AN NCS INTERVIEW: ARÐ

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May 312024
 


photo by Gavin Forster

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Mark Deeks, the man behind the UK doom band Arð (and a member of Winterfylleth). The delay in presenting the interview is entirely our fault, but fortunately it remains a timely and engaging discussion.)

It was in the Pantheist interview… As you probably remember, the band took part in the Organic Doom event together with Arð from Newcastle upon Tyne. It was a live gig where two doom metal bands performed their sets with church organ, and even the BBC was interested and covered this gig. As Pantheist included their live set in the new EP Kings Must Die, so you can find Arð’s set as a bonus to the band’s new album Untouched by Fire, released by Prophecy Productions on April 26th.

The only man who stands now behind this band is Mark Deeks. He performs all instruments and sings, though during the recording he relied on the help of Atavist’s drummer Callum Cox. Untouched by Fire is Arð’s second album in five years, and Mark keeps on exploring Nothumbrian history and culture through this authentic melodic doom metal. I invite you to make a trip to the world of medieval Anglo-Saxon doom together with Mark himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BEATEN TO DEATH — “SUNRISE OVER RIGOR MORTIS”

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May 302024
 

Metal band names, when considered either in isolation or in conjunction with the bands’ music, span a range from terrible to perfect. The name Beaten To Death is damn-near perfect, both in isolation and especially in the context of this Norwegian group’s ferociously brawling brand of grindcore.

The name creates expectations, perhaps especially to someone who’s never encountered the five albums Beaten To Death have put out beginning in 2011. But then such a stranger could take one look at the fantastical cover of their forthcoming sixth album Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis and begin to get the idea that maybe those expectations aren’t going to be entirely accurate, or at least they’re going to be incomplete.

But those of us who have encountered one or more of Beaten To Death‘s previous releases won’t be entirely surprised, because while this band are indeed fully capable of beating their listeners to death, they are equally capable of adventurously turning conventional grind expectations upside-down — and as you’re about to discover, they do it again on this newest album. Continue reading »

VÁSTÍGR – THE PATH OF PERDITION

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 302024
 

(Andy Synn walks the path of perdition with Vástígr, whose new album is out now)

Let me begin things today with a short aside, if I may?

The subject of this particular review is one of several excellent bands playing Ascension Festival in Iceland in July, which various members of the NCS extended family will be attending again this year.

Unfortunately, the festival is currently struggling with higher-than-usual costs and lower-than-average ticket sales, the combination of which have put the future of the event in serious doubt.

So if you’re still going back-and-forth about whether to pick up a ticket this year, now is the time to do so… and, to help encourage you even more, here’s some fantastic music you can expect to hear from Vástígr at this year’s festival.

Continue reading »

SAIDAN: “VISUAL KILL: THE BLOSSOMING OF PSYCHOTIC DEPRAVITY”

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May 302024
 

(Our Hanoi-based contributor Vizzah Harri prepared the following review and recommendation of the latest album by Tennessee-based black metal band Saidan, which was released about a week ago.)

Realizing that my writeups are overlong in this age of mass-consumption and shortening attention spans, I attempted writing with a number in mind. I’m a simple soul, so I went for 666 words on an album worthy of a master’s thesis.

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST — “FANCIULLI D’OCCIDENTE”

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May 292024
 

The dramatically unconventional Italian band Laetitia in Holocaust haven’t quite reached the quarter-century mark of their existence, but they’re not too far away. In that time they’ve created a discography that is a cavalcade of aggressive surprises, and their latest addition is a forthcoming fifth album (not counting an early album-length demo). Entitled Fanciulli D’Occidente, it will be released by the Dusktone label on May 31st, and we’re premiering it in full today.

The album’s name translates to “Children of the West”, and we’re told that conceptually it’s intended as a memoriam to ancestors of European peoples and a wish that today’s children may prove themselves worthy of blood shed by those long-gone predecessors. It would seem to connect to the band’s own name, which stands for “happiness in sacrifice”. Continue reading »

WORMWOOD: “THE STAR”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 292024
 

(On May 31st Sound Pollution/Black Lodge Records will release the closing album in a trilogy about death by the Swedish band Wormwood, and today we provide Didrik Mešiček‘s review of the new record.)

There are not a lot of bands who haven’t made any bad records but I’d say Wormwood is one of them. The Swedes are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year and releasing their newest album, The Star, on May 31st, 2024, on Black Lodge Records. Their previous release, Arkivet, delved a bit into post-metal and came with a rather melancholic, misanthropic view, suggesting mankind deserves death for its role in the current events on the planet, but they’ve been known to involve folkier and more melodic elements in their tracks before that as well, so now it’s time to see what the new release offers. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FERVENT HATE — “A HAUNTING TALE”

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May 282024
 

Originally formed in 2008, the Peruvian band Fervent Hate are about to launch their third album, In Rot We Trust, through the cooperation of Satanath Records and Australis Records.

The album was victimized by the covid pandemic, which forced a postponement of its recording, but at last the recording work was done last year (at Alto Calibre Studio in Arequipa, Peru with Miguel Asencio), completed by the mixing and mastering of the great Dan Swanö at Unisound Studio.

The new album brings us 10 songs, again influenced by classic Swedish death metal and hard rock bands, reinforcing Fervent Hate‘s genre moniker of “death ‘n’ roll”, and today we’re very happy to premiere one of them, a track called “A Haunting Tale“. Continue reading »

CANDY: “IT’S INSIDE YOU”

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May 282024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by the U.S. metallic hardcore band Candy in advance of its June 7th release by Relapse Records.)

It’s cool for a metallic hardcore band like Knocked Loose to be able to ride the hype machine on their way to becoming the next big thing, but Candy’s new album kicks you in the face harder with the kind of experimentation I expected to find on You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To. This should not be a surprise as Candy’s 2022 album Heaven is Here was one of my favorite heavy albums of that year. Continue reading »

COBRA THE IMPALER – KARMA COLLISION

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May 282024
 

(Andy Synn collides with the new album from Cobra the Impaler, out Friday on Listenable Records)

Greetings all!

Today I’m writing to you from the airport lounge at the Baltimore/Washington International airport, having just spent the last few days enjoying the sights and sounds (well, mostly the sounds) of another fantastic edition of Maryland Deathfest.

This has nothing to do with the subject of today’s review, however, it just felt like something worth mentioning as I/we get back into the regular swing of things here at NCS this week.

Anyway… last time we checked in with Belgian Prog-Metal types Cobra the Impaler I was lavishing praise upon their debut album, Colossal Gods, and describing it as a strikingly melodic, multifaceted mix of Mastodon, Alice in Chains,  and Byzantine.

But, as DGR recently pointed out to me – and which their upcoming new album, Karma Collision, has only reinforced – it turns out I was ever so slightly off-base with one of those comparisons.

Continue reading »

UPON STONE: “DEAD MOTHER MOON”

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May 282024
 

(Our writer DGR finally made his way to the debut album by the San Fernando Valley melodic death metal band Upon Stone, which was released in January by Century Media Records, and was moved to write about it at length in the following review.)

Upon Stone were a heck of an anomaly when they first appeared in the early part of 2024. Seemingly emerging out of the aether with a full-length album and a professed love for melodeath, it was eyebrow-raising to see the group gaining enough steam to grab headlines in the early part of the year, right about the time everyone is still on their post-end-of-year list collection comedown.

Admittedly, we’re late to the bus on this one. Upon Stone‘s first full-length Dead Mother Moon has been on the back-burner since its mid-January release, mostly waiting for a gap in time when we could truly explore the album’s deepest reaches but also to take a deep glance at why the band might’ve garnered such interest with its melodeath necromancy in the year 2024: a time in which even the old-guard are glancing over the mid to late ’90s era efforts of a lot of those bands in favor of material more in line with music from the mid-aughts. Continue reading »

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