AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HOLY DEATH — “NECK WOUND SESSION”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 142023
 

We’ve been fans of the underground California death/doom band Holy Death ever since coming across their second EP, Supreme Metaphysical Violence, soon after its release in February 2020. We’ve followed them closely ever since, like a pack of hounds chasing after a car, witness the fact that we’ve written about them on seven separate occasions over these three years.

And so my heart sank last September when I read a statement by the band’s vocalist/guitarist Torie John that jut a few days after the band released their 2022 Moral Terror EPs he was diagnosed with metastatic papillary thyroid cancer, and that it had spread from his thyroid to his lymph nodes.

Torie also explained that the cancer could be treated with surgery, and that it was curable. At the time of that first announcement, he was still searching for a surgeon and hospital to perform a complete thyroidectomy and removal of lymph nodes. Ultimately, the search was successful, and the extensive surgery on his neck was scheduled to take place last November.

What did he do to prepare for the surgery? Of course, he and his bandmates spent November 5, 2022, recording a new release with Raul “Riff” Cuellar at his Riff Audio studio in Burbank. Naturally, they named the record Neck Wound Session. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: AEFFECT / THE BLEEDING / WALLOWING

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jun 142023
 

(Andy Synn presents three more prime-cuts of British steel)

The ever-fertile UK scene has produced a lot of new releases so far this year.

Some of them I’ve loved, some of them I’ve not been too fond of, and some of them… I just haven’t had a chance to listen to.

But these three stood out to me recently (even if I’m a little late getting to them) and felt like they deserved more attention, both from me and from our readers!

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE PIT

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 142023
 

(Just two days ago we had the good fortune to premiere a song off the ferocious, dark, and demented new album by the Mexican death metal band The Pit, which will be released next month by Personal Records, and now we present a timely interview by Comrade Aleks of the band’s co-founder and guitarist Antonio Nolasco.)

Well, The Pit… There’s a deep meaning in this title, and as this band from Querétaro performs pretty violent death metal you can only imagine what goes on in The Pit‘s horrible depths.

The title of their debut, Disrupted Human Symmetry (2008) could give a hint about their ideology, but the fresh second album Of Madness and Evil Whispers seems to be something different.

A fifteen-year-long break between the albums may really promise radical changes in the band’s sound, but The Pit‘s core is the same since its foundation in 2004: Antonio Nolasco (guitars), Octavio Olachea (bass), and Guillermo Galvan (vocals), who play in a few more extreme metal bands, now also Angel Villegas (guitars) and Maw VillAlt (drums) who both joined the band in 2019.

Of Madness and Evil Whispers will be out on July 15th, and I’d like to introduce you to the band in case you missed track premieres, including the one from our own site. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BLUT AUS NORD, HORRENDOUS, BLAST SHIELD, THUNRAZ, DØDSFERD

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 132023
 

In part, this roundup of new songs and videos (plus a recent EP and two complete new albums) is an effort to make up in part for the absence of Shades of Black two days ago, when an unexpected intervention by my fucking day job de-railed my plans. So, there’s blackened metal here, but not exclusively so. I do think that despite the considerable stylistic variation within the collection, it’s all mind-bending in different ways.

BLUT AUS NORD (France)

The last time I mentioned the news of Blut Aus Nord‘s new album Disharmonium – Nahab I had artwork to share, but no music. Now I have music, but wouldn’t have had it for a Shades of Black column two days ago because the song was just released over the last 24 hours. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DESEKRYPTOR — “FESTERING ULCERATION”

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Jun 132023
 

Following up on a sequence of four short releases that surfaced over the last six years, the Indiana death metal band Desekryptor have at last recorded a debut album. Aptly entitled Vortex Oblivion, it’s now set for release by Blood Harvest Records on July 14th.

The record is indeed a lethal death metal vortex, both ghastly and gutting — merciless in its bone-smashing force, terrorizing in the violence of its convulsions, disturbing in its moods of monstrous malignancy and abject agony — and yet freakishly elaborate and dynamic in its mauling permutations. It’s the kind of music that not only rewards repeat listening but demands it, to fully appreciate all the twists and turns in the cavalcade of horrors it presents.

In other words, there is ingenuity and intrigue to be found within these hideous cataclysms, and an impressive talent for melding both old school influences and newer-school adventurousness, executed with equally impressive technical skill, which even the density of all the subterranean mangling and mauling doesn’t completely obscure.

We’ve got two prime examples of these qualities in “Festering Ulceration“, the album track we’re premiering today, and “Abysmal Resurrection“, the album’s first single that we’re also sharing. Continue reading »

DYSEASE: “ERA OF DECAY”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 132023
 

(In the following review DGR catches up with one more release from the now-vanished spring of 2023, and this time it’s a debut EP by the German band Dysease.)

Sometimes genre-tags for a band can be amusing, mostly when it comes to the times where the ‘progressive death metal’ tag is applied. Such is the case with Germany’s Dysease – whose name lights up the dopamine centers of the brain over here because we love a good smashing-rocks-against-each-other level pun – and their debut EP Era Of Decay.

Released in the middle of March, the Dysease EP arrived in the hallowed NCS burnt-out corner office sometime in April, but as you’ve noticed, one of the more common refrains around here is how the day job tends to take everything from us. However; that doesn’t mean we’re willing to fully let something go, and in the case of Era Of Decay the constant return to the idea of being ‘progressive death metal’ was enough to keep one wondering what exactly was happening within the EP. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: OUR DYING WORLD — “THE EGREGIOUS SINS OF HUMANITY”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 122023
 

The last time we visited the works of the Los Angeles band Our Dying World a year ago, the occasion was our premiere of a video for the song “Veil of the Reaper“ off their then-forthcoming second album Hymns Of Blinding Darkness. We introduced it with these words:

We’ll make you a solemn promise: Whatever condition you happen to be in now (unless you’re in a coma), the song and video we’re about to present will make you feel orders of magnitude more alive, accelerating your heart-rate, igniting your fast-twitch muscles, and spinning your head like a glorious top. And for those of you who want your music to attack like a pack of rabid dogs, it fills that need, too.

Today we get a chance to revisit the band’s work through our premiere of a new single named “The Egregious Sins Of Humanity” — and it’s another ravishing spectacle. Continue reading »

NORTHWEST TERROR FEST: DAY 3

 Concert Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 122023
 

(We were very fortunate that our Denver-based friend Gonzo made the trip to Seattle for the recent fifth edition of NCS-sponsored Northwest Terror Fest, and took it upon himself to report on the experience of all three days. You can find his report on Day 1 here and on Day 2 here. Below you’ll find his write-up of the third and final day, accompanied by photos again made by the excellent photographers John Malley and Jimmy Stacks, and by our editor islander.)

When you hit day 3 of any festival, it always feels like an accomplishment. If you’ve made it to this point, you probably deserve a merit badge for endurance or alcohol tolerance. And why not?

Personally, I’d settle for one more night of ear-splitting music and behaving badly in public, but that’s just my preference. My only goal for tonight would be to remain coherent enough to feverishly type on my notes app while trying not to get swallowed up by a rampant mosh pit.

I took my last remaining shreds of enthusiasm and trudged once again into the black hole of Neumos/Barboza. One more night of terror was all that was left. What madness would await tonight? What insanity would Ghoul unleash upon us as the closing headliner? And more importantly, would the inflatable animals make another surprise appearance?

It was time to get answers. Onward! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THE PIT — “AEONS OF HATE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jun 122023
 

Hailing from Queretaro, Mexico, The Pit will celebrate two decades of existence next year. Like other bands with such a long career, life has gotten in the way, and their recording output hasn’t been prolific. Until this year, their discography consisted of only a debut split in 2006 and a debut album (Disrupted Human Symmetry) in 2008. But now, 15 years later, Personal Records will soon be discharging The Pit‘s aptly named second album, Of Madness and Evil Whispers.

As one might expect, the line-up has changed in the interim, although original guitarist Antonio Nolasco, original bassist Octavio Olachea, and original vocalist Guillermo Galván are all still in harness together on the new album, joined by new drummer Mauricio Villalón and new second guitarist Angel Villegas.

Also not entirely surprising, The Pit have moved their music in different directions as compared to what you can hear on their first full-length, and the results are — in a word — electrifying. Where The Pit now thrive is in the unleashing of high-speed, high-power death metal fueled by ruthless ferocity, but also embedded with equally ruthless hooks that get stuck in the head, and simultaneously channel an array of dark and demented moods — which is to say that they are damned effective songwriters.

We’ve got two great examples of the sinister yet hurricane-strength power of the new album in two songs we want to share today, including one we’re premiering. Continue reading »

THE ANCHORET – IT ALL BEGAN WITH LONELINESS

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 122023
 

(Andy Synn examines how it all began with the new album from The Anchoret, out next week)

Allow me a few moments, dear reader, to get a little “meta” and write a few words about the act of writing (specifically, the act of writing about music, as opposed to actually writing music).

No matter how good you are, the truth is the written word can only ever give you so much insight into an artist or album, dependent as it is on language’s ability to, at best, only approximate our unique sensory experiences.

Let’s face it, there are only so many synonyms, similes, and similitudes we can use – words that can imply, yet only incompletely capture, what we mean when we refer to something as “heavy” or “progressive”, and so on – before we begin repeating ourselves, saying the exact same thing using only slightly different permutations of the same old clichés.

That’s why comparisons – though I know some readers find them overly reductive – are so important. Because they make it easier for us to share our knowledge and understanding.

After all, we’re all hearing the same things, even if we’re not necessarily hearing them in the same way.

So I hope you’ll forgive me for all the various references I’m about to use to illuminate the brilliant new album by The Anchoret.

Continue reading »

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