AN NCS PREMIERE: STUPOROUS — “DECORATING THE WILLOW TREE”

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Nov 202023
 

“Stuperous,” in case you were wondering, is a word found in the dictionary. It means “stunned or confused and slow to react (as from blows or exhaustion)”. Synonyms include dazed, foggy, groggy, and lethargic.

A strange choice for a metal band name, you might think, especially a band whose music stands as an antonym for “stuporous”. Momentarily, you’ll see why we think that.

As for the band itself, it’s the brainchild of Floris Velthuis, whose name you might recognize as the main person behind the unorthodox black metal band Meslamtaea. In Stuperous he’s joined by trumpeter Izzy Op de Beeck, who’s also part of Meslamtaea, and singer Devi Hisgen, who we’re told works in psychiatry, a useful specialty in the context of the trio’s debut album Asylum’s Lament, given that the lyrics are about mental disorders and depression, based on true events in a psychiatric facility.

That album is now set for release on January 25th by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions, and what we have for you today is the premiere of the album track “Decorating the Willow Tree“. Continue reading »

RACETRAITOR – CREATION AND THE TIMELESS ORDER OF THINGS

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Nov 202023
 

(Andy Synn offers his thoughts on the new album from Racetraitor, which was released last week)

As I may have mentioned before, my original introduction into the “alternative” music scene came via Punk and Hardcore, with the latter in particular playing a fundamental and formative role in my early musical development.

And while my tastes eventually expanded and evolved, Hardcore has always retained a special place in my heart, with last year in particular doing a lot to renew my faith in the genre with its bumper crop of artists and albums representing the wide variety – from the melodic to the metallic, the punkiest to the proggiest – and resurgent vitality of the modern scene.

Unfortunately, by and large, 2023 hasn’t been anywhere near as good, with too many of the biggest and most hyped-up releases, in my opinion at least, making a lot of noise without really saying anything.

But that’s not an accusation that could ever be levelled at Racetraitor, and their new album is no exception.

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: IHSAHN, DÉLÉTÈRE, NIPHREDIL, ANGEL OF THE ABYSS, RAAT, DISCIPLINE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Nov 192023
 

I hurt all over, thanks for asking. The result of a week spent trying to exercise muscles that turned into limp noodles after months of sedentary living. If I could get all the lactic acid out of my body it would probably fill a barrel.

Well, maybe hurting all over wasn’t the worst thing as a basis for picking the music in this Sunday column today. It led to selections that will make you hurt in different ways too.

IHSAHN (Norway)

The hurting begins with “Pilgrimage To Oblivion“, a new song from Ihsahn that surfaced three days ago in two different versions. The main version combines orchestral bombast and terrorizing screams, frenzied strings and plundering percussion, to create a thoroughly harrowing experience in keeping with the song’s title and the video’s tale of personal ruin. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SAVAGE LANDS, LORD DYING, DEATH SCYTHE, MÊLÉE DES AURORES, VOLTUMNA, STUVEMARK, COMPRESSION, SLIIMO, VOODUS

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 182023
 

LOTS of new metal to get to today, so this sentence is all the introduction I’ll provide.

SAVAGE LANDS (Int’l)

A charity project whose goal is to help preserve the forests of Costa Rica and the creatures that live there. Founded by drummer Dirk Verbeuren and musician-turned-activist Sylvain Demercastel (a current resident of Costa Rica). First song is about howler monkeys and features appearances by guitarist Andres Kisser (Sepultura) and vocalist John Tardy (Obituary). OK, I’ll bite. Continue reading »

STORTREGN: “FINITUDE”

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Nov 172023
 

(DGR finally caught up with reviewing the new album by Stortregn, and one reason you can guess at is that it’s probably going to appear again on his NCS year-end list. That’s our bet at least.)

You probably noticed this before I did, but a glance at the calendar in this clusterfuck of a year showed that it had suddenly because November. Traditionally – and there are a few traditions that even us heretics in this corner of the interweb observe – November is something of a ‘panic month’, wherein not only do you have your new releases, but you also have people – like our own Austin Weber recently – who are desperately trying to play catch-up with albums that have come out throughout the year.

This writer does the same of course and with similar purpose, because there are albums that for one reason or another didn’t get covered or ones that we’ve discovered while burying our nose in the tree roots and sniffing around the dirt, or the more personal one: to introduce people to an album now so that when it starts popping up within people’s year-end collections they won’t suddenly be taken aback by a release that has had fuck-all coverage on a site now praising it as one of the best of the year.

It’s a compulsion to complete a narrative arc, and I have that sense that Stortregn‘s Finitude may actually dark-horse its way into a few people’s year-end collectives. A bigger part of that story may be how it will likely find a place somewhere in the year-end celebration we throw around here, because Finitude is a very fine distillation of the tech-death genre as a whole, and the one that these Swiss madmen have created here is one that will surprise people – even when you can recognize many of its component parts. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DUSK — “BEACON OBSCURED”

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Nov 172023
 

You can tell from the name Dusk that this Wisconsin band got their start a very long time ago. Especially in the doomier sectors of the metal-verse, a name like that would have been seized early. Of course, as Metal-Archives shows us, 10 other bands from around the world also seized it, but none earlier than this group from Green Bay.

Metal-Archives also documents for us that many of the other early Dusk‘s no longer exist, some of them barely surviving past their first releases. And so it seemed with the Wisconsin band: They released a self-titled EP in 1994 and a debut album (…Majestic Thou in Ruin) in 1995, and then nothing new for 10 years after.

The silence was broken by a 2005 split with Aphotic (another Green Bay band), and then another long silence descended until the band re-formed in 2015 and the Dark Symphonies label then released Dusk‘s 2018 EP, Withdraw.

Twenty-eight years is a damned long time between albums, but at last we have a new one on the way from Dusk, a second full-length named Dissolve Into Ash that will be collaboratively released on December 8th by Dark Symphonies/The Crypt Vinyl and Dread Records, and as a sign of what Dusk has now accomplished we’re premiering an official video for the new album’s opening song, “Beacon Obscured“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: STILLEKLANG — “SEHNSUCHT LAUERT”

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Nov 172023
 

At almost exactly this same time last year we had the pleasure of premiering a song from the first album by a captivating German melancholic black metal band named Stilleklang. That album, Tränen der Vergangenheit Part 1, was (as its title portrayed) the first part of a two-part work. And now the second and concluding part is ready for release and it’s again our pleasure to host a song premiere.

The songs on Tränen der Vergangenheit Part 2 date from the same period as the first album, both in terms of the compositions as well as the recording and mastering. On both albums Stilleklang‘s sole member Fabian Veith was joined by two guest musicians — Markus Röll (Gernotshagen, Herbstlethargie) on drums and M. on violin.

Last year we described Stilleklang‘s music as “a multi-faceted fashioning of black metal that’s elegant and poignant as well as harsh and livid” — both somber and tormented, spellbinding and wondrous. Those words come to mind again in listening to the long song from the latest album that we’re presenting today — “Sehnsucht lauert“. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA BEGINS: THE DECIBEL TOP 40 FOR 2023

 LISTMANIA 2023  17 Responses »
Nov 172023
 

It has become an annual tradition at our putrid humble site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA orgy with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list, because they always seem to burst from the starting gate sooner than anyone else — and they’ve done it again this year, just a few days later than they did in 2022. There’s also the fact that, in my humble opinion, DECIBEL is still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal, and their list always generates healthy discussions, so it’s a fitting way to launch the latest LISTMANIA season apart from the list’s early-bird status.

The DECIBEL 2023 list will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2024 edition, which hasn’t yet hit my own mailbox, but DECIBEL again decided (for the ninth year in a row) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line yesterday, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt, beyond the sheepishness that comes from being one of the factors that forced them to start outing themselves in the first place. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): FOETAL JUICE — “GROTESQUE”

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Nov 162023
 

“Foetal Juice! Foetal Juice! Foetal Juice!”

OK, so some of you were born too late to get that warped reference to a certain excellent 1988 movie. The choice of name isn’t the only thing humorously warped about this UK death metal band, who make sure you know where they’re from in the spelling. Their outrageously vulgar song-naming traditions are even more over the top.

In fact, it’s likely that their putrid plays-on-words will be one of the first things that come to mind for anyone who’s encountered their previous releases. And make no mistake, they haven’t cleaned up their act on their new album Grotesque, whose title rigorously adheres to principles of truth in advertising.

But anyone who’s encountered their previous releases, and especially 2020’s Gluttony album, also know that Foetal Juice have a helluva lot more going on in their music than gruesome and raunchy humor. They could be reciting treatises on generally accepted accounting principles and the songs would still blast your head open like a cantaloupe on the receiving end of a shotgun.

And as you’re about to find out, there’ still more going on in Grotesque than we’ve already hinted at. Yes, it’s gross and traumatizing, and rabidly vicious, but it’s also galvanizing in the way of a big precision-made turbine. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ALTARS OF THE MOON — “THE COLOSSUS AND THE WIDOW”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 162023
 

Released in the summer of 2021, Brahmastra was the debut album of Altars of the Moon. It first turned some heads because of the identities of the people who made it: Nathan Verschoor (Uada), Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves, ex-Nachmystium), and Heath Rave (Lotus Thrones, ex-Wolvhammer). It probably turned heads again when it became evident that the music was several big steps away from what might have been expected given the nature of the participants’ main musical endeavors.

Like other collaborations, this one was born in lockdown times, one of covid’s precious few silver linings. As a plague child, some might have expected it would quickly perish, a one-and-done union of talents. But time doesn’t heal all wounds, nor does it always still restless minds or silence voices. As it turns out, Altars of the Moon had something more to say.

And so now we’re on the verge of Disorder Recordings releasing a second Altars of the Moon album, this one named The Colossus and The Widow. The three collaborators came together again by long distance — Rave on vocals, Verschoor on guitars and synths, and Wilson on bass, guitar, and synth — but this time they were joined by another notable name, Alan Cassidy (The Black Dahila Murder), on drums. In addition, the new record features guest appearances on saxophone by Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) and on trumpet by Mac Gollehon (Duran Duran, David Bowie).

We’re now putting the results before you in full, preceded by our own thoughts as usual but also by these from Heath Rave: Continue reading »

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