NO CLEAN SINGING

CHAPEL OF DISEASE – ECHOES OF LIGHT

Feb 062024

(Andy Synn tries his best to embrace the new album from Chapel of Disease, out this Friday)

A lot of people, including yours truly, will tell you that Chapel of Disease‘s 2018 album, …And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye, is one of the best Death Metal albums of the last decade.

And even those who don’t agree with that statement generally have to concede that it’s definitely one of the most unique Death Metal albums they’ve heard in a long, long time.

But the band’s upcoming fourth album (the final recording of the group’s original line-up) is neither of these things.

Because it’s not really a Death Metal album at all.

TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES OF ’23 – PART 1 (OF AN UNKNOWN NUMBER)

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2023 No Responses »

Feb 052024

(Vizzah Harri was not necessarily invited to write about the most virulent verses and lullabies of the year just past, but he did ask rather nicely (read: forcefully) whether he could give it a shot in the dark. This guest says he works in education, is an occasional scribbler of self-proclaimed abstract poetry bordering on obscurantism and his only real skill is that of finding mistakes in the work of his (su)peer(ior)s. Not to mention his affinity for keyboard-racing. He resides in Hanoi, Vietnam.)

According to the CDC, infectious diseases can be either bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic in nature (other than the CDC link, unless you somehow reverted back to troglodytical proclivities and missed it completely this time ’round last year, them be the greatest hits of 2022’s most infectious lists). There also exists a rare group of mephitic and contagious diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

TSEs or prion diseases are a family of rare progressive neurodegenerative brain disorders with long incubation periods; progressing rapidly once symptoms develop, they are always fatal. I’m not saying that this list is so noxious it might kill you, but something has to kill you in the end, albeit the biggest predator here is the presence of overlong sentences. Full disclosure and disclaimer up next: Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOUNDS — “ZOOPHAGIST”

Premieres No Responses »

Feb 052024

It’s always a pleasure to come across a song name that sends us running for the dictionary, even when it’s a name whose meaning we might be able to guess after dividing it into its component parts. If you guessed that “Zoophagist” refers to an animal that eats every other animal available to it, you get a gold star.

However, in the case of the song you’re about to experience courtesy of the Chicago band Wounds, that creature isn’t one you can find in any zoo or earthly wilderness. As the song’s chilling lyrics describe, it is instead a collective of lethal things that have captivated the mind of their captor in a lab in outer space and thereby achieved their escape.

In the words of the song, these things eagerly anticipate what will come next after they make their way to our solar system: Continue reading »

MODERN WITCHCRAFT – MODERN WITCHCRAFT

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Feb 052024

(Andy Synn finds himself enchanted by the debut release from Ohio’s Modern Witchcraft)

As I’ve mentioned several times, it’s difficult (read: impossible) for us to keep up with every new band that comes out and every new release they come out with.

Heck, it’s not exactly easy, either, keeping track of all the bands we already know about, especially when they decide to change their names – which is the case with Modern Witchcraft.

Previously known as Close the Hatch (whose 2020 album, also entitled Modern Witchcraft, was a low-key favourite of mine that year) I had pretty much given up hope of ever hearing anything from these guys again until, out of the blue, I stumbled across the video for “Corpse Painter” a little over a week ago.

Some part of me immediately recognised that particular mix of moody percussion, brooding bass, and reverberating guitars… and when those instantly identifiable vocals kicked in I knew exactly who this must be, regardless of what they were calling themselves now.

And I also knew, as soon as the song finished, that I’d be writing about this record as soon as I could.

SHADES OF BLACK: CRIMSON TWILIGHT, ANTEINFIERNO

Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK No Responses »

Feb 042024

Ash

Sometimes we must confront grim tasks head-on and grapple with them, rather than shying away. And so I forced myself to calculate how much time has passed since the last time I did one of these columns. The answer is, six weeks ago, the day before Christmas.

Countless creatures making up thousands of species are born, live, and die within a six-week span. Hell, males among the American sand-burrowing mayflies live less than one hour after reaching adulthood, and females have just five minutes to breed before they die. Let’s have a moment of silence for them, please.

Thank you.

Even thinking about what has happened to me over the last six weeks to produce such a void in this Sunday column is a grim contemplation. Knowing what I have ahead of me next weekend, there will likely be another void next Sunday. But for now let’s contemplate more pleasurable grimness. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HETEROMORPHIC ZOO, SHIVER DOWN, AUTGER, MOÌNE, VOLLOÍOM

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Feb 032024

I’m still slowly trying to get back into the swing of things here. But it has been slow, and will continue to be slow for the next couple of weeks, thanks to continuing pressures from my fucking day job.

For example, the only metal I listened to over the last week was the music I’d committed to premiere. I also made almost no effort to scroll through the usual flood of NCS e-mails and other messages that have arrived since last weekend, or to open tabs for music to listen to later — “almost” being the operative word, because I did tuck away a few randomly noticed links.

Speaking of e-mail flooding, yesterday was another Bandcamp Friday, which resulted in an even bigger flood. I expected a vision of an old man herding animals two by two into a big wooden boat, a vision that never materialized because I made no effort to scroll through the in-box. I guess sometime this weekend I’ll at least give it a skim, in case any Nigerian princes are trying to share millions of dollars with me. Does that still happen?

Anyway, here are a few appealing underground things I did manage to check out beginning very early this morning. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ABYSSUS — “UNDER SIEGE”

Premieres No Responses »

Feb 022024

As their name portends, the Greek death metal band Abyssus did not arise to shine light and love on a miserable world, but to submerge it into deeper darkness and more relentless savagery. Since the release of their debut EP a dozen years ago, they have not wavered in their dedication to musical renditions of blade-sharp barbarism, esoteric terrors, and punk-fueled mayhem, nor allowed mercy to mediate their music.

The band’s latest descent is an EP named Under Siege. It was released without much fanfare near the end of last year, and so the title of this feature plays fast and loose with the “premiere” word, which is something we almost never do. But the chance to help spread the word about Under Siege was just too tempting, especially now that it’s being offered by Chaos and Hell Productions on CD. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Feb 022024

(Andy Synn has a few words to share about four albums from last month you may have overlooked)

Here we are… one month into the new year… and we’ve already fallen behind.

Of course, that’s nothing new. As I’ve said before (several times, in fact) it’s impossible for any site, let alone any individual writer, to keep up with everything that’s released week after week (which is one reason I don’t trust anyone who claims that they’ve somehow listened to literally hundreds of albums every month – they may have heard them, but I doubt they really listened to them the way they deserve), so even at this early stage it’s no surprise that there’s so many artists and albums we haven’t been able to write about.

To be quite honest though, this is less and less of an issues these days – simply by accepting the fact that there’s always going to be stuff we’re not going to be able to cover, while also acknowledging that we’re definitely going to be featuring some stuff here that other places, and other people, won’t cover, we’ve gotten over our fear of missing out and embraced the idea that our value comes not from covering everything but from providing an interesting and distinct perspective of our own on what we do write about.

So, with that in mind, here’s four artists/albums from January – some of which you may already have been aware of, some of which you may not – that we (or, at least, I) felt compelled to pen a few extra words about so that they didn’t get overlooked following what was, after all, a very packed month of new releases!

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME I: WHAT DID WE (ALMOST) MISS LAST YEAR?

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Feb 012024

(Daniel Barkasi, an NCS writer from long ago, has returned here with the first installment in a planned monthly column. In this inaugural edition he recommends 10 albums released last year that deserve a closer look.)

Welcome NCS readers to my first, brand new column of music that’s been bouncing around in my often deranged cranium. I feel vigorous.

What we’re going to be doing here is highlighting releases that have – at least, according to my spidey senses – slipped under the radar and haven’t gotten much attention or buzz. We’ll cover an undetermined number of these unsung heroes monthly. Most of these will be relatively current and put out within the last few months, but I also don’t want to be that rigid all the time, so we’ll do so liberally and make sure to add a release date for each entry.

For this inaugural piece, I’m going to highlight a few albums from 2023 that were unsung gems that deserve a little love, in no particular order. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DÖDSRIT — “CELESTIAL WILL”

Premieres 5 Responses »

Feb 012024

For their forthcoming fourth album Nocturnal Will, the Swedish band Dödsrit have created a remarkable musical symbiosis. Their hallmarks of black metal and crust punk are still there, but the music is also elaborate and frequently elegant, the melodies intensely moving and immediately memorable.

And there’s a reason why the new album’s cover art depicts a stricken knight, on his knees in a wintry plain and head bowed beneath glowering skies, because the music seems to cast its gaze back to an ancient age of valor and bloodshed, of triumph and death, of devotion and suffering, so much so that we’d venture the guess that devotees of medieval black metal will relish this as much as metalpunks will.

As evidence of what we’re trying to convey, we present today the premiere of the album’s second single, “Celestial Will“, in advance of the record’s March 22nd release by the Wolves of Hades label. Continue reading »

Older Entries Newer Entries