjective that refers to an unpleasant and oppressive atmosphere, or an odor that is noxious and foul. In this context “serum” would seem to refer to a fluid or exhalation that is itself foul, or when administered would produce the feeling of miasma, though perhaps it also might be interpreted as a means of treating miasma.

Of course, the serum being administered by this Italian death metal trio, whether noxious itself and/or curative, is music. Further clues to the nature of the musical serum might be found in the title of the album — Infected Seed — and in the names of songs such as “Near-Death Visions”, “Lethal Bite”, and “Lost Control”. Even one of the interlude tracks on the album is named “Neurotoxic Venom”.

Fittingly, the album will be released (on June 14th) by labels named Night Terrors Records and Chaos Records. In addition to all these clues about the inspiration for the music, we also have the following insights provided by Miasmic Serum, the band itself: Continue reading »

KVAEN – THE FORMLESS FIRES

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 132024
 

(Does the fire still burn, or have Kvaen started cooling off? Our own Andy Synn finds out)

Success, or so they say, can be a double-edged sword. And they’re not necessarily wrong.

It’s something you see even in our beloved Metal scene (where what counts as “success” tends to vary depending on who you ask) – from bands who suddenly get a taste of mainstream acclaim and end up having to simplify and sanitise their sound to satisfy their new audience, to artists whose debut album set such a high bar that everything else they subsequently produce is inevitably judged (and often found wanting) in comparison.

And while Kvaen (aka the solo project of multi-instrumental marvel Jacob Björnfot) haven’t encountered the former issue just yet, there’s definitely an argument to be made that the arc of their career thus far has erred more towards the latter – in the sense that, as good as 2022’s The Great Below was (I even said so myself) it ultimately didn’t quite reach the same heights, or possess the same staying power, as their outstanding debut.

But just because success can cut both ways doesn’t mean that lightning can’t strike twice… so maybe the third time will be the charm?

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KAWIR

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 132024
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ April 2024 interview of Therthonax, the mainstay of the foundational Greek black metal band Kawir, with a focus on Kawir‘s newest album Kydoimos. The delay in presenting the interview is our fault, not the fault of Aleks or Therthonax.)

As we follow the world-wide cultural program of supporting the Hellenic Black Metal scene, it would be criminal negligence to skip the fresh release of Kawir, one of the oldest representatives of the Greek metal underground.

The band just passed its 30th anniversary in 2023, and Soulseller Records presented their ninth full-length album Kydoimos (Κυδοιμος) on April 19th. Named after the ancient demon of war, this album explores ancient ways of battle in many forms.

Once again Therthonax, Kawir’s only founding member still in the lineup, and his allies dive into the world of old myths and old black metal with zealous rage and determination. Continue reading »

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