SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KHANATE, KATAKLYSM, TEMPLE OF DREAD, BLACKBRAID, HALFLIGHTED, ANIMA HERETICAE

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May 202023
 


Khanate

I began this morning like I’ve begun every morning since the start of the pandemic: sitting on the deck of my home in the forest drinking a triple-espresso, smoking cigarettes, and reading the local, national, and international news on my phone.

It’s not something I can recommend in good conscience. Smoking is bad for you and the news is almost invariably depressing. But today the birds around me were in full song and the news included a story about a woman who had a “loud and full body orgasm” during the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony as performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The article where I learned about this included a link to a list of “The 10 Best Orgasm Symphonies”, compiled by British music journalist Norman Lebrecht in celebration of the woman’s scream. The article also quoted opera soprano Renée Fleming: “Let’s not forget that the word ‘climax’ is a common musical term. It has to do with musical tension and its release.”

With this in mind, I started making my way through my gigantic list of new songs and videos from the past week or two, listening for climaxes. If you get one while listening to what follows, just keep that to yourself. (Joking of course — I want to hear all about it!) Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TERRA BUILDER — “INTERPLANETARY PORTAL”

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May 192023
 

As far as we know, the first hint of what the German band Terra Builder had concocted for their debut album Solar Temple was a song named “Abyss” that first surfaced on the Transcending Obscurity Records label sampler released in January of this year. What kind of musical message did it send us?

Well, in a nutshell, it communicated the band’s desire to beat the living hell out of people and gouge out their guts, while simultaneously pouring nightmare fuel into their ears and screaming bloody murder in their faces. Viscerally propulsive, insidiously infectious, and fear-inducing in its atmosphere, it proved to be a damned good teaser for this solar temple they had made out of death metal and grindcore, along with hints of sludge and black metal.

Patiently biding our time, we’ve been waiting for more, and now we (and you) have more. We haven’t been exposed to the whole album yet, nor do we know its release date, but we have been given another track to share with you, and this one is named “Interplanetary Portal.” Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PENNY COFFIN – “CONSCRIPTED MORALITY”

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May 192023
 

(Our long-time writer DGR has been very busy catching up with recent releases that struck his interest in different ways, and today we begin a daily run of reviews that will carry on through next week. This one is for a new EP by the Scottish band Penny Coffin that was released in April via Dry Cough Records and At With False Noise.)

We’ve long specialized in stumbling headfirst into the world of the oppressively dark and suffocating. Rarely would you see a website describe itself as having a knack for something and it certainly couldn’t be said that we’re skilled seekers of the style; it’s more like a drunken crash through the wall when the entrance door is just two feet over. The latest one to send that shock to our system – or be rudely awakened by our door-crashing — is the group Penny Coffin and their latest release.

Penny Coffin come to us by way of Scotland with their third EP – the band currently on a schedule of one EP a year – Conscripted Morality. Conscripted Morality saw release in early April and was one of the many tumbling into the whirling abyss of the internet discoveries that found themselves captured in the great content maw, with the purpose of allowing us to investigate when things here sort of lightened up.

Playing a style of grossly-heavy death metal with an emphasis on brutalizing and equally brain-rotting guitar chug, it’s shocking that the band haven’t fought their way onto this here site before, because Conscripted Morality‘s brand of bleak-and-grey mud is perfectly suited to find some listeners around here. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GALLOWS RITES — “WITCHCRAFT AND NECRO DESECRATION”

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May 182023
 

Portugal’s Gallows Rites are as un-pretentious as they come. In their debut EP Witchcraft and Necro Desecration they announce their steadfast devotion to Lucifer, and never swerve from it. The music is a black thrashing glorification of the lord of Hell and all his minions, often primal and primitive but thoroughly saturated by the stench of sulphur and exulting in the kind of sonic sorcery that brings visions of witches’ covens to the mind’s eye.

Gallows Rites thrive in the fast lane, just as devoted to music that would stir up mosh pits into bloody froths as they are to the glory of the Lightbringer. But they also switch gears and moods in these five songs, in ways that make them even more attention-grabbing.

You will experience all this for yourselves today, because we have a premiere stream of the EP in advance of its release tomorrow — May 19th — by Helldprod Records. Continue reading »

THE ACACIA STRAIN – STEP INTO THE LIGHT / FAILURE WILL FOLLOW

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May 182023
 

(Andy Synn presents a double-header of heaviness courtesy of The Acacia Strain)

So here’s the thing… I wasn’t always a fan of The Acacia Strain.

But then the oddest thing started to happen. The more popular they got (and there’s no denying they’re pretty damn popular these days) the less populist they seemed to become.

And so I started to pay more attention (I think this was around the time they released Gravebloom, but I may be wrong). And as they began to spend less and less time “playing to the cheap seats” (for want of a better term) the more and more I liked what I was hearing.

Which is why it’s about time I put my proverbial money where my metaphorical mouth is and give their recently released double-album, Step Into the Light / Failure Will Follow, some proper attention.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: INFERNAL CURSE — “BLACK MASS SHEPHERD”

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May 172023
 

As you could quickly conclude if you searched our site for the words “Infernal Curse“, it’s always welcome news around here when this Argentinian black/death metal band surfaces with new music. The latest welcome news is that on June 23rd Infernal Curse will release their third album in a career that now spans 15 years. The name of the new one (a classic example of truth in advertising) is Revelations Beyond Insanity, and it will arrive via Iron Bonehead Productions.

If you haven’t yet explored this group’s evolving discography, it’s a hell of a trip. There are definite through-lines — bestial barbarity and barely controlled chaos among them — but the band have also moved in more mind-bending directions, using their undeniable savagery as a morphing vehicle for spawning blood-congealing hallucinations and visions of hideous grandeur. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: UKĆ — “UNCERTAINTY”

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May 172023
 

I first encountered the music of UKĆ in March of this year thanks to a prompt from Rennie Resmini in his most recent entry at starkweather’s SubStack. It concerned a single song named “Uchodząc” (“Fading Away”) from a then-forthcoming album and read as follows:

“I’ll be damned if the intro to the new track from Poland’s Ukć ‘Uchodz​ą​c‘ isn’t distinctly Bathory – Hammerheart meets Swans – “Will We Survive”. Great track that melds this melodic edge and fierce black metal. Looking forward to how this new album shapes up. This is monumental, epic stuff quickly following on the heels of last year’s Przemijanie.”

I probably didn’t need to say anything more about “Uchodząc“, but of course I did. I wrote then: “In its remarkably varied sounds, you’ll find bone-rattling drumwork and spine-jolting riffage, as well as sensations of harrowing and scintillating grandeur complemented by horn-like and chime-like tones, plus striking vocal intensity (along with gloomy spoken words and some singing) — and a lilting acoustic melody that’s sublime.”

Having listened, I wanted to know about the lyrics.  Because they were in Polish, I resorted to Google Translate, which told me that the song was about a child’s yearning to live, to learn, to love, within a twisted reality that’s “blind, deaf, stupid, indifferent”, and brutally kicks hope in the face. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TILINTETGJORT

 Interviews  1 Response »
May 172023
 


photo by Carl Eek

(The Norwegian black metal band Tilintetgjort made quite an impressive full-length debut in late March of this year with their album In Death I Shall Arise on Dark Essence Records, and followed that the next month with a performance at Inferno Metal Festival in Oslo. It seemed like a good time for Karina Noctum to reach out to the band for an interview — which now follows.)

Tilintetgjort from Oslo bring a fresh approach to the scene by blending their own musical perspectives with the traditional Norwegian Black Metal sound in their solid debut album In Death I Shall Arise. In this interview they gave us we not only talk about their new album, but also get some insights into its recording and production at Chaka Khan Studio (Darkthrone, Nekromantheon).

******

What’s the meaning of the band’s name and why was it chosen?

Tilintetgjort is Norwegian for “Annihilated”, or literally “Made Into Nothing”. We felt it reflected our music very well, this concept of destruction, the way all things must end and die. Something has to disappear for something else to grow. Continue reading »

MORKERA – AGGRAVATIONS

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May 162023
 

(Andy Synn invites you all to experience the auditory horror of Morkera‘s new album, Aggravations)

Let me start by saying that Entangled Excavations, the debut album from Croatia’s Morkera was a truly nasty piece of work (in the best possible way), and although it didn’t make my Top Ten of 2022 it was most definitely one of my favourite new discoveries of the year, and the fact that I didn’t get chance to give it a full write up is still something I deeply regret.

But, lo and behold, I now have a chance to make up for this egregious omission because just last week the band released their second full-length – proving that there really is no rest for the wicked!

Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PANDRADOR — “NITHSTANG OF SLEIPNIR”

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May 162023
 

The “post death metal” band Pandrador hail from Poland but for their forthcoming second album Seiðr (set for release by Pagan Records on May 26th) they have again drawn inspiration from the heritage of Scandinavian culture. But anyone who guesses they’re about to hear “Viking metal” needs to think again.

The narrative of the album is very much a contemporary heroic poem, not a pedantic leafing through the pages of ancient histories and poems or musical paeans to the glories of Valhalla but a challenging examination of tradition that uses it as a jumping-off point into disturbed reflections about human culture as it now exists (worldwide) and what the future might bring (if we have one).

It’s worth spending a few more minutes about Seiðr‘s conception, because this is one of those albums where the thematic content and the music aren’t really separable. As the advance press describes it: “They complement each other, set the pace and mood for each other. The album spirals through a spectrum of emotions, from unbridled rage, through denial, painful understanding and powerlessness in the face of one’s own tragedy, to the final statement – ‘too late.'” Continue reading »

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