AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DARKEND — “VIATICUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 122024
 

(On June 14th Time To Kill Records will release the fifth album by the Italian black metal band Darkend, and today we’re premiering its full stream, preceded by an extensive review by our writer (and longtime Darkend fan) DGR.)

Even though it would be wonderful for every group we cover to achieve massive stardom, playng to gigantic crowds and existing as a perpetual part of the cultural zeitgeist – since that seems to be the only way we can completely guarantee someone is making a decent living playing music these days – a few artistic benefits are afforded to musicians who are currently dwelling in the underground, ever on the slow burn and amassing more and more notoriety over time, as opposed to a sudden viral explosion that sees them top of the world one week and then trying to maintain that for years afterward.

One of those is that you are free to move within the realms of an artistic spectacle far more than you might otherwise be given room to; every album becomes an opportunity to swing for the fences and execute upon ambitious and grand ideas while also giving room to reinvent oneself as much as you feel.

We bring this up in part because Italy’s Darkend have had a near-two-decade career at this point and it is one that has allowed them to be increasingly ambitious over the course of five albums, while remaking themselves into as much of a spectacle as they are a musical act within that time. Continue reading »

COWARDICE – ATAVIST

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 122024
 

(Andy Synn recommends making time to immerse yourself in the bleak beauty of Atavist, out now)

Damn, there were a lot of good albums released last week, huh? And I mean a lot.

Just off the top of my head (and not including Oubliette, who I’ve already written about) there’s Umbra Vitae, Terminal Function, Houle, Swelling Repulsion, Lascar, Brazen Tongue, Thanatotherion, Fractal Generator… the list goes on… only some of whom I’m likely to get to writing about before the month is over.

But the reason I picked Cowardice, out of all the aforementioned possibilities (and all the unmentioned ones), is because – in defiance of their chosen moniker – they’re clearly not afraid to take risks.

Why else would they choose to make their new album (their second overall, and their first full-length release in eight years) an absolutely massive double-disc affair, clocking in at just under eighty five minutes of sorrowful, yet spellbinding, Sludge/Doom?

Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GOLGOTHA — “SPREADING THE WINGS OF HOPE”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 112024
 

Over the course of a career that began in 1992 and has continued fairly steadily ever since (interrupted by one long break following their third album in 2005), the Spanish band Golgotha have remained devoted to musical renditions of melancholy and desolate sorrow. They remain devoted to their own traditions in their newest album, and yet, as the album’s title itself portrays, they have not lost hope.

That album, Spreading the Wings of Hope, comes from a place of maturity and the depth of emotional reflection that only many decades of daily experience can bring — experiences of deceit and pain, of inner psychological trauma and persistent injustice in the outer world, but also experiences of resilience and beauty.

For Golgotha, it is evident, as they say themselves, that they still carry “the flickering flame of hope”: “It burns low, but it burns still…” That comes through in both the lyrics and the music on the new album, though what also comes through is that Golgotha have not forsaken the need to express the doom and desolation that continues to plague human existence, as it always has.

Spreading the Wings of Hope will be released by Golgotha‘s new label Ardua Music on June 14th, and we’re privileged to let you hear all of it today. Continue reading »

NÄCHTLICH — “EXALTATION OF EVIL”

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Jun 112024
 

(We present Vizzah Harri‘s review of the latest album by Toronto-based Nächtlich, which was released last month by Dreadful Lust Productions.)

Nächtlich have been around for a while now, inflicting a raw, vile and infernal brand of black metal on Canadian shores since their self-titled EP in 2017. Their discography is pretty extensive already and boasts no less than 3 demos, the same number in EP’s, ten splits with various other dealers of raw black, and on May 10th this year they released their third full-length, Exaltation of Evil. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: COFFIN CURSE

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Jun 112024
 

(For various reasons the interview you’re about to read got lost in the ugly bowels of the NCS HQ, and because it’s one of the best discussions Comrade Aleks has produced, thanks significantly to the flair of his conversation partner Max Neira, our editor is flagellating himself for the delay with extra-bloody vigor.)

Two years ago we did the interview with the Chilean band Inanna. You probably remember these tough guys who do top-notch death metal with a twisted Lovecraftian touch. Two of those guys also have their own death metal band – Coffin Curse. Max Niera (guitars, bass, vocals) and Carlos Fuentes (drums) started it in 2012, and since then they do not stop. No rest for the wicked, so you say.

A few days ago I heard the absolutely malevolent and bloody straightforward death metal album The Continuous Nothing, which is their second full-length. Memento Mori released it on April 22nd. As the official press kit states, you should expect “a logical continuation of that not-inconsiderable debut: timeless, taut, and terrorizing”. And there’s hard to add something else to this laconic and capacious definition.

Naturally we had a lot to discuss with the band, and Max Neira provided us this detailed and thoughtful interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: EL MORTA

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 102024
 

(The Irish trio El Morta includes current or former members of Mourning Beloveth, but in this new configuration they’ve followed very different and much harder to pin down directions. They released their debut album last month, and around that time Comrade Aleks spoke with El Morta‘s Adrian, producing the following extensive and interesting interview.)

I know that besides me there are a couple of people here who remember the Irish death-doom band Mourning Beloveth and are waiting for a new album from them. They seem to be writing something, but it’s not clear how soon we’ll get it. Meanwhile, their much-ex-bassist Adrian de Buitléar and still-listed guitarist Brian Delaney and vocalist Darren Moore recorded their first album under the name El Morta.

The project previously launched two EPs, but although the Metal-Archives describe these records as “death-doom”, it is simply a label hung on El Morta by inertia. Their album The Man Who Laughs does indeed have doom forms and moods at its core, but this material gives a stronger impression of heavy, experimental, almost avant-garde psychedelia.

Vague instrumental images and a certain monotony of the narrative, cycle after cycle, song after song, keep the outline of the album unbreakable, although El Morta cannot be accused of monotony. The futility of existence, the exhausting pressure of reality, and some kind of latent premonition of trouble form a deafening emotional vacuum, a feeling of claustrophobia that is very obvious thanks to the detached voice of Darren. Strange, uncomfortable, and a bit crazy album. We discussed it with Adrian recently. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VORARE — “AMBER HUM”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 102024
 

Prepare yourselves for a nightmare armageddon of sound. No riffs, no melody, no reprieve, only derangement, devastation, and pain.

Truth be told, there really isn’t any good way of preparing for the sounds and sights in the video we’re premiering for the track “Amber Hum” off Atelier, an album released last month by the Finnish duo Vorare. Even the genre summing-up “avant-garde drone-doom/death industrial” doesn’t really do the job, and the track’s intriguing title only obscures the horror of what’s about to happen. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLOODCROSS — “GRAVEBOUND”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 102024
 

We managed to overlook Abyssal Blood, the first demo of the Finnish heavy metal band Bloodcross, when it landed in 2021. And so their debut album Gravebound is hitting us like an enormous surprise. Maybe that’s for the best, because with Gravebound it feels like Bloodcross have musically found their best selves, with results that really are astonishing.

Whereas Metal-Archives stuck the simple “Black Metal” label on Bloodcross based on that demo, even then it really didn’t completely capture what Bloodcross were doing (something like “blackened melodic thrash” would have been more informative.) But with Gravebound they have more extravagantly and elaborately branched out, not totally forsaking the influence of such bands as Dissection and Necrophobic, but more prominently bringing into play elements of power metal, speed metal, and (for want of a better term) “classic” heavy metal. Continue reading »

OUBLIETTE – ETERNITY WHISPERS

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 102024
 

(Andy Synn finds that the new album from Oubliette, out now, is far from torturous)

There are a lot of bands out there that I happen to think are over-hyped and overrated.

But this isn’t about them.

This is about a band who’ve yet to receive anywhere near the attention and acclaim for their music – a stunning blend of scorching intensity, soaring melody, and scintillating technicality which bridges the gap between Panopticon and Insomnium while still adding its own distinctive flair and flavour – which they so richly deserve.

And, I’ll cop to it, some of that is our fault, as although we’ve featured the band here a few times over the years, this is the first time any of us has actually managed to find time to sit down and give them a full write-up.

So let’s make it count, shall we?

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KVAEN, VIEDŹMINY PAKUTY, LIMBES, MRAKOMOR, NEBETEMN, UPON THE ALTAR

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 092024
 

After an extended period of relative quiet my fucking day job has reared its ugly head and is howling at me again. So, this column is my way of howling back, albeit much more briefly than I would like because that beast still has one of my ankles shackled, though that’s better than both ankles and both wrists.

KVAEN (Sweden)

Last week Kvaen released the second song and video to pave the way toward their third album The Formless Fires. I believe my compatriot Sir Andrew Synn (the knighting was not well-publicized because he declined to bend a knee) is likely to review the album, so I’ll just focus on this newest song, “The Ancient Gods“. Continue reading »

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