NO CLEAN SINGING

BEST OF BRITISH: KUROKUMA / SUNFALL / TENDRILS

Aug 152024

(Andy Synn provides three more recommendations for some home-grown British brutality)

I must apologise for my relative lack of writing/posting over the last couple of weeks – I’ve been pretty busy with a combination of personal, professional, and musical stuff (we’ve got a festival show coming up, for one thing, which will be our first time playing as a three-piece, and then spent all Tuesday this week hanging out at a local brewery and helping out with the creation of a signature beer for the band) which means I haven’t had as much time, or energy, to devote to NCS as usual.

But while I’ve not been able to write very much that hasn’t stopped me from listening… and today’s triptych of album reviews is a product of all that time spent sifting through all the musical chaff to pick out the real diamonds in the rough.

Which may be a mixed metaphor, but I’m running with it all the same.

SEEN AND HEARD: SCHAMMASCH, DEFEATED SANITY, PAYSAGE D’HIVER, MAN’S GIN

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Aug 142024

(written by Islander)

It’s only Wednesday and the week has already seen the release of a lot of notable new songs and videos. Taking advantage of the fact that I only had one premiere on the calendar for today, I decided to pull together some of the new sights and sounds so that the usual Saturday roundup this week might not be as obese as the one I did last Saturday.

SCHAMMASCH (Switzerland)

Yesterday Prosthetic Records announced the sixth studio effort by the Swiss band Schammasch, and the second in their The Maldoror Chants series, which draws upon a 19th-century surrealist book entitled Les Chants de Maldoror. The new album is named The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean, and it’s set for release on October 25th. The themes of the album, based upon those texts, are captured in these words: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HEINOUS EXSANGUINATION — “VILE ROTTING MASS”

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Aug 142024

Take a moment to reflect upon all you’ve done wrong in your life, or at least all you did wrong yesterday: The careless, stupid decisions. The petty jealousies. The pointless cruelties. The opportunities not seized, and the forgiveness not given. Think about all that, and maybe you’ll understand, as you bleed out, how well you deserve the merciless beating you’re about to suffer at the hands of Heinous Exsanguination.

This Los Angeles band clearly picked their name in an attempt to sum up the intent behind the music they decided to make — not just bloodletting, but odious and abominable bloodletting, both blistering and brutalizing.

And even if you don’t carefully ponder the meaning of their name, take a look at the artwork up there, which adorns their debut EP The Stench of Decaying Flesh, and you’ll get the message, a message not just reinforced by the EP’s title but also by the name of the EP track we’re premiering today: “Vile Rotting Mess“. Continue reading »

TOLMINATOR REPORT: DAY 3

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Aug 142024

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the third day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including another large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For the reports on Day One and Day Two, go here and here.)

They say all things come with their consequences. And that must be why I woke up with a fever on day three. Not exactly how you want to start the second half of the festival, but ah well. Time waits for no man and after consuming an obscene amount of cocaine (for legal reasons, I want to make clear that this is a joke) I felt normal enough to continue and start the day early for once as Patroness was opening at 11:50AM.

Tolminator does try and sort of make the days thematic by subgenres and so Friday had a bit of a stoner/doom vibe and the Belgians fit somewhat into that larger bracket. The band has only one released album, Fatum, from 2022, and therefore limited material but the vocalist is utterly deranged. For some reason his pants had one of the pantlegs cut off, he poured a bottle of ice tea on his head, and showcased a generally nihilistic approach to the entire show. At least you can’t say we weren’t entertained. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FÖHN — “A DAY AFTER”

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Aug 132024

(written by Islander)

A few weeks ago the Greek band Föhn released a video for “Bereft,” the first advance track from their debut album Condescending, which will be released on August 23rd by Hypaethral Records in North America and These Hands Melt in Europe. I paid attention to it after seeing the album described as “avant-garde funeral doom” and realizing that the song included performances by two saxophonists. I then urgently wrote 330 words about it, just the one song.

Granted, “Bereft” is more than 13 minutes long, but even 330 words probably still didn’t do it justice.

When I spilled all those words I didn’t know we would be asked to host the premiere of a second song from Condescending, but that happened, and so I’m afraid you’re in for a lot more words. But mainly what you’re in for is yet another profoundly powerful piece of music, this one named “A Day After“. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME VIII: SUMMER BLUES & BLACK METAL

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Aug 132024

(Below you’ll find Daniel Barkasi‘s reviews of 8 albums released in July that he enthusiastically recommends to you.)

As summer continues its dreadful humidity-laden romp, I’m reminded of a bit from Robin Williams’ (RIP legend) Live on Broadway standup special where he talked about climate change. More specifically, “It’s beyond Global Warming at this point – it is cooking!” Just over 22 years ago, and he got it like only Robin could. Seriously, watch that entire special if you want to writhe in pain from laughter. Some of the references may be dated to some younger than dirt, but man it’s a good time from one of the funniest people to ever live.

Going from my “If I go outside, I’ll be peeling sweat-ridden clothes off like a layer of Saran Wrap” Florida life, a subject that’s been bugging the crap out of me is generative AI. More specifically, it’s application of generating album artwork – and we use the term artwork in this case very loosely. It’s not artwork at all, but a prompt-drive monstrosity that almost always looks like cheap junk. Continue reading »

TOLMINATOR REPORT: DAY 2

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Aug 132024

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the second day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including a large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For the report on Day One, go here.)

Hi, hello, we’re back, it’s day two of Tolminator and I’m here again to waffle about some bands I’ve seen. Thursday didn’t start at the stage, however, because we decided to go for a swim instead, as Soča was absolutely begging people to go in with its beautiful greenness and its cold… coldness.

The little storms and showers have by now finally completely fucked off and it was well above 30 degrees Celsius for the rest of the festival (the water stays at about 15 degrees) which means you really need to have a dip here and there if you like living. The river’s level fluctuates a bit and this year it was rather low which also meant the current was very slow and people would constantly lazily float by on all sorts of floaties ranging from pink unicorns, tanks, massive ducks, and so forth. Continue reading »

ZNOUS: “ZNOUSLAND 4”

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Aug 122024

(Our Vietnam-based writer Vizzah Harri prepared the following highly entertaining review of the latest album by the Tunisian band Znous, released in early June of this year.)

And now for something completely different. No, I’m not referring to the Flying Circus, the music and the band is anything but unserious. Znous hail from Al Rudayyif, Gafsa in Tunisia and were covered by Andy Synn back in 2021 as “socio-political Punk-Metal firebrands” not to miss.

DUHKHA – A PLACE YOU CAN’T COME BACK FROM

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Aug 122024

(Andy Synn says that listening to the new Duhkha album is an experience you can’t come back from)

While a lot has been written about the various Death Metal bands incorporating more and more stripped-back, straight-to-the-throat Hardcore dynamics over recent years (some more successfully than others, I might add) much less has been written about bands going the other way.

Which is a shame, because the last few years alone have seen the likes of END, Incendiary, Bridge Burner, End Reign, Underneath and Umbra Vitae (whose latest I still haven’t gotten around to reviewing) all stepping up to demonstrate that the lines between the likes of Earth Crisis and Entombed, Overcast and Obituary, Cro-Mags and Cannibal Corpse, have always been blurrier than the “scene police” pretend.

And now we’ve got Duhkha, whose absolutely devastating debut album, A Place You Can’t Come Back From is here to put one more humongously heavy nail in that particular coffin.

AN NCS PREMIERE: PNEUMA HAGION — “AEON”

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Aug 122024

Not long ago we published our Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Ryan Wilson, who is the musical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine and one of the two men behind the Texas-based death metal band Pneuma Hagion. The entire interview is well worth reading, but I found his comments about the Lovecraftian influence in Pneuma Hagion the most illuminating, especially in the context of the band’s new album From Beyond:

“I’ve been a huge fan of Lovecraft’s stories for most of my life. The key thing about Lovecraft is the sublime horror that he evokes; it’s a horror that can’t be seen, can’t be touched, and really can’t even be easily imagined. I love this; something that is beyond comprehension, but just graspable enough to be terrifying….

“Our minds have the power to create much more sinister and frightening ideas and images than anything the physical world can actually produce. The idea of extradimensional entities invading people’s minds is a huge theme in the stories of Lovecraft, and I enjoy trying to evoke similar feelings via the medium of music…. [M]usic is a great platform for the sublime, where the art lies in sound and not in visual cues so that your mind gets to handle all of the relevant imagery.”

Those thoughts resonate powerfully when listening to From Beyond, an album that truly does conjure terrible images of the listener’s own making, no two of them alike just as no two of us are completely alike. Everlasting Spew Records, which will release the new album on August 30th, fleshes out its thematic sources: Continue reading »

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