AN NCS PREMIERE: FAITHXTRACTOR — “LIFE ABNEGATION”

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Nov 182022
 

As long-time fans of metallic extremity are well aware, the revival of old school death metal that began in all its many shapes over the last decade or so has reached the proportions of a flood tide. Like other kinds of retro revivalism the results have been mixed, ranging from bland nostalgia worship to music that manages to authentically breathe new life into the old traditions without morphing them into something unfamiliar. Updated production values may be added to the mix, or a sprinkling of new ideas capable of seizing attention.

And in some cases, current bands are just so outlandishly good at what they’re doing that your thoughts don’t drift away into “hell, I’ve heard this a hundred times before”, because you’re too busy getting your head wrecked and your nerves ignited.

Which brings us, as a prime example of that, to the criminally under-noticed Faithxtractor from Cincinnati and their new album Contempt for a Failed Dimension, which will get a January 20th release through Redefining Darkness Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FROZEN DAWN — “OATH OF FORGOTTEN PAST”

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Nov 182022
 

It’s our great pleasure today to premiere the second advance track from the forthcoming fourth album by the Spanish band Frozen Dawn, their first one in five years. Entitled The Decline of the Enlightened Gods, it will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records.

As its title may suggest, the new music of Frozen Dawn plays out on a grand stage. It’s well capable of scathing and scorching the senses, but it continually soars to ravishing heights of startling magnificence, and the melodies play moving lead roles in the unfolding pageantry.

These are the kind of stirring songs that not only get hearts pounding (and breaking), but also prove to be intensely memorable. Not for naught is it said that Frozen Dawn pay tribute to the likes of Dissection, Necrophobic, Sacramentum, and Naglfar, and the choice of cover art by the late great Mariusz Lewandowski is also entirely fitting.

The song we’re presenting today, “Oath of Forgotten Past“, is a great example of all the qualities noted above. Continue reading »

THE MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS OF 2022: OUR ANNUAL APPEAL TO READERS FOR HELP!

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  29 Responses »
Nov 182022
 

 

You might not have noticed, but our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza at NCS has begun, as evidenced by this post from a week ago. But we didn’t really give this project a proper introduction, so we’re doing that now. For those of you new to the orgy, our LISTMANIA blockbuster comes in four parts:

First, like that post linked above, we re-print assorted lists of the year’s best albums, leeched from other big web sites and magazines. Second, we will provide a post in which our readers can share their lists of the 2022 albums and shorter releases they enjoyed the most (we’ll be asking for those on December 1st, so get ready). Third, we will post the year-end lists of our own staff and assorted guest writers, and that will begin on December 9th.

And fourth, I’ll again roll out my list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs — which still seems especially well-named in this third year of covid, doesn’t it? That list is the subject of this request for help. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE: BOB MALMSTRÖM — “SEGLA MED SATAN”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 172022
 

There’s something admirable in standing fast against powerful headwinds, even when the position may cause some to cringe.

Bob Malmström staked out their position long ago as the true originators and crowned kings of “borgarcore”, and they have taken delight since 2010 in jabbing their fingers into the eyes of standard “against the system” punk mentality by celebrating the benefits of Dom Perignon, lap dances by pretty girls, fast cars that can be run by you instead of over you, and favorable swings in the stock markets. Maintaining that position in recent years has gotten tougher, but these Swedish-speaking Finns haven’t backed down. In the context of their new EP Segla med Satan they write:

It’s 2022 and everything is going to hell. The stock market is tanking, the waves are full of poisonous algae porridge and in the east a mad tyrant force-feeds his brain virus to the people like a Frenchman force-feeds geese. The world is on the brink of an abyss…. Salvation is not what anyone expected, nor asked for, but it gives you the Zen to ski down the slopes of the Alps waving your middle fingers to the poor. We’re ready to rock the gold teeth out of your mouths.

Punk is for poor losers. Folk metal is for stupid losers. Bättre folk metal is for rich geniuses! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WOLOK — “THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND”

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Nov 172022
 

“Can you imagine the raw savagery of early Black Metal mixed with monolithic Death Doom, a pinch of Crust Punk and some spastic Plasma Pool type of EBM all placed inside a jar? Wolok did, they made a molotov of it and they are now ready to throw it at us all and see the world burn”.

That’s a tag-team wrestling match of words from Brucia Records, who will be releasing Wolok‘s new album The Bilious Hues of Gloom on December 8th. It’s a valiant effort at linguistically trying to grapple Wolok‘s music to the mat, as well as a sign of how difficult it is to do that. Brucia also leaps from the turnbuckle with this characterization:

“Too Punk for Black Metal, too Doom for Punk, too Industrial for Doom… deranged, demented and disjointed… bipolarly shifting from majestic to decrepit and back for all of its duration… completely psychotic….” Continue reading »

INVERTED MATTER – HARBINGER

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 172022
 

(Andy Synn brings you some multi-national mayhem courtesy of Inverted Matter)

There are many, many things I love about Metal.

But one of the biggest is that there’s always something new to discover, a new artist or album to uncover that you’ve previously overlooked, so it’s practically impossible to get bored or jaded (emphasis on “practically”).

Take Inverted Matter, for example.

This multinational menagerie of misfits, monsters, and mercenaries (whose ranks include Defacement drummer Marco Dal pastro – putting in yet another pulverising percussive performance here) are brand new to me, despite the fact that they released their debut album, Detach, way back in 2017.

But, better late than never, right? And now that I’ve discovered them it’s time for me to pay it forward and introduce them to some of you in turn.

Continue reading »

THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM: “VOL. III: SATAN IN HIS ORIGINAL GLORY”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Nov 172022
 

(Last month The Antichrist Imperium released their third glorious and reverent ode to Satan under the auspices of the Apocalyptic Witchcraft label. Allowing time for it to settle in, DGR now devotes a long review to it.)

We’re well past a month since the release of The Antichrist Imperium‘s newest album Vol III: Satan In His Original Glory. One of the things we can can say about it is that it will constantly leave you befuddled and may take you about a month to fully wrap your head round it as well.

It is a strange album, from a collective of musicians for whom ‘weird’ has become a consistent throughline in their overall mass of projects to begin with. Voices as a whole and especially their latest volley Breaking The Trauma Bond? Abrasive, weird, fascinating. Ackercocke‘s return Rennaissance In Extremis? Weird as hell and fascinating. Antichrist Imperium when they’re not in full death metal mode? Much the same.

That you have the presence of two of the boulder-punchers from Werewolves in the lineup shows that someone in the band has the mind to attempt some of the most high-minded and far-reaching music and then just as quickly pen some of the dumbest, purposefully one-directional music out there. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: THE INFERNO DOLL — “RENFIELD”

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Nov 162022
 

For everyone who’s seen Tod Browning’s 1931 film Dracula, the demented and tormented face of Renfield as portrayed by Dwight Frye is likely one of the most unforgettable images. The character himself, in both Bram Stoker’s novel and that film, is a haunting figure, seduced to the point of madness by the influence of his master and a craving of blood, and ridden by guilt in his momentary moments of lucidity.

Though arguably a minor character in that horrifying tale, Renfield has nevertheless become a source of fascination and inspiration for some artists, one prominent example of which is Barbara Hambly‘s 2006 novel Renfield: Slave of Dracula, which presents some twists on the original tale and some intriguing explanations about the turmoil of his being torn between good and evil.

Calgary-based Laura “Inferno” Vargas is another artist for whom Renfield has become a fascination. Drawing in part on Hambly‘s novel for inspiration, she has used her guise as The Inferno Doll to create a song in his name, which we’re premiering today in advance of its November 18th release as a single, along with a video that presents its own twists. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SPEGLAS — “TIME, FUTILITY & DEATH”

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Nov 162022
 

What we have for you now is an enormous surprise, and one we hope you’ll find as wonderful as we have. It’s not as extreme as most of what occupies our attention around here (though it does have its moments of barbarity), but we’ve found it a perpetually eye-popping and captivating record.

The subject is Time, Futility & Death, a new EP by the Swedish group Speglas that will be released on November 18th by Pulverised Records. It follows their first release, another EP, by a very long seven years, long enough that maybe even enthusiastic fans of that first recording may have forgotten the band. The new release will prove a vivid reminder of their talents, and should attract a lot of new adherents among adventurous listeners, if only the word will spread. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MYCELIUM

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Nov 162022
 

(Not long ago we had the thrill of premiering a song from the forthcoming second album by the fungal death metal band Mycelium, and now we have more delights to present through an extremely entertaining interview by Comrade Aleks of the man behind the mushrooms, Greg Edwards.)

And here we have a fantastic death metal project from Glasgow with lyrics telling stories of mushrooms and unspeakable horrors! Greg Edwards ran the black metal one-man band Necronoclast for ten years from 2003 to 2013 but then he had to take a pause and rethink his priorities. As result, Mycelium was born!

Greg started it in 2020 and the first album Scream Bloody Spore was released already in 2021, and now one more year has passed and one more album was recorded! Mycoticism: Disseminating the Propagules is to be revealed to the extreme metal underground on the 25th of November through the Swedish label Blood Harvest. And I hope this interview will pique your interest towards Mycelium and the magic world of deathly dangerous mushrooms. Continue reading »

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