AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GROTESQUERIES — “VILE CREMATORY”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 292023
 

In their current promo photo the members of Grotesqueries look serious, quiet, maybe a bit withdrawn — but that’s what the neighbors always say about the serial killers who lived down the block after the awful truth comes out. Grotesqueries probably didn’t actually kill anyone in the making of their debut album Vile Crematory, but it sure as hell sounds like they did, and in the most horrible ways you can imagine.

As they did on their debut EP Haunted Mausoleum from last year, this Boston-based quintet devote themselves on the new album to a particular kind of death metal, the kind where almost nothing is clean and almost everything is vile. The kind where the guitars are tuned to sound like manifestations of flesh-eating disease, the vocals are possessed by monstrous horrors, the grooves are calculated to inflict bone-smashing trauma, and the moods are malign, maniacal, and miserable.

But as you’ll also discover for yourselves through our premiere of the album today, on the eve of its release by Caligari Records, Grotesqueries are also very adept at getting the blood of listeners racing, as well as causing it to congeal. Continue reading »

EKOSA – EYE FOR I

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 292023
 

(Andy Synn travels back to early May to heap praise upon the debut album from Australia’s Ekosa)

Although I do sometimes miss writing for print (despite everything that happened I did genuinely enjoy my time writing for Terrorizer back in the day) I must admit… the sheer freedom afforded to me here at NCS is something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

Case in point, the debut album from Progressive/”Post-” Death Metal quintet Ekosa was released at the beginning of May, but I only discovered it a week or so ago.

Anywhere else, anywhere that focusses more on hard deadlines and keeping on top of the endless release schedule, and we’d probably have missed out on writing about it – but while we do love getting a good scoop now and then, there’s no insistence that we only write about up-and-coming albums, which means I’m free to tell you how much I enjoy Eye for I even though I’m coming late to the party.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEATH OF GIANTS

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jun 292023
 


Photo by Viviane Eriksen

(Over more than 10 years (yes, it’s been that long!) Comrade Aleks has brought us a great many excellent interviews, but the one that follows is among the very best. It’s a discussion with Morten Søbyskogen, the man behind Death of Giants, whose remarkable debut album was released this past May.)

There’s a tragedy behind the epic and gorgeous Death of Giants debut album Ventesorg. This project of multi-instrumentalist Morten Søbyskogen, who managed to perform one of most remarkable gothic death-doom albums of 2023, is a tribute to his wife Sandra, who passed away from brain cancer in 2018. Morten‘s grief took the form of six grandiose tracks filled with real pain and sincere regret. Ventesorg absorbed all of this sadness and frustration and transformed it into something new and touching.

The album was recorded with participant guest musicians, and moreover Morten performed a few gigs with the session lineup, so there are signs pointing toward Death of Giants becomes something bigger and more global. We talked with Morten, and this honest and long conversation is here before you now, along with a recently premiered video near the end of the band’s live cover performance of  “Horror” by W.A.S.P. at the Oslo release show for Ventersorg. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MACHINATIONS OF FATE — “A SPLIT SECOND OF DIVINITY”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 282023
 

Kentucky-based Machinations of Fate made their recording debut almost a dozen years ago with their album-length demo Tyrannous Skies. Significant time passed before the band made another release — a self-titled debut album released by Redefining Darkness Records in 2020 that was a re-mixed and re-mastered version of the tracks from the demo that also included re-recorded drum tracks, courtesy of Ash Thomas (Faithxtractor & Shed the Skin). Although the songs weren’t new, they received a very positive reception, which fueled the band’s work on a follow-up album.

That second album, Celestial Prophecies, is now finished and set for release by the same Redefining Darkness Records on July 28th. The label describes it as “first and foremost, fueled by melody, while the rhythms remain aggressive and cutting”, bringing to mind at different times the classic works of Hypocrisy, Dissection, Immortal or Dimmu Borgir, the kind of thing that “will appeal to those metal fans who have been diehards for decades”.

To help pave the way to this eagerly anticipated follow-up album, today we’re bringing you its second single, a song called “A Split Second of Divinity“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RANNOCH — “THREADS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 282023
 

Few metal bands have so captivated our attention from their beginning to the present day as the UK prog-death powerhouse Rannoch. They started strong and became even stronger; witnessing the evolution of their ambitions and their skills has been thrilling, and in both respects they reached a high-water mark in the extraordinary achievements of their last album, 2020’s Reflections Upon Darkness.

For precisely those reasons, however, there’s been some frustration among us here that Rannoch still haven’t gotten all the acclaim and attention they deserve. They run rings around bands vastly better-known than they are, but thankfully those injustices don’t seem to have sapped Rannoch’s desire. Instead, they have only driven themselves harder, and their forthcoming third album Conflagrations is abundant proof of that. It is indeed a creative conflagration, and one we hope will propel their name to the scale of attention their talents warrant.

This new album is set for release on July 21st by Willowtip Records, and it’s our privilege now to premiere its second single “Threads“, presented through an attention-riveting video. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRYPTIC BROOD

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 282023
 

(In the following interview Comrade Aleks caught up with drummer/vocalist Steffen Brandes from the German metal band Cryptic Brood, and covered a lot of the ground that has passed by since their last discussion 3+ years ago, plus taking a look into the Brood‘s future.)

Steffen Brandes performs drums and vocals in the German death metal (with a bit of doom edge) band Cryptic Brood. We did an interview with him in January 2020, and that was fun. And three years later, during January 2023, I found that I somehow skipped Cryptic Brood’s newest release, the Caustic Fetid Vomit EP produced by Lycanthropic Chants in September 2022. That’s just a two-song-long recording, but there’s always something to talk about with the deep underground dwellers.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: COLONY DROP, CRYPTA, MORAY, HAMMERFILOSOFI

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 272023
 

As you can see, I found just enough time after finishing today’s two premieres to jump quickly into the non-stop churn of new songs and videos and grab just a few of them to hurl your way.

COLONY DROP (U.S.)

Full disclosure: Colony Drop‘s frontperson Joseph Schafer is a very good friend, and at one time a writer for NCS who long ago helped propel us into a higher orbit before going on to become editor at Invisible Oranges, a writer at other high-profile publications such as Decibel, and a leading co-conspirator of ours in the production of Seattle’s Northwest Terror Fest.

Now with that out of the way, here’s why I’d be recommending Colony Drop‘s genre-bending new song “Colony Drop (Brace For Impact)” even if the vocalist had been hooded and anonymous: because it’s one hell of a rocket ride. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACK SORCERY — “GASPING FOR LIGHT UNDER A PETRINE CROSS”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 272023
 

When we heard the first single from Black Sorcery‘s debut album Deciphering Torment Through Malediction it occurred to us that the album was very well-named. That song, “Erinyes Slough”, is unmistakably hateful, from the caustic lunacy of the shrieked vocals to the gut-plunder inflicted by the bassist and the rude corrosiveness of the brazen and roiling guitars. The snare drum keeps time like a metronome that’s still somehow functioning in the midst of a vicious riot.

In addition to being feral and malign, however, a feeling of torment does come through in the riffing, and about halfway through, the drums break their chains and the song transforms into a searing cataclysm that will swallow you up. There’s still something anguished about that electrifying convulsion, but a kind of medieval grandeur emerges as well. In other words, there are more facets to the track than you might guess at first.

Now we’ve got a second excerpt from this new album in advance of its July 28 release by Eternal Death, and it reinforces the impressions created by that first one — that the band’s fury is white hot, that they’re capable of sounding like they’re in the throes of demonic possession, but that they have an affinity for melody that seems like a time machine spun back to an ancient age. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DER DÖBERMANN — “BURN YOUR FIRE”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jun 272023
 

Here in the U.S. Judge Judy would blanch at the idea: a Russian band naming themselves after a German breed of dog that’s so dangerous many home insurance companies ban them, refusing to insure against liability if they cause injury or damage in homes where they’re kept as pets. Sure, they have a reputation for fearlessness, alertness, loyalty, and intelligence, but look at that album cover.

True enough, this gang from Saint Petersburg chose the name Der Döbermann after deciding to start thrashing together in April 2021, and now they’ve got a debut album to show for their efforts, one with the reassuring title Don’t Be Afraid, You Already Dead. We’ve got a bite of what it offers, and a sign of how it bites, in the song we’re premiering today: “Burn Your Fire“. When you hear it you’ll understand why the band chose the name they did instead of, say, Der Dachshund. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOTHER BLACK AUTUMN — “RESPLENDENT APPARITIONS AT THE DAWN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 262023
 

You’re about to hear an album that we hope you’ll find as stunning as we have. “Atmospheric Black Metal” is the simple label, but not an adequate one. It’s inspired and informed by Nature, but anyone who thinks that will lead to an experience of tree-hugging boredom will be shockingly mistaken.

The moods are almost uniformly dark, but the pathways constantly branch and the tonal ingredients, both instrumentally and vocally, are multitudinous. The music fires the senses in harrowing and thrilling ways, and it’s also capable of emotionally felling listeners in a multitude of ways, like trees brought down by both raging chainsaws and old hand axes passed down through generations. It creates sensations of confusion and distress, of chaos and terror, of loneliness and grief, and of haunting ancient mysteries that hide behind the world we see.

The two people responsible for this extraordinary experience are Meghan Wood from Crown of Asteria and Todd Paulson from Canis Dirus. They’ve taken the name Another Black Autumn for this project, and their debut album Resplendent Apparitions at the Dawn is what we’re now presenting in advance of its June 30 release by the always distinctive Fiadh Productions. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries