AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CORAX B.M. — “ZOPHOS”

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Oct 122023
 

The Athenian black metal band Corax B.M. made their recording debut last year on Pagan Records, with an EP named Spread the Occult. It featured a guest vocal appearance by The Magus (Necromantia, Yoth Iria, etc.) on the song “Anilliagos”. Live performances followed, and the band also turned their diabolical energies to the creation of a debut album.

Their dark arts have borne evil fruit, in the form of a full-length named Pagana that will be released on January 26, 2024 via The Circle Music (also known for their release of records by Necromantia, The Magus, Thou Art Lord, and Autumn Tears).

As a shuddering sign of what the album presents, today we premiere a lyric video for a song called “Zophos“, which is the track that closes the album. Continue reading »

CROW BLACK SKY – SIDEREAL LIGHT, VOL. TWO

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Oct 122023
 

(Andy Synn offers his thoughts on the new album from South Africa’s Crow Black Sky)

While the whole “two year album cycle” thing is fine for some bands (though I’d say it’s more common amongst bands signed to more prominent labels) not every artist works, or should work, to the same schedule.

Case in point, Cape Town’s Crow Black Sky released their first album back in 2010, but then waited eight more years before releasing the follow-up, Sidereal Light, Vol. One.

In hindsight you almost wonder why the band didn’t change their name in the intervening period (though I can understand why not, since Crow Black Sky is an excellent name) as Volume One represented a significant shift in sound for the group, moving them towards a “cosmic” Black Metal sound that was as rich in atmosphere as it was in aggression… and all the better for it.

And now, after five long years, we finally get to hear where this path has taken them with the recent release of Sidereal Light, Vol. Two.

Continue reading »

OCTOBER TIDE: “THE CANCER PLEDGE”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 112023
 

(DGR is the author of the following review of October Tide‘s new album, released last week by Agonia Records.)

Fun fact: If research is to be believed, up until the recent release of October Tide‘s newest album The Cancer Pledge, they have never actually had a release come out in October. Unlike November’s Doom – who can credit at least three releases towards their chosen month-name – October Tide have actually been pretty distant from their month-of-misery-and-inspiration.

Both, however, have a large bulk of their releases based within the spring and summer time. Perfect weather for the sort of melancholic-death-and-doom those groups have trafficked in, and if nothing else, provider of the idea that in the future, should you choose to involve a month in the naming of your band, lean toward including a December or January in the mix just to guarantee that you’ll never have an album hit during the pre-year-end-list panic attack or the post-year-end list hangover/panic attack wherein everyone is trying to catch up on everything that hit prior. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CROWDEAD — “EVERYTHING ENDS”

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Oct 112023
 

On October 13th the Italian band (from Mantua) Crowdead will release their second album, Tearing Your Soul Apart. It was born, we are told, from “a moment of despair,” with each track conveying “a sensation of unease towards a world that, more often than not, is unfair”. They “take a trip inside ourselves among charred bodies, condemned souls, and grinning demons”.

Dark sentiments, to be sure, perhaps especially for a band whose music is branded “groove metal,” and they’re further reflected in the theme of “Everything Ends“, the album track we’re premiering today through a well-made official video. As the band explain:

“Everything Ends” shows how everything can come to a close, and how a person can end up coughing blood so as to not suffer anymore. With this video we want to show that humans are willing to destroy themselves as long as other people can be happy. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: NAHASHEOL — “BRINGER OF DIVINE ECSTASY”

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Oct 112023
 

Nahasheol announced its mysterious existence last year with an EP named Kaaosoth, and soon this band’s diabolical powers will be fully revealed through a debut album named Serpens Abyssi that will be released by Argento Records and Wolves of Hades on November 3rd.

The herald of the music is the striking cover art you see at the top of this page, created by Cayo Farias. Like the album’s title, it captures the daunting and dangerous presence of a great abyssal serpent, surmounted by an evil eye, with the presence of death surrounding them. It’s an unholy, esoteric, otherworldly, and dangerous vision, and so is the music.

As a sign of what the album will bring listeners, today we premiere a song from the album named “Bringer of Divine Ecstasy“. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: APHOTIC

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Oct 112023
 

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(In this new interview Comrade Aleks engaged in a fascinating discussion with Nicolò Brambilla from the genre-bending Italian metal band Aphotic, whose debut album Abyssgazer was released last spring by Sentient Ruin.)

The chronicles of death-doom know two bands named Aphotic, and both are great in their own way. Aphotic from the US was a short-lived band formed by ex-members of Dusk; sadly, it was split in 2005, leaving just three EPs behind.

Aphotic from Milan was founded in 2020 by ex-members of the death metal act Ekpyrosis: L. Zeit (bass, vocals), F. Abisme (drums), and N. Gazer (vocals, guitars, synth). Their colleague from Fuoco Fatuo, K. Coil (guitars), joined Aphotic in 2022 right in time to take part in the recording of the band’s first album as a guest. Abyssgazer was released through Sentient Ruin Laboratories and Nuclear Winter Records in March 2023.

The band tends towards rather “doomed” death metal with a few influences outside these genres, and Abyssgazer is remarkable with its rich textures, highly intense delivery, and in-depth atmosphere, which fits its concept well. The philosophy of Cosmology is hidden between its lines and manifests itself through the play of celestial lights and ugly shades born from phenomena beyond human understanding.

Nicolò Brambilla aka N. Gazer revealed a lot of interesting facts about Abyssgazer in the current interview. Continue reading »

ORGAN DEALER: “THE WEIGHT OF BEING”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 102023
 

(Here’s DGR’s review of Organ Dealer’s new album, which is out now on Everlasting Spew Records.)

Organ Dealer‘s summer drop of The Weight Of Being was a long time coming. Though the band never stopped per se, subsisting on a series of splits and singles since the release of their 2015 album Visceral Infection, there still exists a near eight-year gap for the band’s full-length material.

Organ Dealer, of course, have been through some changes in that time and what you’re hearing on The Weight Of Being is almost like a recorded journey of every change that has happened in the time since Visceral Infection dropped – including the current (because nothing is forever) last stint of belfry-shrieker Scot Moriarty on the vocals front. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ILD — “DEN SORTE KUNST”

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Oct 102023
 

The children keep dying and returning to the cradle. Teeth shine between timbers and lights dance on marshes. Whose hand closed the wicket? Why is the last apple moving? The kindling still catch fire, but the potency of the black arts seems to have waned of late. Smoke always escapes.

With those words the Nortwegian band ILD announce their second album Kvern, which is now set for release on November 3rd by Vendetta Records, and then they flesh out those evocative yet cryptic words with a track list that reads as follows (the translations are our own, so blame us for any errors):

1. “Den sorte kunst” (the black art)
2. “Til gjeste” (for guests)
3. “Opp i røyk” (up in smoke)
4. “Det trekker så kaldt” (it’s so cold)
5. “Ognåskaldudø” (even if you die)
6. “Over flammehavet” (over the sea of flame)

The mysteries of the meanings still remain, and frightening mysteries lurk within the music as well, though the moods of them may still be familiar to all who are being slowly ground within the “rusty mill of life” (to pull from Vendetta‘s own preview). And indeed the title of the album itself is the Norwegian word for “grinder”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SVARTGRAV — “I”

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Oct 102023
 

“Deep out of the forests of Lower Saxony, where once the Görde murderer was up to mischief, Svartgrav was created on an icy winter night.”

And so begins an introduction by four labels who will jointly release Svartgrav‘s debut album I on October 27th.

They also disclose that the band is the solo project of Thorkraft, who has also gained some attention through his atmospheric black metal project Sieghetnar, and they further characterize the music as “the icy, Nordic coldness of Immortal with the epic and sublime symphonies of Emperor and Troll, and stone-shattering vocals in the style of Obtained Enslavement“.

We have our own introduction to the album today, as we premiere the new record’s substantial opening track, also named “I“, because all the songs are only denominated by Roman numerals. Continue reading »

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