AGRICULTURE – AGRICULTURE

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 172023
 

(Andy Synn digs deep into Agriculture‘s highly-anticipated debut album, out this Friday)

The Circle Chant, the debut EP from self-described “ecstatic Black Metal” band Agriculture, received a lot of hype – in certain circles, at least – when it was released last year.

And while I, perhaps unsurprisingly, felt that some of these reactions were a little overblown – two really good tracks and two bits of filler content does not make for a great release overall, in my book – the best moments of the EP (most specifically the opening title-track, which is basically five minutes of raw emotional energy in musical form) convinced me to keep an eye and an ear open for whatever the band did next.

Which is where their self-titled album comes in.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CENOBITE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jul 172023
 

(Today we have a discussion among two Russians, our interviewer Comrade Aleks and the frontman of the death metal torturers Cenobite, whose newest album was unshackled in late May.)

I interviewed Kostek Dolganov, who performs bass and vocals in the Russian old-school death metal band Cenobite, just two years ago. Despite all odds the band and their label Svanrenne Music prepared a new full-length album which naturally surpassed the debut Dark Dimension we discussed the last time.

Fans of savage and violent death metal rooted in the legacy of Obituary, Entombed, Autopsy and Asphyx will like their stuff, so let’s take a look at what the label tells about the album:

“Torment Your Flesh and Explore the Limits of Experience is the wheel of suffering, tightly fitted with chains to a bent figure, creates the impression of inevitability, fate, overcoming. The band continues the tradition of the debut album, composing the worst anthems of old school death metal, sustained in the mystical atmosphere of a frightening empty basement of cold torture. Where chains ring, bones rattle, drafts blow, and martyrs are awaiting their fate in mud and blood… in anticipation of the torment of the flesh and exploration of the limits of terrible experience”.

It sounds a bit blurred, so let’s investigate a bit more about Torment Your Flesh and Explore the Limits of Experience with Cenobite’s chief. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DANTALION, SATÓN, ANTI-GOD HAND, MAZE OF TERROR, EMINENTIA TENEBRIS, STANGARIGEL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 162023
 

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times (probably closer to 200): I have another job whose demands are very unpredictable. It interfered with my ability to prepare a roundup yesterday, unexpectedly so for me — because I just fucking forgot about a big online meeting that had been scheduled for months (rude surprises have many causes). It started early and went on for 2 1/2 hours (come on, it takes time to coordinate production of pocket-sized fusion reactors!).

I thought about just pretending that today was Saturday and proceeding with a cross-genre roundup, but then thought again, and decided to stick with the usual plan and focus on the blacker arts today. Still, your creaky wagon won’t get stuck in any ruts – these selections will cause it to careen all over the en-thorned dirt road (or so I hope).

DANTALION (Spain)

I decided to start with a quintet of songs from forthcoming releases and then turn to just one recent EP. The first of the advance tracks comes from the ninth album by the long-running Spanish band Dantalion (which my addled brain always tries to read as “dandelion”, though there’s nothing about their music that connects with such an image, unless the flower is dead). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WOE, 夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 142023
 

Here we are at another Friday, with yet another big pile of new metal staring us in the face and not nearly enough time to make much of a start in selecting recommendations before the sun gets high in the sky (or is replaced by the moon where you might live).

I’m reminded of the statement attributed to Laozi about how the journey of a thousand miles begins, a proverb that usually doesn’t motivate me at times like this, when a thousand-yard stare is all I can usually muster. But today I tried harder to take the proverb to heart, and actually made two steps. Unless like puts a bog in my path, more steps will follow tomorrow and Sunday.

WOE (U.S.)

My first selection is a new song from Legacies of Frailty, a new album by Woe and the first one since 2017’s Hope Attrition. Since then, it’s hard to deny that the human world around us has slid backward, more rapidly and in more disgusting ways than even the pessimists among us had contemplated, and the natural world has suffered for it as well.

These developments certainly weighed on the mind of Chris Grigg, who for the first time since 2007 made this Woe album by himself (albeit with additional drumming on three tracks by Lev Weinstein). The result is a concept album, described by Grigg in these words: Continue reading »

DEADSPACE: NEWS AND NEW MUSIC

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 142023
 


Deadspace

Those of you who have been following us a long time know that for a long time we have been following the band Deadspace (as the many reviews collected here will demonstrate), as well as the Exitium Sui solo project of Deadspace front-person Chris Gebauer (those reviews collected here). There was a time when we thought Deadspace had been interred forever when Chris moved to Europe, but thankfully the reports of their demise proved to be premature:

In 2021 Deadspace released the single “Moksha“, and about one month ago Immortal Frost Productions announced that on September 22nd it will release the band’s seventh album, Unveiling the Palest Truth. But even before then Deadspace will release another record, and it’s our pleasure to announce that today, as well as to provide a reminder about the first single that surfaced from the new album about a week ago and to spread the word about a couple of upcoming live shows. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEAD FIELDS OF WOOLWICH — “I’VE MADE IT TO HELL”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 132023
 

We’re told that Dead Fields Of Woolwich had its beginnings in the Autumn of 2020 in North Bay, Ontario when multi-instrumentalist Kye Bell (Within Nostalgia) created a project inspired by a love of bands like Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, and Wood Of Ypres. The band’s name was inspired by the place where he grew up in southern Ontario, a place that left memories of “of old fields, scarecrows, and dense woods of twisted trees”.

Although still considered a solo project at heart, the band’s forthcoming self-titled album includes the performances of session vocalist Alyssa Broere (Within Nostalgia, ex-Astral Witch), and you’ll see from our video premiere today that Alyssa plays a vital role in the album’s captivating rendering of gothic melodic doom. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: COUNTESS ERZSEBET — “IN THE BLOOD OF VIRGINS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 132023
 

In this feature today we’re sort of premiering a video for a song from the forthcoming self-titled mini-album by the artist Countess Erzsebet. “Sort of” because the video is age-restricted, and therefore we’re only able to give you a link to YouTube where you can verify that you are a mature adult, or at least an adult.

The name of the song is “In the Blood of Virgins“, and it’s age-restricted because (as the Countess explains) it includes “abstract erotic horror elements”, though the scenes of her bathing in blood obviously weren’t abstract enough to satisfy YouTube and its algorithms.

Before we get to some further details about the video, and most especially about the music you’ll hear, we might need to introduce some of you to Countess Erzsebet (previously known as Erzsebet when she released the nearly-album-length Black Spell in 2017). She is also known as Rachel Bloodspell Moongoddess, who has previously played bass for a number of bands but more recently Xasthur, where she did three tours playing acoustic bass and was on the Aestas Pretium MMXVIII EP.

But her background also includes other interesting details. Continue reading »

BLACK RABBIT: “HYPNOSOMNIA”

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Jul 132023
 

(The Dutch band Black Rabbit released their debut album in March, and given our past attentions it would be a surprise if we didn’t say something about it. Finally we have, thanks to the following extensive commentary by DGR.)

You’ll have noticed over the years that one of the ongoing threads we like to pluck at around this site is the idea that there are certain albums we just can’t let go by, even though we’re long after release and the sort of ‘cultural moment’ that a disc may have had has passed – whether measured in nanoseconds or months. There are always albums that seem to steadily hover around the surface of the great musical scrying pool that we often pull our review subjects from, and at a certain point it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore the reason why we’re writing about them, just that we must, because at some point we’re completing some imaginary story arc that has drilled itself into our skulls.

Black Rabbit’s debut album Hypnosomnia is one of those. Honestly, it has been surprising that we’ve never really closed out the initial thread we started with our coverage of these death metal groove monsters ages ago by covering their first-full length. Its equally surprising that it seems that this one has been stealth-flying on a lot of people’s musical radars, given the metal public’s current seemingly insatiable appetite for big, meaty riffs and thudding rotating snare drum/bass drum one-two rhythms that bore their way under your skin until they become part of you.

If nothing else, we can close our own personal musical arc with the band, rectifying at least one of those two situations, by checking in with Hypnosomnia now. Continue reading »

NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS: THE VIDEO PREMIERE OF “CRYPT OF THE GORILLA GOD” (AND A REVIEW OF “SILVER BULLET”)

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jul 122023
 

“What you’re about to experience is likely to be the most electrifying 18 minutes of your day, unless you lose control of your car, the brakes fail, and you’re surging toward a concrete pylon at Formula One speed.”

Almost four months ago that’s how we began our review and premiere of a self-titled EP by the Chicago-based horror-loving quintet Necronomicon Ex Mortis. We also wrote this: “Their brand of death metal is so fast, so technically head-spinning, and so devilishly inventive that it allows no room for any calm contemplation. All you can do is hang on for dear life and enjoy the flame-throwing madhouse thrills while they last — and then yield to the impulse to throw yourself back in right away”.

No wonder then that we jumped at the chance to host another Necronomicon Ex Mortis premiere today, and we’re doing that because they already have another EP headed for release in August. It’s named Silver Bullet, so if you’re a werewolf you’d better run. You might want to run even if you’re not a lycanthrope. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE GRIFTED

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jul 122023
 

(If you’re a death metal fan and you haven’t yet heard The Grifted‘s new album, released in April by Personal Records, you have some excellent listening ahead of you, and you’ll probably be even more interested after you read Comrade Aleks‘ excellent interview with guitarist Stefan Lagergren.)

NCS’ constant followers will remember The Grifted‘s track premiere in March (here). This absolutely classic sounding death metal band from Stockholm drew our attention not only with the killer single “The Maggots Feast” and their debut album Doomsday & Salvation itself, but also with heir shockingly civilized image, very organic and impressive.

The Grifted was founded in 2020 technically, but it’s the renamed version of the Mr. Death collective which used to record two proper full-lengths works and two EPs in a period from 2007 to 2020. Moreover, Juck Thullberg (bass) and Stefan Lagergren (guitars) were founders of the pre-Tiamat band Treblinka and took part in recording of Tiamat’s debut Sumerian Cry (1990).

And it’s right to note what their colleagues Jonas Ohlsson (drums), Jocke Lindström (vocals), and Staffan Skoglund (guitars) certainly know a few things about how to turn everything upside down and unleash the sheer death metal madness upon our doomed world.

This interview should have been done earlier, and I kept it on my mind for almost four months, so I invite you to join our conversation with Stefan Lagergren with a sense of relief and the feeling that the right thing is done. (And thanks to Nathan Birk, Suspicious Activities PR, for organizing this interview.) Continue reading »

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