AN NCS PREMIERE: HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE — “LOSS”

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Sep 092024
 


(written by Islander)

On August 20, 2017, the day before a total solar eclipse I was about to witness in Wyoming, I wrote about a song I had heard the night before by a Canadian band named Hell Is Other People (it was the title track to their album Embrace, which came out about 10 days later). But over the course of many paragraphs before ever getting to the song I wrote about the band’s name, and about the alcohol-fueled discussion of it that took place among my friends and me under the stars that night.

I won’t put you through all those paragraphs again (they’re here if you want to read them), even though the discussion meant a lot to me then and still does. I’ll just mention that the band’s name is a famous statement from the play No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre, and it’s an assertion that’s subject to many interpretations, about the many ways in which other people can make life hell for us, or cause us to make our own lives into a hell.

Still grateful to this band for that night, today I’m going to get to their music a lot faster, because we’ve got a song to premiere from their new album Moirae, which comes a long seven years after Embrace. One thing that hasn’t changed over those many years is this band’s capacity to be thought-provoking — and to pierce through into the heart of where our emotions come from. Continue reading »

THE HOWLING WIND – THROUGH THE EYES, PAST THE SUN

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Sep 092024
 

(Andy Synn is ready to be swept off his feet again by The Howling Wind)

Look, by now I’m sure we’re all aware of the big surprise revelation of last week… that’s right, I’m talking about the unexpected, world-shaking return of Linkin Park Pyrrhon The Howling Wind!

Sure, it’s only been two years since their last release – 2022’s Oak EP – but it’s been eleven years since the duo of Tim Call and Ryan Lipynsky actually created a full-length album together (with 2019’s Shadow Tentacles being a solo effort by Lipynsky under the THW moniker).

So, with that in mind, the pair’s new album, Through the Eyes, Past the Sun, has a lot to live up to.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ANTE-INFERNO, ANTIKVLT, SKOGNATT, ANOMALIE, YOTH IRIA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 082024
 

Yesterday I bemoaned the trouble that weeks ending in Bandcamp Friday’s create for me in trying to compile the usual Saturday roundup for NCS. It creates similar troubles for picking music to recommend in these Shades of Black collections: just way too much potentially interesting stuff to check out.

Yesterday I tried to compensate (only slightly) by stuffing a greater-than-usual number of new songs into the roundup. For better or worse, I don’t have time to do that today — below you’ll find only four advance tracks and one new EP. I hope you like all of it, or at least find some one thing to brighten (i.e., darken) your day.

ANTE-INFERNO (UK)

In the fall of this year Ante-Inferno will release their third album in what is developing as a steady every-two-years sequence (our own Andy Synn reviewed their first two albums here and here). Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS ON A SATURDAY

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 072024
 

From midnight on Thursday to midnight on Friday we received 221 e-mails about recent and forthcoming heavy metal releases. That’s not counting the e-mails that were just trying to sell us clothing or physical editions of records that have been out for a while, or to announce tours and shows, or to promote music that’s utterly foreign to anything we cover here (no idea how we get on some of these distribution lists).

That’s what Bandcamp Fridays do to our in-box, and the same thing happens on social media. It’s no longer surprising. Bands and labels know that lots of metalheads wait for these days when more of the money they spend will go to bands and labels. But it sure as hell makes me feel like I’m drowning when I look for things to include in Saturday roundups following Bandcamp Fridays.

And that’s not counting all the new songs and videos that were already on my plate before Friday arrived. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MAGNETAR — “SCUM”

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Sep 062024
 

In learning about the musical influences of the British band Magnetar you might imagine the re-emergence of the three-headed Cerberus once more stalking at the gates of Hades. They describe the musical inspirations encompassed on their debut album There Will Be No Peace in My Valley this way:

Primarily the great melodic Black/Death Swedish bands of No Fashion Records in the early 90s. Then also the muscularity and speed of 80s North & South American thrash/death acts such as Slayer, Sepultura and Infernal Majesty. And last but never least, the hallowed British bands of the 80s including Judas Priest, Motörhead and Iron Maiden. Also, of course, is a passing nod to our Black Metal forefathers Darkthrone, Immortal & Bathory.

So maybe this hound has four heads instead of three. That’s a hell of a list of influences, to be sure, but may leave you wondering how in the world all those heads could work together in a coherent way. We’ll help you answer that question today through our premiere of the album’s opening track, “SCUM“, in advance of the album’s release by Vendetta Records on September 27th. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: KRVL — “ZIELENRUST”

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Sep 062024
 

The video prepared for KrvL‘s song “Zielenrust“, which you’re about to see and hear, is a beautiful but haunting piece of art. Slow-moving and only occasionally accented by color, it depicts a solitary figure communing in their own way with the expanse of the ocean and its gently rolling tides. Mysterious and mesmerizing, it’s an interesting setting for a song that proves to be… shattering.

The song is the first single from the forthcoming second album by this Belgian black metal band, whose name is a compacted reference to the Belgian forest named Kravaal. Entitled Donkere Paden (“Dark Paths”), it will be released on October 11th by These Hands Melt and has become available for order just in time to take advantage of another Bandcamp Friday. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEATH RACER

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Sep 062024
 

(Here is another interview by Comrade Aleks, this time a discussion with drummer Niki Louder from the Austrian band Death Racer.)

Dying Victims Productions released the debut album of Linz-based blackened speed metal band Death Racer in late July, and I reached out to prepare an interview in support of the release. The official press-release for “their long-awaited debut album, From Gravel to Grave” is informative:

“From Gravel to Grave presents Death Racer as an all-pistons-pumping runaway racecar, chassis gleaming but torched black with exhaust underneath, its very construction pushing the outer limits of safety before all the screws fall loose and a fiery wreck ensues. For sure, it’s not difficult to spot the Austrians’ influences, and they wouldn’t have it any other way – they are transparent as they are thorough, to circle back to the earliest point – so therefore, there’s the obligatory “High Speed Metal” of classic Razor as well as the comparable grit & grime of equally old, raw metal like earliest Slayer, Exciter, Bathory, Hungary’s Tormentor, Bulldozer, true-metal Darkthrone, cult NWOBHM, Violent Force, and of course, erudite Teutonic thrash”.

But if you want to learn more, then you can sort out a few more things from the interview below. Continue reading »

KALANDRA: “A FRAME OF MIND”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  No Responses »
Sep 052024
 

(We present Didrik Mešiček‘s review of a new album by the Norwegian band Kalandra, in advance of its September 13 release on By Norse Music.)

Nothing goes together as well as the extreme heat of the summer and really depressive black metal, right? Or is that just me again? Well, anyway, it’s basically autumn and surely we can agree this is a season for romance and softness – the leaves are turning a lovely colour and slowly withering away in a cruel but beautiful reminder of our passing nature. Yet few things in this world would be as pretty were they not as fleeting.

This article isn’t about extreme metal, nor about any sort of metal, really, it’s about a Norwegian band called Kalandra who play a sort of Nordic folk – but not in the vein of Wardruna, it’s a band with a more modern tone and expressing a softer, more feminine touch. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EC{C}ENTRIC PENDULUM — “PERSPECTIVA INVERTALIS”

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Sep 052024
 

The Indian metal band Ec{c}entric Pendulum send all sorts of signals about the nature of their music before you hear a single note. Their name of course, which kindles images of a swinging thing that doesn’t swing like you expect it will, and the quirky typography they use in spelling it. And then there’s the title of their forthcoming second album — Perspectiva Invertalis — a Latin phrase which means “inverted perspective”.

And then there’s that cover art up above by Sam Ektoplasm, which is (to put it mildly) out of the ordinary for a metal band (or any band).

Undoubtedly some of you are aware of what Ec{c}entric Pendulum do with their music, because they do have a previous album (Winding the Optics) to their credit, and they’ve played at Wacken Open Air in Germany (the first band to represent India there), and shared stages in both Europe and India with the likes of Opeth, Textures, Meshuggah, Kreator, Orphaned Land, and recently Suffocation.

But it’s been more than a dozen years since that first album was released, and nearly seven years since their Tellurian Concepts EP, and so even if you’ve heard what they’ve done in the past, it’s best to now listen with fresh ears to what they’ve accomplished on this new album, which will be released tomorrow via Subcontinental Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DRAGSHOLM — “SORROW HEXEN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Sep 052024
 

(written by Islander)

“Blackened Death Metal for fans of Dissection, Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir, Sacramentum and Vinterland“. That’s how Horror Pain Gore Death Productions hails the music on the third EP from New Jersey’s Dragsholm, which the label will release tomorrow (September 6th).

That turns out to be a meaningful set of reference points for the four songs on Sorrow Hexen. And that title of the EP is a good reference point in itself, conjuring thoughts of both melancholia and the occult, both of which are features of the music’s atmosphere — though there are other features as well.

You’ll have an opportunity to experience everything Dragsholm bring to the table on Sorrow Hexen, here on the eve of its release, because we’ve got a full stream for you below. Continue reading »

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