AN NCS PREMIERE: CRAWL — “VANITY”

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Jul 042023
 

Misanthropic-Art‘s cover image for a new split by the Swedish death metal bands Feral and Crawl is decrepit, decaying, and haunting, but also molten, an image of ancient regal grandeur now cracked, strangled by roots sprung from the earth, and littered with skulls of the dead, but something not of the earth pours forth from the eye of an obelisk.

It’s a fitting image for a split by two bands who honor the now seemingly ancient and unhealthy powers of Swedish death metal but in ways that still make it sound molten. Both bands released hellishly good albums five years ago (Feral‘s Flesh for Funerals Eternal and Crawl‘s Rituals), and the split marks a very welcome return, with each band contributing two new songs.

The split is entitled Made As Those Who Are No Longer Alive, Transcending Obscurity Records will release it on September 5th, and what we’re bringing you today is the debut of the second of Crawl‘s two songs — “Vanity“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: NUCLEAR DUDES — “BOSS BLADES” (FEATURING DAVE VERELLEN)

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Jul 032023
 

For some of you, and especially those who frequent the grimy vermin-ridden squat occupied by this site, your first exposure to the music of Nuclear Dudes might have been “Manifest Piss Tape“, the first single from the project’s forthcoming debut album Boss Blades, which we covered here. But some other possible exposures preceded that one (the Gin and Panic and Bad at Sleep records released last year) and one other has followed it (another single from the new album, named “Year 3“).

If you’ve caught up to any of this so far, you already have a pretty good idea that the new album is going to be a sonic whirligig that’s perilous to life and limb (and sanity) no matter how tight you strap yourself in. And so it is — “a manic mix of extreme metal, synth-prog, powerviolence, and industrial noise” (to quote from the press materials), or as framed by Jon Weisnewski, the person behind the project, “a wild-eyed response to the question ‘What if Carcass and Gary Numan were locked in a studio and had to figure out how to make a record together?’”

Weisnewski‘s name alone draws attention to the album, given that he’s the front-person of the notorious Seattle bands Sandrider and Akimbo. So does the name Dave Verellen (from Botch), because he makes two guest vocal appearances on Boss Blade — and Dust Moth’s Irene Barber joins in on a track too. And speaking of Dave Verellen, one of the songs on which he contributes is the album’s title track that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HALLUCINATE — “CRIMSON RAIN”

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Jul 032023
 

In introducing From the Bowels of the Earth, the debut album by the German band Hallucinate‘s debut album (whose lineup features members of Graveyard Ghoul and Karloff), it would be extreme negligence not to explain the traumatic event that spawned it. So, we begin with that explanation, in the words of vocalist / lead guitarist Persecutor:

“From the Bowels of the Earth sprung forth from a very tough psilocybin experience right before the onset of the pandemic. It almost broke me mentally; I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I started writing the songs in an attempt to put myself back together, trying to integrate that experience. It was a very dark and intimidating display of ancient powerful archetypes haunting me with synchronistic, apocryphal, and soul-crushing revelations – not the funky-shmunky colorful hippie shit most people associate with this stuff. So a psych-stricken, kinda-prog death metal record felt most natural to tell the story, where each song represents a stage of the trip with its physiological, psychic and spiritual implications.”

The connection between that dire trip and the album’s music is reflected in the song titles, which capture the changing visions. But the connection is also manifested in the music, which is crushing death metal at its core but also thoroughly infiltrated with influences of prog and (of course) psychedelia, ingredients that don’t sound stuck on like post-it notes but instead grew of their own accord, like arteries and veins in a gestating thing that has now found flourishing and frightening life.

Today we have one of the mind-altering visions brought to life on From the Bowels of the Earth in the song called “Crimson Rain” that we’re premiering in advance of the album’s release by Caligari Records on August 4th. Continue reading »

BLACKBRAID – BLACKBRAID II

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 032023
 

(Andy Synn takes a second look at Blackbraid and their new album)

The thing about overhyping a band, or an album, is that it doesn’t really leave you much room to manoeuvre in the future.

After all, if [Record A] was so perfect how is it possible that [Record B] – which we all agree is an altogether superior and more mature piece of work – is somehow better?

Case in point, while Blackbraid II undoubtedly improves upon its predecessor in a myriad of subtle ways it’s also not without its flaws, which I’d imagine presents certain writers/reviewers with a difficult decision to make.

Because either they acknowledge that II is the better album despite its imperfections – in which case they have to admit that they went a little overboard with praising I – or they have to continue to pretend that the band can do no wrong… in which case, how is it possible to improve on perfection?

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BRETWALDAS OF HEATHEN DOOM

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Jul 032023
 

(Metal-Archives’ stitching together of “heavy metal, doom, black metal, and crust” is a pretty good signifier that the music of the British band Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom isn’t easy to pigeon-hole (and those multiple labels still don’t go far enough), but it’s a hell of a lot of heavy, sinister, head-bobbing fun. With their new album fairly fresh out, Comrade Aleks decided to reach out, and landed a very engaging discussion with band bassist/vocalist Wartooth.)

The duet of Dagfari Wartooth (bass, vocals) and Sceot Acwealde (aka Arcwielder) (drums, guitars, vocals) keep on playing their pagan hymns for 22 years now. Started in 2001, Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom performs an angry and vivid mix of doom, heavy and crusty pagan metal, and their fourth album Summoning the Gatekeepers was released on the 1st of May (Beltane, you know?).

You may still buy  the rest of the CDs small run, ordering it right from the band’s own label Old Man’s Mettle. And here, in this interview with Wartooth, you’ll learn why this album is worthy of your money. And I truly hope you’ll enjoy this authentic album as I did, for the will of the gods is a great power. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KRIEG, DEATHMOOR, PORTA NIGRA, ZIGOTA

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Jul 022023
 

Here we are again, ready to blacken the Sabbath with some new things you might not have heard, the kind of things that would ruin most people’s days but I hope will turn yours into warming bonfires. Well, maybe not warming, more like incinerating, but still welcome I hope. What’s ahead is a new stand-alone single, a couple of tracks from a forthcoming album, and two just-released full-lengths.

KRIEG (U.S.)

Neill Jameson has made a name for himself as a music writer, often wise-cracking, irreverently cynical, and creatively foul-mouthed but with a finely-honed and widely respected taste that makes lots of people pay attention to his recommendations of underground gems. We’ve benefited from that here ourselves, usually through his year-end lists for our site but also at other times when he’s been moved to send something our way.

But before he made a name for himself in those ways, he and his band Krieg made a name for themselves in the annals of U.S. black metal. Krieg‘s musical output, beginning with their debut album in 1998 (recently reissued by The Devil’s Elixirs Records), ran in a hot, year-after-year torrent through 2018, mostly splits and EPs but with 7 more albums also scattered along the way. Then there was a four-year pause before 2022 brought forth a split with Crucifixion Bell, which demonstrated in electrifying fashion that although Time may have aged Krieg‘s members, it definitely hasn’t dulled their knives or moderated their musical savagery.

And now we’ve got a new Krieg single named “Bone Whip,” which is captured on one of those flexi-discs in the new issue of Decibel magazine (the one with Mizmor on the cover, available for purchase here). As disclosed at Decibel’s site, the song was recorded during the sessions for Krieg‘s next album (the name of which is Ruiner), but won’t be included on that album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: INCANTATION, KATAKLYSM, OSSUARY, CRUCIBLE OF HATE, GHOST HOLLOW

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 012023
 


Incantation

When I started this blog 13 years, 7 months, and 10 days ago (but who’s counting?) I had very few ambitions. One of them was to continue posting about metal straight through the weekends for as long as this NCS lark might last, no days off.

Back in those days of the internet’s infancy, blogs devoted to metal were few in number (none of them were fancy enough to call themselves “web sites”), and I thought being the only such place with something new on the weekends would attract a few more visitors. But my main motivation was to tangibly demonstrate that NCS wasn’t a business, and writing for NCS wasn’t a job, and never would it be. Because if it were a job you’d get the weekends off, right?

13 years, 7 months, and 10 days later, I’m still not pausing NCS on the weekends. In all that time we’ve had some weekend days where nothing new went up, but not many. Maybe a dozen days, certainly not more than two dozen. Illness, injury, and apocalyptic hangovers have taken their tolls, but not nearly as often as you might think. However, weekends like this one pose a special challenge. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 160): GENEVIEVE

 THE SYNN REPORT  No Responses »
Jul 012023
 

Recommended for fans of: Akercocke, Imperial Triumphant, Abyssal

With another month having now come and gone it is – inevitably – time for another edition of The Synn Report.

And with Baltimore-based blast-beatniks Genevieve having just dropped their long-awaited new album last week… well, there was simply no question that this month was going to be all about them and their ambitious brand of unpredictable, avant-garde extremity.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEAD AND DRIPPING — “MOLECULAR DEGRADATION UPON WARPED ONYX STOVES”

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Jun 302023
 

Since 2016 the one-person New Jersey band Dead and Dripping has lurked in a far subterranean corner of the sonic torture chamber known as “brutal death metal”. Over the course of a pair of demos and a pair of albums, its music has proven to be far more bamboozling than the typical pile-driving thuggery and bullet-spitting mayhem for which the genre is best known. The music has been unusually intricate and technically impressive, though it would be wrong to try to slot it into the “technical death metal” framework, and it has trended in increasingly macabre directions.

All of those qualities stand out in Dead and Dripping‘s new album Blackened Cerebral Rifts, and indeed this new one is even more surreal and schizophrenic than what has come before, even more technically complex, and yet somehow also ruthlessly bludgeoning and gruesome. For those reasons (and others), the vividly colorful and strikingly bizarre cover art by Jason Wayne Barnett is an excellent companion for the music. Not for naught does Transcending Obscurity Records recommend it for fans of Wormed, Demilich, and Defeated Sanity, as well as Suffocation, Mortal Decay, and Wicked Innocence.

Three songs from the album have already premiered, and if you’ve heard those you have a very good idea of what you’ll be getting yourselves into when Transcending Obscurity releases the album on August 11th. But especially if you haven’t heard any of those, and even if you have, the song we’re premiering today is well worth your time. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SQUELCH CHAMBER — “THE STEEPLE IS FALLING”

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Jun 302023
 

 

On July 12th the Czech label Owlripper Recordings will release Eater of Self, a new album by Pennsylvania-based Squelch Chamber. In describing it, the label invites you to consider the idea of a sonic blender:

For the forthcoming album, mangle together in a blender reminiscences of the untamed ferocity of Primitive Man, The Body, Ken Mode, Therapy? on their first 2 EPs, Abandon (Sweden), Skinny Puppy, then add dashes of Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Full Of Hell and Fear Of God all on 16rpm, but with added liquids, doom and noise. That’s the Squelch Chamber cocktail as I hear it, so I hope this gets you suitably intrigued for the monolithic album that is to follow…

Well, that got us intrigued, and the album track we’re premiering today followed intrigue with deep-seated disturbances, made even more disturbing by the video that accompanies it. Continue reading »

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