AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VOIDTHRONE — “PYRRHIC VICTORY”

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Sep 052022
 

From virtually the beginning of their career Seattle-based Voidthrone have devoted themselves to creating unsettling and unnerving musical experiences. As they said at the time of their last release (2018’s Kur), “It is our intent to leave both listener and performer drained. Within this receptive exhaustion, we leave a spark — a seed of discontent that rejects normality. A hunger engendered for the other side of the veil. Beyond which — an absolute darkness….”

Those words came back to us after exposure to the discomforting sonic visions housed within Voidthrone‘s new album Metaphysical Degradation, now set for release in October. They preview what it holds in store with these words:

“The fevered revelations of change, in music form. Frenetic stories of warfare, sacrifice, consciousness, duality, infection, theism. Six songs laden with aural sickness, with secret messages to subvert the program running on your wetware. Bathe in the occult thrumming threaded through this oceanic blasphemy.”

As proven by the album’s opening track and first single, “Pyrrhic Victory“, Voidthrone have chosen a diabolically confrontational means of wiping clean the slate of their listeners’ minds and preparing them for something else, something other. As they’ve done before, but done here in spades, they’ve intertwined death and black metal to create a disorienting, disturbing, and even terrifying experience, combining head-spinning intricacy, unsettling dissonance, and raw emotional intensity. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WRITHING — “UNCREATION”

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Sep 052022
 

We’re told that when the Australian band Writhing began to take shape in 2019 the goal was “to combine suffocating heaviness and dissonant atmospherics, while still paying homage to their early death metal influences (Cannibal Corpse, Incantation, Morbid Angel, etc)”.

Eternalised In Rot, their debut demo released the following year by Blood Harvest, demonstrated immediate progress toward that goal.  Just two songs long, it still proved a formidable talent for delivering bone-smashing punishment wreathed in writhing (pun intended) and wraith-like riffage that seemed birthed from some hideous supernatural dimension. Both electrifying and eerily unnerving, it fashioned bizarre and brazen visions of alien derangement while discharging devastating firepower.

Anyone who has heard that demo will now be greedily awaiting the advent of Writhing‘s debut album, Of Earth and Flesh, and the wait won’t be much longer — it’s set for release on September 23rd by Everlasting Spew Records. What we have for you today is the third single from the album, combined with streams of the first two in case you missed them. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ELLIOTT’S KEEP

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Sep 052022
 

(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview of guitarist Jonathan from the Texas band Elliott’s Keep, whose formidable fifth album was just released last month and will be available on vinyl through NoSlip Records.)

At first I was attracted by the ascetic artworks of Elliott’s Keep, and by the band’s name itself, and they also performed quite original doom, so it was interesting to know what hides deep in the Keep’s cellar.

We kept on communicating with the band each time they released a new album, and I need to tell you that Elliott’s Keep became only stronger with each new release. How many doom bands with progressive, death, and epic influences do you know in the US? So there’s Ellott’s Keep in Dallas, and you’ll learn the rest from this interview with the band’s guitarist Jonathan, who’s ready to tell the story of their fifth album Vulnerant Omnes released on August 19th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ADAESTUO, VOLLOÍOM, HYNGWAR, VOAK

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Sep 042022
 

For this Sunday’s column I’ve included three complete releases and one from a forthcoming album. I venture to say that you’ll find the first two releases formidably frightening and the third one more head-hooking and heart-exploding, while the advance track is an amalgam that’s fiery, feral, and defiant.

ADAESTUO (International)

I’ve written with admiration about all three of Adaestuo’s previous releases — the 2016 debut EP Tacent Semitae and the band’s two albums, Krew za krew (2018) and Manalan virrat (2020). So there was no chance I wouldn’t make the dive into Purge of the Night Cloak, a new EP they released just last week, but which seems to consist of recordings conceived in 2016 and first made in 2020. They describe it as an effort “to bring the intrepid beholder into a more Faustian Gnosis”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IMPRECATION, CABINET, VACUOUS, LAMENTATIONS, THEOTOXIN, GNASCH, THE ROVING MAGPIE, WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 032022
 

A meteor didn’t hit my house, fast zombies didn’t attack, and I didn’t prostrate myself before the demon alcohol last night, so I was able to prepare this roundup of new songs and videos.

There’s obviously a lot to take in here, but after an opening trio of death metal malignancy and malevolence the music goes in lots of other directions, some of which I think you’ll find surprising. Lots of cool cover art too.

IMPRECATION (U.S.)

The opening of this first song creates an eerie and queasy mood, in keeping with its title. The main part of “Bringer of Sickness” also channels disease through its dense, writhing and roiling riffs, palpitating drums, and malignant growls. But Imprecation also administer savage, primitive slug-fests and disemboweling gouging, and bring in both supernatural organs and wraith-like soloing to make the experience even more hideously chilling. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP FRIDAY: DYING FETUS, OAK PANTHEON, BLACK ANVIL, FAWN LIMBS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 022022
 

Because this is a Bandcamp Friday a ton of bands and labels have launched singles and other releases to take advantage of the opportunity for a bit more income. I wish I could put the spotlight on a dozen or more of them, but I just don’t have the time for that. Instead, I’m reduced to throwing a few mental darts into that great mass and pulling out what got hit.

Barring a meteor strike on my house, an invasion of fast zombies, or prostration before the demon alcohol tonight, I should have another roundup of new music for you tomorrow.

DYNG FETUS (U.S.)

To help propel the launch of a North American tour that starts today, Dying Fetus have released a new single (with a video) named “Compulsion For Cruelty“, which apart from a 2018 split is their first new music since 2017’s Wrong One to Fuck With. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ASHEN — “RITUAL”

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Sep 022022
 

The four-man Australian death metal band Ashen made an auspicious first strike last year with their Godless Oath EP, a recording that our own Andy Synn celebrated with these words:

“The debut EP from Aussie death-dealers Ashen is one of the finest slabs of meaty, delicious Death Metal goodness I’ve heard all year, showing a reverence for the old-school which, smartly, never crosses over the line into shameless hero worship. With a hefty helping of heavyweight riffs, gargantuan grooves, and brutally barbed hooks, alongside a vocal performance positively dropping with grisly character, it’s one hell of an opening statement, chock-full of clever touches and killer moments, which promises great things for when the band finally drop their full length debut.”

Well, the time for that eagerly anticipated full-length drop is now approaching, with a release date of December 10th set by the same Bitter Loss Records that brought us the EP. The name of the album is Ritual of Ash, and to spread the word about it on this Bandcamp Friday (hint, hint, spend your money!), we’re premiering a video for the album’s first single, “Ritual“ Continue reading »

“FASTER THAN THE FUCKING DEVIL”: WRAITH, BLACK KNIFE, GRAVERIPPER, AND UNHOLY NIGHT

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Sep 022022
 

(Today Wise Blood Records is releasing a kick-ass four-way split whose title says a lot, and Todd Manning says a lot more about it in this review.)

For those paying attention, record label Wise Blood Records has been spitting out pure fire with their releases since their inception less than two years ago. The latest release from the label is called Faster Than the Fucking Devil. It gathers together four blackened thrash acts from around the world, each spitting their own brand of blasphemous madness over the album’s thirty-seven-minute runtime.

Hailing from Northwest Indiana, Wraith kicks things off properly. Their sound draws on the early thrash classics like Exodus’s Bonded by Blood, Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends, and Metallica’s Kill ‘em All, but interjects a good dose of Motörhead as well. With tracks like “Demons of Doubt” and “(Call Me) The Destroyer” we get served the hooks of old-school metal with the rawness of black metal. They close their three songs with “Seven Serpents” which sports an awesome Slayer-inspired bridge. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VITTRA — “SATMARA”

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Sep 022022
 

Let’s cut to the chase:

What you’re about to see is a beautifully filmed and edited video that matches the frantic and fluid interpretive dance performance of a pair of lithe ladies with the hard-charging musical performance of the Swedish band Vittra, all of it interspersed with brief slo-mo frames that help make the experience even more interesting. Everyone gets a chance to shine, and shine they do.

The song that’s the subject of the video is “Satmara“, off the band’s debut album Blasphemy Blues, which is set for release on November 11th. Lyrically, it tells a tale of the intoxicating but ruinous powers of succubi. The music turns out to be damned intoxicating too, operating as musical adrenaline for the mind. Continue reading »

GONZO’S BIGASS END-OF-SUMMER ROUNDUP, PART 1

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Sep 012022
 


Final Light

(Our Denver-based friend Gonzo has brought us the first installment in a round-up of new albums that emerged this summer which caught his attention and kindled his enthusiasm.)

Look, I know it’s customary to open these kinds of seasonally themed posts with some quip about “WOW, THE SUMMER REALLY FLEW BY, DIDN’T IT?” but frankly, that sort of cheekiness is an abomination I simply won’t fucking stand for, let alone perpetuate.

What I will say is that this summer delivered. It was the sort of long-overdue event that saw yours truly being able to travel to some US-based festivals, which was something I’d been longing for. Fire in the Mountain was by far the highlight. I also managed to hit an average of two shows a week during all of this, mostly around Denver. On top of all this, I pulled a requisite turn-and-burn in Vegas earlier this month for a single night of Psycho, in which I finally saw Emperor take the stage and proceed to blast my face into another dimension. To say it was worth the 22-year wait would be the understatement of the year.

The point of me saying all this is during all of the above, I was a bad NCS writer and couldn’t quite keep up my monthly tradition of yelling at the internet about the new music I’ve been listening to. So, consider this me making up for lost time:

This is part one of my end-of-summer new music roundup, with albums spanning from June to August. Continue reading »

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