AN NCS INTERVIEW: DREAM UNENDING

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jan 272023
 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks talks again with Justin DeTore, this time with a focus on Dream Unending, whose second album was released last fall by 20 Buck Spin.)

We spoke with Justin DeTore in November – back then the theme of our interview here was his death-doom band Innumerable Forms and its up-to-date album Philosophical Collapse. Check it, the album is worth attention. And the problem was that we had this proper interview focused mainly on Philosophical Collapse released in September 2022 and I was very, very impressed with another project where Justin shares his ideas with the talented guitarist Derrick Vella  – Dream Unending.

Their second album Song of Salvation saw the light of day in the very same November 2022, and I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I needed to learn more about this piece. It’s a breathtaking death-doom-based psychedelic experience with an absolutely unique atmosphere and approach. If you believe that nothing new could be done in the death-doom realm then Song of Salvation proves you’re wrong.

I fought with temptation to do this interview for some time because I can’t interview Justin each time one of the bands where he plays releases a new album – Innumerable Forms, Solemn Lament, Sumerlands, or Vestal Claret are active in almost equal measure. But after all… why not? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): ENSLAVED, MAJESTIES, MARIANAS REST, ROTTEN SOUND, UNEARTH, OBRIJ, DEATH FEAST, CRONENBERG

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 


Enslaved

Yesterday I promised that today I would post a Part 2 of a mid-week roundup of new songs and videos, even though I hadn’t yet made the choices, much less written it. I hate to break promises, but I’m rapidly running out of time before I have to do some paying work. And my dirty laundry isn’t going to wash itself, nor are our cats going to clean their own litter box. So, although you’ll find lots of good new metal below, you won’t find artwork or as many words as I normally like to dish out.

ENSLAVED (Norway)

“Forest Dweller“: Prepare for big gloom-ridden stomps and exotic Eastern melody, soft strumming and somber and soulful singing, elements of mystery and mesmerization, and plenty of brazen racing and ravaging. Gorgeous video, I assume shot in Iceland.

From the album Heimdal, due out March 3rd on Nuclear Blast. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 19): VÉHÉMENCE, NEBULA ORIONIS, WIEGEDOOD

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Jan 262023
 

Once again I’m racing due to diminishing time, but still determined to continue posting an installment of this list every weekday, especially because the number of weekdays left before I call a halt is now down to a very small number. And so the only preview I’ll give you about the three I’ve chosen today is that they are all black metal songs that are all glorious in different ways. (I wrote about each of them when they surfaced last year, and I’m generously borrowing from those write-ups in the introductions below.)

VÉHÉMENCE (France)

The first song in today’s collection, “Au Blason Brûlé“, is one I premiered at NCS in the run-up to release of the new Véhémence album Ordalies. In that context I explained why the song had such a strong impact — and that impact hasn’t diminished over the year that’s passed since I first heard it: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DREAM UPON TOMBS — “THE CALL”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 

The Australian melodic black/death metal band Dream Upon Tombs has been dreaming in tombs over the course of a 20-year slumber. After the release of a demo (Black Tales of Sorrow And Damnation) in 1997, nothing further was to be heard until another demo (Marble Night In Ecstasy) surfaced in 2020. And now, at last, a debut album named Palaces of Dust is on the horizon.

Founding member and guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Jak Shadows found reasons to begin anew, joined on the album by David (guitar, keys, strings, bass) and Jarrad Taylor (drums). He explains the album’s animating inspiration in these words:

“When mortality has been laid to rest, the streams of existence become a blood ocean unto a distant shore – a land beyond this time, un-chartable; sought by many and ruled by none…”

To help introduce the album, today we’re presenting an official lyric video for a song named “The Call” in advance of the record’s March 3rd release by Sleeping Church Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABADDON INCARNATE — “VERITAS”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 262023
 

Last August Transcending Obscurity Records detonated a new album by the Irish band Abaddon Incarnate, and we sat back and happily watched the shrapnel fly, cutting through everyone who didn’t have the good sense to duck and cover. Our reviewer DGR found the brutality, rage, and vitriol channeled by the band’s formulation of death/grind to be a welcome catharsis. He spilled many words about The Wretched Sermon, including these:

Ten of the thirteen songs on The Wretched Sermon don’t even cross the three-minute mark and many of them are an excuse for drummer Olan Parkinson to just blast things into oblivion while a high-low vocal attack hits with about as much percussiveness as their drummer does. The highlights on that front come early, as both “Veritas” and “Gateways” make for a good one-two boxing combo in the opening minutes of this album after the band race through the initial death metal gurglings of “Rising Of The Lights” – whose opening riff sounds like something straight out of the world of Centinex before Abaddon Incarnate lean hard into “tear heads off’” mode.

We quote that passage because “Veritas” is the song that’s the focus of a video we’re premiering today. It’s a good reminder of what a hell-raising album this is, and a good introduction to people who might not have crossed paths with it last year. Continue reading »

PROFANE ORDER: “ONE NIGHTMARE UNTO ANOTHER”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 

 

(Hope Gould returns to NCS with the following review of a new album by the Montréal extreme metal band Profane Order, which is due for release tomorrow.)

Look, I get it. Some genres aren’t exactly known for their ingenuity. Whether to you it’s called war metal, bestial black metal, or it’s just some grind-black-death bastardization, this style is often written off as ‘uninspired noise’ by even the most extreme metal connoisseurs. Reliably cacophonous, always chaotic and peppered with pick-scrapes aplenty, I find it most effective to approach new releases in the genre with criteria of how memorable the full listen really is. While Profane Order certainly don’t give a fuck what you think, their second full-length is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression.

One Nightmare Unto Another is set for release for tomorrow, January 27th. The aptly titled sophomore album ushers in an entirely new nightmare featuring the Montreal duo’s most uncompromising work yet, full of spastic nuances you’re not going to hear on “just another war metal record.” Illusory and Olcadóir whet their blades on the old school death metal edge they really cut their teeth on in 2019’s well-received Slave Morality. Their first full-length was a bit of a shift from the straight-ahead bestial assault on the preceding EP but called back the grinding crust punk structures of their 2016 demo. (Seriously, it’s worth visiting every nightmare the band has cooked up). Material this ruthless often works best in small but heavy hits; even Slayer’s immortal Reign in Blood clocks in just shy of twenty-nine minutes. Profane Order tap into the same dark ancient magick, opening the throttle on a twenty-five minute wholly satisfying hellride. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MAZE OF SOTHOTH, ANOXIA, STREET TOMBS, TENTACULT, ISOLANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 252023
 

As of last night I had this round-up all ready to go. I mean, I still needed to do the writing, but I had picked a selection of music from five new releases that I thought would go really well together, and they all had fine cover art too. And then this morning I found some more just-released gems within the Niagara Falls of e-mails that crashed into our in-box overnight. What to do?

As you can tell, I decided to turn this mid-week round-up into a two-parter. Part 1 sticks with what I decided to do last night. Part 2 will include the new stuff I spotted this morning. Part 2 isn’t written yet, which means you won’t see it ’til tomorrow. Something else will probably hit our in-box overnight that will make it even longer.

MAZE OF SOTHOTH (Italy)

We’ve had a six-year gap since this band’s debut album Soul Demise, which we premiered here and reviewed here. But at last they have a new full-length named Extirpated Light that’s headed our way on March 24th via Everlasting Spew Records. And based on the first single, it sounds like the intervening years have brought some changes in their sound, which Metal-Archives previously labeled Technical Death Metal, even though that label was missing a lot of necessary nuance. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DEAD WILL WALK — “A NEW DAY OF DAWNING”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 252023
 

The Dutch band Dead Will Walk pack six songs into their new EP A New Day of Dawning, and you’ll get to hear every one of them today in advance of the record’s January 27th release. Horror and ferocity await you in this music, with its roots sunk deep into the fetid earth of death metal from decades past, but delivered with the killing efficiency of modern mechanized armaments and the kind of songwriting chops that make the songs highly addictive. We share these thoughts from the band:

Our goal for this release was to write songs that underline our roots for the old school underground scene. Here we have tried to convey the same feeling as from the glory days of death metal. Thoughtful songs that remain listenable and always have a small twitch. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and we wanted to record an EP that wouldn’t look out of place in a record collection from the late eighties or early nineties.

The humility in that comment is admirable, and so the task is left to us to explain just how damned good A New Day of Dawning really is and why it definitely should not be overlooked in the vast seas of old school death metal that now surround us. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 18): SPIRITWORLD, WEREWOLVES, THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  No Responses »
Jan 252023
 

Unlike in a few past years, this year I’ve had time to complete and post a new installment of this list every weekday since I started rolling it out. What I’ve got ahead of me today created a serious risk I wouldn’t get this 18th Part finished in time. So, in a hurry, I’ll truncate the intro:

OK boys and girls, it’s time to tear off your clothes and go running wild into the streets! Unless you’re over 40, and then it might be best if you kept your clothes on, out of consideration for the neighbors.

SPIRITWORLD (U.S.)

If you’ve never seen SpiritWorld live on stage I strongly encourage you to beg, borrow, or steal whatever you need to buy a ticket and get to a show, even if the closest venue is Siberia. I saw them play Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle last year, and man, what a fucking revelation that was. I’d only heard a few songs off their first album, and their second one (Deathwestern) wasn’t due out until five months later, so I didn’t have a very good idea of to expect. I sure as hell didn’t know how they’d be dressed. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): OBITUARY, BLOODBATH, REVOCATION

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  No Responses »
Jan 242023
 


Obituary

Big-name musical artists usually have big names for valid reasons, because at one time or another they made music that became hugely popular. In the world of extreme metal, I think it’s fair to say that it’s tough to become hugely popular unless, at one time or another, the music was also really good. Pretty faces, stylish clothes, and slick videos are few and far between and they don’t count for much in this world anyway, and active PR machines will only move the needle so far.

But note that I keep saying “at one time or another.” That’s because some bands got hugely popular and earned their big names and then continued trading on that popularity long after the music sunk into mediocrity, or worse. But that didn’t happen with the three bands whose songs are the subject of this Part of our list. They’re still earning their big names, and even though our putrid site doesn’t spend a lot of time applauding bands who don’t need any help from us, we still do it from time to time… and today is one of those times.

OBITUARY (U.S.)

Here’s Exhibit A in the proof that some big-name bands don’t forget where they came from and still have the fire in the belly and the songwriting talent to turn out a great album 35 fucking years after they started. Here’s also Exhibit A in the proof that I have a very malleable rule about the timing of songs that qualify for this list. Continue reading »

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