NO CLEAN SINGING

AN NCS PREMIERE: DOOM BEACH AND CHOP7X

Jan 262024

(We present Christopher Luedtke‘s introduction of our premiere of two songs from a forthcoming 12″ vinyl split set for release in February by Redscroll Records, one each by the bands Doom Beach and Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop.)

It is not just a good day because it is Friday and the weekend is so close some of us can already hear the siren call of free time choice paralysis, but today we also have not one but two song premieres. Today is a double dose of blown-out Connecticut rage from Doom Beach and Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop (or Chop7x if you’re nasty) from their upcoming split to be released early next month on Redscroll Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEFECT DESIGNER — “GAUDY COLOURS FROM YOUR PLASTIC BAG”

Premieres No Responses »

Jan 262024

This isn’t our site’s first encounter with Norway-based Defect Designer. The last time, in the context of premiering a track from their 2022 EP Neanderthal, we attempted to prepare people by explaining that the group “revel in severely discombobulating their listeners, and beating them almost senseless”.

Even Ian Miller‘s utterly bizarre cover art for that EP was only a hint of the sounds behind it, a “mutated and marauding amalgam of grindcore and death metal that’s as relentlessly head-spinning as it is viscerally obliterating”.

Now Defect Designer are returning, with a third full-length named Chitin that’s set for release on March 14th by Transcending Obscurity Records. What can you expect this time? In a nutshell, more madness, but mutated yet again. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DYSSEBEIA — “HATCH”

Premieres 1 Response »

Jan 252024

Dyssebeia‘s debut album Garden of Stillborn Idols was released last November by Transcending Obscurity Records. Like a chameleon in a hot house of flowering plants, its musical colors constantly shifted, revealing flashing shades of prog metal, melodic death metal, and black metal, richly embellished with technically impressive twists and turns by all the performers, animated by wild vocal savagery, and loaded with bursts of battering-ram groove.

With a clean yet powerful production behind it, the album incorporated swaths of beguiling melody, head-spinning fretwork fireworks (including glorious guitar soloing), frequent changes in tempo and mood, and the kind of rhythmic punch that might leave a listener checking for bruises and hairline fractures.

Fluid and elegant one moment, jarring the next, and spectacularly racing the next, it was (and still is) a thoroughly exciting roller-coaster ride of adventurous extremity, capable of rocketing to exhilarating heights and plunging to breathtaking depths, while veering around head-whipping turns with both abandon and aplomb.

It still is an album very much worth your time if you haven’t taken the full ride. As a reminder of its marvels for those who might have overlooked them, today we present a video for one of the album’s prize tracks, “Hatch“. Continue reading »

SPECTRAL VOICE: “SPARAGMOS”

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jan 252024

(We present the following review by Todd Manning of the sophomore album by Colorado-based Spectral Voice)

Spectral Voice is composed of three-quarters of the members of Blood Incantation and is equally as formidable a death metal unit.

But if Blood Incantation have their vision firmly fixed on the stars above, Spectral Voice lurks in the subterranean shadows.

If their 2017 debut Eroded Corridors of Unbeing didn’t place them at the pinnacle of the Death-Doom genre, their latest, Sparagmos, should do the trick.

Due out on February 9th courtesy of Dark Descent Records, it is certainly a shoo-in for year-end lists. Continue reading »

KNOLL – AS SPOKEN

Album Reviews No Responses »

Jan 242024

(Andy Synn reviews the new album from Knoll, out this Friday)

Riding the hype wave is a lot like surfing, when you think about it.

Sure, you look cool when you’re doing it, and as long as you stay ahead of it you’re all good, but the moment you fall behind the curve… that’s when it overtakes you and drags you down.

And while the prolific (and pretty damn impressive) output of unorthodox American noise-mongers Knoll has, so far at least, helped them ride that wave a long way from their humble beginnings – going from a practically unknown name in 2019 to one that’s been on almost everybody’s lips going into 2024 – it’s basically inevitable that, some day, maybe even some day soon, they’re going to crash out and go under.

But that day is not today.

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MORCOLAC — “MEMORIALMOON NARRATES THE MORBOSE”

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Jan 242024

Metal navel-gazers such as us here and many of our friends could probably kill hours debating whether “Vampiric Black Metal” is really a genre. It’s certainly a term we see thrown about in descriptions of music, but does it really mean anything?

It certainly has lyrical and inspirational meaning for some bands, who relish tales of the ancient undead and their horrid nutritional needs. Those tales are sometimes rooted in the folklore of an artist’s native region, but regardless of geography they’re also attractive to misanthropes who smile at the idea of human beings as cattle to be consumed, and to people drawn to visions of deepest nights and full moons, to graveyard mists and red eyes shining in the dark.

But the question remains, is there anything we can point to beyond lyrical themes and fonts of inspiration as a way of defining “Vampiric Black Metal”, anything in the music itself? Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OBSCURA QALMA — “OPHIDIAN ENTHRONEMENT”

Premieres No Responses »

Jan 232024

After a break of nearly 20 days in our daily publishing of premieres due to this writer’s submergence in the awful pits of his day job, we mark our return to the sharing of new music in truly spectacular fashion, with a jaw-dropping sonic spectacle from a forthcoming EP by the Venetian blackened death metal band Obscura Qalma.

From the beginning, Obscura Qalma have done nothing by half measures. If it is worth doing, they seem to think, it is worth doing in ways a listener can’t possibly overlook, on scales that dwarf the daily scrabbling of human ants and with the kind of power that overwhelms. Their lyrical themes have been equally far from the mundane.

Some might suspect that what you’ve just read is linguistic hyperbole, especially if you haven’t yet encountered this band’s heavily orchestrated amalgam of black/death, but the song we’re presenting today — “Ophidian Enthronement” — should banish any such doubts (along with any sluggishness that might be afflicting your minds). Continue reading »

COGNIZANCE – PHANTAZEIN

Album Reviews 1 Response »

Jan 222024

(DGR reviews the new album from Cognizance, out 26 January on Willowtip Records)

It wasn’t too long ago we were joking about how Cognizance were one of the better bands when it comes to the “riff-avalanche” style of album – the type of disc that generally picks one particular tempo and sticks to it, leaving the band room to just rattle off part-after-part-after-part atop the listener until, by the end of it, they’ve basically been buried underneath a pile of stuff.

It’s a difficult balance to strike because you can easily get lost in your own creativity and create big, overwhelming works that, by their very nature, are hard to maintain any interest in since everything is so ephemeral and fleeting.

And while Cognizance have remained a sleek and ultra-precise machine for over a decade since the release of their first full length – after having subsisted on a series of singles and EPs – they’ve also slowly hammered and forged their sound into something as fiercely creative and memorably groove-ridden as it is terrifyingly technically-proficient.

Their previous album, Upheaval, picked up where Malignant Dominion left off, and I’ll give you three guesses as to where Phantazein picks up as a starting point a little under two and a half years later.

LISTMANIA 2023: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

LISTMANIA 2023 13 Responses »

Jan 202024

We are basically finished with our 2023 Listmania series, having concluded with DGR‘s five-part series of lists last week.

What’s still missing is our annual “wrap up” post, which provides links to every 2023 list we posted from our staff writers and other contributors and guests.

That wrap-up has been delayed due to Islander’s temporary absence, but the delay allowed us to discover another list that has found its way into our Listmania series in previous years.

This particular list is a mathematically calculated “List of Lists” that amalgamates lists from a variety of online zines in order to create a Top 50 list. Continue reading »

INFANT ISLAND – OBSIDIAN WREATH

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Jan 192024

(Andy Synn takes a trip to Infant Island on their new album, Obsidian Wreath)

What’s in a name, they say?

Well, when it comes to genre-names the answer can be… quite a lot, as it happens.

Case in point, depending on what tags I apply to Obsidian Wreath – call it “Screamo”, call it “Blackgaze”, call it “Post-Metal” – your reactions, and your expectations, might be wildly different.

The truth, of course, is that it’s actually a little bit of all these things, equally indebted to the likes of Pg. 99 and Envy as it is latter-day Panopticon and early Deafheaven, with the end result being… well, you’ll just have to read on to find out, won’t you?

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