TOLMINATOR REPORT: DAY 1

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 122024
 

(In mid-June we published a preview by our Slovenian comrade Didrik Mešiček of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country that was then set to kick off in late July. When it did kick off, Didrik was there, and below you will find his report on the first day. It’s accompanied by excellent photos, including a large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography.)

Summer brings with it many things – the heat, the impending dread of the next storm and how much damage it’ll do, but most of all it brings the joys of summer, and amongst those what’s better than metal festivals?

Slovenia’s metal scene reputation has taken a bit of a hit lately as you’ll know if you’ve ever heard or read the unfortunate word “Metaldays” but that beast has been fully slain and buried in what has brought nothing but relief to most people. Upon its grave, a new hope has grown, a young and green tree by the name of Tolminator, now in its second year after a generally impressive debut in 2023.

The festival brings a unique location as it’s based on the confluence of two Alpine rivers while presenting a fairly solid extreme metal lineup and what has become a proverbially pleasant atmosphere ever since some 20 years ago when metal festivals first arose in the area. Much like last year, I was once again allowed to pretend to be a real journalist at the festival and this is why you now get to – naturally to your extreme satisfaction – read a bit about what happened at Tolminator 2024.  Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ISOLERT, DRAGSHOLM, SERVANT, FIRTAN

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Aug 112024
 

(written by Islander)

Sadly, this week’s collection of the blacker arts will be brief, not just smaller than yesterday’s Tyrannosaur-sized collection but smaller than the weekly average for this column. I’ve got to get out of the house with my spouse and join up with some other hooligans this morning for day-drinking and ping-ponging words (yes, even people just a stone’s throw from assisted-living age can act like hooligans).

So that’s all the intro I’ve got. I better get to it or this will be even shorter that projected.

ISOLERT (Greece)

I spilled a lot of words about the “devastating magnificence” of this Greek band’s last album, 2020’s World In Ruins — words such as “soaring”, “sweeping”, “near-celestial”, “blazing”, and “tumultuous”, but also “crushing”, “stately”, “dolorous”, and “sublime”. It created ruinous maelstroms but also reached epic heights of glory. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (TOO MANY BANDS TO NAME IN THIS TITLE)

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 102024
 

(written by Islander)

What’s a good metaphor for having too many attractive things to choose from? A kid in a candy store? Maybe, except a lot of the sweet things I’m looking at this morning are also poisonous.

Wandering the aisles of an animal shelter trying to make a connection with a small feline you might adopt? Yeah, but some of these small beasts I’m seeing will suddenly swell up and try to claw out my jugular.

How about a child wide-eyed at a pile of presents under a tree on Christmas Eve, wondering what to open first? Sure, except some of these gifts will explode when touched, or might break your heart.

Here’s what I chose to share from the array of musical delights and dangers I surveyed today. As you can see, I grabbed with both hands, pockets stuffed and both hands overflowing. Presented alphabetically, because trying to figure out how to organize this in any other way was too damn taxing. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MNAJDRA — “IN THE NAME OF THE GODDESS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Last year the mysterious U.S. band Mnajdra made a splash with its self-titled debut album. Granted, it was a splash in a far corner of the small tributary of metal that spikes away from the vast ocean of music on a broader scale, but it still sent ripples, especially through devotees of terrorizing yet surprising musical extremity.

We attempted to review the album here, from which this is an excerpt:

The music isn’t easy to sum up, because it draws from scattered wellsprings of black metal, death metal, sludge/doom, post-metal, and psychedelia — whatever works to create wide-ranging sensations of catastrophe…. [B]e prepared to have your head spun and your dreams disturbed.

It is a relief that the secretive people behind Mnajdra, who clearly had done other things before that album, decided not to make the record a one-and-done effort. Instead, they’ve recorded a second album, and we’re thrilled to premiere it today — on the day of its release by Fiadh Productions and Snow Wolf Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MEKIGAH — “TO HOLD ONTO A HEARTLESS HEART”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Metal-Archives currently brands the Australian band Mekigah “Gothic/Doom Metal” based on the band’s first four albums. Based on Mekigah‘s forthcoming fifth album they may have to put an “(early)” parenthetical next to that genre description. But what will they put in front of “(later)”? What kind of genre label does the fifth album suggest? That turns out to be a very tough question.

Mekigah itself describes the new album as “a purposely designed ugly, drawn out, raw, awkward journey,” with “no attempt or desire to either embrace the slow slow doom, to aggressively technically impress or to build upon previous motifs”:

“Everything is caught between worlds, as Mekigah itself is caught between worlds. Nothing is where it belongs as things are uncomfortably forced together through the sheer necessity of only gaining satisfaction via sonic self sabotage and harm, creating audial-mazes which then have to delicately be navigated through.”

What does this mean? We’ll find out together, through our premiere stream of this new album, To Hold Onto A Heartless Heart, now due for release on August 15th via the Aesthetic Death label. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CRAWLING THROUGH TARTARUS — “THE FALL OF ATLAS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 082024
 

As their name portends, the southern California band Crawling Through Tartarus, whose music straddles a line between contemporary death metal and deathcore, have drawn inspiration from ancient Greek mythology, with a particular relish for the most brutal and hellish aspects of those old tales, as proclaimed in their name itself.

But while the band wish to lead us into the deepest region of the infernal underworld where the gods internally imprisoned their enemies and ruthlessly punished the wicked, they don’t… crawl. Their music does succeed in creating hellish experiences, but their forte is bludgeoning listeners within an inch of their lives.

One example of what we mean is a song off their self-titled debut album, released earlier this year, that’s the subject of the lyric video we’re premiering today. In a nutshell, it’s a bone-smashing groove monster, albeit one that becomes haunting before the end. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEVENIAL VERDICT — “GARDEN OF EYES”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 082024
 

The appearance of another painting by Mariusz Lewandowski on the cover of a metal album is always welcome, and the album on which the one above appears is also welcome, especially because the music is as hauntingly chilling and as frighteningly colorful as the image.

That album, Blessing of Despair, is the Finnish death metal band Devenial Verdict‘s second full-length, following up their daunting Ash Blind from 2022. What we have for you today is a premiere of the third song from the record released so far, evocatively named “Garden of Eyes“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MOON INCARNATE

 Album Reviews, Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 082024
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ excellent discussion with Christian Kolff and Matin Vasari, with the focus being on their band Moon Incarnate, whose debut album was released earlier this year by Iron Bonehead Productions.)

The death-doom coalition Moon Incarnate was created by experienced members of the German underground: Christian Kolff (guitar, bass, synths), the leader of the prog death-doom act Valborg and five other projects of different directions, as well as Matin Vasari (vocals, synths) from the death metal band Beyondition.

Hymns to the Moon is seven small fantasies on the theme of death-doom of the ’90s, the fruit of love for the legacy of The British Three, Tiamat, Katatonia, Samael, as well and others like them. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOXIDE — “MORALS AND DOGMA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 072024
 

Twelve years have passed since the birth of Anoxide somewhere in London. In that time they have released a pair of EPs, a demo, and a couple of singles, but nothing in the last six years. And so it comes as something of a surprise that two days from now they will release an album via Ghastly Music, their full-length debut at last.

They’ve titled it Morals & Dogma, and packed it with 9 songs (one of them an instrumental) that explore such subjects as the influence of misinformation in a media-saturated world, inescapable cycles of systemic corruption within society, the exacerbation of socio-economic disparity and the devastating effects of austerity policies on the working class and marginalized communities, the resurgence of far right ideologies, and visions of dystopian futures produced by suffering and inequality.

Weighty subjects to be sure, and there’s powerful heft in the music too, but also head-spinning adventures, as you’ll discover through our full album premiere today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CLOSET WITCH — “TO THE CAULDRON”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 062024
 

The dictionary defines “catharsis” as “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions”. It’s one of the first words that comes to mind in listening to the fusion of grindcore and powerviolence made by Iowa-based Closet Witch, and especially so in listening to the song that’s the subject of the Closet Witch video we’re premiering today.

This song, “To the Cauldron“, is explained by lead vocalist Mollie Piatetsky: “The song is about needing, wanting, yearning for comfort/advice/the presence of someone who is no longer on the earthly plain and the torment caused by this.”

The subject is familiar to many of us who have lost a parent, or both of them, or others who never had the kind of parent they wished for, or maybe never really knew them at all. Here are the song’s lyrics: Continue reading »

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