SEEN AND HEARD: ALKALOID, MOROKH, MYRKUR, DOPELORD, DISMAL AURA

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 222023
 

A rare day with no premieres on our calendar, which means I had time to whip up a roundup of new songs and videos.

Lots of things to choose from, as usual, and in making those choices I decided to give you a musical carnival ride, one of those things that’s spinning in several directions at once and leaves you stumbling with vertigo by the end.

ALKALOID (Germany)

My comrade DGR alerted us to this first song, which he pithily described as “one of the more batshit songs from Numen,” Numen being the name of Alkaloid‘s new album. Saying that anything on an Alkaloid release is more batshit than others is really saying something, since everything tends to be in the batshit crazy category. But sure enough…. Continue reading »

MASSEN – GENTLE BRUTALITY

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 222023
 

(Andy Synn continues his long-standing love-affair with Massen and their upcoming new album)

As much as I enjoy dissonance and discordance in my music, it remains true – even at the most extreme end(s) of the spectrum – that melody often plays the most important role in an artist’s output.

And why shouldn’t it? After all, melody is one of the prime (and one of the most primal) ways in which we communicate an emotion. Melody isn’t just about catchy hooks, it’s about telling a story.

But, perhaps just as importantly, melody can also tell you a lot about a band’s history as well – where they come from, how they became who they are – and explains so much about why, for example, Melodeath bands from Finland or Black Metal bands from Sweden sound different from their compatriots from other countries.

It should be no surprise then that, beneath their fiery mix of furious Melodic Death Metal, folk-infused Black Metal, and potent protest Punk, melody plays a key role in the sound of Gentle Brutality, the new album from Berlin-by-way-of-Belarus band Massen.

Continue reading »

GRAND CADAVER: “DEITIES OF DEATHLIKE SLEEP”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 222023
 

(Our man DGR takes on the new album by the Swedish death metal group Grand Cadaver in the following extensive review, just a few days before the record’s August 25 release by Majestic Mountain Records.)

Grand Cadaver are one of a large handful of throwback Swede-death metal projects that popped up over the last couple years. The stars must’ve aligned just right for the combination of the ‘thirty-year nostalgia cycle’, the trapped-at-home anxiousness of much of the pandemic, and the general creative explosion that seems to have emerged from a lot of people determined not to let Bloodbath have all the fun over the past few years, that we’ve wound up with quite the resurgence of that particular style.

You can always argue that it never stopped, and like much of heavy metal, there is never going to be any one style that actually fully ‘stops’. Given the genre’s obsession with corpses, murder, and the shambling dead therein, it would make sense that it would also continue to lurch along in the underground while the spotlight focuses on other trends.

The recent uptick of such bands, however, also includes groups of seasoned musicians who’ve largely made a career out of other styles of music coming back around to what they grew up with and cut their teeth on, which is largely why it seems like lately you’ve been able to see bands with incredible resumes to their varying parts. Grand Cadaver are one of those,  and they’ve kept pretty busy since launching in 2020, having issued one album and an EP up until now, and now this year we’re being treated to the group’s second full-length, Deities Of Deathlike Sleep. Continue reading »

WEREWOLVES: “MY ENEMIES LOOK AND SOUND LIKE ME”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 212023
 

(In the review below, DGR explains at length why he has had so much dumb fun with the latest Werewolves album, which Prosthetic Records released earlier this month.)

Credit where credit is due: Werewolves know exactly what they’re doing in their year-over year churn to see just how much the metal community is willing to let them get away with.

They continue their hot streak of fantastic album titles with their newest release entitled My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me, and when you open one of your videos with a set of knuckles being literally dragged across the ground, the ability to plead the fifth on the accusation of having fun with just how dumb they make their music flies right out the window. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FARSCAPE — “PURGED AND FORGOTTEN”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 212023
 

The Brazilian thrash metal band Farscape have a long and storied career, one that can be traced back to 1998. Beginning in 2001 their recording discharges came hot and heavy, straight through numerous splits and three albums. But after the last of those albums, 2013’s Primitive Blitzkrieg, Farscape fell silent.

Now, however, a long decade later, Farscape return, and remarkably with the same lineup, whose members spent the intervening years in other endeavors that included the likes of Diabolic Force, Atomic Roar, Apokalyptic Raids, Sodomizer, and later Whipstriker.

Back together in the Farscape harness, they’re releasing a new album named Purged and Forgotten through Dying Victims Productions on September 22nd, and today we’re bringing you the album’s diabolically electrifying title track. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: CONFLAGRACIÓN — “DILUCIDANDO EL AUGURIO DE LOS MALOS EXPÍRITUS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 212023
 

We have a most fascinating piece of music with which to bless and curse your ears today, an experience that causes muscles to throb but minds to turn to smoke, and you may feel the cold fingers of apparitions caressing your neck as they bare their teeth behind you.

That’s just one way of trying to capture the music of “Dilucidando el Augurio de los Malos Espíritus“. Your own imaginations, awakened by the song, will probably supply others, especially if you listen in a dark cool place (catacombs would be ideal) only lit by candles.

The song is the title track from a debut album by the Salvadoran band Conflagración, which will soon be co-released by Morbid Skull Records and DeathRockerSorrow Records, and we’re presenting it with a video that provides a chilling companion to the spookiness and venom in the music. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ASAGRAUM, MYCORRHIZAE, SKØV, FELONIE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Aug 202023
 

Pro tip: When you know the wind is shifting and it’s going to blow a mass of wildfire smoke into your area overnight, remember to close the windows in your bedroom so you don’t wake up with watering eyes and clogged lungs.

Of course I forgot to do that. To compound the idiocy I still went outside on my deck today for the usual morning coffee… and cigarettes… while watching a rising sun turned the color of Hell.

I suppose there’s a fitting synchronicity in listening to black metal while feeling nasty and thinking about Hell. I’m obviously trying to find the silver lining… or at least a lining that looks like fire and ash.

ASAGRAUM (Netherlands)

Of course, given the conditions described above, it felt completely natural to begin today’s column with a song called “Impure Fire“. The choice seemed even more natural based on the heated and harrowing nature of the music. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GREAT FALLS, THE KEENING, DIKASTERION, COPROLITH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Aug 192023
 

Well, no unforeseeable calamities befell me or our indomitable site in the last 24 hours, and so I’ve probably set a record for us today with the fourth roundup of new music in a row. If you include tomorrow’s Shades of Black column (barring a calamity), that will be five in a row.

The incredible thing is that even with so many daily installments, one after the other, there’s still a big pile of worthy new metal I haven’t managed to feature, and in that respect there’s nothing particularly unusual about the last week. Every week, the flood just keeps surging.

GREAT FALLS (U.S.)

I fibbed a little. Not everything in today’s collection surfaced during the last week. These first two songs, “Trap Feeding” and “Old Words Worn Thin“, are a tad older than that. They’re both from a new album by this devastating Seattle crew that will be out on September 15th through Neurot Recordings. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MALOKARPATAN, KALA, HIEMS, FILTH IS ETERNAL, SHADOWSPAWN, OBSCURA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 182023
 

It’s been a very long time since I was able to compile roundups of new music three days in a row, but lo and behold I have done so, mainly due to the absence of any premieres on our calendar for today. Barring some unforeseeable calamity I’ll add a fourth one in a row tomorrow in the usual Saturday Seen and Heard spot.

MALOKARPATAN (Slovakia)

To spice up the musical fall, and just in time for Samhain, Malokarpatan will release a new album named Vertumnus Caesar through Invictus Productions (EU) and The Ajna Offensive (NorthAm) on October 27.

We never really know what devils will come out to play when this band records something new, and that’s probably not entirely clear from listening to the first single from the album, which just surfaced. But that’s all we have so far, so what does it show us? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FIRES IN THE DISTANCE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 182023
 


Photo by Matty Thrash

(Today we have another new interview by Comrade Aleks, and this time he talked with the band Fires in the Distance, whose second album saw release in April by Prosthetic Records.)

Melodic death-doom outfit Fires in the Distance was founded in Newington, Connecticut seven years ago. Their debut album Echoes from Deep November (2020) demonstrated the band’s good taste towards dark, melancholic music with natural emotional depth. Prosthetic Records released the band’s second full-length work Air Not Meant for Us on April 28, 2023, and we almost immediately got in touch with the band.

The album is an amazing voyage to the fragile realm of autumnal melancholy and an effective exercise in expressing hidden griefs.  Air Not Meant for Us grants high-level of melodies and drive at the same time, so it’s right to mention the names of those who stand behind the album: Craig Breitsprecher (bass, vocals), Jordan Rippe (drums), Yegor Savonin (guitars, synths), and Kristian Grimaldi (guitars, vocals).

Yet, not everything goes according the plan, and this interview with an anonymous member of the band was unfinished for reasons, speaking diplomatically, beyond our control. The album is worthy of your attention yet, and this interview will help to understand it a bit better. Continue reading »

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