AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MORBID STENCH — “MACABRE INTROSPECTION”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 042022
 

The process of rot after death may seem like a slow and stultifying process, but in fact there is a feverish busyness beneath the surface. Decomposition begins immediately, as a multitude of a body’s organisms join forces to create putrefaction, releasing compounds such as cadaverine and putrescine, which produce the unmistakably putrid odor of decay. Where possible, they are aided by worms and other external creatures satiating their own hunger from the stinking flesh.

No, this isn’t a science class today, but merely some morbid meditations spawned by the Central American necrotic doom-death band Morbid Stench and their new album The Rotting Ways of Doom. And it’s not just the name of the band and the title of their new album that prompt such thoughts, but also the music itself — and we have a prime example of that in our premiere of a track off the new album named “Macabre Introspection“. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, SEPTEMBER 2022

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 042022
 


ColdWorld

(Our friend Gonzo rejoins us with a collection of reviews and music streams for albums released in September that got him enthusiastic.)

Confession time: A lot of the music I was going to feature in this month’s column was already covered by our own Andy Synn and DGR. Such is the nature of contributing to a blog that runs on well-intentioned chaos, but let me tell you – even though seeing my byline is less common these days, I wouldn’t have it any other way here.

Anyway, I could sit here pontificating about life or personal updates or the change of seasons or the fact that we may be closer to armed nuclear conflict than any of us would care to admit, but I’d like to just make this month’s post about the music. Besides, I’m about to see Meshuggah on a live stage for the first time in way too long and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

Here’s some of the September releases I put together that Mr. Synn and DGR didn’t cover – and let me tell you, that took some digging. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CULTIC

 Interviews  No Responses »
Oct 042022
 

(Last spring we had the pleasure of premiering a song from the fantastic new album by Pennsylvania-based Cultic, a duo consisting of Rebecca and Brian Magar (who have recently expanded into a trio), and now we have the pleasure of presenting Comrade Aleks‘ very informative interview with Brian.)

Cultic is a York-based death-doom duet with a recognizable primordial sound and a dark fantasy concept behind both of their albums. They started as a trio in 2017: Brian Magar (bass, vocals, guitars), Rebecca Magar (drums), and Reese Harlacker (bass) recorded their demo Prowler back then. The full-length album High Command was released by Eleventh Key in 2019, and their most up-to-date album is Of Fire and Sorcery, which saw the light of day in April 2022 with the help of the very same label.

One of Cultic features is grim, absolutely eerie synths which work perfectly with low, distorted riffs and Brian’s raw vocals. High Command offered a plenty of it and Of Fire and Sorcery grants even more! Surely it’s worthy of listening, as this interview with Brian Magar is worth reading. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SPECTRUM MORTIS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Oct 032022
 

(The Spanish band Spectrum Mortis just released their new album Bit Meseri -The Incantation last Friday through Listenable Records, and to remind you of that signal event and provide great insights into it, today we present Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview of the band’s mysterious members.)

A few weeks ago we published an interview with the Finnish traditional doom metal band Spiritus Mortis, but constant NCS followers rather remember the Spanish secret band Spectrum Mortis!

We promoted the band’s debut album Bit Meseri -The Incantation insistently, and I bet that you remember the album’s remarkable artwork (by Khaos Diktator Design)! I love that macabre Messopotamian twist. They call it “ritualistic doom metal”, and though it’s a more complex blend of genres you can track Spectrum Mortis’ influences anyway.

Honestly, I don’t see a reason to tell you more, as the interview (which I prefer far more than any review) offers the band an opportunity to say it in the most straight-forward way, and Spectrum Mortis’ collective mind does it in detail. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BLASPHEMOUS PUTREFACTION — “WEATHERED”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 032022
 

It’s not often that we’ve premiered two songs from the same release three years apart (well, actually we’ve never done that before), but in the case of Blasphemous Putrefaction‘s Festering Plagues EP, that’s what we’re now doing.

You see, this EP was first released on cassette tape (by Death In Pieces) back in 2019. It was this German duo’s second release, following the Abominable Premonition demo two years earlier, and we greedily premiered a song from the EP named “Grief” shortly before the release.

Since then Blasphemous Putrefaction have released a debut album — 2020’s Prelude to Perversion — via Dunkelheit Produktionen. And that album made such a fabulously disgusting impact that it’s no wonder someone decided to reissue Festering Plagues, which is what the Crawling Chaos label will do on October 28th, capturing the EP in a CD edition for the first time.

So, strictly speaking, the song we’re presenting today isn’t a premiere, but more like a re-introduction, though it’s highly likely it will indeed be a first-listen for many of you. Continue reading »

WARFORGED: “THE GROVE | SUNDIAL”

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Oct 032022
 

(This is another typically extensive review from DGR, and this time the subject of his attention is a new album by Warforged, which is out now on The Artisan Era.)

The launch of Chicago-based Warforged‘s first EP Essence Of The Land was promising. In the weird melange that is the progressive tech/death/prog/seventeen-other-subgenres world that Warforged exists in, that 2014 release felt like it was a few steps ahead of the game: a forecast of where many participants in that particular subsection of the prefix-core genre would be aiming in the future.

In the long run they were correct, because the following five or six years saw a huge explosion in ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ style writing where bands were willing to try anything in order to break out of the endless breakdowns and guitar noodling mold. Warforged just happened to beat everyone to the punch by a few years.

They were so on the forefront of that movement that other than the “Two Demons” single in 2015 it would be almost five years between the EP and the group’s first full-length – the incredibly indulgent hour and twelve minute monster that was 2019’s I: Voice, wherein not a single song would come in under the six-minute mark and about a third of them leapt well over the nine-minute hurdle. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ARALLU, MORD’A’STIGMATA, LIGHTLORN, HEIDEN, VIKVANIR, SECOND TO SUN, UNFYROS

 Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Oct 032022
 


Arallu

As I forecast in Part 1 of this column yesterday, Part 2 takes us off in some unusual directions. Much of the time black metal is still in the mix, but in most of the songs featured here it’s more of a jumping-off point to other wide-ranging experiences than it is the rigid core of the music — or it’s not present at all, except perhaps as a sinister spirit that hovers on the edges.

This excursion will be welcomed by some of you, and some of the songs will probably disgruntle others. But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to expose yourself to the music. I hope you’ll do that with all the tracks here, all of which are from forthcoming albums or EPs.

ARALLU (Israel)

This long-running Israeli band, whose roots are in the late ’90s, will be releasing a new album (their 8th one overall) in November. With the imposing title of Death Covenant, it follows up the excellent En Olam from three years ago. I’ve already written here about one of the new album’s advance tracks, “Desert Shadows Will Rise“, and now we have another one. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): NOCTEM, LUCIFERICON, NOCTURNIS, SIRRUSH, PYRA, SHEOL BLANC

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Oct 022022
 


Noctem

I failed to get one of these columns done last Sunday, so I decided to go big today. I was able to spend hours yesterday listening, making choices, and beginning to write. From the windows, it looked like a beautiful day outside my home, but that’s as close as I got to it.

I made 13 choices, and 6 of them are in Part 1. Thirteen selections of music seems like too much to lay on anyone in a single day, particularly a weekend day, so I’m saving Part 2 for tomorrow. But I’ll give you a quick explanation about how I divided the choices:

Until you get to the last song, Part 1 is basically an inferno; the music in Part 2 goes off in a number of unusual directions that probably won’t please the trve and kvlt among you, but may intrigue others. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IMHA TARIKAT, KAMPFAR, MULCIBER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Oct 012022
 


Imha Tarikat

Last night the Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, clinching a place in the Major League Baseball playoffs and ending what most of us long-suffering Mariners fans simply referred to as The Drought, i.e., the longest span of years (21 of them) that any team in any U.S. professional sport has had to endure in between playoff appearances.

Along with a few million other Mariners fans in this part of the country, I celebrated the historic event. I might have par-tayed a bit too much. That’s a conclusion one might draw from the fact that I slept for 11 hours, as if in a coma. Well, I had a rough week at my fucking day job too, which produced steam that needed to be blown off last night. But even after dragging my ass out of bed late in the morning I still spent a lot of time continuing to wallow in the glory of that Mariners win, taking in videos, photos, and lots of articles.

But the NCS Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (a specific syndrome now recognized by the American Psychiatric Association) is still a thing, and so I couldn’t bear to leave a complete blank spot on the site this Saturday. Had to daub that spot with at least a few splatters of musical paint. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: IMPUGNER — “OSTRACIZED VITALITY

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 302022
 

Last December an obscure death metal band from Oslo named Impugner independently released their debut demo Advent of the Wretched in a tiny run of tapes. But Impugner won’t remain unnoticed, because that tape found its way to Sentient Ruin Laboratories and Caligari Records, who pounced on it. They will jointly be reissuing it on November 4th, and with respected labels like that giving Advent of the Wretched a big push, Impugner are about to find a much bigger audience.

It’s no wonder these labels were seduced. Impugner have invested themselves in an early phase of death metal’s evolution, when bands like Autopsy, Death, Pungent Stench, Nihilist, and Darkthrone (circa Soulside Journey) were shaking up the underground, but while that kind of old-school devotion is at the core of what Impugner have achieved on Advent of the Wretched, there’s more going on here than slavish worship of early heroes — as you’ll discover from our premiere of the song “Ostracized Vitality” today. Continue reading »

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